Today a member of my community, a favorite of mine-- a 70yr. old man with bright blue eyes and weathered skin who I helped build a shelter for, gave me the first 20 pages of his biography to read. It's actually pretty well-written and fascinating. Moving here has shattered misconceptions I had about "the homeless" (and made me think about how often we use adjectives about people's situations to classify them versus returning to the fact of humanity. They are homeless people. Undocumented people. Migrant-worker people. Drug-using people. etc.). Many of my new friends are kind, smart, & strong-willed but for whatever reason (bad-decisions, bad habits, lack of ability to adapt, or lack of skills in stress/conflict management, social ability, etc.) have fallen out of what is defined as "normal" society. How do I accompany them in the unique struggles of their community and in their individual stories? It's frustrating to see people who are very capable and intelligent but lack the resources or social skills or coping abilities to function. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about "mutually liberating partnerships" and meaningful work. One exciting thing I'm working with is a woman's group, Bill-- a co-worker of mine and an amazing community organizer, has helped them establish a reading room and coffee shop micro-enterprise that is in the beginning stages but its amazing to see the women finding their voice and learning how to organize, communicate, and make their imagined futures a reality.
[Excerpts from a letter to a friend] I've been thinking about land right's a lot. I think we hear about it as an issue in the third-world more with peasants or whatever but I've been surprised to see how it's an issue in the US too. In the coming weeks the police are planning a sweep of the homeless encampment where lots of my new friends live and we have a weekly community forum where someone asked, "where is there a place I am allowed to sleep?" The PD has said they don't want to criminalize homelessness, but it does in effect become criminalized where it is illegal to camp just about anywhere. I have been thinking about private property and how even "public" places forbid camping (or sleeping)... or with the Occupy Movement-- sleeping bags, lying down, etc. It seems like the system always benefits those who have property to protect and defend.
Parallels that come to mind as I think of what you're doing and would love to hear your take on-- ownership/agency despite the potential of transitory. Your community faces violence, outbreaks of fighting or threatening. My community also faces violence, I've been to two memorial services in the past two weeks. They face intervention because they don't own their land. Some of my community has little investment in their surroundings besides trying to secure a place to sleep-- they are given disposable objects and get new donations rather than hold unto things (which is also understandable because it's hard to be homeless and have to lug things around but it can become a cycle.) So how have you worked on increasing ownership or desire to participate in your own community there?
