September 9, 2025 • 53 mins
This week, Theo speaks with Executive Director of the Institute of the Development for Human Arts Jessie Roth about healing and transforming society through accessible treatment for mental health that takes full account of the adverse affects of external conditions. In Unhoused News, Theo takes a closer look at the most recent policies at the national and state level targeting the unhoused and the undocumented, and how they seek to turn vulnerable people against one another.
Follow Jessie Roth here: https://www.jessie-roth.com/idha
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on Wilian House.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Last month there was a big raid. We don't know
the details, but we know that there was just military
border patrol, d e A, our local sheriffs, Imperial County sheriffs,
just not knowing, you know, what really is happening, and
just everything that's on the news.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
A lot of people don't feel safe.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
You think, I believe it's going to get worse. Why
because of the race. She doesn't feel like it's going
to get better and what's going to happen.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
You know, because of these races, people don't want to
go to work and you know, for the needs.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
Welcome to Weedian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson. This
week we're going to tackle the thorny subject of language,
messaging and mental health. But first Unhoused News. The sheep
(01:22):
will spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to
be eaten by the shepherd. On Tuesday, September two, twenty
twenty five, Mayor Banks hosted and inside Safe Meat and Greek.
On the face of it, the shepherd is devouring or
soft pedaling erasure under the guise of helping the young
(01:45):
house and at the same time preventing other unhoused people
to occupy evicted neighborhood spaces. Willful ignorance, allied with power,
is the most ferocious enemy justice has. In order to
sell insights, starving messaging is key, presenting houselessness as a
(02:06):
personal failing or tragedy, then offering empty solutions under the
guise of helping Allaye Nimbi's guilt and disdain of the
young house. They convinced themselves that they are offering humane
assistance while the police lurk nearby for safety. Safety is
the operative word California Governor Newsom used in order to
(02:30):
beat Donald Trump to the punch.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Governor Newsom mission executive order just this morning for the
removal of homeless encampments across the state.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
He recently took it a step further in August twenty
twenty five to accelerate the removal of encampments and to
connect the young housed with services and shelter. Newsom also
threatened local governments that he will withhold state money if
they don't produce results in addressing houselessness.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
There's no more excuses.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
You got the money, you've got the flexibility, you've got
the green light, you.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Got the support from the state and the public is
demanding of you.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Recently, President Trump issued an executive order pertaining to the
un House.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
The President now wants it easier for communities to remove
homeless people from the streets and relocate them to a
shelter or treatment center. This EO stresses that states and
cities need to adopt policies for dismantling homeless encampments just
like the ones you see right here, saying they pose
a threat to life, health, and community safety.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
In the executive order, President Trump writes that the overwhelming
majority of houseless individuals are addicted to drugs, have a
mental condition.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Or both.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
It calls for changes in order to make it easier
for states and cities to move people living on the
street into treatment for mental illness or addiction, and in
some cases, forcing people into treatment without their consent.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
There's another putative measure that Trump calls substance usage Programs
that offer harm reduction, such as needle exchange or a
housing first model, will not be funded.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
It also calls on the President's cabinet members to fast
track federal funding to states and cities that crack down
on illegal drug use and homeless encampments.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Pay attention to the words that our leaders are using,
restore public order, humane treatment, Inside.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Safe, the sheep will.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to be
eaten by the shepherd. The shepherd is the leaders in
our government, and vulnerable people are the meal. The last
connecting link I want to introduce you to happened at
the end of August twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
In the dead of night.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
The Trump administration awakened undocumented orphans, put them on a
plane to send them to Guatemala, with no one on
the other end to receive them, under the guise of
keeping America safe, under the guise of restoring public order,
under the guise of only targeting criminals in the dead
(05:13):
of night. It took awakening a judge at two of
the morning to stop this shepherd from devouring boshep. And
that's on House News. When we come back, we have
the founder of the Institute for the Development of Human Arts,
(05:33):
Jesse Roth. Welcome back to Whitian House. On THEO Henderson
Jesse Ross joined us this week discussing a variety of
topics and the connecting issues our society is facing. Without
further Ado here's our interview with Jesse Good afternoon. This
(05:56):
is Theo Henderson from Whedian House. I have a special
guest here. I have been on a series of different
conversations and episodes leading up to President Trump's Executive Order,
Gavin Newsom's executive Order, and the recent Supreme Court ruling
against the end House with the Grant's Pass ruling, and
(06:19):
for those that need a quick refresher, I'm going to
go through them very quickly. It starts off withare the
Supreme Court ruling the Grant's past ruling it would overturn
the Circuit Court's Knife appeal ruling of cruel and unusual punishment.
And why this is important to say and make this
distinction is because now cities are free from lawsuit and
(06:45):
being held liable of how they treat the un housed communities. Therefore,
they don't have to offer services, they don't have to
offer shelter. They can see an unhoused person and they
can criminalize and put them in jail or find them
remove them from where they are residing. So that was
pivotal because in the lawsuits that followed with the Ninth
(07:07):
Circuit Court, it made it slowed down these kind of
enforcement efforts, and all across the country in the past year,
you've seen cities adopting draconian measures against the un House
to remove them from places it sweeps been going on
forty one to eighteen, has been in full effect in
our Los Angeles as well as the executive order Gavin
(07:31):
Newsom stated against Dunhouse people, he created a fund that
called the Encampment a resource fund that will get funds
to remove unhoused encampments. It culminates recently with President Trump's
wording of unhoused people, particularly in the Washington area. There
has been a success, I won't say successful, but a
(07:54):
successful anti Unhouse campaign. Hence my guest today. We're going
to talk about how her advocacy as well as how
visc interconnects with the mental health community and what steps
if we can take to educate our audience on the
realities of what mental health is according to Trump, Dan,
(08:15):
how's our bunch of mentally ill, violent, drug addicted people
that have been set upon tourists and residents of Washington,
DC and all around the country. And I want to
push back against that without fervado. Thank you Jesse for
stopping in tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 8 (08:34):
Thank you so much for that introduction in grounding THEO,
and I just want to express my gratitude for joining
you today and for the work that you do with
the podcast and just all of the work that you
do so needed and unfortunately especially needed right now. So
it's good to be here. And just for a little
bit about me. Yeah, my name's Jesse Roth, and I'm
(08:54):
the executive director of an organization called the Institute for
the Development of Human Arts for short, and we are
a transformative mental health training institute trying to really bring
kind of the activism and resistance by psychiatric survivors, trauma survivors,
people with lived experience of the mental health system or
(09:17):
trying to bridge that with mental health practice, including those
who are working within systems. And yeah, so we put
on trainings and classes, events, channels that are trying to
really show and uplift different ways of understanding and approaching
mental health that go beyond the sort of mainstream narrative
(09:39):
that tends to be very medicalized, individualized. And yeah, I'll
leave it at that for now. Thank you again for
having me.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Well, thank you for giving us your introduction.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
I'm just going to start off with the general conversation,
what are the myths that you hear when people are
dealing with mental health?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And we can kind of connect the dot from there.
Speaker 9 (10:01):
So many myths.
Speaker 8 (10:02):
Yeah, I think one of the ones that I would
maybe start with, just to frame that some listeners in
your audience might be familiar with and others maybe less so,
is just even mentioned it when I was talking a
little bit about ida's work, that mental health is something
that is an exclusively medicalized issue that can be attributed
(10:23):
to you know, a person's brain chemistry and kind of
exists within you know, their like neurobiology. And I'll be brief,
but I want to just bring in a little bit
of history, a little bit of science. I say this,
by the way, let me situate myself a tiny bit more,
because I mostly just mentioned my role as ida's executive director.
I myself and a person with lived experience, a trauma survivor.
(10:46):
I'm not a mental health practitioner myself or a researcher.
I'm a community organizer, activist, and so I come to
this conversation from that position, and with that, you know,
rooting in a little bit of history and a little
bit of science. We see if we go back not
that long ago to just about the year nineteen eighty,
that this was the period of time where the dominant
(11:08):
narrative or story that we told about what causes you know,
what's called mental illness is attributed to like a chemical
imbalance in the brain. And before that, you know, the
dominant narrative or paradigm was more of a psychoanalytic one
or attributing you know to like like adverse childhood experiences
and trauma. Developmental psychology was a little bit more the mainstream.
(11:32):
And then around nineteen eighty a couple of things happened,
including you know what we had like Ronald Reagan as president,
and the economic model of that time, like the rise
of kind of like pharmaceutical industry. But then you pair
that with the publication of the third edition of the DSM,
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is
(11:53):
kind of like the Bible for psychiatry. And this is
really when the medicalized brainwork for understanding mental health is
infiltrated the popular consciousness.
Speaker 9 (12:02):
If you will.
Speaker 8 (12:03):
And so I open with that to say that I
think we need to situate ourselves in the fact that
the reality is that research shows that there are still
no biomarkers that you know, have been able to be
located that show that a again quote unquote, mental illness,
a mental disorder can be attributed to like any specific
(12:23):
part of the brain. And I think that's important because
it is in the popular consciousness understood to be true
proven science. And the reality is we just we still
don't know. And so the other thing that's of course
left out when we have this dominant narrative or kind
of the pervading myth that mental health is caused by
chemical imbalances is that it's a way to not talk
(12:46):
about the social systemic factors that lead to why a
person might be well or not well, so you know,
to connect to the issues that you're exploring on your podcasts,
for example, just one like if a person is on
how they're living on the street, if somebody has been
living in poverty, if they're you know, navigating racism in America.
(13:09):
You know, for example, those are all things that would
obviously impact somebody's mental health. But generally, when when we're
like talking about you know, the dominant mainstream system, those
things aren't talked about much. If at all. There are
some spaces where they are a little bit, but the
you know, mainstream of someone's going into like an emergency
room or you know, mental health, like a psychiatric hospital,
(13:32):
the conversation tends to be about the brain. And so yeah,
what gets left out when we are operating in a
framework where we're making it about a person's brain and
not like what's happening to them in the world around them,
If that makes sense, So let me pause there. That's
that's one sort of myth to your question, but also
just complicating the narrative that many of us are socialized into.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
I would say you mentioned Reagan earlier, and I know
many people there listening across the pond may not understand
the impact what President Reagan and why that name was mentioned,
and why that is very important into the mental health community.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Can you elaborate a little bit more on that.
