Death at City Hall
According to Arcata Police Chief Brian Ahearn, “An unhoused female, known to City Hall staff due to her frequency around the City Hall property, was located deceased…by City staff outside the front door to City Hall. It appears the female was sleeping under the covered alcove with her property stowed feet from her… .”
Those without shelter face the elements of a Humboldt winter with whatever they have at their disposal. Frequently, a person living on the streets will ‘camp’ in an alcove or entryway of a business or commercial building until light, and then pack up and move on when the sun rises. That was not the case this morning at Arcata’s City Hall.
The woman was likely there to rest for the night. Her belongings were nearby, as well as a small dog. According to the Emergency Shelter Alert that was issued for the Humboldt Bay region for December 5-6th, an outdoor low temperature is expected to be as low as 30 degrees. On Sunday evening, the National Weather Service reported a low of 43, and a lot of rain, over 1.25 inches in the Arcata Area.
Chief Ahearn confirmed that foul play was not suspected in the woman’s death, and noted that the Coroner responded to take custody of the decedent.
Ahearn also indicated that the dog was found safe and in the care of his department, telling us in an email this afternoon, “The decedent’s dog was located nearby and cared for by APD staff pending identification of someone who can care for the dog long term. APD stored the decedent’s property for safekeeping pending notification of, and arrangements by, next of kin.”
The Arcata Police Chief clarified that the dog is currently safe in the care of the APD. The department is waiting for contact with the woman’s next of kin, and depending on if the woman’s family is able to take the small dog or not, Ahearn told us “APD identified someone who would like to care for the dog long term, should next of kin choose to go that route.”
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Will this sad event push the City to open more housing to poor and non-students? I suspect not; water off a duck’s back to those mansion-dwellers.
People in arcata need to open their homes to the homeless, what a bunch selfish people in arcata. They just sit and watch people freeze to death outside while they have plenty of room inside their houses. Very selfish community there. Decades of voters have gotten us here,thanks.
democrats ?
Oh please Have some respect This has nothing to do with democrats
Yep…Liberals attract vagrants to their towns and cities…
is that why you are here?
I’m exercising my right under the 1st Amendment to express my opinion. Why are you here?
Thank you soooo much for that.
Country Joe, I hope you are always prosperous and that you don’t live pay check to pay check. Like many of us do. And honestly homeless people are attracted by climate and to be close to services. I’ve 2 friends that both live in high dollar areas. And both can afford to rent a small room in someones home, but choose to sleep in their trucks. Why because it’s so expensive to rent. And why deal with other people that if you don’t have too. Personally I’ve taken in homeless folks and it can challenging l, but I’ve made a difference in so many life. I’m likely to do it again. I help a mother and a son. Mom had bone cancer and son is on the spectrum. After 3 years I help her transitioning to the after life. I was there for her and helped her get into hospice. I’ll miss her forever, but her whole life was about barely getting by and information was impressed on her son. So he also does barely what he needs to survive.
I lived paycheck to paycheck for many years. You’re a good person and I thank you. I’ve helped a great many veterans myself. The death in Arcata is a terrible tragedy but it’s the result of her lifestyle and actions and was inevitable. I worked hundreds of hours of overtime to afford the downpayment for my first house and OT every week to support my family. It’s all about personal responsibility. Bye the way, I don’t reside in a high dollar area and never have.
I believe our nation must stop spending $800+ Billion a year supporting millions of criminal aliens and take care of American citizens first and foremost. We’ll be a better nation when we do.
I’m pretty progressive on most issues and I usually vote democrat down the ticket (not always, but usually). I agree with you about personal responsibility and I don’t think that the Democrats take that issue seriously. I think many programs disincentive hard work and while intending to help people, actually lead people to end up siting around more, and not being productive. I really think that leads to drug use, loss of self respect and all the rest.
Humans need to feel useful and productive, and unfortunately if given the chance will do exactly the opposite.
