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I'm Cally Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. Homelessness is on the rise according to a new report. One person out of every 200 slept in a homeless shelter last year. The report also found that the number of families seeking emergency shelter is up by 9 percent this hour we'll look at homelessness through a local lens with a focus on Rhode Island where the state's five shelters are nearly maxed out. We'll get in on the ground tour of the situation with outreach worker John Joyce. But first we look at an initiative and Moster that's aiming to reduce gun violence. We'll talk to Dr. Michael Hurst the force behind goods for guns a program that's credited with taking close to 2000 firearms out of the home and off the streets. We top it off with local made good. We meet chainsaw sculpture Jesse Green. He's spreading his art across Massachusetts. One town at a time. Up next safety shelter and sculpture. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Navy is investigating

raunchy videos produced a few years ago by the man who now commands the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. The videos include anti-gay slurs and mimicked sex acts that were shown through the ship's closed circuit TV system. Corinne RILEY The Virginian-Pilot writer who broke the story says Captain Owen Honors who was second in command at the time doesn't seem sincere in a statement on the video that his superiors were unaware of the videos he found a voice of almost joking when he said that some of the families that we spoke to who were on the ship at the time or did they do find it hard to believe the Virginian-Pilot quote of the Navy saying it put a stop to inappropriate video several years ago but that somehow copy still lingered. A suicide car bomber has attacked an office of the Iraqi intelligence services in a city northeast of Baghdad. NPR's Kelly McEvers reports that the blast killed one person and injured many more. The attack in the city of Baquba started with a roadside bomb then a suicide car bomber approached the fortified gate of the intelligence headquarters and detonated his vehicle.

Of the 22 people wounded in the blast 10 of them were girls from a nearby school. And three of them were teachers. Overall violence is down in Iraq but attacks on minority Christians and assassination attempts on public figures continue as insurgents launch bombings that are less effective than the large scale operations of years past. But just as likely to get media attention separately two U.S. soldiers were killed in central Iraq. The U.S. military says it will release more details once the families are notified. Kelly McEvers NPR News Baghdad. Candidates vying to chair the Republican National Committee face off a debate today. Incumbent Michael Steele led the party to big gains but NPR's Don Gonyea reports he's still fighting for his job. The biggest concern Steele's challengers point to is how the party's finances have suffered under his leadership the RNC is millions in debt with next year's presidential election looming. There are also questions about his leadership style and what his opponents call his lavish travel on private jets. Steele Meanwhile points to GOP gains in November as proof that he's been

effective. Analysts say Steele is likely to lose his bid for re-election his pledge support is far short of the 85 votes from RNC delegates needed. His leading opponents are Ryan's Priebus a GOP leader from Wisconsin former Michigan party chair Saul Anuzis former ambassador to Luxemburg and Wagner and former RNC official Maria Cino. The election takes place at the end of next week. Don Gonyea NPR News Washington. The first day of trading in the New Year finds the Dow in triple digit territory more than 120 points or more than 1 percent at eleven thousand seven hundred one. Investors are void by encouraging economic data out today both manufacturing activity and construction spending have picked up momentum raising prospects for job growth in the coming year. This is NPR. California swears in its thirty ninth governor in a matter of hours Jerry Brown a Democrat will become only the second person to serve three terms as California governor after he succeeds outgoing Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The new leader of the nation's largest school

district took the reins today but Kathleen Black's appointment as New York City's schools chancellor is still controversial. He gets reports the new head of schools has no background in education Mayor Michael Bloomberg's appointment of Kathleen black as schools chancellor late last year was an unusual one. The job requires an appointee to have education credentials but that comes from the business world. She spent the past 15 years as a publishing executive for Hearst. State education officials had to give black a waiver for the appointment to stand. And last week she survived a state supreme court challenge Black started her first day at a Brooklyn elementary school before heading on to schools in Queens the Bronx and Staten Island. So far Black has been mostly silent on her plans to manage a district with more than 1 million students. For NPR News I'm Kim gets. Researchers are trying to determine what caused thousands of birds to drop from the sky on an Arkansas town on New Year's Eve. Samples from reportedly more than

2000 birds are being tested by Arkansas's livestock and poultry commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison Wisconsin. Authorities say it's not the first time birds fell from the sky over Arkansas One researcher says the flock may have been hit by lightning or hail or may have been traumatized by holiday fireworks. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News Washington. Support for NPR comes from the mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation in conjunction with the Doris do charitable foundation funding jazz dot next project. Good afternoon and Happy New Year. I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. Today we're kicking off the show with our recurring feature thinking out loud where we invite people to share their take on our times. Joining me today is Dr. Michael Hirsch. He's chief of pediatric trauma surgery at UMass Memorial

