Aiding the Un-Housed Community in Columbus Ohio

We talk with Elizabeth Blackburn from the FIRST Collective about a volunteer run encampment on the near-east side of Columbus.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to it could happen here the podcast about stuff
falling apart and perhaps how we can begin to put
them back together. Today, I'm your host, Garrison Davis. We've
had a lot of doom and gloom the past few
weeks here on the pod, so this episode we more
focused on the putting stuff back together side of the spectrum.

(00:26):
We'll be talking with Elizabeth Blackburn of the First Collective,
a group of volunteers, organizers, and activists in Columbus, Ohio
focused on direct, grassroots action and mutual aid. But we'll
be specifically talking about a volunteer run homeless encampment that's
currently serving around people in the near East side of Columbus.

(00:48):
Here's some of the history from Elizabeth. The project started
as a warming station at the end of January UM
and how is morphed into a autonomous encampment that's largely
self governed and managed by a loose network of mutual

(01:10):
aid organizations that came together during the uprisings. You know,
this is this is as flat an organization as we
can make it, and we're you know, we're trying to
make it flatter, and I just think it's important that
the people recognize. You know, going out with resources is great,
but going out and finding out what resources people need

(01:31):
is better. There are so many groups in our city
that are supposed to be doing this work that are not,
and they're being paid to do this work, and it's ineffective.
And all I want is for for more people to
try and do it their own way, to try and

(01:54):
do what their community wants, you know, to the best
of their abilities. We see that lots of projects grow
out of the mutual a networks that were established. It's
been interesting to see how people in the wake of
the George Floyd uprising have built off things started two
years ago, what's changed in their practice, and how it's
evolved since then. This past winter in this area of Columbus, Ohio,

(02:19):
there was community needs not being met, people having to
be out in the cold and not having a place
to stay. This problem was recognized by people, but unfortunately,
far too many people just look at problems and just
be like, oh, yes, here's the thing that sucks. Well,
that's too bad. But today we'll be talking about how

(02:39):
a collective of people didn't simply acknowledge a problem, but
actually went past that point and decided that even with
limited resources, they had the capacity to actually figure out
how to solve this themselves and provide a solution for
the community. I think the first time I really tried
something like that was in December. A friend of mine

(03:00):
had reached out about a camp on the south side
of Columbus that was being swept by the city and
they had needs. They needed new tents so they could
set up elsewhere. They needed food and water like they
always did, and they needed people to be there um
to keep you know, to prevent violence from occurring as

(03:20):
much as possible. UM. So hearing about that, I started
a I set up on my street in a bougie
part of Columbus UM with a little sign and collected
goods whatever people dropped off, I collected money. UM. I
raised about two thousand dollars and uh I think we

(03:42):
ended up buying around twenty two tenths UM got other
people there as well, and tried to make sure everybody
had what they needed so they could get set up elsewhere.
But that was my first, like my first experience with
that doing it hands on and seeing that that worked,
that encouraged me to do more. Is that How has
it grown and changed? Since then, there's still a need

(04:03):
for people to stay. Um, it still gets pretty cold
at night. Um, so how throughout throughout winter? How did
the project kind of morphin change? How did you go
about finding like places to actually like set up the
physical spot right, Like, that's that's a whole it's a
whole other problem. Um, it's all like the is all
like the logistical side of things. Yeah, exactly. Um, well,

(04:25):
we happened to have a space late last fall, I
was invited to join a collective. At first collective that
was operating out of a church that largely um falling
into disrepair, but still operating as a church. And because
we had that space, a couple of members of the
collective encountered some folks in the neighborhood who needed a

(04:49):
place to sleep. They were sleeping in a bus stop
on a snowy night, and we just decided to start
giving them a place to stay because we had a place.
It wasn't a super popular decision, but um, we had
community back in. Conflicts from some people in the neighborhood
who were more nimby minded did obviously come up, along

(05:10):
with the complaints from the church that the first collective
was operating out of for the community's part. When we
were at the church, we were in a part of
the neighborhood that had largely been gentrified, and so there
was some some resistance, some concern about the changing face
of the community and about the safety of kids and

(05:33):
so on and so forth. But we didn't have any
real safety concerns, not not in our not inside beyond
a couple encounters that we had to de escalate UM
and a few people that we had to remove for
based on their behavior, UM, but from inside the church,
from the church organization. UM. The conflicts started pretty early on.

