A Voice for the Houseless: Making a Difference…
Raelee Childers, houseless and with a substance abuse problem, is writing a sometimes column for us. She says she hopes to open the hearts and minds of those that are so quick to judge a book by its cover. Comments will be monitored for civility towards the author as well as other commenters.
Disagreements are fine. Personal attacks are not.
The reason I haven’t really written anything for while was because I wasn’t really sure if what I was writing about even really mattered to anyone besides myself. Or if it even made a difference. At least that’s how I felt until recently I decided to Google searched myself and found an article in pdf format with my name in it. So I downloaded it of course.
The article was from the University of Minnesota Law School Scholarship Repository. The title is “You Don’t Have a Home to Go to but You Can Stay Here: A Bill of Rights for Unhoused Minnesotans” (2021) Minnesota Law Review.
The article has actually been accepted for inclusion in the Minnesota Law Review collection by an authorized administrator.
So, now on page 36 at the bottom of the page down in the end notes was my name and the title for the column I write. Something I had wrote was used as a reference and even quoted for this Bill of Rights.
Here is the link for the article.
When I first saw my name, I didn’t know what to think. I never thought for one second what I had written was gonna be used for something like that. It made me realize that the things I write about really could make a difference, because you don’t ever see someone who’s homeless write about homelessness. Mostly because we don’t think that anyone will truly listen to us about anything.
And, why is that? It’s all due to how society treats us and talks to us. We are treated like our opinion doesn’t even matter. We are talked to like we don’t have a brain or feelings. I mean just because we are houseless doesn’t mean that we should be treated like animals in a zoo or like lab rats.
Everyone keeps asking the same question, “How do we end homelessness?” First off, until you actually live the life we do, you’ll never be able to understand the things we go through or have to deal with in life. But that is another topic for another day.
And with that I really want to say Thank you to you again Kym for giving me the opportunity to be able to make a difference in life. For actually treating me like I was a person and not just some homeless person. It really means a lot to me. So again Thank You Kym……
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Bless your heart Raelee and Kym! Sharing your story really does matter. So glad you got some recognition, and please keep sharing!
Understanding is a two way street,
and sometimes there is not enough time and honestly no reason to listen to a strangers life history.
I’m not homeless anymore, and still people aren’t interested in my story, so don’t think your the only one.
We all have stories, we all want respect, but conditions apply!
Being houseless doesn’t mean your different than the rest of us or have suffered more.
Come to terms with the realization that economic conditions are not consensual for most people in the world.
I know the mindset of not having a place to stay.
I almost set up a squatter camp in blue lake one time just to get out of having to pay rent to landlords.
Mostly I stayed in my truck, thank god for fossil fuels…
Short of being sponsored by a church, a government social program, a wealthy progressive internationalist, or a rare friendly person from a higher social caste, well, we are on our own..
And of course family, but that’s not there sometimes either.
Get out of the Humboldt county sticky trap if you can, and don’t “identify” as houseless or homeless.
Choose a aspirational identity perhaps..
and keep writing, and reading.
-Creative writing is key if your trying to share your story.
Being respected or excepted by others has all sorts of sometimes strange rules and customs, for whatever reason.
The people that do except us, listen, love laugh and eat with us, well, that is special, and it’s the exception, not the rule.
-good luck out there
The State of CA needs to stop pussyfooting around with the NIMBYs that run our counties and cities. This is a statewide problem which for thirty years has spent way too much on bandaids and bureaucrats. I like the idea of aspirational levels of supporting folks. All of us benefit by reaching out with kindness to provide basic housing and care for others and teaching them to care for themselves and others. Governor Gav just gave the what-for to counties and cities, withholding around a billion dollars until they provide better plans. IMO, he should give up on local government and go Big State. Maybe regional housing centers and special supervision, like the state provides for people with developmental disabilities. What is happening now is not working and has not been working for too damned long.
Another chapter from the homeless-drug-addict who apparently feels that she should be given a better situation…
It is interesting that you are still with us, and it is also interesting that your submissions are concurrent with the onset of cold weather and the approach of the holidays…
You operate sort of like many other organizations, like small hospitals and NPO’s, trying to stir up interest and discussion when things are getting tough…
Down in Yuba City, a large Motel was built in the 60’s, by, apparently, a Mafia Capo, who ran it for 20 years before he expired and his children subsequently sold it off… It kicked around another 35-40 years until it became a bit worn at the edges, and the showplace Best Western was sold off once again, to Habitat for Humanity, but it’s not really happening as all the neighbors forced the City Council to vote down the development…
So my suggestion: Move down to Lancaster, where the Homeless are building a “Homeless Town”, out in the desert…
OR: Start your OWN NPO! It’s the latest business opportunity in the USA, and even YOU could do it.