Children's Medical Center in West or he's also professor of surgery and pediatrics at the UMass Medical School in Worcester. He's known as an active public health and child safety advocate and as the man who brought goods for guns buyback program to the city this year one hundred ninety five guns including semiautomatics assault rifles and a machine gun were turned in during the goods for guns buyback which was held last month. Dr. Herbst welcome. Thanks for having me Carol. Well first this is an eight year old program which you brought to was to as we've said and you had your official buy back in December. Tell us how it went. Yes so this is you indicated we had our ninth bag back this past December. We got our just about our average ketch of about 195 to two hundred five weapons a year that's been what we've been averaging. This year we had it on two consecutive Saturdays as we always do just before the holidays and we've always tried to kind of combine the notion of coming out

making your community safer at a time when everybody in no matter what religion you are seems to want to emphasize peace and and community spirit and combine it with some economic incentive to go shopping so we've had a corporate sponsor and Wal-Mart that has helped to provide us with gift certificates that we've exchanged the weapons for and gets people out of their homes on the way to shop at Wal-Mart and it seems to be a win win for the community and for the economics in the area as well. Now how exactly does it work. So I come in with a gun and then what happens. Right so we have a very active coalition that includes the district attorney's office that gives you dispensation for carrying a weapon even if you don't have a permit to carry that particular day if you bring the weapon in in a brown paper bag unloaded and ready for inspection. You're not going to be stopped or held liable if you get stopped that day.

You bring it in in a group of police weapons experts inspect the weapon. If it's an operable handgun you get a $50 gift certificate. If it's an operable rifle it's a $25 gift if it and if it's a semi-automatic weapon either a long or a handgun. We give $75 gift certificate for that. We have tried to limit it to four weapons per person just to kind of spread around the buyback a little bit. But that's yielded as I said about 200 weapons a year and over the nine years that we've done the program we broke the 2000 mark this year were up to 2000 and 56 weapons that we've gotten off the streets of Worcester. Who comes in with these guns. Well it's a very interesting cross-section of Sister we have. Young parents who have perhaps inherited a weapon from their own parents or had a hunting rifle of their

own that they no longer want because now their children in the house. We have grandparents who now have grandchildren coming to their house they want to you know weaponize their home. We have some elderly widows that lost their spouses in the past year. The weapon that was left in the home was the spouse and they don't want it in the home anymore. And we have some some more graphic episodes where we have young. Spouses of gang members that come in and drop some pretty impressive weaponry off even though we tell them that the weapons are worth a lot more than what we're giving the $75 they'll say. I just wanted out of the house. It's all no questions asked it's all complete anonymity we do voluntarily administer a survey to kind of get some demographics and the average age of the person returning the weapons is

about 50 to most of the patrons are telling us that they have children or grandchildren in the home and about a third of them tell us that they still have weapons in the home. So in addition to taking the weapons in we give out free trigger locks that are provided by the Western Police Department and by the messages Emergency Nurses Association. And we've given out about 600 of those since we started the program that makes the gun in operable if you got it correct. OK. So we look at that perhaps not only are we taking a gun off the street that wasn't being kept correctly unlocked and unloaded. I mean locked in unloaded this way we can also make some of those other weapons more safe the ones that are left in the home. I'm speaking with Dr. Michael Hurst he's brought the goods for guns buyback program to Webster eight years ago and he's also chief of pediatric trauma surgery at UMass Memorial Children's Medical Center and was there. Some would look at you and say a little bit of an oddity here that key for maybe not pediatric trauma surgery.

So maybe you're at the end point where you see a lot of this and then you're. And that spurred you to become involved the program but actually it was something much more personal would you share a bit of that with us. Yes Kelly I I I first I grew up in New York City at a time in the late 50s early 60s where the city was going through quite a bit of transition in the neighborhood that I lived in in New York City was originally a very kind of calm residential kind of area in the 70s and 80s it morphed into a very major crack cocaine factory very unsafe. Unfortunately that's where a lot of the good hospitals are is where those kind of neighborhoods are and so when I did my training as a surgical resident at Columbia Presbyterian in that neighborhood of Washington Heights I had the misfortune of being on staff with a fantastic colleague who was a fellow surgical resident of mine a gentleman named John Wood.

John was a year behind me in the surgical program but he actually was much my senior because he did already done a residency in pediatrics and was a Juilliard trained French horn player he was kind of the ultimate docs doc everybody revered him and unfortunately he had a pregnant wife who was having a rough first trimester decided to run across the street one night when he was on call to get her some crackers for her nausia. And in that brief trip across the street to his apartment he was accosted by a mugger and shot. He died unfortunately on the OR table that night. And it devastated the entire neighborhood the entire medical community. And profoundly affected me. I was the president of the house staff at the time at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and we had a tremendous

crisis in confidence about going forward as physicians all of us felt we were giving so much to the neighborhood and here was one of our champions shot neighborhood did not come forth with who did the shooting. We felt that that was unlikely that they didn't really know what was who the perpetrator was. So it was a lot of talk about vengeance and work stoppages and everything else and what turned everything around for me was I had a Chief of Surgery at the time a gentleman named Keith reams who was widely regarded as the person that Ring Lardner based his story of Hawkeye and mash about. He was a Korean war surgeon. He called me into his office shortly before the funeral of John and and said we've we've got to turn all this anger around. There's only one way to do that and that's by finding a way to bring peace to this community and what we started to do was to collect the weapons from the patients that came into the hospital

