Victim in Dumpster Death Remembered by Protestors at the Courthouse Today
Jestine Green, the last photo her mother has of her. [Photo courtesy of her mother]
The local woman is believed to have died when the dumpster she was sheltering in overnight on January 4 was picked up and emptied into a Recology collection truck the morning of January 5, according to reporting in the North Coast Journal.
Those at the Courthouse carried signs with photos of the deceased. One sign held by a protester states, “We love you Jestine” And then lists a series of hashtags including #NoWhereToGo, #LegalizeSleep, and #HousingIsAHumanRight. Another sign held by a protester asks for “Justice for Jestine.” A third states simply, “We love you Jestine.” Another argues, “Try living outside in this weather…She had to.”
Women hold cardboard signs wrapped with plastic displaying a photo of the deceased. [Photo and videos by Ryan Hutson]
“We’ve got thousands of people out here without shelter,” Laffoon estimated. “[W]e only have in Eureka, I would guess, 150 shelter beds? Around that…To say, ‘oh if you need shelter, just go to the Mission–like that’s a simple solution…. Well, Jestine was familiar at the Mission. She would have gone there if she was able. So it is not a matter of her not thinking of that…It is a matter of that not being an option.”
Thomas explained in a voice often choked with emotion,
[Jestine] was in Southern Humboldt most of her life until the criminalization [of homelessness] really started…They would pick people up and they would take them to jail here in Eureka and they’d end up staying. And that was one of the big things–to always go north, because this is where the services are. She ended up coming to Eureka some years back here and being kind of stuck here….
Thomas said that Green faced a difficult situation the day she died. “We were having tornado winds and torrential down pour,” Thomas explained. “And she made a choice to seek refuge and unfortunately it cost her her life.”
Sounding as if she were fighting back tears, she continued, “This feels like a moral issue to me that people are dying in garbage cans…that we could do a little better….We need to help the people before something tragic like this happens.
She added, “We loved Jestine. We’re going to miss her. Her family is in our thoughts and our prayers. Also the man that had to experience this–the garbage man…This is tragic and I know this had to affect him…I’m sorry. We lost all the way around.”
A candlelight vigil is being held tonight at 5 p.m. at the Eureka Courthouse.
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I knew Jestine. She was sweet lost sole who lived many years on the street due to her circumstances and addiction. That was her chosen course in life and she accepted it and did the best she could. I think it is disrespectful for these special interest self appointed activists use her name and her picture to promote themselves and their cause.
Her mother didn’t.
Reading the article, what stood out, was that she was a person just like all of us. I already forgot the name of the group who organized it, but I learned a little bit about a person named Jestine Green.
Not exactly like all of us. Be real.
I agree. It is sad and unfortunate. I am very sorry for the family. You are right about choices. Sometimes they can not be the best choices for ourselves. As in this situation. May she be at peace and rest now.
Addiction is a brain disorder like mental illness & obesity.
Addiction is a mental illness.
These self appointed special interest activists are taking the time to directly point out a major and growing problem right here in our backyard, green spaces, sides of road. Humboldt County has a fast growing homeless problem, and although drugs and addiction are part of that, the economic collapse coinciding with the housing boom are creating a staggering gap of places for people in the middle to go. The Planning Dept needs to full swing left, turn from Cannabis to creating affordable housing. The county needs to upgrade in a major way services for addiction and mental health. We have become numb to the hundreds of tents you see everyday in the bushes wherever you look.
And if you have people who know about these programs and don’t use those resources you can’t force them
As a recovered alcoholic with 12 years, I am fully aware of that. My daughter, a local, trying to find a place while she goes to college for under 1k a month doesn’t square with the low paying jobs in the area. My point is there is a gap between wages and cost of living that is strangling many people in the middle here. And an almost complete lack of any mental health resources beyond the emergency room and Sempre Virens.
