good evening from los angeles. travis smiley. first a conversation about homelessness in america 50 years after it was first announced. he's also written homeless organizer art, we will turn to a conversation with blues guitarist kenny wayne shepherd whose latest cd pays tributes to the greats like bb king, muddy waters and those conversations coming up right now. ♪ ♪

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 it's 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 we're coming to the hoi holidays, we tend to be the darlin darlings. other than that, we're always someone else. we're always drug addicts or mentally ill or alcoholics.

the key being we're 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 ain't 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 don't mean him personally. i mean his administration. now if you don't have a job that

doesn't count as unemployed. if you're not in a edd program or collecting unemployment. they change the way they count something and the numbers go down. that's 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 you're speaking to now paul is clearly we're not getting an accurate picture of how bad homelessness is in the country. >> and i think that's 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 hasn't 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 don't have a place to go to that night and

it pops up as a crisis because it's being misidentified. i'm not naïve in asking this question obviously but what's the value, obviously to be gained from is suppressing the number from the government. >> the pretense is that you're 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. there's a whole bureaucracy that has been created around doing what they call point in time head counts. that's 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 that's any kind of meaningful

analysis or will give you any kind of meaningful data. it givens you the pretense oh, look we're doing something. we're 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. it's sauch a great tag line. it's an amazing tag line accept that it's not a funded program. it's a public relations program. it's a concept. to say that we're 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. i've 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 it's 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 didn't 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 it's 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 don't 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 don't even care about people who have had homes over the last six or eight years who have lost their homes and they haven't really mattered? i've 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 doesn't 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 you're screwing people over from mexico and south america or

screwing over native-americans, if you're 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 doesn't make a profit for the company then it isn't 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 that's in the housing report and in everything we put out is the cause and affect. the stuff they put out won't solve homelessness and poverty and won't solve the race and class problem that's 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. >> it's 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 there's 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. >> that's 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. i'm 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 wasn't for them, i wouldn't 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 anybody's 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 you're so young and you don't necessarily comprehend what the song is about, you can still feel it. blues is all about feeling especially straight from the

heart. that's 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. that's all stuff that blues or music in general -- that's why we just got from europe and we played in a lot of countries where there's probably a lot of people who don't speak english there. they probably don't know the words to their songs but they were there because they feel it and enjoy it. i think that's why they call it the universal language. >> now does a white kid in louisiana not get intimidating by what he's 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 didn't see race. i didn't grow up in that environment. now, it certainly existed. tore for me, i didn't see color. i didn't think you had to be black or white or any race to play blues. i still don't 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 we're given. it's my responsibility to introduce something positive to the world. i didn't really see it as a black and white thing. i was drawn towards doing it and i just did it. >> yeah. when you say it's your mission to lean towards the positive side of the blues. what do you mean by that? does that mean you're looking more critically and carefully at your lyrical choices? what does that mean? >> well, blues has a bad rap

with people who aren't familiar with it. they dismiss it as negative music and it's all about feeling sorry for yourself. i actually think some of the younger people maybe in the african-american community, the black community don't embrace the blues because they think that's from the past but to me the music is very relevant today. it's very current. it's 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 there's too much music currently that takes people to negative places and glorifies a lot of bad things. i feel like there's 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 i'm going to add to this? >> i try not to think about it too much. i think when people overanalyze

things, it becomes counter-productive. 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 doesn't sound legitimate and not cliche is a very challenging thing to do. it's pretty amazing what the forefathers of the blues wrote and were able to accomplish because they lived it. that's 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. >> that's 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 that's 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. that's all for tonight. as always, keep the faith. ♪ ♪ ♪ for more on today's 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. that's next time. we'll 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 state highway 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