Bret Bocook, JD
Founder/Chairman
Angels Camp, Inc.
Re: CAMPUS SOLUTION TO END HOMELESSNESS -"DIGNITY FIRST"
My name is Bret Bocook. I would like to introduce myself, and my homeless rehabilitation project, Angels Camp, to you. Several years ago, I founded a non-profit named Angels Camp, Inc. We have many companies and people supporting this project. From homeless specialists, law firms, architects, doctors, dentists, psychologists, financiers, and many other professionals that have come together to make this project happen. Paul Newman's Foundation, Newman's Own, is a major donor as well as many other such organizations. We have specifically designed and tailored this unprecedented facility for the homeless population in the United States. Each facility will sleep 500 people per night.
We have plans to build the first facilities in the Washington, DC and Sacramento / Bay Area, California regions. After these facilities are built and operational, Angels Camp will be rolling out this campus across the country in the next 10 years, one in every state of the United States. It makes no sense for every state to figure out a separate, and different solution to the corrosive problem of homelessness in the United States. We believe that replicating a system and campus is the most efficient method of solving the homeless problem in the United States.
I find it appalling, as I am sure you do as well, that here in the nations capital, the wealthiest nation on earth, 9 people have frozen to death on the streets of DC in just the last several years; and that there over 10,000 homeless people, many of them children on the street on any given night. Many more people have died across the country due to exposure to elements, and other problems associated with Homelessness.
Sleeping 500 people per night is only the beginning of what this facility is designed to do. Most importantly, the classes operating within the campus will address the seemingly intractable problems that many chronically homeless people suffer from and which exacerbate their desperate situation: mental illness, alcoholism and drug abuse.
The Angel Camp campus will also have many other components that will teach everything from living skills, to how to manage personal finances. Angels Camp will also be running for-profit companies in the facility (see the Angel Car Wash on the site plan). We will be teaching work skills and paying the homeless workers during this time. Angels Camp will be withholding a portion of their pay for when they graduate and they need to pay for housing. Finally, the facility will also have the most modern types of medical facilities and dental facilities, including a general dental and medical facility to address the chronic medical problems that many of the homeless so often suffer from, including teeth problems, AIDS, TB as well as many other common ailments.
In other-words, this is a replicable, large scale, and comprehensive care facility designed and built to truly address the reasons why people became homeless and the reasons that they are remaining homeless; as well as addressing a host of ancillary, but oftentimes intractable chronic problems associated with living on the streets: All in one location, much like a college campus, but designed for the homeless.
There will also be a major component of the project reserved for helping the children of the homeless. Parenting skills, stress management, and general psychological training will be incorporated into the program portion of our campus to deal with the extreme stress that children of homeless parents deal with on a daily basis and the resulting lack of education. We will be operating a school on the campus for these homeless children, which they can attend while their parents are concurrently going through an intensive curriculum. We call this a "Full-Circle Family Approach (FCFA)" to homeless intervention. Statistics, and our research have shown, that when the parents are homeless, the children's education is virtually stopped during this sometimes protracted time, due the lack of stability, home address and general lack of a schedule or a home to stabilize the child's life. Angels Camp will rectify this by providing a K-6th grade school on the campus that will be able to provide a reliable and continuous education, while the family is in transition.
As I mentioned, the facility is being designed in a way that incorporates many sustainable building design methods (see Green Building Philosophy) and most traffic mitigation techniques. We will be incorporating these sustainable elements by utilizing: Energy and Atmosphere awareness; recycling of materials and resources utilized for construction; effective solar and site awareness in the campus footprint; solar and energy efficient lighting systems, functioning windows; sustainable site and water efficiently; indoor environmental controls; sustainable mechanical systems, including advanced HVAC conservations systems, and structured parking methods to cut back on impervious surface.
The traffic mitigation methods, include: "Preferred car pool parking" for staff and visitors; "emergency ride home vehicles" provided by Angels Camp for staff members who car pool and have an emergency outside of Angels Camp, transit stops on campus so the homeless can effectively utilize mass transit, Angel-van vehicles to take the homeless on short trips.
This will be a truly sustainable campus. We envision that Angels Camp will not only set a precedent for the dignified care of the homeless and their children in the United States; but the facility will also educate, and lead by example through the utilization of sustainable design methods, and traffic mitigation techniques.
I would like you to get involved. Please sign up for updates. Please donate, we can use cash or sign up for a pixel ad and get traffic to any logo or picture, or graphic you want on the internet via our popular website. Also, consider a donation of real estate anywhere in the country, or your used cars. This facility is projected to cost in excess of $20,000,000 per campus. As a country, we cannot ignore this problem any longer. I need your support get the 10,000 homeless people off the streets and rehabilitated here in DC, and to start implementing the same solution across the country, one in every state. (Your state!)
Sincerely,
Bret K. Bocook
Founder, Chairman
Angels Camp
bretbocook@angelscamponline.com
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