Set it up in Delaware, and you can use 95% of all donated money for “internal expenses”…
So GO FOR IT, Raelee, and good luck this winter!
That Y-S Best Western had great pie. A slice of banana cream went down nicely when it was 100 or so outside. Being outside was not so great.
The Bonanza Inn had the best restaurant in YC for years…
Vada’s Motel has been a center for “voucher housing” for years, and, there is a 5-story Hospital Building, built with Federal money in the late 80’s and early 90’s, which is largely abandoned, which used to house Fremont Hospital… 20,000 sq ft of hospital building would hold a few homeless guys…
There are options there, and IMO, the “new citizens” of Yuba Sutter want a solution that makes money and attracts business, just like SoHum…
Homeless people all over the place are officially “bad for business…”
Yuba City was all about strip malls and subdivisions back when Dick Belcastro (d. 1987) owned the Bonanza Inn. Back then homeless people congregated in coastal CA due to the heat. Life with a swamp cooler instead of A/C would be a challenge, but no cooler, no A/C, and no pool? The location of the Bonanza is perfect at 99 where it crosses 20. Public services are close by, including a school. It could help. It is not my backyard, but I would rather have folks camped at the Bonanza than out in the bushes behind my house.
If 99.8% of the population can provide a home for themselves, it is not their fault that 0.2%.
don’t. Except for one thing- avoiding dealing with it. It’s a bad case of eating your cake and wanting it too. Turning in into a problem that is someone else’s problem- society- allows both the homeless and non homeless to give themselves a pass. If it’s “society’s fault” the ugliness of enforced care for the mentally ill and/or drug addicted is avoided. No confinement of those who can’t organize themselves to get what they need but are afraid to let other have the power to do it for them. No ugly,scary mistakes in taking no action. No demands except those too vague to be attached “government.” And everyone is justified in being afraid of getting caught in government’s control.
Look at the per capita map of where homelessness exists. It is not even close to equally distributed. The weather plays a large part but, even considering that, there is no equality of numbers. Think about why…
The question Ms. Childers and Kym need to justify is why such a small but extremely burdensome percentage of the population should be the tail wagging the dog? Why should people at the bottom of the scale of competence have such a large share of society’s attention about what they want rather than what is needed?
Why indeed? Well, maybe because we care about our fellow human beings. Compassion for the less fortunate. Society in the best case scenario would want to take care of the less fortunate in their ranks. Why? Because I’d like to think that if I have extra, why can’t I share? So many have so much, and so many more have so little. I’ve been on welfare and even then I was the first in line to lend a hand to someone less fortunate. I still am. I’ve never been homeless, but I have had to leave my own home to escape abuse. Stayed in a motel that the Humboldt Women for Shelter provided. That was like 30 years ago. But I’ll never forget not being able to have a place to sleep. Not sure what I would do. If I hadn’t owned my own home I would of had to find a new place to live. With no money, no family and no one to turn to. Unless you have been abused, you can’t understand really what it’s like. Another reason so many women end up going back to their abusers. It feels like it’s certainly better than being on the streets with small children.
Bottom line is why shouldn’t they get attention? The bigger question to me is, why do people that have so much refuse to help the less fortunate? Why, when if you were to give them $5 just 4 times a month, that would very most likely not break you in any way. Why can’t you? You’ll spend $5 a day on coffee that you could make at home. But you’ve earned that coffee. No reason to scrimp on your desires. No reason to feel guilty for having that coffee either. But could you spare a cup for a homeless person? Or better yet just give them $5. What they do with it is truly no concern of yours. The reward is knowing that you helped out your fellow human on this planet. I don’t know if it is because I grew up dirt poor, but I really love helping people, especially those less fortunate to me. I have turned down panhandler’s. Some are rude and they aren’t going to get money from me treating me badly. But 95% aren’t like that. Most of these people have suffered abuse from either their parents, partners or both, or even another source. I wish all humans had the compassion they were born with, unfortunately life seems to drain it out of many of them. I’ve had my share of it draining from my veins myself. I think I have built it back up with knowledge and experiences that shape us. I surely hope if I’m ever homeless that people could show some compassion and lend me a hand.
The women always get my donations.
Kids or a hungry dog for me
Your last paragraph is perfect.
Society must prioritize and incentivize workers and contributors.
Once again:
Homeless people with dogs, are a great example of the abundance of services and monies available… If these people choose to do drugs and live in the bushes, that’s their choice…
Raelee obviously has access to the interweb, and the ability to scribe on occasion, so why can’t she find a place to live? Is, she looking?
