5TH HOMELESSNESS MARATHON SET FOR PORTLAND, OREGON, FEB. 5-6, 2002
The mission of this acclaimed radio broadcast is to let homeless people speak to the nation, but that's not all that happens during this annual, overnight program which has originated from a different city each year. Host "Nobody," broadcasts from outdoors to dramatize the plight of people with nowhere to go in the cold. For 14 hours he interviews experts on various aspects of poverty in America (e.g. health care, hunger, public housing, etc.) and takes calls from around the country in addition to talking with homeless people.
The Homelessness Marathon -- already the largest media event in America focusing on poverty -- has been widely recognized as an historic broadcast. Tapes of the marathons have been archived by libraries at Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, UCLA, Berkeley, the University of Chicago and many other institutions around the country.
The 4th marathon was on at least 35 stations coast-to-coast, including stations broadcasting to such major metropolitan areas as Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. The 5th marathon will be hosted in Portland by community radio station KBOO and "Street Roots," Portland's homeless paper.
"I've really come to believe that the American people want this problem solved," says Nobody. "That's the good news. But there's bad news too. The ongoing terrorist attacks and economic downturn are sure to make the numbers on the streets spike up dramatically. I think there's going to be an urgency to the next marathon unlike anything we've encountered before."
The Homelessness Marathon is a consciousness raising, not a fund-raising event. "We don't want people to think this is a matter of charity," says Nobody. "It's a matter of changing our national priorities. And to do that, we've got to listen to what homeless people, themselves, have to say."
More information is available at the marathon's web site (www.homelessnessmarathon.org).
