BGE presents

More Americans are facing the trauma of homelessness. This month, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge released the agency's annual Point-in-Time count to Congress, reporting key findings related to homelessness in communities throughout the country. The Point-in-Time Count provides a snapshot of the number of people experiencing homelessness, both sheltered and unsheltered, in America on a single night. The one-night counts are conducted during the last 10 days of January each year. The count showed that 580,466 people were homeless in the United States on a single night in January 2020, an increase of 12,751 people, or 2.2 percent, from 2019. The count included 37,252 homeless veterans, 15,204 of those veterans, such as Alex Sangster in Miami, were living without shelter.

The HUD Secretary called the findings "startling."

"What makes these findings even more devastating is that they are based on data from before COVID-19, and we know the pandemic only made the homelessness crisis worse," Secretary Fudge said.

Half of America's homeless population are in four states

More than half of people experiencing the trauma of homelessness came from four states hardest hit by the pandemic: California (161,548), New York (91,271), Florida (27,487), and Texas (27,229).

Despite being one of the four largest states where Americans are homeless, Florida's rate of homelessness was less than the national average. Florida's pre-pandemic 2020 numbers also indicate the largest decrease in homelessness since 2007. Many point to significant federal dollars that have come to Florida in the past decade to help the state overcome housing challenges, tax credits that have helped create hundreds of new affordable, supportive housing apartments in Miami-Dade County, and the many diverse private-public partnerships established through those federal programs.

One of those partnerships is Purpose Built Families Foundation's Operation Sacred Trust collaboration. Operation Sacred Trust, known as OST, was established in 2011 for the purpose of ending veteran homelessness in South Florida's largest communities: Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Significantly funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program, the nonprofit has been nationally-accredited since 2018. For the past decade, the agency has implemented a unique, data-driven approach that is constantly seeking to "follow the science" of veteran homelessnes

Inna Hildebrandt | Semantic Scholar

Jenny Jones Talkshow Murder Trial

Marion Zola has been a writer from the time she had her first little story

published in her elementary school newspaper at age six. She began writing

poetry in grade school, continued in high school and college, and was honored to

work under the distinguished poet, John Malcolm Brinnin, at Boston University.

She has won and been a finalist in numerous poetry contests, been published in

literary magazines and several anthologies. She was also one of the youngest

people ever admitted to the Poetry Society of America.

After college, she began teaching English at an inner city high school in New York,

then went to Columbia University for her master’s degree before landing a

teaching job at the Bronx High School of Science. But it was during that year in

graduate school that Marion began jogging with an opera voice coach, which gave

her an idea for a screenplay. The script, about a jogging only relationship, became

the vehicle to land her a first agent and an assignment to write a screenplay for a

Hollywood producer at 20 th Century Fox. On her first trip to L.A. to meet with this

producer, she pitched stories to the “All In The Family” producers. It was the last

year of that TV sitcom and Marion sold them a story, which became her first on

air credit. Other sitcom credits followed when she moved permanently to L.A.

Then she began writing movie scripts such as “Sharing Richard” for CBS.

In 1981, Marion published her first book, “All The Good Ones Are Married,” which

was a featured cover story in Cosmo magazine before it even hit the stores.

Dozens of stories about the book followed in women’s magazines and

newspapers nationwide, as well as publications in Japan and Israel. Over a

hundred radio interviews and TV appearances followed, including on the Merv

Griffin Show, Charlie Rose, the Today Show, 20/20 and dozens of other prime

time and morning shows. Eventually the book was turned into a movie for

Lifetime.

In 2016, Marion compiled, edited, and wrote narration for a reading of the letters

of John and Abigail Adams. Entitled “Dearest Friend,” this event starred Richard

Benjamin and Paula Prentiss and raised a significant amount of money for Theatre

40, the Beverly Hills theatre she’s involved with and loves. Both performances

were sold out.

Marion has had numerous feature script development deals and options. In 1992,

she produced “Midnight Kiss,” a movie which played on HBO and Cinemax.