for the next two months. We basically asked them to voluntarily leave their weapons if they wanted to be treated. We collected over 200 weapons at the same time. Dr. Murray's forgot Sarah Brady. Jim Brady the press secretary of President Reagan had recently been shot in murder attempt on President Reagan they became gun advocate well not advocates but advocates against gun. Yeah you came up and spoke to the house staff. And we all kind of got into this mode where we wanted to stop the violence and we looked at the gun as the vector of violence and that really changed my whole approach to just about everything I do in paediatric surgery especially in trauma. You know 95 percent of the injuries that kids will get into are preventable but I think gun violence was always looked at as well you can't go there because that's not preventable because you can't prevent poverty and racism and all of the things that lead to people using guns on other people. But the vector of violence is still there the gun

if you take that vector out of the home take it out of the community take it away from some of the young people who just get them by burglarizing a home. Maybe we could cut down the violence and that's really what's worked in both now Pittsburgh and was in Hartford and Springfield are all doing these programs based on some of the experiences that I've had. I note that the person that shot John Chase would the second was 15 years old. And if you write in your piece he was wielding aside Saturday night special and the mugger became angry with him when he said Ask him what he had he said all I have are crackers and so he was gunned down for crackers. And so now here we are years later with your being heavily involved in this program trying to take the gun as you say out of the equation. But do we know that it works. I mean you've turned and people are turning in weapons right. But is that a measure of success and I ask that because for a couple reasons we got a question from our Facebook page. I want to know how

do you how do you know it's a it's a success says Hiawatha Bray who happens to be a columnist for The Globe. Guns are so plentiful that people could just be turning in the extra ones they no longer need right. Well we I think those are excellent questions and we ask ourselves the same thing every year our police colleagues that are you know vital components of this because we hold the gun buyback in their headquarters. They have done. There homework on a lot of these weapons that turn up in crimes in Worcester and many of them are simply guns that were burglarized from legitimate owners who just did not store them properly. You go into the average homes bedside table and you're going to find probably over 50 percent of the time a handgun sitting there is going to scare anything. So I think that yes it's true these weapons are are not generally from gang bangers that are going to be perpetrating major crimes but these are the weapons that a despondent teenager will get ahold of and try to kill himself. These are

the ones that in a domestic violence episode will escalate into a murder. When when they're around these are the ones that kids will find accidentally and discharge shooting Bang-Bang at each other and these are also the ones that we know will be fenced by young drug addicts who are just trying to get some money and they will fence them to a gang banger who then will use it in a crime. We recently had a major shooting in Worcester in which a weapon that was wielded turned out to be stolen from Georgia. So I think that all we know we can't claim causality we know that when we started this program in the beginning of 2002 was to rank third or third worst in the state as far as firearm fatality per capita. And now we are second best. I don't think it's causal at all because it's a multi-pronged approach we have a very progressive district attorney some fantastic judges who are being stricter with sentencing of gun wielders a police department that has a very active gang

task force that gets into the schools and talks about violence to sation those are the things I think that add up to safer community. This is just a part of it but part of the coalition of comes together around this gun buyback is what we have really used to do the other efforts and safety and community awareness that I think has really made a difference for Worcester. Now you gave me this chart which details what it costs to run you know to to fund this program is not very much money. If I'm reading this right so 2010 nine thousand dollars this is from Wal-Mart. To do this what's the cost of treating a gunshot victim. That's that's a great question Kalli So the average cost of a gunshot wound victim is $16000 if they survive. So the whole cost of nine years of doing this has been less than the cost of six gunshot victims. So it's I think a form of managed care. If even six of those 2056 weapons

had been used to cause an injury we saved money. You know we had 72 gunshot wound victims last year at our hospital. Eight of whom died. And the real tragedy is their average age is about 34 years old. That's a tremendous drain on the gross national product. You know life time if the human tragedy of this doesn't make sense we think the economics does. So we're really trying to approach the third party payors and kind of think about this in a way of making the community safer safer this is something that they should really be investing in. Wal-Mart has been great about kind of doubling our money whatever money we come up with. They've been able to kind of double their value in the gift certificates that they give us because they think it's a better thing for Worcester to have a safer community and people feel they can go out and shop. So we think it's been a win win that way economically as well. Again I'm speaking with Dr. Michael Hurst He's the chief of pediatric trauma surgery at UMass

Children's Medical Center and Lister and one of the founder of goods for guns buyback program in Wester. Now you've done something else because we mentioned other cities where they've done these programs as well. But you've taken it a step further in this year at least bringing an artist in to take those guns that you've collected and to turn them into a statement really which expresses what you're trying to say in the program about them. Well we we had worked with a very wonderful metalworking artist in the Pittsburgh program one way their name Boris ballyhoo had actually created an art exhibition called Artists of a different caliber that went around the country in 1907. And one of their objects made out of our broken down weapons in Pittsburgh ended up in the Smithsonian Museum in the American Museum. He certainly took a bunch of these Pittsburgh weapons and made an ABA list that now is standing in front of the state house in Providence.

