Pondering Homelessness and Community
For decades my family hosted a Community Christmas Party. Our house was very large and ideal for hosting these events.
Attendees at our party ranged from single and stay at home mom's with their husbands, partners and children, to a blind internet talk show host who joyfully banged Christmas and jazz rhythms out of our upright piano. We also had a traveling international business owner, and several tiny house residents from the tiny house village located on the property behind us.
Today I am writing about the tiny house group.
At that time they lived in 5 garden shed-cabins on the two and one half acre lot directly behind ours. At one point when the City cut their water supply, in an effort to force them to leave, we provided a garden hose.
The City was unhappy with this and wrote us a threatening letter, but we recognized their urgent need for water. That was the summer of 2009. It was a very hot summer and one of the residents had kidney disease. Fire was also a threat and water was essential for safety.
You see, the landowner, had failed to meet city regulations for community housing standards and resisted demands for building code compliance. Eventually after a contentious hearing, a Court Decision demanded his property be cleared and sold at fair market value, and he be compensated.
That was some time ago. At the time of this writing the neighborhood appears to have improved, as a nice new home now stands where the village was.
But for the people that lived in the village life actually worsened. Although offered other options, most left to live in parked vehicles, possibly in a neighborhood near you. During that time, there were numerous trips to the hospital for minor frostbite, pneumonia, and even kidney malfunction. One of the residents eventually died.
I chose to write after recently seeing the article at this link.
If you follow my posts, you will recognize the officer, whom I hold in very high regard. You can hear him speaking in the second video below. He was much more hopeful then. Even in spite of the circumstance.
(Picture from article)
From the article, at the link above..."Decriminalization of drug possession leaves officers in Clark County on sidelines....Vancouver neighborhood police officer Tyler Chavers has watched fentanyl take over the city’s streets in the past two years"...
This was something I and my neighbor didn't see in this tiny house village before the protest inspired defunding of the Police and the decriminalization of gateway and small amounts of hard drug in our Cities.
During the tiny house demolition, I was very impressed with the behavior of our police, including officer Chavers. I was impressed with the respect and self control they showed while enforcing the court order to clear my neighbors property.
In my eyes, it was a very sad situation since my neighbor had successfully created and sustained a house/shed village for decades. Although substandard in many ways, the sheds were permanent, warm, dry and shared needed bathrooms and a kitchen.
As landlord, he demanded a standard of behaviors that seemed to minimize their impact on the neighbors and still allowed gainful activity to tenants. Several actively recycled bottles and cans. One repaired bicycles and small engines, and others worked at odd jobs. It operated much like the Re-Store in North Portland.
Drug culture seemed low key or absent, and I did not see the kind of car traffic or chaos that comes with drug sales and prostitution, the most common ways of funding drug use among our poor.
Once the police did come over a domestic dispute.
But their collection of building materials for recycling was abnormally large and unusual for our neighborhood, as was his 2.5 acre lot located at the end of a dead end street.
He fought the city for about 20 years before being shut down. He eventually agreed to have the City buy his property. But the actual act of vacating was much harder than agreeing to vacate.
In the videos you will hear some explosions. I am not sure what caused them. Perhaps he was trying to feel powerful. I know that he felt he had provided something of value and was angry that it was being discarded. Fortunately, his destructive actions were in harmony with the goals and requirements of his situation.
In an unfortunate contrast; Today, we have a much greater tragedy occurring with our nation wide explosion of both StreetSide Homelessness and, "legalized," Drug Dealing.
I say legalized because today, as many as 98% of the drug transactions that occur are considered either "legal," or merely a misdemeanor, even as the deadly supply mushrooms thanks to our current tolerance of the Cartel fed distribution network.
Instead of incentivizing creative self reliance, in our vulnerable communities, we have incentivized, an explosion of dealer and trafficker profits along with the mass deaths, community suffering and human enslavement that comes with it.
But this is not just happening to strangers, or neighbors. Currently it has captured the lives of two of our former foster children.
In September 2022 we drove 27 hours one way cross country to offer needed resources and encourage recovery support, just four days after our oldest foster daughter had been Nar-caned along with a fellow-user who did not recover and died. And days before Christmas another of our former foster children was admitted to Legacy Salmon Creek Emergency Department for stabilization after having multiple drug related seizures. Surprisingly, he was, declared stable enough to be discharged, and I was called, to come to transport him to his group home. But when I arrived he was still so high on either meth or mushrooms that he didn't even recognize me, or understand that he was supposed to leave after being discharged. He couldn't understand that I was there to pick him up. He just wandered off while talking to invisible people. I waited for some time and eventually called the police because I was afraid, he would be hit by a car.