Agree ?. Even with a full time job that pays above minimum wage it’s still to hard to find housing. As soon as one house is available there’s 50 others trying to get that same house. I’ve been trying to up size into a little bit of a bigger house for my kids for going on 3 years but the rent around here is ridiculous. In most cases the rent would be a whole check or check and a half which would leave no money for gas and food. And plus most places won’t even consider you if you don’t make twice or 3 times the rent amount.
Did you hear that the shelters are full? Don’t take pets? Require u listen to religious beliefs? Oh wait they didn’t mention that here…mission says you don’t have to. Except they do it during meals so unless you happen to have ear plugs. Many homeless suffered abuse in childhood, severe abuse perhaps at the hands of religious …either way no one should have to face indoctrination and if you tell the mission what they want to hear maybe you have better chance of getting in. I worked for a religious organization that never mentioned their religion while doing charity work.
The time that it is reasonable to expect people to provide for another without requiring something in return ends after potty training. At that point the individual is expected to take care of increasing amounts of their own needs. Listening to “indocrination” is a very small price to pay for others doing what is normally done for oneself.
You know who pays the biggest price for independence? The person who works for decades to feed themselves and others. Talk about “indoctrination”. Try the alarm clock going off at 5 or 6 am for decades, getting up to feed the kids, get them off to school, get to work with a lot less freedom for 8 hours, then getting home to clean, fix food for others with, if you’re luck, an hour to do what you want before repeating the whole thing again. And they are the ones giving the money to those who complain about having to do anything at all.
Wow, that was harsh, and ignorant on the matter. Btw: It was your choice to have children.
I don’t believe anyone has become numb to the plight of the homeless but short of offering a handout what can we all do to stop this epidemic? I wonder every single day what if I was there or how awful it must be to feel so frightened and unsafe, especially during this time when some people are so insensitive to the others needs. And frankly violent idiots!!!
You mention economic collapse as a root cause of the problem, so the planning department shouldn’t swing away from Cannabis businesses (jobs) even as they do need to swing towards creating affordable housing.
“Choice” ? You know the life experience menu she was ”choosing” from? Self appointed? You volunteering? “Their cause”? So it’s not your cause to decrease the suffering and daily deaths?
Disrespectful?? What’s disrespectful is in the “richest country on the planet” to have thousands upon thousands of un housed sleeping in the streets during horrible weather. People who’ve lost all hope things will get better; as the process to become a “productive member of society” may be so out of reach or impossible for some to ever obtain. We’re either humane or we’re not. We ignore our brains and human capabilities that differentiate us from animals and accept this is the way it has to be (it doesn’t) and dismiss it from our consciousness by putting blame on the individual (hard to believe as it’s an obvious epidemic) and then shut down any blatant truths in attempts for remedy by saying simply speaking of it is “disrespectful” to the dead and is being abused for “their cause” as if their cause wasn’t to save her and souls just like her.
The US is actually the 8th richest country in the world per capita. And the 7th in per capita hours of work. Who is the most disrespectful in that country? Well it might be those who demand others labor to care of them while they do what they want to do.
Deserving is a tricky standard to apply. The reality is no one is owed much of anything. They earn it. Maybe with community help but in the end with their own self control and labor. Maybe the truth is that those who work to have shelter are the ones who “deserve” what they have and those who would take it from them do not “deserve” much of anything.
The most honest way of thinking is that giving to help others is done because it is a satisfaction to the giver. The recipient is hardly ever satisfied with the process. If they live to please themselves and don’t like the result, that also was their choice.
Yes bless her heart
If an at-risk person were given the option of wearing a location device, these horrible events might be avoided. Of course, its use would be voluntary. Perhaps the Department of Social Services could assign staff to track these at-risk folks when the weather turns bitterly cold.
um, how about we build housing for everyone rather than put tags on homeless folks, the way we might a herd of elk?
In the meantime, @DHHS how many women have to die in the cold before y’all open winter shelters in all these little towns every winter and campgrounds where people can put up tents and be safe as well as legal being there? these people are your duty. @MichelleBushnell et al.
im going to miss jestine. she tried hard to be a good person.
