Body Brokers: Coming to a City Near You

Theo speaks with activist Sequoyah Thiessen about their experience being body brokered at LA area rehab facilities, and how these same places are exploiting the community's most vulnerable -- including the unhoused. We also remember past guest Cindy McAllister, who passed away this month. Theo speaks with friends about her life, and how her memory will continue.

Follow Sequoyah's work here: 

https://www.instagram.com/sequoyahthiessen/?hl=en

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on We the un Housed.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
The first thing that I tell people who don't have
any knowledge of the resources that exist in our systems
is that there are virtually none. Folks with mental illness
don't have any entitlements from the state of California. Right,
so you're stuck. You're not going to have a social
safety net. There's no income, there's no housing. A lot
of times there's no adequate medical care either.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
They stop using the medication and so then you know,
then it's a whole lot of chaos. And then they
have these laws they have to decide theyselves. You know, well,
how does a person that's not fully functionable make decisions
on their own? It boggles my mind.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
Welcome to Whedian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson. This
episode is about further intersections of houselessness and we'll learn
a lot from our guests Sakoya, including what body farming
is and how it affects the indigenous community.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
But first and house news. This week, we want to
remember the.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
Life of a past guest on our show, Sydney McAllister.
Whiedian House takes certain responsibility and remember a people Indiana
House community gone too soon. Who left the world a
better place. My name is Maybe Poplo. I'm the operations
manager for sela Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, and I'm honored to

(01:52):
be here memorializing Cindy McAllister, who is a beloved SEALA
participants and volunteer. Cindy unfortunately passed away a few weeks ago,
somewhat unexpectedly, and so we're here at CELA just sort of,
you know, remembering Cindy and just trying to keep.

Speaker 5 (02:12):
Her memory alive. And we were so grateful to have
her as a participant, as a volunteer, as a member
of our community. I first met Cindy when I started
at CELA about a year ago, and at the time
of Cindy's passing, I would say she had probably been
a part of the SEILA community for about two years.

(02:33):
And Cindy was just really special. She just had one
of those smiles that lit up a room, and everybody
loved Cindy. I was really happy as a trans non
binary person to see Cindy, who was a trans woman
so openly welcomed into the community and we got to
share some special conversations. Cindy shared with me that she

(02:55):
actually used to be a drag queen, and I'm a
drag queen, and so that was something that we were
able to bond over. And I was really excited to
hear about her her storied history and how she was
an actor and she actually acted as a drag queen
in movies. She told me that she made a cameo

(03:15):
in an early two thousands movie called Not Another Gay Movie,
and so I'm excited to rewatch it to think about
Cindy and keep her her memory alive.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Cindy was more of a person who experienced houselessness.

Speaker 6 (03:29):
Hi, my name's Rachel Sanov. I'm the volunteer engagement manager
here at CELA. So the things that are just Cindy
the person. She had such a fun sense of humor.
She had amazing styles, like every time I saw.

Speaker 7 (03:42):
Her, I cannot wait to see what she was wearing.

Speaker 6 (03:44):
Always color coordinated, always accessories. She was very spiritual, and
she was very open about her spirituality, and that also
means very open about anybody's spirituality. I know that her
ability to speak to that part of her life was
comforting to a lot of our participants who also were
as spirituals her.

Speaker 8 (04:05):
She used to text me just the silliest, sometimes dirtiest jokes.
And I mean we text it every day, and I'm
going to miss that so much. I'm also really going
to miss her sense of style. I think she may
have talked about this in her interview, but Cindy was
defined by her fashion. You know, she's a trans woman
and she will forever be a drag queen.

Speaker 7 (04:25):
She loved her style.

Speaker 8 (04:27):
And coming to Cela, she was you know, she always
wanted to pick out her clothes and she always wanted
to help other people pick out clothes. You know, she
was like, she loved her fashion, and I will miss
her style. She always rocked in wearing the most incredible pants,
and yeah, I think I'll just miss I'll miss her light.

Speaker 7 (04:45):
She was wonderful.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
I was able to look at some of her belongings
after her passing and just seeing some of her little
nick knacks and chowchke's and it just sort of really revealed,
you know, a part of who she was. And I
felt very fortunate to be the receiver of one of
her articles of clothing. It was a blue button up

(05:10):
and it had all of these patches of Divine the
drag Queen all over it. It's a really really cool piece
of clothing, and so I'm honored to be able to
keep that and you know, to be able to remember
her by it.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
Cindy had a friendly, welcoming personality, one that was demonstrated
when she sat at the front of the Seala Neighborhood Coalition.

Speaker 7 (05:32):
Cindy was a really special member of our community.

Speaker 8 (05:35):
Cindy is a representation of what we really try to
practice here at SILA, which is true community. So she
was someone who started coming to SILA as someone in
need of services, someone who we identify as a participant
in our programming, and then became a volunteer when you know,
we supported her with getting into permanent supportive housing for
the first time in decades, and once she was settled,

(05:58):
she came in, started working the front desk and really
gave back to her community here. So I got to
know Cindy through that housing process, helped her move out
of a tough situation and into her permanent supportive housing.
She radiated light. You could just see people were drawn
to her. She was truly a center. I used to

(06:20):
joke that she would hold court when you would come
into a program and you would just see tons of
people around a table and it was just you knew
Cindy was in the center of it.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
I hope people realize that Cindy did not just become
unhoused one day.

Speaker 8 (06:35):
She was loved by her mother and she was loved
by her sister, both of whom lived in Arizona. She
came out here to follow a dream to be a
performer and was injured on the job and financially just
wasn't able to sustain herself, ended up like many people,
being prescribed pain medication and fell victim to the same
cycle that a lot of Americans fall prey to. And

(06:58):
she worked really hard to pull herself out of that
cycle of addiction. She passed in her sixties, and it
wasn't until her late fifties that she actually started living
as Cindy full time. She was living as a gay
man for most of her life, and I just think
it took so much bravery, and again, it's like all
of that courage, all of that love, the depth of

(07:19):
that story, everything that went into that life, you don't
see when you see someone pushing a shopping cart down
the street, And I think that that is again, Cyindy
is more than a symbol, but she is just a
really clear example of why we do what we do
here at CELA, because she is just one person, and

(07:40):
every person here has a story that is just as dynamic.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
Cindy lived a very interesting life. She was also an
actress and performer.

Speaker 8 (07:50):
I think you know it wasn't that many years ago
that someone would have seen her walking through the streets
of West Hollywood pushing a cart and thinking putting all
sorts of things onto her right, making assumptions, thinking they
knew where her story was, and not realizing that she
had had this incredible vibrant life, like she had an
autograph book where she had met like every TV star

(08:11):
from the sixties and seventies. She was at one point
like an incredibly prolific drag performer.

Speaker 7 (08:17):
In West Hollywood who was just known.

Speaker 8 (08:20):
She once was a personal shopper for share She helped
John Waters design his own toy like she was just
she was iconic in so many ways and prolific.

Speaker 7 (08:32):
And it was a series of things that.

Speaker 8 (08:35):
Took her to where she ended up living on the street,
and some of them in her control and some of
them out of her control.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
Fun fact said they'd never let her flare with the
arts die down. Even when she was unhoused.

