Freeing the American Ego

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. -- Thomas Merton

Confusing any discussion of EGO is the matter of what definition of the term is being employed. In their article "The Psychology of the Quiet Ego" in Transcending Self-Interest (which the pair edited), where most of the articles discussed in this blogpost come from, Jack Bauer and Heidi Wayment offer five from a larger still number of definitions of ego used by researchers. They tell us, though, that three meanings hone in on how current research views the term: Ego = the self, notably affective evaluations of the self, such as self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, and self-image (as connoted by a strong, wounded, boosted or deflated ego) Ego = the self, notably in relation to others, as in identifying with others, bonding with others, and identities that include versus exclude others. Ego = that which constructs, organizes, or evaluates the concept of self; that which is aware of or witnesses experience; Wm. James's [Principles of Psychology] "I" (in contrast to "Me"); consciousness itself; one's frame of reference, or, in psychoanalytic theory, the "synthetic function."

A storm of research on the ego in our new century has, perhaps, found EGO in its healthiest aspect – which may inform us on enlightenment and other matters at the core of Buddhism, mysticism and religion, generally. And with this new research comes new terminology to better sculpt a vision of ego's dimensions.

Whereas in the past EGO was usually thought of as a matter of size – from small to healthy to bloated or big – today it's seen by researchers as being primarily on a spectrum from silent-to-quiet-to-loud.

This new paradigm sprung from reaction to a bit of research that saw all egos as Godzilla: In the middle of the twinned Me Decades (the 70s & 80s), A. G. Greenwald wrote an article for the July 1980 issue of American Psychologist called "The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history." In his article, Greenwald asserted that ego is, basically, egocentric, "beneffectant" and cognitively conservative. That is, it's (1) self-focusing, (2)takes responsibility for desired, but not undesired, outcomes and (3) resists change -- just like a totalitarian government. The ego, then, strives to make the self ever mightier and rebuffs any negativity toward that effort. If you want to be nice about it, the successful EGO is like a superhero or Nietzsche's Übermensch, or James Bond.

In his article "Psychology and the American Ideal," in the November 1977 issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Edward E. Sampson set the stage when he suggested that the ideal American personality may be one that is self-contained. "The self-contained person is one who does not require or desire others for his or her completion in life. ... Self-containment is the extreme of independence: needing or wanting no one."

Traindis & Gelford, in the same journal, in 1998, examined personalities and cited vertical individualism in a matrix of factors that best describe American society. Vertical individualism is a cultural orientation that focuses on personal competitiveness, status, and distinction from others.

So, yeah, the American (and, to lesser extent, the Western) prized personality is one of strength, and extremes of positivism and independence. But is this good … for society? or for the emboldened individual?

Looking at Eastern cultures, as you might well suppose, the situation is different. Quoting Wirtz & Chiu in their paper "Perspectives on the Self in the East and the West" [chapter 14 in Transcending Self-Interest] concluded,

Compared with its Western counterpart, the Eastern self is more inclusive of other people and of negative information and experience, which manifests in cross-cultural differences in the individual's self definition and construction of well-being. To the extent that the Western self has been described as a metaphorically totalitarian or autocratic system, the Eastern self represents, by comparison, a more restrained, quiet ego.

What is a "quiet" ego?

In her paper "Taming the Wild Ego," [chapter 5 in Transcending Self-Interest], Julie Juola Exline tells us that humility is the quieting component that may be able to convert American narcissism or near-narcissism to something more tame (and less delusional!) She writes,

… humility should help people to set realistic goals. By protecting people from excessive ego involvement in their goals, a humble outlook should reduce the amount of energy that people need to spend on self-enhancement and mood regulation, leaving more energy for other pursuits. Humility should also free people to admit that they need help, thus opening the door to accepting resources from others that can save time and energy. A quiet ego should also facilitate an attitude of self-compassion after people make errors.

But while humility is perhaps analogous to the quieting aspect of ego, it is not the end-all, be-all to being authentic and happy. It's a "stabilizing, protective" force, but not an energizing one, Exline writes. "[A] humble person could also be a passive one.

"If a person's humility stems from a deep sense of connection with others, this sense of interdependence should encourage prosocial pursuits. Yet because prosocial motives are not a required element of the definition of humility [as determined/used by ego research], it remains possible that a humble person might pursue goals that are nonsocial or even asocial. … If humility is to be a prosocial quality, then prosocial motivators are needed."

[this post is a work-in-progress]

Police order homeless campers on Mark Merin's property to vacate

The police have ordered campers on property belonging to attorney Mark Merin to leave, due to complaints from homeowners in the neighborhood.

Almost as quickly as it was arranged for homeless people to make use of the property on C Street, near 13th St., the police have ordered the campers to leave.

This news comes from an article in the Sacramento Bee, dated August 22, titled, "Sacramento police order campers to leave homeless 'safe ground.'"

The article tells us, "Area leaders are discussing establishing a larger-scale "safe ground" that would offer services such as garbage pickup and social support."

An obvious alternate site for homeless campers to pitch their tents, where neighbors are very very unlikely to object, is ground on the Loaves & Fishes facility where a building was recently raised.

It is noted that Merin and the so-called "safe ground movement" leaders continue to foster confusion in their use of their term "safe ground." "Safe ground" had meant sanctioned, legal campgrounds for homeless people. Now, it can mean that, and its opposite, a campground that is not sanctioned by the city or county where homeless people camp.

The "safe ground movement" seems determined to stall out, not as a matter of social policy, but on a matter of confused semantics.