(05:58):
They didn't really like how we oper aided and we
got a reputation as a warming space with no rules,
and so they felt like because couples could sleep next
to each other, UM, because people could go outside for
a cigarette at night, because they weren't locked in the building,
that we were running a space that was out of control,

(06:19):
well until until we were kicked out of the church
on March twenty nine. I think it was the physical
infrastructure was there. It was just a matter of getting
caughts and blankets and making sure that people had food.
Most of that was either through just one off donations
to my cash app or I bought it with my

(06:41):
own funds UM. Once we were forced to move outside,
it got a lot more complicated UM because at that
point we didn't have any tents UM. We had to
go out that night and purchase. The day that we
were removed, we had to go out and purchase I
believed ten tents to start, and then had a couple
dropped off UM. We now have around twenty tents UM.

(07:05):
A lot of those were purchased by by me or
by donations that we received UM, or have been dropped
off by by friends or people in the neighborhood. UM
that has been you know, the physical infrastructure is mostly
tents and canopies, and most of them are being held
up by pieces of old tents or large tree limbs

(07:29):
or whatever we can to survive the wind because it's
been nothing but windstorms for the past well since we
got here. Our first camp site was set up on
a lot that was connected to the farm four Seasons
City Farm UM. Several of the members of the collective
our former paid employees of the farm or multi year volunteers.

(07:53):
It's a it's a large organization on this part. In
this part of the town UM Old Town East UM
with about fifteen I belief years of history and goodwill UM.
So we set up next to their lot. But because
they're on land bank land, we we didn't want to
interfere with their lease with the city. So rather than

(08:15):
risk the farm getting fined or UM having having their
least broken, we we look next door to a lot
on the other side of a chain length fence M
two lots. Actually, one is owned by the city that's
the one where most of our tents are, and then
one is owned by a private owner who's a rather

(08:39):
wealthy person in the neighborhood. UM. We've done our best
to stay on the city lot and that has been
good for us. But we're also maintaining both lots and
doing our best to keep the trash to a minimum
UM to make sure that we're not carrying up the
ground as much as we can, though it's hard with
all this rain UH, and and just do our best

(09:02):
to be good neighbors UM. And I think that has
helped us a lot. In recent years, lower class Columbus
area residents lost twenty thousand units of housing due to

(09:23):
unaffordable spiking rent prices. An annual Point in Time tally
this year organized by the Community Shelter Board, found the
number of homeless people in official Columbus and Franklin County
emergency shelters increased by more than two hundred people since
one and online data from the Shelter Board of a

(09:44):
nonprofit organization that receives funding from the City of Columbus
and other organizations indicates that as of March, there was
a seven percent drop in the rate of people exiting
their program and moving into stable housing as compared to
last year. Going from to a lot of times more

(10:04):
formalized shelters are not ideal for people to stay in.
There's many issues with the formalized shelters regarding the specific
rules of when you can get inside, how long you
can be inside, whether you're locked inside the building, what
stuff you can bring with you. At best, they are
challenging to navigate. At worst, they're simply hostile to people

(10:25):
looking for shelter. I asked Elizabeth what her take on
the homeless shelter situation is like in Columbus and the
ways their encampment is different from the more official shelters.
We have limited beds and then the beds that are
available are mostly under the governance of the shelter board,

(10:45):
and the shelter board wasn't too fond of us either.
Weren't following all their rules, and there are a lot
of concerns about the way the shelters run. The people
that stay with us, the people that come through, they
feel safer here. Um, there's considerably less drug use. There's

(11:08):
basically no distribution. We try to keep a handle on
that because it, you know, would bring problems to the
camp should it happen there. Um, we are a safe
use space. We do have harm reduction materials and they
know that, um, and we we do our best to
you know, just make sure that people have the care
and the safety that they need. And that is kind

(11:29):
of a dirty word. While all of those are kind
of dirty words, and the shelter organizing community, I guess, um,
care and and you know, making people comfortable, it's just
not really the goal. Next, I asked about what types
of connections the encampment and First Collective have been making