You know nothing of the chances she had and if they were appropriate to her needs. You don’t know what she may have experienced in her life. Living as she did is hell. Try it for a month and see how you like it. If the “chances” given are our mental hell system, prison system or inappropriate family attempts they are like giving someone a medicine that will actually do more damage or like giving half a dose of antibiotics then blaming the sick for not getting well. Most humans unless driven to do otherwise want to be indoors even some who say the don’t want housing just say that out of pride, mistrust, hidden despair and/or exhaustion bred apathy.
The “personal responsibility” advocates’ attitude is everone homeless or otherwise vulnerable, suffering is just spoiled and lazy. When in fact they do not appreciate that their functioning, their “personal responsibility” is a product of the social conditions in which they grew up and they are taking that for granted and attributing all accomplishments to themselves alone, culturally common and overly egotistical and socially irresponsible… ultimately not sustainable for a species do socially interdependent for survival.
. For some that attitude is a defense against feeling responsible and thereby feeling guilty and perhaps helpless. For some they are already tapped out taking care of their own circle. I get that and they could at least try to be supportive of the community needing to do something cause all their “personal responsibility” separatism and punitive disregard hasn’t amounted to a better community overall… the prisons have been many and full for half a century at least and the mental health support system a nightmare; where
Has that gotten us?
Theres no reason for the govt to curb spending, their hooks arebin every tax paying citizen and land owner, and business owner, maybe that death was a result of not being able to overcome the brutality of this system, struggling to create a better tomorrow becomes too mych to deal with,
Death means no more bills, no more pain, no more addiction, no more consequwnces for mistake after mistake.
The carrot jusr isnt worth it, the stick is poison
yes especially in the olden days it was far more commonly understood that there are things in life worse than death. So true.
Mental health and social services are more often than not a nightmare and only when someone has to follow all the wild goose chase phone numbers and services do they find out it is extraordinarily invasive and exhausting and all mostly futile in the end. Pills are thrown at them and maybe 50 minutes a week with a practioner aka total stranger who works in isolation, as do most all “therapists” unlike heart surgeons etc who train and work in teams. even if housed they are left to suffer in isolation without the support that could help them become productive or at least not destructive.
Really nope it republicans that don’t give a F about people!!!!!
That would be politicians, but they care when it gets them votes. Republicans, democrats all the same. Trump and Biden are one the same.
Why would you post that?
I’m a sanders supporter and I have to disagree with you. I know many conservatives who are more or equally actively and directly giving to vulnerable community members and to their own family than some intellectual liberals who live in their head and don’t tend “the fields” get their hands dirty directly. On both sides there is a tendency to over indulge their families and selves and deny others’ basic needs and attribute their own success entirely to themselves …fat egos on all sides. conservatives care in a different way, those that do care that is and if we don’t see that we can’t work with the m productively. Those who not care are similar to liberals, academics. Intellectuals who do not care, against just different ways of justifying/rationalizing it .
Yeah, that’s just Arcata… There’s no homeless people in your town, is there? Show me a community- no, a neighborhood- that is not full of selfish and greedy humans.
Have you opened up your home?
Yes, job food and shelter for sure. What decent responsible human being wouldn’t? My door is always open, caught a guy stealing from me, and everyone thought I was crazy cause I offered him a job so he wouldn’t have to steal.
I have done similarly and have known people who took in homeless and had no serious problems as a result and in many cases gained much from the experience. Even when such efforts don’t produce immediate results (what worthwhile and difficult things do? ) down the road they often culminate with other positives and the person in need is affected later… kindness like medicine needs as many doses as the wounds require. Yes there are people who are too dependent in general and/or on hostility and entitlement due to childhood training and even they though “spoiled” need person centered, personal understanding along with exposure to more “personal responsibility.” to be helped and become less dependent. Meanwhile many people had childhoods in which they could depend upon little and/or even worse could depend on abuse and need a different approach.
How many homeless people are living in your house. I have a family member who used to let people stay but was robbed and assaulted because of it.
I give 6 people a place to live, and give them food. In return they must be productive respectful member of society, that’s all I ask
According to your definitions of productive and respectful. Truely great for those who share and/or can abide your definitions. So good you do so (I hope as too many who “help” also abuse with or without intent. It takes massive teams over generations to make a car well; humans are far more complex and individual effort not enough for helping them either.