Mark Merin property leased for use by homeless campers

	Campers setting up on the Merin property.

Mark Merin, the leading Sacramento attorney for the homeless-help industry, is allowing homeless people to put up their tents on property of his on C Street, between 12th and 14th.

According to the article in the Bee which is the source of this news, Merin is leasing the property to "three advocacy organizations [that] are leading the 'safe ground' effort." The organizations are unnamed in the article, but would be Loaves & Fishes, Francis House and SHOC. The "lease" is clearly a means to shield Merin from responsibility for the effort.

Merin, and the "advocacy organizations" are set to profit considerably from terms of agreement that will conclude litigation relating to Lehr v Sac'to, a suit that ostensibly exists to compensate homeless people for property that was destroyed by city and county police. In truth, Merin and Loaves & Fishes will be the great beneficiaries from the suit, when it is concluded.

The campers will still be subject to being ticketed by police for staying on the property, even as those leasing the property provide their permission to the campers to be there. As the article notes, "a city ordinance ... prohibits camping in non-designated areas for longer than 24 hours."

However, "a spokesman for the Sacramento Police Department, said officers would 'consider taking enforcement action' against campers only if the site was 'unsafe or unsanitary' or if neighbors or others complained."

The push for shelter this winter moves forward

I met with an aid with the mayor's office yesterday, whom has recently been assigned responsibilities to understand and try, mightily, to address many of the needs of us homeless people in the city and county. She is a member of the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness, and if I understood correctly, is now the leader/co-ordinator of the committee since Andrew Rosskamm, who had had that role, has returned to Harvard, following the terminus of his fellowship.

As regular readers of this blog are aware, I have great concern about what will happen this winter to provide shelter for those who, due to the cold season's many frosty nights, must come indoors to sleep to be safe and well. We need to boost the number of shelter beds in the winter by approximately 200, now that the county is dirt poor and will not be funding VOA's terrible Winter Shelter, also known as Overflow.

I am happy to say that the aid I met with was attentive and interested in the concerns I expressed and seemed fully motivated to try to make things happen.

The core of what I presented to her was The Four Ideas -- four means of creating shelter space that are cheap and basic. With both the city and county ravaged by the suffering economy, there is perhaps next-to-nothing they can do to fund an expensive, complicated program. This year is one where we must muddle through. There are advantages to this, though. A basic shelter is what many, many homeless people want and need rather than expensive time-devouring jail-like shelters like those VOA likes to run and profit from. [VOA pays it's national director in excess of $300,000/yr. Sheesh, what a racket.]

The Four Ideas, which first appeared in the August 8 blogpost "Winter of Our Discount Tent," are these:

Idea 1: We need a doable plan for a small "safe ground"/legal encampment, restricted to just the winter months. At this late date, with all the government and police obstacles in front of us, a more-permanent and larger "safe ground" isn't achievable. It will need to be small and cheap with a small number of campers all of whom are not partiers with substance-abuse problems. Frankly, the fenced-in area between the Union Gospel Mission and the shelter at 470 Bannon might be a perfect location, with the fence and gate recently put in place around the property being helpful for the encampment! Another prime possible location is the site of the raised building on the Loaves & Fishes facility.

Idea 2: We need to find a vacant building, perhaps a warehouse proximate to Loaves & Fishes that can be cheaply rented and made ready to provide shelter for perhaps a hundred men. The shelter should be basic: just "in at 8-dinner-sleep-breakfast-0ut at 6." No ups; no extras.

Idea 3: In April, 2004, an article in the Bee, "Mission wants to add beds - The faith-based shelter would have to obtain a special permit to house more homeless men," [A Sac library card is likely necessary to access this article.] tells us the Union Gospel Mission wanted to petition the city to increase their shelter from the 86 beds the mission now provides to 250! The city/county should allow UGM and other shelters to increase the number of people they take care of during the winter of 2009-2010.

Idea 4: In Placer county, a network of churches allow homeless people to sleep at their establishments on a rotating basis. It's a "nomadic model of care [that is] used successfully in many other parts of the country." They call their program The Gathering Inn which uses 23 churches to serve 50 people. Likely, something on that model can be organized for this coming winter for our county's homeless.

Possibly, even with good luck in abundance, each of the Ideas will allow shelter for only 50 people. BUT, this is the year when we must cobble together what solution to the winter problem we can.

Of course I am hopeful that other ideas with come forward. With the high vacancy rate in the city, it is possible that apartment space, or, even, office space might be rented for the winter to provide shelter.

If something doesn't happen, truly, I have concerns that many will suffer and some weak person, or several, will perish in the chill of a night that dips down into the 30s. Remember, 2009 is also going to be the year when H1N1 might ravage the world, killing tens if not hundreds of thousands. Homeless people are particularly vulnerable to disease and its worst affects.

The Strange Mr. Farris Plagerizes SacHo

In a blogpost at the website of the nonprofit he created just as Oprahmania had descended on Homeless World Sacramento, Val Jon Farris put up a message on August 21 that plagerizes a blogpost that I wrote and posted to SacHo on August 11.

Farris's blogpost reads thus:

August 21 - Positive Movementby valjon 21. August 2009 08:53

The past two weeks I’ve been working to learn as much as I can about the behind the scenes proceedings with the Sacramento task force set up determine if a Safe ground project is feasible for the cities homeless population. It seems that our work (including iCare America and a group of other service-based organizations) may be paying off. After submitting extensive research data and my personal experiences of how other legal encampments have been working in the greater northwest to the Task Force it appears to have made some positive difference. The first bit of news is that Mayor Johnson decided to spend the night with members of a newly established group of campers called SafeGround, who live in a clandestine encampment that fully disappears every morning. The mayor brought the media with him. Specifically, KTXL Fox40 News to document the experience.

