The Homelessness Marathon is an annual 14-hour radio broadcast featuring the voices and stories of homeless people from around the United States The Homelessness Marathon features live call-ins all night long via a national toll-free number. PUSH held a listen-in at First United Methodist Church in St Augustine for the first 2 hours of the Homelessness Marathon
Guests on the call in included many homeless individuals, particularly from the Mississippi area where the broadcast originated. It brought home to PUSH listeners not only the scope but the diversity of problems leading to homelessness. Keith McCarthy, one of the founders of Food Not Bombs, spoke at length about his experiences in New Orleans in the early days after Katrina. His account of the disorganization and delay in actual help was astounding.
PUSH attempted about 20 times to get through on the "anyone" call in line during the listening period from 7:45PM to 8:25PM without success. The program’s second hour was to deal with trends in homeless veterans but by the end of our session, this was not yet addressed.
The broadcast was streamed by various radio stations and we used Sarasota’s signal. The main website also streamed live and will archive some of the segments. It is enlightening to hear how other communities are helping people with no place to call home.
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