Evolving Struggles, Successes and Journeys

In our last episode of 2024, Theo reflects on how 2024 has affected the unhoused community, and how to look forward to 2025. Then, he speaks with two returning guests -- Peoples City Council cofounder Albert Corrado about his journey toward mutual aid and building a better world in the wake of his sister Mely's murder at the hands of the LAPD, and Azoy, who speaks to the struggle to remain housed with the prejudice that exists in employment.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on Weedian House.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Sweeping people off an area, it just means they go
to another area. People don't seem to understand that. So
the Grant's passage just a greater version of that. And
until we have enough places to put people, enough places
that can give them care, these kinds of rulings are
completely useless.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
I think it's amazing that we have so many new
volunteers today. I don't know if any of them have
heard of Grant's pass So yeah, it's going to be
a lot of education on our end. With the goal
of that education that has to turn into okay services volunteers.
We need to start learning about this. We need to
start having these kinds of connections ready to go. We
need to have phone numbers of certain people, so we

(00:45):
just have to start figuring out what that's going to
look like.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm your host, Bio Henderson.
Thank you all for listening. In the year twenty twenty four,
I hope we have met in new pathways of understanding,
and it is my hope we meet in newer pathways
of understanding in twenty twenty five. Happy holidays, and without

(01:18):
further ado, here is on House News, our first story
is developing. Previously on Weeding House, we covered how life
events can make one on house. In western North Carolina,
Hurricane Helene's survivors are now using yurchs, which are tents

(01:39):
for shelter as the temperature drops into the tines. It
is important to note that all across the country, other
unhoused encampments are being swept, torn down, and criminalized. With
the survivors in North Carolina, they will now be more
susceptible to the same laws that other encampments are facing.

(02:02):
Like on House, people, they stay a few weeks in
a hotel paid for by FEMA. After those two weeks
are up, they are now staying in the yurts, which
are more solidly forty five tenths that allow for a
woodstove to keep them war. Bear in mind that many
of the residents that were affected have children and chronic

(02:23):
health conditions and now are at the mercy of the winds, rains,
and hurricanes of Heaven. Our next story takes us to
southern Los Angeles, where sixty eight unhoused residents and twenty
eight inoperable our vs were removed. Ellie County removed the

(02:45):
community with the aid of the county sheriff and fire departments.
From November twentieth through the twenty second, the community was
moved to temporary housing, similarly to Hurricane Lean residents. The
temporary housing program ends, it is unclear where the unhoused
will go.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Our next story.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
San Francisco has cut the number of days of unhoused
family can stay in shelters. Never mind the idea that
it's difficult to navigate being unhoused as a single person
trying to find a job, save up money finding affordable
housing in a housing crisis, the unhoused families have to

(03:32):
contend with fat while trying to raise children. Nimbis point
to lack of personal responsibility and unhoused people choosing to
stay on housed. These tenants off a backbone of every
nimby's justification for the cruel laws and violence visited upon
unhoused community members. One hundred and eighty six days have

(04:00):
passed since the Grants pass ruling. A quick synopsis of
the Grant's past ruling. It is now not considered cruel
and unusual punishment to criminalize an unhoused person trying to survive.
West Berkeley City has drawn strength from this ruling. They

(04:21):
have targeted the unhoused community in Berkeley with no offer
of shelter. The city Council approved the new policy allowing
Berkeley's staff to remove unhoused encampments without making shelter offers.
Supporters of this policy argue Berkeley needs the flexibility to
act to remove encampments that are dangerous to house residents

(04:43):
and the neighborhoods around them. This is one of the
thorns that was similarly used to justify Jordan Neely's death
and now is used to justify violent removal of unhoused people.
Our last story takes us back to California. Other California

(05:06):
cities have begun to offer unhoused people a one way
bus ticket out of town instead of providing services and
housing for unhoused residents. Using the one way bus strategy.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Is cheap and easy.

Speaker 4 (05:21):
This San Francisco strategy, also known as get Your Ads
out of Here program, has been around since twenty sixteen
and has been expanded by Mayor London Breed, who used
this as the driving force of her major encampment crackdown
this summer. Mayor London Breed enthusiastically supported the grants pass

(05:43):
ruling other states such as Texas bust their unhoused people
to California. History and statistics will tell the larger story
of the ineffectiveness of the strategy, and that's unhoused news.
When we come back, we'll speak with returning guests. Albert Corrado,

(06:08):
Welcome back to William Howes. To close out the year,
we have two totally different guests with equally important messages
for the listeners today. Both are returning guests and they're
going to provide status updates in their journeys. For those
that don't know who Albert Corrado is. Albert has been
consistently vocal about the murder of his sister, Meli Corrado

(06:31):
at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department. Asy
is returning with an update on her fragile housing condition.
Previously she was on house and now she tells me
about the challenges to stay housed.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Let's see what Albert has to say.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
To Albert Corrado was one of the people when I
first started doing my podcast that was so graciously enough
to be patient when I interviewed him on my phone.
And now it is almost like full circle. Moment now
that I'm in a professional studio with the guests, it's
the difference, and I guess the climb and the journey

(07:10):
is something to remark on and to look back with
some humbleness and some awe.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
What do you think?

Speaker 5 (07:17):
Yeah, thanks for having me. I mean, it's funny I
returned guests. I think the last time I was on
the show was like four years ago maybe, so it's
been a minute. When we first met, I was just
starting off in activism and organizing in Los Angeles, and
I think you were kind of just getting your podcast
off the ground. So I feel like, now you're on
the fourth floor of a cool building, you have a
professional setup, and my family finally won the lawsuit that

(07:42):
we were in the middle of when I first met.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
You, and that was going I was going to lead
into because at the time when we met, because I
did an episode about Melick and for people that are
not no, I'm going to have Albert do a retro,
tell us a little bit about the story and take
us to was the journey because it just didn't happen
overnight with Mellie, just like I didn't just get this

(08:04):
podcast overnight. So tickets was the beginning, and then shepherd
us to what the finale is.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
I mean, yeah, so, you know, I mean I I
grew up in Los Angeles, and in twenty eighteen I
moved to Minneapolis and was just looking for a new
start or whatever.

Speaker 6 (08:23):
And then in July of that year, on.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
The twenty first, got a call that something was going
on at the Trader Joe's that my sister worked at
over here in Silver Lake in Los Angeles. And then,
you know, as the day went on, we found out
that the police had been chasing someone into the Trader
Joe's and they fired eight rounds and one of them
ended up hitting my sister, killing her.

Speaker 6 (08:42):
And I was, you know, two thousand miles away.

Speaker 5 (08:44):
And the very next morning, I flew to Los Angeles,
and you know, I had packed enough clothes for like
a week because I wasn't really sure how everything was
going to play out. And as soon as I got home,
my dad said it was the police. The news is
saying that it was the person who was running away
from the police, but we know as a police we're
going to sue them. I said, let's do it, and

(09:05):
stayed in Los Angeles for the next six years, working
towards some sort of justice and started to get involved
in local organizing and activism. And so when we first met,
I think it was at Echo Park Lake, Yes, and
I'd heard about you. I'd heard about the show, and
I was like, oh, I got to meet this guy.

Speaker 6 (09:22):
He seems cool.