The purpose behind the mayor's effort hasn't been stated expressly, but it is believed that he wants to demonstrate his concern for the homeless who are suffering in today's economy. It is appreciated within the city's wider homeless community that the mayor has taken an interest in SafeGround, a non-legal encampment of about 50 persons that is striving earnestly to be very clean, self sustaining and alcohol-and-drug free. Safe Ground may be a beta effort that will inform the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness what can be achieved in creating a legal, workable neighborhood-friendly homeless camp.

The Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness – led by Andrew Rosskamm, who is at work for the mayor for a few months as part of a Harvard fellowship was the main point of contact I interfaced with over the last few weeks and he put together the proposal for the creation of a legal encampment that is being called Stepping Stone. While it’s only a 50-member community now being considered for development in April, 2010 it’s a start. And although the process is slow it appears to be moving in the direction that I and many of my peers in the community envision. With your continued care, support and intent we can make it happen here in Sacramento and then promote it nationwide. What better way to demonstrate that who we are is so much greater than the pettiness, apathy and fear that seems to be so pronounced in our nation.

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If you look at the August 11 SacHo blogpost "Mayor's Homeless Task Force envisions legal homeless encampment next spring," you will see that 'the middle' of the SacHo blogpost has been 'ripped off,' nearly word-for-word by the weasel Val Jon Farris.

Val Jon Farris's only purpose in associating with the Sacramento homeless community is to try to make money for himself by devious means. He is a huckster and rip-off artist. He is "author" of the 1999 book Inca Fire: Light of the Masters, a knock-off of The Celestine Prophecy, which was a best-seller in 1994 and 1995. Farris is also involved with a faked newscast on channel 10 last March; you can read about that, and see the video that proves the news was falsified in the SacHo post "More News on Farris." People should run away from Mr. Farris and his dubious nonprofit iCare-America like they would skunks and diptheria.

Patron, Guest, Denizen!? Which are we to the staff or proprietors of Loaves & Fishes's facilities?

Definitions of words used to describe users of Loaves & Fishes's services.

	definition
	dictionary.com	merriam-webster
guest	a person who receives the hospitality of a club, a city, or the like; a person who patronizes a hotel, restaurant, etc., for the lodging, food, or entertainment it provides.	a person to whom hospitality is extended;a person who pays for the services of an establishment (as a hotel or restaurant)
patron	a person who is a customer, client, or paying guest, esp. a regular one, of a store, hotel, or the like.	one who buys the goods or uses the services offered especially by an establishment
denizen	a person who regularly frequents a place; habitué: the denizens of a local bar.	one that frequents a place

People who regularly use services that Loaves & Fishes provides come to be aware that they are referred to as "guests" on signage and from the mouths of staff.

I have noticed that in the class-action complaint that attorney Mark Merin submitted two years ago, regarding the police confiscation of Sacramento homeless people's property, Anthony Lehr, et al. vs. City of Sacramento, et al., the users of Loaves & Fishes services are referred to as "patrons."

In this blog, I insist, perhaps eccentrically, on calling users of Loaves & Fishes' services "denizens."

Which word is most correct to use in light of what homeless people do at Loaves?

I think Loaves is insistent in their use of "guest" in paperwork and on signage to make known the circumstance that anyone using the facility or services does so without acquiring any 'right' to any services or to even be on the premises. Homeless people may be refused services at any time without the staff needing to justify their actions. Signage in front of L&F's Friendship Park reads (something like): "Private Property: Person's can be refused access to the park without notice."

"Patron" is much more of a respectful word than "guest." It implies that the person is paying for services or otherwise supporting the institution with whom he associates. From the definitions provided at dictionary.com, "patron" does not fit as a word to describe users of L&F's services; but by merriam-webster's definition it's fully appropriate: "uses the services offered." In any case, the relationship is symbiotic: both the establishment and the person associating him/herself with the establishment mutually benefit and need one-another.

"Guest," albeit a wholly polite word, highlights the idea that you have no rights here; this establishment is apart from you. "Patron," contrariwise, connotes interdependence. With both "guest" and "patron" the transaction mode between the establishment and its visitor is the core of what the word highlights.

A "denizen" is just a guy who shows up frequently. The word doesn't focus on the mode of transaction; it's disassociated from all the legalisms. But all users of an establishment's services aren't denizens, of course. New users of services, or infrequent users, aren't denizens.

Do users of Loaves & Fishes services "pay" for the services they receive in any sense? I would say absolutely, yes! Loaves & Fishes exists fully because of private donations it solicits. Donors fund the non-profit to aid the homeless; Loaves & Fishes highlights and often exaggerates the misfortunes of the homeless to heighten donations. Loaves & Fishes, then, is a conduit of the charitable feeling of the good-hearted community's businesses and individuals. L&F administers a program the community funds. Without the homeless, Loaves & Fishes would dry up, wither away and its staff would have to go out and find real jobs.

Is "guest," then, an appropriate word to use to describe users of L&F's services? Not really. But it is understandable that Loaves & Fishes management chooses to use that term: Many homeless people can be disruptive from time to time and management is properly determined to maintain order.

