As the homeless join 'Occupy' encampments it adds a new, often-unwanted dimension

A frontpage story in the New York Times addresses the curious situation that is occurring nationwide of homeless people joining the Occupy movement. A rough estimate is that 30% of the people amassed in the movement are homeless.

A bit of one picture from the article:  An L.A. homeless guy.

Homeless people are, of course, part of the Bottom 99% that the Occupy movement represents -- indeed we can easily lay claim to being the Bottom 1% -- but homeless people join city encampments with special sets of interests and needs, and oftentimes a much lessened interest in the movement's goals.

From the Times piece, "Dissenting, or Seeking Shelter? Homeless Stake a Claim at Protests":

From Los Angeles to Wall Street, from Denver to Boston, homeless men and women have joined the protesters in large numbers, or at least have settled in beside them for the night. While the economic deprivation they suffer might symbolize the grievance at the heart of this protest, they have come less for the cause than for what they almost invariably describe as an easier existence. There is food, as well as bathrooms, safety, company and lots of activity to allow them to pass away their days.

...[Homeless people's] presence is posing a mounting quandary for protesters and the authorities, and divisions have arisen among protesters across the country about how much, if at all, to embrace the interlopers. The rising number of homeless, many of them suffering from mental disorders, has made it easier for Occupy’s opponents to belittle the movement as vagrant and lawless and has raised the pressure on municipal authorities to crack down.

In the article, protesters in only one city, Atlanta, cherished the presence of homeless people. The sentiment there was expressed by a protesting 50-year-old former repairman: "The homeless bring numbers. They bring a voice."

But sentiment found in Nashville, New York, Los Angeles and Oakland was different.

A 22-year-old L.A. protester, homeless herself, said this, "“There are a lot of them here that have mental problems and that need help. They are in the wrong place.” A Nashville participant in the movement had this to say about the homeless presence, "This is keeping people away: It distracts a lot of energy away from the issues we’re fighting for ... A lot of women felt unsafe camping out at night. It discourages a lot of people from participating."

At Zuccotti Park near Wall Street a protester tasked to provide security offered this crass comment: “It’s bad for most of us who came here to build a movement. We didn’t come here to start a recovery institution.”

The article made no mention of Sacramento, which has unique features.The incurious press in our metropolis has made the SafeGround movement representative of the whole of homelessness and has made John Kraintz and Tracie Rice-Bailey celebratory leaders. Kraintz and Rice-Bailey are known to live in apartments in the downtown area and have been seen frequenting in or near Chavez Park which is Occupy Sacramento's Ground Zero.

At one point, about two weeks ago, I saw Kraintz advising some protesters arousing honks of support from motorists on I Street. The particular grouping featured a woman with a bullhorn complaining bitterly about the Obama Administration. The protesters, between 12 and 20 in number, gathered near the street, but in front of the Federal Court building, had a variety of messages. Many had signs complaining about the crackdown on marijuana. But others had signs that related to more-common Occupy complaints, like income disparities. Kraintz, straddling his bicycle, was advising one young man that their movement needed to hone in on what they were about, to deliver a clearer message.

Paula Lomazzi, Executive Director (and sole staff member) of SHOC [Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee], acting as if she is a core Occupy Sacramento movement organizer [and it may be she is], has been involved in rallying the presence of her niche of homeless people and homeless-aid-industry muckamucks to attend City Council meetings relating to gaining a right for the Occupy people to camp without harassment in Chavez Park.

Always troubling, is the horning in, via the LoafFish-SHOC-SafeGround triangle, of the unsavory politics of the three Alkali Flat-area charities. All have a wholly anti-capitalism agenda associated with The League of Revolutionaries for a New America (formerly, The Communist League). Lomazzi -- and in August, Rice-Bailey, the hippie of SafeGrnd -- have written for LRNA's newspaper, The People's Tribune.

SNR gets it EXACTLY right re Occupy Sac

OK, I may get in trouble here, but the Sacramento News & Review is spot on in their editorial this week regarding the Occupy Sac protesters' RIGHT to free speech. Here it is, en toto:

A tent in Chavez Park two days ago.

As Occupy Sacramento moves into its third week, some people—say, for instance, the local daily and the city council—seem to be suffering from protest fatigue. After all, the protest is messy (despite the fact that protesters in Cesar Chavez Plaza have been cleaning up after themselves), and, gosh, if we let them protest 24 hours a day, won’t we have to let less savory characters do the same?