Speaker 8 (14:13):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So like Reagan's approach to economics, you
know for sure, called Reaganomics was really defined by boosting
like the economy through more tax cuts, reduced spending, the regulation,
trying to control inflation through things like that. So the
outcome of this was like a widening income gap, increased
(14:35):
national debt and then a perceived shift towards like more greed.
I think again to connect that to some of the
issues that you're exploring here, just there is a direct
correlation to the economic policies of that time to like
increasingly the widening income gap contributing directly to more and
more folks having less housing.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
The third thing I want to also connect, because why
Reagan also was important, is because around that time there
was a damning report that Reggan was responsible for releasing
people that had suffered from different other maladies, mental health
malodies out on the streets. It's been debated quite a
lot about that conversation that he was in response to
(15:17):
a judgment that he had to because of the poor
conditions and abusive conditions that many displaced people and as
well as people that were under hospital care were undergoing.
Speaker 8 (15:29):
So absolutely, and actually I can say a little bit
more about that aspect of history too. What you're talking
about their THEO is the sort of the deinstitutionalization process
that happened throughout many decades and so under I suppose
numerous presidents. My understanding is that it started in the
sixties with JFK, who signed the Community Mental Health Act,
(15:51):
which closed down the federal asylums exactly for the reasons
that you said. There were many reasons including you know,
people coming to light, just like the abusive conditions, many
human rights violations. And then it's also coinciding with some
developments in the development of like antipsychotics, like more psychiatric medication,
which you know, the idea there is makes more like
(16:14):
care outside of institutions possible. And I also I was
going to talk about this in this process of our
conversation because there's a thing that happens in the way
that again the story of deinstitutionalization is told in this
country that leaves out important pieces. And also I would
say to your original question goes to another myth. So
(16:36):
there's a myth that deinstitutionalization again, whether you know by
under the Kennedy administration, under Reagan administration, the myth that
it quote unquote failed because now you know, if we
think about today the conversation, it's not uncommon to hear
like there's a lot of people living with mental health
(16:57):
conditions who are unhoused there on the street, and this
is because we deinstitutionalized, you know, like we emptied out
the asylums and now people are on the street, and
it frames it like we shouldn't have done that. Now,
this is the piece that gets left out. The Community
Mental Health Act in the sixties was supposed to do
more than one thing. It wasn't supposed to just empty
(17:19):
out asylums. It was supposed to create funded community mental
health centers, and that didn't happen. Really, so you have
you know, people who are being released who end up
on the street with nowhere to go. So again that's
really important because it's like the problem the fault of
(17:39):
that we have a crisis now you know people call
a mental health crisis or housing crisis. It is not
the fault of deinstitutionalizing. It is the fault of failing
to provide the community based care that was promised in
the first place. And that matters so much because it's
used to justify reinstitutionalation that that is the conversation that's
(18:02):
happening right now. There is basically a call by the
federal government and multiple states increasingly so. And now the
federal government has basically you know, green lit this so
everybody will feel comfortable, you know, pursuing policies of this
nature but to bring back the asylum right, like we
need more, we need more psychiatric beds, we need more
(18:24):
involuntary holds like what we were doing before, you know,
kind of like the history of the abuse got erased
from the public consciousness because instead it was just sort
of glazed over as this idea of oh, you know,
deinstitutionalizing that didn't work out so well, so maybe let's
go back. But I can talk more about why that
is aeverly horrible idea.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Also, if I may interject too, because I bring that
point up because this is so important for people that
don't understand on How's experience, it drives the disappearing act
of on house people. You don't want know where they go,
you don't want to see where they go. And one
of the solutions, and which is why again it really
ticked me off, is when President Trump has been advocating
(19:10):
for involuntary voluntary commitment. It's because that's the same thing
that has been driving why they are trying to remove
unhoused people. They don't want to see unhoused people, you know,
And I want to take it a step further, when
you force unhoused people in abusive shelters or cars, shelters
or car soral living situations. People don't understand why unhoused
(19:32):
people turn down those services. It's not that you know,
services are not necessarily being offered, but they are subpar
or has conditional car through kind of attachments to it.
But it's so important to say that because the conversation
always which is why we've been sounding the alarm with
this is why this is going to go hand in
(19:52):
hand now when they're running down unhoused people when they
have these laws, like right now, they have a certain
number of times that you could be offered services. If
you don't accept services, then obviously you're service resistant. Then
you're open yourself up into maybe involuntary voluntary commitment because
you're mentally ill, because you have to go to a
(20:13):
substance abuse shelter or a mental health shelter in order
to be qualified for those services. And this is why
it's so important why you're on the show, because that's
the link that I think more house people don't understand
when you hear one and they say no, we don't
want to go shelter, because these are the steps that
they're trying to do to do that, to force people
(20:33):
into care that may not be applicable to them. You know,
you may have health issues, but you're not mentally ill.
You just may have you know, cancer, or you may
have other maladies, but you are not on substances. But
you're going to be attached or connected to that. And
if you don't connect yourself to it willingly, then you're
your service resistant. Then you're susceptible to go.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Into jail exactly.
Speaker 8 (20:57):
And this is why again I'm so grateful for the
invitation to be talking to you THEO, because these dynamics,
like the logics that underpin what you're talking about, the
same thing happens for people who are diagnosed with having
a mental illness or you know, perceived as having one.
And yeah, it's about exactly what you said. It's so
(21:18):
infuriating because it's framed through basically like a neoliberal lens
of like we're trying to help you, but it's actually
exactly what you mentioned, which is we want to disappear you.
We don't want to see you at all. And so
thank you for naming that part and also that aspect
of being labeled as quote unquote treatment resistant if you
(21:39):
don't want to, you know, use the services that research shows,
but not that we need research to show at decades
and generations of lived experience show are deeply harmful and ineffective.
Like to name just just one example, let me see
if I can find it of recent research that came
out anyways, and then I can situate as well a
little bit more the movement lineages.
Speaker 9 (22:01):
But a study.
Speaker 8 (22:02):
Recently came out a couple months ago that found that
people who were involuntarily hospitalized in mental health and psychiatric
hospitals in what were called kind of quote gray area cases,
and so those are cases where clinicians on a team
disagreed on whether a hold was necessary. The people who
were subject to that involuntary hospitalization were more likely to
(22:24):
die by suicide or overdose, face incarceration, lose their housing
or employment, and be further destabilized. So, you know, the
idea that's being sort of put forward in orders such
as this is that it's helpful.
Speaker 9 (22:38):
But it's not.
Speaker 8 (22:39):
So I think that's again where we get back into
And by the way, that's not to say that some
people haven't found those services helpful. It's important to uplift
the stories of those which are many who have been
deeply deeply harmed by this, And as I said, I
would just to situate myself in like the movement lineages
that I'm working in and organizing and of Mad Pride,
(23:01):
Mad Liberation, the psychiatric survivor movement. We're talking about decades
and generations. If people have been talking about this for
a very very long time, and I think that as
this conversation is happening, more people are.
Speaker 9 (23:17):
Starting to pay attention. It's a very.
Speaker 8 (23:20):
Scary time, don't get me wrong to have an executive
order like this come out, but there are people who
I think are starting to hopefully listen a little bit
more or be attuned to, Hey, let's listen to the
people who've been subject to these measures for a very
long time and have been telling us not only is
(23:41):
this ineffective, like this did not help me, this deeply
harmed me. And then one more thing, just back to
that point of being labeled quote unquote treatment resistant. And
I'm interested to hear if you have more thoughts about
how you've seen that play out in your own community.
But like it sounds similar based on what you're saying
of the way that that's used in mental health settings,
(24:01):
is it's used to justify why you need to be
locked up. It's very maddene to be honest. There's this term,
let me see if I can say, it's called annosagnosia.
It's a big word, and it is said to explain
that people who have mental health conditions lack insight into
(24:24):
their condition. And so you know that is a blanket
way that the quote unquote expert is saying, you don't
know like your own experience, which I think it's like
one of the just immensely violent, like that is just
such violence.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
And on how terms they're saying, Well, there's two things
that they say they like because I have people close
to me when I was displaced.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
They like being out there.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
They are they don't want to accept responsibility for taking
care of themselves. So those two subtle things. I'm glad
you're mentioning the terminology and I'm not going to even
try to say it because it's kept tongue twisted. But
it's used against unhoused people to justify why they can
(25:10):
go to jail, why they can be ticketed and while
and even more violently take their belongings and throw them away.
So it's so it's so uncanny. Some of the connections
that is being used with people that are suffering from
the different other maladies or are maybe not. The second
example that I want to point out to being in
(25:31):
house is not We're not a monolift and people are
on house for multitude of reasons. But I'll give you
a good example of how this is used against people.
For example, I had a guest on that she was
fleeing domestic abuse, didn't suffer from any other malody, just
from trying to get her kids to get out of
(25:51):
the abusive situation and the forced commitment. The force commitment
they're trying to get her committed made her more wary
of going to get help because of them trying to
put her into some kind of box. She had to
be mentally ill because she stayed with her husband for
seven years and he was attacking her even though she
was trying to explain that she's been going to police,
(26:13):
getting a restrained or disappearing leaving the place, and he's
talking her. This is not necessarily issues of dealing with
mental health or substance usage. This is a woman that's
fleeing her husband and she's afraid, and the system is
only set up for or I guess the conversation had
(26:33):
only leaned toward that. Now they've seen her out there
living in her car with her kids, people would automatically
judge and says that she doesn't love her kids, why
would she have him out here? She's abusive or she
obviously would again queue in the music, she's obviously suffered
from some kind of mental health problem. So we have
(26:53):
to take her kids and put her in some system
or program, and in order to keep her kids or
try to fine some kind of help, that forces her
to only go into that cookie cutter solution.