(11:52):
with various organizations for infrastructural support or daily needs, as
well as enquiring about the relations the camp has with
the city government. Here is Elizabeth's response. We reached out
to the different you know, harm reduction groups, the different
house listeners groups, the the emergency action groups that uh,

(12:17):
different serve groups, and we just asked them to bring
what they could or to send people if they could,
just you know, whatever they could spare. And and it's worked. Um.
People show up with whatever they have to offer. UM
from all over the city and and just from around
the corner, which has been wonderful. That the grassroots community

(12:40):
support is just blowing my mind. I thought they were
going to hate us, and here we are like making
friends with everybody. Our first goal is to make sure
that we've met people's needs as best we can. UM.
You know that that involves right now, UM keeping propane
on site so that they can some of the food

(13:01):
that's brought. UM. We get a lot of prepared meals,
but we also get a lot of ingredients, and there
are quite a few people here that cook and have
done pretty miraculous things with a couple of propane girls. UM.
We try and have meals prepared every day, but it
doesn't doesn't always work out, and sometimes we fill the
gaps with Little Caesar's or or something else. UM. Whatever,

(13:25):
whatever it can be scraunged up at the last minute.
Some of our biggest allies so far have been UM
the local food not bombs UH. They have been wonderful,
as well as some different church groups that that run
nonprofits like Community Kitchen. We get our meals provided six

(13:46):
days a week by church that's basically down the street
and around the corner. But as far as the city goes.
For the first couple of days, there were a lot
of roll by's, UM, a lot of city officials taking
pick sure's, no one really talking to us, but there
was clearly concern. It wasn't until a man who works

(14:09):
for the city and outreach under the Safety and Security Department,
Sean Stevenson, came out and talked to us UH that
we really started to see the possibilities of working with
the city and and so much as they let us.
He brought a city attorney, Steve Dunbar, and a gentleman

(14:29):
from the Mayor's office UM, Jason Jenkins by to talk
to our folks and they listened. They listened to the
people at the camp who explained to them why they
were here, explained to them why the resources that are
available didn't work for them. You know, it was a

(14:49):
it was a tearful conversation and since then they've largely
left us alone. UM. We wish that they would provide
some of the resources that they talked about, like a
couple of porta potties and a dumpster. But you know,
we we do our best with their composting toilet and
the good grace of some very kind neighbors. Police raids

(15:12):
and sweeps are always an existential fear for those living
in di y encampments. Here's what Elizabeth had to say
about sweeps and police interactions. What we've been told is
that they are They've been told to leave us alone.
We've heard this from the cops themselves. We've heard this
from people who have talked to them. Um. But the

(15:35):
precinct that is in this area has been told not
to mess with us unless there is a violent conflict.
The thing to do cops stuff at. There are a
lot of sweeps that have been threatened around the city
of different camps. Um. They've received notice or notice of notice,

(15:55):
so they don't know exactly when, but it's supposed to
happen sometime. UM. But as far as we're concerned, we
haven't really had that problem. UM. Cops have come through.
There are a couple of times when they've been called
by by people disgruntled residents or um by neighbors, but

(16:16):
for the most part, Kay talked to us and then
they leave. We we do our best as volunteers to
get between the police and other other groups that come out, UM,
even even the outreach groups that we know are are
here to help, just because those interactions can can quickly
get volatile, if you know, if people aren't sure about

(16:39):
other people's intentions. So I would say that one of
the best interactions I've had with the cops is they
did come through here once and talk to a few folks,
and a sergeant from the police department said, UM roughly
that they couldn't make us leave because this was city
land end and they didn't have anywhere else to send us.

(17:02):
So okay, I'll take it. I've got the dr assaultation.
Elizabeth does hope that one day the relations between the
church that first collective was previously operating out of could
be mended and once again work to utilize the space
to serve the wider community. She also discussed the possibility

(17:24):
of moving into vacant buildings and hoping to restore them
while also having a place to provide more stable housing.
So where the church is concerned, UM, I haven't given
a prope we we aren't in the building now. I
don't have a key, but I got a church every Sunday. Um.