Speaker 8 (08:49):
Like I said, you would have seen Cindy walking down
the street pushing her cart, and what you wouldn't have
known was in that cart were crystals. Like you would
have seen crystals and wigs and performing outfits because it
was who she was. She was deeply connected to spirituality
and her faith.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
Cindy also wanted to be an example to other people
affected by houselessness that there is a light at the
end of the tunnel. Here's a clip of our interview
from earlier this year.

Speaker 9 (09:16):
Well, my name is Cindy McAllister and I listed transgender
man to a woman. I've been coming to sea Live
for about a year and a half now, and sea
Let people are so welcoming and so friendly. I don't
know my time here, and I try to be a
friend to everybody who I know who comes here. I
try to be a positive attitude and I'm a class

(09:38):
of friends just because I'm a nice person.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
Up until her passing, Cindy was in her community, volunteering,
referring friends to services, joking and enjoying time with her friends.

Speaker 5 (09:51):
One of the reasons that it really hurts finding out
about Cindy's passing was we were actually supposed to have
an outing with her the very week that she passed.
We had plans to go to drag Bingo together, and
then we didn't hear from Cindy that week, and we
started getting really worried. And then we had found out
that she had passed away in her apartments, and so

(10:13):
you know, that was just really hard to deal with.
After her passing, we set up a little makeshift memorial
at our Saturday program and literally the very first person
that walked into the program saw the framed picture of
her and the candles, and they just gasped and they
were like, oh my gosh, what happened to Cindy. And

(10:35):
I witnessed this over and over and over, just everybody's
shock and sadness about this very valued community member that
we lost.

Speaker 9 (10:48):
I'll sit at the dusk and I'll sign people in,
I'll help, you know, donate my time, and sometimes we'd
come here like today just to hang out with my friends.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
And here's more unhoused deuced.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
Our first story talks about the elderly unhoused, the number
of people aged sixty five and older who are unhoused
jump more than seventeen percent since last year and more
than thirty six percent in two years. Elderly unhoused are
estimated to be the fast and growing population in California.
Services are being cut due to the Trump administration, such

(11:33):
as cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. This means that this
vulnerable population are being turned away from free food programs
and other supportive services. They are now struggling to choose
between their medications, having food to eat, or paying their rent,
says Yvon Son of Special Services of Group Silver.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Our last story.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
San Francisco bans the unhoused from living in RVs. This
band targets at least four hundred recreational vehicles in a
city of eight hundred thousand people. The San Francisco cost
of living is very expensive, making RV living essential. The
band sets a two hour parking limit citywide for all RVs,

(12:18):
regardless of whether they.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Are being used for housing.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
People in RVs who arrive after May twenty twenty six
will not be eligible for the permit program and must
abide by the two hour rule, which makes it impossible
for a family in an RV to live within city limits.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
And that's on house deuce.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
When we come back, I will speak with indigenous activists.
Sequoya Decent. Welcome back to Witian House. I'm THEO Henderson.
Here is my interview with Sekoya educating us on the
issue of body farming.

Speaker 7 (13:05):
Hello. My name is Sequiathisen.

Speaker 10 (13:08):
I am a scholar and abolitionist. I also consider myself
a policy advisor more recently, and I'm very passionate about
the unhoused issues because I myself have suffered in that
situation not really knowing where to go. Especially when I
first came out to California, I was a victim of

(13:30):
patient brokering, and so that's something that I talk about
a lot.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Where did you come from originally, and how long were
you in house?

Speaker 10 (13:36):
I'm from Montana, and so actually growing up I kind
of walked two different worlds because my dad is a felon.
But my mom she went to school when I was
really young, she got a nursing degree, and she really
tried to provide the best that she could life for us.
I was pretty stable in my childhood other than you know,

(13:57):
my father's kind of stuff, and I started using drugs
around the age of.

Speaker 7 (14:06):
Like sixteen ish. I had chronic pain.

Speaker 10 (14:10):
My dad and me also like my dad was super strict,
Like he was very abusive, which he doesn't like me
to talk about, but this is but it's real, like honestly,
Like he can be mad, but it's real. Like So
in Montana, it's pretty common for like kids, especially Native
kids to start drinking at like ten eleven years old, like,

(14:31):
and so that was my story too, and I used
it to cope.

Speaker 7 (14:34):
And then as I.

Speaker 10 (14:34):
Got older, I also like did a lot of workaholism behaviors,
just kind of throwing myself in work. When COVID started,
I started a couple of different businesses. I was doing photography,
I was doing different things, baking art.

Speaker 7 (14:49):
I was also teaching.

Speaker 10 (14:50):
At the time, I started teaching middle schoolers, and like
I said, post COVID, you started seeing like all these
kids that were dealing with anxiety, displacement, they were having
issues socially, and to me, it kind of just showed
like how much the youth is neglected in general, Like
we don't really think about them when big things happened.

(15:11):
They were definitely an afterthought during COVID, and so I realized, Okay,
I really need to get help if I want to
help these kids. So I came out here to LA
to actually go to rehab, and the first place that
I went wasn't technically bad. But this is why I
talk out about this stuff is because I feel like
the rehab model in general is just very broken. I'm

(15:34):
like a big proponent for harm reduction. I feel like
treatment is one of those things that people need to
make a lot of decisions for themselves, and it's not
like a one size fits all kind of deal. And
so in Los Angeles specifically, this is one of the
SUD hotspots of like the whole nation, substance abuse disorder

(15:56):
treatment is rampant here and what's really unfortunate is that
they target the unhoused populations, not just in LA but nationally.

Speaker 7 (16:07):
And yeah, so I came out here.

Speaker 10 (16:09):
I met my ex girlfriend who was actually I think
she's been being patient brokeer for like six or seven
years at this point. Like she's been in this rehab
scene since she was like eighteen. She's never been able
to escape it. And I spent about a year dealing
with that, and the entire time I was very like adamant, Okay,

(16:31):
I want to go to school. I want to you know,
just I wanted to get my own place. I had
always lived on my own too, like before I lived
out here and so, but what's crazy is that I
had left my home.

Speaker 7 (16:43):
I had left everything.

Speaker 10 (16:44):
There's nothing wrong with losing everything as an addict, but honestly,
I had given everything up to come and get clean.
And so when I did come here, I started immediately
being introduced to the fact that not all rehabs are
created equal. And I was like, oh, okay, you know
this is interesting. I met my ex girlfriend. She really

(17:06):
educated me, like street knowledge type shit, everything, like taught
me everything there is because she had been.

Speaker 7 (17:13):
Wrapped up in it and so for so long.

Speaker 10 (17:15):
And so I was being housed by UCLA, and UCLA
is such a vibrant community. There's like so many different groups.
Westwood itself is very vibrant, and so I started thinking
to myself, like, I really want to go back to school,
like this is.

Speaker 7 (17:34):
Something that I want to do.

Speaker 10 (17:35):
And when I would start to try to mention this
to the people at the facility that I was at,
they would get really hostile with me and they would
basically start to gaslight me and they would be like,
you need to focus on your recovery. And this is
a very common theme.

Speaker 7 (17:53):
Like they like to be little school.

Speaker 10 (17:55):
They like to and for me, like I have to
say that school is not about earning knowledge at all.

Speaker 7 (18:01):
It's about contributing knowledge.

