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The Day after San Diego Homeless Awareness Day

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What has changed?

Yesterday, August 17, twenty of San Diego’s media outlets participated in a focused effort to call attention to the tremendous human, financial and societal costs associated with homelessness in San Diego. If we were writing about another country, we would be referring to the humanitarian crisis posed by a growing number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), but this is sunny San Diego.

It remains to be seen whether the well greased wheels of San Diego politics and commerce are altered in any way after yesterday’s concerted effort, but I can speak with some certainty about a few things that haven’t changed today.   [Read more…]

Why Do People Hate the Homeless?

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They’ll say it’s the smell of excrement. Or the public intoxication. Or the aggressive panhandling. Or the intrusion on their public or private space.

People hate what they don’t understand. Lots of people translate their repulsion in hate.

Homeless people on the street are a stark reminder of the failure that could be lurking around the next corner in life. And in order to get along in life the rest of us have to deny the possibility of becoming one of ‘them.’

All homeless people apparently lived great lives until they somehow fucked it up and ended up homeless. And “we” are better than that. Or so we think.   [Read more…]

East Village Homeless Issue Grew Under Faulconer’s Tenure

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San Diego Sandbags Efforts to Shelter Homeless People

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City snubs California law for emergency shelters

By Jeeni Criscenzo

If the City of San Diego really wanted to solve the ever increasing problem of homelessness, they might be willing to try something more innovative than eliminating 98% of the areas previously designated as suitable for emergency shelter without a Conditional Use Permit.

I first became of aware of a map in the City of San Diego General Plan, Housing Element called Figure 1 Areas Suitable for Emergency Shelters – November 2006. Amikas, a non-profit I founded with four other homeless advocates in 2009 to work with homeless women and children with a focus on veteran women, was considering the Midway Post Office as a potential site for veteran housing. The map was required by California Senate Bill 2 (SB2) also known as the Cedillo Bill.

This Statute became effective January 2008. Chapter 633 clarifies and strengthens housing element law to ensure zoning encourages and facilitates emergency shelters and limits the denial of emergency shelters and transitional and supportive housing.   [Read more…]

Compassionate Action Requires You to Give Something of Yourself

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By Laurie Black

June 12, 2008, I stood in front of the mirror on my 50th birthday and was relieved that I survived a half a century of happiness, tragedies, joys, four children, and mother in laws, stretch marks, mortgages…and a joyous loving marriage of almost 3 decades.  I simply knew, I had it all and was deeply grateful. Four days later, my beloved “baby” brother Brian Black was killed on Father’s Day in a car accident.

Brian had survived mental illness for over 25 years, which included more than 20 varied hospitalizations, a jump mid-span off the Coronado Bridge in 1988, numerous suicide attempts including a police assisted shooting (1993 he was shot 5 times) eventually, a court ordered “visit” to a locked facility with court ordered medicine, saved his life. After 2 years, Brian went back to school, received a certification to be a counselor for severely mentally ill, he married Judy and was working at Alpine Residential Home as a counselor when he was killed.   [Read more…]

Why Does Homelessness Persist in America’s Finest City?

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Housing is Not a Human Right in the US

By John Lawrence

Why does homelessness persist in the world’s richest nation? The simple answer is that having a roof over one’s head is not a human right in this society. Fortunate people, those with a home and a car and other assets will not vote to give others what they possess even on the most basic level. Article 25 of the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states:

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

  [Read more…]

‘Honey, Don’t Worry about Me. We’ll Find a Place Soon.’

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Halina is dead.

The effervescent petite blonde with the ebullient smear of sky blue eyeshadow above her sky blue eyes died in a residential hotel earlier this year.

I met Halina over a decade ago while I was working at the information desk of the old Central Library downtown on E Street. She was in the library searching for information on how to replace a lost ID. On a return trip she was looking for the address of her daughter Jessica.

She was a memorable presence—that sky blue eyeshadow, the girlish laugh, her genuine gratitude with the assistance she received. Halina would return to the library to simply say hello or to request all over again information on how to replace her lost ID or find Jessica’s address.   [Read more…]

We Need to Be Aware That the Homeless Are Human Beings

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When I heard that there would be a “San Diego Homeless Awareness Day” my first thought was “Hooray” and then I thought about how “awareness” isn’t the problem.

I mean we know that there are folks who have no home, no place to stay, penniless, practically completely down and out.

We’ve heard over and over on the news about “rock gardens” being constructed on some streets where the homeless like to sleep; about the police destroying their encampments, places where they feel relatively safe trying to get a good night’s sleep.   [Read more…]

We Can Do It Now! Tiny Home Demonstration part of San Diego Homeless Awareness Activities

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By Amikas

On August 17, in coordination with San Diego Homeless Awareness Day, a model “Tiny Home” will be assembled on site at the North Park Community Park, on Oregon St. between Polk Ave and Howard Ave. and will be available for photographs and viewing throughout the afternoon.

At 12:30 PM, Jeeni Criscenzo from the non-profit group Amikas will join with a representative from the Open Architecture Coalition and former Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña to discuss the importance of using “tiny homes” to provide low-cost emergency housing and storage to vulnerable homeless people currently sleeping unsheltered in San Diego.

They will also discuss why the City San Diego needs to come into compliance with state law and provide shelter for thousands of homeless San Diegans to avoid a lawsuit.   [Read more…]

Doom and Gloom at the Grand Old Party

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The presidential contest is looking increasingly bleak for the Grand Old Party, with even Karl Rove saying things are not looking good for the Donald.

The latest Economist/YouGov Poll finds nearly one in three Republicans expect a Clinton victory in November, nearly double the percentage who thought that a week ago. The same poll has 81% of Democrats agreeing with that assessment.

The question both parties are asking is whether or not voters will be willing to split ballots. Some Democrats are even dreaming of their party retaking the House of Representatives.   [Read more…]

Stacking The Deck in the 21st Century: Sweeps, Cheats, and Jim Crow

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Comic Con and the All-Star Game have come and gone, but San Diego’s homeless remain, criminalized and demonized. A report from the ACLU calls out blatant discrimination in charter schools throughout California. And rightwing-inspired laws restricting voting in states around the country are proving to be nothing more than a shield for racism.

Today we look at some of the downsides of life in the USA these days. The deification of the market economy and the quest to drown government in a bathtub are at the root of all these stories, something the Make American Great Again crowd seems unable to grasp.   [Read more…]

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