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Isn’t It Good, Norwegian Wood?

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I didn’t think much of the novel, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami while I was reading it. But just like the Beatles song of the same name, that became a maddening earworm for weeks after hearing it recently, the story keeps creeping into my thoughts and coloring my perspective of life.

Life is dark and sad and fraught with uncertainty, and yet buried in all of that sadness are bits of light and delight – like tasting the fruit of a Peruvian Apple Cactus that seems at first to be tasteless, but suddenly delights your mouth with an irresistible crystalline popping sensation.

Uncovering these hidden gems in a bleak life is the raison d’être of artists. We spend our lives with imaginary magnifying glasses extended, searching for the ubiquitous gems hidden in plain sight. That moment when a reader exclaims, “Ah yes, I’ve had that feeling!” or, “I never thought about it in this way until I read what you wrote,” is when I feel that I have lived with a purpose.   [Read more…]

Homelessness and Capitalism: Some Untold Truths

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According to the survey in the 2018 Point-in-Time Count (PITC) of homeless people in San Diego County, the four main reasons for becoming homeless are: Loss of Job; Money Issues; Cost of Housing, and Other. Abuse/Violence ranks lowest. But this survey is missing input from thousands of families, as I explained in my prior column, so in reality, fleeing from domestic violence could be a major cause of homelessness. So too could deportation of the primary breadwinner be a factor, which is not even listed as an option, but is a contributing factor for some homeless families.

Underlying those four highest causes are specific failings in our current economic system, such as: jobs that don’t pay enough to cover the basics; lack of reasonable family planning; unsustainable rent increases; lack of affordable housing for people with extremely low incomes; social safety nets that are cut off as soon as a family starts to get on their feet, leaving them worse off; a broken health care system, and racism that sets young blacks and Latinos up for failure.

I’ve been told, “Don’t go there,” when I suggest that homelessness is a symptom of an economic system struggling to stay alive. But if we can’t be honest about the systemic causes of homelessness, we are doomed to be the archetypal dog chasing its tail. It’s my opinion that homelessness has a symbiotic relationship with unchecked capitalism – both being a result of it, and serving to sustain it. The “tell” in this game is the recent escalation of the criminalization of homelessness.   [Read more…]

Fault Line Park | National Poetry Month

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Sitting here talking philosophically,
about the fin of humanity,
in the throes of a heat wave,
shaded by the towers of Fault Line Park.
One has to ask,
does the name they gave this place,
lurking like something about to go terribly awry,
more so than the “Out of Order” sign
permanently etched on the restroom door,
serve as a preemptive warning
that everything can change,
catastrophically,
in an instant?   [Read more…]

A Chicken Carol

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It was the week before Christmas
and all through the house
there wasn’t a sound
‘cept for that damn mouse.

Then out in the garden
there arose such a clatter,
I shuffled out in my bathrobe
to see what was the matter!   [Read more…]

Vapor Beds and Other Non-Facts

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Let me start with an apology. At the San Diego Select Committee for Homelessness meeting on July 24th, I made some comments in response to a report by the new CEO of the Regional Taskforce on the Homeless, Gordon Walker, which came out sounding critical and petty.

When I watched myself on the video, I wasn’t pleased with my scolding tone. I had been trying to meet with Mr. Walker for over a month and finally got a voice mail from him politely explaining that it would be some time before he had time to meet with me and he hoped that I would understand. While I hadn’t planned on publicly reprimanding Mr. Walker, it certainly came out that way and I’m sorry.

I could blame my response on my Sicilian heritage or my New Jersey upbringing, but it was really my frustration with what I heard in Walker’s well-intentioned report that rattled my cage. Maybe, if we had the opportunity to talk prior to his report to this committee, he might have been better informed about the situation here in San Diego from a different perspective than what he’s being given by the people he had time for in his first month on the job.

Right now, it appears he’s hearing from the same old good ole boys perpetuating the same old song and dance to serve their same old self-interests.   [Read more…]

Solving Homelessness Can’t Wait Another Year

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I really want to believe that we are getting closer to a coordinated plan for housing people who’re experiencing homelessness. But I’ve sat through enough of these meetings over the last decade to justify my skepticism.

