As we all should know the Supreme Court has made some recent decisions regarding homelessness that are grotesque. I live in California where governor Gavin Newsom has wasted no time in utilizing this ruling “crack down” on homeless communities. My area Pasadena has been flirting with further actions and proposals within city council and our mutual aid group Pasadena For All has been brainstorming effective counter measures to this oppressive ideology.
We have decided to try and make a living history of the unhoused population for Pasadena. The hope here being that we could give voice to people who do not usually get the opportunity to speak about their experiences at city council meetings. This is a sensitive and complicated scenario that will take some tact, trust building and grace to execute. We do not want to misuse anyone's story or pressure unhoused folks into feeling embarrassed or ashamed.
Last week end was our first attempt. I admittedly was a little misguided and poorly anticipated the feelings of our unhoused population. I was a professional audio engineer and composer for over a decade and to me the obvious first step was to bring a portable recording rig to the community and ask folks some questions. Our intent was to record the conversation and transcribe it into a text format obfuscating the identity of who we interviewed. We wanted to get the best representation of their story, not the best interpretation of our notes of their story.
Flaw 1: Unhoused comminutes do not (for good reason) do not trust recording equipment. It is very hard to use the content appropriately and very very hard to convince people that you will indeed use the content appropriately. Face to face people will tell you everything about how the became homeless, what its like on the street and how they are treated by the public and the city. Put a microphone anywhere near them and that trust goes way down… again for good reason.
Flaw 2: The rig I brought was not super easy mobile set up. Yes I could have carried it around for a few hours at high noon Los Angeles heat but It was day one and I had hoped that maybe some folks from our stationary table set up would participate. I was wrong. My partner did the walking route and told me after that there were some potential folks willing to give their stories but were not willing to walk in the heat or temporarily abandon their possessions. This makes perfect sense.
Saturday will be attempt number 2. We have a plan to have a few different methods in the works. One group will take notes as best as they can. My group will try again to use recording and reduce to amount of gear we need to travel with.
Why does this matter?
City council members hear exclusively from business owners and people with a vested interest in property values. They do not speak with the unhoused, they do not hear how their actions effect them, they do not sympathize face to face with unhoused communities. They predominantly hear about how they are a nuisance… which realistically they aren’t.
I have served unhoused communities for a long time. They are no more dangerous than anyone else and they ask for very very little. Meanwhile nimbys and developers push more and more good people to the brink of homelessness.
If was can take these stories to city hall via speeches and emails we can make sitting concil members acknowledge the realities of their decisions. We can show them how their past decisions have increased the homeless population and we can show them how compassionate policies will actually reduce homelessness. Right now the city believes punishing homeless communities is an acceptable solution, and if they never hear from the people most effected then they will never change their corse.