(17:44):
I'm not I'm not a Christian. I don't believe in God,
but I do like the messages that I get there,
and I I want to continue to use this really
wonderful building as a part of the community. You know.
It's there are a lot of goals that that we
as a camp have and some of them include the

(18:05):
church and we we'd love to get back into that
space and fix the two bathrooms in the basement that
are just sitting there, build some showers, laundry facilities, a
free store, kitchen. Uh, There's there's so much that we
could do if we could utilize that building in addition
to the the infrastructure that we have here. Um. But

(18:29):
when it comes to to building something more, we're currently
working on a proposal for the city for some of
the relief funds that have been received but not dispersed
with the goals of ideally building little cabins on platforms
on the lot that we're on now, just to start

(18:52):
to get people out of tents, to start meeting some
of the code requirements to improve the sanitary and living conditions,
and then from there we'll ask them to give us
a building to restore. There's a lot of really skilled
people out here and they want to work, and they
want to work on all of these old buildings that
have been allowed to fall apart all over the city.

(19:15):
There are so many rooms available, there's so many units
that they could work on that they could live in,
and I think that's what they want to do, So
that's what we're going to try and help them do.
The camp functions under a sort of direct democracy with
residents and first collective volunteers, some of whom are also residents,
hold regular community meetings where camp occupants vote to make

(19:37):
decisions about camp guidelines. There has been a couple instances
of violence, UM, a couple particularly scary moments that we
had to try and de escalate, And there's sometimes that
we didn't handle things as best we could UM, but
we we try and we tried to talk through the

(20:00):
way that the way that it goes down with the
residents among the volunteers. UM. We try to be transparent
about you know, why why we make some of the
decisions that we do, and for the most part, we
leave it to the community. UM. There have been some
really great community meetings go so long. UM, but they

(20:22):
talk about everything they talk about, you know, shared concerns
about safety, concerns about how they want to live together
and what would make them feel safer, and established guidelines
and occasionally vote to remove people. Though UM we've managed

(20:42):
to resolve some of those conflicts before they went that far.
I initially talked with Elizabeth in May two, but I
was able to catch up with her a few weeks
ago to hear about what's been going on the past month. UM.
I just wanted to kind of fill you in on
what we've been up to over the past month or so.
It's it's been busy. UM. We've been to a lot

(21:05):
of area Commission meetings for the different areas of the
city to try and make some allies and talk to
people about what we think is a solution to a
problem they don't know how to solve. I to get
some unwanted attention, a local station Tom TB came through

(21:25):
with a bit of an agenda right now. The City
of Columbus has a problem, and it has to do
with homelessness. A camp set up on city property along
East Mound Street in the middle of the Near East
Side neighborhood, is raising questions tonight about whether the twenty
people who live there should be allowed to, say, are
forced to go to Kevin Landers has been working the
story all day. Today he went to the camp and

(21:47):
spoke to those who lived there and got answers from
city leaders about addressing concerns from neighbors who say that
camp it's got to go. This on housing community is
located on East Mound Street. The people who live here,
the city says, are technically trespassing. The city says they're
going to let them stay here until they can find housing,

(22:07):
but not everybody wants them here. They wanted to talk
specifically about our sanitation situation and nothing else. Um. I
told them we've been waiting on the city since abol
fifteen for the dumpster the port of John's if they
had offered, but um they were still looking into it.
So we took it into our own hands. All that attention,

(22:29):
we needed to do something, So we contracted a port
of john Company who is currently donating to Port of
John's and servicing it once a week. UM, which is great. Uh.
We had a compost toilet before and this is so
much better. Um. And we went out of pocket to
pay the trash service, so we're getting our own trash service.

(22:53):
Trash service now once a week. UM. It's not quite enough,
but it certainly helps. You see code enforcement go by
all the time. UM, they've been driving by. I've seen
them at least five or six times today. People are
waiting for something that they can latch onto. But so far,
so good. With Columbus facing one hundred degree heat waves,

(23:25):
what started as a warming station in winter now serves
as a cooling station this summer for its few dozen
residents as gears shift and new seasonal materials are required.
The camp has been exploring alternative methods of funding to
sustain the level of resources and services they've been able
to provide the past few months. We did launch a

(23:45):
go fund me and we've had pretty good looks so far.
We've raised seven thousand, five UM. This is just for
operating funds. UM. There's a lot that we would like
to do here, a lot we'd like to do with
the land, but for now we just need We're just
fundraising to keep going. The camp still serves around twenty

