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Back to Homeless and Hopeless in San Diego

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

A week ago, I was sitting in the Denny’s across the street from Howard Johnsons in Chula Vista, waiting for Tracy (name changed), an Army veteran Amikas had been assisting for almost a year. The good news was that Amikas, a non-profit that I started five years ago to help homeless women and children, was going to cover the next five days at the hotel for Tracy and her three children. But I wasn’t looking forward to this conversation – where this family would go after those five days was anybody’s guess.

This situation was all the more frustrating because Amikas had helped Tracy to get into permanent supportive housing six months earlier. The system had worked.   [Read more…]

Iconic Vision or Elitist Tunnel Vision? The Future of Downtown’s East Village Green

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

Who could possibly be against a park? A bit of open space to take a stroll; rest on a bench and breathe in the fresh air; enjoy the peace and quiet… Maybe that’s what most of us think of when we think of a park, but that’s not what developers see. Last night, at the third “workshop” for the East Village Green, we were treated to what one lady exclaimed as an iconic vision and what I thought was a perfect example of elitist tunnel vision.

The East Village Green would be a 4.1 acre wonderland between 13th St and 15th St. and F and G Street in East Village. It has been promised to the people of the neighborhood for almost 10 years–about the same time a poor family will have to wait to get Section 8 housing.   [Read more…]

But First …

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Living with ADHD in a distractive world

By Jeeni Criscenzo

I was surprised at the number of comments made to a recent post I put on Facebook about Attention Deficient Disorder with a photo of my desk that included such strange things as a small brown egg and a ½” diamond drill bit. It seems that my incessant state of distraction is a common problem in people my age (aka Seniors).

One person informed me that there is such a thing as Age-Activation Attention Deficit Disorder – AAADD ! Another linked to a comical video about a woman who went from one task to another without getting anything accomplished.

I didn’t laugh. When you have spent your life dealing with an inability to focus alternating with hyper-focusing, both to the detriment of yourself and everyone around you, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) isn’t very funny.   [Read more…]

Traumatized

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The first time I was accused of being a privileged white woman,
I was defensive.
I tried to explain all of the non-privileged experiences
I’ve endure in my life,
despite the fact that I am white.
But my accuser wasn’t buying any of it.
She doubled down on her angry outbursts.
  [Read more…]

Checkmate

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Mr Trump
This is for Rosie O’Donnell and Megyn Kelly and all the women verbally abused by Donald Trump and other bullies like him.

Mr. Trump
We used to call people like you, “Know-it-alls”.
You know, those teenagers who just heard something on TV
and repeat it,
as if they personally did the lab experiment to prove it.
Or worse,
the ones who tell you this is the way it is,
and then quote chapter and verse from a book
written by men whose perspective of reality
was that the earth is flat. …   [Read more…]

Lazy Fare in the Garden: Just Let It Be

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

Ever since I read the book Noah’s Garden by Sara Stein, I’ve taken a more laissez-faire attitude toward gardening. While I haven’t let my garden return back to its pre-human-intervention state, I’ve stopped being so controlling about what gets to grow where.

One of the best features of the home we rent is the big flat, unshaded yard overlooking the Tecolote Canyon. While the soil needed a lot of amending, it’s otherwise a perfect place for a vegetable garden. The 5-foot cinder block wall isn’t pretty, but it’s kept the coyotes out (so far)–the other critters – not so much.

I noticed this morning that something (most likely a squirrel) had polished off every leaf on my zucchinis, cucumbers and sweet potatoes. All of that in one night! They must have had a helluva full-moon bash! Just the day before, those plants were thriving in big plastic gopher-proof containers. But apparently they were just a tub-o-fun for squirrels.   [Read more…]

Dreams and Nightmares on Medi-Cal

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It has been my dream, since my husband and I first started dating, to go with him to visit the ancient Maya sites that I wrote about 25 years ago in my novel, Place of Mirrors. Though we planned the trip several times, including for our honeymoon, one thing after another has caused us to postpone it.

A few months ago I got an email about an upcoming rafting expedition down the Usumacinta River that would stop at all of the sites I wanted to visit. We had met the guide for that trip, Rocky Contos, two years earlier, before I broke my leg.

He had suggested that we could get a reduced rate if we would work the trip – I could do cooking and my husband could do translating and assist with various chores. If we got some others to join us, it would cost almost nothing.   [Read more…]

The Swarm

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

How about something lighter this week? Any analogies in this story to present day issues are purely coincidental and of your own making.

This morning (Sunday) I was browsing through Facebook, delighted to see that while Saturday’s unusual thunderstorms may have literally dampened the Pride Parade, they certainly did not dampen the spirit of an event makes me very proud to be a San Diegan.

Scrolling down, one of the posts about the rain was from a good friend who lives in El Cajon who wondered about the flying insects that were in her pool and seemed to attack her as soon as she went out the door. I imagined that the rain had caught some passing swarm by surprise and brought the whole mass down into her yard.   [Read more…]

It’s Not Socialism, It’s Democratic Capitalism

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In a recent interview about the groundswell of popularity for Bernie Sanders, Richard Wolff, author of “Democracy at Work, a Cure for Capitalism,” opined that we are seeing a new form of socialism that doesn’t give the power to the government, but rather focuses on “changing the way we organize enterprises, so they stop being top-down, hierarchical, where the board of directors makes all the decisions, and we move to this idea which is now catching on: cooperation, workers owning and operating collectively and democratically their economy and their enterprise.”

Instead of looking at this as a new kind of socialism, I like to think of it as a new kind of capitalism—democratic capitalism, where workers are actually free.   [Read more…]

Welcome to My Niche

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

Wow! I passed muster with the editors of San Diego Free Press and this marks my inaugural weekly column. I’ve been told I can write about whatever I want, so expect the unexpected, because I like to poke my brain cells into all sorts of ideas and places.

I’ll be alternating between prose and poetry depending on what muse is biting. While my focus will often be on homelessness, I’ll be writing about feminism, equality, gardening, politics and anything else that I think needs to see the light of day.

…”My Niche” was the name of the weekly column my mother wrote forty years ago for the Hawthorne Press, the local newspaper for the small New Jersey town where I grew up. I do this to take up the torch she was forced to lay down too soon.   [Read more…]

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