And yo are not counting your family members right? Because that would make your comment a despicable lie.
Kym asks the same of you in the space she provides for you.
And yet…..you are not productive or respectful.
What we’ll do is build housing in all our neighborhoods. Every single census block needs a housing complex for low and no income folks. Stop with the finger pointing and acting as tho the poor haven’t been with us since the days of christ. They happen to have gone away for a while under the Democrat post war policies of FDR, and they’ve been creeping back since Ronald Reagan and his trickle down bs started.
So, we either have the rich pay their share of taxes or we have the poor among us. Yall choose. I’m good either way.
Rich Never pay their share,,,,jusr ask trump, clinton, bush,
Honestly we have tons of non profits that are working very hard to house our homeless. Arcata House Partnership is is just about to open a housing situation for homeless folks. This was a huge undertaking to take a motel and turn it into housing for the homeless. There are services, but the person needs to let us know the need help. Our street outreach people put there heart and soul into finding help for our homeless. I don’t know where you live,but the people for Arcata California have big open hearts and truly try to help our homeless population.
Having a big heart doesn’t address the root causes. It just allows the behaviors to continue without consequences.
Not having a big heart is also insufficient . Appropriate consequences are complex just as medical treatment is for things that are only physical . We expect mental and social health care, social intelligence to be so simple then blame the ill individuals for failing. That is irresponsible and we are getting the consequences of that failing filling up our public spaces.
Nope. Unless things have drastically changed in last couple years, direct experiences for 7 years starting in 2012 and late in life and I couldnt have believed how inadequate and debilitating and exhausting and even damaging the “services” listed in fact are (including ones you mention) when you actually have to access them . And I’d worked 50-70 hours a week since supporting myself starting age 16 and part time to survive even before then. I’ve risked my life to save those of strangers. I know hard work and nothing was harder that trying to get decent, non damaging social services support late in life. I’m was more damaged by it than helped.
I don’t fault the individual hero’s so much as the system that expects a few random hero’s to be sufficient and waves the flag of “oh look how much we are doing” yet hasn’t lived it, and detracts thereby from the society that is not investing in systemic reliable consistent and adequate services through funds and also direct participation instead leaving systemic needs to random acts of charity. We have a government built for the people but not participated in by the people … too many of us don’t vote and too many feel that voting is sufficient. But that’s another topic. Basically no there are not adequate services at all.
Seriously!!
Ironic your name..yes community depends on more individual care and perhaps risk..after all we glorify risk and sacrifice when it comes to wars yet at home too many are accustomed to many comforts.
AND the Lone Ranger approach doesn’t cut it alone either. Notice how superhero’s in contempary movie are more realistic and now their dependence on a team is acknowledged? Hopefully we are evolving to be more community minded and active. Civic duty should be required of all 18-25 year olds for two years in exchange for room and board and at completion credits for trade school, college or small business loan. Civic duty should not be able to be cherry picked by the privledged. Everyone should have to do 6 months with elderly, 6 months with mental health care, 6 months custodial work and 6 months of their choosing after completing the first 18 months.
step right off. I and others have been housing and helping for decades in Arcata.
And no I’m not a landord, I’m a regular person who has had buses parked out front, and offered floor space, many times. Currently getting really screwed over by my landlord, but don’t diss Arcata, a lot of us washed the blessed sleeping bags of forest defenders and gave them floor space.
The cops need to leave the homeless alone and stop citing for bullshit citations the district attor ey won’t pick up and try their camping or dance is on freeze so they are trying to use amc 100.06 a6 as a tool to attack and harass the homeless at the behest of city hall after finding Nancy Barnes dead and several others across the area seeking shelter in trash cans
Contact the aclu and tell them how the police harass the homeless and it will change eventually
They should build a women’s shelter. For real women not self-identifying ones.
Someone just died. Now is not the time for polarizing comments.
But I agree, we should build a shelter, and encourage ADUs and encourage the building of what used to be called starter homes.
Yes, a woman who was female was sleeping in a doorway and there should be a shelter for them away from males (even ones in spinny skirts).