Unfortunately it has a lot to do with liability issues. Look at the proposed Arcata homeless car lot. They will have on sight security, camera systems, food, and bathrooms, but only for 30 spots. You’ll have to be registered and insured, prove you’re actively looking for housing and a job, and it will cost the city over $60k a month.. thats over $2000 PER PARKING SPACE!!! But that’s how it’s gotta be set up or if something happens people sue for perhaps millions. Also, many prefer their freedom to get wasted and pass out wherever they wind up
She apparently chose not to go to a shelter. Or couldn’t. Nobody knew she was in a dumpster.
michelle bushnell Personally helps homeless i am witness
There needs to be a women’s shelter. No identity bs. Just a women’s shelter. These women are dying in the street. One at Arcata City Hall and Jestine who died in a recycling bin. These women have no place safe to sleep.
Lately, it has not been “people” who are dying in the cold. It is women. Older women with no family to take them in. Women who are vulnerable. Women.
There could also just be a shelter- and guaranteed housing.
Lots of people have no safe place to sleep.
The woman who died at Arcata City Hall was named Nancy. There should be a Nancy and Jestine Women’s shelter for women.
Wonder if she knew Betty.
There should be full transparency, basic lists vs a few people cherry picking who gets in. I can tell you Betty is not educated to deal with many issues people have.she is one woman and less room than the mission I believe. I know someone, a older woman who tried twice with Betty and couldn’t get in no reason given. She didn’t do drugs, have a drinking problem nor any criminal record.
Not an amazing comment not especially helpful. I don’t know why your friend was not able to get help from Betty but commenting on her education and requesting transparency from one of the few people who is actually doing anything about this problem doesn’t seem very well directed.
H
It needs to be a different kind of shelter out there. When you’re homeless and have a partner.they try to split you up. Whether you have an addiction or not.you’re offer drug treatment. Rehabs are not homeless shelters. If I want to get preached to I’d go to church. I tried to talk to the homos advocates about alternative ways of going about homelessness and no one wants to hear it. Why is it to go rent a room isn’t cheaper there’s so many hotel rooms are empty. But the homeless are getting ruder and ruder and dirtier and dirtier. But there are a few of us that keep a clean house. But yeah there’s room for us.
To Justine’s family I’m sorry for your lost.
I’d like to see women get a shelter so they don’t have to engage in survival sex with a “partner”. Many do or they huddle in a doorway at City Hall by the police station or hide in a recycling bin. The point is there needs to be a women’s shelter away from adult males.
This goes both ways. There’s currently no resources for male in similar situations.
Men are not hiding in dumpsters or freezing on the doorway that houses the police.
Men and women are not the same. Grow a heart
Interesting…. I see a lot of houseless people in many doorways in Old Town, and they’re all male. Segregation of rights is part of the problem here, so it certainly isn’t a solution.
Yes. “People” are male the default “person”. Wouldn’t want to discriminate against a “person’s” needs. “People” need places to have sex with women who are looking for a safe place to sleep.
Nancy was sleeping in bedroll at Arcata City Hall in a doorway that also houses the police station with her dog when she died of exposure. Older woman with no “person” to have sex with her as a motivation to keep the other males from doing her harm. She is just a discard, “people” matter more!
Justine was found in a recycling bin the morning after a very powerful storm. She was suffocated in the recycling sheltering from the storm and hiding for safety in a bin. Too bad she too, was older, and is a discarded woman, too old for protection from a “person” who is a “partner”.
Grow a heart. If something happened to your mother’s family or you, if a financial or housing issue pops up, this could be your mom or your sister.
Grow a heart.
Men and women are both dying. You can advocate for women without blinding yourself to the harms faced by homeless men. Here’s just one from recently. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/homeless-man-died-cold-weather-family-95865152
Men and women are different. Women need safe spaces away from men. You just think “all things being equal” and just shove them all in a room everything will be “equal”? You are not starting out from a place of equality here. Men don’t worry about being raped in their sleep and can easily “partner” with another man without being expected to pay their way with sex. It is not a even playing field. Women need safe places to sleep without men. It is that simple.