And he and I moved back to the western area from Pittsburgh where we both had been in the same year 2000 and we thought if we ever got the OK from Worcester once we started this program to build something we would try to do something there. Fortuitously this year our venerable. It's the part of public health commissioner Dr. Leonard Morse is retiring and he's been an icon in Western medicine circles and public health circles in the state for over 50 years so in his honor we came up with a design not we Boris and some of the folks at the Technical High School for an arch which were tentatively calling the guns for our peach Peace Arch. And we're going to hopefully take these weapons some from Pittsburgh some from Worcester some perhaps from Springfield in Hartford and make them into an archway which will put in a park to honor Dr. Morse and also as a way of kind of making a focal point about

wester being committed to violence to say should what I think is interesting is that part of his work he doesn't destroy the gun is recognizable and that's deliberate. You want you to understand that this was a weapon and now we're doing something else with it. Right. Right it's kind of their way of reminding people of that old Isaiah quote of beating their swords into plowshares that they actually will see how these weapons weather and kind of look mangled over the years and that's what the project in Providence looks like if you ever go by there. So we're hoping we'll have something similar and Western to show off. How do you get people to be even more supportive of this. Because I mean 2000 guns over eight years is a lot. On one hand on the other hand people think there's got to be hundreds of thousands more out there. And so we're still vulnerable and I'm thinking about this cop that just got killed in Wilborn right. Right this is gun violence. Michael Moore the documentary filmmaker has made a whole film

about how many guns are actually so prevalent in American society. I think it does begin with education I mean we have as I mentioned a gang task force that goes into the schools and talks about violence is sation I think when they have a mini model of this arch that we're building as a focal point of discussion I think that may be one of the weapons we can use against this gun wielding activity. I think a lot of this the kids in high schools get you know kind of lured into the gang life. And one of the initiations into gangs and we have twenty six that we know about in Worcester. Is to steal yourself a gun to get yourself a gun then come back and talk to me and in that process that's where some of our shootings occur. So I think we can do better. I would love to get more guns I think this is as you said spitting in the ocean as to how many are out there. But I think it's the awareness and it's the notion that we're telling people if you don't want to take people's guns away as a Second Amendment thing we

want to tell them if you're going to own it that entails a responsibility to store it correctly that means locked and unloaded. And I think your point about the cost differential between supporting this versus treating a gunshot victim and you would know you are the expert in this is really quite amazing. Yes there's no comparison and just avoiding one of those horrible conversations that you have in those quiet rooms next to the trauma bays when you go out and tell a parent that there's nothing you can do. And this year we've been very lucky we've had. Paraplegic gunshot wound victim a 13 year old boy at the time. Now 17 named lanai Johnson come out and strongly support this with his family. He was sitting in his aunt's house when a gun when a bullet came through the wall and pierced the spine and it's taken him a little while to you know feel comfortable about talking about what what he did but it's been a big support for us this

year and we're very grateful for alumni his courage. Well Dr. Archer I would say you're doing God's work on two fronts. Thank you very much. So thank you very much for coming in. I'm Kelli Crossley we've been speaking with Dr. Michael Hirsch about curbing gun violence. Dr. Hirsh is chief of pediatric trauma surgery at UMass Memorial Children's Medical Center in Wester. He's also professor of surgery in pediatrics at the UMass Medical School. In 2002 he brought the goods for guns back buyback program to Wester. And since then the program has collected nearly 2000 guns. Thanks again. Thank you very much Kelly. Up next we look at the homeless situation in Rhode Island Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Tivoli audio. I think Tommy GBH and all it represents both in this market and really around the world is

important for our company to be associated with Tom divest Dell founder and CEO of Tivoli audio was to start a sponsorship this year and we were to hear from people regularly that they hear. Sponsorship on the radio and that really gets to our customers to learn more about sponsorship. Call 6 1 7 three hundred fifty five hundred. On the next FRESH AIR Allen Shawn author of the new memoir Twin about how it's affected his life to have a twin sister who is autistic and was institutionalized at the age of 8. The book is also about growing up in an unusual family. He's the son of William Shawn the former editor of The New Yorker also your digital afterlife. Join us for the next fresh air this afternoon at two on eighty nine point seven. WGBH.

Last more than 2011. WGBH members made a choice they decided that they'd rather hear this. It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good band this. So we're asking you to just make a call so they took the 2011 sustainer challenge. And thanks to these listeners. Eighty nine point seven was able to eliminate the first fundraising campaign of the New Year which cause the listers to do. This. Make your sustaining get at WGBH dot org. What are some of the books food and music that make 2010 memorable from songs to cookbooks. Check out lists from NPR and WGBH. Each took some of the best of our craft here online at the U GBH dot org slash 2010. Good afternoon I'm Kalee Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show one person out of every 200 slept in a homeless shelter this year. These are the statistics from the newly released U.S. Conference of Mayors 2010 status report on hunger and

homelessness. The report also found that the number of families seeking emergency shelter is up by 9 percent. Joining me to talk about the homeless situation on a local level is John Joyce. He's the executive co-director of the Rhode Island homeless advocacy project. John Joyce welcome. Welcome thank you very much. I'm glad you're here. Let's first talk about what is the difference between an emergency shelter which is what we're talking about here in Rhode Island and a permanent shelter because I think in our minds we hear shelter we think about the ones that are there all year round but where you are at a crisis point right now in Rhode Island is emergency shelters that are needed. Yeah that's correct. Through emergency shelter taskforce through the office of homelessness. The numbers that we did on September 23rd off the charts we were finding more and more people sleeping outside the shelters are already full so we went into emergency mode. We had to get shelters opened before the cold weather hit. We're able

