From My Homelessness Journal - 2014

When I finally Found a Job and Shelter

On September 8^th 2014 I was hired by the Downtown Emergency Service Center. DESC, as it is called by everyone downtown, is a non-profit organization that provides housing and case management services to mentally ill persons who are chronically homeless.   I suppose it should have been a watershed event in my life, but it wasn't. I was still homeless and I wasn't sure how I would handle getting off work every night and not having any place to go and rest my head.  On my third day of work, I left the office at 5:00 pm and spent most of the night on Capitol Hill until a security guard at Seattle Central Community College made me leave. Earlier that day I had lunch with a YWCA homeless Intervention program specialist, Jennifer.  Prior to this meeting we had good rapport and had a conversation about how bad the affordable housing programs were in Seattle.  Our great rapport seemed to end rather abruptly when she found out I had problems the last time I received help from the YWCA to get an apartment through a program called the Landlord Liaison Program. 

 

At the end of our lunch she offered to give me some bus tickets and I accepted.  We agreed to meet at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill to get me the tickets.  When she arrived late I could tell something was wrong. She was short and seemed to have a whole different attitude and I realized someone had told her some crap about what happened with my ex-girlfriend and my initial experience with the Landlord Liasion Project.  I took the tickets, which I needed so the whole thing wasn't a total loss but I knew she would no longer be of any help to me.  That assumption turned out to be true.  The next e-mail I received from her said her boss told her that I could not get into the LLP again and she gave me some reason that I knew was bullshit.  Any respect I had for her was gone and I didn't care.  All of my emails since have been somewhat cold.  All I need from her at this point is a voucher for a pair of glasses and I might not even be able to get those.  Whatever.  I continued my personal boycott of the homeless shelters downtown.  Instead, I went to my regular spot on Capitol Hill and enjoyed what seemed like an endless summer and played some hoops. I really don't understand the "Carrot and Stick" method of servicing the homeless in Seattle. You make one mistake in some program and that's it, you er done. Folks don't seem to realize that homeless guys like me are going to make mistakes before we get it right. That is some of what got us out here on the street in the first place.

 

I think I've lost about 5 lbs. since I started playing hoop every day.  When I am outside in the sun I cannot help but to feel like this nightmare will soon be over. I know that sooner or later I will find housing if I don't give up, get arrested or do anything really stupid. I come to work on time everyday, I do my best, but I am not doing as well as I thought I would. I have trouble with doing administrative tasks that need to be done in chronological order.  Today I admitted to my co-worker, Twinel that I was homeless.  The funny thing about it was that I actually had to feign being embarrassed and uncomfortable about it.  I've been out here in the streets so long now that I'm just not embarrassed about it anymore. It is what it is. Twinel seemed more uncomfortable about it than I was saying to her.  After I was kicked out of the Seattle Central Community College park I went downtown.  It was late. I walked downtown to find another place to sleep.  The weather had been getting slightly colder at night so I was a bit more anxious to find a place to go instead of walking around for hours trying to find the perfect place – as if there is one. 

 

As I am walking around downtown I notice other homeless people milling around or asking for money. They are like ghosts - lifeless and hopeless. Some of them are loud and try to get attention from the "regulars"(regular people) who calmly ignore them or walk around them like they are a dead carcass on the ground. Most of them smell like a carcass, yet they don't seem to care. I cannot understand that level of hopelessness. It's as if they have simply told themselves that this is where it ends for them. There is this guy I've seen on the street and in the shelters that hold up a sign that has some biblical scripture on it. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing positive about a homeless person holding a sign lauding himself as an example of what Christianity is supposed to do for you. I consider myself a Christian too, but I do not understand how that is in any way a testimony to the world of why a person should become a Christian. A couple of days ago I almost got into a fight with a white woman who became upset when I made a comment about I thought I would not be in the shelter lines next summer. She said I didn't have a fucking clue where I would be in a year. I told her maybe she didn't know where she would be, but I knew that I would have housing and might be giving her my spare change somewhere in the "Blade" by the way she looked. Then I called her a lazy, uneducated bitch. She yelled something about me not saying that if her boyfriend was here and I told her I was willing to patiently wait until he got back and he and I could talk about it. He never came back and I didn't have to beat anyone up that day.