Everyone deserves shelter and that is a b******* comment to make. That kind of hatred is what’s ruining this country. People like you, someone is dead and there is no reason to make a comment like this. All women and all men who are homeless deserve shelter.
Women who are homeless deserve space and security to sleep away from males who might decide to molest them with their peni.
Obviously, this woman was sleeping at the Police Station City Hall for safety and security.
These vagrants deserve to work and pay for shelter like every other American…
Country Joe you sound like a Trumper and unless your gonna try and help those less fortunate then you. Then as far as I’m concerned you comments have no merit!
He may be helping others and bitter about it or something else.
What if the person is disabled and can’t work like everyone else? Some people have mental problems and some with other disabilities can’t work. I resent that because sometimes something happens in a person’s life that is not there fault that leaves them in that situation and it’s hard to get a job when you are in that position. So it’s easy to sit back and say it’s there choice but sometimes it is not. You are a perfect example of self righteous ass.
We’re not all given the same menu. When miss applied, choice theory and practice becomes an excuse to blame victims . We need to create conditions/experiences for people as that is what menus are mostly made of. And yes if people cannot function in a typical job help them find something suitable… and if they can’t at all then at least get them out of parks and streets and don’t just let them rot alone in low income housing which is the case now even for elders. Other than maybe wheels for meals.
You did not work nor pay for the care you had in formative years and for which you are clearly not adequately grateful for nor humble enough to acknowledge neither your luck nor the factors that made you functional (I’m assuming you are,lol) . You inherited your parents house? Have it comin down the pike? Someone/s cared well enough for you as you grew up? Or just didn’t have heinous abuse? I bet yould comment aggressively about child abusers yet you don’t care to acknowledge those kids when they grow up physically but society abandons their emotional/social deprivation… like thinking one meal will offset decades of starvation in one’s formative years.
Women’s rights are human rights. Biology matters.
https://torontosun.com/news/world/social-worker-fired-for-suspected-trans-serial-killer-warning
I bring this up because she was sleeping very close to the police station in the same building with City Hall. It is likely she was doing so for safety and hopes of some security because she was an older woman.
Does thevdead person have a name
It would be nice if the cops had the same concern for the woman when she was still alive as they have for her dog after she’s dead. They can contact her next of kin to take care of her dog. Why couldn’t they have done the same thing for her before it was too late?
you can lead a horse to water ….
Has anybody even tried to “lead”her anywhere? Or were they too busy pushing her away?
that was my immediate thought
That assumes no one tried. If she was well known around city hall, as the article said, it is likely someone did. If you had ever tried to help someone in this situation, you’d know it is frequently resisted by the individual involved, many of whom have serious mental illness and reject contact. From both aquaintances and family.
My childrens mother is on the streets and social services have reached out to me trying to contact her.i have relayed the messages to her and she still refuses to leave the streets.i believe it’s because if she takes the help,they will provide a place to take care of her(68 yrs old),she wouldn’t be able to drink or smoke in a facility that would care for her.but it is her choice so nobody can help her when she refuses
True story. My cousin the cop on patrol sees a young man passed out on park bench at 2 AM, temperature below zero. He recognized him as he had arrested him many times previously for dealing drugs. He decides to take him to his parents home where he lived. Holding the young man up he knocks on the door and is greated by the young man’s father who cusses him out for harassing his son. Exactly what would you have the police do?
sometime next of kin is worse then the streets
A lot of folks no longer have contact with their relatives. Due to mental illness or substance abuse. They are pretty much hanging on by a thread
Why not provide a tiny home village, a few hundred 100sf units w/ shared community bathroom facilities?
how big’s your yard?
Any other societal problems you want to blame on your neighbors?
Highway maintenance?
Electrical grid?
Get on it, pal.
When the Conservative Republican rich hold 99.9 percent of the nation’s wealth and we have access to less than one percent, we will continue to die in the streets. Die in their wars, die in their infrastructure, die in their “ONLY ME” generational politics, die in their destruction of a two party Democracy and continue to becoming richer and richer! The Hispanics, minorities and products made abroad will service their needs. They could care less about us dying the painful death of freezing and OD’s
Ok you have blamed everyone!! Now what do you want ? What do you think is owed to you that you deserve ?