With Project Roomkey, the shit-ton of money dispensed towards solving the problems of mentally ill and the dispossessed, why would someone choose to live outside?
We inhabit a world of 80,000,000 Seniors, many of whom have great resources, lovely homes, and whom, like Generalissimo Trump, will quickly leverage one property to buy another!
It’s insane how many homes sit empty, taxes paid, as sheer investments: 60,000 in San Francisco alone!
How much real estate is wasted on the cash-rich, who merely want a good return, and assets for their children…
Like he said, out of a population of 330,000,000, a mere 550,000 can’t seem to house themselves, and they congregate where resources and weather are optimal… So, even the homeless are not stupid!
And in California, there are plentiful drugs, bountiful bleeding hearts, and crazy social programs to care for the people who don’t care to care about themselves…
I would feed a feral cat, but a feral human?
Not so much.
Raelee, get over to AA/NA, clean up your act, and examine your options, because they are manifest and plentiful…
I think the problem if bigger if you look at countries with wealth equity spread more evenly than countries like the USA where 1% of the country owns 99+ percent of the all its wealth. I’ve been to Austria and never saw a homeless encampment. I’ve been to Sweden and didn’t see a homeless population, I’ve been to Chile and rarely saw a homeless person. But in America, one of the richest country’s in the world, but the most lopsided wealth equity has homeless people nearly in every state.
Is there a connection between unequal distribution of wealth and homelessness?
Is there a level of greed in America, and England and Italy and a number of South American countries that screams “the more I have the greedier I become”. The ultra rich in the USA, because they can afford it, insulates themselves from the rest of us. We have a government run by elected officials who pander to rich lobbyists to make themselves rich. And a former Pinocchio president who pushed thru a bill supported by rich the Republican Congress and Senate elected to lower taxes on the ultra rich so they became richer. And you just DON’T see the rich complaining about the homeless problem. Yet I guess when you have three and four mansions who cares if “those” others (meaning US) have to deal with the problem.
“In Chile’s streets, protesters chant a message now heard by the rest of the world. “Chile is waking up,” they say. But the center-right government of the country’s president, Sebastián Piñera, would prefer they stayed asleep. Chile is rich, but on Piñera’s watch, it’s also the most unequal country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Reuters reported that it has “an income gap 65% wider than the OECD average.””
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/what-the-hell-is-going-on-in-chile-a-protester-explains.html
” In Sweden’s 2011 survey, for example, there were 34,000 homeless people. Around 4,500 people were classed as being in an acute situation, which means that they were on the streets or in homeless shelters… Amnesty International’s 2018 report on the Romani population in Sweden found that there is a sizable population of Romani and other E.U migrants who are suffering from homelessness in Sweden. Romani, in particular, are marginalized more than other races in the entirety of Europe. In Sweden, the report suggests that many Romani people suffer from prejudice and lack of access to basic amenities such as water, shelter and healthcare. ”
https://borgenproject.org/the-state-of-homelessnesss-in-sweden/
Austria’s kind of different. Very Austrian. Typically to be homeless in Austria, you need to be register with a government agency. Otherwise you are not homeless. So who knows.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, Raelee. And (in my opinion) you shouldn’t avoid the “how did you get homeless” question. It’s not always asked to be judgmental or cruel; learning the path toward being unhoused can help people understand injustices in society. I’d be interested – and I’m interested in your general approach to being unhoused, networks and friendships you build, services you access, how being unhoused interacts with your feelings of happiness and hopelessness. I look forward to reading more.
your feelings and concerns absolutely matter! i am so glad you are writing on behalf of yourself and what so many others are going through that also feel as though they do not matter.. because we ALL do we ALL matter, we are meant to learn from one another and love one another without judgment. keep up the good work.
I have so many questions after this article.
Way too many questions.
Personally, I keep looking at the difference between incom(ing and outgoing as the differences between winning and losing in the modern world.
They’ve called it a rat race.
Some days are better than others.
I saw a picture of some cute tiny homes, maybe $30k so why not put a 100 on an acre and hand them out?
Every time the subject of people being homeless in the US comes up, I am again dumbfounded as to how and why this is happening.
In England, we have “council housing”, State owned housing, in which rates are set by the State.
My aunt and uncle have lived their whole lives in a council flat. Raised their kids in one. Brandon, Suffolk.
There are miles and miles of public land in America.
The land of milk and honey.
Corporations are making milestone profits while people are sleeping in the cold.
There’s a BLM office right near Mad River hospital. BLM land is everywhere.
We could easily build public housing enough to house everyone, including the many immigrants we need to sustain our economy.
It’s all about greed.
The love of money is at the root of all evil.