 

10-17-14

I've been living in a “transitional” clean and sober house for about two weeks now.  After a brief stay at a homeless shelter with beds called Peter's Place, the director (who initially got me into the place) offered me a bed here and I promptly took him up on the offer. The room is one of five in the basement of a house located in unincorporated King County somewhere between Burien and Tukwila.  When I moved in I must admit it was a good feeling, but also somewhat anti-climactic because I'm just too old to get excited about living with five other guys and sharing a living space with other people. The room came pre-furnished with a bed a dresser, a book-case, a decent closet, and a night-stand. It does feel good to actually place my clothes in a dresser and hang up my dress shirts again.  I haven't done that in five years.  I've learned the bus routs to work and I've quickly jumped back into the hustle and bustle of working life and commuting via Metro.  The director of this transitional house is a man named Alfred White. I still sleep on the floor sometimes and that seems very strange to me that it sometimes feels more comfortable than sleeping in a bed. 

 

Alfred is an interesting man. He runs three transitional houses, and is trying to create a new mental health program that he thinks will be more effective than the Housing First model utilized by DESC.  He was once a strung-out crack-head and street thug who turned his life around.  His story is actually very interesting.  He's very motivated and appears to know what he wants to accomplish.  Alfred has asked me to be the house manager for this house and I accepted.  Ironically, I'm still drinking. Stopped smoking weed though.  While I was homeless and working, I was smoking a lot of weed.  I supposed “a lot” is a relative term, but it was a lot as far as I'm concerned.  I don't need to do it now, so I don't.  Working and getting a paycheck is so new to me.  I got my first check for $825.00 and yes, I went hog-wild buying stuff. Spent the entire check in two weeks. My second check I bought a car – 1986 Pontiac Fiero SE.  It's a beater. I paid $850.00 for the car and am hoping to get at least that when I trade it in on something else in a few weeks.  It has taken me five years to get almost back to where I was before all this shit happened to me.  I don't have a job making 36K a year, but it feels like it because I don't have Micah  (my ex-wife) to pay for anymore. 

From My Homelessness Journal - 2014

9-24-14

 

Through what might be called at the least a coincidence, I find myself sitting here writing this entry from one of the best if not the best homeless shelter in the city.  A week ago I went to the Central District to find a marijuana store I had heard of from a homeless guy in the park in China Town, I As I wrote the email I heard three people having a conversation behind me that kept mentioning the word “housing.”  I waited to the appropriate time and then jumped into their conversation and told them I was looking for housing and that I was homeless.  I said those exact same words several years back when Carlton Jones went to eat in a restaurant in China Town and I over-heard people talking about housing. I did the same thing this time only it was me alone this time.  That was over two years ago and I've been homeless all this time since then.  There were three people sitting behind me – two black men, and a black woman.  It just so happened that one of the men was the executive director of a transitional housing organization, and the other man was the head coordinator of the shelter from where I am writing this entry. 

 

I got into the shelter on Steve's word without having to go through a place called Night Watch The shelter itself is more open than most other shelters.  As you walk through the front entrance, a wide area opens up with long eating tables and chairs and a big flat screen tv rests on the back wall.  The wi-fi code is plainly written on a large chalk-board to the left of the entrance, and they actually have what are called “night-plates” Night plates are plates of food from whatever was for dinner and placed in a large refrigerator for people who might be working late!!!.  It is fairly clean (except for the fruit flies) and they seem to have an organized way of doing things. The entire staff is black, and the man in charge seems very personable and friendly, but like most older black men, he looks like he's also ready to get in your face if necessary. 

