The Homelessness Marathon - 23rd-24th February 2011

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The Homelessness Marathon is an annual 14-hour radio broadcast featuring the voices and stories of homeless people from around the United States. It features live call-ins all night long via a national toll-free number and the programming is made available for free to all non-commercial radio, and some TV stations around the USA, on the internet and even internationally. Jeremy Weir Alderson is both founder and prime mover of the Marathon.

On the Homelessness Marathon, the producers talk to many different kinds of people who hold any number of  different views about how to end homelessness. In so doing, a wide diversity of opinion is presented, as well as the stand of the organizers themselves.

Behind the effort is at core the idea that the elimination of poverty is a moral duty for society. They believe that fulfilling this duty makes for a better society and that there are many ways to fulfill this duty, but that all of them should be guided by these principles.

The archives of this year's event - and of all preceding years' events back to 1998 - can be found HERE. If you are unable to listen in real time, there is a wealth of downloadable audio available right there for when you are. 

The interview attached here in this podcast is only one very tiny part of this year's event, an interview with two guests at Denver's daytime residence for the homeless, The St. Francis' Center, and with that entity's Executive Director, Tom Luehrs.