But that’s precisely the point. It’s easy to support freedom of speech when you buy ink by the barrel or have microphones and cameras at ready access for each and every one of your opinions. But the main thing protesters of Occupy Sacramento have to work with is their own bodies. A 24-hour protest is a pretty stark statement of how much the principles they are fighting for matter to them.

And if the Ku Klux Klan or anti-gay protesters or pro-life protesters or—gasp!—our homeless citizens are the next to protest 24/7 in front of City Hall? Good for them, as long as they keep it peaceful. That’s what free speech, the right to assemble and the right to petition for redress of grievances are all about.

Things are much messier in democracies than in dictatorships and oligarchies. Freedom of speech and the right to protest aren’t privileges that can be revoked; they are rights, and they are not reserved for causes of which we approve. The fear of potential problems is not an excuse for prior restraint on free speech—and our city council and local daily should be the first to say so.

And, indeed, the ed is right that there is an issue of allowing Occupy to protest that lets in the Big Barn Door protest from the homeless community. [And, unfortunately, that means SafeGround and probably not the larger, needier, more-legitimate-without-crazy-underlying-politics other 90% of suffering homeless folk.]

The problem with SafeGround is that they have become -- like Loaves & Fishes and SHOC -- a money-grabby pseudo-charity that has become far more interested in garnering publicity [which brings attention, which results in donation receipts] than a group that ACCOMPLISHES anything. By constantly jonesing for a rumble, and making noise, they have come to think that that is all they need to do. They protest everything, object, nay-say, and play victim instead of engaging any path toward possible progress. If others, say the city council, has issues or problems SG rejects them. WE are poor victims, so goes the SG whine. And that trumps all else.

And, thus, SafeGround will begin their full-throttle protesting in Chavez Park the minute the Occupy crowd leaves. But for SafeGround it won't really be an exercise of free speech; it will be the same old, same old. "Get your lime-green SafeGround T-shirt, right cheer, folks. Just fifteen smackers. Help a victimized homeless dude, wontcha?"

The delicious absurdist irony is that by having a legalized place to protest, the SafeGrounders will have undermined their protest for a legalized place to be. Thus nullifying their protest. But should they leave, their complaint of not having a place to be would re-arise as something they must settle in in Chavez Park to protest.

Urgent! Urgent! Sacramento Steps Forward continues its malevolent "bucks rush" campaign

OK.  It is time to stop any thinking that the hybrid charity/govt organization Sacramento Steps Forward is doing anything other than going after people's dough for the sake of going after people's dough.  They've adopted a corporate mindset:  It's all about the money.

For corporations, that's legitimized.  Big corporations are, by Supreme Court determination, supposed to be wholly at work for the stockholders.  It is all about profits for them.

Central bit of SacStepForw's email sent Friday.The countdown of days is in red,which presents a falsified sense of urgency. Click here to enlarge to a more-easily-readable size.

Sacramento Steps Forward, on the other hand, is supposed to be at work for the public.  Certainly, they are tasked with the job of helping the homeless -- but that shouldn't be, and certainly needn't be at odds with serving the public interest.  And how should they "serve" the public?  By being an honest and straightforward enterprise -- which is what they've chosen not to be.

Three days ago, Bob Erlenbusch, of Sacramento Housing Alliance and whom I believe is on the Board of SSF, was quoted at the SSF Facebook site saying SSF doesn't need the hundred thou until the end of the year [see graphic at the bottom of this post], but Sac Steps Forward is playing a game of "bucks rush" to try to panic the public into sending in money straight away because there is a dire emergency.  {Pay us before you have time to think!  It's a dire emergency!!  Pay us NOW!!!]

Something else the public isn't told in the email campaign is that grants are being sought.  Very likely, I aver, the grant givers are standing on the sidelines to bridge the gap in the gap -- that is, to pay whatever short of the $100,000 that Sacramento Steps Forward seeks.  So, the probable truth is that the public gets hassled and then hustled when there really isn't going to be any shortfall in the Winter-help program till.  It's all just a rabid-dog marketing scheme. Right now on SSF's homepage at their website is a big blue sign that says "Urgent!"

