Erich is co-founder of Rainbow Hope for Hathian, a nonprofit that will raise money from little old ladies, guilty hipsters, foundations, corporations and the government, to rejuvenate Hathian. Here is its website, under development: http://rainbowhopeforhathian.weebly.com/ (still working on it; I'll be adding my own pictures and more information): I got the idea for Erich from this story http://www.fastcompany.com/3007840/creative-conversations/how-young-community-entrepreneurs-rebuilding-detroit

So Erich has a record of violent crime as a youth but matured and became a conman and journalist. His latest effort is to set up a nonprofit that he will claim to government agencies is going to revitalize Hathian in its modest way through jobs programs, environmental sustainability initiatives, youth self-esteem programs, and all other sort of buzzwords. He can interact with the natives by trying to make them accomplices and hopefully, like in the magazine article, his buildings get burned down a lot 🙂

Erich is going to scam his funders like crazy, but please don't assume that he's a conman when you first meet him (even though he might well be)

This is his official bio from the website: God knows if any of it is true. Feel free to ask him.

Erich Strauss is the executive director and CEO of Rainbow Hope for Hathian. Erich learned how to empower others the hard way, while serving hard time in a state penitentiary. Through extensive study of the works and teachings of Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Jesus, Adi Da Samraj, Arnold Shapiro, Jerry Garcia, Timothy Leary, Mary Lou Retton and others, Erich came to realize that his mission was to help others. Upon release, he called upon his own experience as a wayward youth to help turn young people around and started the Scared Wobbly Foundation of Pittsburgh, which reduced recidivism rates among juvenile offenders by 43 percent, and then the People Leading People to Lead People Toward People Foundation in inner city Houston which was the subject of a 60 Minutes segment and reported recidivism rates of less than 10 percent. Strauss has served on the boards of several housing and finance non profit groups including Rebuilding Together and the Economic Development Board of Winsgate, Minn. Most recently, he was administrator of youth programs for the San Francisco Housing Authority when he met Rainbow.