(24:09):
five people, so resources end up getting distributed across a
large collection of individuals. All the donations received have been
used to provide necessities to survive, including but not limited to,
shelters like tents, food, water, medical supplies, bedding, clothes, bus passes,
medical services and prescriptions, hard production supplies, funds for individuals

(24:32):
immediate needs, and assistance to pay with residents phone bills.
Sometimes funds are also used to compensate residents for extra
labor put towards maintaining the camp, like cleaning up the campsite,
cutting up firewood, and providing extra services like haircuts. The
response has been really good. I think people understand what
we're trying to do and are are being really receptive

(24:54):
to do it. Um I can't say the same about
the city though. Uh. We met with Councilwoman shale A
Favor from the city on Monday and presented a proposal.
We asked for eighty five dollars over the next six
months to continue operation, to pay a small salary to

(25:20):
the three volunteers that are here all the time. Um
for healthcare for a small stipend to give to each
resident of the camp every every week, UM additional operating funds.
Just we came to them with this ask and they

(25:41):
didn't really seem to get it UM, so we're gonna
keep trying. They UM, they felt like they can't really
support a tent city in their minds, like they couldn't
give money to support people who were residing in tense
because chance are inadequate shelter. But I mean, I can

(26:02):
test that not having a tent is also an adequate shelter.
The city of Columbus relies almost completely on the Community
Shelter Board to manage its problem with homelessness. Community Shelter
Board has a revenue of around forty four million dollars
a year. They pay their director half a million dollars

(26:26):
just under UM and a few other executives received ample compensation.
But their success rate for the entire county is labeled
at you go through their data, they have managed to
get percent of the people who come through their shelter
into some sort of housing. For the zip code that

(26:47):
we're serving at seven, which equates to eight people over
the past year. So what they're doing is not working
at all, and they know where, but they don't know
what else to do. Whenever we talk to the city,
someone tells us to talk to this one in particular person.
Her name has Emerald her nand as Para. She is

(27:10):
the assistant director of Special Projects for the Department of Development.
If you have a problem with a homeless camp in
the city, she is the person that the city wants
you to talk to, no matter what, um if, if
you're homeless, that's who that's who they want you to
talk to. She's under the Department of Development. Her her

(27:33):
main focus is economic development. She's just special projects, which
means she helps clear the way by getting camps out
of the way for development projects. That's that's her role
and and she is the city's liaison. No matter who
we talk to, she's the one that we keep coming

(27:54):
back to. So I I think it's pretty um cynical
and upsetting that this isn't under the pur view of
the Department of Health, you know, and any any other
department would be a little bit better than the Department
of Development to show so much we care. We're planning
to go back to the city. Uh, regardless of what

(28:17):
they say about this initial proposal, because there's a lot
to what we'd like to build here and and we
think they'd be amenable if they understood. We're drafting a
second round proposal taking inspiration from Dignity Village in Portland.
It's an autonomous village of fun housed people that's existed
since two thousand and I think there's a lot of

(28:40):
career that we can learn from them for modeling this
in a way that the city might better understand. We
believe that what we're doing here is transitional housing, and
the people who are here want to be involved in
building that transitional housing for themselves and then for the
people to come out here. So that's that's what we're

(29:02):
hoping to get the city to sign off on. When
we met with we met with the councilwoman. One of
the things that she said was they at the city
they don't have a model for serving the population that
we're serving. Um, they don't They don't know how to

(29:22):
handle people who don't want to move inside, who don't
want to move into the shelter system for whatever reason,
and so all they can really do is move them around. Um,
we're trying to tell them that we do have a
model and we think we think that we can help
the city as long as they stay pretty hands off

(29:45):
and give us money for it. So fingers crossed, I'm
not going to hold my breath by fingers crossed. The
city of Columbus has been much more openly hostile to
some other encampments providing cooling and alter in parts of
the city. We're not the only on house encampment in Columbus. UM.