From SSF's Facebook wall; an entry dated 10/11.  [Click here to enlarge slightly.] UPDATE: SSF has taken down this entry.

Just as bad as all of this is that Sacramento Steps Forward doesn't have a real sense of what being homeless in our county is like.  How could they, from their Ivory Tower?  If you go to their website, you will see that they could just as well be talking about Hampton dilettantes or people in wheelchairs or hotdog-cart vendors as Sacramento homeless people.  The experience of being homeless and cold and miserable and at risk isn't delved into.  I think this is because the lot of them don't have a clue.  An exception is Rudolph and TRB, who curiously are on a committee as homeless representatives when neither is homeless anymore, and when both were there to accept winter-long stays at Hawthorn Suites for SafeGround's core members from Mayor Johnson in 2009, when most of the rest of us were left to struggle with the elements.  This, when SafeGround would have nothing to do with Winter Shelter.  It's a lot like Benedict Arnold supposing he can take off his new Red Coat and come back, again, to work for George Washington at Valley Forge.

A greatly disappointing Sacramento Steps Forward donations-seeking email

Is Sacramento Steps Forward honest with the public?

A look at the Sacramento Steps Forward website, and an email I received from them this afternoon, makes me wonder if the hybrid charity/government organization is up to it to do the important task of raising money and saving homeless people this coming winter from the misery of sleeping outside.

SacStepsForward's email. Click to enlarge.

One would think that ANY group seeking donations from the public would know it is important to appear competent. Any email that is sent out should be accurate, honest and fully competently written. Indeed, it should be pristine, a thing of beauty. Several sets of eyes should look over any webpage, email, or document that is likely to be scrutinized by the public. This is so because most people won’t see the folks in an organization running around making good things happen; what they will see is that which is put in front of their nose – like on a computer monitor.

Too, any government organization (or nonprofit, for that matter, IMHO) has a sacred obligation to be wholly truthful. It should never lie or mislead. Honesty should be an absolute. Based on the SSF email I received today, I think the organization is chasing away possible donors – not just for today but for the future. Indeed, if anyone were to ask me, I would recommend NOT donating to Sacramento Steps Forward for, at least, the time being.

As you can see from the first graphic that comes with this blogpost, the email that was sent out begins with the onerous information that “Winter Shelter Should Begin” in 38 days. A reader can only suppose that they are being told there is a rush for Sacramento Steps Forward to meet the $100,000 donation-goal that has been set within a 38-day time frame.

Source of the Erlenbusch quote: SSF's Facebook site.

But, a look at SSF’s Facebook site shows that there is no such rush. There, Bob Erlenbusch is quoted in an Oct. 12 post saying, “We don’t need the $100,000 tomorrow, but it’d be nice to have it by the end of the year, before we get too deep into the season.” In other words, they don’t need the funding in 38 days, they just think “it’d be nice to have it” in 78 days. [I believe I’m correct in writing that Erlenbusch is on the Board of both SSF and the Leftist¹ homeless-help charity Sacramento Housing Alliance. In years past, he was a Really Really Big Cheese in Homeless World Los Angeles before something happened and he came to ply his trade here is Sac, as a Small Cheese, starting one or two or three years ago.]

Panicking people to buy something or give money is a dishonest ploy. If Sacramento Steps Forward is intentionally trying to panic people, which by appearances they are, then they are weasels. BUT, even if the effort is not an intentional “bucks rush,” it is far from being an action that ‘keeps faith’ with the great good people of Sacramento, who are the source of the pay of the staffers of SSF and keep us, the county’s homeless, alive more than anyone. But, as I say, the organization should be keeping faith with the public, and be honest straight shooters WITHOUT NEED OF ANY REASON TO DO SO. Honesty should be second nature. Or, first nature, for that matter. Automatic. The default position, with no other position possible other than this ‘default.’

Also, SSF should not be ginning up any supposed magic of the $100,000 amount that it puts out there. For starters, the org was asking for dough a month or so ago, claiming that there was no government money forthcoming when they have to have known that the welfare department was in a process of delaying some of its payments as a means of gathering up some stash to partially fund winter homeless programs [and are now known to be the source of $150,000 that SSF has already received]. When SSF asks for money now, I have to think that there are possible grants in the wings that will fill-in for any shortfall in what was sought. If there are fill-in-the-gap grants laying in wait, SSF must let the public know this. The public is not a rube to be conned.