Speaker 10 (18:02):
And that's what I love about your podcast too, is
like going to the people who have actually been unhoused,
because I tell these lawmakers all the time, what do
you know about liberty? What do you know about justice?

Speaker 7 (18:14):
No offense? Like you've never been without those things? Even truth?
Have you ever been without truth? Have you been lied to?
Have you been coerced? You know?

Speaker 10 (18:23):
And so this is like a super important part of
restorative justice is honoring people's lived experience. And so I
got really just okay, I need to leave this. A
couple months later, I got my own place with the
help of my family. And this is another reason I'm
so passionate about housing issues, is because I would not

(18:43):
be where I.

Speaker 7 (18:44):
Am at all if it wasn't for my family.

Speaker 10 (18:47):
I can't even fathom what it's like to have to
navigate these systems without those kinds of resources.

Speaker 7 (18:53):
And I've seen it just in my advocacy, like.

Speaker 10 (18:55):
Okay, you have to go here, you have to wait
three months in order to get a voucher. You have
to you know, you've got to spend two hours just
on the phone with this person.

Speaker 7 (19:05):
And it's so dehumanizing.

Speaker 10 (19:08):
Because I think that even when you're in an emergency,
because I've been in this situation before, when I was
being patient brokered, it was like being put to this rehab,
this rehab, this rehab because after a while, like you
can't really stay anywhere long term, like you just don't
have the capacity mentally because sobriety has been commodified. That's

(19:29):
the problem with treatment in LA, I feel like, is
that there's so many places that it's kind of hard
for people, at least for me to commit to one
place because it's almost their fault because you can just
start over at a new place. And the problem is
when they're offering you X, Y, and Z and you're
already in a situation. This is like when I was

(19:50):
being patient brokered from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three,
that was like the only time that I had ever
really been I guess, unhoused in my life, and I
was out here in LA. And one thing I want
to mention about patient brokering too, is that I just
want to define patient brokering REALM.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
That was my next question ahead.

Speaker 10 (20:09):
So, patient brokering is when people are being offered money, luxury, housing,
a job, various different things. Sometimes it's hormone replacement therapy,
sometimes it's a shopping trip.

Speaker 7 (20:22):
It could be a whole bucket of things.

Speaker 10 (20:25):
They're being offered those things to stay in treatment, and
this is something that begins cycle for people. So this
is happening on a national level and a local level,
and it's draining billions of dollars out of our insurance
all of our insurance networks that are private, so like ETNA,
Blue Crossbow Shield Signa, a lot of them are under

(20:46):
the same name.

Speaker 7 (20:48):
But actually ETNA.

Speaker 10 (20:50):
Is going to officially take their healthcare off the marketplace
because of this kind of fraud. And for me, it's
not really about what the insurance companies are losing, but
it's about the lives that are lost because, like I said,
like sobriety becomes commodified. You are told that if you
don't tell the doctor that you're not feeling well or

(21:11):
maybe that you want to relapse, then your benefits will
run out. And this becomes something where people are just
then in treatment just to get housing, and I've even
seen this on the inside of the LA jails. I'm
in the pod with like thirty women and they're like, yeah,
you know, the judge ordered me to go to treatment,
but I've already been in here for like three months.

(21:33):
And it's really unfortunate because a lot of them are
going to be swept up by places that don't actually
care if they actually get sober or not. What they
want to do is they actually want to keep you
sick because they can bill you as much as possible.
And I think that three thousand people in I believe
January were made homeless at one time because of one

(21:56):
of the most infamous body brokers that we know of.
His name is Nathan Young, and he owns fifty five Silver.

Speaker 7 (22:05):
I think it's Hollywood rehab.

Speaker 10 (22:07):
Helping Hands and what he calls Santa Monica Rehab, but
there's really no such thing as Santa Monica Rehab. So
if you ever hear that those names, it's like those
aren't real places. And then same with there's a woman
named Annie Mira Zion. She owns a place named Revived.
She's been sued by EDNA. Both of them have been
sued by EDNA. For basically taking millions of dollars overcharging

(22:31):
for things. And what's really sick is that they go
to the unhoused populations and they will offer insurance policies,
which is healthcare for a lot of people. That includes that,
they offer housing, they offer surgeries sometimes like for our
trans relatives, and honestly just safety, like they tell you

(22:52):
that they're going to keep you safe. And also this
is the other part, is that it's not uncommon for
outreach workers to walk around with clipboards collect things like
social Security number, name, birthday. When these patient brokers collect
those things from our unhoused relatives, sometimes they instantly sign
them up for a policy right then and there. And
then what they do is they're charging these people for

(23:15):
sometimes months before they're able to realize I'm actually seen
people die and then they're still being billed by an
insurance and it's so it's so.

Speaker 7 (23:26):
Sad.

Speaker 10 (23:26):
And then a lot of these places that they will
bring you to are essentially trap houses.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
And for the audience, what is a trap house?

Speaker 10 (23:34):
So we have, you know, places that are really messy.
Typically there's no security, like the door will be kind
of like faulty, Like I said, drugs throughout the house.
One time I arrived to a sober living and there
was three separate people overdosing, one of them in the
living room, one of them out in the back patio,

(23:54):
and then one of them in a bedroom, and the
police were there, the ambulance was there, but I was
just arriving, like with my stuff, and I remember going
upstairs and it was so ironic because I'm gay, and
the guy was like, oh, we don't allow that here,
and I'm like.

Speaker 7 (24:11):
Broh, you guys have people like overdosed.

Speaker 10 (24:13):
On the couch, Like that's notise. I promise you being
gay is not an issue. And so the problem is
is that they only.

Speaker 7 (24:24):
Really started caring about this stuff, I would.

Speaker 10 (24:26):
Say in twenty twenty two, which is when they're this
California Sober Living and Recovery task Force was created. And
what's really sad is that they it was only created
because of neighbors of these sober living places saying wow,
this is so crazy. A lot of them honestly complaining

(24:47):
and treating us like we're some kind of sense in
their life, right yeah, and just talking about us like
I remember one time. Because I'm a part of the
task force now, But I remember they one time they
told the story.

Speaker 7 (25:00):
It was very dehumanizing the way that they told this story.

Speaker 10 (25:02):
They were like, yeah, you know, there was a young
man and he was given too much medication, and then
he was taken to another rehab and he was given
too much medication again, and then he ended up having
some kind of and he went to somebody's house and
somebody shot him.

Speaker 7 (25:22):
And what was really.

Speaker 10 (25:23):
Upsetting is that the task force kind of acted like
the homeowner was the victim.

Speaker 7 (25:28):
And you know, of course the homeowner.

Speaker 10 (25:30):
Was probably scared, that's why he did what he did,
But he wasn't the victim in this situation at all.
And I try to remind these people of that is like,
no matter how annoying you see somebody to be, that's
just so ignorant because you don't understand, like that could
be someone's lowest point in their life.

Speaker 7 (25:48):
And then for you to just write.

Speaker 10 (25:50):
It off as annoying, it just shows how individualistic our
culture is and how people don't really care to It's
so one of the reasons I stopped teaching, because people
look at and they say, oh, the kid is being bad,
why are they acting like that? But then they don't
really think about the fact that the kid, you know,
maybe has things.