Speaker 5 (09:23):
And I think at the time I was just looking
for anybody to get advice from you, and I didn't
know how anything worked if I belonged in this movement.
I just had a story to tell, I had energy,
I had time, and so, yeah, it is a trip
to kind of be sitting in this room with you
where it's like, literally two weeks ago my family settled
with the city and it's the end of this weird

(09:46):
chapter of my life. But then, you know, I think
what's cool is like seeing people like you that I
met in the beginning have successes, and you know, we
don't always hang out, but it's like when I hear
about you, when I see you, I'm like, oh, man,
THEO is a cool dude, and I'm really happy for him,
and it's really wonderful.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
So I were going to take a quick step back.
This is what I remember. I remember we met in
that co park I remember at the time, you know,
the conversation about the melee. You were responsible for bringing
in sharp relief on a local basis where I could
tangibly talk to about how the police were handling of

(10:23):
the whole affair, because you know, if we really honest
with ourselves, the police should never had did that chase anyway,
it would have never had any casualties and then opened
fire into an open area where innocence could be killed,
like the Burlington coat factory where the kid was shot
and killed. Those things should be explored and should be discontinued.

(10:46):
It wasn't to the point where he was jeopardizing anyone's life.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
He was running away.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
And when someone's running away, even from a civilian standpoint,
civilians can't just open fire on people when they run
away if they have done a crime or something like that,
and it should be if police are held to a
higher standard, that should have been the same thing. But
most importantly, what I did like which I would like
to point out, is that you definitely had orchestrated a
couple of memorials for Melick and it was one of

(11:14):
my episodes I did with Melie. I thought it was
really a very touching way you did it. Each year
that you did it, it was some other focus, some
kind of thing to remember her about, you know, or
to keep her memory alive in the cities consciousness, but
also to her friends and community and family.

Speaker 6 (11:32):
Yeah, I mean I think that.

Speaker 5 (11:33):
You know, there was a moment where we had done
the one year anniversary and that was a very uh
you know, we had community come in, but I wasn't
fully involved in everything yet. I was kind of dipping
my toe into organizing. And I talked to my dad
and I said, you know, Mellie's name is in the
news again because it's the universary, but it will then
fade as as it often does, and we need to

(11:55):
continue to tell the narrative in the story of Mellie.
And I said, what can I do to kind of
continue that? What can I do to also like busy
myself because I was kind of at a you know,
I was a grieving brother, but I had no sort
of focus at the time. I was mostly just like, Okay,
I want to do this for Melli. And then as
time went on, it was like, well, I need to
become her advocate. I need to go out there and

(12:16):
get involved because I think what was important is talking
to people like you and other leaders in the community
and other organizers. I come to realize that, like, all
of this stuff is connected. So obviously your beat is
the unhoused community, and that is such a crucial thing
to pay attention to because then you realize, oh, well,
homelessness is not being funded the way it should be

(12:37):
because the LAPED is getting all this money because all
these other departments are taking this money. And so to me,
it was such a crucial thing to give back to
my community, to honor my sister. And yeah, you know,
I try to be intentional with this stuff. I don't
sit around and just be like, oh, hey, you know,
we're going to do a thing for Melli and we'll
make it up as we go along. It's like the
preparation that I do. You know, the last thing we

(12:58):
did was a rally back in twenty twenty three, and
you know, two or three months before, I'm already talking
to people, Hey can you speak at it. Hey, I'm
getting supplies, I'm getting tents and all that sort of stuff.
So for me, it's kind of a way to do
I like being you know, creative and coming up with
stuff and having community events, but it's also just to

(13:19):
give back to my sister and honor her and tell
people who she was. And you know, most of the
people that I've met in the last six years never
met Mellie and they don't know who she really was.
So it's my job to tell them, Hey, this is
who she was and give them the best sort of
most accurate picture I can of who who Melly was.

(13:39):
Because it is a sad thing to meet somebody and
talk about Mellie so much and be like, oh, I
wish you could have shared space with her. I wish
you could have hugged her and been around her and
hear her laugh. And I'll be real too, I'm also
like a very I'm driven by vengeance and anger it
so you know, when it comes to the police, so
I'm always looking for ways to undermine them. And so
it was always is like, Okay, we're doing a rally,

(14:01):
but how can I send the message to the police
that like, hey, we're coming after you. And that's kind
of been my focus for six years. And again, it's
cool to see people continue the fight in different ways
because I think the keenness observers that are in this
movement know that all of this stuff is connected. Homelessness
is not a single issue, It is five issues at once.

(14:22):
You know, the police budget is not a single issue.
It is many, many at once. And I think the
more we talk about it, I think the more people
are going to understand, especially at a local level, that hey,
what you do, the way you vote, the people who
are on your city council, on your neighborhood councils, that
stuff matters kind of more than federal. I mean, federal
is something we need to pay attention to. But the

(14:43):
reason your neighborhood looks the way it looks, the reason
why they put bike lanes in or start charging for
parking or whatever it is, is done at a city level.
And if your loved one is killed by the police,
or the police haussele you or patrol your neighborhood make
it less safe, that is done at a local level.
And that's kind of been me. You have to throw

(15:07):
all that stuff in the same pile and kind of
work with it. So that's what we're trying to do here, you.

Speaker 4 (15:11):
Know, succinctly put I was going to say, the interconnectedness
of it is because the police has been successfully orchestrating
all of the kind of violent and carcio type of
solutions and every facet of government. Case in point, how
they treated the conversation about Melli Corrado's passing, and then

(15:31):
also how they are always to fly and the soup
when they're talking about house business. They are always trying
to get their cut, but also keeping the negative framework
going in order for them to continue to demonize and
criminalize on house people. We've witnessed it recently with the
brand's past ruling that didn't just happen out of tandem,
that had a very concentrated, a very focused kind of

(15:53):
message to bring. And if you're watching the Daniel Penny
trial and how they're framing Jordan Neely, it's not accident.
And the way of the recent case where there was
a person that had stabbed three people who unfortunately were
on housed and had mental challenges, and how the mayor

(16:14):
is focusing on involuntary incarceration of people that have mental
health issues. So these kind of conversations are pertinent and
it's germane to the larger discussion is how do we
want to create care in our communities? Do we want
to rally the incarceration andcarceral solutions, or do we want
to be able to stop before it gets to incarceration,

(16:37):
or are we having to get a police officer to
get someone that is having a mental challenge. We work
together to make sure that they are not a harm
to themselves and other people. But that's an uncomfortable conversation,
but I salute you for trying to keep it in
the forefront of people's consciousness. You even took it a
step further and started to run for city council.

Speaker 5 (16:57):
So yeah, I mean that that was I mean that
was you know, it was one of those things as
soon as I it all clicked to me of like, oh,
city council has all this power and all these these
decisions that affect people's lives are made at that level.

Speaker 6 (17:11):
I'm gonna run. I knew nothing about it.

Speaker 5 (17:13):
I had gotten some advice actually from current city Controller
Kenneth Mehia, because he'd run a couple of times and
I kind of knew him through some organizing circles and
I was like, hey, can you give me advice? I
know you've run before, And he sat there and kind
of walked me through how to file and this and that,
but the rest of it was kind of up to me,
and I think, you know, I wanted to be as

(17:34):
honest as possible, and I think that people saw that
when I first started running, of like, oh, well.

Speaker 6 (17:39):
You know, you're not running to win, You're running because
you want to send a message.