I’m not intending to criticize the concerted and well-intentioned efforts of the RTFH to craft a solid, viable plan for ending homelessness in San Diego. And this isn’t to trivialize the value of the work being put forth by Focus Strategies, a consulting firm from Sacramento, in crafting a plan based on data and metrics. But when I heard during the RTFH membership meeting that their plan won’t be completed for another year, my heart sank.

Surely most of the providers and advocates attending that meeting are close enough to the human beings currently experiencing homelessness to know what another year of waiting and planning and meetings will mean in human suffering. For many, a breaking point where they lose hope and turn to drugs and alcohol for solace. For others, another year on the streets will result in assaults and rape, loss of their children, loss of employment, loss of dignity and even entrapment in human trafficking.

For some, it will mean death.   [Read more…]

Mayor’s Vindictiveness Trumps Solving Homelessness In San Diego

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Faulconer’s Veto Likely Dooms the Convention Center Expansion

June 5 to 9, 2017 will go down in San Diego’s history as the week Mayor Faulconer revealed the Trump wannabe lurking beneath his compassionate conservative disguise – tweets and all! From Monday to Friday, the San Diego mayor’s office went from sending out a press release declaring:

“Our homeless crisis is staggering and the struggles on our streets are growing as more people fall into homelessness. The time to act is now. Lives of so many men, women and children are on the line.”

to vetoing the teeny line item to fund a half-time consultant to support the newly formed Select Committee on Homelessness.

What could account for such a complete reversal of perspective?   [Read more…]

There’s No Hiding It. There’s No Place for Homeless San Diegans to Go

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The numbers of homeless person in our region counted during the annual Point in Time Count (PITC) conducted January 29, 2017 were released this Thursday. This is the data that will be sent to HUD to determine how much funding will be provided to the County of San Diego for homeless issues, including emergency shelter and efforts to get people into permanent housing. Last year that amounted to $18 million but under the Trump administration those funds could be significantly reduced.

Despite their best efforts to highlight the sliver of good news (veteran homelessness is down by 9%) the numbers reported were a testament to failure. Despite considerable resources being expended this past year to remove the most visible evidence of homelessness – the tent and tarp encampments lining our streets downtown – by making life so miserable for homeless people that some assumed they would go elsewhere, the numbers of homeless people downtown rose by 27% and the number of tents and hand-built structures increased by 104%!   [Read more…]

Cruel Downtown Sweeps against San Diego Homeless People Have Got to Stop – Now!

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On April 5th, while I was in City Hall with other advocates for homeless people voicing our objections to the Mayor’s proposed ballot measure to increase the Transit Occupancy Tax to pay for an expansion of the convention center, with a few crumbs tossed in for “Reducing Homelessness”, only a few blocks away, some of our City’s most destitute citizens were being cruelly victimized.

Their tormentors not only took away everything they had left in the world, including what little makeshift shelter they had, but in one case documented in photos and a video by Michael McConnell, they even took a man’s pet dog!   [Read more…]

The San Jose Solution for Emergency Shelter

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A state law allowing emergency sleeping cabins could work for San Diego too.

San Diego County / City of San Diego are in the middle of a serious emergency shelter crisis. The Point in Time Count numbers for 2016 for the county counted 8,692 homeless persons, with an 18.9% increase in the number of unsheltered individuals. Numbers from the recent count will not be available until April, but are expected to be worse. San Diego has the unenviable distinction of having the 4th highest number of homeless people in the nation – more than Las Vegas, Washington DC, Chicago and San Francisco. By comparison, Santa Clara County / San Jose reported 6,556 homeless persons in 2015, and came in 9th for number of homeless people.

The San Jose Solution – San Jose took bold action to address the human crisis.   [Read more…]

The Miracle

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The face in the mirror was astonishing!
Visibly aged from the face that stared back just this morning.
It was certainly still me,
with all of the familiar memories of my past sixty-five years.
But there were also memories of a past I had not yet lived.

That wrinkled reflection grinned with satisfaction,
like a old tomcat recalling the huge rat it once devoured.   [Read more…]

Sleepless

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I have not actually slept
since that long night when astonished reporters went off script,
as we watched one incomprehensible red piece after another
inserted into the puzzle
that was supposed to be mostly blue.

Hearing them stammer words that couldn’t possibly be true,
but were,
was when my subconscious determined
that if I never close my eyes
I won’t awaken to that same nightmare that millions woke to
in Germany, under Hitler,
and other fascist regimes…
the morning after the coup.   [Read more…]

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