Speaker 7 (26:08):
Going on at home and trauma and all kinds of
other stuff.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
So to back up a little bit to talk about brokerage.
Patient brokerage is simply a type of fraud that uses
to induce or to overcharge and get money in a
fraudulent manner. Yes, And the person that needs the most
help is without help. They are being spun around or

(26:36):
they are being you know, volunteered involuntarily for benefits or
insurance or other incentives in order to keep them in
this loop of staying involving the system where their focus
was if they were dealing with substance usage issues and
they were on the detox end, now they were focused

(26:57):
on housing. They have to play the game, yes, to
stay into the system. If they don't, then they're going
to be in a different dilemma. And with what's going on,
which I want to interject here to remind the community
and our audience of what's going on right now, there
has been a wave of ordnances laws all across the

(27:21):
country to criminalize unhouse people. And if you listen to
my show, I have a segment called Unhoused News, and
I try to keep as much as possible it happens
so rapidly, to let people know what is going on
for unhoused people, to get a heads up, even if
you don't live in the area, but to understand, to
see the connection and see how these interlocks or interlinks

(27:44):
with the conversation. Now it has reached to the White House.
Most recently, President Trump's issued an executive order, and this
executive order goes and basically makes out that unhoused people
are criminals. Demands the cities, the force on house people
to go to treatment, to go to alcohol subst usage,

(28:05):
and to involuntarily volunteer and house people to go to
mental asylums or mental health agencies. These all interlink because
of the narrative that's out here about unhoused people. You
have to understand when you hear people say that unhoused
people don't want a job or people like being out there,
they are contributing to that negative stereotype. There's over sixty

(28:28):
six thousand unhoused people here in California alone. When you
say those things, you cannot intelligently think that that's realistic.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
It's the same.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
It's like I would bring another similar though closely related
topic about immigration, where people were talking about people doing
immigration the right way, but we see the lie to
that because they are being swept away or attacked while they're.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Going to court doing it the right way.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
See when you contribute to those kind of conversations or
agree with that, this is what the end result is.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
So understanding this now, this is where we're at.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
Now. On house people and advocates and people that are
involved in the in house community have an upio battle
because now they've got to go to war with the
government because now they have singled them out as nothing
but criminals, substant usage users, and mentally ill, which has
been a pernicious stereotype and the in house community for
at least thirty years that I know of.

Speaker 10 (29:25):
Yeah, and this is crazy because I want to say,
in my area right in body brokering, there is an
advocate who's out there saying that she loves ventanyl act
and all that stuff. And I'm like, what a contradiction
you're saying that. You know, you advocate for body brokering,
but this is actually going to make body brokering worse
because now you know the administration has real stakes in

(29:49):
the game. You know, in fact, they're probably investing in
those companies as we speak, because that's kind of how.

Speaker 7 (29:55):
The administration does things.

Speaker 10 (29:57):
As we've seen, like a lot of people get well
off of their stocks and they clearly are doing something
shady with that, and so yeah, it's so dehumanizing, like
to just assume. And that's one of the reasons I
tell my story, like when I went back to school,
I was able to discover some new history that I
hope to publish in the next year. And it's such

(30:18):
a disgusting stereotype to say, Okay, you know unhouse people X, Y,
and Z. I keep saying, I remind politicians, lawmakers, city officials,
the subaltern, the people who you consider so far outside
of society's bubble. Those people are so much smarter than
you give them credit for. Those people are capable of

(30:40):
so much more than you give them credit for. In fact,
those people are smarter than you. Those people have more
capable in their bones than you do, because they've.

Speaker 7 (30:47):
Survived things that you never could.

Speaker 10 (30:50):
And so I remind them of those things often, because
that's one of the conversations with brokering too, is like
they try to criminalize those people, and I say, you
realize that somebody to rehab because they wanted to get
clean at one point, so there's no reason to. I
mean there's no reason too anyways, but especially in that situation,
like and in my experience, most of the people that

(31:13):
I've met that are on housed don't even use drugs,
Like it's like a very few, and it's such a
negative stereotype and people don't It's one of those things
that people have to be willing to put out of
their mind.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
But also too because it didn't have to be willing
to have one empathy to put in the work, and
it's easy to hold on to, you know, pernicious stereotypes
because you don't have to do any work. You can
just like for example, I have this friend of mine
that it just drove me crazy because every time we
would talk and I was in house and I was
trying to educate him, like you don't understand the quagmire

(31:46):
that people have to go through, and he only focused
he zeroed in on the segment of they like being
out there, they don't want it, And then I have
to break it down to him, if you're in this system,
you don't understand and why people give up. You don't
understand and understand the frustration and the never ending cycle,

(32:07):
the broken promises the city gives you.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
You're waiting for.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
No one in the right mind wants to stay in
a shelter or short term shelter. They would rather just
go through all of the paperwork. They need one time
to get into housing and be done with it. They
don't want to be making these five or six trips.
They don't want to be dealing with this interested caseworker.
They don't want to go all the way over this
way to get this paperwork. It's too much. Especially if

(32:31):
you're on house, you have to be on top of that.
If you have health conditions, then you got to be
on top of that. Then you have to basic upkeep,
which is another paid in rebut when you're out there
in the house as well, so you are juggling all
of that. Not just like you're in a house where
you can go and remove your clothings and put other
clothes on the hump of the shower, or you can
take a quick nap and then you can go to

(32:53):
the doctor's appointment here and that you know, it's not
that And one of the things that I also want
to point out about substant usage is many people turn
the substances when they're on the street conversely, because they're
dealing with the adverse conditions of trying to survive and
coping and trying to maintain a mental equilibrium, if there's
such a word in a crazy system being swept all

(33:15):
the time, being harassed all the time, or Billy dealing
with the trauma that caused them to be in house,
or they're having a low point at whatever. Where our
society has so much stigma, so much harsh consequences for
people out on the street, it makes it can be
very difficult to bear.

Speaker 7 (33:32):
Yeah, no, you're right.

Speaker 10 (33:34):
One of the most like transforming experiences, transformative experiences that
I've had while being in LA is that I got
fifty two to fifty one time fifty fifty two because
they keep you for two weeks.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Oh really, I didn't know that one.

Speaker 10 (33:48):
Yeah, fifty one, fifty is the seventy two hours, and
then fifty two is where they extend it for two weeks.

Speaker 7 (33:53):
It was so bad, it was, Oh it was.

Speaker 10 (33:56):
But I learned a lot in there because I was
around a lot of different people, and there was this
guy in there, and he was an older man and
I would talk to him pretty much every day, and
he basically said, like, you know, they keep trying to
force me to go to a shelter. I don't want
to go to a shelter. And I was just like
and I was like younger back then.

Speaker 7 (34:14):
I was like, oh, why not?

Speaker 10 (34:15):
And he was like, because I've had horrible things happen
to me in shelters.

Speaker 7 (34:20):
You know.

Speaker 10 (34:21):
People have stolen from me, people have hurt me, people
have you know, done all kinds of things to me
for no reason, you know. And and finally I looked
at him and I was like, wow, you know, that
actually makes a lot of sense. And he starts talking
about how, you know, he sleeps at this park every night,
and he said, no one has ever bothered me at
this park. Nobody like people walk by me, if anything,

(34:41):
they're like scared of me, you know. And he was
like the sweetest guy too, and he lived in the
valley and he said, every single night nobody bothers me,
he said, but when every time I go to a shelter,
it's one of the most traumatizing experiences.