But their collection of building materials for recycling was abnormally large and unusual for our neighborhood, as was his 2.5 acre lot located at the end of a dead end street.
He fought the city for about 20 years before being shut down. He eventually agreed to have the City buy his property. But the actual act of vacating was much harder than agreeing to vacate.
(Hear his perspective in the videos below.)
CREATING HOMELESSNESS (part 1)
A NOT SO BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
and...
CREATING HOMELESSNESS (part 2)
Destruction and Hopes for Collaboration
In the videos you will hear some explosions. I am not sure what caused them. Perhaps he was trying to feel powerful. I know that he felt he had provided something of value and was angry that it was being discarded. Fortunately, his destructive actions were in harmony with the goals and requirements of his situation.
In an unfortunate contrast; Today, we have a much greater tragedy occurring with our nation wide explosion of both StreetSide Homelessness and, "legalized," Drug Dealing.
I say legalized because today, as many as 98% of the drug transactions that occur are considered either "legal," or merely a misdemeanor, even as the deadly supply mushrooms thanks to our current tolerance of the Cartel fed distribution network.
Instead of incentivizing creative self reliance, in our vulnerable communities, we have incentivized, an explosion of dealer and trafficker profits along with the mass deaths, community suffering and human enslavement that comes with it.
But this is not just happening to strangers, or neighbors. Currently it has captured the lives of two of our former foster children.
In September 2022 we drove 27 hours one way cross country to offer needed resources and encourage recovery support, just four days after our oldest foster daughter had been Nar-caned along with a fellow-user who did not recover and died. And days before Christmas another of our former foster children was admitted to Legacy Salmon Creek Emergency Department for stabilization after having multiple drug related seizures. Surprisingly, he was, declared stable enough to be discharged, and I was called, to come to transport him to his group home. But when I arrived he was still so high on either meth or mushrooms that he didn't even recognize me, or understand that he was supposed to leave after being discharged. He couldn't understand that I was there to pick him up. He just wandered off while talking to invisible people. I waited for some time and eventually called the police because I was afraid, he would be hit by a car.
Stable? Really? I talked with the assigned RN and she said she agreed, but there was nothing she could do.
Both the hospital and the police could do nothing according to our new community standards.
Both the hospital and the police could do nothing according to our new community standards.
I suppose this was an attempt to show respect in a gentle way. But this pretense of gentleness is not kindness or even tolerance. It borders on murderous disregard masquerading in a costume of progressive virtue.
If you marched to defund the police and are backing the decriminalization (that promotes) these criminal behaviors. What are you thinking? Shame on you!
The deaths and destruction they are causing is a result of these very actions and it is happening in each of our neighborhoods.
In the future, hopefully we will consider the historical and social context. Emotionally inspired Movements rarely act responsibly. It took decades to create and adapt these systems that we so carelessly destroyed. Keeping police training current, and effective actually requires additional investment. Defunding is an insane response.
Currently I am grateful for the many church volunteer and city planned efforts that our mayor (in Vancouver WA) has taken to address these problems. Chief among them, Living Hope and Exchange Churches.
Actions surprisingly similar to many of the things my neighbor was doing.
If you are caught in a cycle of addiction, please realize that this is not an attack, or even a criticism. I am here to talk about having a healthy community and encourage you to consider seeking rescources of help like the person in the testimony at this link. https://www.driveoutaddiction.com/testimonials
If you marched to defund the police and are backing the decriminalization (that promotes) these criminal behaviors. What are you thinking? Shame on you!
The deaths and destruction they are causing is a result of these very actions and it is happening in each of our neighborhoods.
In the future, hopefully we will consider the historical and social context. Emotionally inspired Movements rarely act responsibly. It took decades to create and adapt these systems that we so carelessly destroyed. Keeping police training current, and effective actually requires additional investment. Defunding is an insane response.
Currently I am grateful for the many church volunteer and city planned efforts that our mayor (in Vancouver WA) has taken to address these problems. Chief among them, Living Hope and Exchange Churches.
Actions surprisingly similar to many of the things my neighbor was doing.
If you are caught in a cycle of addiction, please realize that this is not an attack, or even a criticism. I am here to talk about having a healthy community and encourage you to consider seeking rescources of help like the person in the testimony at this link. https://www.driveoutaddiction.com/testimonials