Speaker 9 (27:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (27:06):
No, I mean it's it's a potent example of heartbreaking
to know that that's happening to her, that's happened to her,
And I think it illustrates like what we've been talking about.
And as I said at the beginning, you know, in
a mental health context, more often than not, much more
often than not, someone you know is brought to the
(27:27):
psyche ward what is going on in their life is
not really considered either at all or as nearly as
much as it should be. Right, it's kind of just like,
how are you presenting symptom management? Like you know, and
so it's it's just heartbreaking because that's take that context
into consideration, and if if we started from a you know,
(27:48):
listening and listening to centering a person's story, we would
end up with really dramatically different outcomes. But I think
it just reveals that the systems that we have are
just foundationally built, not on what's helpful, you know, in
my opinion. So yeah, a lot of work needs to
be done.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
When we come back more with Jesse, Welcome back this
Isteil Henderson. Here's the second part of our.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Interview with Jesse Ross.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
I want to get your insight on how do you
see the direction of mental health education. Do you see
advancing in a more progressive, positive way or do you
see it regressing?
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Yeah, thank you for that question. So from where I
sait like the work that I'm doing again running an
organization that's doing more politicized you know, lived experience focused
education ADA exists. We were founded almost ten years ago,
so we were founded because of a gap that I
(28:55):
understand still exists, though I can speak about how it
hopefully is shifting outside of IDA, but a gap that
when people are training to become mental health practitioners of
different kinds, so social workers therapists, psychologists, even pure specialists
in the system, even psychiatrists, you know, medical doctors have
(29:17):
different types. When they're being trained, they are not being
exposed to a lot of the history, including a lot
of the history that I mentioned, lived experience, voices and stories,
and critically all of this the multitude of different care
approaches that exist beyond the things that we've talked about
(29:41):
that are you know, the frontline. You know what the
system offers, which are hospitalization and medication usually and so again,
not to say that people haven't found those things helpful,
but there are so many different you know, types of therapy,
and then we go beyond the system at all, type
of you know, peer support, grassroots mutual aid. Like I
(30:03):
could give a few examples if that would be interesting.
But to answer your question, people aren't learning a lot
of the ways that we can care for one another
in less harmful, punitive frankly Carcole ways. And so my
understanding is like that that is still true to a
large extent if you're looking at kind of the mainstream
(30:26):
education setting. Certainly some you know, maybe social work programs
are more progressive than others, but you know, having spent
many years also supervising some social work interns and we're
working with them through IDA. I've heard and having just
like I said, I'm not a clinician myself, but having
a lot of clinicians like come to our programs, I
(30:47):
really get the sense that it's there's glimmers of hope, right,
but it's not changed that much. Like if people want
to find out about the more you know, nuanced aspect
of history, are these like quote unquote alternatives And I
put that in quotes because the goal is that there
aren't alternative, right, there's still that's where it is still
(31:08):
operating and kind of a model of resisting like the
biomedical if that makes sense. But all of this to say,
spaces where people can be exposed to these ideas are
still very far and few between. IDA is one of them.
Let me say this, outside of the what I'm kind
of referring to the dominant or like the mainstream education
(31:29):
system for mental health, and I'm talking about providers specifically
in this, I think it's still a.
Speaker 9 (31:35):
Long way to go.
Speaker 8 (31:37):
If you if you look at organizations, grassroots movements and
you know, informal collectives and things like that, nature there's
actually been a lot more in the last decade, So
I think to me, that's where the most promising stuff
is happening. Is just that IDA is one of many
organizations in a wider ecosystem that is offering trainings and
(31:59):
education or free content informational stuff on social media, like
explaining and introducing.
Speaker 9 (32:06):
More people to this.
Speaker 8 (32:07):
So that's how I would answer it is like the
change is happening as.
Speaker 9 (32:11):
It usually does at the grassroots level.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Yeah, well, do you predict with all of the violent
changes that President Trump is introducing, like the reduction of snap,
the impact on medicaid and medicare the executive order? Do
you pretend that this will have a negative impact on
the communities that are or maybe not necessarily or going
(32:38):
to be impacted in the system. Do you think there
is going to be any kind of change or is
it going to stay to say.
Speaker 8 (32:44):
Oh, definitely negative, negative change for sure. And one thing
I want to say to just about like the enforceability
of this. My understanding maybe you can speak to this
is it might be similar to some of the other
executive orders.
Speaker 9 (32:58):
Is just just.
Speaker 8 (32:59):
To frame my understanding, is that something like involuntary commitment measures,
these are controlled at the state level, so you know,
Trump can put out an executive order saying you know,
the intention is for this to be enacted in the
entire country. I believe like this is serious and very
scary because of what it signals to the states, But
(33:20):
it doesn't in and of itself upturn the measures that
are in place at the state level. So I want
to start by just naming that and also just pausing
to ask you is there a similar sense with some
of the other like legislation or executive orders you're familiar with.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Since Grant's Pass has passed, that has overturned the Ninth
Circuit appeal of Boise judgment. The Boise ruling stopped and
slowed down state and cities reactions on aggressively targeting unhouse people.
With Grant's pass as being upheld and unruled, it is
(33:57):
now open season, which is why you see across the
draconian ordnances and laws that are being pitted against dundhouse people.
For example, even though Trump has given that executive order,
he still has the power to go on national public
property and remove unhoused people, which he has done. But
(34:19):
it also gives more inspiration to the cities and states
like Gavin Newsombudo. He's being touted as going toe to
told with Trump, but he sent out an executive order
giving powers to cities and mayors to go aggressively against
dunhouse people. With this Encampment Resolution fund all of these
(34:40):
kind of new laws that they are motivating and inspiring
cities to take up to target on the house people.
So it has a direct impact. This inspiration from the
cities from like say example, Los Angeles, which is forty
one eighteen, coupled with Grant's past now has provided more
inspiration what cities and states just really target unhoused people.
(35:03):
And I can also foresee in the future because when
we go at the mutual Aid like this Saturday, the
increased number of displaced people, the increased number of food
insecure people, the increased number of housing insecure people is
going to balloon to a point where people are going
to have to really evaluate how they treat the poor
(35:26):
of us. You know, you can gauge how a city
or a country treats its poorest citizen and you can
come walk away with understanding the true character of that.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
And right now we have.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
Our whole society really does not give the dignity that
they requires with unhoused community members.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
So I hopefully I answered that question.
Speaker 8 (35:47):
Absolutely no, and you explained it so well. And I
think it's exactly the same as with this executive order
as it kind of impacts communities of people with mental
health challenges, it emboldens the states and cities to follow
the lead right of what this executive order is saying.
So wanted to clarify the piece about kind of like
(36:09):
immediate implications, but certainly what you said is what I
think people in the mad Liberation, disability justice community everyone
is bracing for is exactly as you described. And I
did want to touch on a point that I appreciate
you mentioning as well, about how we see both Trump
having these carcorole draconian policies. And then you mentioned Governor Newsom.
(36:34):
I'll add to the mix of yet another Democratic mayor
or Democratic official, Mayor Eric Adams here in New York
City where I'm based. Yeah, just over the last two years,
basically on the same timeline as what Gavin Newsom's been
doing in California has been I really think it was
the roadmap, in my opinion, that Trump followed for this
(36:54):
executive orders. What's been happening in New York City and
throughout the state of California in terms of the rhetoric
has been the same. So that's the other There's a
few things I'm trying to pull out. One is that
these are bipartisan policies left right, you know, sweeping on
housed communities, people with mental health challenges off the street
(37:15):
is not a matter of Democrat and Republican. So I
appreciate you speaking to that. And then the other pieces
that while yes, what's happening is really scary and it
is totally an escalation of what we've been seeing, it's
not entirely new.
Speaker 9 (37:30):
So people have.
Speaker 8 (37:31):
Been organizing for many years against what's been happening throughout
multiple states, including New York and California. So yeah, I
think there's an opportunity for like, what have we learned
from that? You know, there's a number of activists. I
will give a shout out to folks, you know, from
Disability Rights California who've been resisting the Care Court nonsense
(37:51):
that's happening in California, and then a lot of people
on the ground in New York resisting you know, basically
Eric Adams has also been sweeping on house communities off
the street into psychiatric hospitals for years. That's been his
policy agenda since I think the end of twenty twenty two.
So with that, I think going back a little bit
to your original question, like what will be the impact
(38:12):
just like, undoubtedly worse without question if more and more
people are being brought to psychiatric hospitals and being committed
against their well. Now, there's a lot of impacts and
I won't maybe try to go into all of them,
but as I've said, it will on the whole not
be effective at solving the quote unquote mental health crisis
(38:32):
because what happens, and we know is that people go
into you know, if they go in involuntarily, you can,
you can stay for a limited amount of time and
then you're released, especially if you're coming in, if someone's
brought in from living on the street, where do they
go after? You know, it does not solve This is
the thing that I know that we could talk about,
but we know it's just in the room with us.
(38:55):
This doesn't get at the root issue. These are ineffective
measures and then they are deeply harmful. Are going to
have more trauma more harm and we're not gonna and
just you know, if an economic argument is of interest
anyone wasted resources and not actually solving the problem, which
goes back to the point at hand too, of if
all of that really is where we land when we're
(39:17):
having this conversation, it really can only further show that
this isn't about helping people, you see.
Speaker 9 (39:25):
So, yeah, I agree, I.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
Know you don't, couldn't could say better, And I really
not to beat a dead horse, try and trying to
bring together or crystallize the moment and the point in
the conversation of how they use communities to get their
deeper agenda of harbing people, not really helping them, no
matter if it's unhow it's community members or people that
(39:50):
are suffering from mental challenges or complexities. These things are
used in order to push them into a box or
a corner, to either erase them or to minimize their
presence in society, you know, according to you know, white
supremacist or capitalistic notions of what normalcy is or what
(40:13):
should be pristine, or what should be an idyllic kind
of community, if.
