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