PTH'ers from NYC are visiting homeless communities and organizers in Hungary.  Here's another dispatch, about a community of homeless people that live in the forest: <img src="/home/pictur11/public_html/blog/files/image/sherwood.jpg" alt="" /

* BRANDON [August 5]: We&rsquo;ve spent a couple of days in Budapest, and have had the opportunity to visit some drop-in/day centers and shelters.  We&rsquo;ve learned that these institutions have a lot of social services for people -- and we&rsquo;ve heard many things from the viewpoint of social workers who mean really well and work really hard to provide the services that homeless people need.The one thing that was missing was actually hearing the voices from the communities that are most affected. That changed today when we visited the Forest People, who have named their community Sherwood&rdquo; after the legend of Robin Hood, the folk hero who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. They live near a suburb of Budapest where folks have been living for more than six years.</p><p>It&rsquo;s a real community.&nbsp;

They cooked dinner for us. We heard from them about Sherwood, how they ran their space. There was a degree of freedom and autonomy that I don&rsquo;t believe exists in the shelters and drop-in/day centers. The homeless that stay in those institutions that we visited rarely made eye contact, and felt really uncomfortable with us taking pictures of them and the space in which they lived.&nbsp; The feeling in Sherwood is very different.  We noticed that people in Sherwood had a degree of pride that we didn't see in the places that were run by the state. This space was inter-generational, with youth, adults and elders all sharing it together. They even had pet dogs that ate the scraps of food that we didn't eat.

The degree of self-determination and autonomy that the Sherwood people have is really inspiring. This was a space that was truly theirs, a space that was built with love. This gives us hope that the next time we take a space, we'll be able to provide support for homeless New Yorkers to create community, and also put similar practices in motion.

"/home/pictur11/public_html/blog/files/image/guy.jpg" alt="" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img src="/home/pictur11/public_html/blog/files/image/folk.jpg" alt="" /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img src="/home/pictur11/public_html/blog/files/image/sherwood(2).jpg" alt="" /><br />&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>