(30:06):
There there are a lot more, and there's one that
is at it's called here Park on the south side.
We have a lot of friends there. UM. Our organization
works with their organization. UH. They were served a fourteen
day eviction notice UM on the first and they haven't
ntild to move out. UM. So we're doing whatever we

(30:30):
can to support them. But UM, it very much feels
like we're being treated like the good camp and they're
the bad camp right now. So we're trying our best
to make sure that the city knows that we're with them.
You know, I I'm whatever they think about us. We

(30:52):
we support those people no matter what, and we'll see
whatever we can to help. UM. We're trying to give
them advice about the things that have worked for us
to keep the city a way, and hopefully if they
do have to move on the fourteen, they'll be able
to set up somewhere where the city or give them
a break. Here is some audio of a press conference

(31:13):
given at the Here Park Camp just last week. The
city is not out here giving out water. The city
is not out here making sure that uh people don't
get heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Right, They're nowhere to
be found, So we are here to remind them. They
have a hundred and thirty five million dollars in American

(31:34):
Rescue Plan funds. Where is this money going? Why do
we not have housing? This weather is just a little
taste for many of us of the conditions that our
unhoused neighbors out here can look forward to enduring for
the entire summer. The city of Columbus was planning on
evicting our people today June fourteenth. They delayed that eviction.

(31:57):
It is a human right, so we are here to
assert our human rights to housing. They're hoping that we're
going to get hot and tired and we're out. Are
we going to let up? The Here Park Camp eviction
was pushed back to June one due to a massive
heat wave, and by June one, the temperature was still

(32:20):
in the upper nineties, but the city followed through on
their threat and swept the camp. At least twenty Columbus
police cruisers, city attorneys, people from the Department of Development,
and other city employees were on site for the eviction.
Bulldozers and massive machinery crushed people's tents and personal belongings.
Some folks, forcibly displaced, have lived in the Here Park

(32:43):
for nearly a decade. For wrapping up this episode, I
had just one more question for Elizabeth, for people who
would be interested in trying to create similar projects or
hopeful similar similar projects in their area, how will it
would be some advice to give to people who who
are want to try something similar. What's the kind of
stuff that you've learned the past few months that you

(33:07):
were kind of surprised by UM, and and you know,
if if you could do anything different, what's what's like
what's the kind of stuff that you would uh that
you would approach UM to make the processes like smoother
or slightly more improved. Well, I would have looked for
more funders first. UM. The one of the most painful
parts for me, has like just personally has been holding

(33:30):
the purse um, being the person that everyone knows to
ask for for cash if they needed for something. UM
it it is a it is a real strain on
on compassion sometimes, you know, on compassion fatigue is real,
and it can be really hard day and day out

(33:53):
having to field requests from people who you know, I
need these resources, but you can't always give everything. It's
it's hard to say no. Learning to say no has
um has helped, but ah, diversifying our funding sources is
also helping a lot. Um. I've learned that I can't

(34:18):
do it all and that I need to take breaks
and that being here is is what I want to do.
But it doesn't mean I need to always always do it.
Sometimes you've got to step away. Um. I I wish

(34:38):
that I had spent a little more time with my
family um rather than you know, throwing myself completely into
this U. But two months ago my fiance, my ex fiance,
asked me to leave. So I have been living at
the camp too. UM so I It's it's been a

(35:00):
pretty stark jump to go from having a big house
and some retirement funds to living in a tent and
having none. But I mean I wouldn't. I wouldn't change it,
and I'm going to keep doing it. It's because I can,
because I could, And that's that's really what I want

(35:21):
people to see is that if they can do something,
they should. Um, it's the best job I've ever had. Um.
You know, nothing is more rewarding than going to work
and hanging out with your friends all day, like helping
them get jobs and find apartments and meet friends. Like,

(35:46):
there's so many wonderful people here, and like me and
the other volunteers, we love all of them and want
nothing more than to see them succeed. So yeah, I
just I just advised people to do what they can
to for what they need and try and provide it.
Anyone who wants to know more about the First Collective

(36:06):
and what they're doing, you can go to First hyphen
Collective dot org. You can find links on Elizabeth's Twitter
account at Innate Optimist. And even if you disagree with
some of the organizational or structural choices, I hope you
at least learned something or got something productive out of
this example of people putting in effort to fill in

(36:28):
the gaps in their local community that isn't for us today,
See you on the other side. It could Happen Here
is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media
dot com, or check us out on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

(36:50):
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks
for listening.