The war on poverty is now some 50 years old and the battle to end homelessness spes cificay is sadly still ranging in america. Paul boden is the director of the program that launches the homelessness rights campaign. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you so much. There was a time politically, i recall in the reagan era, homelessness was pretty bad but there was this activism, even Media Attention to this issue of homelessness, what happened . I think the homelessness and advocacy is still there. I think the Media Attention has shifted over to other areas unless its about, oh, look they are destroying this park or we need to snip them from skid row then you will see a snippet of Media Attention. Now were coming to the hoi holidays, we tend to be the darlin darlings. Other than that, were always someone else. Were always drug addicts or mentally ill or alcoholics. The key being were always from somewhere else and we need to be fixed in order to come into society as opposed in the early 1980s when i was coming up, we had a crisis as a community because people were finding themselves without housing. The response now is Homeless People have a problem. They need to be fixed. So the standard procedure under reagan of the neo economic policies of if nobody is making money on this, it aint of any value. As those things kept getting worse and worse and worse, homelessness continued to expand. Just as reagan did with unemployment, when it got too high, he changed the way we count, i dont mean him personally. I mean his administration. Now if you dont have a job that doesnt count as unemployed. If youre not in a edd program or collecting unemployment. They change the way they count something and the numbers go down. Thats what we just recently did with homelessness families. Hud and the Bush Administration and obama. So it really is a republican and democrat phenomenon. So families who double or triple up or couch hopping no longer qualify for access to programs. So the result of the reality that youre speaking to now paul is clearly were not getting an accurate picture of how bad homelessness is in the country. And i think thats been true on so many issues as it pertains to poverty and certainly well fair and education benefits. Even when people talk about the unemployment numbers, they still use that formula that was created. Now when people talk about the numbers of Homeless People, the irony with hud, the housing and urban development is saying 600,000 Homeless People and now this report comes out 2. 5 homeless children. Think about it. There hasnt been except from this show any real in depth analysis. How can it be that one federal Department Says 600,000 people in total. Another department, the department of education documents 1. 2 million children that go to school everyday. 2. 5 million that may be homeless at any given moment. Me when i was homeless, i quit school. I got bounced out of schools. These are families and kids on their own who are staying in school everyday that dont have a place to go to that night and it pops up as a crisis because its being misidentified. Im not naive in asking this question obviously but whats the value, obviously to be gained from is suppressing the number from the government. The pretense is that youre actually doing something and you actually care. By having people go out once every two years. On january 25th, remember, january 25th, go out and count the heads of Homeless People. Theres a whole bureaucracy that has been created around doing what they call point in time head counts. Thats how they come up with this 600,000 number. They invest all of these meetings and these councils and conferences and consultants and technical assistants and getting all of these volunteers to come out and go around with flashlights and vests, counting the number of Homeless People as if thats any kind of meaningful analysis or will give you any kind of meaningful data. It givens you the pretense oh, look were doing something. Were going out and counting heads. The best example of this is something called Housing First. All the lefty groups are buying into this Housing First. Its sauch a great tag line. Its an amazing tag line accept that its not a funded program. Its a Public Relations program. Its a concept. To say that were doing Housing First while hud continues to sna dismantle affording housing. With lost 200,000, 300,000 units of public housing. Where do you think those people are going to go. When you say Housing First, it raises an issue. I think of it being a pr campaign than anything else. Ive talked to a lot of people over the years. I think of madison, wisconsin as one local, where homeless organizers are not just saying Housing First, they are saying that housing is a right. Human right. Where do you come down on this notion is that housing is a human right . It is. It should be a human right. The fact that in 1979 when we started cutting our Affordable Housing budget. In 1983 we were opening shelters. It shows a cause and affect. We know what caused homelessness. We know what it takes to address it. In our messaging, nothing ends homelessness like a home. The other irony is its not that the federal government stopped funding housing. At the time in the 70s when these cuts started, the they total 48 billion. They aent fr and now you have a different billion differential. We didnt stop funding housing. If you owe me 50, and you tell me to keep it. I just gave you 50. So a tax credit