Unhoused Votes Matter

Ahead of the election, Theo dives deep into why the unhoused vote is so crucial with Dr. Caitlin Krenn. Also, Theo speaks with Oregon-based activist Jetty about how Grants Pass legislation is already affecting the intensity of sweeps across the country.

Follow Jetty here: 

https://www.instagram.com/junkartlady/ https://www.instagram.com/barefootdefenders/
Follow Dr. Krenn here: 

https://www.caitlinkrenn.com/ 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:06):
When you're talking about young people and homelessness, I think
there's a different approach to take and recognize that it
is a thing that is happening.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I want more visibility.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
We can end youth homelessness, and that's preventing people from
ending up in the adult system, and those numbers can
keep going down.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
What we as advocates are trying to say is we
have been given some resources in the youth system. We
have some intentionality, really thought about this and I made
some progress, but we need more, Like can you imagine
the impact that we would have if the youth system
was actually funded the way that it should be funded,
because it's been underfunded for a long time.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
Welcome to Whedian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson. To
criminalize and to dehumanize, that is the question of this episode.
But first Unhoused News. Our first story takes us to

(01:22):
Fort Lauderdale, Florida. On October one, twenty twenty four, a
new ordinance against the young house, preventing them from sleeping
in parks, on sidewalks, and in other public places, went
into effect. It is now against the law to be
unhoused in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Dade County, as well

(01:44):
as other parts of Florida. Governor Ron Decentis lauded this measure,
saying we must think about public safety. Neon housed will
be arrested if found sleeping in public. There are currently
sixteen hundred unhoused people around Fort Lauderdale, and this was
before Hurricane Milton hit Florida. While Fort Lauderdale wasn't directly impacted,

(02:07):
they may be indirectly impacted by the number of people
leaving impacted areas. This is a developing story and we
will keep you updated. Our next story takes us to Tucson, Arizona,
where another horror story is unfolding. Dozens of unhoused residents

(02:28):
at Santa Rita Park Encampment were swept on September twenty fifth.
Many of the unhoused have stated they had no idea
where they're going to go. With Grant's paths looming large
over the country, this measure seems to be spreading like
a virus. The city claims the residents are refusing services,

(02:49):
but the residents state the requirements of shelter are unreasonable.
Many of the residents have pets and the shelter stay
is only three days before you move back onto the street. Meanwhile,
in California Beach City, near the Mexican border, sewage is

(03:10):
causing major hardship for both houses and unhoused people. The
smells alone can knock the most hearty of marine animals.
Heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and bacteria including E. Coli, has
been detected in the water, according to a San Diego
State University report released last month. Researchers call the contamination

(03:35):
a public health crisis. Over the last five years, over
one hundred billion gallons of untreated sewage has flowed through
Mexico's Tijuana River and into the Pacific Ocean, contaminating the air, water,
and the soil, imposing environmental and public health risk. Our

(03:56):
final story farm worker activists the Loris World, who co
founded the movement along with brother in law Caesar Chavez,
is officially endorsing Mayor London Brieve, who is aggressively targeting
the unhoused. This is a clear example of being invested

(04:16):
in one's own oppression and their legacy for creating justice
and equal rights for displaced people in her time is
called into question, and that's in house news when we
come back, we'll explore the topic of criminalizing and demonizing
unhouse people.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Welcome back to Weedi in House.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Today we're going to listen to a first hand account
from a resident from Portland, Oregon who's being criminalized for
helping the unhoused community.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Please welcome Chatty. I'm so glad we finally connected and
finally got on the show.

Speaker 4 (05:01):
I was worried that we'ld never get a chance to
do this. Thank you for taking the time to talk
with us. So tell us a little bit about yourself
and then we can take the conversation to the next level.

Speaker 5 (05:12):
So my name is Jay If. I'd moved to Eugene,
organ almost three years ago, and I've been doing homeless
outreach or mutual aid. I don't know. I don't exactly
know what I would call what I do, but it's
along those lines. I've been doing it for about a
solid year now, like really hard here. I've been criminalized

(05:35):
for helping folks and I'm currently fighting seven charges in
court right now, all related to helping unhouse folks here.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
It's against the law to help unhouse people there in
organ tell us because I'm new to it. Every place
has their own evil kind of way of dealing with
people that care or want to do something to help
the unhouse.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
So what's going on here?

Speaker 5 (06:00):
Well, so the city of Eugene is actually has the
highest homeless population per cap but in the United States
of America, So that's something really important to remember. We've
got lots of house folks here, and they like to
charge us with things like disorderly conduct, trust passing, violation
of park rules, and that is like how they've gone

(06:21):
about criminalizing and house folks here. The particular folks that
I work with typically live along the railroad tracks. So
anytime we're going and doing outreach where you're taking that
risk of getting trespassed tickets. So that's kind of how
they've got me in is like, oh, well, you're treuspassing
because you're on the railroad. My first ticket i'd actually

(06:43):
ever gotten as an adult, really ever, I've never really
been in trouble was I was ticketed on January tenth.
I was going out to check on this particular camp
that I am really close with, right as this icetorm
was starting. Last year in the PNW. It was really
really bad ice storm. My family was without power for

(07:06):
twelve days. Our tree, we have a big, beautiful oak
tree in the backyard. It fell, and it was really horrible,
was hitting our house, like people died during the ice storm.
And so I was going out just to check and
make sure everyone understood, like the magnitude of this ice
storm and what it was supposed to be, like, make
sure they had the things they needed. So I was
bringing out real pain and things like that. And I

(07:28):
found my friend who is seventy she was seventy three
at the time. She's had a stroke and she has
like a bunch of cats and she loves them, and
she would rather be out on the streets with all
of her kiddies than in a home. When I found her,
her tent had collapsed and she was laying under a
tarp and she had blue lips. And I was like,

(07:50):
You're not going to bed like this tonight, girl. I'm
going to go home. I'm going to get whatever I
can out of my house to bring to you to
keep you warm and keep you alive during the ice storm.
And went back to check on them the next day
and bring propane out. And that's when I got my
first dress pass ticket.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
So they wag too like a natural disaster delay and
wait to ticket people. That's horrible.

Speaker 5 (08:13):
Yeah, it was horrible, and they did horrible things. They
came out, they slashed people's tarps. They tried to drin
somebody's generator of their oil.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
They tried to remove the oil out of someone's generator
because I know if someone has have generators to keep
things going, and or like they have me have a
seapap machine or something like that going, or even just
you know, just trying to keep things bearable out on
an unbearable situation.

Speaker 5 (08:37):
So yeah, yeah, this particular person lets people plug in
and keep things charged and keeps people warm and all
of that. So yeah, they tried to drain that generator
of its oil. One person did leave the tracks that
day and he found a spot underneath some stairs and
apparently like there's a little board that slides so we

(09:00):
could go in and out that got frozen solid. And
he was trapped under these stairs for four days with
no food, no water, no heat, and he.