 

The ethnic break-down is some like 70% african-american, 30% white and the rest Hispanic.  I think this place is very new.  My guess would be it has been open for about a year.  Also, it bears pointing out in particular, that the mattresses are very thick as far as shelter mattresses go.  When you're homeless, finding a thick mattress to sleep on is like finding money.  No hip pains, no knee pains, and no elbow pains.  They say you get used to the thin mattress like in jail, but I never got used to it in jail, and I don't think I am ever going to get used to it in a shelter.  Subsequent to the conversation with Steve Curry (coordinator of this shelter), I decided to give Pete's place a try.  As I walked to the shelter Steve stopped, picked me up and gave me a ride the rest of the way to the shelter. I feel kind of special because I don't have to do the whole night watch thing.  Tonight was a little wiered because when I arrived at the shelter I had expected Steve to call ahead and tell them I was going to be staying until Sunday, but they had not heard from Steve when I asked them about it.  I waited for about 15 minutes and then one of the shelter workers answered a phone call.  Next thing I know he's telling me that Steve got me into this place permanently!! On top of that, Steve and I had discussed earlier that on Sunday we would go see the Transitional housing place and I could decide whether or not I wanted to pay the 450.00 per month they are asking.  As I am recounting all of this stuff I realized that this is very good news.  It would be excellent if the transitional housing place was comfortable enough for me. 

A couple of things worth mentioning.  After the Emerging Advocates class trip to Olympia, me and Ben Mischk had coffee and talked about policy, my career plans, and just life in general. We also ended up discussing a possible position in Olympia as a congressional aid's assistant. I didn't think I would hear back from him but today I received an email saying he had talked with the congressional aid about me and she wants to meet me.  According to Ben, it pays more enough to live on modestly (I wonder what “modest” means to Ben), but I bet it pays more than I am making now or at least similar (without Lucas, Antonio, some nigga I almost got into a fight with today) and a slew of other mentally-ill clients at DESC.  After a brief discussion over the phone about the position and the congressional aid and the congressman, Ben said he would email me the link to the Senators web page.  After getting up on the internet and checking my email for a response to my email to Edgar (which I will talk about later) I surfed to the senator's web page and examined his credentials: Harvard grad, Yale law school grad Sum  Cum Laude, a supreme court internship, and years of experience working for Bill Gates' father's law firm... And he lives on Capitol Hill....with his husband and two kids!!!  My initial reaction was shock, then amazement, then I thought of Ben Mischk.  I'm fairly certain Ben doesn't think I'm gay, so maybe there is some kind of agenda behind his choice of senator.  If that is too paranoid, maybe it's just an opportunity that happened to open up (sounds naïve). It also goes completely against my religious beliefs. 

 

I don't know how comfortable I will be supporting a gay senator's legislation supporting LGBQT legislation.  I would be putting my career above what I believe about God.  To the notion that God is leadingme in all that I do as a christian I have to express some doubt. However, God also put Joseph in Egypt and in Potifer's house – not what I would consider a great career move on Joseph's part except for the fact that he ended up ruling the entire house and becoming a great leader in all of Egypt.  I know I'm no Joseph, but I don't put anything past God or the devil anymore. 

 

The criminalization of Homelessness

A story from my Homelessness Journal

 

At any one time in this country there are 6 million homeless men, women and children. As one might think, most homeless people are located in the urban areas of every major city in the US.  My story begins – and ends in Seattle, Washington. On September 19^th 2009 at 4:30 pm I became homeless for the first time in my life.  After being arrested for a bogus Domestic Violence charge (and for which I was eventually exonerated) I walked out of the King County Jail wearing the clothes I was arrested in and could not go home because my now ex-wife had filed a no-contact order with the court while I was in jail awaiting my arraignment. I have not been home since.  Everything I owned was either thrown away or given away by my ex-wife. I lost my car, my apartment, my clothes, family pictures, furniture, and my dignity.