The email says, “If this gap isn't filled [that is, if the goal of raising $100,000 isn’t achieved], homeless families and vulnerable adults will be left with severely limited options this winter to get away from the cold and rain.” That just isn’t so. There is nothing magical about the amount SSF is seeking. Whatever is raised will be put to good use, very likely. But if it is less or more than $100,000, THAT amount – whatever it is – will be put to use eradicating homeless people’s winter misery. And, if Sacramento Steps Forward is a competent organization THAT will be of use eradicating people’s misery, because if SSF gains a golden, and deserved, reputation of being sincere and authentic to the public THAT will manifest in a beautiful relationship with the people of Sacramento and THAT will be of great use in eliminating misery.

And, finally, the short SSF email is poorly written. That is suggestive of bobbling the ball and not doing high-quality work in other, vital areas. The email says “You’ve raised $1,325.” No, I haven’t. I, Tom, am not seeking donations; SSF is. It says that money that came in earlier will fund “Winter Shelter programs, which provide extra shelter beds and motel vouchers for homeless families and disabled adults sleeping outside.” While we know the meaning that is intended, the message as written is weirdly funny. People aren’t sleeping outside if they’re sleeping in a shelter or motel.

A middle paragraph in the email is embolded. It reads thus:

$100,000 may seem like a daunting task. But did you know there are over 1.4 million people who live in Sacramento County? If every person donated even $1, we'd reach our goal. Easily.

This isn’t a biggie, but “$100,000” isn’t a task. RAISING $100,000 would be. As for the populous of Sacramento County, it is certainly the case that not every man, woman, child, toddler, or newborn will be donating a dollar. Online comments to articles about homelessness that appear in the Bee are in good majority damning of all homeless people. From this we know a great many in the county despise the undercaste – and would never consider sending in their supposed share, which would be, by the SSF figures, about seven cents. In any case, I am bewildered: I don’t find the bolded paragraph to be fun, interesting or meaningful. And I think that is because it’s not, it’s not, and it’s not.

C’mon, Sacramento Steps Forward: Do better. Act more mature, serious and honest. Act as if what you do matters in this crazy old world, because it can.
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¹ Normally, mentioning political leanings would be inappropriate, but Homeless World Sacramento is anything but normal. Many charities in the homeless-aid industry [or, homeless-help racket as one longtime homelessness muckymuck calls the industry here] proselytize their often-goofy politics as much as do anything else. For the record: I don’t know anything specific about Erlenbusch’s personal political thinking. Also, for the record: I am homeless and liberal -- and decidedly not an advocate for totalitarianism, like many of the fuzzball executives of homeless charities, here, who mistakenly think themselves to be liberal … and sane.

Great words.

Great quote, great man, great presentation (picture). Had to put this up.

I read the picture saying "The grass isn't greener on the other side; it's only green for you where you are. Besides, the sky is a beautiful blue where you are! Get on with it, damn it!"

Plus, I think there's a wispy iCloud in the background.

Trees, Loaves, Fishes and Nincompoopery

Let me begin this by making a forthright statement: The best thing that could happen right now, to benefit the homeless people in Sacramento County in advance of the life-endangering difficulties of winter, is for the world-class stumbling, bumbling incompetence at Loaves & Fishes to END. And for it to end, there absolutely must be multiple personnel changes. Fire and then hire, y’all.

The latest instance of grand mal stupidity at Loaves & Fishes relates to tree removal. I am told that a week ago Garren, a co-director of Friendship Park, drove a rented cherry picker onto the park grounds, and, with a chainsaw, or other saw of some sort, commenced, by himself, to begin a project of eliminating three big dead or nearly-dead trees from the property.

Make no mistake. Removing big dead trees from Friendship Park is not just a good idea, it is necessary to assure the safety of homeless denizens of the park. Unfriendly Friendship Park is surely the most densely populated park in the county – very much especially so on rainy, windy days when homeless folk use the park as a place to huddle and escape, as best they can, a bad winter day’s miseries.  And bad weather and a new winter are acoming.