Speaker 6 (09:09):
Thought that was it.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
He thought that was it. And it was because they
left when the police told them to. And this is
a typical thing here in Eugenius. They will wait till
right before some sort of a storm or really really
bad weather to sweep people. And it's because they won't
have to store their items. If things are dirty, if
they're wet, they've got like a whole restriction of things

(09:30):
they don't have to store. But if they're dirty and wet,
then they don't have store anything. And so they love
to sweep people right before really horrible weather.

Speaker 4 (09:40):
Because there's a high population of unhoused people. Do you
have your share of what we call here nimbi'st people
that we call nine in my backyard running up on
unhouse people, harassing them and things like that.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
So what are those experiences like there?

Speaker 6 (09:54):
Yeah, they're horrible.

Speaker 5 (09:55):
So for me, I've gone out and stayed in camps
just so that I can be a better megaphone for
the people and so that I know you know how
to be that megaphone for them. And so my first
experience was nine days on the railroad tracks. And in
one of my I do a lot of tiktoks, and
so in one of my videos, I talk about how
I felt like we were at a zoo, only we

(10:17):
were the animals and people were looking in at us.
It was really bad. I've also stayed in places where
we've had trucks come out in the middle of the night,
flash their lights get us, and red their engines at us.

Speaker 6 (10:29):
And it's really scary.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
Because I'm looking around like, okay, well if they charge us,
where are we gonna go. People will like bring their
trucks out and they'll reb their engines, and like one
time when I was out there, this truck was doing
that and I started freaking out, like where are we
going to go if this truck comes at us? And
there was nowhere. We were surrounded by tents, and it
was really scary. People will bring their dogs out to

(10:52):
camps and have their dogs attack unhoused folks. I probably
meet a new person every week who's been hit by
a car on purpose. They drove away. Those people went
to the hospital for a day or two and then
were released right back to the streets. People will pee
on their tents like it's just really vile. You know,

(11:14):
they have all of these, like you know, things coming
at them, whether it's the city or the police or
the Nimbi's Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
You mentioned you've been doing tiktoks about the situation, this
activism that you are doing when did it start? Because
I know you said you just moved here recently in Oregon.
What made you compelled you to do this kind of thing?

Speaker 5 (11:35):
I think I've always just been really compassionate for folks
that I've seen out on the streets. I'm from a
little town in Southeastidaho where we don't have many on
house folks, but whenever I did see them, I'd be like, Mom,
can we get them some food or can we help them?
And so it's always been there. And then I would
come to Eugene and I would visit my sister here,

(11:57):
and I would always try to go out and do
some sort of outreach or some sort of distro to
unhoused folks. And one night actually spent an evening with
a group of people who were like sitting on the
streets and they had a guitar and I was like,
can I just like hang out with you guys?

Speaker 6 (12:13):
And they were like yeah.

Speaker 5 (12:14):
So I spent hours that night just hanging out with them,
asking for money, singing songs, and like getting to know them,
asking them their stories. I met a man who had
been traveling through He got some sort of a ticket,
got put on probation and was stuck in Eugene and
was homeless because of that. His name was Matt Bowles.

(12:35):
He was really cool. I really liked him. But he
really started something in me that was just like, there's
so much more to what we think we know about
being in house and so that was kind of like
really where it started for me was like I want
to remind these people that they're important, that if they're valuable,
that they're worthy of taking up space, and I want
to know their stories, and I just I want to

(12:56):
fight for them.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
Let me ask you something, because I have been informed
and I want to make sure to get this clear.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Grant's pass.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Oregon had a ruling and it was by the Oregon
Law Center that filed a ruling. But what do you
think generated for them to file this ruling? Why did
they file it to the Supreme Court? Because it sounds
like this has been ongoing and it wasn't. It just
didn't happen out of nowhere all of a sudden they
decide to file a lawsuit. But what was going on

(13:25):
that made them do this in the first place.

Speaker 5 (13:28):
So I don't actually know a lot about Grant's past.
I just I think people are really hateful and really
like they don't have the patience to understand or the
care to want to sit down and try to figure
out a better solution.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
What is it? Do you believe the city misunderstands about
the young house and the criminalization factor? You think there's
any resolution, positive resolution that could be coming from all
of this heavy handed approach.

Speaker 5 (13:54):
I mean, I think the only positive thing that will
come of it is that maybe we can get more intention,
get more people mad enough to stand up and say, like,
this is so gross and so inhumane that now we're
going to stand up and say something too, because it's
gross and it's vile, and it's so cruel and inhumane
how they're treated. Some of these people are, you know,

(14:14):
the kindest people I've ever met and would do anything
to help you. You know, Like these people have like
fed me, They've kept me warm, They've taken care of me.
I have shelves of gifts they give me, they call,
they check in on me. Like I truly love so
many of the people out there, and I think that
if the city were to just chill out and like

(14:35):
meet them and listen to their stories and understand, like
survival is not fun, It's not pretty. It's it's frustrating
because people need things to survive, and so those things
are going to be taken. And I think that's a
huge issue that the city has, is like all of
these businesses are getting upset because they're losing items that

(14:58):
people are taking. We have these walking, living, talking, breathing
billboards saying obey or this will be you. And so
finding an absolute solution would actually not be beneficial because
you know, then the city's not going to have those
those billboards and those those scare tactics to keep people complacent.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Very true.

Speaker 4 (15:20):
When you were talking last about the sweep that you
guys underwent in July, do you think that had a
lot to do with Grant's pass ruling, Because I've noticed
an uptick not just in Oregon and where I'm at,
And like I just did an episode on Elmonte and
I mentioned what they were targeting, and then naturally they

(15:40):
used to do the sweeps near the holidays here and
they just decided during this hottest week that they could
possibly find to do the sweep and they were adamant
about it, and they were they didn't postpone it like
the city postponing, but the County didn't They just so
gung hole did make sure that they displaced people and

(16:00):
also wrapped it up to saying that they would want
to rest on house people if they came back to
those places.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
So do you think that that played a hand into it?
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (16:08):
That was hard to say, because this sweep has been
They've been really trying hard to get it going since January,
and we found like loopholes to try to like prolong it.
And I think that they really disliked that it was
almost like this camp of resistance and that really just
didn't sit well with them. I can't say whether or

(16:30):
not it had to do with Grant's pass versus Johnson,
but like I do think like it's gotten worse progressively
worse over the summer, probably due to that. Like I
think they have a little more like, yeah, we could
do whatever we want to you now.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
Well, the reason I'm saying that is because it's not
I don't think it was an accident.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Because you're in Oregon.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
They were hamstrong initially, and then when Grant's passed ruling happened,
there's been people here that governor as well as a
couple of the mayors we're excited starting these aggressive sweeps
and saying that they're going to keep them up.

Speaker 5 (17:06):
Yeah, I'm seeing like a lot of things happening in
cities around Eugene, like long lasting camps that were allowed
to be in these like certain certain pieces of land.
I'm seeing those be moved. And for example, there's a
little place about thirty minutes from us called the Cottage Grove.
There were two spaces where people could camp. They displaced

(17:28):
them all and said, you guys can relocate over here
into this dog park. They had dog kennels set up,
like big chaining dog kennels set up for people to
go and move into. We're seeing like Roseberg just did
a big, big sweep, Clackamiss just did a big sweep.
Then they're giving them these pieces of land, but they're
like really ridiculous things like you can only come from

(17:50):
seven pm to seven am. You have to move every day,
you know, and you have to move between this piece
of land and this piece of land. It's really weird
and confusing, and it's just you know, trying to like
dishuffle people and keep them in this like constant trauma response.
But we're not seeing that in your gene. There's no

(18:11):
spot for people to legally put up a tent in
this city.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
How are they going to survive? Then? Where did they go?
That's the next question I would like to know.