Shortly afterward, she associate produced a telenovella for Univision, “

INVESTIGATIVE CELEBRITY AUTHOR: Dylan Howard, author of Royals at War: The Untold Story of Harry and Meghan's Shocking Split with the House of Windsor.

BIO: As a man with unprecedented access to the facts and a reporter who is one of the most feared journalists in Hollywood, investigative reporter Dylan Howard has cracked open scandals that have brought down the careers of Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, Hulk Hogan, Paula Dean, and numerous others.

Howard’s sense for news saw him rise to become the undisputed most powerful gossip editor in the world, publishing dozens of salacious tabloid magazines each week, including Us Weekly, The National Enquirer, Star, In Touch, Life & Style, RadarOnline.com, and more.

Described by New Yorker magazine as “a tabloid prodigy” and AdWeek as “the king of Hollywood scoops,” Dylan also brought to light: the hate-fueled audiotapes of Oscar-winning actor/director Gibson blasting former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva; the scandal-plagued death of screen darling Farrah Fawcett; the naming of the mother of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love child; the demise of star-on-the-rise politician Anthony Weiner; and the Tiger Woods sex scandal. He also broke the story of the A-list high-stakes poker scam that was later made into the Oscar-nominated film Molly’s Game.

Most recently, Howard made a name for himself with a stunning exposé of Sheen that revealed Hollywood’s most unapologetic hedonist was HIV positive. It also was a story of extraordinary corruption, violence, lies, intimidation, death threats, and millions of dollars paid out in hush money—a story that he chronicled in a first-person essay for The Hollywood Reporter that AdWeek called “jaw dropping.”

He also develops and executive produces premium unscripted television shows and podcasts, including last year's blockbuster podcast series Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood, which garnered over 10 million downloads and 50 million media impressions worldwide.

The series was named to Apple Podcasts' Most Downloaded New Shows of 2018 and was named a 2019 Webby Best Series honoree by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

In 2011, Howard was named Entertainment Journalist of the Year at the National Entertainment Journalism Awards, where the judges labelled him the "go-to guy for authoritative showbiz news and analysis on cable and over-the air television." Howard is also the author of Diana: Case Solved. He currently resides in New York City.

PLUG

NORMAN E. ROSENTHAL, M.D. is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School and was the psychiatrist who first described seasonal affective disorder and pioneered the use of light in its treatment during his twenty years at the National Institute of Mental Health. He has researched other innovative psychiatric treatments and is the author of several books including the New York Times bestseller Transcendence: Healing and Transformation through Transcendental Meditation and the national bestseller Super Mind. He currently maintains a private clinical and coaching practice in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. His work has earned him national and international attention in the world of psychiatry and psychology, as well as in the media.

For more background, please visit www.normanrosenthal.com

Author Lauren Marino will discuss how some of the world’s most beloved authors overcame countless obstacles and prejudice to produce much of our most groundbreaking and beloved books that have changed how we see the world

Available for Interview is Lauren Marino, longtime book editor and publisher and the author of BOOKISH BROADS: WOMEN WHO WROTE THEMSELVES INTO HISTORY (Abrams Image, on sale March 2021, $19.99, hardcover)

If a well read woman is a dangerous creature, what does that make a woman writer? From Murasaki Shikibu to Jane Austen and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie women have fought to make their voices heard and radically reshaped the opportunities available to women. Bookish Broads collects and connects more than sixty of these storyteller’s legacies, reframing the canon that has long failed to recognize them and revealing a history of the female experience.

The Author of The Other Worlds

Carolyn Howard-Johnson started writing what she considers her “real writing” career when most are thinking of retiring. She brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, editor, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program

So, with a lifetime of experience before her 16 books, both self published and from Modern History Press, what d’ya wanna talk about? Poetry? Memoirs? Travel? Acting? Grammar? Editing? Bookstores? Heiroglyphics? Book Marketing? Getting reviews. Her acting/writing husband of 63 years? Just let us know!

she has scored points with her big seller, "Acting Techniques

for Everyday Life"--how to look and feel self-confident in difficult real-life situations...she has a current best-selling book,

And it's so timely, "Poems of Covid-19," sub-titled, "Stuck in Lockdown: The First Three

Months"...