Fifty percent of what the Conservative Republicans stole from the Middle and Lower Classes!
You post about republicans is completely untrue…
Ok then tell me about the great programs that the Republicans have created to help me that have mental illness, drug addiction and are just unable to come up with the $ to rent a place. Name them. Republican party supports the wealth 1 percent and honestly they really not educated. They are totally being played by big business interest. We so much ake care of people and help them and that is not something that Republicans do and if fact there are lairs and cheater and we need to get real about how they blindly support a crazy man that ask for Russian help to get elected and really thought that Hitler was brilliant. I’m sorry to bust your old man bubble but Your boy Trump is going Down. Turn off Fox news and your new from many sources.
I pity unhinged posters. Nothing you posted is even remotely true. You drank all the kool aid spewed by our biased and corrupt lame stream media that’s the propaganda arm of the democrat party. Chronic TDS is unhealthy.
Yeah cuz there’s no rich Democrats
Here’s a short list of poor democrats…Linkedin Cofounder Reid Hoffman Donated $9315826 Mostly To DemocratsTotal donations: $9,315,826
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Net worth: $1.9 billion
Heiress Deborah Simon Donated $97 Million To DemocratsParty Affiliation: Democrat
“The white liberal is the worst enemy to America and the worst enemy to the Black Man.” Malcolm X
“We have become the country our Founding Fathers fought to get away from.” Me
Malcolm X was a dangerous bigot and racist…He received his karma…
I can’t fault him for his bias. And he certainly didn’t deserve to die for his convictions or for exercising his right to free speech. I’m somewhat prejudiced against white liberals myself.
As I posted earlier, Malcolm X received his karma. Liberals have a right to their opinions, even if they’re wrong….
At least you admit it. We all have biases etc and acknowledging it we can then potentially adjust if reality suggests or requires. Our personal truths are all valid and only when combined and tested do we approximate a provable repeatable reality. Faster slone, further together.
You’re talking about, Pre-Haj Malcolm.
Once he met a bunch of White Muslims, he had to re-think his platform.
Like bigoted, racist white-guys after Halle Berry smiles in their direction.
They’re just sheds. You can get sheds for a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars at ACE or Costco.
How many sheds can you afford?
They would need insulation, heat, electric – that’s a little more than Costco shed but still modest unit cost
👍
I agree. A company in Washington St has tiny houses for $7500 that are delivered on a pallet, can be set up and ready in 1 hour. They can be taken down in 1hour or moved on a truck/ trailer. I wish I could remember the company.
To all the black hearts out there; let it go. This person could have been your mother, sister, aunt, or just a friend. As a brother of a mentally ill brother, it is very difficult to “bring home” your sibling when their mental facillilities are dimmed.
Our taxes that go to help the homeless are spent in irresponsible ways. The people holding the positions in the jobs that “help” homeless, the shelters built that cost excessive dollars per unit for each homeless person, the restrictions on what can be built for the homeless; the list goes on and on.
If you are homeless, get on the highway with your thumb and head south; that’s how my brother survived. He also ate out of dumpsters behind large grocery stores and fast food chains.
Why head south Paul, I’m just curious. ?
There are many non profits that help the houseless. And honestly we really work to help them get on their feet and get healthy, but some folks are elderly and sick and unable to afford shelter.
I imagine that if the unfortunate deceased woman died from the cold, the poor woman may have succumbed on Friday night/ Saturday morning, as it was the coldest, and remained there undisturbed, where she was found, until Monday when Arcata City Hall reopened, after the weekend.
They give the temperature for a much less severe night…
What was the temperature Friday night…???
I’m sure it was much, much, colder Friday night, than it was Sunday night.
It would suggest a much sadder state of affairs, if the poor woman remained under the alcove, at city hall, deceased, actually, since Friday night or Saturday morning…
Based on the weekend temperatures, I’d say it was a more likely scenario.