Speaker 8 (40:17):
You will, Yeah, absolutely well said.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
Well, I don't want to hold you completely too long.
But is there anything else that we missed that you
would like to talk on.
Speaker 8 (40:29):
I think one thing that is a through line of
just you and I having this conversation, given you know,
the work that you do and the work that I do,
is I want to put like a I guess a
finer point and maybe hear some more of your thoughts
too about the importance of cross movement organizing in this time.
So I'll share a few thoughts and then I would
(40:50):
love to hear from you on this THEO. When the
executive order came out, it was terrifying, as we've named,
and also I was heartened to see the the volume
of organizations that quickly came back with, you know, statements
condemning it, you know, saying like this is not the way.
And just to name like from a few different movements
(41:12):
or issue areas, you know, mental health organizations, disability rights
and disability justice organizations, harm reduction coalitions, you know, organizations
fighting for rights of unhoused communities, just just to name
a few. And so I think what a moment like
this reveals and I don't necessarily want to make it,
you know, to like crisis opportunity like it is it
(41:34):
is a crisis and it's very scary, but this is
also a bit of an opportunity for us all to
come together because, as we've said, as we're talking, like
there are some parallels that aren't a coincidence about how
you know, my community members, your community members have been
have been treated over not just like the last let's say,
(41:55):
a couple of weeks, months, years, but like generationally throughout
history and the history of this country, and like, yeah,
that's not a coincidence, and we have different wisdom and
lessons learned to pool that will obviously like make us
stronger together. And so maybe that's an initial thought about
this is I just feel very passionate and like, if
(42:17):
there's a place that I can find my hope right now,
it is on this topic of saying, okay, like we
need to be talking to people who are working in
like movements that are maybe not exactly our own. But
at the end of the day, if we are all
those of us, you know, who are oriented towards a
collective liberation, lens that nobody's free until we're all free. Right,
If you're only fighting for the rights of people diagnosed with,
(42:40):
you know, mental health conditions, you're only fighting for the
rights of un house people, like we need to be
fighting for all of us, and so I think this
is a moment where that's more needed than ever. But
like I can see the potential, feel it more than ever.
So I'm curious to hear some of your thoughts on
that too.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I agree with you as well.
Speaker 5 (43:01):
One of the things that I know an initiae in
the infancy of the movements, when the pandemic was happening,
that conversation was floated around, and I think it was
kind of because of the system is so broken, and
there are so many pieces to the broken system that
it's just like, for example, that you have a broken
vase and then you patch it up and you put
(43:23):
water in it, and you're still trying to put the
pieces together. Sometimes it can be overwhelming trying to get
one piece there from there. But what I think what
really is crystallizing the moment, and most recently, is the
conversations and the alarm that's happening with deportations. I think
that has been more violent in your face. Prior to that,
(43:46):
I think the conversations were the moral outrage of what
was going on with Palestine and the gosp conversation and
the abuse and the practices there. And even though in
one of the things that I made, and I wish
I had to take the statement back, but I was
trying to sound the alarmed with the protesters at the time,
(44:07):
like Okay, look in front of you, look around with
the young.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
The house community.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
You have walked past on house people being treated badly
with forty one to eighteen and other demonizing and criminalizing actions,
and we need that kind of, like you say, across cultural,
across movement type of advocacy too, Like when there are sweeps,
we need you to show up and make that staying
(44:33):
loud presence too. What's been going on with the deportations.
I think it just took people back because you you
are seeing violence given by the government and in a
way that you cannot explain it away. You cannot keep
saying that all of these people are criminals, or you
cannot say that a five year old is an MS
(44:55):
was an MS thirteen gang member. It's too much in
your face to see that, and then you having to
face with you're not going to be able to make
your rent. This recent episode I've been doing.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
I did.
Speaker 5 (45:07):
I would south there at Thermo Valley of California, and
these two farms have been shut down because the community,
the undocumented community cannot go to work because they're targeted
or they're afraid to go to work and being snatched
and have their families displaced. More importantly, they're not coming
in to get the food services and resources that they need.
(45:30):
Various more and more unhoused undocumented community members that are
in fear that they're going to be snatched.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Really there's no support to get them back.
Speaker 5 (45:40):
Whereas you have, like when I was pointing out the
undocumented house community, that someone is going to say something
that some lawyer is going to run to their defense.
There's someone that's going to make us think about it.
But when you target people that are on the fields
and they are undocumented and unhoused, that privilege is not
afforded to it. And I wanted to point that out
(46:04):
with this episode and why there's different strategies. If you
hear in an interview, like one of the farm workers
is saying the couple is thinking about one spouse is
quipping the job so to take care of the kids,
and the other one has become the bread whether just
in case they get snatched these kinds of things. If
you're taking people's kids at school, there's only accepted listed
(46:27):
of people that could take the kids. Now they got
to draw up another list just in case both parents
are taking who's going to take care of the kids.
You know, you're leaving kids at home after snatching them,
or you're placing them. So those things. In my interview
with Sonya this week is these real issues are families
are facing, that people are unintended consequences that's going on too.
Speaker 8 (46:49):
I definitely want to listen to that most recent episode
that you did and again bringing in another interconnection of
how all of this can't be this kind of from
what's happening and you know fight for like around immigration
and what's happening with the deportation. So like those of
us who are organizing in our specific areas, it's like
(47:10):
an encouragement to of course just pay attention to what's
happening in the country, but to be looking across movements
and talking to you know, your friends, your comrades who
are who are doing different work and forming more you know,
alliances and building more solidarity because I just think it's
what's so needed right now, and and another thread that
I would pull out to maybe really briefly THEO when
(47:32):
you mentioned Palestine in Gaza. There's one other maybe like term.
I'll introduce it as we come towards the end, this
idea of necro politics, which is you could understand that
is the way that the state has the power to
decide who who lives and who's marked for death. And
so there's you know, a lot of examples that we
(47:54):
can use from just like recent times that we're living
in that demonstrate this idea. You know that policies being
framed as protective or compassionate, but in reality, people's lives,
some people's lives are sacrificed in order to preserve the
safety perceived safety of others. So for example, I bring
in Palestine again because global genocide is being funded by
(48:17):
the United States, and Palestine are an example of that,
as are increased funding for prisons and ice while we're
slashing medicaid and the housing and education and all that.
And we could also talk of course about like the
pandemic responses that left disabled and poor racialized communities to die.
So it's all connected, as I think we know and
(48:41):
are increasingly seeing.
Speaker 5 (48:42):
So yeah, thank you for showing it. It's been my
aim since I've been doing this show to not only
show the issues with houselessness, but how they are it,
to connect it, and which is why I wanted you
on the show. The show to reach out to see
commonalities that we have and sometimes our society don't show
that because we are, you know, sometimes feeling that vase
(49:05):
that's cracked, you know, trying to deal with those subset
of issues, but they are at a whole connected, and
I wanted to continue to do that, reach out to
my existing communities, but also communities that are working side
by side previously with the food justice community. Shout out
to Melissa Sosadero. She and I partnered, She helped helped
(49:28):
me feed the unhoused community during the pandemic, and her
noticing these similarities but also the impact on where she's
dealing with the undocumented community and the undoctumunity on house
community and seeing the connections and asking me to come
out there to see what's going on and how this
with this executive order now, the deportations, each of these
(49:51):
draconian ideals and messages and attempts to erase vulnerable poor people.
It's basically a war on for people financially insecure or
people that are not in a subset of people that
they are trying to make America in a dystopian type
of way.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (50:12):
Absolutely, And I did think of actually one more thing
I could add if there's time for.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
That, which was sure sure on the.
Speaker 8 (50:19):
Point of if anybody's looking for what you can do,
there's hopefully you know, I think there's a lot that
can be done, and just a few things I wanted
to put out there. One is for folks who might
be listening and aren't as familiar with maybe the social
movements that I mentioned, Mad Pride, mad Liberation, disability justice,
I would encourage people to learn more about those histories,
(50:43):
both so that the you know, shared analysis and resistance
that we have can be rooted in that wisdom because
it's been practiced and the fight's been going on for
a very long time, but also because the community care
practices that are now more needed than ever. Right when
you think about the dismantling of services and slashing medicaid,
(51:08):
many communities have had no choice but to care for
each other outside of systems due to their violence and
for a long time. But this is a time where
all of us would do well to understand, like how
we can take care of ourselves and each other outside
of systems. So looking up things just to name a few,
like about pod mapping, mad mapping, looking up things like
(51:30):
pure respite centers which are alternatives to hospitalization. There are
a lot of services that are out there, services in
and outside the system, but especially outside the system, that
I would just encourage folks to learn more about so
that you can if you need to care for yourself,
if you need to care for your community, just to
be kind of equipped with a little bit more of
that knowledge. And then, like I said, attributing it to
(51:53):
the mad and disabled people who created all of these practices.
Speaker 9 (51:56):
Out of survival.
Speaker 8 (51:57):
So if you want to learn morea one place that
you can learn more about that, But there's many other organizations.
Speaker 9 (52:04):
And that's what I wanted to end.
Speaker 8 (52:06):
With us, a little bit of maybe where you can
go from here.
Speaker 9 (52:10):
One idea perfect.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
Thank you very much, mis Roth, and I hope everyone
learned something today.
Speaker 9 (52:17):
Thank you again just so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (52:25):
Thank you so much to Jesse for her time and
her work, which you can learn more about at the
links in the description, thank you all for listening to
another dynamic episode of Weedian House. If you have a
story you'd like to share, please reach out to me
at weediandhousat gmail dot com or weedian House on Instagram.
(52:45):
Until then, may we again meet in the light of understanding.