Is "denizen" an appropriate word to describe users of L&F's services? Yes, for the purposes of this blog. Usually, in referring to persons at the L&F facility I am necessarily thinking of acclimated, knowledgable users of the services.

Is this the most important blogpost that has ever appeared in this blog!? OK, maybe not.

Common ground on safe ground. Common sense, not communism.

	Mayor Kevin Johnson at Safe Ground campground. [twitpic: share photos on Twitter]

For the second week in a row, I attended the Tuesday meeting of the SHOC Homeless Leadership Project effort to achieve safe ground, at the Delaney Center at the Loaves & Fishes facility. [Here, my account of the prior week's mtg, which provides much the same news that was today's Top Story in the Bee.] I was reluctant to attend. Though I endorse core objectives of the group – support for a currently existant encampment of homeless people, called Safe Ground; and the mayor's effort, with Stepping Stone, to create a legal homeless encampment in Sacramento – the group evidences a lot of troubling Leftist attitudes and practices.

Nonetheless, I was encouraged to attend and it became known to me that people were fully aware I was a blogger. [Both the prior week and today I introduced myself as being with Sacramento Homeless blog. Today, Paula Lomazzi of SHOC commended my article "A night in Safe Ground camp." And John Kraintz mentioned that he knew of Homeless Tom.]

My main reason for going this week, like last week, was to get something going with respect to shelter this winter. Both Paula and another woman gave me leads on what VOA might be doing to revive their Overflow program for the coming chilly season, but interest in the topic by others having command of the meeting was nil; the issue was not on their agenda.

I had written about suggestions I had for this group in the last part of a blogpost I wrote on August 12, Suggestions for the "Safe Ground movement." Thinking about it today, I'm amazed at how prescient I was with all I wrote then. Part of what I wrote was this:

The Safe Ground movement needs to resist argot and stridency that understandably strikes the public as being far-left politically. The homeless people in our city are already marginalized and don't need to be further marginalized from support that might come from the whole of the city, including staunch conservatives.

I would prefer that the effort to establish a legal homeless campground be successful. I believe the best hope of achieving this requires great sympathy from us, the homeless, and the homeless-help industry, for the predicament the general public finds itself in in today's economy. I think that empathy/compassion for others is required to engender empathy/compassion from others for the problems that homeless people are having these days.

Sad to say, but the group, led mostly by the thoughts of a Sacramento lawyer, is way way Left and is surely doomed to failure. The "fight" is not for a better understanding by the public of the homeless circumstance, and from that support and sanction of a wider pathway for the reconstruction of homeless people's lives – instead, it is for nothing short of revolution. The lawyer said, expressly, that "leading a revolution" was the group's calling.

The lawyer, whom I believe is Cathleen April Williams, brought with her copies of the August 2009 issue of People's Tribune, a newspaper that seeks the reconstruction of society in a battle toto between "the capitalists [and] the growing mass of poor."

Ms. Williams made special mention of an article she admired written by the paper's editor, called "Revolutionaries Must Rally the People to a Vision of a New World." The article tells us "we, the people, rather than the corporations, could own our country's productive property and provide everyone whatever they needed."

By my reading we've already seen that "new world" in countries that spanned the globe in the mid-1980s from East Germany to North Korea. The article speaks of freedom [as did Karl Marx, who said, "Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity."], evokes the ghosts of Lincoln and MLK, but believes in guaranteed jobs for everyone, fewer hours of work and an end to what the writer believes is the core cause of job loss: Technology.

Call me silly, if you like, but I believe that technology creates jobs and adds greatly to productivity. And I believe that productivity is important, because only with it can we expect to fashion healthy happy lives from the sweat of our brows.

Capitalism turns bad when it is under-regulated. Bush removed many pivotal regulations and that has caused the economic decline we are now suffering from. All healthy economies are mostly capitalist. You cannot have freedom without people having the option of creating their own businesses.

As I have written before, the homeless benefit disproportionally from Sacramento being seen as a good spot for people far and local to open a business. The homeless population in Sacramento, more than any group could be, is harmed by the stigma of being led by anti-business people. The homeless-help industry in Sacramento needs to be overhauled.

A second article in that issue of People's Tribune was written by Paula Lomazzi, titled "Safe Ground Sacramento Rally, March and Campout." Ms. Lomazzi was also at the meeting. In the byline for the article, Lomazzi is identified as being with Homeward Street Journal, which is a publication of SHOC, Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee. The article was not political; it merely sketched out highlights from the "march and campout" on July 1.

Both Ms. Williams and Ms. Lomazzi are associated with SHOC, which attempts to recruit homeless people to its causes. While the organization claims to be involved with "recruiting homeless leaders," in discussion with Mr. Lomazzi a couple months ago, she could provide no names of leaders that had emerged that would, perhaps, be open to being interviewed by this reporter. She did identify John Kraintz as a homeless leader; he is often pictured in the Sacramento Bee as a homeless homelessness leader.

According to SHOC's own records, much of the funding for the organization comes from events at the home of Ms. Williams and Loaves & Fishes attorney Mark Merin.

Loaves & Fishes Friendship Park may close until 9AM, Monday

Evoking its ongoing backward policy of punishing all for the actions of very few, Loaves & Fishes Friendship Park co-director Garren Bratcher informed park denizens Friday morning that unless there is a safe opening of the park on Monday [at 7AM], park officials – the Green Hats – will empty the park and keep it closed until 9AM.

This information came to the park denizens minutes after the park opened at 7AM last Friday, over the park's loudspeaker. The complaint of park officials is that people ran during the rush after the gates were opened.