to acquire just in Providence alone another almost 40 but throughout the state of Rhode Island I believe. There's just not enough the numbers that we had on September 23rd in the point in time count was almost 300 people that was sleeping outside on that one given. Now you know we can all take a guess as to what is some of the reasons for the increase. Certainly Rhode Island and we've talked about it on this show quite a bit. Very high unemployment. We've also spoken quite often with the CEO of the Rhode Island food bank Andrew Schiff who's told us about the dire straits there with just keeping those supplies up for the many people who need it. So it would make sense to me that there would be a greater need in Rhode Island for emergency shelters are there other reasons than the ones I'm mentioning that have driven the numbers up in Laurel are with particularly Providence the foreclosure crisis really hit hard. We're finding people who are renting in apartments where the landlord foreclosed on the

property and they were given no notice on that another place to stay anymore. They ended up into the shelter system. We're seeing more families with children while women on the on the streets right now so there's just no jobs and people just can't afford the rent or I don't know I want to just share with our listeners some of what I think are fairly startling statistics. Fifty three percent of the persons who are homeless in Rhode Island are new to homelessness. Forty percent of those peoples are people are families and a third of them are children. Those are stats I don't think we heard much about in the last in that way in the last five years at least. Yeah the people I'm seeing on the streets on a daily and nightly basis they're nervous in homelessness before this is all new to them. They're not street smart. These are people that were in homes at one time because of the way the economy is especially in Rhode Island. They ended up in the homeless situation they didn't even know they were going to be. We have so

many people right now that are we call doubled up the living with family and friends the national ones are homeless in Washington gave a Dato where there's almost sixty five hundred people in the situation right now and then the state of Rhode Island. So we have a situation where you have the people as you described who are doubled up. These are at least people who may have friends or family at least on some temporary basis and then we have those that you're trying to serve who have nowhere to go. That's correct I mean on a nightly basis we have a team that goes out in the city of Providence. There's other teams throughout the state. And our main focus is to get people and make sure they're safe for the night and see what type of services we can bring into the shelters. These are the hardest people to serve. It's a lot of people out there right now because of the economy. Sometimes it has to do with a mental disability or an addiction. But there's still a human being that's living under a bridge or are just in a cardboard box or more. We're just trying to get them people into a safe place.

Mr. Joyce and I'm speaking with John Joyce who is the executive co-director of the Rhode Island homeless advocates the project. You know of which you speak because you yourself were homeless. Can you tell us about that. Yeah I mean I didn't read homelessness out of a book I got my master's degree by living on the streets of Providence for three years. I didn't wake up one day and say OK I want to become homeless. It's something that happened to me. So I bring that out to the streets. I try to be a voice when I hear someone say it's not my try to get that voice that are terrible constituent input because who knows more about homelessness than some of the experience that still is experience and we're trying to get that message out. We're trying to get to the state to serve the homeless community in Rhode Island we have a voice and we can help. Just give us a chance. Now I just want to go back to your own story because you ended up homeless because you lost your job and we hear over and over from economists and that

people many people are you know one step away from live from homelessness if they lose their job so this is very real. It's gone. I talked to people on a daily basis almost paycheck to paycheck and they're not even really sure. If they're going to be able to have a house. People are scared right now. It's really frightening and soon people never experience almost before in the life of this kid. They don't see any long term solutions in the American economy or what I want right now is so in crisis mode. I just don't see the job. No I don't see the affordable housing to put people into housing. One point I did also want to make to our listeners is that Rhode Island is at the top of the list and what in New England in terms of what homeowner homeowners pay in housing costs they pay 30 percent of their household budget goes to housing. That means that there's that's more than Massachusetts which is saying a lot if anybody. Those of us who live in Massachusetts we know how

expensive it is. Now when you were homeless yourself or as a person who is often out on the streets just trying to. Make sure you identify people who might be out there and need some help. What do you see. What have you seen and what does it mean you indicated earlier that people need to be street smart and a lot of these people aren't. Yeah I mean you come out to the streets of Providence it's a major city. It's a much much a fallen surly. There are hostile is out there you've got to be aware of the people that were brought up in suburbia in rural parts of Rhode Island. All of a sudden memorial service prisons are in the city of Providence that's where you can get the most help and you get people. Never been to the city before. Very vulnerable to different situations that can be very dangerous for what is some of the coping mechanisms that they don't have. Just being street smart it's difficult you're in the city. Any city in this country can be a dangerous place to be if you're out in the streets and you've got your life on your

back. You can become a target. I've seen people being assaulted just because a homeless. That is so wrong. This last legislative session that I was homeless I was the projects were instrumental in getting hate crimes against the homeless bill passed. We're the only force state in the country that has protection for the homeless community was something that had to be done because of the situation that we're in. Now in Rhode Island right now you were waiting for in terms of monies to fund these emergency shelters which by the way are only open in a short span of time during the winter different again from permanent shelters. Seventy five thousand dollars as of mid December that had not come through hasn't come through yet. Yeah that's a state or an island. I don't know why the state of what I was doing in such a delay in a such crisis that we're in right now.

