THE CITY OF FRESNO MOVES TO EVICT HOMELESS FROM TENT CITY

Here is a photo of the homeless pen - concentration camp as some homeless people refer to it. Many homeless feel that the Pen will have the same rules as the homeless shelter nearby. They will not be able to bring their bring their belongings into the "Pen". They will not be able to sleep with their loved ones in the same tents. They will not be able to bring their pets with them. Many homeless have pets as a safety measure to avoid being attacked in their sleep. Therefore the vast majority of homeless people in the area will be forcibly removed when they refuse to go into the "Pen".

I have just returned from the homeless community in downtown Fresno (Tuesday, February 3, 2004). Here is the situation: The Poverello House has built an enclosed facility that will sleep about 50 homeless people. They (the Poverello House) have constructed tents and put them on a wooden platform. It looks like each tent will sleep 2 or 3 people. The director of the Poverello House says that the plan is to build more platforms and put up additional tents on Wednesday.

Fliers were being passed out tonight that stated “Effective on Wednesday, February 4, 2004, at 7:00 am, you and your property need to be removed from the sidewalks, road and alleys.” The paper (written in English only) goes on to say “City Sanitation, Code Enforcement, CalTrans and other related agencies will come through and clean up Santa Clara and surrounding areas. Anything remaining will be discarded. Enforcement of criminal violations and the following codes will also be enforced without exception.” The City code for numerous citations are then explained in more detail.

The problem is that you have about 100 people living on Santa Clara Street in tents and under pieces of plastic. There are numerous other encampments of homeless people all over the downtown area. A 2002 study found that there are about 19,000 homeless people in Fresno and Madera counties. The Poverello House will be able to take in 75-100 people in their new facility. That does not even begin to scratch the surface of the housing needs of the homeless.

What is going to happen on Wednesday is the start of another failed attempt to make the homeless disappear. After the police have cleared Santa Clara Street they will begin destroying other homeless encampments. Why is it that the only response the City of Fresno has to the homeless problem is a police action? Th problem with homelessness in Fresno is not going away, it will only be relocated to another area. Under the current policy, wherever they sleep, the homeless will be harassed and told to move on. Move on to where? Where are these 19,000 people going to go?

If the homeless are going to be forced out of the community they have built, then they should be provided shelter in one or more of the many abandoned buildings in downtown Fresno. Descent housing should be a human right, not a privilege!

Your intrepid reporters for Indymedia will be on the scene Wednesday at 6:30 AM to follow this story.

Wrong again! There is no right to housing; not in any law, anywhere in the country. Wishing it doesn't make it so. These people are being offered a place to sleep. They can take the offer or refuse. If they refuse, they should be told clearly that homeless camps will not be tolerated. Take the bed or take the bus - the choice is theirs.

Valley Boy wrote:

>These people are being offered a place to sleep

My response: There are 1-2,000 homeless people in the downtown Fresno area. When they destroyed the homeless community this morning, they provided 47 new sleeping places. There is no place for most homeless people to sleep. The city has, in effect, criminalized homelessness and are trying to force the poor to disappear. It is not going to work...

More on this developing story will be posted soon.

The homeless problem has been around far longer than our generation, and unfortunately, I don't think ours will be the one to solve it. It is multifaceted, complex and poses a great many ethical dilemas. Hard core drug addiction, mental illnes, domestic violence, and economic upheavals contribute to this problem. On one hand our human compassion desires to relieve the suffering of others, while on the other we realize that handouts and charity only enables unhealthy behaviors. Charity only soothes our conscious, it does nothing long term to actually help anyone.

So, what should we do?

How do you deal with hardcore drug addicts and alchoholics?

How do you truely help the poor, not just giving them a dollor at the gas station?

How do you truely help women and children trying to escape the cycle of abuse and poverty?

How do you deal with the mentally ill who refuse treatment?

How do you deal with people who have pissed off every friend and family member by their lying, stealing, drinking, ways?

For the record, I have friends and family members who have been in these situations. Some I could help, some I couldn't. In my job I deal with these issues. So, does anyone have constructive answers, considering the resources available?

Marxist ranters and social darwinists need not answer. I already know your solutions. We'er not going to tear down the whole society and redistribute it, and we're not going to ship them all off to a desert island.