Speaker 5 (17:42):
And I was like, I'm kind of trying to do
both because I think that the time of the politicians
and the candidates lying, you know, kind of talking a
big game, and then when they get into office kind
of not living up to that. I think that that
should be done. It's not a way a good way
to do it. We've even seen it with some progress
of council members in the last few years. But I

(18:02):
wanted to run because to me, it made sense. If
I want to actually affect change and do something big,
I think a seat of power, like a city council seat,
is an important thing to have. And if someone like me,
who was a victim of police violence, who is a
person of color, who grew up here, who has been
through all of it, who's been hassled by the cops,

(18:24):
who's been affected by budget cuts to schools and all
that stuff, then I think I should be one of
the people on there, and you know, I mean, it
didn't work out. But I think what we were able
to accomplish is that we kind of crafted the conversation.
We said twenty twenty two is going to be about policing,
because it feeds into everything, and everyone who joined the
race after us had to then speak to that and say, oh, okay, well,

(18:47):
if Albert Carrado, this person who is known and we
know his story, if he's talking about this stuff in
this way and it seems mostly reasonable, then where do
you stand on it? And I've always I did myself
in looking at, you know, a thing and being able
to figure it out. And for me, what I figured
out was if we don't reign in the police, nothing

(19:09):
will get fixed. And I say that as a as
a brother of Melie, you know, a person who was
killed by the police. I say that as a as
a friend of a lot of unhoused people who I've
seen struggle, as someone who has done outreach to unhouse people,
who who you know, knows and loves a lot of
trans people, right like all these people who are marginalized.

(19:29):
And so I try to lead with that and say, hey,
it may seem radical to some people, but it's actually
pretty reasonable. And I think to me that was a
logical progression of where I was headed. I was getting
involved in organizing. I started this group called People's City
Council with my friends, and to me it just said,
you know, I said, there are many avenues to get
what we want done done, and so one of them

(19:52):
is running for city council. And that was to me
the I didn't wake up when I was five years
old and say hey, I'm going to be a city
council member. I'm going to be a politician. I didn't
want to do that, but I saw it as a
in one of many avenues to get to be able
to affect change, right, to get some power and use
it for good. And you know it it ended up

(20:13):
not not working out, But to me it was like, well,
the day after we lost or whatever didn't make it
to the general said okay, what's the next project?

Speaker 6 (20:22):
How do we keep working? And that's kind of been
the way to do it.

Speaker 5 (20:26):
Is like I didn't put all of my hopes and
dreams on one thing and say, well it didn't work out,
so time to walk away, because here's the thing I'm
going to be grieving Melly for the rest of my life.
She is going to be gone for the rest of
my life, so there I need to find a way
to continue to honor her memory and to continue to
honestly remind people of like, Hey, this happened in your city,
in your backyard, and nothing was done about it.

Speaker 6 (20:49):
And if we don't.

Speaker 5 (20:50):
Get people on the city council who care about that
kind of thing, then we're going to be living in
a city that is going to be run by a
bunch of ghouls and people who love the police, and
you know whatever. It was a fun thing I did.
It was a very important thing. I wish I had won,
but you know, that's how it goes well.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Even though you were working towards election as a council member,
you also created other avenues for other organizations to shine,
like the Robinson Space or that. Could you talk a
little bit about what that was about and what you
see for the future for other activist comings.

Speaker 5 (21:25):
Yeah, I mean so, I started People's City Council with
a bunch of friends in twenty twenty as a response
to city council's kind of lack of preparedness and care
in the face of a coming pandemic right, they voted poorly,
they weren't protecting people. A lot of us were angry.
My friend Nicole Darnanian Blandon, who I'm sure you know,
I had known her through again organizing circles, and she

(21:48):
sends out an email someday She's like, I'm really mad.
We need to go and protest outside of these people's houses.
And it was the time of COVID kind of starting.
So we got into our cars and we made signs,
and we hunt and put the signs out and then
we got out of our cars and we're socially distant
and you know, being safe and all that, but it
was like we were angry, and we're like, we're going
to Garcetti's house, the mayor at the time, We're going

(22:10):
to Nurry Martinez's house in Mitchell Ferrell and we're gonna
like make noise. And from that came People City Council.
After George Floyd was murdered, we started a fundraiser that
was just kind of mostly a bail fund and hey,
well maybe buy some supplies for protesters whatever. We raised
two million dollars. We gave a lot of that money
away and at the middle of twenty twenty one, we said, well,

(22:32):
we have given over a million and a half dollars
away to local organizations, like we've done an immeasurable amount
of good.

Speaker 6 (22:40):
What is our next step?

Speaker 5 (22:41):
And to us, it didn't make sense to continue to
just send money, because you know that's still something that
was needed. But we said, well, we need to have
a lasting impact. We need to have a place where
people can meet and feel safe, that is free from police,
that is free from the state kind of having any
say in it, that's free from surveillance. And Nicole and

(23:02):
a few people who kind of organized around town and
people City Council, we were on the lookout for a
physical space and the original Robinson Space, which was in
Filipino Town, was beautiful and awesome when we found it,
and we were there for about a year and a
half and we had fundraisers and book clubs and concerts
and all these amazing things. And to us, the main

(23:24):
thing was like, we don't charge for it. If you
are part of the movement that you have a thing,
a meeting you want to do, if you want to
have a safe space to organize to talk about stuff
that you don't want to talk about in front of
the general public. This is the place to be. We
ended up getting kicked out because of some terrible neighbors
and Nimby's and all that stuff, and then the police
were surveilling us.

Speaker 6 (23:45):
It was kind of a big open space.

Speaker 5 (23:46):
We ended up finding a really beautiful space in Virgil Village,
not far from where we were and not far from
where like a lot of us live. And that's been
a place that we've been at for almost two years now.
And the same sort of ethos goes into where it's like,
it's free. We don't charge for people.

Speaker 6 (24:03):
Now.

Speaker 5 (24:03):
If an organization comes and says, hey, we have a
bit of a budget, can we donate, of course we're
always looking for donations because it is very expensive to
pay the rent for the space and to run it.
We have people who do admin stuff who we like
to pay, so there is a level to which we
want to make some money, but it is not the
driving force at all. It's like whenever we tell people, hey,
it is free, here's a donation link if you want to,

(24:24):
but please do not feel any pressure. Like we have
people who are barely whose organizations are barely chugging along,
who come and do things there, and we're like, hey,
we don't care, like, we don't owe us anything. Tell
your friends about it. Tell them it's free. And that's
always been our thing because to exist in public nowadays
is very hard. It is increasingly harder to be a

(24:45):
person living in public. Everything is criminalized. You can't sit down,
as we talk about right grants pass in forty one eighteen.
You can't sit, you can't lie down, you can't pitch ten,
you can't do.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
You can't really be a human being.

Speaker 5 (24:56):
You can't relax. You can't even relax in your own city.
And so we say, hey, we have tables and chairs
and couches if you want to come and do something there,
as long as you're with it. You know, we vet people,
We vet organizations. There's been organizations who've reached out to
us who are like working in tandem with like people
who we consider to be the oppressors, and we say, hey,

(25:17):
straight up, we don't mess with them. We appreciate you
reaching out. If that relationship with that organization or those
people ends, will consider it. But now that you're working
with them, we're going to say no. And we're very
upfront about that. But everybody who uses the space is
somehow vetted. We don't have you know, we don't do surveillance,
we don't do all the things that you would normally

(25:37):
see at a regular like a we work or something.

