Homelessness, 8th Street Pizza's move, Clean Socks Hope's mission and an addendum by Exit 0.

It's the building at 141 East Main Street, the former Liz at Home and more recently GrayStone Performance, located right across the street from the Reisz Mahal (new city hall). Let's dive right in. These links are to Facebook; the website is here.

Clean Socks Hope & 8th Street Pizza, in New Albany, IN, is the area's only pay-it-forward pizzeria serving serving Floyd, Harrison and Clark counties since 2007.

We are a nonprofit organization offering hand tossed pizzas, desserts, drinks, dine-in and carry out service, games and much more. Delivery available via DoorDash app. For your next pizza craving, visit Clean Socks Hope & 8th Street Pizza in New Albany.

Clean Socks Hope's mission is described here.

We believe that God created all people, including the poor with the ability to help themselves and others. That means that we do not fall into the routine perpetual feeding and clothing programs of those around us, but equip those we serve with the skills that will create self-worth and self-sufficiency that can change the lives of men, women and children for generations to come.

Yesterday our friend Andrew began spreading the word that 8th Street Pizza will be moving to 141 East Main Street.

8th Street Pizza is moving locations from midtown to downtown New Albany. Some businesses like Pints&union, Wick's New Albany, The Earl, and 1816 Modern Kitchen & Drinks have supported their mission of feeding the homeless in New Albany.

Now 8th Street Pizza has seen an influx of NEW homeless people in Downtown New Albany and really wants to help the downtown area. They are moving to 141 East Main Street. The focus will still be an outreach location but will also serve late-night New York Style Pizza by the slice.

Jeffrey S. Minton is the man behind Clean Socks Hope and 8th Street Pizza and wanted me to help spread the word to the new neighbors in downtown and I figured this would be one of the best methods.

The "Share a Slice" campaign has been a kick and they look to expand it by offering a "Share A Slice" Wall that anyone can donate to and take from. No questions asked...

If you haven't heard of the amazing nonprofit pizza place, then please take the time to get a piece of 8th Street Pizza soon. I'll even share a slice with you!

So far, so good. NA Confidential doesn't do Christianity, but we broadly support this pizza-driven outreach, and the building in question might conceivably be more than just a pizzeria; the building's most recent owner installed dorm rooms upstairs. When I saw them, I thought: youth hostel.

Interestingly, this is one of those infrequent times when food and social issues actively collide, because to put it bluntly, City Hall's stance on homelessness is as clear as alluvial mud -- not at all clean like white socks. Ronald Reagan famously avoided saying the word "AIDS" aloud; Jeff Gahan's bugaboo is the word "homelessness," as he doesn't communicate well and as a suburbanite generally avoids topics he finds personally distasteful.

It hasn't been very long (July) since Gahan's homeless encampment demolition debacle.

Exit 0's Paul Stensrud pulls zero punches v.v. Gahan's violence against the homeless: "In order for things to change there needs to be a change of hands within local government."

It appears that Jeff Gahan is as adept at co-opting the Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana as he has been in snookering Purported Progressives into hand-feeding him grapes. Gahan has picked a side he can control; if Dear Leader could bulldoze Exit Zero as a concept, then he'd do that, too.

Gahan is pathology, not policy.

Consequently, and eerily paralleling 8th Street Pizza's moving announcement, Exit 0 posted this commentary yesterday on Facebook.

We went scouting in New Albany today and found new signage to keep the homeless out of the town and several needles discarded off of a public trail. But the city continues to claim they do not have a drug addiction or homelsssness problem. Why make up signage and ban tents if we have no issue? Welcome to making homelessness illegal in New Albany. The needles were cleaned up so someone in the community does not get hurt. Continue to pray for our community.

NA Confidential supports Clean Socks Hope, 8th Street Pizza and Exit 0, and quite frankly, major league stones are required for anyone to set up a program of homeless outreach at a site directly across from the mayor's new showpiece City Hall.