This blog, and many park denizens, are disgusted with a policy that can greatly disrupt responsible homeless people's day – particularly those of homeless people who have jobs or appointments they need to get to – because of the actions of a few irresponsible people.

Currently, the park directors keep lists of those who have been barred from the Loaves & Fishes facility or just from Friendship Park for periods of time. There is no reason that the directors cannot punish just those meriting punishment, and not everyone.

Understand, please, that I am greatly impressed with Garren Bratcher as a man of heart, but I cannot reconcile many of this actions and threats of actions with his bright, shining attitude.

[See SacHo's blogpost from May "Friendship Park: Open, Closed, Open, Closed," and a Homeless Tom blogpost from 8/17/08, re-creation of a flyer distributed at the park: "Your Time has Value; Your Life has Meaning." ]

UPDATE 8/17: Friendship Park opened at 7AM. The powers-that-be were not troubled by any rule breaking in the period following the opening of the park, so it was not closed (and re-opened). All is well ... except that many denizens of the park, including me, are troubled by an ongoing policy of closures and threats of closure.

A night in Safe Ground camp

I spent last night in the non-legal Safe Ground camp in one of its undisclosed locations.

Certainly, I was interested in what it is like, and for that reason I wanted to stay there [and to report about my experience in this blog]. But, also, getting shelter space is tight: I had to stay out from the mission on Thursday night and had trouble getting any sleep downtown.

So, a very sleepy Tom Armstrong showed up at the secluded site last night at about 6:15pm. My friend who suggested it would be OK for me to appear was sound asleep, so it was kind of weird on my part, I thought, for me to show up as I did. But I was immediately treated kindly, offered good hot food and a sleeping space.

There were, maybe, just ten of us there last night. Others who are regularly with the main core of campers had splintered off for the night, going to a cite in Placer county for an event that was planned.

I don't want to say too much, since I don't want to 'give away' anything I shouldn't, but the cite last night was nice and quiet and I got a great night's sleep, which I needed. There were two women there, the rest men. One of the men had a tent; the rest of us slept in bags or under blankets.

We, the folks in the encampment, didn't bother anyone. There was no fighting, no boistrousness, no substance nor alcohol use. After the night's rest, we picked up all our things and left the space very much the pristine spot that it had been.

I am hopeful that the city and county authorities, and the police, will allow the Safe Ground camp to continue with its promising program of a non-partying homeless encampment.

Good folks in the burgeoning homeless population need places just 'to be.'

City of Sacramento takes a hard line, refuses settlement offer on Lehr v. Sac'to that county accepts

Maintaining that the city did nothing wrong, City Attorney Eileen Teichert said no to a settlement offer that would have ended the long-simmering contention between the city (and county) and the area homeless community. Teichert said "We regard this lawsuit as one of no liability by the city. We believe our handling of the property is lawful."

While the county accepted the settlement offer on Anthony Lehr, et al. vs. City of Sacramento, et al. [as it's formally known], paying $488,000 – which will fund (1) payments to homeless people who have lost property seized by the city and county police; (2) pay $100,000 to homeless-help organizations; (3) pay Merin; and (4) fund a bureaucracy to pay seized-property claims – the city will fight on, in the courts.

An order was written by a US District judge on Thursday allowing the continuance of Lehr v. Sac'to in the courts with homeless people being a recognized grouping of people for a class action.

This information comes from a Sacramento Bee article, "Sacramento County offers $488,000 in homeless lawsuit; city won't settle."

--

The thinking I'm hearing out in Homeless World Sacramento is that the city attorney doesn't actually believe that the city isn't culpable for the police actions – she is just pursuing a better deal than what was offered.

Mayor Kevin Johnson has recently gone way out of his way to demonstrate support for homeless people, spending a night at a non-legal homeless encampment named Safe Ground.

The lead attorney for the homeless contingent of plaintiffs, Mark Merin, told the Bee that City Attorney Eileen Teichert "has taken a hard line. Mayor Johnson is very positive toward the homeless and I think would like to have the matter resolved, but she has gone off in another direction." But both City Attorney Teichert and a spokesperson for the mayor brush away the suggestion that they are at odds.

Speaking for the mayor, an aid, Joaquin McPeek, said something curious: "Let's put the money toward providing housing for the homeless rather than into the courts fighting this issue."

Wull, yeah. And THAT could best be achieved if the city would settle NOW.

--

From the Loaves & Fishes website:

• The press release, dated August 2, 2007, that first announced the lawsuit.
• The suit, itself, as entered in District Court on August 1, 2007.

Today's news from the homeless front

	Mayor Kevin Johnson. Photo from a recent Sacramento Press story.

This morning, minutes before 7AM, as I was part of the crowd standing in the North C Street cul-de-sac, waiting for Friendship Park to open, a news van for Fox40 News parked on the street and their news crew began filming.

Minutes later, after I'd made my shower reservation in the park, and was leaving the park, headed toward the wash house, I nearly bumped into the mayor who was heading into the park.

There was a bit of excitement -- Kevin Johnson's here! Kevin Johnson's here!

A little later, clean and fresh smelling, I returned to the park and the mayor was nowhere to be found, but the news van was still parked on North C with its fireman's-ladder-like antenna extending high into the sky. [Update: HERE'S the report from Channel 40. I note that they call the campground Camp Safety in the headline, but Safe Ground in the report.] [Further Update: Loaves & Fishes' website has news on the mayor's visit to "SafeGround."] [Further Update: In a demonstration of how feckless the once-mighty, now-sapped Sacramento Bee has become, their story on the KJ visit is simply a link to the Fox40 reports.]