Again…advocating for women is not the same thing as ignoring facts about men. Yes, women need safe places. But men also need shelter. Men are freezing and men are dying.
This thought has crossed my mind…
What is so important about providing shelter, infrastructure and service for recyclables, but not people?
How hard would it really be to provide “recyclable” bins, that wouldn’t be disturbed, to shelter, protect, and accommodate homeless people, especially in inclement weather, considering that it is done for discarded bottles and cans.
There is something very wrong with this World, and the people that includes, if there is a greater value placed on trash, and that it is better taken care of, than the value placed on people, and the way we take care of each other.
At the very least provide the same, safe, dry, type of “dumpster” for people to take shelter in…
It would really solve a lot of problems…
Let the CA redemption value pay for it.
We are all getting robbed for that money.
I advocate for women. Yes. You just don’t like it when someone advocates for women.
Everyone I know personally would disagree with you on that. Some folks even think I’m disagreeable on the subject.
Are women really being raped in local homeless shelters and missions? It seems that’s something we would know about. We occasionally hear of men assaulting women in encampments, but I have yet to hear of it happening in a local homeless facility. Also, would a women-only shelter be compelled to provide for penis-possessors who “identify” as women? Sexual assaults by penis-possessors in women’s jail facilities and prisons are known to happen.
Interesting how you spin the “survival sex” issue. Lots of women on public assistance have a “boyfriend” for whom they provide shelter and resources in exchange for “love” or “protection.” There is no point in making a blanket moral judgement on those situations based simply on which sex is using which for resources. Did it occur to you that the preponderance of men among the homeless is due to the greater availability of government resources available to women helping them stay off the street?
I don’t disagree with the need for a women’s shelter and am not sure what prompted the “Have a heart” part of your reply. When my kid and I had to flee an abusive parter, CWS told me there was no place for the two of us to go. I was advised to rent a motel room- which I didn’t have the money to do.
Well then. If you are afraid of violent women maybe you would be more comfortable by staying at a men’s shelter. Women are not your shields.
There is no men’s shelter.
This story is also about a human being who died because of a lack of resources for human beings. This is a problem that needs to be addressed hollistically. It’s frustrating that so much of this comment section has veered off into adressing only one part of the problem while ignoring the rest.
Advocate for your own shelter, dude. Advocate for your own “person” to bring your “partner” to a private room with a crib for your “child” so you can escape violent women. I’m not stopping you. However, you really do seem to have a problem with me advocating for old women to have a shelter.
An ideal solution, then, would be to establish a multi-sectioned shelter, with areas for co-ed, men, women, trans, families, couples, pet-friendly, etc. To tell people to “grow a heart,” you’re surely forgetting compassion for other sides of this multi-faceted issue. As Kym pointed out, men are dying, too, but that seems to be of no concern to you.
So advocate for your co-ed shelter instead of shouting me down for asking for a women’s shelter. You just have a problem with women having a shelter away from men.
Actually, no, I have a problem with the blatant, sexist disregard in your argument.
A hypothetical scenario, if you will: a nuclear family is displaced during a severe storm, left without transportation or any funds to find shelter-for-pay; all community shelters are full, save for one cot at a female-only facility. Mom and children can stay, dad has to go find somewhere else to stay warm, dry, and safe. This goes on for days, dad gets hypothermia and pneumonia, mom and children remain separated from him, but at least they’re safe while dad suffers in the realm of houselessness because there aren’t services available. But, hey, maybe a hospital bed can take him?
Not all houseless people are drug addicts (I know this isn’t part of the argument, but it bears a general reminder).
Not all men are predators.
Not all women are victims of pressured sex for a sense of stability.
No. Not all are any one thing. But most chronic homeless by far are drug addicted with a small percentage being mentally ill without being drug addicted. People who are not drug addicted tend to not be homeless for long. No amount of bringing up the occasional exception changes that.