Weedian House is a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted,
and created by me, theo Hendersons, Jamie Loftus, Hailey Fager,
Katie Fischer, and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam Want,
(53:08):
our engineer is Joel Jerome, and our local art is
also by Katie Fisher.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Thank you for listening.
Previously on Wilian House.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Last month there was a big raid. We don't know
the details, but we know that there was just military
border patrol, d e A, our local sheriffs, Imperial County sheriffs,
just not knowing, you know, what really is happening, and
just everything that's on the news.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
A lot of people don't feel safe.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
You think, I believe it's going to get worse. Why
because of the race. She doesn't feel like it's going
to get better and what's going to happen.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
You know, because of these races, people don't want to
go to work and you know, for the needs.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
Welcome to Weedian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson. This
week we're going to tackle the thorny subject of language,
messaging and mental health. But first Unhoused News. The sheep
(01:22):
will spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to
be eaten by the shepherd. On Tuesday, September two, twenty
twenty five, Mayor Banks hosted and inside Safe Meat and Greek.
On the face of it, the shepherd is devouring or
soft pedaling erasure under the guise of helping the young
(01:45):
house and at the same time preventing other unhoused people
to occupy evicted neighborhood spaces. Willful ignorance, allied with power,
is the most ferocious enemy justice has. In order to
sell insights, starving messaging is key, presenting houselessness as a
(02:06):
personal failing or tragedy, then offering empty solutions under the
guise of helping Allaye Nimbi's guilt and disdain of the
young house. They convinced themselves that they are offering humane
assistance while the police lurk nearby for safety. Safety is
the operative word California Governor Newsom used in order to
(02:30):
beat Donald Trump to the punch.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Governor Newsom mission executive order just this morning for the
removal of homeless encampments across the state.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
He recently took it a step further in August twenty
twenty five to accelerate the removal of encampments and to
connect the young housed with services and shelter. Newsom also
threatened local governments that he will withhold state money if
they don't produce results in addressing houselessness.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
There's no more excuses.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
You got the money, you've got the flexibility, you've got
the green light, you.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Got the support from the state and the public is
demanding of you.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Recently, President Trump issued an executive order pertaining to the
un House.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
The President now wants it easier for communities to remove
homeless people from the streets and relocate them to a
shelter or treatment center. This EO stresses that states and
cities need to adopt policies for dismantling homeless encampments just
like the ones you see right here, saying they pose
a threat to life, health, and community safety.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
In the executive order, President Trump writes that the overwhelming
majority of houseless individuals are addicted to drugs, have a
mental condition.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Or both.
Speaker 6 (03:44):
It calls for changes in order to make it easier
for states and cities to move people living on the
street into treatment for mental illness or addiction, and in
some cases, forcing people into treatment without their consent.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
There's another putative measure that Trump calls substance usage Programs
that offer harm reduction, such as needle exchange or a
housing first model, will not be funded.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
It also calls on the President's cabinet members to fast
track federal funding to states and cities that crack down
on illegal drug use and homeless encampments.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Pay attention to the words that our leaders are using,
restore public order, humane treatment, Inside.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Safe, the sheep will.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to be
eaten by the shepherd. The shepherd is the leaders in
our government, and vulnerable people are the meal. The last
connecting link I want to introduce you to happened at
the end of August twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
In the dead of night.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
The Trump administration awakened undocumented orphans, put them on a
plane to send them to Guatemala, with no one on
the other end to receive them, under the guise of
keeping America safe, under the guise of restoring public order,
under the guise of only targeting criminals in the dead
(05:13):
of night. It took awakening a judge at two of
the morning to stop this shepherd from devouring boshep. And
that's on House News. When we come back, we have
the founder of the Institute for the Development of Human Arts,
(05:33):
Jesse Roth. Welcome back to Whitian House. On THEO Henderson
Jesse Ross joined us this week discussing a variety of
topics and the connecting issues our society is facing. Without
further Ado here's our interview with Jesse Good afternoon. This
(05:56):
is Theo Henderson from Whedian House. I have a special
guest here. I have been on a series of different
conversations and episodes leading up to President Trump's Executive Order,
Gavin Newsom's executive Order, and the recent Supreme Court ruling
against the end House with the Grant's Pass ruling, and
(06:19):
for those that need a quick refresher, I'm going to
go through them very quickly. It starts off withare the
Supreme Court ruling the Grant's past ruling it would overturn
the Circuit Court's Knife appeal ruling of cruel and unusual punishment.
And why this is important to say and make this
distinction is because now cities are free from lawsuit and
(06:45):
being held liable of how they treat the un housed communities. Therefore,
they don't have to offer services, they don't have to
offer shelter. They can see an unhoused person and they
can criminalize and put them in jail or find them
remove them from where they are residing. So that was
pivotal because in the lawsuits that followed with the Ninth
(07:07):
Circuit Court, it made it slowed down these kind of
enforcement efforts, and all across the country in the past year,
you've seen cities adopting draconian measures against the un House
to remove them from places it sweeps been going on
forty one to eighteen, has been in full effect in
our Los Angeles as well as the executive order Gavin
(07:31):
Newsom stated against Dunhouse people, he created a fund that
called the Encampment a resource fund that will get funds
to remove unhoused encampments. It culminates recently with President Trump's
wording of unhoused people, particularly in the Washington area. There
has been a success, I won't say successful, but a
(07:54):
successful anti Unhouse campaign. Hence my guest today. We're going
to talk about how her advocacy as well as how
visc interconnects with the mental health community and what steps
if we can take to educate our audience on the
realities of what mental health is according to Trump, Dan,
(08:15):
how's our bunch of mentally ill, violent, drug addicted people
that have been set upon tourists and residents of Washington,
DC and all around the country. And I want to
push back against that without fervado. Thank you Jesse for
stopping in tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 8 (08:34):
Thank you so much for that introduction in grounding THEO,
and I just want to express my gratitude for joining
you today and for the work that you do with
the podcast and just all of the work that you
do so needed and unfortunately especially needed right now. So
it's good to be here. And just for a little
bit about me. Yeah, my name's Jesse Roth, and I'm
(08:54):
the executive director of an organization called the Institute for
the Development of Human Arts for short, and we are
a transformative mental health training institute trying to really bring
kind of the activism and resistance by psychiatric survivors, trauma survivors,
people with lived experience of the mental health system or
(09:17):
trying to bridge that with mental health practice, including those
who are working within systems. And yeah, so we put
on trainings and classes, events, channels that are trying to
really show and uplift different ways of understanding and approaching
mental health that go beyond the sort of mainstream narrative
(09:39):
that tends to be very medicalized, individualized. And yeah, I'll
leave it at that for now. Thank you again for
having me.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Well, thank you for giving us your introduction.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
I'm just going to start off with the general conversation,
what are the myths that you hear when people are
dealing with mental health?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And we can kind of connect the dot from there.
Speaker 9 (10:01):
So many myths.
Speaker 8 (10:02):
Yeah, I think one of the ones that I would
maybe start with, just to frame that some listeners in
your audience might be familiar with and others maybe less so,
is just even mentioned it when I was talking a
little bit about ida's work, that mental health is something
that is an exclusively medicalized issue that can be attributed
(10:23):
to you know, a person's brain chemistry and kind of
exists within you know, their like neurobiology. And I'll be brief,
but I want to just bring in a little bit
of history, a little bit of science. I say this,
by the way, let me situate myself a tiny bit more,
because I mostly just mentioned my role as ida's executive director.
I myself and a person with lived experience, a trauma survivor.
(10:46):
I'm not a mental health practitioner myself or a researcher.
I'm a community organizer, activist, and so I come to
this conversation from that position, and with that, you know,
rooting in a little bit of history and a little
bit of science. We see if we go back not
that long ago to just about the year nineteen eighty,
that this was the period of time where the dominant
(11:08):
narrative or story that we told about what causes you know,
what's called mental illness is attributed to like a chemical
imbalance in the brain. And before that, you know, the
dominant narrative or paradigm was more of a psychoanalytic one
or attributing you know to like like adverse childhood experiences
and trauma. Developmental psychology was a little bit more the mainstream.
(11:32):
And then around nineteen eighty a couple of things happened,
including you know what we had like Ronald Reagan as president,
and the economic model of that time, like the rise
of kind of like pharmaceutical industry. But then you pair
that with the publication of the third edition of the DSM,
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is
(11:53):
kind of like the Bible for psychiatry. And this is
really when the medicalized brainwork for understanding mental health is
infiltrated the popular consciousness.
Speaker 9 (12:02):
If you will.
Speaker 8 (12:03):
And so I open with that to say that I
think we need to situate ourselves in the fact that
the reality is that research shows that there are still
no biomarkers that you know, have been able to be
located that show that a again quote unquote, mental illness,
a mental disorder can be attributed to like any specific
(12:23):
part of the brain. And I think that's important because
it is in the popular consciousness understood to be true
proven science. And the reality is we just we still
don't know. And so the other thing that's of course
left out when we have this dominant narrative or kind
of the pervading myth that mental health is caused by
chemical imbalances is that it's a way to not talk
(12:46):
about the social systemic factors that lead to why a
person might be well or not well, so you know,
to connect to the issues that you're exploring on your podcasts,
for example, just one like if a person is on
how they're living on the street, if somebody has been
living in poverty, if they're you know, navigating racism in America.
(13:09):
You know, for example, those are all things that would
obviously impact somebody's mental health. But generally, when when we're
like talking about you know, the dominant mainstream system, those
things aren't talked about much. If at all. There are
some spaces where they are a little bit, but the
you know, mainstream of someone's going into like an emergency
room or you know, mental health, like a psychiatric hospital,
(13:32):
the conversation tends to be about the brain. And so yeah,
what gets left out when we are operating in a
framework where we're making it about a person's brain and
not like what's happening to them in the world around them,
If that makes sense, So let me pause there. That's
that's one sort of myth to your question, but also
just complicating the narrative that many of us are socialized into.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
I would say you mentioned Reagan earlier, and I know
many people there listening across the pond may not understand
the impact what President Reagan and why that name was mentioned,
and why that is very important into the mental health community.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Can you elaborate a little bit more on that.