Speaker 6 (25:39):
None of it.

Speaker 5 (25:40):
Like we're doing this out of the kindness of our hearts.
And again we don't charge people. We have two podcasting
rooms because for us, it's like every everything that you
can do helps every part of it, whether it's a
podcast or a reading club or an organization that you're running,
that is giving back to the movement, and for us,
the longevity of the movement is important to us. The
reason we have Robinson Space and the reason it's free

(26:02):
is because we know that this is where the ideas
that are going to get get us free are going.

Speaker 6 (26:06):
To be born.

Speaker 5 (26:07):
Right like there is going to be a book club,
there is going to be a meeting for your organization.
Somebody's gonna come to a meeting of a thing and
get inspired. And that's sort of how the movement kind
of keeps itself going, is we bring new people in,
they are radicalized, or they show up radicalized and radicalize
other people, and we keep going in. The Robinson Space
to me is you know, giving money to all those

(26:27):
organizations was wonderful, But I think that is the most
important thing that we've that I've been able to be
a part of, is that space and offering it to
people who I mean, we have done everything from you know,
book clubs to seminars, to teach ins to you know,
indigenous dance classes. We have you know, all these things
that are just like they they wouldn't have any place

(26:49):
to do it that wasn't expensive, and we're just saying, hey,
this is how you do this, this is the how
you get in the building, this is how you care.

Speaker 6 (26:56):
For the space.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
And then they go and they tell their friends and
we have been and basically fully booked for like the
last year. Okay, wow, we are constantly getting requests for
people to come and do stuff there because they heard, hey,
not only are you with it, not only is it free,
but like we feel welcome there. We feel you know,
we and we make sure that we have things. You
show up and it's like, hey, if you need microphones,

(27:18):
we got it. If you need speakers, if you need this,
if you need that, we kind of have everything you
would need to do a seminar or whatever you're trying
to do and for us that is important too. It's
like the democratization of something like pods resources. Right, It's like,
if you have an idea for a podcast, and hey,
you don't have the four hundred dollars it's going to
cost to buy a recorder and Mike's and all that

(27:39):
literally come to our space. We have two podcasts rooms.
You can use one of them. We have all the stuff,
we have all the recorders. We don't have any ownership
of that. You record whatever the hell you want and
it's yours. And for us, it's like we're removing a barrier, right,
We're removing a barrier that is allowing someone with an
idea who is broke to make idea reality.

Speaker 6 (28:01):
We're going to take a break and we will be
right back.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
We're back.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
I'm thinking about how when you're saying, you know, keeping
the legacy going because I knew, like for example, which
why is so important with the Wian House is to
keep it in keep it in the forefront of people's consciousness,
but to keep it also on the tongues of people
that had heard it, and to spread it even farther,
even not just locally, but just you know, internationally because

(28:32):
of what I found recently with even with the show,
the people are dealing with these issues internationally too. Netherlands, yeh, London,
you know, other displaced communities across over our seas. It's
it's a conversation that's necessary to have, and it's a
conversation that we have to have the medium and space

(28:55):
internationally internally as well externally for people to be able
to express the issues that are Germaine and very necessary.

Speaker 5 (29:02):
Yeah, and I think that what I think is important
to note here is that like I found myself and
again I look at you as a kindred spirit because
I was a very sad, angry, depressed boy after my
sister was killed, right as anybody would be you lost
your siblings.

Speaker 6 (29:21):
And it was like.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
I was so desperate to find meaning and connection and
tell the story. So I showed up to every meeting
I could, and I had time and energy, and I
was getting involved and doing every day of my life
beginning in like mid twenty nineteen, was just like I'm
involved somehow, I'm doing outreach, I'm doing this, I'm doing that.

(29:43):
Because I was so desperate to make those connections and
tell people and be heard and hear other people just
as you are so like desperate to get your voice
out that you're like, I'm just gonna do it on
my phone because that's all I have. It is the
only avenue I have. And to me, that is the
beautiful spirit of like something lives in you that needs

(30:03):
to get out. And you say, I don't care how
I'm gonna do it, whether it's on a rinky dingk
tape recorder or an old phone. And I remember just
listening to this stuff and being like, this is the
rawest sound you're gonna have. You're reporting live from an
encampments right with the phone, and it's like people just
wouldn't think to do that. They like, there are people

(30:24):
who would get in their heads and say, oh, well
I need to actually buy a bunch of equipment and
do this, and they would prepare and all that. You
were just like, it needs to be heard, even if
if there's a car driving by whatever, Like you're gonna
do it. And I think that when you find yourself
in a position where you're going through something, whether it's
in your sibling, you're on house, whatever it is, you

(30:44):
find yourself wanting to connect. And I think that is
what separates some people where it's like other people let
that bog them down and say I'll never do anything.
I don't belong in this world, I don't whatever, And
then other people just say, I'm gonna find my way.
And now, I mean, you're on iHeartRadio. Listen, they have
a lot of ads whatever. But but you know, but
you're now being heard. Somebody can stumble upon this thing

(31:08):
and your your voice will carry them. And you know,
I really love the way you end your show with
the meeting in the in the light of what is
it understanding? Yeah, And it's just like, you know, I mean,
someone's gonna hear that and be like that's cool. I'm
gonna take that and I'm gonna like make something of that,
and it's and it's cool. And I think that, you know,
finding yourself at at a at a crossroads is kind

(31:29):
of an important thing and and and choosing what to
do with that, to me is really what defines you
as a person.

Speaker 6 (31:35):
If I hadn't, if I had just sat around.

Speaker 5 (31:37):
And done nothing in the name of my sister, no
one would blame me, right, because everyone will say, oh,
you're sad. It's an awful thing to go through and
and and I don't And I don't blame people who
find themselves in my position who don't do what I do.

Speaker 6 (31:48):
That's fine.

Speaker 5 (31:49):
But for me, I was like, I can't feel good
about myself if I don't go do something because I
was put on this earth to do something. I don't
know exactly what it is, but maybe it's what I'm
doing now. And you were put on this world to
like share your story and give I think the fact
that you give people who normally wouldn't get the time
of day from people on the street, you're giving them

(32:11):
a voice. I mean, it's not to just be like, oh,
I'm here to worship THEO, but I really appreciate.

Speaker 6 (32:15):
What you do.

Speaker 5 (32:16):
But I do see you as a kindred spirit because
I think you found yourself. You just have this natural talent.
People feel calm around you, They want to tell you
their life story. So you use that as a way
to give back to to your community. And I think
that's a wonderful thing. And I think that everybody needs
to kind of try to live in that spirit of
just say, hey, what can I offer?

Speaker 6 (32:33):
Like what can I offer?

Speaker 5 (32:34):
And not expect anything in return, because right we have
to help people out even if they're not going to
help us out, and that I think it has to
be the basis of doing this kind of stuff is
like I'm giving you something and I don't expect anything
in return, And that's kind of how you have to
deal with sort of things like this.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
You know, absolutely services the rent that we pay on Earth,
and I believed trying to find every facet, did the
best of my ability to do that, and this was
one of the one of the mediums that I feel
that I had an opportunity a chance to do which
I would have never And I was always telling people
when I when they asked about how did I just
start in podcasting, I'm from a different generation. We are

(33:11):
from the magazines, newspapers, books kind of generation.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
And nowhere was it mentioned about a podcast.