Just as I suspected…
Between 6:00 PM Friday, December 2, and 6:00 AM Saturday, December 3, is when she would have been most at risk, as the temperature dropped from 39° F, to 30°F, 2° below freezing…
Someone should check some surveillance cameras, if they really want to find out what happened…
Did Arcata open an emergency shelter Friday night?
Is there a requirement for that…???
Is Friday night, (the night it dropped below to 2° below freezing), actually the night that the 68 year old woman perished…???
Did she lie there, dead, unattended to for the following 2 days, on the steps to City Hall, in the wonderful, progressive City of Arcata…???
It wouldn’t surprise me a bit.
In fact, I would be very surprised if she had only been there overnight.
May She Rest In Peace.
Sunday night is likely not the night she perished from the cold, based on the much less cold temperatures Sunday night to Monday morning…
Of course,
Arcata doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to death investigations…
nice to know that T hall allows the homeless there there’s a homeless person that’s allowed to sleep at our post office it’s ridiculous seeing their bedding
Ever wonder what no government might look like?
Yeah I would look like working-class people with a bunch more money at their disposal that they could save for when they are old and need it
You have never seen anarchy, have you?
Anarchy hmmm? Sounds like it would be great
Nope, it would look like the BLM-Antifa riots of 2020. Seen it. Luckily, young Master Rittenhouse changed the narrative that summer. A couple of well placed rounds, under duress, and all of the sudden…
The MSM completely lost their focus and BLM-Antifa ended up on the heap of leftist failures.
Hobbs said without government we would lack all cooperative effort “And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” He envisioned life with out society and its rules and restraints as “The war of all against all.” So, there’s one opinion. Every wonder what life under good government would be like?
Yes. And didn’t Thomas Jefferson say “democracy is the worst system ever created except for any other”? Nothings perfect that we can do a lot better. One participated in. Voting and going to meetings and expecting it to run well without more fuel and maintenance etc. is immature at best. What if everyone 18 to 25 required to put in two years of civic duty? In exchange for room and board and at the end credits towards trade school college or some kind of a loan for business ? No cherry picking by the privileged: everyone required to do six months with the elderly six months with the mentally ill or injured six months doing custodial work and then maybe after that six months of one’s choice.
Also we need people all people to have a roof over their head and decent food basic healthcare so they can participate in government more. For every entity government or quasi-private that receives tax dollars there should be citizen groups required like jury duty to serve on for a year to oversee and ensure the transparency independently regarding the services given , the use of the monies being spent and results . People but more time and energy and to their fashion hair nails jewelry trucks cars , technology than into the government and then complain that government isn’t doing enough. Also people are overwhelmed just trying to survive often and have no time Or energy so 30 hour work weeks would be helpful.
Does anyone know the lady’s name or have a picture or her or the dog? Maybe a monument or memorial in her honor? To keep it in front of our faces, this problem we need to solve. We look away too much. We’re too scared. I walked with a homeless lady in the forest with a little dog. Her feet were bleeding. I offered to take her to buy shoes. She didn’t want them, said she liked to walk on the earth. She loved her little dog. Said it was the only thing that kept her from “wanting to drink her face off.” I hope it wasn’t her. The thought of that happening a few blocks away is hard to handle, when a tent and some blankets and a tarp maybe could have prevented it. The thought someone could conquer addiction to just die in the elements is hard to accept. That is happened around the corner from the police station is really horrible. Studies show the giving people a little money to stay housed saves more money than the repercussions of allowing people to go homeless. I know not everyone wants help but you can’t expect people to pull themselves up when they spend all their energy trying to find food and stay alive. Also, did Pelican Bay decide to follow the law and give people getting out notice that they are entitled by law to get a ride to the location where they were arrested, or are they still not letting them know and letting them hop a bus and end up here (first stop from Crescent City)? I heard they “posted a sign” – gee thanks. Also does Cal Poly Humboldt pay property taxes to contribute to helping us address some of these issues? Or do state schools not have to?
I don’t think Cal Poly pays taxes
A memorial would be nice.
If this is the same barefoot woman I have met on several occasions then she has a car and another dog and a cat. Sometimes parked at the Community Center but then they cleared everybody out of there for Thanksgiving.
