Third World America … Can You Look Away?

When I was growing up in Northern California in the early 60s to late 70s, we didn’t know about “homeless” people.

In Chico & Redding, where I grew up, we certainly didn’t see a lot of them. Not lining the doorways, wandering the streets with shopping carts full of their meager belongings, nor sleeping in the streets.

What I now know were homeless, were then called “hobos” or “drunks” by my parents and their friends — making it sound as if these men — for we never saw women and children in this predicament — chose this “lifestyle” and, in some cases, romanticized it — like “riding the rails.”

According to Jim Peth and other homeless advocates, it’s just not that way.

On Saturday, April 17, I was fortunate enough to see the first installment of Costa Mantis‘ mini-series, Searching for Safe Ground, called “Third World America,” profiling life on the streets of Sacramento.

As the people in the film were interviewed said, none of them were “prepared” to become homeless. In fact, many of them, on their way to work each morning, would see the homeless and think to themselves, “what losers,” and “why don’t they just get a job?”

But, today, with the nation’s unemployment hovering at 10 percent, and Sacramento’s at more than 12 percent, losing one’s job is an ever-present reality. And losing one’s job more than often means losing one’s shelter.

“I never thought I’d be out here,” said one man, who is a warehouseman by trade. He had a good job for 20 years — then, boom — no job, and no house. Then he lost his son. The experience threw him for a loop; and threw him out onto the streets.

“But why do we have to SEE it, this homelessness?” you ask. “Isn’t that what the shelters are for?”

Well, as I’ve mentioned in this space before, there are several problems with that. First, and foremost — there just aren’t enough shelter beds. Period.

Second — the rules of the shelters are very constricting — rules like, 1) you must check in no later than 3 p.m. or you lose your bed for the night.

Small price to pay, you say?

Well, you try conducting your life on someone else’s time clock and see if you can 1) get around (usually w/no private transportation); 2) do the things you need to do during the day — like see the doctor, go to job training or even go to work, fill out job applications or rental applications — or even do laundry — and hoof it back over to Cal Expo on the other side of town in time for 3 p.m. sign-in.

[Are you surprised that some homeless people work? Yes, it's true. You can hold down a job, and still not amass enough money to make first & last month's rent, plus a deposit, to move into your own place. So people continue to live on the street.]

Another problem with the shelters that the homeless have to contend with is fighting and intimidation — and sleeping next to strangers. You see, at the shelter, they put you into dormitory-style bunk-bed housing, and you’re unable to choose your bunkmates. (Unlike the Safe Ground “camping” situation, where homeless residents set up camps in close-knit family-style units, where they know their neighbors.)

“I never saw any fighting problems until I came out here,” said one man identifying as Reno, talking about his experience at one of the shelters.

I’m not suggesting they do away with the shelters. I’m simply saying that shelters are for “temporary emergencies” — and the homeless problem is not a “temporary” one.

So, what to do?

Clearly, what Sacramento has tried thus far hasn’t worked.

Sister Libby Fernandez of Loaves & Fishes said that she and others won’t stop fighting until there is “safe ground” for homeless people to sleep on at night without fear of reprisal — ie: being forced to move on from said location by the city, as its done since it shut down Tent City exactly one year and one day ago.

The city’s illegal camping ordinance, which prohibits outdoor camping on both private and public property for more than 24 hours (thus making even overnight Scouting trips illegal, although no Boy Scout troop has ever been cited), is, in short, applied arbitrarily, and criminalizes people for being poor.

As one minister interviewed for the film said, securing an outdoor space — ie: “safe ground” — isn’t the end-all, be-all solution for homelessness in Sacramento. We all know that permanent housing is needed. But until that can be accomplished, and until there are more and better methods for housing the homeless, “safe ground” is a good start.

As we heard in Mantis’ film, the city has only been obstructionists when it comes to allowing the homeless to gather and rest their heads in a safe place. At one point last year, before Tent City was dismantled, a private company bought and paid for 10 Porta-Johns to be placed in and around the location — free of charge to the city.

The city ordered them removed. Then it complained that Tent City had too much refuse.

Later, when civil rights attorney Mark Merin offered his private property as a place where homeless residents could set up camp, he was cited by police, acting at the behest of the city.

Seems like the city just wants its homeless to go away. But go away to where?

As one homeless resident said, “These people WERE somebody…ARE somebody. There’s welders, secretaries, lawyers, a waitress… nobody planned to become homeless. But we’re here.”