In January of 2010, an enormous fully-dead tree fell in the park and could easily have killed a half-dozen homeless people. Libby Fernandez’s Smithers, Joan Burke, was quoted in the Bee then, thus:

By the grace of god , the limb fell off first, piercing the roof of one of the gazebos," said Burke. "It was pouring rain, and people had to come out of the cover. There was quite a bit of grumbling, but not 10 minutes later, the whole tree went over, crushing several benches. So we are very thankful there was nobody there, because they truly would have been killed.

Right. A completely dead tree that had no roots, and can have weighed five tons, fell over. Someone could have leaned against it and it might have fallen. But, because the leadership at Loaves & Fishes is spectacularly incompetent the danger of the tree went unaddress (and likely unnoticed) before it fell. After the tree incident, there were no employee repercusions. Libby [CEO] and Joan and Garren and Jim [the other co-director] went skipping along singing “la-de-da-de-da” and nobody cared that from blithering full-stink nincompoopery we barely escaped multiple homeless citizens’ deaths.

Meantime, the comatose Loaves & Fishes Board of Directors were being wheeled around on their gurneys enjoying their every-afternoon extra-heavy morphine drip. No word – ever – from them. They are like a phalanx of Maynard G. Krebses, squealing in panic that they might be asked to WORK by learning what was going on at their nonprofit (but, empire building!) organization.

One would think that after the January 2010 near-slayings-via-incompetence the problem of trees would, at least, have grabbed the attention of L & J & G & J [who are still, today, in the same positions they were in in January, 2010], but not so.

So, getting back to last week: Garren drives a cherry-picker [a motorized crane or lift of some sort] into the park and commences to begin to cut off branches. This is not one of his duties and this is not a task someone should blithely choose to do on whim. This is something that an organizaton where the brains of a flea is present hires out a tree-removal service to get the task done. What makes it all the worse is that it is now known that Garren has tried to remove tree limbs at home [where the trees were certainly not the height and girth of FP trees] and has hurt himself.

So Garren gets himself hoisted up on the lift and manages, after some head-scratching uncertainties, to forget how gravity works. Near the beginning of his task he is underneath a limb he is sawing off, it falls and hits him and he falls and then he with his bloody head is taken to the hospital.

It is likely fortunate that Garren screwed up right away since his plan included cutting away at trees hanging over 12th Street and power lines. Apparently, the not-geniuses in Loaves & Fishes management didn’t think that, just maybe, you have to contact the city before you suppose an amateur woodsman can mess with tree limbs tangled up with 440-volt electrical power lines.

To the BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF LOAVES & FISHES: We need an adult, here. Is one of you an adult? Somebody with a lick of sense needs to review what is going on – and has long been going on – with the management of the Loaves & Fishes charity.

Yes, Libby Fernandez stomps around and does her Napoleon impersonation, but that does not mean that she knows squat about running anything other than her mouth. A handful of homeless people could have been killed a year-and-a-half ago. Cowboy Bill was killed last year. Garren could have been badly hurt last week.

Homeless people are real people – not freakin’ puppets for you heartless baboons to play with. You need to impose repercussions for endangering lives. You need to stop waltzing around in your holier-than-thou robes and do your freakin’ job.

It is nice to hear, as I heard yesterday afternoon, that the Board intervened to have replaced the manager of the lunchroom about whom there were a great many complaints. Indeed, from what I was told, Libby remained resistant, but acquiesced to the Board’s insistence that a new chowhall manager be hired.

I am, however, disgusted to learn that Wash House Mark lost his perch as manager of the Wash House because the Head of Loaves & Fishes believed she needed a new token [i.e., African American] person in a skilled positon at the charity, ostensively to rebuff any effort at suing the charity for racial prejudice. [The pink-slipped chow-hall manager was a black woman.]

I have not spoken with Wash House Mark in a year and a half. But, during the period when I was using the Wash House -- from April, 2008, to July, 2010 -- I witnessed him in action as the manager and knew him to be skilled, fair, compassionate and just. He knew how to do the precisely appropriate thing, which ain’t easy, since some homeless guys are a little nuts. And he was mirthful and didn’t play favorites. He was the very model of a sterling employee. If he got the nomination from any party for president, I would campaign for him and vote for him and buy a car just so I would have a place to adhere a Vote for Mark in 2012 bumper sticker. And yet, Libby has taken away his duties where he was a Wash House Abraham Lincoln in order to use deceptive means to dodge a lawsuit.