Condolences. Terrible. Maybe somebody could consider getting a grant for a homeless ranger, something like that.
I thought the people in the green vests were doing this? Or are they just protecting the shops and keeping paying customers feeling good? It should not take a grant and red tape for a couple kind souls with time to just check up on the houseless in cold weather. Arcata has always irked me with their “liberal” and “progressive” claims while their town declines into another third-world mess like SF, Garberville, LA, etc etc. Mansions for rich people and concrete outside for the poor and they just keep talking about how they care so much…
Thanks for getting this news story up and published. I wonder why it wasn’t in a police report or why City Hall did not issue a press release? I hope you will look into this aspect of the story. Thanks.
The Christians are happy to stand in front of the mall with “pro life” signs but they aren’t so happy to be pro-life and open their church doors on a freezing night to “the stranger” the “friendless” or the “orphans”. Funny that. Merry X Mas.
I am so very sorry that the woman lost her life trying to stay warm. Glad her small dog buddy is ok. We need housing for the areas homeless so bad. I pray that her passing will help get the ball rolling for that cause. May she RIP. Thank you to the person(s) who made a star flower heart circled with rose pedals for the lady. It touched my heart!
👍
I spoke with her several times, including just a few days ago. She was pleasant to talk with; she was trying to get a ride to a campground in Orrick, where she would have been able to stay for a month or two. I’m very sorry to hear that she has passed. Yes, we need housing for the homeless. And many people do not want this housing in their neighborhood, so proposed projects die an early death. And there are the issues of funding, services, etc. Still, everyone should have decent shelter.
Did you most recently speak with her on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday…???
RIP
I agree with some other comments. We need safe affordable housing. Both home prices and rental rates are crazy high. On top of that, many places are substandard (mold, rats, poor wiring, bad roof, etc). We also need everyone to have access to mental health care and substance abuse alternatives and strategies. These things would be expensive but not having them also comes at a great cost.
It seems that everyone has decided that she died from the cold, or OD’d. Maybe she had health issues, maybe a heart attack or a stroke. She was elderly, and trying her best to cope with life’s struggles. I hope she is in a better place now, reunited with those that loved her.
She is very likely at the morgue on her way to a pauper’s burial. It is sad she could not be in a better place while she could enjoy it.
Fact is that folks with substance abuse issues and the mentally ill will avoid shelters that have ANY rules. It is their own fault. As tragic as that cold fact remains, we all make choices that put us where we are.
Doesn’t mean it’s nice; but Arcata used to catch “vagrants” and house them on the “County Farm” up by the airport. A bath, a doctor visit, 90 days to dry out, clean clothing, a little exercise, $25, and a bus ticket to where they need to go.
Now we let them die on the sidewalk.
We are so much more kind, eh?
This is tragic.
And, sadly, for various reasons, homeless people often refuse to use the shelters.
Not all. But some, people I know, are too independent for the structure of the shelters, or too out there on drugs…
This woman may not have been able to bring her dog, for example.
So sad.
People try to retain their human dignity. She had her few possessions and her dog.
We’re living in a new time.
It’s time we all pitched in and focused on the big picture needs of our community, country and world.
How old was she?
A decent responsible healthier co mmunity would care less about the perfect bud or beer or craft chocolate (not talking organics which should be normal as they once were throughout human history) and endless hobbies and entertainment and enabling billionaires unless first sufficient actively given care about elderly not only being housed but also visited and cared for is built to be systemic, monitored transparently, not left to random acts of kindness and charity. . And mentally/emotionally injured care too.
I’m posting here only for the 2nd time, I’ve been busy (especially this time of year), but had to speak to this sad situation.
I see the people commenting on this poor soul’s departure, and have a bittersweet feeling. People are kind, and people are cold. I ask you, again, to choose kindness. This is hard, everyone has their life struggles and your cup may not feel full enough on many days. But kindness, in the short and the long term, lifts everybody. And if everybody is doing a little lifting, that adds up, that gets humanity high in all the right ways.
Whatever you are celebrating, I wish you joy.