Speaker 5 (18:20):
That's one of the things I ask every single time
I have the opportunities. Where do they go? Where do
they go? Where do we go? When I'm out there
with them? We don't know, they don't know. The shelters
here are ran by mainly Saint Vincent de Paul, and
so I've actually never gone and stayed at one. I've
talked about it, and I get told by my friends

(18:40):
on the streets, do not do that. It's not safe
for you. I'm getting phone calls of like, Jenni, these
are what's happening to me in this shelter. They're really bad.
I don't really want to talk about it out loud
because I'm scared, you know, Like these guys are a
big entity here and there's a lot of money involved.
But I can say I really like to find out

(19:00):
how to get them audited.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Interesting.

Speaker 5 (19:03):
Most of the time, they've come up with this little
app where you can put in you know, like if
you have pets, if you have children, if you use drugs,
all of these things, and you can find a shelter
and typically there's like nine beds available. Most of them
are at the mission. The mission has a lot of

(19:23):
requirements to stay in, one that you have to take
part in their programs. You can't go in as a
couple and stay together, like real dehumanizing situations. And I
don't blame people for not staying in.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
Those sounds like they have some universal things that goes
on there that that goes on here as well. And
how do you deal with the narrative that unhoused people
don't want help because you just explain some of the difficulties.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Do you hear people saying that on house people don't
want help because.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
You guys, like you said, I have a very high
capital fun house people there. You know, I'm sure there's
an explanation where there's some observations going on there.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
Yeah, I mean, I think that they're all people, and
so they all have different reasons and different wants. A
lot of them would like help, but they don't want
to feel like they're going to go to prison, which
is what these shelters are kind of referred to. I
know a few people recently who've been housed. They get
put in like these little janky hotel rooms, and that's

(20:31):
housing where we have like Condostoga huts around, but they're cold,
they're just they're not housing. You know. There are some
people who probably have a little more pride, were actually
like living out on the streets. They just wish they'd
leave them alone.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
You know.

Speaker 5 (20:48):
Like there's one man named Todd out here, and he
built this beautiful two story home on the tracks. He
thought he was allowed to be out there because business
people were bringing him hardware so we could finish this
really house. He's been on the news and stuff. He
loves keeping his Sarah tidy. He likes to just be
left alone. He had little gardens out there, like and

(21:09):
Toadd is one of those people that I don't think
he wants really any help. He just wanted to be
left alone. So I just think it just depends on
who you're talking to.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
If people are listening in Oregon, now, what would be
the message that in order to deal with the unhoused
crisis that's going on there, what would that message be?

Speaker 5 (21:28):
I would just say, like, you're not alone, don't give up,
remember that you are a human and you are valuable,
and you were loved and you were cared about. And
there are people out here who are trying to fight.
Record the freaking cops, record the city because half the
sweeps they are doing is illegal. You know, like reach
out to people. Usually they're going to be like leftist

(21:50):
leaning organizations that are going to want to help fight
for you and fight against this. And I don't know,
I just just hang in there. You're not alone.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Well, I think I've asked most of the question. Is
there anything that I missed that you want to point out?

Speaker 5 (22:05):
I think that it just needs to be more attention
brought to the City of Eugene because we have the
highest homeless population for captain in the United States of America,
and they have an extremely large budget set aside just
for this year alone. It's like nineteen point six million dollars,
and it's like, where the heck is this money going?
Like where is this money going? And we need to

(22:27):
put pressure on the city, and we need to put
pressure on Saint Vincent de Paul and the way that
they're running these shelters, Like these things are really important
to talk about. So also, you know, there's a group
of us who are who are fighting a lot of
charges in court. So if anyone's got some money for
a lawyer and wants to throw it our way, we
could really use that here because it's just going to

(22:49):
keep getting worse for us, and some of us will
not stop fighting for it.

Speaker 4 (22:53):
Sounds like the topic of house blessiness is a pernicious
thing that needs to be tackled. I was going to say,
what to off with this conversation is what is it
that you would like to be remembered for after all
of this? What would you like your audience or the
people in Oregon to know who you are.

Speaker 5 (23:12):
I'm just the person who really cares about human beings
and the way that they're treated. I'm not like some
criminal that's going to like go out and burn the
town down or anything. I'm just I'm just a normal
person that wants people to be treated right. If people
are hearing this and they feel like they they need

(23:35):
defense or whatever, I'm with a group called the Barefoot Defenders.
You can find us on Facebook and Instagram. You can
send us a message. There's not a lot of us,
so it's hard to get to everybody, but we are
around and we do try our hardest to respond to
everybody's messages.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yes, I think that we'll do.

Speaker 5 (23:55):
Okay, I have one favor to ask of you. My
darling friend makes is totally like geeking out about this,
So shout out to Mickey for me. That'd be so cool.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
Sure, this is a shout out to Mickey Jetty's friend.
I thank you for listening, and I hope we hopefully
meet when I go to Oregon and meet in the.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Light of understanding. Have a good all right, Thank you
very much, Yick.

Speaker 5 (24:20):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
Thanks to Jety for sharing her experience and you can
find her work on Instagram at junk Art Lady and
Barefoot Defenders, which you follow at the links in the description.
And when we come back, we're going to explore voting,
how it affects the unhoused, and how to rectify some
obstacles that unhouse people face.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Welcome back. This is Ceo Henderson with Weedy and House.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
If you've been following along, our ongoing theme is tackling
the criminalizing and dm of a vulnerable population in our country.
Vian House with us today is doctor Caitlin Krann, a
professor at NYU.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Let's welcome her to the show.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
I wanted to take the time to thank you for
reaching out to me. I was surprised that, you know,
New York is listening in to Weedian House, so that
was really awesome as well.

Speaker 7 (25:20):
So yes, and I've recommended your podcast in different classes
that I've taught or assistant taught and to different folks
that I've worked with. I highly recommend your podcast all
the time, and so this is a real honor, and
especially as I am trying to really elevate this work
as the election is steadfastly approaching, I am very appreciative

(25:43):
of any opportunity to kind of chat about it a
little bit. So thank you so much for the opportunity
as well, and I'm.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
So glad that you are covering it.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
A few years ago, during the height of the pandemic,
I did have kind of a message trying to get
the community of the world or to be understand that
there are unhouse people that are tapped into what's going
on in the political process, and also to encourage unhoused
people to take the range by the hand, if you will,
because there were so many ordinances and so many hostile

(26:13):
things that are against them. It kind of beats the
spirit of people that are on the street because they
feel like things can't change or things that won't change.
And I tell them all the time, which we say
in the black community, if voting was not voluable, it
was not you know, important or vital, they wouldn't be

(26:34):
fighting against you voting. They would not do all of
these suppression tactics. They it's just simply not true so
much it would be it would be that they would
just say, well, it doesn't matter, I don't have to
I don't care if you vote or not.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
I'm just going to do what I want to do.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
And it's like, and I think so sometimes in our
communities we get beaten down by the hostility and the
ranges tactics of hostility that it could make us lose
sight or make us give up hope. In that respect,
you know, we must utilize every two that we have.
But I'm preaching to the choir, I feel so well.