I ran into Costa Mantis, who rose to prominence in Homeless World filming daily Live from Tent City onsite video reports last April, until that encampment was rousted. Costa is now filming video, again, this month, relating to Safe Ground. [Update: Costa Mantis's 8.12 video, "SAFE GROUND KJ GOES TO CAMP 08 12"]

Costa and I talked a bit about what had happened last night and about what the mayor hoped to accomplish with his effort. Later, we were joined by John Kraintz, our city's most prominent homeless homelessness leader.

From what I understand, the mayor, with some aids, arrived at the Safe Ground encampment at about 10PM and spent the night. Not many people got a lot of sleep with the news crew there, lights, and all the excitement.

It is hard to see how the event serves the mayor politically: the homeless remain mostly unpopular in the city and have little political clout. Perhaps the mayor is just following his heart and "doing the right thing."

Suggestions for the "Safe Ground movement"

Arrogant fellow that I am, I feel a need to put out some recommendations of what those that are leading the so-called Safe Ground movement should do.

It may seem niggling, but is highly important, that the term Safe Ground / Safeground / SafeGround be careful and narrowly defined so as not to confuse the public. Also, please please settle on how it's written: one word? two words? one word with the S & G capitalized? It's a curious and highly disordered thing, right now: Safe Ground [or, is it SafeGround?] is the name of a non-legal encampment of up to fifty homeless people that exists today. Yet, the idea of Safe Ground had meant a legal, sanctioned camping ground for the homeless. But even within this subdefinition there is unresolved confusion. [See SacHo's blogpost from last April "What does 'safe ground' mean?"]

The Safe Ground movement needs to resist argot and stridency that understandably strikes the public as being far-left politically. The homeless people in our city are already marginalized and don't need to be further marginalized from support that might come from the whole of the city, including staunch conservatives.

I would prefer that the effort to establish a legal homeless campground be successful. I believe the best hope of achieving this requires great sympathy from us, the homeless, and the homeless-help industry, for the predicament the general public finds itself in in today's economy. I think that empathy/compassion for others is required to engender empathy/compassion from others for the problems that homeless people are having these days.

I don't think that the SG movement should be strategic and legal-team led. I think it should opt for being authentic and mature, even integral. It should resist mischaracterizing the homeless population in Sacramento, showing the homeless population as it is, worts and SSDI checks and all. And care should be taken not to employ manipulative donation-seeking techniques.

I am also bothered quite a lot that this Safe Ground movement, in Homeless World Sac and in the Mayor's Office, is inhaling all the oxygen when a lot of that is needed for the more-immediate crisis: Doing something to provide shelter this coming winter for Sac'to homeless folk!

Mayor's Homeless Task Force envisions legal homeless encampment next spring

	A World Shelter U‑Dome, the likely tent/abode that will be used if Stepping Stone manifests, beginning in April, 2010.

There are two realms of news today relating to places for the Sacramento homeless to sleep. Both have to do with the mayor, Kevin Johnson. And both have to do with the word(s) Safeground/ SafeGround/ Safe Ground, an idea, or constellation of ideas, that suffers from a bit of a branding problem.

The first bit of news is that Mayor Johnson will be spending the night with members of a newly established group of campers called SafeGround, who live in a clandestine encampment that fully disappears every morning. The mayor will be bringing the media with him. Specifically, KTXL Fox40 News will be sending a reporter and film crew. Many other news organizations are likely also to come.

The purpose behind the mayor's effort hasn't been stated expressly, but it is believed that the mayor is wanting to demonstrate his concern for this segment of Sacramentans who are suffer egregiously in today's economy. It is appreciated within the city's wider homeless community that the mayor has taken an interest in SafeGround, a non-legal encampment of about 50 persons that is striving earnestly to be very clean, self sustaining and alcohol-and-drug free. SafeGround may be a beta effort that will inform the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness what can be achieved in creating a legal, workable neighborhood-friendly homeless camp.

The Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness – led by Andrew Rosskamm, who is at work for the mayor for a few months as part of a Harvard fellowship; and which includes John Kraintz, a homeless homelessness leader; and Joan Burke of Loaves & Fishes; among others – has been researching the costs, location and full array of factors in the creation of a legal encampment that is being called Stepping Stone, that will be a 50-member community living, most likely, in U‑Domes [see picture, above]. It is envisioned that Stepping Stone might be established in April, 2010. A potential serious obstacle in the creation of Stepping Stone is security at the site, and its cost. Outside security could cost $218,000/year, or more, and would be, by far, the encampment's greatest expenditure. Homeless people and homeless-help leaders – who met this morning at Loaves & Fishes' Delaney Center under the auspices of SHOC, Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee – are eager for an eventual legal homeless encampment that provides its own security to greatly reduce costs. With outside security, the encampment's per-bed-per-night costs would exceed $22. Without outside security, total per-bed-per-night costs could be less than $10.

At the Delaney Center meeting this morning the efforts to aid the current SafeGround encampment and to further the manifestation of a safe ground [i.e., legal] homeless encampment were discussed. No formal important decisions were made.

The mission and goals of the group are to achieve the establishment of a legal, self-governing encampment that has potable water, garbage and sanitation services; to further the decriminalization of homelessness; and to seek livable housing circumstances for all those now without basic housing accommodations.