So they designed this what have you haven't gotten the money yet as my point. As of today I haven't heard of any money and the state of Rhode Island going to any emergency shelters. Most of the shelters out of Iran are run by small service providers. The scraping money just to keep the shelters open so they don't have to close. It's just a shame that the state I'm very proud of has been so large for the most vulnerable population of the citizens just to be clear the money is already designated. It just has not just I'm telling this to my listeners. It has not been released and so in order to keep the shelter doors open really what's happening is that these small nonprofits are floating the state of Providence Rhode Island rather just to keep the doors open so people won't be outside freezing to death. Which brings me to this last huge snow that affected so many cities. And there had to be more people out on the streets. How what happened then and how. How were people able to cope or how were you able to try to service them. Our reach teams we were in bad weather mode. We knew the

blizzard was common. We got out to the streets that afternoon to try to get people into where they had to build a lot of the permanent shelters opened up early. We made our phone calls we got a communication network that's in place. We got people where they had to go. We were on the streets until 10 o'clock that night to make sure everyone in the city was safe saying things. Well throughout the state of Rhode Island with all of the outreach teams are out. Who knows what would have happened. There was still people sleep a lot. I found people on the bridges trying to get people in. But what we do know that's what has to be done there is a coalition of faith leaders calling for monies to be released and more money as they say actually two hundred thousand dollars is needed to fund this during this this particularly rough season with increased need. One man froze to death on this on the steps of City Hall actually a couple years ago. So what do you do when people you have limited beds they show up they need

to go inside but there's no shelter available. Yeah I mean that's a tough situation we have to make that decision on a nightly basis. We try to make phone calls to other shelters throughout the state. We make sure that that person has transportation to that shelter. Right now the shelters are overburdened they're just bulging at the seams and this is not something that just happened overnight. You started this emergency shelter taskforce in June. The people are working on the streets the outreach workers we kept on telling the state of Rhode Island that this was going to happen whether there are deaf ears or not. I'm not sure I can't say that. But what I can say is right now we're in a bad crisis. We're just trying to make the best of what we have. And of course the faith leaders did come up to the plate. It's always been that way but my feeling is it should be the responsibility of the state of Rhode Island for the citizens. We're doing our own fund raising. I mean we've had actions in the middle of the financial district where we actually panhandled for money that's our crisis.

I understand that one for length repairs has come forward saying he would offer $50000 to any legitimate agency that can open a new homeless shelter in the state. Are you aware of this and is that something that can be helpful when you have the executive director from the our coalition for the homeless general has been in negotiations with Mr. Feinstein whether that fruits up to some will still waiting. Today's Monday hopefully by this afternoon something will happen. We're also waiting for the other shelter that was opened up by the Catholic Diocese its 16 beds now. We are appealing that decision through the fire marshal to try to increase to 40 hopefully by next week that will be a 40 blood shelter and that will give us a little bit of breathing room. What do you say John Joyce. Exact co-director of the Rhode Island homeless advocacy project the people who say My God I am so sympathetic but I am hanging on by my fingernails for my own

family. I mean this whole crisis can be solved. It's a solvable solution. We all know that. I know that the only way you're going to solve homelessness in this country in the state of Rhode Island is true affordable housing more affordable housing we have in the state I think will get more and more people off the streets. We've got to have the state try to fund programs for affordable housing. A lot only puts people in the housing. It creates jobs. It makes it community communities drive economics. It starts thriving. But it just seems like a lot of people are just stuck on stupid when it comes to reasonable ideas. All right. Well and again at the faces of the people who are homeless are totally different from what we may imagine. We're talking families children and 53 percent new to homelessness. John Joyce thank you so much for giving us the critical reality of what's going on in Rhode Island with homelessness.

My Get think you very much thank you. My guest John Joyce is executive co-director of the Rhode Island homeless advocacy project. Up next it's local made good we meet a sculptor who uses a chainsaw as his primary tool. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from gentle giant moving company. Nationwide moving services using our own gentle giant employees for each stage of interstate and local moves. More information online at Gentle Giant dot com. And from Elsa Dorfman Cambridge portrait photographer. Still clicking with the jumbo format Polaroid 20 by 24 analog camera and original Polaroid film. Online at Elsa Dorfman dot com. That's Elsa Dorfman dot com.

Next time on the world game I'm in Turkey's armed forces but military service is mandatory so many gay men go for an exemption. They just have to show the Army doctor documentation actually have issue with me if you don't like them he wanted me to take much more explicit pornographic Turkey's policy of will ask must tell next. Coming up at 3 o'clock here at eighty nine point seven Sunday January 9 masterpiece kicks off its 40th season on PBS with the smash hit British drama Downton Abbey. If you support WGBH with a gift of $120 or more you can watch each episode of this acclaimed drama online. A whole week before the mirrors on TV. Already a member. Just go to WGBH dot org and sign it. Your full access begins January 2nd.

