Homeless Action! Presentation to the
Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
5-8-18
Good morning, supervisors.
Homeless Action would like to talk to you about safe encampments today. We
agree with Jill Ravitch’s recent statement about Last Chance village, that your
current approach of evicting and prosecuting homeless people essentially for
not having enough money for decent housing is immoral, cruel, and expensive. We
are sad and frustrated that you continue to support a policy of eviction when
there is nowhere for the evicted to legally go. The needs of those who cannot
go into shelters, which we think are roughly half the county’s homeless people, are constantly discounted
and ignored.
***
Threading through our
conversations with encampment residents are several important, underappreciated
themes we volunteers have learned. First, the recognition that chance plays a
hidden, large part in homelessness, especially now that rents have skyrocketed.
You’ve heard them say that, but being around them helps us feel that truth. An injury, an argument, or a terrible boss starts
a cascade downward in many lives. The flip side is also true: there are many
situations where even a little help by a volunteer or the government can make a
huge positive difference in their life.
Second, they teach us that
even an unregulated, unslightly, crowded encampment is far, far safer than
being alone on the streets. Even the present Joe Rodota Trail encampment is
precious to them, though government took away the portapotty donated by
charity, and they have no idea when the police will scatter them. Encampments
tend to have a larger proportion of women because women can protect one another
and enjoy the safety from predators provided by friends, neighbors, and
volunteers. When arguments or domestic problems happen, friends rally to calm
agitated people down. Things don’t spiral out of control like they can under bridges
or in the woods.
Third, encampments allow them
to develop and maintain the social and family ties that are so vital to success
when there’s so much stacked against you. Friendship is fierce and fast when
your neighbors face these same physical and psychological hardships. They speak
of family when they talk about their fellow residents. Sickness, drugs, and
thievery can take center stage for outsiders, and they are concerns for
encampment residents, too. But we should never forget that our personal worth
and meaning is found through our social lives– especially during hardship. If
we have a strong support network of friends and personal cheerleaders, it’s much,
much easier to succeed.
***
Homeless Action is asking you
to immediately cease these evictions to nowhere. We volunteers have learned
from our encampments that evictions and scatterings destroy the touchpoints we
need for quality lives. People often lose the friends and family that gave
their lives meaning, causing depression, instability, and the many health
problems caused by loneliness and physical and mental stress. Medical monitoring
becomes impossible. According to Public Health, diseases and illnesses and infections
become slightly more likely in encampments– but that risk is more than offset
by how it is far easier to track and treat such problems when the victims are
in one place.
Volunteers can’t help scattered
people with court cases, or get them to court or probation dates, or help with
housing efforts. Aggressive police must be faced alone. Families can’t find
children, or parents, or aunties. Pets can’t be identified or tracked or treated.
Case workers or assigned volunteers become a pipe dream. Charity like clothes
and food becomes impossible to deliver.
In an encampment, every
single one of those problems goes away. Each of those tasks becomes a
quantifiable goal that can be achieved through organization and teamwork.
A scattering causes a
conflagration in the lives of innocent people who are already challenged
greatly, like those whose voices you heard. Since April 17, desperate groups of
residents have tried to form safe communities together on county, city,
private, and park land. They were immediately scattered from all of them,
causing sickness and the loss or theft of many possessions. They are thrilled to
have been allowed to stay on the Joe Rodota Trail, along with about 75% of
those who were at Last Chance and Remembrance villages.
***
Safe encampments now have a
track record of years, in multiple locations. They are rapidly becoming common,
because they can be a flexible, very cost effective way to grant homeless
people their Constitutional right to a place where they are protected from
needless government harassment and prosecution, and from predators and thieves.
Oakland is going on four Tuff shed villages now, funded by government and
citizens. Eugene, Oregon has four years of success with their Safe Spots, which
combine public and private funding to house hundreds yearly in tents and oval
roofed tiny homes. The homes are built by volunteers at a cost of little more
than $1,000 each. Walla Walla successfully copy-catted a modest version of
Eugene’s approach, and made a great success of it.
All these and others are very
good projects. Safe encampments aren’t a utopian pipe dream, but a present
success. They are a natural outgrowth of allowing healthy communities to form,
with modest support by nonprofits or government.
But our purpose is different
today. We are relatively far from creating those kind of programs. On a good
day, KBBF seems a lead option, but still seems a dim glimmer. The sizes of
encampments we’ve been talking about are very modest, too, which doesn’t help adequately
with a need reliably measured in the hundreds. Right now, we have a population
of about 75 on the Joe Rodota Trail who need a place immediately. Their tents
are covered with signs that say “tell us where to go and we’ll go!” or “Where
Do We Go?”
***
These emergency villages are
a straightforward proposition, and a very natural outgrowth of what Homeless
Action accomplished at Remembrance and Last Chance, under much worse conditions.
The basic structure is taken from many successful villages:
Self-managed villages of
30-40, with site oversight through Homeless Action! for now
Internal security by
residents and volunteers, with police access and backup;
Chores will be assigned.
A person has to apply to join
the encampment, and can be refused, since these encampments, like any other
shelter choice, are not for everyone. The residents must be protected from the
wrong people, who tend to cause the vast majority of major problems. Eviction
is also possible if rules are disobeyed, as is common in unregulated encampments
now. We estimate that about 15% of the residents of Last Chance and
Remembrance would not be appropriate residents in our emergency encampment.
Housing First will be
coordinated through Catholic Charities for now.
We encourage staff to take up
KBBF and other initiatives aggressively, like safe parking initiatives, RV
programs, and tiny house projects. In the meantime, emergency encampments will
cost the government about $100 a month per person, with likely minimal initial
infrastructure expense. We have inspected several county properties that are
more than adequate for this 6-month proposal. By late October, when the weather
turns, we can either perform responsible upgrades to the emergency encampments
to face the winter safely, or other projects can come to the fore and take on the
residents of the emergency encampments.
We are confident that this is
the right path to take short-term. Homeless Action! and advisors in its
Technical Advisory Group have the internal experience and community contacts to
make this a success, as well as a small, experienced set of villagers who are
getting used to managing sanitation, chores, security, and the other aspects of
a successful community.
We have sent you
1)
a one page guide
on encampment best practices by the National Law Center on Homelessness and
Poverty,
2)
a copy of the
verbal part of this presentation,
3)
a partial list of
reasons why people cannot or will not use shelters,
4)
and a page of
research commentary concerning some encampment results, mostly in Oregon.
Thank you for the opportunity
to share this vision. We look forward to discussing the details with you.
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