Speaker 7 (27:10):
I mean, you most certainly are, But you make so
many wonderful points in what's coming up for me.

Speaker 6 (27:14):
And why this work is so important is.

Speaker 7 (27:16):
Because I always say, even though, as we know, the
way that the democratic system is supposed to work is
that an elected official is supposed to represent all of
their constituents. But the way that our political system works
at the end of the day, because it is politics
after all, right, is that really you represent who votes
for you and who has put you in place, who
what our interests are driven? As an elected official, what

(27:39):
interests are driven? And what constituencies do you have to
keep happy? And so if the unhoused population is not
one of those constituencies, if we are not a force
to be reckoned with at the ballot box, then why
what motivates that candidate to not only posture like housing
and homelessness is important to them, but actually to execute

(27:59):
on interventions that are important.

Speaker 6 (28:02):
However, I always talk.

Speaker 7 (28:03):
About this in the cyclical nature of how, of course
the chicken or the egg situation with all of this,
because so many folks that are un housed, whether that's
sheltered or unsheltered. I always say, if anyone who's taken
us like one oh, one course or something might have
heard of Abraham Maslow and its higher exactly, and when
your basic human needs are unmet, when you don't know

(28:27):
where you're going to sleep that night, or you haven't
eaten in a couple of days, maybe you have your
kids with you, all these kinds of things you're not
thinking about voting and executing on the vote and where
you registered to vote and are you registered to vote?
And so that's what my work is about, really, is
about trying to empower providers and systemic structures to bring

(28:48):
the tools and the information to the community so that
people can execute on their essential rights so we can
get needs met in the big broad scheme.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
If you're listening in, we are having a very dynamic
guest today, doctor Caitlin Crinn and she is a professor
at New York. You have your New York University sweatshirt
on right, should represent yes, and we are talking about
the very important issue about voting, the unhoused community, their

(29:22):
issues and how to keep them engaged or get them engaged.
So how did you get involved with this conversation with
the unhouse community.

Speaker 7 (29:30):
Yeah, So, as you just mentioned, my affiliation with MYU,
I'm a doctoral was a doctoral student I'm getting used
to saying was because I just graduated in May and
have taught throughout that process, have been involved in homelessness
policy courses and other things within the School of Social Work,
and prior to going back to school. I was a

(29:52):
practitioner for almost a decade. I'm a licensed clinical social worker,
and among other sectors of the field, I were in
family homelessness. I was managing family homeless shelters at the
height of the pandemic and during the last presidential election.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
And how was that to manage that during the time
of COVID nineteen. I'm sure you have some interesting stories
to tell on that.

Speaker 7 (30:15):
It most certainly was a really interesting and fascinating time when,
as everyone can imagine, there was so much confusion fear,
you know, around the pandemic, which was already so complicated,
and then you add in the layered and complex adversity,

(30:36):
that layers of adversity that so many folks that are
unhoused are dealing with as is, you know, and so
the complicating nature of how challenging that was. It was
quite an experience. But I will say one of the
things that was the biggest, boldest experience to come out
of that that ended up ultimately shifting what I wanted

(30:56):
to focus on for the remainder of my career was
during the twenty twenty election and census taking process, because
of course that was also the census.

Speaker 6 (31:04):
Taking time, it.

Speaker 7 (31:06):
Became clear to me how much misinformation and disinformation there
was around voting and executing on the vote, registering to
vote while people are experiencing homelessness while they were living
in the shelter, and there was more conversation about it
because of the pandemic, and because the absentee ballots were
being mailed out to residents, all these kinds of things,
and so we were actually explaining to folks in the

(31:30):
shelter at our community meetings and in our individual conversations
and case managerial meetings and things like this that you're
going to receive if you are registered to vote, You're
going to receive your absentee ballot in the mail in
our mailing system, all the mailboxes as you can imagine,
in the shelter. And it became very clear very quickly
that people did not know that they were able to vote,

(31:54):
so much misinformation and disinformation. People saying, well, if I'm
not renting a property, pay a mortgage, paying a property taxes,
or something like that, I'm I'm not eligible to vote,
or if this isn't a permanent address, you know, or
for folks that were unsheltered, this was a lot of
work that I was doing at the time, it was
within the shelter and so a lot of the work

(32:15):
and the research that came out of it is more
around sheltered homelessness.

Speaker 6 (32:19):
I'm sure your listeners are very familiar with this.

Speaker 7 (32:22):
But in New York City there's a lot more sheltered
homelessness than there is folks that are unsheltered.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
And it partly, perhaps if I may interject this, because
of the weather considerations we're here in Los Angeles. Even
though the unhoused higher rate of hypothermia here, it's just
not considered the same. There's a little bit more of
a built in program for them to not freeze to
death outside, where conversely, we're here in Los Angeles, we
haven't caught up with the empathy part of keeping unhoused

(32:50):
people in a place that they can be safe and
shelter in.

Speaker 7 (32:54):
So yes, well, I mean unfortunately and did not at
all to dismiss that, But the shelter system is very complicated, and.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
So I'm glad you said that was my lead in
to see what you was going to say, so right.

Speaker 7 (33:10):
Right, and also as it's very much so has its flaws.
So when we're talking about safety and whether that's physical
health and well being, whether that's interpersonal you know, safety
and things like that. I don't want to overstate something,
but I once read and do uh, I'll have to

(33:30):
get back to you on what the source of this
was that statistically speaking, shelters are the next most dangerous
place to reside in an institutionalized setting after prison.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Well that's not shocking ye at all.

Speaker 6 (33:44):
Right for those suit these systems.

Speaker 7 (33:46):
But yeah, so New York City has what's called a
right to shelter, so everybody who comes into the intake
system will be given somewhere to sleep, regardless of there
is no explicit capacity. If every single bed in every
single shelter in New York City is full, then what
the city will do is then pay for hotels or

(34:07):
something of that nature to find another solution.

Speaker 6 (34:10):
And so this is why right now one of.

Speaker 7 (34:12):
The biggest issues with sheltered homelesses in New York City
is the migro crisis because a lot of people come
to New York City. And that's true not just of
the mining crests in this current moment, but people just
might come from all other areas of the country or
what have you because New York City will give you
a bed. And so I would have clients, for example,
residents and folks I worked with who came from Philly,

(34:35):
for example, to New York City, because in Philadelphia you
would have to stand outside online every day, outside the
shelter and possibly not even get in when all done.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
Yeah, yeah, and you have to get there very early.
You have to you know, go through some hoops and yeah,
when I stayed when I was unsheltered on housed in Texas,
they have that or your meeting in places that are
very draconian and how they deal with the house's crisis,
which naturally makes people want to go where people are
unless draconian, if you will end sheltering on house people right.