This fascinating juxtaposition stands to be very interesting indeed, especially as we approach the election. Wouldn't it be good if Gahan chose to issue a public statement of support for what Clean Socks Hope and 8th Street Pizza is trying to do downtown?

Exit 0's Paul Stensrud pulls zero punches v.v. Gahan's violence against the homeless: "In order for things to change there needs to be a change of hands within local government."

It appears that Jeff Gahan is as adept at co-opting the Homeless Coalition of Southern Indiana as he has been in snookering Purported Progressives into hand-feeding him grapes. Gahan has picked a side he can control; if Dear Leader could bulldoze Exit Zero as a concept, then he'd do that, too.

Gahan is pathology, not policy.

Watch the video, and ponder the true nature of Gahan's "compassion." Has a single ranking Democrat spoken publicly about the housing camp demolition?

DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party chairman releases stunning statement about Gahan's violent homeless encampment takedown today -- and more on our Dear Leader's drumpf envy.

Industry and compassion? Hardly. Jeff Gahan refers to public housing as a "compound." He has prisons on the brain, not affordable housing.

Does a New Albany homeless encampment by Silver Creek exist if a blind mayor can't see it?

Harvest Homelessness in New Albany: Who do you believe, Mayor Gahan or your own two eyes?

Exit 0 didn't mince words today: "Yes, homelessness is real in New Albany." For Jeff Gahan's alternative Pollyanna point of view, let's rewind to this newspaper report from 2016.

SATURDAY SPOTLIGHT: New Albany Homeless population struggles to cope, by Aprile Rickert (Kaleidoscopic Tom May)

Local officials notice growing number of homeless

 ... Not everyone agrees on the scope of the problem.

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan’s office sent an email to the News and Tribune addressing queries about homelessness in New Albany Gahan stated in the release that homelessness is not something to take lightly, but that is not a large issue in New Albany.

“Anytime someone is homeless without a safe place for the night, it’s a serious issue for those individuals,” the email states. “However, the data does not support an assertion that New Albany has a homeless problem.”

Except that in 2016, the data didn't support Gahan's blindness optimism.

The Indiana Housing Community and Development Authority (IHCDA) reported that through point-in-time counts from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), when homeless individuals are literally counted on the streets, Floyd County had 74 homeless counted in early 2016, alongside an estimated total population of 76,668 for 2015. This translates to .09 percent homeless in Floyd County as compared to 5,863 or .08 percent homeless in the state, according to IHCDA, which reports a 2 percent drop in homelessness in Indiana from 2014 to 2015.

In light of what has occurred in New Albany since Rickert's article first appeared, the most appropriate word is "surreal."

The City of New Albany has worked in recent years to provide safer and more affordable housing, the mayor’s email states, operating more than 1,100 homes through the New Albany Housing Authority — more than Charlestown, Clarksville and Jeffersonville combined.

In early 2017, just a few months after praising the housing capacity of the New Albany Housing Authority, Gahan staged a hostile takeover of NAHA, announcing a non-negotiable goal of eliminating half of these "1,100 homes" -- which he'd told Rickert was the single best reason to believe homelessness doesn't exist in New Albany.

Was he lying, or confused like a duck hit on the head?

The City has also initiated a rental registration program to ensure that the 40 percent rented homes in New Albany are regulated for safety.

Um, no.

Not at all.

The program is registration only, utterly without enforcement teeth. Seems Gahan took significant factual liberties with the newspaper's reporter, then acted in a manner (the NAHA putsch) almost guaranteed to increase a homelessness problem that he refuses to believe exists.

And, to place an exclamation mark on all this, Gahan's ongoing "solution" for housing insecurity in New Albany remains the one alternative consistently proven time and again to be inadequate: housing vouchers (more here).

IamHoosier provides the best coda.

Indeed. The homeless have come nowhere near Axis Architecture and Interiors as it pertains to thanking the mayor for everything he's done on their behalf.