Speaker 8 (14:13):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So like Reagan's approach to economics, you
know for sure, called Reaganomics was really defined by boosting
like the economy through more tax cuts, reduced spending, the regulation,
trying to control inflation through things like that. So the
outcome of this was like a widening income gap, increased
(14:35):
national debt and then a perceived shift towards like more greed.
I think again to connect that to some of the
issues that you're exploring here, just there is a direct
correlation to the economic policies of that time to like
increasingly the widening income gap contributing directly to more and
more folks having less housing.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
The third thing I want to also connect, because why
Reagan also was important, is because around that time there
was a damning report that Reggan was responsible for releasing
people that had suffered from different other maladies, mental health
malodies out on the streets. It's been debated quite a
lot about that conversation that he was in response to
(15:17):
a judgment that he had to because of the poor
conditions and abusive conditions that many displaced people and as
well as people that were under hospital care were undergoing.
Speaker 8 (15:29):
So absolutely, and actually I can say a little bit
more about that aspect of history too. What you're talking
about their THEO is the sort of the deinstitutionalization process
that happened throughout many decades and so under I suppose
numerous presidents. My understanding is that it started in the
sixties with JFK, who signed the Community Mental Health Act,
(15:51):
which closed down the federal asylums exactly for the reasons
that you said. There were many reasons including you know,
people coming to light, just like the abusive conditions, many
human rights violations. And then it's also coinciding with some
developments in the development of like antipsychotics, like more psychiatric medication,
which you know, the idea there is makes more like
(16:14):
care outside of institutions possible. And I also I was
going to talk about this in this process of our
conversation because there's a thing that happens in the way
that again the story of deinstitutionalization is told in this
country that leaves out important pieces. And also I would
say to your original question goes to another myth. So
(16:36):
there's a myth that deinstitutionalization again, whether you know by
under the Kennedy administration, under Reagan administration, the myth that
it quote unquote failed because now you know, if we
think about today the conversation, it's not uncommon to hear
like there's a lot of people living with mental health
(16:57):
conditions who are unhoused there on the street, and this
is because we deinstitutionalized, you know, like we emptied out
the asylums and now people are on the street, and
it frames it like we shouldn't have done that. Now,
this is the piece that gets left out. The Community
Mental Health Act in the sixties was supposed to do
more than one thing. It wasn't supposed to just empty
(17:19):
out asylums. It was supposed to create funded community mental
health centers, and that didn't happen. Really, so you have
you know, people who are being released who end up
on the street with nowhere to go. So again that's
really important because it's like the problem the fault of
(17:39):
that we have a crisis now you know people call
a mental health crisis or housing crisis. It is not
the fault of deinstitutionalizing. It is the fault of failing
to provide the community based care that was promised in
the first place. And that matters so much because it's
used to justify reinstitutionalation that that is the conversation that's
(18:02):
happening right now. There is basically a call by the
federal government and multiple states increasingly so. And now the
federal government has basically you know, green lit this so
everybody will feel comfortable, you know, pursuing policies of this
nature but to bring back the asylum right, like we
need more, we need more psychiatric beds, we need more
(18:24):
involuntary holds like what we were doing before, you know,
kind of like the history of the abuse got erased
from the public consciousness because instead it was just sort
of glazed over as this idea of oh, you know,
deinstitutionalizing that didn't work out so well, so maybe let's
go back. But I can talk more about why that
is aeverly horrible idea.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Also, if I may interject too, because I bring that
point up because this is so important for people that
don't understand on How's experience, it drives the disappearing act
of on house people. You don't want know where they go,
you don't want to see where they go. And one
of the solutions, and which is why again it really
ticked me off, is when President Trump has been advocating
(19:10):
for involuntary voluntary commitment. It's because that's the same thing
that has been driving why they are trying to remove
unhoused people. They don't want to see unhoused people, you know,
And I want to take it a step further, when
you force unhoused people in abusive shelters or cars, shelters
or car soral living situations. People don't understand why unhoused
(19:32):
people turn down those services. It's not that you know,
services are not necessarily being offered, but they are subpar
or has conditional car through kind of attachments to it.
But it's so important to say that because the conversation
always which is why we've been sounding the alarm with
this is why this is going to go hand in
(19:52):
hand now when they're running down unhoused people when they
have these laws, like right now, they have a certain
number of times that you could be offered services. If
you don't accept services, then obviously you're service resistant. Then
you're open yourself up into maybe involuntary voluntary commitment because
you're mentally ill, because you have to go to a
(20:13):
substance abuse shelter or a mental health shelter in order
to be qualified for those services. And this is why
it's so important why you're on the show, because that's
the link that I think more house people don't understand
when you hear one and they say no, we don't
want to go shelter, because these are the steps that
they're trying to do to do that, to force people
(20:33):
into care that may not be applicable to them. You know,
you may have health issues, but you're not mentally ill.
You just may have you know, cancer, or you may
have other maladies, but you are not on substances. But
you're going to be attached or connected to that. And
if you don't connect yourself to it willingly, then you're
your service resistant. Then you're susceptible to go.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Into jail exactly.
Speaker 8 (20:57):
And this is why again I'm so grateful for the
invitation to be talking to you THEO, because these dynamics,
like the logics that underpin what you're talking about, the
same thing happens for people who are diagnosed with having
a mental illness or you know, perceived as having one.
And yeah, it's about exactly what you said. It's so
(21:18):
infuriating because it's framed through basically like a neoliberal lens
of like we're trying to help you, but it's actually
exactly what you mentioned, which is we want to disappear you.
We don't want to see you at all. And so
thank you for naming that part and also that aspect
of being labeled as quote unquote treatment resistant if you
(21:39):
don't want to, you know, use the services that research shows,
but not that we need research to show at decades
and generations of lived experience show are deeply harmful and ineffective.
Like to name just just one example, let me see
if I can find it of recent research that came
out anyways, and then I can situate as well a
little bit more the movement lineages.
Speaker 9 (22:01):
But a study.
Speaker 8 (22:02):
Recently came out a couple months ago that found that
people who were involuntarily hospitalized in mental health and psychiatric
hospitals in what were called kind of quote gray area cases,
and so those are cases where clinicians on a team
disagreed on whether a hold was necessary. The people who
were subject to that involuntary hospitalization were more likely to
(22:24):
die by suicide or overdose, face incarceration, lose their housing
or employment, and be further destabilized. So, you know, the
idea that's being sort of put forward in orders such
as this is that it's helpful.
Speaker 9 (22:38):
But it's not.
Speaker 8 (22:39):
So I think that's again where we get back into
And by the way, that's not to say that some
people haven't found those services helpful. It's important to uplift
the stories of those which are many who have been
deeply deeply harmed by this, And as I said, I
would just to situate myself in like the movement lineages
that I'm working in and organizing and of Mad Pride,
(23:01):
Mad Liberation, the psychiatric survivor movement. We're talking about decades
and generations. If people have been talking about this for
a very very long time, and I think that as
this conversation is happening, more people are.
Speaker 9 (23:17):
Starting to pay attention. It's a very.
Speaker 8 (23:20):
Scary time, don't get me wrong to have an executive
order like this come out, but there are people who
I think are starting to hopefully listen a little bit
more or be attuned to, Hey, let's listen to the
people who've been subject to these measures for a very
long time and have been telling us not only is
(23:41):
this ineffective, like this did not help me, this deeply
harmed me. And then one more thing, just back to
that point of being labeled quote unquote treatment resistant. And
I'm interested to hear if you have more thoughts about
how you've seen that play out in your own community.
But like it sounds similar based on what you're saying
of the way that that's used in mental health settings,
(24:01):
is it's used to justify why you need to be
locked up. It's very maddene to be honest. There's this term,
let me see if I can say, it's called annosagnosia.
It's a big word, and it is said to explain
that people who have mental health conditions lack insight into
(24:24):
their condition. And so you know that is a blanket
way that the quote unquote expert is saying, you don't
know like your own experience, which I think it's like
one of the just immensely violent, like that is just
such violence.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
And on how terms they're saying, Well, there's two things
that they say they like because I have people close
to me when I was displaced.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
They like being out there.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
They are they don't want to accept responsibility for taking
care of themselves. So those two subtle things. I'm glad
you're mentioning the terminology and I'm not going to even
try to say it because it's kept tongue twisted. But
it's used against unhoused people to justify why they can
(25:10):
go to jail, why they can be ticketed and while
and even more violently take their belongings and throw them away.
So it's so it's so uncanny. Some of the connections
that is being used with people that are suffering from
the different other maladies or are maybe not. The second
example that I want to point out to being in
(25:31):
house is not We're not a monolift and people are
on house for multitude of reasons. But I'll give you
a good example of how this is used against people.
For example, I had a guest on that she was
fleeing domestic abuse, didn't suffer from any other malody, just
from trying to get her kids to get out of
(25:51):
the abusive situation and the forced commitment. The force commitment
they're trying to get her committed made her more wary
of going to get help because of them trying to
put her into some kind of box. She had to
be mentally ill because she stayed with her husband for
seven years and he was attacking her even though she
was trying to explain that she's been going to police,
(26:13):
getting a restrained or disappearing leaving the place, and he's
talking her. This is not necessarily issues of dealing with
mental health or substance usage. This is a woman that's
fleeing her husband and she's afraid, and the system is
only set up for or I guess the conversation had
(26:33):
only leaned toward that. Now they've seen her out there
living in her car with her kids, people would automatically
judge and says that she doesn't love her kids, why
would she have him out here? She's abusive or she
obviously would again queue in the music, she's obviously suffered
from some kind of mental health problem. So we have
(26:53):
to take her kids and put her in some system
or program, and in order to keep her kids or
try to fine some kind of help, that forces her
to only go into that cookie cutter solution.