Speaker 4 (33:18):
I wouldn't even been able because I when I was
in college, I wouldn't have been able to tell you
what the heck of a podcast was. And it's so
interesting how the world has changed in such a way
that most people don't do magazines and books and the like,
but they don't what podcasting is. And we're still able
to get out the information, but we're doing it in
the creative and novel ways. It also lends a conversation

(33:41):
is what will be the next medium where people will
be able to do the same thing, and which brings
up another question, is that what's next for you? You know,
what's what's the future hold? Now that's the big question.

Speaker 7 (33:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
So, I mean, as I mentioned, we see the city,
and through this entire horrible six year process, we finally
settled with them. Everything was officially officially done about two
weeks ago and we're done, so no trial, we settled,
we got our money, all that stuff. And so now
I'm kind of like it's weird because like this thing existed.

(34:16):
We fouled the lawsuit four months after Melly was killed,
and we knew that this was gonna take a long time.
They said, these trials take forever. They're gonna like string
it out, they're gonna make it so you're gonna want
to give up. And it didn't help that COVID hit
March twenty twenty, so that really offset everything, and so
I could see that, Okay, well, if I want to

(34:37):
do something in the name of Meloy, like the lawsuit's
one thing, but that's gonna take too long. I'm not
gonna sit around and just wait for this lawsuit to happen,
because again, I don't know when it's gonna be because
we got trial dates that were in twenty twenty, twenty
twenty one.

Speaker 6 (34:48):
Like it was a mess.

Speaker 5 (34:50):
So that's why I got involved and was able to
be effective and even knowing, hey, this trial will come soon,
but I need to go and do stuff in the
name of Melley while I wait, because I can't put
everything I have that.

Speaker 6 (35:00):
Possible trial we settled.

Speaker 5 (35:02):
It's like the highest out of court settlement in the
history of Los Angeles.

Speaker 6 (35:05):
So that was great.

Speaker 5 (35:07):
They paid us money and that was the only thing
they ever did to say, hey, we did something wrong.
It's not a victory necessarily, but it's a way for
us to move on. It's a way for me to
buy my data house, you know, ultimately. But I mean,
here's the thing is, like I always saw this as
a you know, this thing will be, this will close
that first initial chapter because like we did the one year,

(35:27):
the two year anniversary, we've done marches and rallies and
so we've moved on to a different level of grief
at a different stage, right, But like this trial was
this looming trial was still kind of holding us back
in twenty eighteen, like, oh, this is the thing that
we did. It was the only thing that we could
do at the time to keep Mellie's name out there
is to like sue them and talk about it and

(35:47):
do press conferences or whatever. So now I think I'm
going to rest for a little bit. My Dad's gonna
rest for a little bit. We're gonna chill I'm looking
at this sort of windfall of money as a a
blessing rather than a curse.

Speaker 6 (36:01):
Right.

Speaker 5 (36:01):
Some people look at and like, ah, you gotta like
invest it, you gotta do Everyone's telling me what to do,
and I'm like, hey, like I will take care of it,
but I gotta chill out for a bit. That doesn't
mean I'm not going to be involved in people's city
council or Robinson space. I'm gonna just kind of dial
back a little bit. And then when I feel like
I've gotten to a place of like kind of reckoning
with what's happening, honestly, like now I'm just a person

(36:23):
who like there's no trial looming. I've made a mark
in Los Angeles. You know, people know who I am.
They have an opinion of me one way or the other. Right,
Like some people, I walk into the room at a
place and I'm like, oh, these people do not like
me because I said something bad about their favorite politician
or whatever it is. And then other times like, oh Albert, dude,
we love your whatever. That's great. But I'm just kind

(36:45):
of like, I don't know exactly what the next step is.
But I know that if the LAPD thinks that I'm
going to go away, they're wrong because now I have resources,
now I have time. I'm going to stay involved and
do things in a way that I want to do them.
I'm going to hold their feed to the fire, you know.
I mean, I've had dozens of people asking me if
I'm going to run for office again.

Speaker 6 (37:06):
I'm considering it. I am.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
I don't know what office I would run for, but
I would. I think I want to do it again
because the first time was messy, it was sloppy.

Speaker 6 (37:15):
It was you know, you.

Speaker 5 (37:16):
Can get advice from people, but no one can really
tell you how to be the candidate.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Right.

Speaker 5 (37:20):
I was dealing with a lot of stuff. I was
also a grieving person. I was in a relationship, like
all these things like just kind of went crazy. So
now that I'm more mature, that I've been through that
sort of rigamarole the first time and I've learned from it,
I do have this temptation to be like, you know what, man,
if I got a team that I want to put together,

(37:41):
let's do it, Let's do it this way, Let's kind
of tighten everything up and make it a little bit
more focused and all that stuff. So there is a
desire to do that. I just don't know what I
want to do. And I'm not going to sit here
and like announce, Oh I'm going to you know, people
are like, oh, you should run against Ugo because he.

Speaker 6 (37:56):
Ended up winning the election that I ran in. Yeah,
and he's the king of sweeps.

Speaker 5 (38:00):
He's lost a lot of his the goodwill, and people
don't like him as much anymore. And I'm kind of like,
you know, maybe, I mean, there is a part of
me that wants to take him out. I'm not gonna
lie that that would love to run against him and
put him out of a job because of the way
that he has turned his back on the people. And
I'm sure you know this because you talk to unhouse people.
In CD thirteen, I have La Street Care, Chris rel like,

(38:22):
they're one of my they're one of my homies in
the movement, and I see all the stuff they post
and it's just like, there is a lot of horrible
stuff going on.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yes, so that's a consideration, but you know it's also
odd too, is that the nimbies don't think he's doing
anything and he's but I'm like, they're literally he's literally
doing what you're asking him to do. And that just
goes to show you that the nimbus will.

Speaker 5 (38:44):
Never be satisfied because I think they still look at
him as some sort of radical.

Speaker 6 (38:49):
Yeah you know what.

Speaker 5 (38:50):
Yeah, he had DSA's backing and some of his messaging
was a little bit to the left, but like as
soon as he got into office, he's really kind of
been more pro police, pro homeless sweeps and all that.
So you know, there is a part of me that's like, Okay,
I'm gonna rise from the ashes and take him out.
But you know again, I want to be intentional and
I want to be smart about it, and listen, I

(39:11):
don't pretend to know all the answers. I have people
around me who I trust, whose opinions I value. I
mean Ultimately, I'm going to do what I feel like
is right because I got to listen to myself. But
getting advice from other people, I think is very important
and seeing their perspective because I can't see things as
everyone else does, right like they I'm reading the landscape

(39:32):
the best I can. Other people might read it a
different way. So I got to figure that out. But
I think I'm like my life's work was shown to
me the day that Mellie was killed. It's like, you
are going to go and try to get justice for
your sister in some way. You're going to try to
fight the systems and the people and the organizations that

(39:53):
killed your sister and then have killed many people afterward.
I mean when Valentino was killed in twenty twenty one
at Burlington Code Fact right right, Like I was called
by all this media because they were like, oh, it's
kind of like your sister, And it was like reliving
the nightmar Aga. And every time I see somebody be
killed by the police, like you know, the news report
or whatever, and I meet their family, it's like I

(40:15):
was there. I was I was where you are. I
was going through what you're going through. The news media
tried to steal the narrative and and take the police's
words as the gospel. And so I think it's like
I have to do a few things, one of them
being holding the police accountable and getting in their face
and making sure that people you know, when the when

(40:35):
the Dodger celebration was going on, do you remember that, Yeah?