For shame, you bunch of feckless weasels.

By the way, no disparagement meant for the new head guy in the Wash House. I understand the new guy proved himself to be quite able in his prior duties operating the day-storage shed. It is no fault of his that he was offered and, rightly, took a promotion.

But, boy-oh-boy, what a typical shoot-yourself-in-the-foot occurrence for bungling Loaves & Fishes not to appreciate the one thing they had got most right in all the world. They had Mark where he was steller, but now he is doing something of lesser importance where his genius cannot shine so brightly.

Waste, waste, waste, waste, waste.  Loaves & Fishes:  such a disgrace.

What the 'Occupy' protesters want addressed

There has been some complaining that the Occupy protesters -- in Sacramento, New York and elsewhere -- have been unclear, unspecific or all over the map about what they want. They is more than somewhat true, but things are that way by design, not for lack of reasons for them to be upset. Below is a manifesto, a cry in pain, a list of some particulars that Keith Olbermann read on his show a few days ago. I neither know the source of the document that was read nor how 'officially' we should take what was written. But it is certainly in the realm of stating what all the hubbub is about. So, I offer it up:

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members. That our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors. That a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people, and the Earth, and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.

We come to you at a time when corporations -- which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality -- run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here as is our right to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in workplaces based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is, itself, a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut worker's health care and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams, but look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products, endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives, or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully kept people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners, even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City general assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble, occupy public space, create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard.

New Winter Shelter Options

City officials, county officials, everybody is interested in upping Winter Shelter options for the local homeless. Happily, a few new possibilities have landed smack in our laps.

Logo of Occupy Sacramento on their Facebook page. Occupy Sacramento is our burg's protest contingent as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement that is raising awareness and wants to fix the mess in America where corporations and those who are extremely wealthy have an exorbitant degree of power, as a result of, effectively, buying politicians.

One is for the homeless to camp with Occupy Sacramento. Sure it sounds like camping, and in violation of ordinances, but it truly is the case that people can camp in the process of protesting (or so I'm told). So .... why not save two birds with one tent? Camp to protest, and while you're protesting survive the winter.¹ Sounds like a Godsend to me.

It cannot be denied that the homeless have reason to protest.  And, indeed, the SafeGround folk have an established history of protesting.  Much of the Occupy Wall Street grievences match up with items that should be on homeless people's lists of gripes, anyway.  And where is Occupy Sacramento?  Why, in Chavez Park, a central spot for us homeless to hang already.

The other ideas come as a result of a search for homeless stuff among recent Google+ postings.  What I found was a recent picture of the Montana cabin that Ted Kaczynski, the Unibomber, lived in. His cabin had been shipped across country for use at his trial in the late 1990s. Today, the cabin is stored in an otherwise empty warehouse in Sacramento.

The Unibomber's once-remote cabin that he built in the outback of Montana is now more remote than ever before while being tantilizingly close to soon-to-be-cold homeless Sacramentans.

Might not the cabin and the warehouse make for nifty space to shelter homeless folk!?  Great idea, ya!?  The cabin looks like a fine, upstanding, sturdy structure -- better than any of those plywood sheds that the ShakeDown folks -- er, I mean SafeGround folks -- are Jonesing for.  And the warehouse -- WooHoo! -- looks big enough to hold hundreds.

But of course the nice cabin and big, big warehouse will be denied us.  In an area where there is a multitude of empty structures, many homeless people are going to be outside this winter, including on the coldest of nights when temperatures dip into the 20s.

It's a chilling disgrace.  And I sure wish citizens would hold the homeless-services industries' feet to the fire re all of this.  It is they who bulk up their charities and are far the most to blame while providing stinting attention to the poor.  If somebody dies this winter I am going to take MY protest to the warehouse that the twin disgraces Libby Fernandez and Joan Burke work in [if you call their putzing around "work"].