But unfortunately it takes very few drug addicts or very few violent men to make everyone’s life a misery. guest’ fixation is her (presumably her) own. But the reality is that a man is seven times more likely to murder someone than a woman. And they are vastly more likely to murder a domestic partner to the tune of almost 80% more likely. Doesn’t that reality merit consideration in offering shelter?
They already advocated for a women’s shelter- as did I.
Don’t we already have enough of an uphill battle as it is without quibbling amongst each other?
No you said you were against women having a shelter.
no one is saying women shouldn’t have a shelter. I reread the comments to verify that.
Right here https://kymkemp.com/2023/01/14/woman-killed-in-dumpster-death-remembered-by-protestors-at-the-courthouse-today/#comment-1598270 D’Tucker said so.
“ I don’t disagree with the need for a women’s shelter and am not sure what prompted the “Have a heart” part of your reply.”
Calm down, take a few breaths, and read the posters comment.
True. Homeless women are subjected to a lot of sexual abuse by homeless men. There need to be some shelters that are for women and kids only.
Not necessarily in reply to Steve Koch, in particular, but leaving this directory link here for anyone who may need it or knows someone who might need a starting point.
https://www.homelessshelterdirectory.org/city/ca-eureka
This whole situation is tragic. The homeless population keeps growing. The cities aren’t using funding properly. My thoughts go out to everyone involved. I do have a question though. Have they proven cause of death yet?
The NCJ has some info on cause of death. Supports the accidental hypothesis.
https://www.northcoastjournal.com/NewsBlog/archives/2023/01/10/woman-found-dead-in-recycling-was-likely-sheltering-from-storm
If you reward a behavior, you get more of it.
Humboldt County used to have a pig farm up by the Arcata Airport…
This is just so SAD…. I see so many abandoned buildings/houses, why don’t we use them for housing the homeless? Put them to use… Just saying. Yes we do need some other place besides the mission. A woman’s house, a men’s house, a couples house. There’s enough empty places around here for to do this. It’s becoming an epidemic now. We need to help these people. Good grief. HELP!
You can’t help people that don’t want to help themselves. It’s not as easy as throwing a lifeline. It’s a very complex problem which is unique to each homeless person and impossible to help people on a large scale.
Oh and you have no particular needs in life? Homeless aren’t dogs, they have complex needs and you have no idea if the lifeline is really one for them or not. Many have lost trust etc. making it sound so simple just makes it simple for you to not care and blame them and not question the quality nor quantity of help available .
Everyone’s needs are complex. To keep a drug addicted person safe from themselves needs a staff, medical intervention and secure facility. That’s a whole lot more need than the average. The housed are not the servants of the unhoused either. Though it would be hard to tell from the comments .
I couldn’t agree more. I would like to add that any hoisin for shelter does not allow you to do drugs or drink. Many homeless have mental health issues that are further exacerbated drugs or alcohol-self medicating.
Why is it someone else’s responsibility to pay for people who refuse to work or accept help? Why should property owners be required to give up their property—plus pay for utilities—for people who might just burn the place down when they get the DTs and need to kill the invisible elves?
There were 4 buildings burned by squatters along Harris Street in Eureka in the 1980s. 3 still had power and water turned on.
There is no good answer; but making people slaves is not the right answer in any case.
Blame Gavin Newsome. He hasn’t spent enough billions yet trying to solve the homelessness situation in California. While industry and business along with schools and hardworking people try to pay their bills and put food on the table. Every second you spend in your life trying to find someone to blame…you could spent that time trying to make a difference. Condolences to this lady’s family, absolutely. Unfortunately, freedom allows people to make their own choices, good or bad.
You know, people always think that homelessness is just a CA/OR/WA problem. It isn’t. Even in places such as Missouri, it is quite bad. My sister owns a place in SW MO that she had wanted to sell as she’s moving to Kansas City. She finally had to board it up because people were crashing there. People sleeping under bridges in Podunk, MO. Breaking into businesses to crash and/or steal stuff. Pretty brazen about it, too. And Missouri is about as red as it gets.