Speaker 7 (34:54):
You know, that I've ever had.

Speaker 10 (34:55):
And I was like, wow, you know, that's real because
even like at the shelter, like they're not providing people
the adequate care I feel like that they need in
order to be successful. At most of them, it's kind
of like you're allowed to exist there is what I've seen.

Speaker 7 (35:09):
It depends on where you are too.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
And my experiences with shelters, which I didn't like go
on either, but trying to explain to hardheaded or unwilling
people to understand that people that are living in this
world have much more advanced knowledge and experience with it.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
So when they're telling.

Speaker 4 (35:25):
You these things and you just you know, they waste
the time, they waste the energy, and then you just
turn around to do the same damn thing. Then it's like,
but what is the point of trying to argue, complain
or talk to you. It's just like, you know, I'm
just going to give monosyllabic answers and just leave it alone.
And so I had very difficult times in shelters too

(35:45):
because of the car sural nature, like you have to
be back at like a curfew, or if you don't,
then you call and you have to have a explain.
And if you're at work, I'm like, you know this
is a shelter. This is not like you know, where
we're children, we have to have a note like from
a doctor and things like that, or you know, those
kinds of things really just annoyed me. Were the food
restrictions or you couldn't have this behind, or you couldn't

(36:07):
bring this into the other room, or you know, it's
just yeah, to the point where it can be very difficult.
On top of that, Ice focuses on the undocumented that
house as well. But most importantly, what they're talking about
the conditions in these hotels. They cannot have guests, they
cannot have this curfews and things like that. So when

(36:28):
you hear these glowing public relations statements, people are not
looking in deeper to it. People are not asking the
hard questions. People are not calling the service providers on
the carpet. Why is it that these are grown adult
people that they can't have guests? Are you saying that
they are incompetent or stupid people that they can't have
a friend or they can't have a relationship, or they

(36:50):
can't bring people in Every place, even the hotels that
I've gone through allow you to have a guest. So
it just it begs the question to be humanized, yes,
and to try to talk to people that are so
adamant about trying to say that people don't want help
and things like that. They're so hard headed, so you
can't penetrate too because they believe deep down that unhoused

(37:14):
people should be punished. But they won't go out and
say it because they know it's an ugly statement to say.
But they honestly believe that, and that's by their actions.
They do those things or say those things in a
way make it criminality or make it like, for example,
unhoused people that live near their care or elderly centered
or something. They make it sound like the unhoused person

(37:34):
is jumping out of bushes and attacking old people or
in attacking children and things like that. Most often not,
the unhoused people are just trying to survive or you
staying near resources, or they may have relatives or whatever
it is that it is. But it's the whole picture
that they pay. When you can be able to demonize
the people, then you can criminalize them.

Speaker 10 (37:53):
I always say that, yeah, no exactly, And it's such
a contradiction too, because the whole point of I unders
stand it, like mayor Bas's like interim housing program is
to give people autonomy, right, like, okay, you have an
hotel room instead of going to a shelter. But then
they just completely cancel out every single benefit that you
would have by having like your own private room, your

(38:15):
own private space. If you do have your own private space,
you know, the idea is that you could be more
successful because you have that autonomy, and that autonomy is
so important. Like taking people's autonomy is basically like making
them a slave, Like you're not giving them any options
to do what they want to do, and then that
kind of affects people's will to live, It affects basically

(38:38):
everything about their mental health, and then it's going to
make it harder to motivate yourself.

Speaker 7 (38:42):
Like there's a book by Virginia Wolf actually called The
Room of.

Speaker 10 (38:45):
One's Own and it talks about like how important it
is just as a woman to have your own room.
But I feel like you could apply that to everyone,
especially when you've lived a life where maybe you've been
controlled by others, you've been dominated, you've been a press,
you've been told what to do, and when you have
your own space and you can just like I remember
when I got out of sober living, and I've always

(39:07):
lived on my own, but when I had got out
of the sober living, human trafficking unhoused space, and I
just was like going back and forth to the store,
and I was just, like you said, like doing those
basic things like Okay, I can go out until ten
pm and I can come home.

Speaker 7 (39:20):
Like people take those things for granted.

Speaker 10 (39:22):
So much like like you said earlier, people take just
being able to shower and change their outfit at home
for granted. And I think about that a lot, especially because,
like I said, like that's such a contradiction. The idea is,
if you want to give people housing, you also need
to give them their own room, you know what I mean,
And that needs to be there.

Speaker 4 (39:44):
And let me add another thing too, just this is
not only just hotels inside safe these are also SROs,
because like I'm in an SRO right now, and it
really frustrates me because again, the denseness or the resistance
to create humanity for people people go only so far
they create a kind of humane kind of solution. But
I remember I was having this challenge with this racist

(40:06):
person that lived in the same sorrow what it was,
and this person tried to make it so difficult for
me to stay there and was creating situations and then
pretended that he was the victims. He's because he's you know,
he has a record and all of this kind of stuff.
But it got to the point where they were like, well,
you just stay on this floor, you know. And the
way this SRO is set up is the kitchen is

(40:28):
on the floor, he's on.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
The laundry is on this one. What he's on. They
don't keep up.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
The showers like they're supposed to, so I usually use
the other one because it has better water flow, what
needless to say, And to try to elucidate these type
of points, it was like we didn't want to hear
it out there. Other they just didn't comprehend and it
got so exasperated, which is why sometimes I get tired
sometimes of house people that are in our communities and

(40:53):
they are resistant to understanding sometimes like why are you here?
Why do you join this place? And you don't want
to listen and to the people that are being impacted.
And when we come back more with the choir, welcome back,
it's to Steve Henderson with weedy in house.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Let's get back to It.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
Here's the rest of my talk with Sakoit, who initially
started out this city, and the government was against hotels
because of the pandemic. Activists advocates like myself and others
push for if you wanted to get rid of on
the house so much, the house's issues so bad, why
not get these empty hotels. There was such a kerfuffle

(41:36):
that they didn't want to do it because they were
worried that the brand was going to be impacted and
things like that. So now they're using one or two
star or CD places to use these places. There's one
hotel where on house people are. They can't use the towel.
They get one four week a paper towel to use
to dry themselves off.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I had one out an eagle rock.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
This is why I'm like, I don't know, why do
they get these advocates, But there was just one advocate
was in an uproar or was against there's other unhoused
people from having a coffee maker inside that room.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Put that in your mind, a coffee maker.

Speaker 4 (42:14):
It's insinuating that unhoused people don't drink coffee. It's insinuating
that they are too stupid to not you know, to
use know how to use a coffee machine. And I was,
for the life of I'm like, I was so stumped
when she said, I thought she was joking. It says,
why would that be such an issue? Because everybody you
go too, even the see hotels, they have some kind

(42:36):
of coffee maker or something like that. Why would that
be such an uproar issue or issue that you take
issue with. It just didn't make any sense. I hear
abolitions always say stop the cough in your mind, I
would add, I would add, stop the judgment and lack
of empathy in your mind. Out of house people are

(42:57):
human beings. They deserve just this much of the accouterment,
the incentives, like everybody else. If they want a coffee
machine in there, there should be no reason. If they
take a shower, God forbid, the world is not going
to end if they have a towel.