Oh, and while my dander is up, something else I learned today:  The national head of Volunteers of America got a raise in his salary of something like 7%.  He now makes more than $324,000/yr.  A curiously huge sum for someone who works to coax citizens to "volunteer" their labor to aid the poor.  Living large on the backs of others, eh, Mr. CEO?  It stinks.  It stinks to high heaven.  Screw you, VOA.
=====
¹ Bad news. The police arrested 20 people camping out on the first night of the protest. Freedom to protest is encumbered, at least in Sacramento. And, on the night of Oct 8, per Alexander Leach, the Liberal reporter for Sacramento for examiner.com, 14 more people were arrested. The Occupy folks are now seeking a variance to the city's anti-camping ordinance.  Good luck with that.  [I meant that last sentence both literally AND sarcastically. Sarcastically in the sense that I don't think there's a chance in hell they'll get their variance since we homeless will pounce after any variance is granted and stage our own OCCUPY SACRAMENTO for the sake of saving homeless people's lives this winter.  A legal tent encampment could save lives, you see.]

Who the homeless are

I’ve been homeless in Sacramento since I first fell into the circumstance over three years ago. Though my life is stalled and my future is a worry, I’m grateful for my experiences which have been a revelation. Put simply, I have learned that homeless people are not as advertised. They are neither the pathetic simpletons of Loaves & Fishes’ newsletters; nor alien invaders as local media sometimes have it; nor are we a parade of Jesuses, as is the risible romantic notion at Trinity Cathedral’s webspace. I have found myself -- out here on the streets and in a shelter and at the public library and trying to be inconspicuous at the train station -- in the midst of a bounty of friends, people who are colorful and chipper, amazing and endlessly interesting. Of course, the thousands of us in this county are each unique, fully distinguishable one from the other, but there are generalities about the lot of us that can be made.

Many of the adults on the streets and in the shelters are mentally ill or are addicted to alcohol or powerful substances like methamphetamine or crack cocaine or, in rare cases, heroin. It is peculiar that many regular citizens in the county –- and probably most everywhere in the nation and so-called civilized world -- have a heighten revulsion toward people who are near-inexorably trapped. Scientists are making remarkable progress at understanding brain function and dysfunction and the confusion at the core of mental illnesses. New books in this fervent arena of discovery are out there –- including at the public library where I find them. Some people for genetic reasons, or from surviving a horrible upbringing, are particularly vulnerable to an adulthood that is lost to confusion or anger or entails a fall into an abyss of benumbing addiction. We only think our lives are a function of our will when, truly, we are in significant part subject to forces beyond our control or direct awareness.

It is mostly a result of staying at the mighty mission, a place where I have slept for a thousand nights, where I have learned about guys’ troubled upbringing. Many of the regular preachers at the Union Gospel Mission have come from dysfunctional families and some have, themselves, overcome terrible addictions. When these preachers talk about their troubled past, many guys in the seats nod or laugh in recognition to similar horror in their own lives. It is all an oddly poignant thing: what was grim once can emerge as something absurd and funny, even in light of a reality where guys are continuing to endure disastrous ongoing aftereffects of a life made haywire. [The mission, of course, has has an eye to get guys into their program to square up their lives and afterlives.]

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I am a listener in a world abounding with talented talkers. I know a master auto mechanic whose stories are wild and hilarious. His teenaged kids are in the vicinity, but he doesn’t see them. He disappears onto the streets for drinking binges that last weeks at a time. An artist whose unique work was featured on Rachel Ray’s show has no makeshift studio; he now concentrates on his mastery of chess. One guy is the king of rock climbing, and has been written up in the New York Times [Google “sky is his roof" at the Times’ website.]; I see him in town carrying a world of stuff on his back. Another guy has the singing voice of an angel. Homelessness is talent waylaid.

While there are rascals and full-blown psychopaths and narcissists in Homeless World Sacramento, convicted pedophiles, thieves, rapists and cunning, charmy con men, it is mostly a place where everyone is remarkably gentle, and all try to scrape together an existence.

There are scrappy people who collect bottles and cans and will hold up a sign all day at an intersection. They take sub-minimum wage jobs from friends of friends, and they’ve taken work from Loaves & Fishes’ “Daily Bread,” where they risk getting wholly ripped off for their labor.

Some of the guys are walled off. There are sad sacks, always in touch with their gloom. Others are loners who near never speak and keep to themselves. Still others have anger on a hair trigger. You have to be cautious when interacting with them because a trivial misunderstanding can erupt and become a physical confrontation.

It’s a fragile world; one that is often dangerous. But mostly Homeless World Sacramento is a place of neglect and loss and wonders unrealized.