 

 All of these events happened within a two week time period.  It is indeed a rare and shocking feeling to walk out of a county jail and not have any money, no one to come and get you, and no place to go if someone did. After the initial shock of my circumstances wore off, (and I want to stress the word initial because I am still shocked every morning I wake up in some park or alley) I began to feel angry.  Not at my ex-wife so much as at myself for allowing this to happen in the first place.  That day was the first day of a five year Odyssey of homelessness that is still playing out at the time of this writing.  Not much has changed since that first day, but I have learned a lot about myself and social service network in King County that I did not know prior to this experience.  But even now – at this moment, writing this journal I don't know where I will be sleeping tonight. However, back in those early years of homelessness, I had a couple of friends – including the mother of my now 16 year old son, who helped me and gave me a place to sleep on many a cold night.  In fact, I am quite sure I would not be sitting here at the Convention Center writing this if it had not been for the great hospitality of my son's mother Karen, who allowed me to live with her for free for on two occasions; the first was for almost a year and the second for over a year.  Her help saved my life, no doubt about it.

It has been said that if you look close enough, everyone's life is an amazing story.  If that is true, I believe that every homeless person's story is even more amazing. The face of homelessness is not what it was 10 years ago. There are, however, some iconic images of homelessness that are still the same – the bum on the street wearing old tattered clothes asking passers-by for spare change. Those people are still out there- everywhere, but the modern homeless person could look just like you.

 

The Night Jacob Gave me a Pillow

 

By late July 2012 I'd gotten very tired of sleeping in the downtown Shelters.  One of the things I hated most about shelters was having to show up at 7:00 pm when the weather was hot and the days were long.  I'd slept outside for three days in a row having made a decision to let the weather decide my night time destination.  If it was hot, or stayed warm at night I'd sleep outside, if it was colder, I would sleep in the shelter.  The problem with that strategy was once I made a decision not to stand in line at the shelter, I couldn't change my mind. The shelters are always full and they rarely have room for someone who was not in line once the doors shut for the night.  On the fourth day in a row sleeping outside, it was around 85 degrees and the downtown corridor was gearing up for Seattle's annual torchlight parade.  I watched the empty floats and carriages go by that would later hold happy, waiving hands, being pulled by loping horses past their prime.

The previous night I'd slept at a construction site where a massive apartment complex was in the early stages of development.  This was one of most dangerous and scary experiences I ever had being homeless.  It was about 11:00 PM and I had spent the day at the park playing basketball and watching people do what they do when they are not homeless.  After a brief survey of the construction site, I climbed the six-foot cyclone fence and warily walked into the first open doorway I saw. The inner part of the buildings were only frames of what would become living spaces for those who could afford the rent. Nails and other building materials were scattered in a kind of organized chaos that made sense only to those hired to erect the structures.  There was no glass in the windows yet, and the place smelled of freshly cut wood and roofer's tar.  I'd drank some beer earlier so I thought once I found a place to lay down I would go right to sleep.  By the time I'd walked around the place looking for escape routes in case the police came, I could not sleep when I found a safe place.  I'd learned my lesson about taking all my stuff with me when I found a safe, but enclosed construction site.  I found out the hard way that you are only as safe as your ability to get away if trouble finds you.

I never take more than I can carry on my back to a place where I might have to jump a fence, or slip through a narrow exit. So I stashed my four bags in some dense bushes on the side of a nearby house. 

As I lay down to sleep on some cardboard I’d laid down over the concrete floor of the unfinished apartments, street lights cast long eerie shadows along the cold concrete floor and walls that reminded me of something out of a twilight zone movie.  To distract myself, I tried to imagine how the rooms would look when they were finished. As a slightly warming breeze casually blew into the room, I closed my eyes and tried to picture how I would decorate and furnish the place if it were mine.  I didn't get too far with that – the reality of it being so far removed from my current position made it almost impossible for me to see myself ever having a real apartment again.  Then I saw the police lights.  The lights shone from east end of the block and they were coming directly toward the apartment complex. Two police cruisers slowly crept up the street like the long arm of the law reaching out for me. 

