Mike Zint of ‘First They Came for the Homeless’ talks to some Berkeley, CA street kids after their chalking action defending their right to sleep. PHOTO/SARAH MENEFEE
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA — Housing is not a reality. How many years do you have to wait? So, until then, you are a target. No stability at all. Keep your gear close. They are coming for you. No place to hide, no place to go, no choices left. Except drugs or insanity.
The real plight of the homeless!
During police sweeps you have a few minutes to save your belongings if you are lucky. Cities have no intention of preserving or keeping it for you. The intention is to purposely steal it as punishment for being homeless in public. To fight back is impossible. You need money to do that. Or lawyers. And good luck getting a lawyer. They want big bucks.
Things I used to own: baby pictures, multiple warm sleeping bags, cell phones, computer, extra clothing, backpacks, inhalers, and a jewelry making set up that took years to develop. This has happened multiple times.
Why do they do it? Because there is no room for poor people anywhere. Harass them, steal from them, abuse them, torture them, and maybe they will move along.
Mental disabilities and drug use are often the end result.
Class warfare waged by the Chambers of Commerce, commercial districts, business associations are the reality. And it won’t stop until enough people get screwed by the corrupt, greedy system!
Homeless people get almost no choice. Shelter system, sleep on the sidewalk, hide a tent.
Shelters are one step above jail. Abuse by staff, violence, lice, bed bugs, exposure to illness, these exist in shelters. So, is it really a choice?
Sleeping on the sidewalk (exposed) is horrible too. Cardboard for meager insulation, no padding except for a sleeping bag, no privacy except what exists between your nose and the blanket you are hiding under. Yes, hiding is accurate. For mental stability, privacy and security are needed. When a blanket was what l had, that little space had to do. Fear never leaves either. Will I get rousted by cops? Robbed? Beaten? So, the longer you live this way, the worse your mental state becomes.
So, hide a tent is left. This works until you are found. When found, your gear is usually confiscated. You are ticketed. And you spend the next few nights in a shelter, or on a sidewalk exposed.
Think about that. Understand why a tent city is so important. And ask yourselves why we aren’t allowed to take care of ourselves? Changing that could end homelessness.
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Deseret Defiant
Initiative
The Deseret Defiant Initiative is a non-violent political movement with the purpose of giving homeless individuals and GENUINE homeless advocates, a platform with intent to wake up local cities and communities, and make them aware of their part, in causing homelesness, and to try and get them to actively participate in EFFECTIVELY solving the problem in a positive and more permanent way, which will allow those who are homeless, to participate in their own transition, and recovery, from homless to housed, AND allow the homeless to have a voice in their own communities as they stand up for their own rights, while supporting themselves legally and effevtively without anymore dependence on government, and charitable organizations, than is absolutely neccesarry for each individual, based on their capability, to manage their own life, in their own home, in whatever form that home may be at the time.
First, and so far only charter member ;
Lawdee Namroh