Speaker 6 (40:37):
Yeah, and the bus was set on fire.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
I was walking around with my friend Tracy and we
were hanging out and the police were like get you know,
kind of with the riot gear and people, you know,
people were having fun and the police were like, you know,
with the riot gear and they were like approaching people
and setting off the less than lethals or whatever, and
they would calm down, and all these people were be like, man,
this is messed up, and like people who I could
tell were not politically involved. And I'd be walking around

(41:01):
being like, hey, you know how they're trying to ruin
your good time right now?

Speaker 6 (41:05):
Think about this.

Speaker 5 (41:05):
They're trying to ruin your good time all the time.
The police are trying to like take stuff from your community.
They're taking the money. I'm like, if you think this
is bad, They're they're trying to beat on some people
who are celebrating the Dodgers winning the World series, think
about what they do to people who are actually standing
up for black people right or unhouse people, whatever it is.

Speaker 6 (41:24):
It is doubly vicious.

Speaker 5 (41:27):
And so I was like sitting there being like, yeah,
this is a time to try to radicalize these people
who are here for a certain thing, who.

Speaker 6 (41:33):
Are maybe not thinking all that.

Speaker 5 (41:34):
Oh the cops suck, And I'm like yeah, yeah, but
it's not just because they're doing something right now. It's
because this, this and this, And I would be like, hey, man,
this is your city budget at work. Can you believe
they're giving these guys a nextra two hundred and fifty
million dollars in the next you know, four years or whatever.
So to me, that's my duty is like telling people, hey,
I'm giving you this information. What you choose to do
with it is up to you, but you can't claim

(41:56):
ignorance anymore. And the other is making sure that Elly's
name stays out there, that her her death was not
in vain, that it means something. It was a very
senseless thing, but I want people to remember that. Like
July twentieth, the day before Melle was killed, my family
had no idea that we were going to become a

(42:18):
family of someone killed.

Speaker 6 (42:19):
By the LAPD. And there are families out there who
don't know that right now who will become that.

Speaker 5 (42:25):
We don't know who they are, we don't know how
it's going to happen, but we know that the LAPD
does what they do. And Valentina's parents took her to
the Burlington co Factory thinking we're going to buy our
daughter address, not knowing that they were going to be
burying their daughter like a week later. And to me,
that is a very scary world to live in, where
we are living our lives and we're at work like

(42:46):
Melly was, we're at the store like Valentina was, where
walking in our neighborhood like all these people were, and
that we may be gunned down and nothing will be
done about it.

Speaker 6 (42:55):
And to me, that is the biggest injustice. You know.

Speaker 5 (42:57):
It's like it's like there are people living in apartments
right now who are going to come to hardship. We're
going to be evicted, We're going to end up on
the street, and they don't know that, and then to
be met with like, oh, by the way, you're on
the street now.

Speaker 6 (43:10):
We don't.

Speaker 5 (43:11):
We're not going to help you, and you better go
and you know, get out of here or we're going
to arrest you. So it's kind of letting people know, like, hey,
you are closer to this than anything else. Like you
are not immune from becoming unhoused. You are not immune
from being killed by the police just because you think,
you know, you might be a person who's never broken

(43:31):
a law like Melly, and you are going to be
at work minding your business and they're going to kill you.
And to me, that's like that is the ultimate alarm bell,
is like, hey, just because it's not affecting you, and
just because your life is good right now does not
mean it's going to stay that way. And trust me,
there are people in power right now who are doing
their best to make it so your life becomes harder.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
Thanks so much to Albert Carrado. To learn more about
his work, you can follow him at the links into
description and when we come we'll hear more from a
stay with us. Welcome back. This is Theo Henderson with
Weedian House. Our final interview of the year is with

(44:14):
returning guests, as let's hear how she's been faring since
our last interview.

Speaker 7 (44:22):
Hi, I go by Asie. I don't want to dox myself,
so I don't want to go and you know, go
into specifically about my name or anything. But yeah, I'm Assie.
I used to be the unhoused representative for the area
of Highland Park and then Double four two, maybe about
four or five years ago when I was unhoused, when
I was on the street and you know, Highland Park,

(44:43):
and I did some representative work for the area. I
try to do some organizing, some community work as an
unhoused person, to basically try to decriminalize the way that
people saw unhouse people, not just in that area but
throughout Los Angeles. Due to a very violent thing that
happened to me, my tent was set on fire when

(45:06):
I was living in the park, so I was put
for my safety in a women's shelter in MacArthur Park.
I was on Third and Bonnie Bray, and the experience
wasn't that great either. I was there for three years.
I finally got housed about a year and a half ago,
but that's not going as well either. The requirements are

(45:27):
that I need to be employed, I need to be
paying some percentage of the rent because I am an
undocumented immigrant, and so they are requiring me to pay
a certain amount by a certain time, and I'm only
there for another six to seven months, and then from there,
I don't know where I'll be.

Speaker 4 (45:47):
In light of the recent presidency and the rhetoric about immigrants,
as well as Grant's past ruling, do you have any
kind of concerns in light of that?

Speaker 7 (45:57):
Of course, I mean anybody who's on document is in fear,
even people who are considered dreamers, even people who are
getting their paperwork together and are trying to find any
kind of legal residency or legal documentation, They're going to
have a hard time because they don't know how far
this goes. And it doesn't just go as far as
undocumented immigrants. I think it has to do with the

(46:19):
whole Latino population, because when it comes to people such
as the President elect, he tends to go on rants
in which he is very biased and considers a lot
of brown people straight out Mexicans, and whether you're documented
or whether you're a citizen of the US, you will

(46:39):
be in danger. As we know, there was an operation
in the nineteen thirties called Operation Right Back, and if
you know anything about that was where they rounded up
as many Mexican and brown people and whether they were
documented or not, and they were basically shipping them off
to Mexico. And from what I know, because of what
I know and what we've all researched, and if you're

(47:02):
you know, in the loop or anything like that, if
you're any kind of activist or any kind of you know,
community work on organizing, you're gonna know that he's not
just planning to round up undocumented people. He's planning on
running up Mexicans, whether they're citizens are not. And that's
gonna affect a huge amount of the population. It's gonna

(47:22):
affect the food chain, believe it or not. We have
a lot of laborers who are working hard in the
fields to get our produce ready, get our fruits and
vegetables to the table. These people are underpaid and it
ever worked and overworked, and it's gonna affect If you're
shipping all these people out who you deem unworthy, you're

(47:43):
just gonna ship all of them out equally. You're gonna
cause a huge disruption to the system, you know, to
the system as a whole. So I think it's very
detrimental to the cause that he's trying to you know, instill.