Speaker 7 (43:14):
That is that's pretty shocking. I don't want I like dang.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Like I said.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
When I get the show and started going to different
places and talking to other unhoused people and listening to
their stories, it opened the world to me to understand
how these stories don't get told at how it flies
under the radar. Under the auspices of being helping unhouse people,
and when you really hear them telling you the stories

(43:39):
and saying, no, this is definitely more than.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Met the eye.

Speaker 7 (43:43):
No, it's true.

Speaker 10 (43:44):
Actually, that's one of the things I told the Sober
Living in Recovery Task Force. I said, stop looking at
unhoused people, stop looking at people who suffer from addiction,
stop looking at all of these people like somebody you
need to manage.

Speaker 7 (43:56):
You don't need to manage us. We don't need your management.

Speaker 10 (44:00):
What we need is like real tangible resources that you're
already giving to other people. I'm on the land back
in Operations House Force in Santa Monica, right, And there's
a lot of conversations, especially around reperations in California, like, and.

Speaker 7 (44:12):
I remember I called this out in the meeting the
other day.

Speaker 10 (44:14):
I was like, okay, but didn't the city council just
create this whole big plan to make Palisades businesses who
were burned down by the fire, probably mostly white owners,
to be honest, move them to Santa Monica. Didn't you
guys come up with that in how long like three months?
So and you guys are saying that you guys can't
come up with reparations. You guys can't come up with,

(44:36):
you know, real solutions to even the unhoused issue in
Santa Monica, like they refuse. The culture in Santa Monica
is disgusting.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
And I was going to say I was on house
out there in San Monica before I I forced me
to move back down here because do you know it
is again they were voting to you ban for unhoused
people to have blankets and pillows.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yep, that's how backed up this. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (45:00):
Yeah, I always get into it with people that live
in Santa Monica because you know, one of the things
I advocate on the task for us a lot, And
I say, you know, you cannot keep funding the police
the way that you do in Santa Monica and then
claim that you care about the unhouse population or claim
that you care about minorities because they literally target both, yes,

(45:20):
like aggressively.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Yes.

Speaker 10 (45:22):
And I had a professor who was a prosecutor in
Santa Monica, and he actually straight up said that pretty
much all of the penal codes in Santa Monica and
civil codes and stuff are made up by white people
who have nothing better to do. Hate in their heart
and they hate unhoused people, and they hate black and
brown people and pretty much all that they ins a

(45:43):
lot of women, and all that they do is make
laws like you can't ride your bike in Santa Monica,
and that is specifically to target unhouse people. They will
never stop a tourist with that penal code ever, exactly
never in their life will they do that.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
And they will never have, but they will never stop
tourist that will put out a blanket in land the mouth,
but on the house person, that's what that's what they're
aiming for. And it's like it's so aggressive and so
openly disrespectful. They make it shown that the antipathy is
so known, you know, you can only stand there stay
there for some time. I used to go to before
they changed, the people concerned the Samuil Shell that used

(46:19):
to have an ocean park, and the way they will
talk about on house people, the way they were using
staff to try to convince unhouse people that we deserve
to be treated this way.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
That's the that was what really turned me off. And really.

Speaker 7 (46:36):
That's the craziest part. They literally make themselves the victim.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
There was one staff member I have to tell this story,
and I was so infuriated because if you have to
go to the restroom there, it is so difficult to
go into that, you know, unless you know it was
a McDonald's there. If you're not there, then you have
to be trying to be creative and go. No, if
you don't get to the when they finished that new
part in time, then you're going to have that accident.

(47:00):
But before that, the staff member comes to us all
over the young house there and she says, well, you know,
there's this person that went to use the restaurant out
of the street. And I was appalled. I was so
offending and furious by it. I was like, you know,
have you ever tried to go up usually the restaurant
out here and you're unhoused. You can't use the restaurant
out here, because a lot of people don't allow you

(47:21):
to use the restaurant out here. You know, they are
very adamant against there's no facilities, there's no free facilities
at the time, So of course they're going to have
to you know, human beings are going to be able
to either the use it on themselves, and they they
probably didn't want to do that, so they had to
be able to do what they needed to do. I
almost got arrested because I was out in the house

(47:41):
and waiting for the bus by people that was standing
out on the bus stop. And I don't never forget
it was a rainy Saturday at the time, and they
just saw me standing there and obviously I was must
be menacingly at God forbade it was rainy. I had
a hood on, right, I was going to attack these
people waiting for the bus. And that really was the

(48:03):
turning point for being like, you know what these people are.
I don't irredeemable, but I just think there's no point
in trying to convey to them the humanity because they'll
never see it.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (48:13):
No, there's people on the task Force even who are like,
let's go to the Santa Monica community. I'm like, no thanks.

Speaker 10 (48:18):
If you want to do that and you want to
get vitriol hate from white supremacists, you go right ahead.
But what I want to do is I want to,
you know, hit up the people who already support us
and bring love to Santa Monica, because that's honestly what
needs to be done. Like people need to go to
Santa Monica and use their voice because right now, the
white supremacists just take over those city council meetings as
far as like you know, and I feel like they

(48:41):
feel empowered to do that because in LA it's a
little bit harder to do that, you know, you have
to watch your mouth a little bit more. Yeah, but
over there they really feel and like I was saying,
they really feel like they're the victim too.

Speaker 7 (48:52):
They sit there and they're like, I'm not safe to
take my child out. Just shut the fuck up, bro.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
Well, if they see it in the house and can
admit they feel like the child is going to be attacked.
It's like Sant Louis Abispo. When I was doing an
episode for my show, I went out there the San
Louis Abispo and it reminded me of Santa Mona. I said,
this is this is so surreal, and it's just the
way that people were acting and reacting. And what I
noticed is there was two people, two white people, and

(49:20):
I was asking questions and one white person was trying
to put a spin on it.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
The other white person was just telling like, no, this
is a racist place here. And the guy was.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
Getting frustrated because he didn't want that part to be known.
And then when I started, you know, because I already
knew the answer, but I was asking the question to
see just how they would phrase it. And they were
phrasing it just like people from Santa Monica that they
were just decent people. They just they the quality of
life was being impacted when they see unhoused people there.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Was it was so hard.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
Was that the unhoused people were literally living on the
edge near a river, a muddy side the river, on
a hill. And I'm talking about elderly people and things
like that. So it got to the point where on
house people were hiding because if they were shown throughing,
you know, the city proper, they were going to be targeted.
And that was another is that's always what I noticed.

(50:17):
You know, when you see young house people who are
in the outskirts or in far flung places, chances are
very good that the people there, the house people there
are very are very nasty.

Speaker 7 (50:29):
Yeah, it's really it's really disgusting. I don't like the
culture there.

Speaker 10 (50:32):
And I've been saying this, I'm like, it's difficult to
navigate when those are the people that come and they're
so loud, right, And I remember one of my best
force members tried to be like, oh, they out organized this,
And I'm like, no, just don't say that, because that's
not an excuse for city council to not see through
that stuff.

Speaker 7 (50:50):
Because these are people who are supposed to be educated
on policy.