Speaker 7 (35:10):
And then the other complicated issue as well is that
it's snowballs from there.

Speaker 6 (35:15):
Right.

Speaker 7 (35:15):
So, if you have to spend your whole afternoon and
evening waiting online to get into the shelter, what are
the things that you're not doing. You're not able to
look for a job, you're not able to if you're
looking to advance your education or what have you, you can
be taking courses in the evening, things of that nature.
If you're a parent, and you're experience. You know, you

(35:35):
can't be going to school events to be involved in
you know, the events or the pta or what have you,
which many many of our on house families in New
York City are very involved in those ways and want
to be doing those things, and I really greatly appreciate
that we are able to offer shelter in that way
to families individuals. It's a little bit different of a system.

(35:59):
There's different tiers of what shelter looks like and what
those requirements are in New York City. But so to
kind of circle back, and I'm so sorry, I go
on a bunch of different tangents and offshoots because there's
just so much material in this experience and in this
work there and everything is so interconnected and layered. So

(36:19):
I apologize, But so to go back, So there was
so much misinformation and disinformation, and as I continue to
do research trying to find out what has the census
looked like in this area historically, you know, what does
that process look like logistically and administratively? Does the system
deal with this? We already have the pit the point

(36:41):
in time count. We take a daily census, and we
have everyone's information logged in our system.

Speaker 6 (36:46):
Is that something that's just communicated with the Census.

Speaker 7 (36:48):
Bureau to ensure accuracy and to eliminate barriers for our clients,
or we have to go around door knocking during a
pandemic and saying, have you built out the census?

Speaker 3 (36:59):
You know.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
One of a couple of things that we were mentioning
that I want to ask too, because you mentioned something
earlier and I wanted to, but I kind of got
off track, is that many of the information that unhouse
people that are hearing about the conversation when voting, And
I was wondering, do you think I was influenced by
because I know, as unhoused people, we have run into

(37:22):
the scorn of Nimbi's and that's the acronym of not
in my backyard, particularly here, and a lot of times
that you hear Nimbi's that running around prattling that they
pay taxes, they have homes, they have businesses, they don't
want their children to see these poor people. And a
lot of times unhoused people can internalize that, not understanding

(37:44):
that they do pay taxes even though that they're on
the street. Not only that they also have children that
are in house. We have a high number of children
here in Los Angeles particularly that are on house. To
add to that, when I was doing some of the
outreach and to having the conversation, and again there's so
much that's going on. We mentioned about Abraham Maslow's hierarchy

(38:05):
of needs. The thing of it is that so many
things are bombarding their time or taking over their time.
That is very difficult, and it's easier to sum up
that it's not going to make a difference if you're
looking on the scale of immediacy. Voting is like the
long game kind of conversation. You are looking to evaluate,
looking to weigh in people's platforms. And I'll give you

(38:27):
and hate to give you this example with the conversation
with Trump and common errors. This is so much outside
the realm of political reality. With Trump, every hit that
you is so out preposterous, it's so racist, it's so
hateful that you cannot help but at least hear some

(38:49):
kind of trash talking point he has. Conversely, when you're
hearing any other conversation, you're hearing people talk negatively about
the other opponent, and so it is like it's not
always the easiest way to make a choice. Well, you know,
if you like the orange guy, you'll join Orange guy
because he speaks to what you're saying. But if you

(39:09):
have much more subtle type of candidates or candidacies that
are focusing only on a certain slice of people that
they believe that they're going to get elected by, they're
going to be tailoring to them and excluding unhoused people,
do you just get your insight on that?

Speaker 6 (39:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (39:25):
Absolutely, Well, you bring up so many really important points.
Something that was coming up for me as you were
speaking is I don't refer to my work largely as
civic engagement. I refer to it as civic empowerment because,
as we keep talking about, a very common theme is
the consideration that we as providers and folks that do

(39:46):
any kind of outreach, even if this is a traditional
voter registration group, something that is a constant consideration or
needs to be is the layered, complex and compound adversity
that so many members of this community are experienced and
saying just by virtue of being unhoused. And then you
think about all of the layered discrimination and disenfranchisement that

(40:06):
people have often faced in order to get there in
the first place, right. So all this to say, this
work isn't just about engaging someone and saying, here are
you're rights, here's your information, go execute on this. But
the work really, my work really targets providers wanting to say,
there's more to the work than that, And that's that
empowerment piece, because there is a rise in this country

(40:30):
in general to the point that you're making about the
different candidates. And I always say my work although I'm
not a five oh one three c which is a
sanctioned nonprofit, although that's not what I do as in
my capacity as a personal consultant and researcher doing this work,
but there are many of the organizations I work for.
For example, today I was training an organization staff on

(40:52):
how to register folks to vote who are experiencing homelessness.
And they are if I want through see, meaning that
they can't have any kind of a political preference or party
or what have you.

Speaker 6 (41:02):
And so what I always talk about is.

Speaker 7 (41:05):
How are we talking about housing in the context of
the election, and how are we utilizing and elevating our voices.
I always talk about candidates in terms of how housing
forward are they, you know, And I always say this
is a priority, of course of this population, but honestly
of broader Americas. We're facing the largest housing affordability crisis

(41:27):
since the Great Depression. And all this to say there's
a rise in general in voter apathy. It's that much
more pronounced when folks are unhoused for all the reasons
that we've talked about, complex and compound trauma and adversity, discrimination, racism,
prejudices that people have experienced for the duration of their
whole lives. Many people, and so folks come to this

(41:52):
conversation like why should I care about a system that
doesn't care about me? And so you're absolutely right when
you said that this is the long game. And that's
why I talk about that chicken or the egg situation,
saying that until the unhoused population are forced to be

(42:13):
reckoned with at the ballot box, I don't necessarily believe
that all of a sudden there's just going to be
this altruistic phenomenon where everybody transitions to wanting to really
meaningfully invest resources and interventions in solving problems that they
largely can ignore if they so choose while holding political office.