Speaker 4 (47:57):
Well, I'm moving onto that in that conversation because we
are receiving produce, vegetables, and we're utilizing a lot of
things cooked by undocumented or unhoused residents that are living
out on those fields picking this stuff, and we benefit
from their hard labor. And let's be clear, they are
not taking the jobs. Those jobs. Many people, and many

(48:21):
of those uneducated populists are not working those jobs, have
no inclination to work those jobs, and will not work
those jobs. It's just the reason to hate, like one
of the things that we're swiftly approaching the holidays, and
hopefully this will be airing during the holiday season. We
have had this conversation too long about we can agree

(48:42):
to disagree, but while we're at a precipice, we're not
agreeing to disagree. We are having a moral issue where
you're trying to justify extermination and violence of vulnerable people.
So we are not having that. You know, we're agreed
that you know, red is the better colored than blue.
These are life altering decisions. These are things that put

(49:03):
people in harm's way. So if you're voting or you
have these viewpoints. You know, don't expect us to be
roasting marshmallows with you or singing kumbayak, because some chances
are it might end up with a fisticuff. But that's
one of the realities that has been gas lit into
people that have been watching the recent election and or

(49:25):
other circles trying to make it sound like you know,
now people are concerned. People have always been concerned about
displacement and other things. It's been they've been had to compartmentalize.
We're living in a system that we have to compartmentize
or disassociate, if you will, in order to maintain our
sanity or maintain our fragile well being, if you will. So,

(49:48):
what are the challenges that you find as an undocumented
person trying to be able to maintain your residents.

Speaker 7 (49:54):
It's very difficult. My journey has not been easy. A
lot of people who have fallen me on social media
will know that it has not been a very easy journey.
As I said, me struggling as a non housed person
has already been bad. We get put into shelters where
if you speak about it, you speak out about any
injustice and the shelter. They will punish you. You understand,

(50:17):
these people run by these strict rules and they hold
you back. They'll say things like, oh, you can only
have a minimum of two bags, and then you'll have
a program that will donate stuff to you, and she's
cutting back, and it was just a lot of hassle.
Being undocumented prevents you from doing a lot of things
that you want to do. Not to mention, people will

(50:39):
label you people are just being on house. People hear
that you're on house, and their immediate thought is always
substance use. And no hate to any self medicators out there,
nothing but love and power. You know, wish them all
luck and you know, nothing but love. But there are
people on the streets who are not substance users, who
are not self medicators. You will be put in this

(51:01):
category of cannot be trusted, and it makes getting a
job harder. You understand. So even if you're looking for
a little cashier job, you go and you look for it.
They'd rather hire the twenty five year old girl who's
been living in the US for two weeks than hire
somebody who's, say, like me, forty two years old, who
you know, who's been here for a while, who's you know,
on college education level. They'd rather hire somebody who they

(51:24):
can exploit, somebody they could you know, give like fifty
dollars for a day, you know that kind of thing.
So it's a lot of challenges.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
What do you think could be a way to help
find a way to help you, because you know, how
can our society help you in a way to overcome
these obstacles.

Speaker 7 (51:43):
As a society. I don't know. I just think honestly,
I had an experience in which a friend of mine,
I don't want to say his name, but a friend
of mine had gotten me in contact with a person.
And this was going on through some of the marches
and rallies that have been going on because of Palestine.
This had just happened. It had been around January February
of last year. Now he hooked me up with this person,

(52:05):
So I guess she does at pop up Aarista thing
over at Water Village. So he hooked me up with
her numbers so that I could get to talk to her.
And I'm talking to her and she's like, oh, I'm
gonna be at this rally. We can meet there, lah
lah lah. We went back and forth and I was like, okay,
I'm willing to you know, like it's just a weekend job.
I can do this. So I got in touch with her.
We were supposed to meet, and then she dropped the

(52:27):
ball and the didn't get in touch with me, so
I don't know, it was very hard for me to
look for her afterward, when I was putting the effort
into trying to work, and yet people are like always
putting obstacles like, oh, I need to see if this
person's reliable, so I'm gonna go and do this and
do that, and then they don't go through, and then

(52:48):
you don't have an employee, and I'm still stuck with
hunger in my belly with no food in my fridge,
and I'm stuck looking for work again. So I think
people need to start giving people like me a chance.
That's a huge thing that they could do somebody like me.
I'm looking for work right now. I'm struggling to you know,
even pay rent. My ex husband's helping me, and the
only reason why he's helping me is because we had

(53:08):
not reached the divorce agreement until last year and then
finally this year he said he's gonna help me because
I am not asking for alimony. We're trying to do
this as e'mically as possible. So he's giving me one
hundred and one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars
a month, which, if you know, is not a lot,
and with the cost of living, it's getting worse. Factor

(53:29):
the rent that is increasing. They're increasing my rent every
month at the place where I was, you know, put in,
which is more or less a glorified closet, and it
becomes very difficult to make ends meet. One hundred dollars
doesn't seem that bad, but when you have to go wash,
you have feminine products to buy, you have food to
put on your table, you have you know, cookine to do.

(53:50):
One hundred and fifty doesn't go that far anymore as
far as groceries, as far as needs, as far as necessity.
And this is per month, This is not per week.
This is per month. So in order for somebody like
me to get ahead, I would need to get something
under the table, and I would need to be trusted,
because I know who I am. I'm a trustworthy, hard working,

(54:12):
honest person who doesn't steal, who doesn't lie, and who
doesn't pick fights. I don't go out of my way
to pick fights with customers. I'm very fun I'm funny,
and I'm nice. I try to be I have good
customer service, you know. So for people to want to
make you go through all these hoops and or for
you to get a job in the first place, that's hard,

(54:34):
especially people who understand that this system runs on capitalism
and imperialism and understand these the people like me are
already having a hard time even looking for work. For
people to be like, well, do this and meet me here,
and then oh, you have to keep reaching out to me,
have to keep reaching out to me. Why it's hard
enough for me to look for you already and then

(54:54):
I find you, and then you go in and you
pull all these blocks. You can't claim yourself to be
an ally if you're not willing to take a chance,
if you're not willing to give unhoused, undocumented people chances
based on what you think that they can or can't do.
You have to try to put the best forward, give

(55:15):
people a chance. And how do you say it be
able to trust them? You understand I know what I am,
and I know what I have and don't know what
I haven't done so for people to just base, oh,
she's on housed, or she has a past or she's
been in a shelter, and for people to be like, yeah,
just denominate me as a villain. Villainize you, criminalize you.
That's not okay. I'm speaking on behalf of anybody who

(55:37):
might be in a similar situation, not just myself, but
anybody who might be like me or in a similar situation.
I hear you when I understand exactly what you're going
through because I'm going through it. There's days when I
don't eat. There's days when I'm asking my friends online
and there's not so much a They ignore me, but
I understand that a lot of allies have already helped me.

(55:58):
And I don't reach out for help all the time.
I don't reach out for help all the time, but
sometimes I'll be so hungry I'll just ask be on Instagram, hey,
can anybody please help me with a burrito? And it
sucks to have maybe six seven allies watch it and
everybody ignore you. And I understand because I've struggled with
unemployment for such a long time. It makes me feel
like a loser. It makes me feel like a reject

(56:20):
It makes me feel like I'm not an adult. I'm
a forty two year old mother of three, and I'm
not doing anything or get myself up. But even when
I go out. I live in downtown, I go down
to Los Angeles Street, I look for work right there
with the vendors. Oh no, we don't want somebody right now.
Oh no, we don't need anybody right now.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
You understand, definitely understand.