I am truly intersted in these questions as well. For six years, I have worked with homeless people in San Francisco. I was a front line caseworker in the welfare department. I have seen it all. I also have family who have ended up like this. It is heartbreaking - but- sometimes tough love does work (and sometimes is does not). I have several ideas that I have had percolating around for awhile, and I think they might do something to change the endless, useless cycles we see now. 1. Change the laws so that psychotic people are not left on the street. Stop listening to the fools who bleat about these peoples' "right" to live on the street, covered in their own filth. IT DOES NOT WORK. It harms these people, and they die. I don't give a damn about the "advocates" on this issue. They are wrong, and they are killing people. 2. Give people who need help, and can profit from that help, a chance to make good on their promise to help themselves. Everyone deserves a real break when things go wrong, and they often do. People become homeless because of domestic violence, illness, job loss, etc. We have programs that help people cope with these situations. Give the programs money and they can work. 3. Limits on tolerance. Help is one thing, but currently our "advocates" and their hangers-on are always telling us about the "rights" of homeless people. This is not helpful. People - ordinary people who got to work at a crappy job, deal with screaming kids and rude customers - are NOT tolerant of people mooching off their labor. If you think "working class" people have sympathy for "the homeless" you are dead wrong. They despise them. They see them sitting on the sidewalk, panhandling, drinking, using drugs, etc. and it pisses them off when their hardearned tax money is given away to these people. 4. Many of these homeless people are that way by choice. Here in SF we have scores of beds in shelters empty every night because people can't bring in drugs, booze, or dogs. Tough shit. If they were really desperate, they would take those beds. They aren't and they don't. 5. Stop making it easy to be a bum. Stop the free food, free tents, free this, and free that. Make them work for it. We are currently starting a program that will take cash grants from homeless people and apply it to shelters, health care, substance abuse, etc. Homeless people don't need much cash when they have a bed, health care, a hot meal and food stamps. We have people in shelters here who get $800 a month in SS but CHOOSE not to pay rent. End it.
6. Stop the handouts to the able bodied. If a person is able bodied and under 50, give him $50 and directions to the bus station. Now - you can flame me all you want, but I deal with this population every day. It is not about affordable housing. It is not about substance abuse. It is about personal responsibility and living with the results of your choices.

I pretty much agree with all that you discussed. I'm a nurse who has in one way or another had to consider the demands that homelessness and poverty imposes on the clients that I've had to care for.

I've cared for people who have been assaulted, either by another homeless person, or someone who thought bumbashing was good sport.

I've tried to arrange overnight care for clinic patients who have pneumonia, but weren't sick enought to be admitted..

I've also seen people puffing on cigarettes, then complain about being over their medi-cal limit of 6 scripts a month.

I think most working poor share your feelings, but I know they also fear having a disaster next month that will put them on the curb.

I've been one of those working poor. I've been on welfare and am from a single parent household. I think the difference is in having a belief that hard work is important, and it should and will be rewarded. If the schools, the family and society in general stressed these things, I think that can make a difference.

Promoting a culture of victimhood will only increase our problems.

I agree. One of the things that still annoys me the most is how may poor people smoke. I have had clients buy tobacco before food, and many, many trade food stamps (or electronic food stamps) for cigarettes. Another is watching SF General Hospital's stats spike sky high on the 2nd and 16th of every month, when all the heroin ODs and alcohol poisonings come in - and, of course, the day after the welfare checks are distributed via General Assistance. Giving homeless people $200 cash every two weeks is insane. We are eventually going to go to a relatively cash-less system, using vouchers and services in lieu of money. The advocates hate it, of course, and they accuse us of treating homeless people like children who can't handle money. They ARE like children in some respects. They have lost their way in the world. Giving them free help at no expense and with no strings attached does not solve either their immediate or long term problems. I work in CalWORKs now, the state/federal welfare program for poor people with minor kids. Because it is federally and state controlled, there is much less advocate driven nonsense. We have extensive vocational assessment, mental health counseling, full child care, cash aid, rental assistance, health care (via Medi-Cal), etc. People actually progress, or, if they refuse to participate, they loose most of the cash aid. The program works. Homeless programs, on the other hand, are usually of two kinds in this state: one is where a county gives them 90 days of aid and then cuts them off. That forces most of the able bodied to either find a means of support of leave. The other is the SF example, where you simply give them cash forever with almost no strings attached. Perhaps that is why SF has almost 11,000 General Assistance clients, while Alameda County with almost three times the population of SF has less than half that number. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. People (and by this I mean sane people. The psychotic are a different category) respond to help that restores dignity to their lives. Most people want to work, to support themselves. They take pride in accomplisment. They can be helped to transition from their current terrible state to stability and self reliance. I have seen it and it works. On the other hand, when you simply hand out everything to anyone without any strings, what you get a legions of the idle who have no intention of doing anything other than drifting around in a life of petty crime, drugs, booze, prostitution, etc. Those peoples' problems are never solved, as they are not looking for a solution, only a handout. Those types are the root of the problem. If you find a way to help the honest and exclude the con artists, your money will go a long way. We simply need to differentiate the truly needy from the bums. Harsh but real.

I work in the local hospital that provides most of the indigent care in this county. When the Medi-cal worker comes around an gives out the paperwork for applying for Medical, or getting the Medi-cal reinstated, the truely motivated are eager to reach out and get whatever benifits are available to them. But I see many who had Medi-cal, but their cases were suspended due to lack of following thru with the requirements of the programs. What do they care? They will get treated at the hospital regardless of what they do. They have nothing anyone can collect on, so they don't care how much their care is costing. When they are discharged, the Medi-cal paperwork is left on the table.