(42:38):
And so that is that's a big part of why
that empowerment piece is so important to me, and so
when it comes to housing forward candidates, it's very interesting.
I actually just learned something prior to this conversation, just
moments before, honestly, I was someone had sent to me
that Google and Microsoft are all in on their political

(42:59):
contribution for Kamala Harris. And that's very interesting because thinking
about these large corporations and how people kind of think
about how Because Donald Trump postures as a, you know,
a really successful businessman, and that's how a lot of
America conceptualizes him. People think that it will be better
for the economy and better for them personally. But what

(43:19):
we know by you know, Nobel laureates and Nobel laureate
economists have said that his policies will tank the economy,
and that is something that's true when you bring housing
into the conversation as well, talking about the affordability crisis,
and I think that that's really interesting to see those
those big entities kind of all in for the candidate
that you wouldn't assume big entities, multi billion dollar you know,

(43:43):
corporations would be all in for. And so that's something
that I want to elevate as well because it's worthwhile
to think about to think about that.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
Well, let me ask this question, because I know there
are cynicisms that's in the movements that have this belief
system the Master's twos will not dismantle from the Master's
House or it won't be done. What would your position
be when you hear people say that, you know it's
not going to change any saying the system needs to
be torn down, which is true in some respect, but

(44:16):
right now it leads me in sometimes in a conversational
quandary because we just cannot land on that explanation point
in my opinion, because there's a certain cynic system, but
there's also a certain arrogance to that, because I used
to as an other house person get annoyed with that.
So you're saying, I'm just supposed to not vote or
not be clued into my own extermination. I can just

(44:38):
allow them to continue to exterminate me, because we need
the system to broke breaking down, and you just, you know,
we just keep it going. Maybe we don't have the
stronger political systems yet in place, but we're just supposed
to hold on vote, vote for a cause that's going
to lead us down the pit wherever, and I'm just
wll not even vote just because some don't even want

(44:58):
to believe in voting. I'm just being honest and and
that kind of just kind of annoyed meent like, dude,
So I'm just supposed to sit there, allow them to
not take advantage of the programs or the things that
other house people that are don't want my existence to
be are voting against, are voting to erase me. Again,
That's just something I fear that always there's something in

(45:21):
our community. Anytime when people fight back or stand up
straight in not let someone ride your back, we're always
framed as we're clueless or we are part of the problem.
That's the That's the other thing. You know, it's both
sides kind of argument.

Speaker 7 (45:35):
So right, you bring up so many, so many great points,
and that's the complicated thing is you know essentially what
you're what you're talking about, if I can put the
name to it again, even though this is an oversimplification
of what you're talking about.

Speaker 6 (45:51):
But it's that apathy.

Speaker 7 (45:53):
It's that apathy for the process the voting, because, like
I say, it's not a system that is designed or
currently in practice functioning to benefit this community. Right, and
so why would people want to engage with it? And
as a clinician, my first step in having these conversations
is always just validate, validate, validate, just saying you know,

(46:17):
I hear you thousand percent, why would you want to
do this?

Speaker 6 (46:22):
This system has not worked for you.

Speaker 7 (46:25):
It is often many hoops that you have to jump through,
and all these kinds of things. And I think that
to your point your voice, at least in the present moment,
and to be clear me speaking from my perspective, I
am a very as of course a social worker working

(46:45):
at homelessness out of New York, as a queer woman,
all these kinds of things. I am somebody who is
very critical. I'm a critical abolitionist social worker. And so
I am somebody who's coming from the perspective of wanting
to tear down the systems and rebuild them from scratch.
So understanding all the complexities of what that means and
the realities of that actually coming to fruition right, And

(47:08):
so thinking about and after validating someone, circling back to
the conversation where I say, at this present moment, these
are the tools that we have, and it sounds like
what you're saying is your voice is missing, and you
are missing from this process. You are not seen, you
are not heard, And so actually we're saying the same thing.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
We'll finish this conversation after the break and we're back.

Speaker 7 (47:40):
It seems like such a tremendously daunting task, but I
always say, any kind of really meaningful movements that have
pushed society forward really begin, in my humble anecdotal opinion
of American history, begin with activism, begin with organizing. You know,
I think about the civil rights movement and the late

(48:03):
great John Lewis, where we're still trying to get the
John Lewis Voting Rights Act through in Congress right now
to expand on voting rights that were struck down years
ago by the Supreme Court.

Speaker 6 (48:14):
But all this to say.

Speaker 7 (48:17):
It is extremely important that we are able to organize
and mobilize and find motivation and collective motivation within each other,
within ourselves, and then within community. And by not only
allowing people or encouraging people to believe that their voice

(48:42):
and their vote doesn't make a difference anyway, it's also
kind of this notion that community, that collaboration is also,
you know, is something to be dismissed.

Speaker 6 (48:54):
And my argument is, in any kind of.

Speaker 7 (48:57):
Social progress that's ever happened in a meaningful way, it
started with folks on the ground who were passionate about
it and who built a movement, right, and then people
coming around that movement collectively creating community and driving that forward.
And so I certainly, and to be very direct, I
also don't have a perfect answer for that, because I

(49:20):
don't believe that there is a perfect answer, because it's
an extremely imperfect system and we're all imperfect people, and
there isn't any one way to prescribe any answer to
what a person's human experiences are that have led them
to not be interested in voting, And so I really
take those conversations one at a time.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
But yeah, but one of the things I also wanted
to point out too, what you're mentioning too, is when
I hear this and sometimes in the active with some circle,
I think they dismiss the achievements of.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
People that came before VIM.

Speaker 4 (49:53):
A lot of people did not benefit from what they
fought for, and they could have given up and just
hung their head and whatever, but they felt that the
long game was much more important for us to be
armed with certain tools. You know, it is true that
we can't use always a hammer to do everything in

(50:13):
but the hammer could be used to build something else
from that master's tools and that we're using. But most
importantly that we also have to understand that things doesn't
move like that most instantaneous. Like I said, there are
people that have not benefited from the efforts that they
have pushed for the things that we are benefiting for,
and which brings up the conversation again, which I always

(50:35):
point this out because it always is really interesting to
me when I hear people say that. I said, So,
if that's the case, then these people that are wasting
all of his resources are using all of his time
ruing campaigns to exterminate and erase people.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
It wouldn't be fruitful.

Speaker 4 (50:53):
In essence saying just sit there and allow them to
steamroll over you and make have no say, which is
the antithesis of organizing, the antithesis of activism, which a
lot of people are in these groups, and sometimes when
we're quoting luminaries that are in the field, they're human
beings just like we are. And some things need to

(51:15):
be pressure tested, some things need to be put in
another context, and some things need to be not used
as the justification for things that are necessary. Our human
existence is about activism, and we started out trying to
survive first. And the second thing is we tried to
find out certain things that we should have that should

(51:37):
be a part of our existence. And that has been
from the beginning of time, and it catapults the conversation
to this point where unhoused people should be on the
front of conversating on how to push back against the nimbiism.
For example, there is a number to call to report
unhouse people here in Los Angeles, but on house people

(51:59):
can't report Nimbia. They can only get the number for
two and one for services. It's that dynamic. To change
the dynamic, we need to have a number to report
when people that are claiming that they are property owners
or taxes and coming and setting a fire to unhoused
temps or extended coming there, harassing unhoused people. We need
to have that kind of apparatus. It might not need

(52:21):
to be with law enforcement, but we need to have
enough of that. We need to also have the diminution
of having nimbies run out to council members targeting people
and using that resource to sweep, like, for example, recently
a celebration here for someone that was known for sweeping
unhoused people, and they swept the whole area and there

(52:44):
was nothing to be done about it, you know it,
and not part of that should have been like, you know,
the unhoused community or the unhouthed activists should have been
in the face of the city and the council members
and making sure that this is not going to stand,
you know, haveing those conversations and having also a voting
voice that he says, this is what's going to happen

(53:06):
when you do this.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
You can go and hoddle to.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
Those house people, but understand you're going to be paying
the piper from us.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
But that's I digress.