is the same as a different subsidy. We still subsidize housing and think its a priority but only those we think can afford to make money for the Mortgage Companies and business people. I think we all agree this is a wheel not a steel problem. We have the steel to fix the problem but we as a society, as a government, as a nation dont have the will to fix the problem. Here is is why i raise that. Let me ask you a politically incorrect question. Why is it that you think wall of the work that you and others are doing as homeless advocates, why is it that the nation at large would care about people in the street if clearly they dont even care about people who have had homes over the last six or eight years who have lost their homes and they havent really mattered . Ive talking about people who have lost their houses . Yeah. One of the things for me is in doing the organizing, we like to identify ourselves as laborers of a social justice movement. This doesnt get broken in two minutes. It will not get fixed in two minutes. We can get obama elected. That will not solve our problems. We have to solve our problems. When are we going to ban together under the banner of central justice . If youre screwing people over from mexico and south america or screwing over nativeamericans, if youre not connecting these issues with the housing, with the education. Like we are going to continue to see everything that we value, health care, education, public parks,housing commidified. This neo economic policies that we tested and if any policy or any funding priority doesnt make a profit for the company then it isnt something that government is going to invest in. We have to get real about this. Let bme ask you this. All of the Media Coverage as you know will be on the race for the white house come 2016. What notion around the issue of homelessness would you like to see most advanced . What issues are being placed on the table. What should the moderators press on the homelessness in north america. Why you close had to open sh prior to 1983. What happened to 1983 and before we started opening shelters. The thing thats in the housing report and in everything we put out is the cause and affect. The stuff they put out wont solve homelessness and poverty and wont solve the race and class problem thats started this. I would challenge them to how are you going to end homelessness in america. Paul is one of the countries foremost advocates, fighting for those who are dealing with the issue of homelessness even in our home borders. Thanks for the work. Good to have you on this program. Coming up, multiple grammy nominee guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Stay with us. Multiple grammy nominee Kenny Wayne Shepherd has an engrained passion for the blues. First picked up a guitar at the ripe age of seven. That is on display with his latest cd entitled going home which hit number one on the billboard blues chart. We take a look at kenny performing talk to me baby at a concert in new york. Talk to me baby talk to me baby talk to me baby talking to you on the phone good to see you again. Its a pleasure to be here. Let me start by saying congratulatio congratulations. I understand your wife is expecting again. Yeah. Number five. Who has five kids these days man . Well, not as many as used to, yeah. But theres still some. You have what, two boys and two boys and two girls. Okay. But the new baby is going to be a girl. So the girls are going to take over. They are. The girls take over regardless. Even when they are outnumbered, they take over. Thats right. Tell me about going home . Well, this record is me revisiting the sound track of my childhood basicallbasically. These are songs i first taught meself growing up when learning guitar. Im looking at 20 years as a professional recording artist and i was reflecting on everything that i accomplished and everything that not me here and i wanted to pay tribute to the people who inspired me. If it wasnt for them, i wouldnt be able to do what i did. You cover the three kings. Albert, bb and freddie. What do you make of the kings. Well. They call them the kings for a reason. They are some of the baddest people to ever step in front of a microphone. When do you recall your dad first exposing you to blues music. Well, i was around it my whole life but my first concert, i saw muddy waters and John Lee Hooker when i was three years old. First of all you were only three. Pl muddy waters and Johnny Lee Hooker on the stage. That will change anybodys life. Absolutely. When you first heard this thing called the blues and were turned on by you. What were you connected to . Well, to me, feeling and emotion are greater than words. When youre so young and you dont necessarily comprehend what the song is about, you can still feel it. Blues is all about feeling especially straight from the heart. Thats the most organic place you can come from. You can identify with that music. It brought out feelings in me. Hearing people like bb king play guitar, he can take you through a range of emotions playing the guitar. Thats all stuff that blues or music in general thats why we just got from europe and we played in a lot of countries where theres probably a lot of people who dont speak english there. They probably dont know the words to their songs but they were there because they feel it and enjoy it. I think thats why they call it the universal language. Now does a white kid in louisiana not get intimidating by what hes seeing