In an effort to serve more homeless and hungry people, the group eventually moved to a stationary location in downtown Greensboro, and now, as Greensboro Burrito Bikers nears its one-year anniversary, Holderness and a team of volunteers are feeding 40-50 people on Saturday mornings at 8:00 a.m. on the sidewalk outside of Center City Park at the intersection of Friendly Avenue and Davie Street.  (Update from Hayes: Burrito Bikers fed 65+ people on Saturday, October 23rd!)

Holderness was inspired to begin this feeding ministry after riding along with his brother Tommy’s Burrito Bikers group in Charlotte. After his niece rode with the Greensboro group this past winter, she started a Burrito Bikers group in Chapel Hill, and they’re already making news (here and here).

As Greensboro Burrito Bikers continues to grow and serve more homeless people, they welcome and need volunteers and donors.

Volunteer opportunities include:

• Making breakfast burritos (can be made during the week and frozen)
• Coming out on Saturday mornings to serve and spend time with homeless and hungry breakfast guests

Donate breakfast items:

• Breakfast burritos (or other filling main item, such as breakfast sandwiches/biscuits with eggs and/or meat)
• Bottled water
• Coffee, cups, sugar, creamer
• Bananas
• Snack crackers
• Financial donations (costs about $50 to serve 40 people)

To learn more about Greensboro Burrito Bikers, and how to volunteer and donate, visit their web site and join them on Facebook.

Update — Photos I took when I hung out with Burrito Bikers on 08/28/2010:

Image adapted from Sean Dreilinger's original

A frequently asked question from visitors to this site:

Can crack cocaine come through breast milk?

And the answer? YES.

 

When a breast-feeding mom uses crack cocaine, she may pass the drug on to her baby through her breast milk, with serious effects:

“Convulsions have been seen both in infants of breast-feeding mothers using cocaine and in infants exposed to passive crack smoke inhalation. Because cocaine and its metabolites can be found in breast milk for up to 60 hours after use, breast-feeding is not recommended.”
~ p. 225, “Drug abuse and withdrawal”, S Schechner, Manual of Neonatal Care, Philadelphia, 2004

Drinking crack-cocaine-tainted breast milk can severely damage a baby, and in some cases, may lead to death. (More here.)

Addicted moms? Get help: Find a treatment program or find an NA meeting.

# # # # #

RUCO is under attack by opponents and now is the time that those who support RUCO speak up and let all Council members, not just your district Council person, know how you feel.

The focus of the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress is the preservation and improvements of our neighborhoods in terms of quality of life, property values and safety. As we all know, sub-standard housing undermines surrounding property values — even one substandard property can undermine the property values of an entire neighborhood. Also, we know that sub-standard properties invite crime into our communities.

Other organizations that are partnering in support of the pro-active aspects of RUCO, such as the Greensboro Housing Coalition and the Human Relations Commission, are focused on the human rights issues of improving sub-standard rental properties, in that renters have a right to live in safe housing and that many of them won’t complain about substandard housing out of fear of retaliation from their landlords.

RUCO is a sucessful program

• Since RUCO was implemented, known sub-standard housing in Greensboro has been reduced from 1679 units in 2003 to 705 in 2010;
• Since RUCO was implemented, complaints about sub-standard housing have been decreased 77%;
• Since RUCO was implemented, inspections staff have been reduced by 22%.
• Since RUCO was implemented, inspections staff have been more successful in getting deteriorated housing to the Minimum Housing Commission more quickly and the number to go has steadily increased from 17 in 2003 to 105 in 2010.

RUCO is reasonable

• Once inspected and a certificate is issued, the RUCO is good for the life of the property unless there is a complaint on the property or violations are found during the sampling inspections and not repaired within the prescribed time frame.
• The time frame in which a violation must be repaired is 45 days from the written notice of the violation and can be extended as long as in the judgment of the inspector, progress is being on the repairs.
• The sampling inspection process applies only to a random 2% of rental properties.
• Rental properties that have not yet been inspected that come on the rental market are required to pass inspection and be issued a RUCO before they can be rented.

Opponents of RUCO plan to propose an elimination of the pro-active portions of RUCO, and as they couch it: “target problem properties”. Their proposal will in effect eliminate RUCO. We agree that problem properties should be targeted. However, the Housing Code already provides the means to address the obvious problem properties and the City staff have already done 100% exterior inspections at least once. Moreover, where the staff find indications of violations from the external inspections, they are pursuing internal inspections. However, staff will tell you that you can not know what violations may be present inside a residence solely from an external inspection. It is doubtful that you will see electrical problems from the exterior; or rotting floors, or problems with the heating or air conditioning, etc. The question is: do you want to wait until the problems are apparent in the exterior where they negatively impact your entire community? That’s what the opponents of RUCO are proposing we do.

TAKE ACTION
Click here to send one email all City Council members.
Click here for the City Council directory which provides their home addresses and phone numbers.
Click here to write a letter to the editor at the News and Record.

The Greensboro Housing Coalition also supports keeping RUCO intact and they state the following reasons:

1. RUCO has achieved tremendous improvement in housing safety for problem properties, reducing substandard housing from 1679 units in 2003 to 705 in 2010.
2. Substandard housing conditions impact health; health care and disability costs for NC children hurt by unsafe housing conditions totaled $108,000,000 in 2007.
3. Proactive inspections prevent conditions from sliding below standard, beyond the focus on problem properties. Analogy: waiting for conditions to become big enough problems for people to complain (or inspectors to see from the street) is like waiting for restaurant kitchens to get so dirty that people see rats before the Health Dept sanitarian comes. Wouldn’t you rather have proactive inspections so that restaurants keep kitchens sanitary all the time and that rental properties stay at or above minimum standards?

The Neighborhood Congress and the Greensboro Housing Coalition are, however, interested in improving the administration of the inspections programs and we have offered to assist City management and staff in identifying areas that need improvement and finding procedural and other solutions. However, such administrative improvements do not require that we remove the certification requirements within RUCO.

Three of the Congress participants who are willing to assist you with your questions about RUCO and/or drafting your comments are: Laura Jackson, Michael Pendergraft, and David Wharton.

Follow-up info:

What are the proactive components of RUCO?

There are basically 2 such components:

1. RUCO currently calls for all properties that are newly placed on the rental market to be inspected and certified before they can be rented. This does not apply to new construction rentals or rentals that go through major renovations, because new construction and major renovations have to be inspected anyway and RUCO certification is therefore assumed.
2. RUCO also currently requires that City staff inspect a random 2% sampling of all rental properties – regardless of whether they have previously received a RUCO certification. However, once a property has received a RUCO, it is good for the life of the property unless the property falls into the 2% sampling or the resident of the property files a complaint.

Written by Donna Newton, Greensboro Neighborhood Congress