There are many who are homeless due to crises situations who are strongely motivated. These in my experience have been able to use the resources available to them wisely. I work with many who now have college degrees and good jobs who have spent time in the shelters. Unfortunately the public has lumped them all together with the chronics, the addicts, and the prostitutes. The public tolerance is starting to wear thin.

I am aware of the situation you describe. We have the same problem in SF General. The only way to solve it, for now, would be to require the paperwork to be filled out. Period. If the patient won't do it, then we need to change to rules so that the hospital has a way out by doing the paperwork for the patient and declaring "refused to sign" or something to that effect. That would take a change in the state Medi-Cal regs, which could happen under Arnold. Your other point is true as well. One of the bigwigs in this dept has said many times that the biggest mistake in the social services field was the acceptance of "the homeless" as a catch-all term for "indigent". The two often have nothing in common. Here in SF, we have several distinct populations: there are the old time street drunks, the mentally addled, the real, hardcore, dangerous psychotics, and then there are the transient, drifter, petty criminals, and also the hardcore heroin addicts. Then on top of it, you have couch surfers, cheap motel tenants, and a host of other populations. These people have almost nothing in common except their low income and uncertain housing. When I was a kid growing up in the Central Valley, there were always these drifters, men and women. They worked easy to get jobs (at the time), either in truck stops, packing sheds, etc. They lived in cheap rooms on the west side of 99, and hung out at pool halls and bars. They ranged from Bakersfield to Reddding. They were a migrant population that we didn't pay much attention to. Now, of course, those jobs are not easy to find, and there is little of the old cheap housing left.

Poverty, incarceration, and illiteracy, poor health, you name the social ill- and alcohol/other drug misuse-addiction are there.

We as a society have not even taken the first step needed to bring addiciton-recovery forward as a national priority.

Seriously, think about how we truly portray alcohol, which is by far the most abused drug in our nation. It is legal, cheap, and widely available. Most knowledge people have as to the risks about their alcohol use comes from those selling/promoting alcohol.

Truth be known, those who are prone to problems with alcohol/other drugs need to know the health risks it poses- society needs to support recovery as the solution not jail cells.

The public health crisis driven by untreated addiction in this nation has been many years in the making, we need to stop supporting failed policy and move toward a Recovery focused approach.

Parents who have children with a family history of addiction should gain knowledge about the genetic/enviromental risks facing their children (just as they would with any other chronic illness) policy efforts to stop predatory marketing and sales, along with widely promoted helplines for problem drinkers should be posted anywhere alcohol is sold.

We claim alcohol/addiction to be a public health problem, we are indifferent, and when those failed policy efforts emerge living in boxes we condemn those struggling with this illness.

Society can choose better on how we regulate, educate, and intervene on alcohol/other drug problems. We can choose to remove the stigma, and to support Recovery oriented policy.

For many it is too late, but there is bad news, we are growing generations guaranteed by their genetic make up to fail, to need bigger prisons, more shelters, and _______.

Stable homes, where parents with problems get the real and effective help they need to get and stay sober in recovery, along with the bonus of raising their at risk kids in a loving healing home is the goal here.

Most folks who drink, are NOT problem drinkers. Those who are, face indifference when they do exactly what this illness calls for a progressive course of destruction of their lives, those they love, and the communities that remain baffled on how to handle years of poor policy directives masked in fear and misunderstanding of those who are alcoholic/addicted.

We can and should do better, homeless is not hopeless.

Comprehensive recovery support- driven toward a reaching personal recovery goals is a first step for those with addiction related illness. Baby steps with support, one day at time.

Fifteen years of closing my eyes at night and giving thanks, knowing " But for the grace of God" I am not pleading for a safe place sleep or a drink to keep me from DT's in the morning.

I hope this comment is not to ranty, but it is hard to see so much policy that virtually promises addiction will cycle, until someone stands up and sas NO MORE- my dream in life is to gather those who share these beliefs, and see a Federal Law Created making Recovery the priority of any law that deals with alcohol/other drug misuse- and end to discrimination with an illness that has rareley been treated as such.

Many thanks,

Sam

Mike, spend a little more time around the area before making up your mind.
I have been in that area for over 20 years. Have seen some of the same "homeless" for the 20 years.
I have tried to help many of them out. I have had success with a couple, but most only want money.
Some of them do pretty well, with the food stamps they get, and some a little aid.
Some are in business, they are recyclers. They have routes, they go arround the city, just ahead of the
City Garbage trucks and take the cans and bottles (CRV) out of the blue bins. But the ones that make the bucks
are the ones that ask for money on the street, or wash your windshield. They can take in $100.00 in a few hours pretty easily on an
average day. Not bad if you figure in the food stamps, and that it's tax-free money.
In most of the cases I have come accross, it is used for drugs or booze, or both. That is why they tell me
they won't get in the program at the Mission, too stricked!
The progam at the Fresno Rescue Mission is the best I've seen. It's tough, but the ones that make it through, do pretty well.