One wonders how Mayor Kevin Johnson would treat Jesus in Jesus’ day for sleeping outside?

Look at it another way: Do you feel it is a right or a privilege to lay your head down and sleep every night?

There, but for the grace of God, go I.

Until next time.

Keep the faith.
AY

The Invisibles…SN&R, Apr. 15, 2010

Read The Invisibles here.

Good editors know when to step in & take a little extra time making the precision cut. RV Scheide did that for this article. I thank him.

Until next time.
Keep the faith.

AY

Searching for Safe Ground // Homeless in Sacramento

I’ve wanted to get this poem out to the public since I first heard it spoken prior to the film premiere of Costa Mantis’ “Searching for Safe Ground,” March 31, 2010, at the Guild Theater in Oak Park.

Spoken word poet & Sacramento resident Jovi Radtke so moved me, and the audience, with her heartfelt and powerful words, I knew they deserved a larger audience.

Unfortunately, due to space constrictions, we were unable to republish the poem in its entirety along with my upcoming story on Safe Ground **Look for it April 15 in SN&R ** so I‘m publishing it here. May it move you, as it moved me.

“Safe Ground”

This isn’t who I am
This is what I’ve been handed
Now branded the cancer of society
In this cliched, cliquey suffering from social sobriety
In a community blindingly deciding to write me off as a nuisance
So let me instill the reality I feel
I am a human
Born to the same day, night and sun
So why is it I feel this struggle of mine can’t be felt by everyone
Yesterday I was you
I had my 9-5 to keep me in good supply of all the necessities to get by
I had clean clothes to wear
Those same mundane problems to bear
And people behind me to care
So now as I strive to stay alive
I arrive at this road alone
Those memories of yesterday I hold deep
I try to keep safely unknown
Because it seems

I can’t speak appropriately of how quickly it took for me to call some ground my home
My head lies down on this open possible street
Where once I found peace and sanity
Within this vast open blanket of humanity
This same place that kept my sleep safe
Is now irreversibly moved from place to place
And while I lay cold
Still without a face to conjure recognition
From the eyes of political persistence
That can only envision a way
To pave the roads toward their own recognition
So this time
I’ll write my own headline
And it reads:
Please hear this
I am homeless
Not hopeless
My focus is not to impede or cause strife
I just want that normal back in life
But I can never know this
If I can’t get through
One safe night

– Jovi Radtke

**All rights reserved

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As you will read in the SN&R and in this space in the coming weeks, the problem with homelessness in Sacramento is untenable and can’t be addressed fully by shelters and transitional housing. Why? First, because we simply don’t have enough of it. Even with the city and county weighing in with new “rapid rehousing” efforts and additional shelter beds, they simply don’t have enough to house the some 1,200 men, women & children that sleep outside every night in Sacramento County. (Source: SHOC (Sacramento Housing Organizing Committee; Loaves & Fishes; SHRA (Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Association.)

Secondly — and probably most perplexing — is the city of Sacramento’s staunch refusal to back off its “illegal camping” ordinance, which makes it illegal for ANYONE to sleep outside for 24 hours. What does this mean for the homeless?

It means that in Sacramento, you’re criminalized for being poor.

Because, if you don’t have a place to, quite simply, PUT YOUR STUFF, during the day, where it won’t get messed with, how on earth are you expected to GET YOUR LIFE TOGETHER and attend to daily duties, such as: making your doctor appointments, or getting your meds refilled, or going on job interviews, or TAKING A SHOWER, or any of the multitude of tasks that most of us with roofs over our heads take for granted.

But this illegal camping ordinance is applied arbitrarily to punish the poor. Why? Because I would bet my next paycheck that NO BOY SCOUT leader who wants to give his scouts the experience of a weekend camping trip ON HIS OWN PROPERTY would ever be cited for breaking this law — EVEN THO HE’S IN CLEAR VIOLATION.

When I asked the assistant city manager about this, she was, as you might suspect, dumbstruck, and didn’t have an answer.

Safe Ground — the homeless advocacy organization — is in the middle of a lawsuit against the city, attempting to strike down this most discriminatory of ordinances. It’s already won it’s suit against the county for $500,000 for the destruction of property (homeless residents’ property that was taken and destroyed while they were camping along the river) and payouts are expected to begin next month.

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For more information go to Safe Ground Sacramento.

Until next time –

Keep the faith.

AY