I was three stories up in a relatively dark space, so I didn't think anyone had seen me but I couldn't be sure.  I didn't know for sure if the police were just doing some late night cruising or if someone had called them.  Any good thief always practices the, “better safe than sorry” rule.  I gathered my stuff feeling thankful that I had followed my other rule of not bringing too much stuff with me in case what was happening now happened to happen.  However, I had two problems that would make my successful escape a challenge. Number one, the police cruisers were now sitting directly in front of the window where I was hiding with their driving lights shining into my window so I couldn't leave through the doorway without being seen.  Second, I was drunk.  Not so drunk that I could think straight or move with deliberateness, but drunk enough to know I was drunk.  The police cruisers had turned in opposite directions like they do when they want to talk to each other out of their drivers’ side windows. 

I was almost trapped. Even though there were no walls I still could not leave the room without going out of the front entrance. I had to leave through the frame of the front door because the spacing between the two by fours which framed the room were too close together for me to fit through.  I sat there thinking how stupid of an idea it was to try to find a safe and secluded place at a damned construction site. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I thought.  Finally I decide to go for it.  I still wasn't sure if they were even there for me, or if they were just cruising the neighborhood.  If not getting caught in a private construction site was number 22 on my list of stupid things not to do, panicking and causing the cops to see you when they weren't even looking for you is number 21. Yet still, I was too afraid to stay in that room with them out there.  I took a breath and got on my stomach not caring about the cement dust and dirt that was getting all over me. I dove toward the door frame and the blaring spot light coming from the police car pointed in my direction.  I salamandered out into the hall, got to my feet and turned...left, then right, then right again, then another left and one more right. I was lost.

I could not find an exit or the stairway that lead to the ground floor.  After running around for 10 minutes I ended up in the basement and all that separated me from freedom was a driveway leading up and out...but it ended in plain view of both police cars. That was the only exit so I had to go back up to the ground floor.  I was beginning to get a little worried that in my haste I was going to make a mistake like run by a window and they would see me if they hadn't already.  There were hanging lights in most of the hallways so there was always the chance of casting a shadow and being seen.

After finally finding an exit that was on the other side of the entire complex saw a fence I could jump and get back out into the street and make a run for it. I could feel my heart beating fast in my chest as decided I would try to make the jump.  I jumped the fence and landed on the grass with soft thud. I was literally about 20 feet from the blessed street as I crept around the side of a fenced in house. One last gate and I was free. Five feet from the gate my heart sank to my filthy running shoes. The gate was locked – and it was about 10 feet high. I could not have jumped that fence without making a lot of noise, so I was turned away again. My options were running out fast.  I started thinking about going to jail. I began to remember the countless times my freedom was ripped from me over some stupid driving infraction. 

At that moment, desperate for some kind of way to find a way out of this damned construction site, I got the idea that would save my ass that night. I knew the cops either knew I was in the construction site or they didn't. Deep down I really didn't think they’d seen me but I didn't want to assume they didn't and lose my chance to escape.  I also knew that this apartment was gigantic and the further away I could get from the cops, the more noise I could make if I had to do something ugly to get out. I found two possible escapes that would work; one was completely on the other side of the complex, but the barrier separating me from the street looked too difficult for me to scale. The other exit wasn't as far away, and the escape was a simple boot-camp belly-crawl under a cyclone fence.  The only problem was a big one that breaks the number one rule of running from the cops and that is NEVER WALK OR RUN IN THE LIGHT.  Always stay under cover of darkness.