Speaker 10 (50:53):
These are people who are supposed to care about all
their constituents, not just you know, the rich white people
who have the time to come here, and and it's
a lot of time you got to dedicate to go
to city council meetings. It's like seven eight hours sometimes
they be going on and so on. How's advocates are
so important because, like you said, like you just get

(51:14):
so beat up after a while and you're just trying
to survive. Like I remember when I was going through
all this, Oh my god, I couldn't have cared. Like
when people are saying things, it's like, oh my god, whatever,
like it's just noise. But then once you're like out
of it, or once you're trying to get out of it,
and then you start looking back at it, you're like, wow,
people are really people almost knock you down to that
point you like you're you're at that really low point

(51:37):
fiscally right, you don't have money, but then also emotionally
and socially, people are trying to minimize your existence all
the time, and so it's hard to bring yourself out
of that. And that's why I told the California Past Force,
like you need to invest in these people, like, not
just okay they're surviving, invest make sure they're good.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
And not only that too.

Speaker 4 (51:57):
I think one of the things that really turned it
around from me to start to reinditt it was having
people to talk about it, because when I noticed too
that I was telling unhoused people too. When I did
the show, I noticed on house people felt so relieved
that I asked their opinion and they loved to talk.

(52:18):
They talked so long and it frustrated the producers and
other listeners.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
And I have to always get on the house people.
I like, listen.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
If you can listen to a kinburns or other things
for three hours without changing the channel, that you can
listen to onhouse people venting when they finally be heard.
If you need to take a break, take a break,
put a pause on it, and then come back. But
come on, you know, it's like it's just so disrespectful.
Just make it ten minutes. Just move on. But the
second thing that I noticed about it too. Was when

(52:48):
you're dealing with this kind of conversation. I was telling
onhouse people this, I says, you may not think voting
is important, you may not think having a voice is important,
but I guarantee you somewhere somebody is at a meeting
discussing a way to put you in a position that's
going to cause you harm. Somebody voted for an ordinance

(53:11):
against you. And if you don't think about that, or
you don't realize, because if voting was not it was,
it's a waste of time. They wouldn't take time to
do it, they wouldn't organize, they wouldn't put money into
and as an African American person and it was trying.
That tells people that this was an issue that our
ancestors were killed for. We couldn't do that even when

(53:34):
we had the right. They intimidated so much because they
knew that if there was a collective party or a
collective block of people to stop what they were doing,
then they would change the game entirely. So that was
another Colonel of a nugget of wisdom that I keep
making sure they're certainly a voting batch. You look what

(53:54):
we got in the office. Now, look what they're doing.
He just set out in a horrible executive order. It's
giving license for people to go out and target on
the house people in the most horrific of ways and
making it legal.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
And you can say we'll voting.

Speaker 4 (54:10):
Into this, or they the same kind of part, or
whatever it is you go to say, but you have
to see the reality of it.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
This is what's just happening to you.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
So you're going to have to figure out a way
to reconcolve yourself or understand the political process and understand
how you need to be a part of it.

Speaker 10 (54:25):
Yeah, I agree, And I always tell people, I'm like,
when you start to feel like I feel like a
lot of people when they think of justice, there's a
reason that we think of like cut handcuffs and.

Speaker 7 (54:35):
Jails and like laws and stuff.

Speaker 10 (54:38):
It's because, like, traditionally the law has been used to
restrict people, like you said, like target people, knock people
down a peg. And so when I'm thinking about like
restorative justice, I try to give people hope and say,
you know, we can make laws that actually give people
second chances. We can make laws that target the corporations
and the people who are actually exploiting us rather than

(55:00):
us who are just trying to make a living and
just trying to survive. And like, not to bring up
the subaltern again, but the subaltern is I think Gary
Spivack is her name. She's a scholar and she's a
postcolonial scholar, and she talks about this idea of the subaltern.
And in the cast system, in the India cast system,
there is the bottom cast is the subaltern. And it

(55:22):
said that the subaltern can't speak, like spiritually they're bound
from speaking. And so in this article she poses the
question can the subaltern speak? And the idea is, yes,
we can speak the most oppressed people in society, the
people who are on the sidelines the most, those of
us who have had the hardest lives, we can speak.
In fact, we can speak much louder. The fact that

(55:45):
we're not heard, that's the problem. People don't listen. And
like you said, like the fact that you give a
voice to the subaltern, it's so powerful because these are
the voices that people really.

Speaker 7 (55:57):
Don't hear from that often.

Speaker 10 (55:58):
I think that's why people are grab imitated towards especially.
I feel like in the past couple of years, things
like soft white underbelly or whatever, like yeah, I know.

Speaker 4 (56:07):
He's so exploitive and likes Yeah, that's another thing.

Speaker 10 (56:11):
But people, I think are gravitated towards that because people
are curious and people do want to know, you know,
what our lives are like. It just is unfortunate that
people still exploit us for that trauma porn.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
And that's another thing.

Speaker 4 (56:23):
With one of the things, there was another I don't
want to give anymore notoriety a person, but there's another
one that has another uh a program that does the
similar thing. And then two we're gonna behind which I
bring up like the white saverism they have, like or
try to shape the conversation into white Saverism narrative. That's

(56:45):
what I'm trying to be as poliged as that possibly can.

Speaker 10 (56:48):
I know, I agree because there's a lot of connections
between colonialism and homelessness.

Speaker 7 (56:52):
Yes, because what's crazy is.

Speaker 10 (56:54):
That some of the first homeless people were white settlers.
And it's funny because when they were homeless, it was, oh,
my god, the government needs to give me land, the
government needs to give me five horses, and.

Speaker 7 (57:05):
Blah blah blah. And they did. They subsidized so much.

Speaker 4 (57:09):
But also too, like back in into even how the
narrative would negatively frame and in some respects for them
too is he does not work, does not eat. I
remember being in this coat shelter that was saying that
about non house people who knowunsn't worked, don't eat. So
you have to have to do a job in order
to get your suffer, or you have to pay, like

(57:29):
like the at one point and rescue mission, in order
to stay you have to pay part of your gr
to stay there in these packed bunks. And so it's
it's so these things are so intertwined in how the
conversation of house blessness is. It is always sent for
some kind of negative way of twisting support or there's
some kind of way of making sure that you're that

(57:52):
he is always on the neck of vulnerable people. But
the soft underabilities and those conversations always has to have
a phase of the white saviorism that's going to pull
the poor minorities out of their condition because they are
unable to do it themselves. And in order this has happening,
and I have seen it happen, they can dictate how

(58:14):
they do it by shaping or being in the forefront
or the front line or pushing themselves into it. I'll
give you one last example. There is this one creator
won't say the person's name, but this person goes into
a rage, and I explained it to the person before
I says the reason why I call it weedy in
house because the term is much more up to date.

(58:37):
It also gives a chance for the person that is
displaced on housed just have us say how they want
to be called. And it also opens the conversation and
the mental landscape for people to realize not everyone responds
to the word homeless. Not everyone wants to be called homeless.
There's a person a friend of mine, calls herself ruthless.