Speaker 9 (27:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (27:06):
No, I mean it's it's a potent example of heartbreaking
to know that that's happening to her, that's happened to her,
And I think it illustrates like what we've been talking about.
And as I said at the beginning, you know, in
a mental health context, more often than not, much more
often than not, someone you know is brought to the
(27:27):
psyche ward what is going on in their life is
not really considered either at all or as nearly as
much as it should be. Right, it's kind of just like,
how are you presenting symptom management? Like you know, and
so it's it's just heartbreaking because that's take that context
into consideration, and if if we started from a you know,
(27:48):
listening and listening to centering a person's story, we would
end up with really dramatically different outcomes. But I think
it just reveals that the systems that we have are
just foundationally built, not on what's helpful, you know, in
my opinion. So yeah, a lot of work needs to
be done.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
When we come back more with Jesse, Welcome back this
Isteil Henderson. Here's the second part of our.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Interview with Jesse Ross.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
I want to get your insight on how do you
see the direction of mental health education. Do you see
advancing in a more progressive, positive way or do you
see it regressing?
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Yeah, thank you for that question. So from where I
sait like the work that I'm doing again running an
organization that's doing more politicized you know, lived experience focused
education ADA exists. We were founded almost ten years ago,
so we were founded because of a gap that I
(28:55):
understand still exists, though I can speak about how it
hopefully is shifting outside of IDA, but a gap that
when people are training to become mental health practitioners of
different kinds, so social workers therapists, psychologists, even pure specialists
in the system, even psychiatrists, you know, medical doctors have
(29:17):
different types. When they're being trained, they are not being
exposed to a lot of the history, including a lot
of the history that I mentioned, lived experience, voices and stories,
and critically all of this the multitude of different care
approaches that exist beyond the things that we've talked about
(29:41):
that are you know, the frontline. You know what the
system offers, which are hospitalization and medication usually and so again,
not to say that people haven't found those things helpful,
but there are so many different you know, types of therapy,
and then we go beyond the system at all, type
of you know, peer support, grassroots mutual aid. Like I
(30:03):
could give a few examples if that would be interesting.
But to answer your question, people aren't learning a lot
of the ways that we can care for one another
in less harmful, punitive frankly Carcole ways. And so my
understanding is like that that is still true to a
large extent if you're looking at kind of the mainstream
(30:26):
education setting. Certainly some you know, maybe social work programs
are more progressive than others, but you know, having spent
many years also supervising some social work interns and we're
working with them through IDA. I've heard and having just
like I said, I'm not a clinician myself, but having
a lot of clinicians like come to our programs, I
(30:47):
really get the sense that it's there's glimmers of hope, right,
but it's not changed that much. Like if people want
to find out about the more you know, nuanced aspect
of history, are these like quote unquote alternatives And I
put that in quotes because the goal is that there
aren't alternative, right, there's still that's where it is still
(31:08):
operating and kind of a model of resisting like the
biomedical if that makes sense. But all of this to say,
spaces where people can be exposed to these ideas are
still very far and few between. IDA is one of them.
Let me say this, outside of the what I'm kind
of referring to the dominant or like the mainstream education
(31:29):
system for mental health, and I'm talking about providers specifically
in this, I think it's still a.
Speaker 9 (31:35):
Long way to go.
Speaker 8 (31:37):
If you if you look at organizations, grassroots movements and
you know, informal collectives and things like that, nature there's
actually been a lot more in the last decade, So
I think to me, that's where the most promising stuff
is happening. Is just that IDA is one of many
organizations in a wider ecosystem that is offering trainings and
(31:59):
education or free content informational stuff on social media, like
explaining and introducing.
Speaker 9 (32:06):
More people to this.
Speaker 8 (32:07):
So that's how I would answer it is like the
change is happening as.
Speaker 9 (32:11):
It usually does at the grassroots level.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Yeah, well, do you predict with all of the violent
changes that President Trump is introducing, like the reduction of snap,
the impact on medicaid and medicare the executive order? Do
you pretend that this will have a negative impact on
the communities that are or maybe not necessarily or going
(32:38):
to be impacted in the system. Do you think there
is going to be any kind of change or is
it going to stay to say.
Speaker 8 (32:44):
Oh, definitely negative, negative change for sure. And one thing
I want to say to just about like the enforceability
of this. My understanding maybe you can speak to this
is it might be similar to some of the other
executive orders.
Speaker 9 (32:58):
Is just just.
Speaker 8 (32:59):
To frame my understanding, is that something like involuntary commitment measures,
these are controlled at the state level, so you know,
Trump can put out an executive order saying you know,
the intention is for this to be enacted in the
entire country. I believe like this is serious and very
scary because of what it signals to the states, But
(33:20):
it doesn't in and of itself upturn the measures that
are in place at the state level. So I want
to start by just naming that and also just pausing
to ask you is there a similar sense with some
of the other like legislation or executive orders you're familiar with.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Since Grant's Pass has passed, that has overturned the Ninth
Circuit appeal of Boise judgment. The Boise ruling stopped and
slowed down state and cities reactions on aggressively targeting unhouse people.
With Grant's pass as being upheld and unruled, it is
(33:57):
now open season, which is why you see across the
draconian ordnances and laws that are being pitted against dundhouse people.
For example, even though Trump has given that executive order,
he still has the power to go on national public
property and remove unhoused people, which he has done. But
(34:19):
it also gives more inspiration to the cities and states
like Gavin Newsombudo. He's being touted as going toe to
told with Trump, but he sent out an executive order
giving powers to cities and mayors to go aggressively against
dunhouse people. With this Encampment Resolution fund all of these
(34:40):
kind of new laws that they are motivating and inspiring
cities to take up to target on the house people.
So it has a direct impact. This inspiration from the
cities from like say example, Los Angeles, which is forty
one eighteen, coupled with Grant's past now has provided more
inspiration what cities and states just really target unhoused people.
(35:03):
And I can also foresee in the future because when
we go at the mutual Aid like this Saturday, the
increased number of displaced people, the increased number of food
insecure people, the increased number of housing insecure people is
going to balloon to a point where people are going
to have to really evaluate how they treat the poor
(35:26):
of us. You know, you can gauge how a city
or a country treats its poorest citizen and you can
come walk away with understanding the true character of that.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
And right now we have.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
Our whole society really does not give the dignity that
they requires with unhoused community members.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
So I hopefully I answered that question.
Speaker 8 (35:47):
Absolutely no, and you explained it so well. And I
think it's exactly the same as with this executive order
as it kind of impacts communities of people with mental
health challenges, it emboldens the states and cities to follow
the lead right of what this executive order is saying.
So wanted to clarify the piece about kind of like
(36:09):
immediate implications, but certainly what you said is what I
think people in the mad Liberation, disability justice community everyone
is bracing for is exactly as you described. And I
did want to touch on a point that I appreciate
you mentioning as well, about how we see both Trump
having these carcorole draconian policies. And then you mentioned Governor Newsom.
(36:34):
I'll add to the mix of yet another Democratic mayor
or Democratic official, Mayor Eric Adams here in New York
City where I'm based. Yeah, just over the last two years,
basically on the same timeline as what Gavin Newsom's been
doing in California has been I really think it was
the roadmap, in my opinion, that Trump followed for this
(36:54):
executive orders. What's been happening in New York City and
throughout the state of California in terms of the rhetoric
has been the same. So that's the other There's a
few things I'm trying to pull out. One is that
these are bipartisan policies left right, you know, sweeping on
housed communities, people with mental health challenges off the street
(37:15):
is not a matter of Democrat and Republican. So I
appreciate you speaking to that. And then the other pieces
that while yes, what's happening is really scary and it
is totally an escalation of what we've been seeing, it's
not entirely new.
Speaker 9 (37:30):
So people have.
Speaker 8 (37:31):
Been organizing for many years against what's been happening throughout
multiple states, including New York and California. So yeah, I
think there's an opportunity for like, what have we learned
from that? You know, there's a number of activists. I
will give a shout out to folks, you know, from
Disability Rights California who've been resisting the Care Court nonsense
(37:51):
that's happening in California, and then a lot of people
on the ground in New York resisting you know, basically
Eric Adams has also been sweeping on house communities off
the street into psychiatric hospitals for years. That's been his
policy agenda since I think the end of twenty twenty two.
So with that, I think going back a little bit
to your original question, like what will be the impact
(38:12):
just like, undoubtedly worse without question if more and more
people are being brought to psychiatric hospitals and being committed
against their well. Now, there's a lot of impacts and
I won't maybe try to go into all of them,
but as I've said, it will on the whole not
be effective at solving the quote unquote mental health crisis
(38:32):
because what happens, and we know is that people go
into you know, if they go in involuntarily, you can,
you can stay for a limited amount of time and
then you're released, especially if you're coming in, if someone's
brought in from living on the street, where do they
go after? You know, it does not solve This is
the thing that I know that we could talk about,
but we know it's just in the room with us.
(38:55):
This doesn't get at the root issue. These are ineffective
measures and then they are deeply harmful. Are going to
have more trauma more harm and we're not gonna and
just you know, if an economic argument is of interest
anyone wasted resources and not actually solving the problem, which
goes back to the point at hand too, of if
all of that really is where we land when we're
(39:17):
having this conversation, it really can only further show that
this isn't about helping people, you see.
Speaker 9 (39:25):
So, yeah, I agree, I.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
Know you don't, couldn't could say better, And I really
not to beat a dead horse, try and trying to
bring together or crystallize the moment and the point in
the conversation of how they use communities to get their
deeper agenda of harbing people, not really helping them, no
matter if it's unhow it's community members or people that
(39:50):
are suffering from mental challenges or complexities. These things are
used in order to push them into a box or
a corner, to either erase them or to minimize their
presence in society, you know, according to you know, white
supremacist or capitalistic notions of what normalcy is or what
(40:13):
should be pristine, or what should be an idyllic kind
of community, if.