However the top 6 States for homeless population per capita are liberal while only two of the lowest are. And, even in the more conservative States with relatively higher levels of homelessness, the problem in mostly in their more liberal cities. But of course, the worse the problem becomes there, the more likely it is to spread.
The reality is that what the country has is a drug problem. Followed by political agendas that worship wealth and deride workers who create it. Followed by an excess of lawyers making sure that the most damaging people are well represented . Followed by a school system that has reversed itself from teaching a work ethic and good citizenship to teaching tolerance and self realization.
I am not sleeping
I am still here
I am the soft stars
That shine at night
Do not think of me
As gone
I am with you
In each new dawn.
Rest in Peace, Jestene.
Your worries are behind you,
Your pain is no more.
God has you safe, and warm,
In His gentle arms.
Our system is broken. We have had politicians saying “We will fix this homelessness problem” for TWO DECADES now. They have taken tax money from the middle class to help the poor yet it has been squandered. Millions of dollars with little to show except more government jobs in agencies that are ” fixing the problem”. Build cheap housing! Build tiny homes!! Oh- but they all need to be code and meet all government regulations and be looked over by well-paid governmental agencies and by that point they are not affordable…but next year we’ll get it done! Oh yeah- how long are we going to believe these lying politicians? People are dying. In California during these crazy winter storms we have over 100,000 unhoused people while many homes and apartments are empty because they are owned as investment properties by people who own many, many houses. We have over 100,000 people living on concrete and under bridges while the wealthy get richer, eat extravagant meals in their fancy restaurants and play with real estate from their Lear jets. We should be disgusted at what our country has become. The hoarding of wealth has real effects. This society is corrupted morally and spiritually…….guillotines were a French invention designed to minimize pain and were seen in their time as a humane solution to a vexing problem
So we should guillotine all the homeless people? Dang you cold as ice.
Drugs do it to many of them. Far more seem to die that way than from weather or starvation.
Condolences. Can they check the bins before picking them up? Opening a woman’s shelter could help, maybe Betty Chen could help.
OMG Betty chin is just one woman and too many look to her as a solution for a much bigger problem.
Nobody should ever sleep in a dumpster. This is a very sad and tragic end of a life. Please, everyone make intelligent decisions and be responsible for your actions. Keep a clear mind and ask for help if needed. We all need a little help sometimes.
she was a lady, she was in the recycling, not the trash.
yea, its a tragedy either way, but she did have standards.
Raise your daughters well, teach them good lessons about life and keep them away from drugs. Also take care of the older women in your family who don’t have anyone else to take care of them.
Sleeping should not be a privilege.
The death of Jestine Green is clearly a tragedy. However, addicts are responsible, for the disastrous choices they make in life.
And with that last sentence you’ve simplified a complex situation and dismissed it all at the same time. Thrown it back onto the individual as if it wasn’t a systemic problem on steroids. As long as we keep thinking like you we never have to feel obligated to participate in solutions, search for the roots and complexities of this problem, or even hold any sort of actual compassion and empathy.
How does one participate in a solution when one is told that addicts have to be ready for help before they will accept help? That’s the common line, and any attempt to steer an addict toward treatment or thinking in a different way is viewed as stigmatizing their addiction and being cruel. Sitting on our hands is the result of advocates for the addicted telling us the advocates have experience and knowledge and know that we are ignorant and just have to wait it out, and anything the addicted do is just going to happen. Clean up and bear it is the message heard multiple times.
In the meantime, she is dead. How long was she offered help and refused it? How many times did someone offer to sit with her and explain the outcome of her choices and how many times was that refused? How many times was she given what she wanted — food, tools to use, substance of choice, clothing, blankets, coats — instead of what she truly needed — a path out of the addiction that caused her homelessness?
“As long as we keep thinking like you we never have to feel obligated to participate in solutions, search for the roots and complexities of this problem, or even hold any sort of actual compassion and empathy.”
So you now know what many think and feel, or don’t feel. You have exactly no knowledge of the background, inclinations, education, charity work or life experience of many, but you feel entitled to tell them all that, as a group, they are worthless in this fight unless they fight it your way. Excellent way to win advocates over. Really great way to shut people down from speaking.