and hearing but not only get intimidated but to pick up the guitar and bring his own substance and craft. I ask this because not only quinn, i know a number of white kids who pick up guitars from an early age and get into blues. How does a white kid not get intimidated by that. Well, for me, growing up in louisiana, i grew up in a pro m prodominantly black neighborhood. All of my friends were black. I didnt see race. I didnt grow up in that environment. Now, it certainly existed. Tore for me, i didnt see color. I didnt think you had to be black or white or any race to play blues. I still dont believe that. Blues music for me is about experiencing life. All of these songs are about heartache and pain and a lot of people are about rejoicing and appreciating all of what life has to offer. I actually like to lean toward the more Positive Side. We have great responsibility with what were given. Its my responsibility to introduce something positive to the world. I didnt really see it as a black and white thing. I was drawn towards doing it and i just did it. Yeah. When you say its your mission to lean towards the Positive Side of the blues. What do you mean by that . Does that mean youre looking more critically and carefully at your lyrical choices . What does that mean . Well, blues has a bad rap with people who arent familiar with it. They dismiss it as negative music and its all about feeling sorry for yourself. I actually think some of the younger people maybe in the africanamerican community, the black community dont embrace the blues because they think thats from the past but to me the music is very relevant today. Its very current. Its timeless music. Like the music recorded back in the 1920s sounds just as good as it did back then to me. So i look at the pluzmusic thate put out as a family man, and the lyrical substance, i analyze it pretty intensely and see it as a message that i want to put out and represent to me. My children have to live with everything that i leave behind. I think theres too much music currently that takes people to negative places and glorifies a lot of bad things. I feel like theres a lot of bad examples. I still think there needs to be good examples. Given all of the musical choices that you were tintroducd to, and not being intimidated, with so much great stuff written already, how do you walk into your office and say im going to add to this . I try not to think about it too much. I think when people overanalyze things, it becomes counterproductive. Music should be felt. I go in with an open mind. Sometimes i have a foundation. I will say that writing a blues song that doesnt sound legitimate and not cliche is a very challenging thing to do. Its Pretty Amazing what the forefathers of the blues wrote and were able to accomplish because they lived it. Thats really who they were. So for today to try to write a legitimate sounding blues song that could have been recorded back then with those experiences from these people, i think, is certainly challenging. I wonder if the experiences that we have today which are clearly different from the experiences then but nonetheless challenging for our society, i wonder if the conditions that we live in today, breed or certainly allow for the expression of a different kind of blues song today . Well, i would say some people actually would argue that modern day hip hop or rap music is a modern day interpretation of what blues was. So in that regard, it has. Everything kind of spins off blues music because rock and roll and funk and r b, things like that. All of those spawned the popular music that we know today. I think even in a blues song, you can write a legitimate blues song by things experienced today. The default is to write about a woman who did you wrong. That always works. Thats universal. Universal and always timely. That works. Not just a woman who had done me wrong but these guys back in the day, times were hard. Times are hard for a lot of people today. Absolutely. The thing about blues music is that it comes from the golden age of the blues which was probably from the 1920s to the 19 late 1960s, you know . So thats kind of what a lot of the blues afiexperts, their default. They want to hear things that sound like something that came from back then. You can write about things today but i think if you get too specific to the time it will not have that authenticity to it. Kenny wayne shepherd has wrote a lot of good music. This one called going home. In this he honors a lot the greats that he listened to growing up. Kenny wayne shepherd congratulations on the new project. Thats all for tonight. As always, keep the faith. For more on todays show, visit tavis smiley at pbs. Org. Join me next time for a conversation with joany mitchell and the collection of 53 of her songs. Thats next time. Well see you then. Rose welcome to the program. We begin this evening look, at the incidents in ferguson, missouri, and the decision by the grand jury not to indict. We talk to Michelle Miller of cbs news. Jeff toobin of cnn. And jelanie cobb of the new yorker magazine. The head of the Missouri StateHighway Patrol said last night was a disaster, his words. He mentions the fact that, one, he hopes to never see that kind of response again, and certainly not tonight. The mayor of ferguson has said that the National Guard troops, those that who had been activated by governor jay nixon, the deployment here was woeful. He expected far more National Guardsmen to be out in force. F