If you're not a member. Sign up today WGBH dot org. Long story the world he has he didn't get involved. He is wrong and he is game by luck. Coming up at 3 o'clock on eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. It's time for our regular Monday feature local made good where we celebrate people who bring honor to New England. My guest is Jesse Green also known as the machine. He's a local sculptor who carves with a chainsaw for his latest project eco art Massachusetts. He's aiming to create a different sculpture for each city and town in Massachusetts. Jesse Green the machine Hello. Thank you so much thanks a lot thanks for stars for asking me and I appreciate it. Well I got to say first of all listeners it doesn't look like you're what you might imagine an artist.

Well I think you got the tattoo going on the arm what is that this agenda. That's a chainsaw There you go. I wanted something that said you know I was committed to what I do. There you go. Well we know that you are. I want to just put our listeners get their heads around it. So you're using a chainsaw. Typically typically used to take down a tree. Yeah. To sculpt that piece of wood to breathe new life into it. All right. Why a chainsaw. Because it was the fastest best way to turn a log into a kind of shape that I could really see existing underneath it. You know I mean besides I don't have a lot of patience and I figured that out pretty fast when I was you know just a year into college. I was a cartoonist forever. It didn't take me long in the freshman year to find out that I know the patients for sitting down and drawing two dimensionally more I want to make big I want to make fast and furious and chains I just signed of it sort of materialized and seem right if it was love at first cut. OK just the machine one doesn't go from cartooning to chainsaw. I mean what happened in between.

Now I'm going to walk up one day and said to change God that's my instrument. Yeah well I had always seen people up north trying you know doing it Vermont New Hampshire and never seen anything like it meant to us Massachusetts ever there still is and it's just just because it's a it's a it's an art that's only about 50 years old but it's it's just based out of other parts of this country. And one day I happened of a van I saw a log and I was a sculpture major and I think that if you're smart you're looking for something to specialize in and I always loved wood and I had been experimenting a little bit with you know hand-held electric tools and this just seemed like the perfect opportunity to go ahead and go and get the chains on see what it was made of and it was a scary experience that you know at first I never tried a chainsaw before ever. Never cut through anything. Wow. Once I once I tried it it was like heaven. So your first chainsaw was and then what was your first chain saw sculpture. First chance I was just a little bought at Home Depot in Poland. Yes three hundred little green electric sod not made for chainsaw carving. But I

started off I think I made an obligatory he had to take a god type of thing and I did so many so fast it just exploded. Once I started going I don't know anything else and so yeah it really literally did kind of go from cartooning one date a chance to ask off the next because I never look back. I gave up my job as a political cartoonist for the school paper. I just wanted to make a big sculpture that would be out there. Landmarks I love landmarks landmarks inspire me. I think they inspire everybody. Even if you don't necessarily know it it's just there's something special about seeing something visual. Part of your everyday commute or part of a special trip that you've made. Something that just sparks within you a lighter side of life something that makes you go Oh I'm glad I'm here at this moment just like I'm passed by this. For some reason some neato reason my work seems to appeal to a mass audience and making landmarks is is what I love to do. I love love love hearing stories of people that have passed by my work

and and appreciated for whatever reason or even if you don't even even it's not what you think it is. Even if I carved it to be Kelly Crossley and it's actually somebody else altogether. Yeah if somebody they say you know somebody says to me looks like something else altogether I'll say Oh great thanks you know that's good at least you enjoyed it. Well now tell me about the actual physical physicality of doing it. Because for me it looks like a chainsaw is unwieldy though I've looked at your video and you seem to be very calm with it. But I mean you've got to control this thing what's taken it's taken almost 15 years to learn how to control. You have to know your kick back points you have to know this was a very dangerous beast and it doesn't want to be moved and shaken and twisted upside down and done the things that I do with it. So you have to know how to feel it out. And I learn every time I pick it up. Wow. I'm speaking with Jesse the machine. Who is a chainsaw sculptor. Now your website says carving dreams into reality

since 1997. So whose dreams yours are like minds dream. OK I mean I you know and any artist that works on any sort of canvas will tell you or a writer you know you look at that blank page you look at that blank canvas and you know you can do anything but you don't know what to do. You know I mean so I have found it very very helpful that I take exceptional interest in doing exactly what my client wants me to do. You have an idea for something. Maybe you can see the chainsaw sculpture that's my job but you see something something that you want to make in a reality most of time they don't think it they don't know it's possible they say to me can you can you can make this and make it anything. Well give me an example. I did a Google right now a very very project I'm very proud of. In Milford right on Route 16 at a place called back 16 and a half foot woman to straighten ribbon holding a heart. And we're still working out the paint colors but the sculpture is there and its traffic happens the

bottleneck right there all day long every day. There's no getting around it. So it's great so literally thousands of people pass by this every day and I hear about it from people it's just it's so cool. Was that the assignment was that the request just make all woman she came to me and they had you know they had seen my work around and her husband in my studio we talked it out and there's a bunch of ideas kick back and forth but in the end like I can almost instantaneously if it's the visual can be had I can have it instantaneously I can see it whether or not this is doable this is not doable or this we better and so that's what we came up with. Now here's the thing that I want people to understand. Jesse the machine you do this free hand. Yeah. There is no like you dry out a little pattern and then you know it's cut by numbers. There's no pattern. How I think really honestly I don't know how you do that. And I don't I don't either. And I would build explained if I tried. There's little measurements that I'll make depending on you know if something is supposed to be doing something specific or we need to be in a certain place I can measure and you know little notch. But even the