Unfortunately, this portal to my freedom and not going to jail was very very well lit. Two brightly lit street lights stood about 20 yards apart and my exit was smack in the middle of both of them.  My instincts told me that the police were either still parked on the other side of the construction site, or they had left for more interesting endeavors.  Either way, I was getting the hell out of there and it was now or never.  I took a couple of breaths and tried to stop my mind from screaming “stop! Don't do it!! I slowly slid on my belly down toward the hole I had dug under the cyclone fence. I took one last look around hoping to God not to see any police vehicles cruising by.  One quick burst and I was free, but also out in the open lights.  I kneeled down and crawled along a concrete highway barrier that separated the sidewalk and the street until I felt safe enough to unbend to my full height.  Thirty seconds later I was two blocks away and resting on someone's back porch.  Thirty minutes after that I was back downtown resting at crack-head park as the sun came up. The morning sun was bright and warm on my face as I lay on my back with all my bags thinking about whether or not those two cops knew I was ever in that construction site. 

 

It didn’t matter now.  I was free. I felt a warm feeling of relief slowly come over me as I looked up at white clouds slowly move in and out of my view.  That feeling was short lived however, as I slid my hands into my coat pockets and didn't feel my cell phone.  I checked my pants pocket – no phone.  Without my phone my life would become a nightmare.  Not being able to make a phone call wherever I happened to be would make my life a lot more difficult. That phone my only way to answer calls for a job interview, stay in touch with my son, or call DSHS when the cancelled my food stamps because I missed a review.  I had to have my phone! I had managed to keep my cell phone for over 4 years and I wasn't about to let two damn cops keep me from at least going back to check to see if I had left it at the construction site.  I took a deep breath and got my ass back on the bus and went back to the site and found my phone (and my EBT card) in the same spot I had laid myself down earlier that night. I wasn't that surprised that it was still there, but I was very, very grateful.  On the bus ride back downtown, all I could think about was not ever getting drunk and sleeping in a place where I could be arrested again.

 

That is much easier said than done, however.  Most places that are relatively safe have guards who will not hesitate to call the police on someone trespassing on the private property.  I've walked for hours trying to find a safe and secluded place to sleep at night in Seattle.  I've walked from uptown to downtown and every place in between.  I will never sleep any place where I wake up with people around who aren't homeless.  A few nights later I came upon a rare find -  a place that was already made up, meaning some other homeless person had been there and had abandoned it. 

It was the old site of the mighty, but fallen ABC Legal Delivery.  At one point, I am sure that almost every law firm the city contracted with them to deliver legal documents to the court, and to other persons on the wrong side of a lawsuit. After I surveyed the area for anything too gross for me to sleep on, I unrolled my blanket and began to kick away pine-cones, dirt, trash, and other unwanted objects left by the previous owner of the spot.  It was a relatively safe spot, and it was out of the public eye even though it was downtown.

As with most times I find a spot that has been slept in by some other homeless person, I worry that I might catch some disease or be sleeping on old urine or worse. I have to put those kinds of thoughts out of my mind or I will not be able to stay there. Most times there is always a musty stench that can only be from a human. After a while you just get accustomed to the smell and go to sleep. This particular night was no different.  As I lay on my blanket disgusted by the smell, the filth, and my life in general, a young man walked by and asked me if I wanted a pillow.  Anyone who has ever experienced homelessness will know that a pillow is like gold. I have rested my homeless head on shoes, shirts, pants, rocks, suit-cases and anything else I could find, but having a soft pillow is a rare thing for a homeless person.  I accepted his offer of the pillow and slept a hell of a lot better that night. I slept there for one night, I came back two nights later and the whole property was enclosed inside a 12-foot tall cyclone fence – with my new pillow inside of it. 

That was that.

Homelessness Problem in Seattle

If not there, then where?