Speaker 4 (56:40):
And I thank you for hacking the courage to tell
the truth and the realities of the situation. Many people
don't contemplate the things that you are going through and
with many on house people going through. And it's one
of the reasons why I created the show, because I
got frustrated because people would make snap judges about me.
You look like your able body. Why can't you just

(57:02):
get a job? You had a college degree, but not
understanding the other background issues that were going on with
my health and the other issues that were going on
in my life at the time, And it was very frustrating.
And it gets frustrating trying to always have to defend
yourself before you can even get the modicum of people's
sympathy or help or you know, assistance that you need,

(57:23):
and in sometimes assistance is you know, half measured or
half asked, and it's a lot. And I tapped my
hat off to you for you know, having the courage
to speak to us. And this is necessary. These are
conversations that we need to hear as a society, as
our communities that are listening to it.

Speaker 7 (57:41):
Yeah, it's very necessary because there is a lot of
underlying ignorance when it comes to the subject of immigration.
AND's just gonna say it out loud, because honestly, when
you look back at it, people who are of Latino,
the Mexican one, among people from Honduras, people from Salvador.
We're indigenous to this continent. We were born in this
continent and we did not immigrate anywhere. How are we

(58:04):
illegal immigrants when it's the Caucasian colonizing and slaving racist
who came here in the Mayflower that works, that people
are going to celebrate on Thursday, this holiday of them
coming and taking our land calling it theirs, And now
they're kicking us out by saying we're illegal immigrants. And
I don't believe in that. I don't believe that we're illegal.

(58:25):
No human being can never be illegal. And I do
believe that this is a huge problem in the race
war and in a class war, because they're going up
against us, trying to dehumanize us when we're not doing
anything wrong. Existing people will say, Oh, all this money
is going to all these undocumented people. I'm sorry, Where

(58:45):
would you like to come in my apartment and see
how little money I have, how much clothes I have
piled up, how many dishes I have to watch, how
when I get depressive episodes, there's nobody to help me
with the chores. And despite the fact that I'm living
in a tiny space, how hard it is to clean
when you're in a depressive state, when you haven't been
able to get a job for a while, and you
feel like a loser and you feel like a drain
on society. You really want to talk to me like that?

(59:06):
You really want to tell me that all this money
is being spent on me, maybe in my housing. I
will not deny that they are paid, but again, I'm
paying a fraction for it as well. I'm paying for
some of the rent. Everything that I buy myself with cash,
I'm not buying with cashop. I'm so broken, I'm so
poor and it's messed up in my documentation. People will
tell me go to the gr go and get gr.

(59:29):
You cannot apply for gr when you are on documents,
and if you do, you have to have at least
seven years consecutively working within the United States to be
able to apply for seventy dollars worth of food stems.
Seventy dollars is not enough. The phone that I have
right now was given to me by my ex and
he was able to procure it to me through his
EVT because he is a legal resident. You understand, he

(59:51):
was able to procure my phone. And unfortunately, my Obama
phone is not compatible with cash Shop, so I can't
even ask friends for you know, fifteen dollars or twenty
dollars if I'm hungry. I can't even say, hey, look,
I just want to buy myself a pizza or you know,
a burger somewhere. I can't even do that with my phone.
There's a lot of limitations that people are not aware of,

(01:00:12):
that they need to be aware of, and they need
to stop. How do you say having this idea that
all these undocumented people from Latin America and all these
Mexicans and again Latinos that were taking your money? How
are we taking your money? If anything, we're getting screwed
because again, some of us are not eating, and we're
still trying to go out there and marchin rally for Palestine,

(01:00:33):
and we're still trying to fight for on house rights,
and we're still trying to fight for you, and we're
still trying to fight for LGBTQ rights. So what stops
you guys from doing the same for us? I would
feel bad. I would feel horribly bad if somebody hearing
this would say, hey, let's get a gofund me and
let's make five thousand. I don't need five thousand dollars
in cash. I don't need you guys to go out

(01:00:54):
there and feel sorry. I need you guys to feel empathy.
I need you guys to anybody who's out there listening
to say, hey, look, she might need a job. I
know where I could get her one. I might be
able to help her out. That's something that I need
so that I could feel proud of myself for basically
standing up on my own. You get me. I want
that feeling of pride. I want to be able to
help myself. I don't just want to depend on the

(01:01:16):
goodness of people. But as a human I also recognize
that once in a while, you have to reach out
to the community. You have to reach out and get
what you can, and I do, but even times when
I do, I don't get the response that I want.
I don't get the things that I need. It's very,
very depressing, you get me. So there's these horritorics that

(01:01:38):
people have to think about before they start judging people
because there are just like me. I wonder how many
more people that are out there. And the worst part
is a lot of us, A lot of unhoused people
on the street of Los Angeles and whatever state they
may be, they don't have family. I grew up with
a very toxic father, so his side of a family

(01:02:02):
is still in Utah. But I don't talk to them
because they're abusive, they're manipulative, they're gas lighters. They're just
bad people who I don't want to associate and I
want to go no contact with, including my own abusive, toxic,
narcissistic father, who I have gone no contact with for
more than seven eight ten years. So what family do

(01:02:22):
I have When my mom my mom's in Mexico, my
brother's in Mexico. Who do I have? I have nothing
and no one but the friends in the community that
I have, And when they're not much help or they
cannot help because they're going through their own struggles, which
I understand. Who can I rely on other than me?

(01:02:44):
And when what you're doing is not enough? Who do
you rely on?

Speaker 6 (01:02:48):
What do you do?

Speaker 7 (01:02:49):
The Rent's the last thing I need. If somebody were
to give me five hundred dollars right now and say here,
get yourself one of those horble printers, you could go
and make up portraits and souvenirs and sell them in
universal studios and all that stuff like people do. I'm
not going to be focusing on buying that. I got
needs right now. I got close to wash, I got
food to buy. I got no food in my fridge

(01:03:11):
right now. Literally, So how am I going to do?
What am I? How am I going to do that?
How am I going to focus on trying to get
back up my feet when I'm going through these problems
where I'm hungry every day, where I'm losing weight, where
I'm becoming a kneemic. It's not okay.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Your story is so moving and so engrossing to the nuances.

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
What you're saying, you're literally giving a one on one
class on basically the realities that you're facing. But many
on House community are facing. This crashes down Karen Bass's,
you know, public relations nonsense about inside starving that she's
getting people off on the streets and things like that.
There are people that are in House that are off

(01:03:55):
the streets, but there still are going through hardships. The
only difference is you don't see the young house because
they want to erase the poverty in your face. You
don't see the invisible poverty. We need people like you
to continue to tell the story or ring the bell
so people too know what's going on.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
Thanks so much to Asy for her time and we
hope to check in with her again soon. Now I
must thank you for listening. Be safe, be marry, and
use your heart to love somebody, and if your heart
is big enough, use it to love everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Happy holidays.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
And as always, please like and subscribe, and if you'd
like to share your story on Wedian House, please reach
out to me at Weedian House on Instagram or email
me at wedian House at gmail dot com. Weedian House
is a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, post it
and created by me Theo Henderson, our producers Jbie Loftus

(01:05:05):
Daily Fager, Katie Fischer and Lyra Smith. Our editor is
Adam Wand and our local art is also by Katie Ficial.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
Thanks for listening.