The "Safeground movement" has three intertwined groups that are each meeting weekly to, collectively, push forward the movement's goals:

• SHOC Homeless Leadership Project effort to achieve safe ground: An effort to inform and involve the homeless community in activity that seeks the movement's goals.
• SafeGround Campaign Advisory Committee: A diverse group of supporters, elected homeless leaders and a legal team that work on support, coordination and planning of the campaign. Interest focuses on funding, public outreach and campground logistics.
• SafeGround Campaign Steering Committee: "Homeless leaders and Elders [elected resident officials of the current SG encampment] are essential [members]. Main activity is to handle detailed planning for SafeGround Campaign, both political strategies and public relations as well as internal campground siting, logistics and defense."

The winter of our discontent: shelter or other sleeping space needs to be found for the coming winter for the homeless

	The Winter of Our Discount Tent: Not meaning to make light of the situation, this shirt/joke was found that suits the Sacramento situation fittingly, to a T. From zazzle.

Though the August sun shines bright and brilliant, NOW is the time to address an emergency headed our way: Sleep space for the county's homeless during the winter of 2009-2010 needs to be found.

Somehow we must find space for about 200 souls from the middle of November, 2009, to the end of March, 2010. The county of Sacramento is beyond flat busted, and is now set to further raid safety-net services to fund ongoing politically-protected functions of government. The city doesn't have as direct a responsibility for the homeless, yet can step it – but in today's economy, little can be expected from the mayor and city council.

Still, something has to happen or hundreds of people for a period of a hundred cold dark dank wintry nights will suffer mightily with some getting deathly ill.

It is simply a responsibility of government and the homeless-help nonprofit organizations in Sacramento to find a way to blunt a foreseeable mass suffering. Perhaps a grant will be found to provide funding. In any case, means have to be found or a fix concocted using clever ideas and perhaps a few non-legal means.

There are two things that should be happening NOW, right now:

1. Loaves & Fishes' Board of Directors needs to step up, take a hard look at their books and determine how they can provide 400 grand, thereabouts, to help fund a fix to the hard times acomin'.
2. We need sets of ideas on how homeless folk might best weather the chilly times, cheaply.

Loaves & Fishes has seen their donation flow increase substantially in the last couple and a half years. Meantime they've been sitting on the stash, which amounted to fully $2 million at the end of calendar year 2008. Much of the money is perhaps restricted for the construction of a warehouse. But construction of that warehouse can be delayed, and persons who sent in donations specifically for the construction can be contacted and asked to allow their donation to be directed to meet the immediate emergency.

The sets of ideas that need to be fleshed out probably coalesce around these:

Idea 1: We need a doable plan for a small "safe ground"/legal encampment, restricted to just the winter months. At this late date, with all the government and police obstacles in front of us, a more-permanent and larger "safe ground" isn't achievable. It will need to be small and cheap with a small number of campers all of whom are not partiers with substance-abuse problems. Frankly, the fenced-in area between the Union Gospel Mission and the shelter at 470 Bannon might be a perfect location, with the fence and gate recently put in place around the property being helpful for the encampment! Another possible location is the site of the raised building on the Loaves & Fishes facility.

Idea 2: We need to find a vacant building, perhaps a warehouse proximate to Loaves & Fishes that can be cheaply rented and made ready to provide shelter for perhaps a hundred men. The shelter should be basic: just "in at 8-dinner-sleep-breakfast-0ut at 6." No extras.

Idea 3: In April, 2004, an article in the Bee, "Mission wants to add beds - The faith-based shelter would have to obtain a special permit to house more homeless men," [A Sac library card is likely necessary to access this article.] tells us the Union Gospel Mission wanted to petition the city to increase their shelter from the 86 beds the mission now provides to 250! The city/county should allow UGM and other shelters to increase the number of people they take care of during the winter of 2009-2010.

Idea 4: In Placer county, a network of churches allow homeless people to sleep at their establishments on a rotating basis. It's a "nomadic model of care [that is] used successfully in many other parts of the country." They call their program The Gathering Inn which uses 23 churches to serve 50 people. Likely, something on that model can be organized for this coming winter for our county's homeless.

SacHo will be posting more about preparations for shelter for the coming winter soon.
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The title of this post is taken from the first line of dialogue in Shakespeare's Richard III: "Now is the winter of our discontent." The Duke of Gloster, later King Richard III, is ruminating about political conditions in his country. Taken out of context, before reading the whole of what the duke says, the meaning of the phrase is "NOW not only are we unhappy, we are very very unhappy." A novel written by John Steinbeck, published in 1961, was titled The Winter of our Discontent. A couple spoof books have taken the title "The Winter of our Discount Tent."

County's budget problems continue; more services cuts are sure to come

The Sacramento Bee reports today on Sacramento county's ever-worsening budget problems.

The county Chief Operating Officer Nav Gill issued a report to the county Supervisors Tuesday, telling them there is now a $50.5 million budget gap for the current fiscal year [7/1/09 to 6/30/10], up from $37.6 million, the estimate just a week earlier.

Gill told The Bee that the budget has been cut five times in the last 14 months and that there will be another in September. "We are not done," he said, "We've got even more cuts coming down."

Two short paragraphs from the story cite areas of budget cutting that will directly negatively impact the county's homeless community:

Among the hardest-hit areas of the local budget will be health and human services and other social services, county staff members told the board.

And the shortfall is expected to grow, yet again, once the full effects are known of the state's plan to divert funds from local governments to balance its own budget.

New, clandestine encampment, named Safe Ground, is established

A resourceful band of homeless people have identified a plot of ground in Sacramento for the establishment of a campground – a place to live and be in the absence of adequate shelter space or other ways and means to spend the night.