Homelessness in the United States has reached epic proportions over the last two decades. Three major cities in this country - Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle have actually declared a "state of homeless emergency." In the US, there are 650,000 to 3.5 million Americans who are homeless at any given time. Almost half of these homeless are families with children. Seattle is known to be a socially and politically progressive city that has a wide variety of organizations that say they are directly addressing homelessness, yet homelessness has risen to unprecedented numbers since the failed Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness was started in 2005. Recently, I received an email newsletter from Seattle city councilmember, Tim Burgess asking my opinion regarding Council Bill 118794 which would establish a right for people experiencing homelessness to camp out in cars or in a tent in most public spaces within the city of Seattle. In the email newsletter, Burgess ask readers to consider the question of whether the city should allow this bill to pass into law or seek to address the issues that are at the core of homelessness. It was really a rhetorical question - at least in my opinion. Burgess goes on to discuss why he voted against the bill:

"The proposed ordinance is not the balanced approach the people of Seattle deserve, an approach that carefully weighs and balances compassion with our public health and safety obligations. This ordinance tips this balance decidedly away from our public health and safety responsibilities and will do nothing to move people from homelessness to safe and appropriate housing."

At first glance, I agreed with Burgess' analysis, but when I considered the problem from the perspective of the an actual homeless person it became quite clear to me that his analysis only addresses half the problem - and is really focusing upon homelessness from an administrative and public policy perspective. While I wholeheartedly agree with a solution that involves new and well thought out public policy, I also realize that the homeless are homeless right now. When the shelters are full, there is no other alternative except to sleep outside if you are homeless. I have worked with several organizations in Seattle who's focus is exclusively on public policy and I have yet to find anyone working in those organizations who had ever experienced homelessness themselves. That's puts them at a distinct disadvantage when thinking about solutions that go beyond public policy to the actual life and daily experiences of a homeless individual. I believe there is a dichotomy between solutions that address public policy and solutions that provide direct services to the homeless that has yet to be merged and homelessness will not be solved without that merger.

I can say from my own experience with being homeless, many of the programs that involve direct outreach to the homeless are limited to those individuals that HUD defines as "chronically homeless", i.e. those who have a visible and obvious mental condition such as schizophrenia, chronic depression, drug addiction, and a host of other mental challenges that make them appear to not want help getting off the streets. I can also say with 100% certainty that of all of the homeless persons I've spoken to, not a single one of them would remain on the streets if they could get and keep housing. The biggest complaint I've heard from most homeless guys who don't appear to seek social services is that the social services do not really help. What they are really saying is the social services they encounter do not go far enough. The truth is that there are no programs in Seattle that provide comprehensive, rap-around type services that include housing, mental health services, AND life skills training. There seems to be a public perception of homelessness (even among those providing homeless services) that  homeless people deserve some help, but not enough to actually get them healthy enough to become independent from all social services. That would be too much help, and God knows those homeless people should do some of the work themselves! Homeless people put in a lot of work. It takes a lot of work to find food, safe shelter, make appointments often with no money to get there, and plan how you are going to do it all over again the very next day.

Believe me, it takes organizational skills to find out which shelters provide food and at what time, and on what day, which DSHS office is not so crowded that you have to wait 2-3 hours to be seen for two minutes, what agency provides assistance with getting your ID card, where you are going to sleep if you don't get into a shelter that night, where you are going to shower, which agency gives out bus tokens, where you are going to eat the food you get from the food bank, how to get an Obama phone, where you are going to find a computer to look for work. And to put a sharp edge on this point I will also say that homeless people also have to always be on the look out for the police. They are routinely harassed for sitting, lying or sleeping in public spaces.

Many cities in Washington have in the past several years created city ordinances that criminalize being homeless. In many places in Seattle - especially downtown, the homeless are strictly targeted for pan-handling, sitting, standing, lying or sleeping in public spaces. The police will warn you first, as if it just happened to be your last day of being homeless and you will never need a place to sit, stand or sleep again, then if they see you doing that behavior again you get cited. If you miss your court date or cannot pay a fine levied upon you, the next time the police see you, you go to jail. This cycle of criminalization is perpetuated by these cruel and misguided ordinances, and many politicians believe it is the solution to the homeless problem as if removing the homeless from visible sight will solve homelessness.