notches it's easier to make with a chainsaw than anything on a log because anything any crayon I hold on a log is going to end up a squiggle but the chains I can make straight lines all usually all not fit with the saw and then cut it. It's all yeah it's free. I don't I don't know I don't know what to tell you about how I do it. OK and then when the finished product I see that some looked at wood stained as if you were staining wood and others are painted with very colorful colors. Do you decide you do do you do that part of the work. Yeah I do I try to take everything I try to everything myself. I with the economy recently I sold a lot of unfinished culture if people do find it fun to finish themselves and times and it's not it doesn't take a genius to be able to finish one when it comes to painting. It's better that I do it because it's there is a certain way to that I've learned it's taken me a long time to learn how to paint a chainsaw sculpture and you know it's often very different than what you think it's going to be. But standing ceiling anybody can do it my clients often do it themselves but they're both OK they're both beautiful in their own way.

Now the eco art project that you're doing a sculpture in every town in Massachusetts you yourself are from Midway. So why. Because I can and if I want to. OK. I've you know I've grown up here. I can list on you know probably on one hand the amount of landmarks that that really have always meant a lot to me. One specifically in random are on the top line. It's actually toner in the milk bottle. I wonder oh yeah and I'm about to deliver randoms landmark for progeny guards of the King Philip that I started at their big festival during the summer. And it's special to me because I remember every Thanksgiving I pass by that month Well that's how I knew I was almost my great uncles house because I passed by the milk bottle and you know other businesses and things that have just somebody took the time to put something cool front. I want to be the person who makes that cool thing that went out front why just because we could. Do you sign these sculptures by the way. That's a touchy subject. Everybody lines of tell me I should and I know I should and I know why. It's just

that I hate it. I feel like I've when I'm done I feel like OK I did it the best I could if I if I mark on it I just I can't help I feel like I'm tagging it and I know that goes against you know everything that everybody knows about why somebody should sign their work but so instead there's a little something they just said it was carved by you. Yeah sometimes. OK I mean I think that right now now we have the magic of the web right you know I think it's you know back in way back when when somebody did something that in sign of how in a way no. But I'm the only guy in much Massachusetts doing this and so it's a pretty safe bet if you see one you see in mine. How do you get your idea about what you want to put in each of these towns. Well I I try to I leave up to the towns as much as possible and I steer where necessary but with project will probably go on as relied on for this for this first year in Inception 2009 was I got grants from the cultural councils and I asked them to stand in the right direction. Pick something from the history of the town or if there isn't anything that interesting from history a town which we did run into you know what is something everyone gets behind is the school mascot is it something else. And you know we just figure out the best and ultimately I can tell which

ones can be the best chainsaw sculpture. OK there is a piece of video on your website in which you are you show yourself to be a tree hugger. You run to the street on your own you know I'm a mom. You say I love you. I wanted you to tell our listeners why you love that wood. When I when I when I lay my eyes on the perfect piece of pine or spruce or something soft just the biggest juiciest log that I can imagine such as that one in that video you're referring to. Oh something magical delicious. I could just I can see cutting into it and you just know because there's no marks there's no there's no limbs that were coming out of it there's no rot there's no bugs like this is going to be. And the thing we want to make it it's going to be there's no in the not in a car around I don't have to negotiate the ground with my scaffolding I can do whatever I want with it and so that log that you sign a video deserve that hug right now. Now you consider yourself a fine artist. Yeah definitely. OK you want to say why because some might say well fine craftsperson I think that's a

tremendous question I appreciate coming out just for that question. I think that anybody who thinks that I'm not a fine artist. Will probably be on the side of that fine art needs to be serious art or it needs to be dark. Art is something I often run into and I say Fine Art is anything. Anything that makes you smile. Anything that doesn't have words on it should be you know it fits into a genre of fine art but words on something that's when it becomes something else or it's still fine art there's a lot of fine art some would argue with me with that but I think that it's fine art is always thought of as serious. And I when I was in art school everything all the teachings were geared towards you will apply to galleries. This is how you will do this. You'll make it you'll make a resume it will say this it will look like this and you will wait in line like everybody else out there and all my stuff was much lighter and people said that's kind of commercial. We don't really like commercials. I don't understand what's wrong with that. I thought we were all hoping to be professional artist so I can do something that. What do you consider commercial or not

it's art that speaks for itself that everybody can see. And people seem to react to it in a very positive way. Yeah yeah. You know when you can entertain the young. You got something going on when you get in the old it's Nido when you can entertain everybody from young to old with just just by having something I have to actually do anything. But you know I create it and I leave it and it's there and it speaks for itself. And. You know what I have to complain about Jesse. The machine green I preach and I stick with it stick it out. I think your work is fabulous I love that you love the tree and it loves you and you're able to do something with. It. I have been speaking with Jesse Green also known as the machine a local sculptor who carves with a chainsaw for his latest project eco art Massachusetts. He's aiming to create a different sculpture for each city and town in Massachusetts. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Cali Crossley follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook.

Today Show was engineered by Allen madness and produced by Chelsea mirrors and a white knuckle B and Abby Ruzicka. We are production of WGBH radio.