There is nothing unusual about this (there are many illicit homeless tent communities in the county), except that these campers have a written compact, regulations and self-governance. And they have named their encampment "Safe Ground," even though it is not sanctioned, as that name implies.

I am told that last evening two Sacramento Bee reporters came to the site and spoke with many of the inhabitants. A story in the paper is likely to appear tomorrow morning. [Update: As of the 8/7 issue, there has been no story re the camp in The Bee.]

The plot of ground was described to me as being as big as the cul-de-sac area at Loaves & Fishes, from Mercy Clinic to the end of the street, which is, perhaps, 25 yards by 70 yards. I was told the encampment is wooded and secluded.

I am told that campers there abide by rules that are much like those imposed on denizens of L&F's Friendship Park: Fights, drinking and use of mind-altering substances are disallowed. Several of the campers comprise a makeshift board of directors. At least one of the campers is tasked with the responsibility of enforcing abidance of the rules.

The group is hoping to establish a community of forty tents in their location. One idea is to have the tents belong to the encampment, itself, and not to the campers. It was implied that some homeless-aid-agency leaders and attorneys are very aware of the community, are encouraging it, and will aid in its development.

[Note that SacHo was given an OK to report on this matter from a couple residents of the encampment, so long as the campground location was not identified.]

About SacHo [8/3/09]

Sacramento Homeless blog is intended as an informational resource to help homeless people, those who love them, or want to know about them, or hope to aid them.

This writer and this blog have some positions on what needs to happen in Homeless World Sacramento:

• We are appreciative of the generosity of people and businesses in our metropolis who are eager to help ease the suffering of the community's homeless folk. We want homeless-help leaders to appreciate the greater community, rather than fighting with it, or fighting with the city and county officials the voters elect.
• We believe that the public needs to know much more about what homeless people are like and what their problems are. Much false information was put out there during the Oprah-fueled Tent City imbroglio of Feb/Mar/Apr. We are hopeful that the truth about the homeless will be printed in our area newspapers, soon, to overcome false impressions.
• We believe that the path to jobs and better lives should be made wider for the homeless and that that begins with having shelters exist, not as day-prisons, but as places that readily accommodate the employment efforts of scrappy homeless people.
• We believe that nutrition is important and that homeless-aid organizations can do better to help the homeless have a proper diet which includes many helpings of vegetables and fewer hotdogs. We all live in the Central Valley, a vast cropland where abundant vegetables are grown.
• We believe that the homeless have "a right to be" and must no longer be arrested when they must sleep on the sidewalk or in tents on vacant property.

We welcome the talents of anyone in the Sacramento area who would want to help build this blog into a better resource.

The inimitable Hector Marquez

It was the first Sunday of the month, last night, and unless Hector Marquez is converting people in Peru or on the continent of Europe, the Gideons, who host that night of the month at the Union Gospel Mission, have Mr. Marquez preach to the mission's constantly shifting congregants.

Hector was in America yesterday and came to the mission, hunting for bear.

Almost immediately he focused on the persecution of Christians and, especially, once his sermon got rolling, on the threat to true, saved Christians, like himself, who are soon to be targeted by Satan and the devil's followers in these, the End Times.

Mr. Marquez's passage from the Bible for the night came from the third chapter of Daniel where the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, full of fury, commanded strong men in his court to put three innocent Jews – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – into a fiery furnace. The king did not know that the three were under the watchful protection of God.

Marquez said that the story depicts what will be happening soon when "extreme right-wingers" [as his enemies choose to tag him, he said] are treated like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego by the devil-led persecutors as our current tough times soon become much more ominous.

Disasters aplenty beset the earth, Marquez told us. The international press is withholding from us the fact that Christians are being murdered everywhere in the world in great number. In China, Christians are gunned down like dogs. In Iran, a woman recently was grabbed by the authorities for passing out Bibles and was summarily killed in public. Why was she killed on the street? Because the authorities there are determined to evoke fear to prevent the spread of Christ's message.

Once the appropriately-named Hector works up some steam hectoring the crowd, he begins screaming and banging on the lectern and fulminates at high volume. His bald head begins to sweat heavily and he pats at it with a napkin. [Sometimes when he preaches, but not last night, he leans on the alter and actually starts kicking up his legs behind him.]

Audibly, and somewhat visually, hefty Hector is curiously the same as the Ralph Kramden character that Jackie Gleason played in The Honeymooners sitcom when Kramden was abusive toward his wife, Alice -- "One of these days... One of these days... POW! Right in the kisser!... to the moon, Alice" -- or was berating his neighbor Ed Norton.

Hector told us that we are beginning to lose our freedoms, here in America. Citizens are terrified that they will soon be losing their health benefits. Soon, we won't be able to feed ourselves due to problems with the crops. Trust me, End Times are here, Hector told us, and an Anti-Christ, much like Nebuchadnezzar, will be loose on the planet full of hate for devout Christians, who are right wingers, like himself. [At this point, I think many in the chapel began wondering, as I was, if Hector was fingering Obama as that Anti-Christ. The President is now pushing for passage of univeral health-care legislation.]

Hector told us that, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, he would be put in a fiery furnace but he would come dancing out of there. Again, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, his clothes woudn't be harmed and there would not be so much as a whiff of smoke about him.

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Too often the wingnuts or those merely wholly loony come to preach at the mission. But Hector tops 'em all, in a Twilight Zone of vanity and paranoia.