Speaker 7 (53:17):
That listening to that felt like a gut punch. That's
devastating to hear. Something that comes to mind is just
thinking also about Grant's pass and the ruling that just
came down from the Supreme Court. And this is something
actually that I'm working on one of a few advocates
who are working with the National Alliance and Homelessness to
put out a brief. Although there was an amicus brief

(53:40):
that came out by the lawyers, but we wanted to
do something on the side of practitioners and researchers, social
service professionals, those kinds of things, those of us that
aren't as.

Speaker 6 (53:52):
Entrenched in the legalese.

Speaker 7 (53:54):
But we are actually thinking about the execution of this
in practice, and how are we going to tack people,
how are we going to minimize harm and reduce harm
as providers and advocates and researchers, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
But you made a good point, and I'm so glad
you brought it up.

Speaker 4 (54:10):
But I also wanted to point out because I want
to set the stage for people that are getting in
because there's a lot of legallyes, there's a lot of
statements that's been going on about houselessness unless you are
part of it, like for example, grants pass supersedes Martin v. Boise,
and to give people to just leasen in and don't
know Martin versus Boise was the stop gap for the

(54:33):
nimbies and the cities from just running refshod.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Over the rights of unhoused people.

Speaker 4 (54:38):
The Ninth Circuit Court claimed that it's cruel and unusual
punishment to keep sweeping and criminalizing unhoused people where there
are no resources and no places to go. Why Grant's
Pass was so important, because I think there's some of
the details we're missing. Was the Nimbies and the people
in the city were so aggressive in attacking unhoused people

(55:00):
that the community of the Young House after the well,
we give the shout out to the activists. First, the
activists got together getting the concerns. Then they got together
to go to the law office to sue against the city.
But the city, and I think this is a very
important distinction to understand, they whined, they cried, they grumbled,

(55:22):
and they had other activists and other anti unhoused activists
in other cities form another suit, a lawsuit to counter
act against what Grants Pass the unhoused community we're doing.
And as a result, this was the Grand Pass ruling
saying it is not cruel and unusual. If you don't
have services or a place for unhoused people to stay,

(55:42):
you can criminalize them to your heart's content. And basically
it's just legally is for open extermination for people that
are trying to survive with no resources. And this is
the difference in the the tonality of what the Grant's
past ruling is there is no such thing there as
a stopgap to stop people from being completely monsters. They

(56:04):
just go full They just at the full moon, they
just you know, just come into the full monster suit
and they just go after the people. And there is
very i won't say very little, but there is very
little conversation on how this is going to impact. And
I'm so encouraged to hear that you guys are standing
up and saying something about this.

Speaker 7 (56:23):
Yeah, oh my goodness, thank you so much for just
sharing all of those those thoughts and experiences. And absolutely
it's heart breaking and frustrating to hear. And the way
that I also connect it back to this work is that,
of course, what is the one of if not? And

(56:44):
I don't want to see this definitively because I don't
have the statistic to back it up, but one of
the greatest things that disenfranchisees voters is having a criminal record,
right and having any kind of history of convictions time,
et cetera. And then in different states, depending upon the laws,
how that disqualifies you from being on the voter role

(57:05):
or just similar to how the conversation started, misinformation and
disinformation for example, in New York City, you are eligible.
As long as you are not serving a felony conviction,
you are eligible to vote. So if you have been released,
you are on parole or probation, or you are eligible
to vote. And if you are currently incarcerated for a misdemeanor,

(57:28):
you are eligible to vote from prison. And so this
is something that people largely do not know.

Speaker 6 (57:34):
And so I'm talking.

Speaker 7 (57:35):
With folks in the community and they say, oh, no, sorry,
I can't register to vote. I have a record, And
I say, absolutely, you can. And that's a big part
of this work, is the civic literacy part of it.
And that's why I call it empowerment and not necessarily
just engagement. And I don't want to circle back, but
there was just I made a note to myself of

(57:56):
something that I wanted to mention when you were talking
about this phenomena out of what you hear in the
community and how you combat that in your own conversations
and advocacy, and I always just point out, I'm like,
this is how systemic oppression works. This is how folks
remain perpetually in power, how folks with greater privilege, power, wealth,

(58:17):
access education, etc. This is how they continue to safeguard right,
the structures and power as they exists. By you know,
there's social stratification that exists, right, It's layers and tiers,
and there becomes this kind of.

Speaker 6 (58:32):
Hierarchy of power, if you will.

Speaker 7 (58:35):
And then people at the bottom just feel so of
that structure, just feel so defeated and depleted, and that
they're like, it doesn't even matter whether I participate in
this at all.

Speaker 6 (58:46):
And what does that do is it.

Speaker 7 (58:48):
Allows for that power to remain concentrated at the top
and they barely even have to put up a fight.

Speaker 6 (58:54):
Yes, And so that is my dream for this work.

Speaker 7 (58:58):
And having been in the show Shelter during the twenty
twenty election, when I experienced all of this, it ended
up completely shifting the trajectory of what I want to
do for my career and long term. This is now
my mission for the rest of my working life. Is
I want to make the unhoused population a force to
be reckoned with at the ballot box. If you want
to hold political office, at least in New York City,

(59:20):
I would love for the work to go beyond that eventually.

Speaker 6 (59:22):
If you want to hold political office.

Speaker 7 (59:24):
In New York City, you better have good answers to
what are you going to do about homelessness and housing?
Right and not what are you going to do about
it from a perspective.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Of paratistic approach.

Speaker 7 (59:34):
Kly not how are you going to and not an
oppressive approach right, not how are you going to cover
this up? How are we going to eliminate this? Like
the Grant's past ruling which now allows for people to
be swept and arrested for there so for listeners who
might not know. That's why I bring it into the
criminal record is because what this allows now is that

(59:56):
people can be arrested for sleeping in a public space.
And of course that also allows for so much discretionary discrimination, right,
potentially arresting officers. Right because how is someone camping out,
you know, with their on a weekend trip camping They're
not going to be arrested, right, But somebody who has

(01:00:17):
literally nowhere else to go and closes their eyes on
a park bench, they can be arrested.

Speaker 4 (01:00:22):
Or even I would like to interject too, because we
have something here in Los Angeles called forty one to
eighteen and I considered it the new Jim Crow because
it is against the law for any unhoused person to sit, sleep,
or lie anywhere where it posted. For example, if this
person thinks, like, for example, you're going to a public
place or go into a restaurant or whatever, and you're

(01:00:45):
sitting there and they have the sign that you cannot
be there, that you're on housed, someone can call, which
I've seen in my own eyes live in the community
I am where unhoused person was just sitting down, it
was not interacting with anybody, wasn't doing anyse but minding
their bitsiness and running them off. They would go and
get the security, or security would come by and run

(01:01:05):
them off. They could be enjoying just like the same
benefits and privileges of other people, maybe getting their ease
into the air, and they're eating something, someone giving us food,
and I've seen them being run off. I've seen them
being run off, you know. Even if let's just say
for the example of camping, like for example, I lived
in a park in downtown for several years, if I

(01:01:28):
was seen camping just but sitting there or whatever, or
staying a sustained amount of time, now they have the
impetus to be able to pour someone out of it.
And if you don't go, they can arrest you and
criminalize you. They even have it now here in Los
Angeles that if you are sleeping in your car or
have an RV and they tell you to move and

(01:01:50):
you don't move, they can utilize that as the jump
off point. And I'm summarizing usually a jumper off point
to have your car toad and then now you can
be fromalize for that because now you're into the weight
of you know, in this marsh or the quicksand so
it's very calculated cruelty. They are just ducking people who saying, well,

(01:02:13):
this is messed up. You're lying on these kind of
tactics to target vulnerable people and remove them out of
people's neighborhood at the behat of house people that don't
want to see houselessness in their neighborhood.