(58:58):
There's another person that calls themselves yeah, you know what
were called four walls removed. There are so many people
that have a personality choose a conversation, but this person
flies into a rage and enlist other homeless people that
are okay with it to say these things. And I

(59:20):
have to always says, why does it puts people into
a rage that people are using their own autonomy, They're
using their own voice to say what they want to
be called. Why would you want to relegate? Because again
it goes back to that white say riism complex. It
goes back to that punitive kind of belief system that
they cannot they cannot kill the you know, puneral cards

(59:44):
through nature in their mind about on house people or
homeless people or displaced people, ruthless or four walls removed,
or however you want to say what your condition is.
Because you once you start to take ownership of who
you are and how you want to be called, it
shifts the mental landscape and it makes you much more

(01:00:06):
confident in how you will be addressing your situation or
how you want to address it, and what you want
to say when people talk to you, because you demanding
that they see you instead of just looking and at
another homeless person on which the idea escapes in it
really does, and it escapes a lot of people. They
don't get that deeper context to it.

Speaker 7 (01:00:25):
So yeah, no, I think you're right.

Speaker 10 (01:00:26):
Actually, when I first escaped body broken, there's no resources
for people who escape body brokeing. So I remember going
to different like nonprofits and different access centers and stuff
and talking with different people, and I remember the term
unhoused actually helped me realize that I was actually being
human trafficked in the first place, because you're right, it
is such a fluid term, and you start to realize

(01:00:49):
that different people are experiencing a lot of different things,
and some people, you know, are couch serving, some people
are you know, creative, and they're going and they're fighting
places to sleep that aren't necessarily legal, but you know,
they're finding somewhere to sleep.

Speaker 7 (01:01:04):
And so I think it is much.

Speaker 10 (01:01:06):
More of a fluid term that allows you to talk
about your really unique experience because everyone's experience is really different,
and especially because a lot of it is based off
of like your safety, like what you feel safe doing.
Some people feel safe right here in Hollywood. Some people
prefer to go to like a neighborhood and lay low.
So I think you're right like honoring people's individuality and

(01:01:30):
not judging them and just trying to come from a
place of understanding like, oh why do you do that?
Why do you feel more comfortable here, and not trying
to judge them, but just trying to genuinely understand like
where they're coming from.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
And that's that's the hardest part too.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
Like, for example, it gives you you are the master
of your fate. It gives you a little bit more
control into an uncontrollable kind of situation. What you're dealing
in housesness because there's a lot of chaotic things there.
There's a lot of things that beyond your control. But
what you can control is who you are are and
how you respond to the conflicts that are the storms
of your life. But also I think because people don't

(01:02:07):
think of it is like, for example, I'll give you
the counter argument that they always spout off, well, if
you change the name, you know, then it's not going
to address the issue.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
I was like, well, let me put let me put
it to you this way.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
Black people have changed from Afro American African American Negro
and we still have reasons for it, and the world
still moves. And the saving with people from the lgbtt
I plus community, they have used terms now back with
I hear and when I was growing up and this
is going to you know, on the grade, so give

(01:02:42):
the gray. But the fighting words was if we could
go back to time and time using the word queer,
because that was that was you did not use that word.
People try and selling that for older generation.

Speaker 7 (01:02:59):
Yeah, a lot of them, they're gay elders. Sometimes Like
when I was like oh queer, They're like, oh my god,
we can't say that out Yeah, exactly exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
So it's the same thing, the evolution of those conversations.
Why is it that when we're dealing with the houseless
or the unhoused and homeless and displaced that we cannot
use those.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
Same evolutionary terms again.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
We're going back again to the punitive nature of our
society and the punitive nature of our spirit, that we
are just trying to relegate or dictate what they can
and cannot do and say what they can say. So
I want people when they're listening to the show to
understand by the show it's so incremental and so instrumental

(01:03:42):
to discuss these things and to walk away with a
more nuanced and more humane approach when you're dealing with it,
and when the terms are used, when people.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
Ask, well, what do you what do you call them?

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
Well, they're human beings you feel you ask you for
your name and say, okay, if you can say, what's
your pronouns? Okay, what do you like to be called?
Some people say I'm homeless, when some people say I'm
just out there. Some people just say I'm displaced. But
what the point of it is is giving them the
power of control and the respect. Now, you may be

(01:04:16):
want to be called something else. I maybe want to
be called this. Some people like being called homeless. Some
don't like to be called homeless. They like to be
caught hobos. Now that was a trouble word. But this
group of people like that. That's the term they want.
So what are you going to do, you know, yell
at them because they want to be called what they
want to be called.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
That doesn't make sense.

Speaker 10 (01:04:36):
And it's like a reclaiming of the term too, like
like you know, yeah, who cares? Like, you know, I
embrace it. Like the terms are always connected with the
culture and how cultures are shifting. Like the term person
of color was coined by the white abolitionists because they
wanted a way to talk about black communities without saying
the same things that.

Speaker 7 (01:04:56):
The white supremacists were saying.

Speaker 10 (01:04:57):
They wanted a different term that was more respectful in
their head, and so.

Speaker 7 (01:05:01):
Garrison came up with that term. Actually, and it's.

Speaker 10 (01:05:03):
Funny they've been talking about retiring it now yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
It's and then too, even in our communities we have
people when you were saying for people of color, we're
trying to divorce ourselves from people of color and use
it for people that are not black or people are
not African American because of the nuances of our conversations
and their struggles. But yeah, it's again things change, time change,

(01:05:28):
and we should be open to that and it should
not be such a which, like I said, you know,
just you know, it just made me more aware when
I'm interfacing with people that experienced houses, there's a homelessness
that are non black or non I won't say a
person of color, but other races. They can't help themselves

(01:05:51):
but try to dictate or snatch the conversation and for
us other vulnerable people to follow their lead because they
obviously know they feel that they know best, and us
as people of color, as other house, we don't know
what we're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
So right, well, I have enjoyed this conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:06:06):
I do not want to overstay my welcome, and I
would like to invite you again to the show. I'm
creating the panel and I'll probably reach out to you
to see if I can invite you to. But I
wanted to ask two follow up questions. You mentioned you
a native, were you on the reservation? Or were you
independently out?

Speaker 10 (01:06:24):
So I'm from Montana Great Falls, and so from what
I know, Great Falls is partially on like what.

Speaker 7 (01:06:30):
Is considered a reservation.

Speaker 10 (01:06:32):
Yeah, but technically I just kind of like grew up
in the city.

Speaker 7 (01:06:37):
But most like pretty.

Speaker 10 (01:06:38):
Much how it's like half and half where I'm from
the past native population, half white and so I'm Ojibway
descendant of the Turtle Mountain Turtle Mountain Indians.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
Okay, okay, well, thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:06:51):
Is there anything else that you would like to add
to the conversation before Sol's on out?

Speaker 7 (01:06:56):
No, just thank you so much for having me, and
I would definitely be willing to come back.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
Oh, thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
Of This is Theo Henderson from Whedian House and again
I promise you a very exciting and titilating conversation and
I have thank you, Thank you, thank you very much.
Thank you so much to Secoya for her time. You
can learn more about her work at the description. Thank

(01:07:23):
you again for listening to another episode of Weediant House.
If you have a story you'd like to share, please
reach out to me at Weedionhouse at gmail dot com
or at whedian House on Instagram. Until then maybe again
meet in the light of understanding. Whedian House is a

(01:07:43):
production of iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted, and created by
me Theo Henderson, our producers Jamie Loftus, Hailey Fager, Katie Fischel.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
And Lyra Smith.

Speaker 4 (01:07:55):
Our editor is Adam Want, our engineer is Joel Jerome,
and our local art is also by Katie Fisher.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
Thank you for listening.