The 2015 Conference to End Homelessness

I got back from the 2015 Annual Conference to End Homelessness yesterday. I was asked to co-facilitate two workshops, and I facilitated my own workshop called How to Stay Engaged with Advocacy.  This years conference was very much like the one I attended last year in Yakima, Washington.  There were lots of white faces, very a few black faces and a full compliment of classes and workshops to one again examine a great many of the issues surrounding homelessness in Washington State. 

The conference itself was sponsored by the non-profit, Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance. I have been working with them for a couple of years learning how to be an advocate for ending homeless.  Between going to workshops, co-facilitating workshops, and preparing to co-facilitate workshops, I saw a lot of people only in passing, and stole a few glimpses from a few attractive women. One thing that I have noticed in both conferences is that there are A LOT of service workers, professionals and community leaders trying to help the homeless.  Two days of classes - 48 workshops in all, with names like, "Neutralizing Homelessness: Federal Policy & the de politicization of poverty" and "Unleashing the Capacity for Deeper Collaboration Among Congregations, Service Providers, & People Experiencing Homelessness" While the long names might be an indication of how serious some Washingtonians are about ending homelessness, the irony of it can't be escaped: All these professionals walking around attending workshops on how to end homelessness, and not one single homeless person on any panel, in any workshop, or anywhere else at the conference. 

While that sounds kind of slick to write, the truth is, the problem of homelessness is extremely complex mostly because many of the homeless are mentally ill and frequently exhibit anti-social behavioral patterns that will keep them on the margins of society as they are not able to maintain anything close to healthy interrelationships. However, with the right commitment to build affordable housing, and a modified Housing-First model that can somehow address the increased need for case management services with the objective of seriously moving their client towards independence, simply building more affordable and low- income housing is not going to solve the problem. In fact, it could be said that building more subsidized housing might present us with a whole new set of challenges related to helping mentally-ill persons maintain their various residences. The services most homeless people need are multi-teared; housing, healthcare, employment need to be in a wrap-around type system and in one location to insure easy access. Providing social services to the homeless is only half the battle, however.
 
The other half of the equation that can solve homelessness is examining our legal and court systems. Recently, cities and states have responded to increasing homelessness by creating laws the criminalize homelessness. In many Washington State cities, local governments have begun to create ordinances that make it a crime to sit, stand, lie down, eat, or sleep in public. These ordinances have a devastating effect upon the life of the homeless person. There is a 'cycle of homelessness' that occurs when a homeless person is caught breaking one of these ordinances. Here's how it works:

The Criminalization of Homelessness

a.     Root causes of homelessness - must ground ourselves in this to be able to talk about addressing criminalization.

b.    What does the cycle of criminalization look like?

        i.   Examples of laws and policies that criminalize people who are homeless - Kirk can draw on examples from his advocacy and personal experience (park hours, no sit/lie ordinances, sprinklers in parks, restricted parking hours, etc).

Connection to the criminal justice system - civil citations result in court dates and fines to pay. Missed court dates result in arrest warrants. Suddenly you’re in the system.

Acknowledging the cycle of criminalization is also bigger than this, because there is structural and institutional racism and oppression at play: economic inequality, school to prison pipeline/criminal justice system at large, unemployment, food/housing insecurity, access to health care, etc. These systems interplay with the criminalization of homelessness and perpetuate disparities in how homelessness and criminalization impacts people of color, people with mental illness, people with disabilities, LBGTQ people.

 

 How does the “personal responsibility” frame that pervades our thinking and policy making around homelessness play into criminalization? I should also point out that this narrative reinforces the cycle of criminalization, flattens the issue and keeps us from looking at this as a racial justice issue, disability justice issue, etc. If we can’t see it as a systemic problem, pushing for the systemic solutions we need will remain incredibly difficult.

The practical application here comes down to how we treat the individual and how we work toward a solution for that individual. We cannot give mere mental ascent to the fact homelessness has its roots in systemic failure, but then treat the individual as if all of the responsibility for their condition rests solely upon them. We need to work towards changing the system, not just changing the person.