Speaker 8 (40:17):
You will, Yeah, absolutely well said.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
Well, I don't want to hold you completely too long.
But is there anything else that we missed that you
would like to talk on.
Speaker 8 (40:29):
I think one thing that is a through line of
just you and I having this conversation, given you know,
the work that you do and the work that I do,
is I want to put like a I guess a
finer point and maybe hear some more of your thoughts
too about the importance of cross movement organizing in this time.
So I'll share a few thoughts and then I would
(40:50):
love to hear from you on this THEO. When the
executive order came out, it was terrifying, as we've named,
and also I was heartened to see the the volume
of organizations that quickly came back with, you know, statements
condemning it, you know, saying like this is not the way.
And just to name like from a few different movements
(41:12):
or issue areas, you know, mental health organizations, disability rights
and disability justice organizations, harm reduction coalitions, you know, organizations
fighting for rights of unhoused communities, just just to name
a few. And so I think what a moment like
this reveals and I don't necessarily want to make it,
you know, to like crisis opportunity like it is it
(41:34):
is a crisis and it's very scary, but this is
also a bit of an opportunity for us all to
come together because, as we've said, as we're talking, like
there are some parallels that aren't a coincidence about how
you know, my community members, your community members have been
have been treated over not just like the last let's say,
(41:55):
a couple of weeks, months, years, but like generationally throughout
history and the history of this country, and like, yeah,
that's not a coincidence, and we have different wisdom and
lessons learned to pool that will obviously like make us
stronger together. And so maybe that's an initial thought about
this is I just feel very passionate and like, if
(42:17):
there's a place that I can find my hope right now,
it is on this topic of saying, okay, like we
need to be talking to people who are working in
like movements that are maybe not exactly our own. But
at the end of the day, if we are all
those of us, you know, who are oriented towards a
collective liberation, lens that nobody's free until we're all free. Right,
If you're only fighting for the rights of people diagnosed with,
(42:40):
you know, mental health conditions, you're only fighting for the
rights of un house people, like we need to be
fighting for all of us, and so I think this
is a moment where that's more needed than ever. But
like I can see the potential, feel it more than ever.
So I'm curious to hear some of your thoughts on
that too.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I agree with you as well.
Speaker 5 (43:01):
One of the things that I know an initiae in
the infancy of the movements, when the pandemic was happening,
that conversation was floated around, and I think it was
kind of because of the system is so broken, and
there are so many pieces to the broken system that
it's just like, for example, that you have a broken
vase and then you patch it up and you put
(43:23):
water in it, and you're still trying to put the
pieces together. Sometimes it can be overwhelming trying to get
one piece there from there. But what I think what
really is crystallizing the moment, and most recently, is the
conversations and the alarm that's happening with deportations. I think
that has been more violent in your face. Prior to that,
(43:46):
I think the conversations were the moral outrage of what
was going on with Palestine and the gosp conversation and
the abuse and the practices there. And even though in
one of the things that I made, and I wish
I had to take the statement back, but I was
trying to sound the alarmed with the protesters at the time,
(44:07):
like Okay, look in front of you, look around with
the young.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
The house community.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
You have walked past on house people being treated badly
with forty one to eighteen and other demonizing and criminalizing actions,
and we need that kind of, like you say, across cultural,
across movement type of advocacy too, Like when there are sweeps,
we need you to show up and make that staying
(44:33):
loud presence too. What's been going on with the deportations.
I think it just took people back because you you
are seeing violence given by the government and in a
way that you cannot explain it away. You cannot keep
saying that all of these people are criminals, or you
cannot say that a five year old is an MS
(44:55):
was an MS thirteen gang member. It's too much in
your face to see that, and then you having to
face with you're not going to be able to make
your rent. This recent episode I've been doing.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
I did.
Speaker 5 (45:07):
I would south there at Thermo Valley of California, and
these two farms have been shut down because the community,
the undocumented community cannot go to work because they're targeted
or they're afraid to go to work and being snatched
and have their families displaced. More importantly, they're not coming
in to get the food services and resources that they need.
(45:30):
Various more and more unhoused undocumented community members that are
in fear that they're going to be snatched.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Really there's no support to get them back.
Speaker 5 (45:40):
Whereas you have, like when I was pointing out the
undocumented house community, that someone is going to say something
that some lawyer is going to run to their defense.
There's someone that's going to make us think about it.
But when you target people that are on the fields
and they are undocumented and unhoused, that privilege is not
afforded to it. And I wanted to point that out
(46:04):
with this episode and why there's different strategies. If you
hear in an interview, like one of the farm workers
is saying the couple is thinking about one spouse is
quipping the job so to take care of the kids,
and the other one has become the bread whether just
in case they get snatched these kinds of things. If
you're taking people's kids at school, there's only accepted listed
(46:27):
of people that could take the kids. Now they got
to draw up another list just in case both parents
are taking who's going to take care of the kids.
You know, you're leaving kids at home after snatching them,
or you're placing them. So those things. In my interview
with Sonya this week is these real issues are families
are facing, that people are unintended consequences that's going on too.
Speaker 8 (46:49):
I definitely want to listen to that most recent episode
that you did and again bringing in another interconnection of
how all of this can't be this kind of from
what's happening and you know fight for like around immigration
and what's happening with the deportation. So like those of
us who are organizing in our specific areas, it's like
(47:10):
an encouragement to of course just pay attention to what's
happening in the country, but to be looking across movements
and talking to you know, your friends, your comrades who
are who are doing different work and forming more you know,
alliances and building more solidarity because I just think it's
what's so needed right now, and and another thread that
I would pull out to maybe really briefly THEO when
(47:32):
you mentioned Palestine in Gaza. There's one other maybe like term.
I'll introduce it as we come towards the end, this
idea of necro politics, which is you could understand that
is the way that the state has the power to
decide who who lives and who's marked for death. And
so there's you know, a lot of examples that we
(47:54):
can use from just like recent times that we're living
in that demonstrate this idea. You know that policies being
framed as protective or compassionate, but in reality, people's lives,
some people's lives are sacrificed in order to preserve the
safety perceived safety of others. So for example, I bring
in Palestine again because global genocide is being funded by
(48:17):
the United States, and Palestine are an example of that,
as are increased funding for prisons and ice while we're
slashing medicaid and the housing and education and all that.
And we could also talk of course about like the
pandemic responses that left disabled and poor racialized communities to die.
So it's all connected, as I think we know and
(48:41):
are increasingly seeing.
Speaker 5 (48:42):
So yeah, thank you for showing it. It's been my
aim since I've been doing this show to not only
show the issues with houselessness, but how they are it,
to connect it, and which is why I wanted you
on the show. The show to reach out to see
commonalities that we have and sometimes our society don't show
that because we are, you know, sometimes feeling that vase
(49:05):
that's cracked, you know, trying to deal with those subset
of issues, but they are at a whole connected, and
I wanted to continue to do that, reach out to
my existing communities, but also communities that are working side
by side previously with the food justice community. Shout out
to Melissa Sosadero. She and I partnered, She helped helped
(49:28):
me feed the unhoused community during the pandemic, and her
noticing these similarities but also the impact on where she's
dealing with the undocumented community and the undoctumunity on house
community and seeing the connections and asking me to come
out there to see what's going on and how this
with this executive order now, the deportations, each of these
(49:51):
draconian ideals and messages and attempts to erase vulnerable poor people.
It's basically a war on for people financially insecure or
people that are not in a subset of people that
they are trying to make America in a dystopian type
of way.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (50:12):
Absolutely, And I did think of actually one more thing
I could add if there's time for.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
That, which was sure sure on the.
Speaker 8 (50:19):
Point of if anybody's looking for what you can do,
there's hopefully you know, I think there's a lot that
can be done, and just a few things I wanted
to put out there. One is for folks who might
be listening and aren't as familiar with maybe the social
movements that I mentioned, Mad Pride, mad Liberation, disability justice,
I would encourage people to learn more about those histories,
(50:43):
both so that the you know, shared analysis and resistance
that we have can be rooted in that wisdom because
it's been practiced and the fight's been going on for
a very long time, but also because the community care
practices that are now more needed than ever. Right when
you think about the dismantling of services and slashing medicaid,
(51:08):
many communities have had no choice but to care for
each other outside of systems due to their violence and
for a long time. But this is a time where
all of us would do well to understand, like how
we can take care of ourselves and each other outside
of systems. So looking up things just to name a few,
like about pod mapping, mad mapping, looking up things like
(51:30):
pure respite centers which are alternatives to hospitalization. There are
a lot of services that are out there, services in
and outside the system, but especially outside the system, that
I would just encourage folks to learn more about so
that you can if you need to care for yourself,
if you need to care for your community, just to
be kind of equipped with a little bit more of
that knowledge. And then, like I said, attributing it to
(51:53):
the mad and disabled people who created all of these practices.
Speaker 9 (51:56):
Out of survival.
Speaker 8 (51:57):
So if you want to learn morea one place that
you can learn more about that, But there's many other organizations.
Speaker 9 (52:04):
And that's what I wanted to end.
Speaker 8 (52:06):
With us, a little bit of maybe where you can
go from here.
Speaker 9 (52:10):
One idea perfect.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
Thank you very much, mis Roth, and I hope everyone
learned something today.
Speaker 9 (52:17):
Thank you again just so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (52:25):
Thank you so much to Jesse for her time and
her work, which you can learn more about at the
links in the description, thank you all for listening to
another dynamic episode of Weedian House. If you have a
story you'd like to share, please reach out to me
at weediandhousat gmail dot com or weedian House on Instagram.
(52:45):
Until then, may we again meet in the light of understanding.
Weedian House is a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted,
and created by me, theo Hendersons, Jamie Loftus, Hailey Fager,
Katie Fischer, and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam Want,
(53:08):
our engineer is Joel Jerome, and our local art is
also by Katie Fisher.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Thank you for listening.
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