The roots and complexities need a serious dose of reality and less haranguing about compassion and empathy. A lot less.
You no we are not activist we are people with a heart the only thing we went out in the rain is because we wanted to recognize her for the fact she a person and she deserves to have members of the community honor her life we also held a candlelight vigaul for her to so thanks for supporting our community members that are less fortunate than others ….. Good to no we are getting under people skins that must be the right thing to do
Well if you have the time to protest then maybe you also have the time to volunteer at one of the shelters. One of those things would be super helpful, the other , a virtue signaling ego-boost.
The reason we were out yesterday was to honor Jestine’s life because we love her, and our community. I have dedicated my life to voluntarily helping people in our community. Jefferson, to say I should volunteer at the shelter is offensive to me. I have voluntarily hosted extreme weather shelters in southern humboldt for years! I have permanently sheltered many people, fought many, many SSI cases, fed over 10,000 + meals on our streets. I meet people right where they are at to help them stay alive. I have never been paid for the work I have done on our streets for decades. Nobody was out there to advance any organization. We were there to try to bring support to a cause that needs the communities attention. If Jestine was your child I bet it would be a different post?
People this is not a time to be cruel or sarcastic, or blame the victim of a horrific tragedy. People are dying on our streets, and each, and every life matters to me!!!
Since December Humboldt County has added hundreds of more people that have become homeless due to weather related events. Do we blame them? Do we criticize or assume you know their story? No!!!
There’s no one way to homelessness but I do know it ends with a home, or a place to be.
There really is #nowheretogo
Much love & Respect to everyone in Humboldt County.
Justine was my mother I’m the oldest my name is Teresa! she was a good person the world was always against her and I think what Debra is doing is gonna save more lives that just keep letting people die on the streets
Wow, so sad. Heartfelt Condolences ?. I know this is becoming more common.
Also, where’s
♥️Duane Earl Lawrence, missing from Ft. Bragg, Ca. ♥️
If you’re homeless and not looking to better yourself, just go to sf. It’s legal to steal groceries most other stuff, and illegal for anyone to remove your camp. It’s a god damn haven, use it..
Homelessness in SF is no picnic.
I guess they forgot about the other gal who died of exposure at Eureka’s City Hall? Shelters are open, some decide not to go. Very sad indeed.
The other woman died in Arcata. https://kymkemp.com/2022/12/06/death-at-city-hall/
I do not mean to be disrespectful; but depending on the government while not contributing to the taxes you demand others spend on you is not nice, honorable, or worthy of any form of praise.
Yes, we all need help at times; but we should all be contribute as much as we can when we can. And nearly anyone can get a job pushing a broom.
The alleged “friends” of the dead woman let her sleep in a dumpster instead of their home. And instead of guilt, they demand others pay for those who choose not to work or get clean/sober.
I accept that some folks want to be homeless and some don’t; but I reject these protestors unless and until they show us what they, themselves, are doing to help people.
Mincing around with signs while not having offered even their garage to the homeless doesn’t do anything positive. It just shows how callus and selfish these people are.
If I missed the part of the story where they are devoting time and treasure to help the homeless, I apologize; but otherwise, they’re really more disreputable than Humboldt County needs at the moment.
After a few month on the streets, I changed my tune about housing being a human right. The reality is, housing is a personal responsibility.
Right on Jim. Good point.
My opinion is that as a society we need to support people who are really unable to feed themselves. Vets, cripples, a few other segments of society. But the majority we have today are mostly just addicts who don’t want to be part of society. (It sounds harsh but it’s true.) The truth in life is if you don’t give anything you don’t get anything.
Your comment is inappropriate and out of place. She was a human being just like you, not a damn roach!
If the lords of our land were forced to sell their extra single family homes, the housing inventory would skyrocket, and nearly every family could afford to own a home.
It is mom and pop (not corporate) landlording that has created an artificial housing shortage and driven the cost of homes out of range for around half of all Americans.