Speaker 7 (01:02:25):
Absolutely, and this is why I call this process the
quote unquote chicken or the egg or And what I
mean by that is just the nature of what comes
first in terms of making this social progress. You know,
do we need representatives who are prioritizing housing or do
we need to mobilize to put those people in power

(01:02:46):
in the first place to strike down some of these
laws to allocate resources appropriately in specific ways that end
up resulting in less people experiencing homelessness and becoming unhoused
in the first place. Right, And then I also think about,
and this is the clinician in me, I think about
the ways in which even these aspects of things are

(01:03:09):
You used the word calculated, and I appreciated that word.
I don't think that these effects are necessarily by mistake,
you know. I think that these areas being under accounted for, underserved,
and the folks that live in those areas being either
homeless or housing insecure of some variety, you know, and

(01:03:32):
low income housing in those areas and things like that,
that those areas are underrepresented, under resourced by design. You know,
this is not viewed as a problem that needs to
be solved, and that, to me is the core of
what is problematic about this, And that's why we need
to make sure that during the census taking process that

(01:03:52):
it is accounted for how many people will be living
in sheltered spaces. And for that matter, I mean, it's
much more complicated, as I'm sure I don't have to
preach to you when we're talking about folks that are
living rough and that are unsheltered homeless, but at least
a stop gap for systems like New York City is
at least we can account for the amount of shelter beds.

Speaker 6 (01:04:13):
That we have capacity for because they will always be full.
Something drastically changes those beds will be full.

Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
Here is one of the solutions that I think also
that needs to happen. And it is wonderful that this
conversation is being advanced by you, doctor Crinn. And there's
another excellent person that I would like to interview, Ruth Lesser.
She is doing something locally about trying to figure out
how many and how people are insight safe that are

(01:04:39):
getting the voters' ballots and having voter literacy, if you will.
And I think too, this is like one of the
things that it needs to be a sustaining effort before
elections go on or even during elections go on for
unhoused people. This is like a continuing conversation where the

(01:05:00):
best of the arguments are debunked, like just like to
know your rights kind of conversations that we have particularly
indicative of where we are, like in Los Angeles or
in New York. I think this needs to be and
hopefully this episode here is one of my contributions in
order to keeping the conversation going and to look forward

(01:05:20):
to having you come back as well, to keep you
update and talk for about different political candidates or also
you know, the progress getting more on house people hopefully
even to run because they can speak to the conversation,
to seek to houselessness way when they've lived it, and
to see maybe a shift in the conversation and the

(01:05:42):
way we treat houselessness. Is there anything else you like
to add before I lock out?

Speaker 6 (01:05:48):
Just to that point that you just made.

Speaker 7 (01:05:51):
That's actually what my doctoral work yielded was a four
pong model of civic empowerment in shelter, not just at
the time of elections, but in a way that is
omnipresent regardless of what election is approaching or if there's
an election approaching, and that is self sustaining.

Speaker 6 (01:06:06):
And I give you one small example.

Speaker 7 (01:06:08):
After somebody has resided in a shelter for thirty days
in New York City, you're eligible to registered vote from
that address.

Speaker 6 (01:06:13):
And so why isn't.

Speaker 7 (01:06:15):
It just a normative part of our case managerial structure
that at your fourth meeting, your ILP, your independent Living
Plan meetings, that you have to have with your case
manager every week at your fourth one. It should be
a regulatory part of the process where they are informed
you're eligible to vote from this location. And we should
have materials around civic literacy available universally at all times.

(01:06:36):
Raise your voice and here's why your voice is important,
and having that narrative woven into the fabric of how
we do things when we serve the population. Just by
talking about this, just by elevating this as an issue
and making sure that it is the constant backdrop of
what we are doing in social services consistently, is how

(01:06:59):
are we thinking about not just civic engagement at the
time of election, which is very common, right, that we
have a lot to ask of vulnerable populations right before elections,
and that that isn't entirely fair, and that populations realize
this and then they're disinterested in engaging in that. But
all this to say, there's existing case managerial structure and

(01:07:23):
other interventions in whether it's in street outreach programming, whether
it's in social service programming, whether it's in shelter systems,
there's existing infrastructure that we can tweak in what ultimately
amounts to very minor ways, but that could in the
longer term, and the certain ways in certain metrics, even
in the immediate you know, have very real, meaningful empowerment impact.

(01:07:48):
And that is what I'm trying to raise my voice about.
And if there are any elected officials or anyone who
works for electeds or works for government systems that would
like to learn more about this, that's my mission right
now is taking that model, and I want to get
it implemented in New York City shelters and see what
kind of a difference could it make if there was

(01:08:08):
self sustaining civic empowerment infrastructure in these systems. And so
that's the kind of all that I have to say
for now. I know we have to wrap up because
I could talk about this. I'm very passionate about what
I do, and I consider myself extremely fortunate to do it,
and so I could. Frankly, I feel like we could

(01:08:29):
have this conversation for four hours. So I thank you
for the invitation to come back, and I would truly
love to do that whether we're approaching an election cycle
or not, because the conversation is always relevant.

Speaker 4 (01:08:40):
Absolutely, thank you very much to doctor Crinn for their
time and You can learn more about their work at
Kaitlincrenn dot com at the link in the description. Before
we finish, let me take a moment to hype up
a key mutual a group in our city, Action and Solidarity.

(01:09:01):
They have expended major time, unpaid labor and untold funding
to sustain a close to three year effort to be
allies to the unhoused community. Many generous donors have been
an integral part of this movement. What we need now
is a more sustained support rather than one time burst
of generosity. Jaytown is in need of funding for food

(01:09:24):
for hot meals, acanomies that we are breaking down, clean
clothing for men and women of all sizes, and charging
devices to help the unhoused charge their devices. They're doing
this important work in an ever increasing cruel, hostile, criminalizing virus.
This virus is spreading across LA fictitiously called insight Safe.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
So please click.

Speaker 4 (01:09:50):
The link at the top of this episode to become
part of a great mutual aid effort. And as always,
please like and subscribe, And if you would like to
share yours story on Weedian House, please reach out to
me at weedon House on Instagram or email me at
Weedonhouse at gmail dot com. Thank you again for listening,

(01:10:11):
and may we again meet in the light of understanding.
Whedian House is a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted,
and created by me Theo Henderson, our producers Jbie Loftus,
Hailey Fager, Katieficial, and Lyra Smith. Our editor is Adam

(01:10:31):
Wand and our loco art is also by Katieficial.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Thanks for listening.