[from 1/5/11]
Last week I mentioned that Anitra “Cosigner” Freeman and I have moved out from rooms where we have lived together for 13 years, into a one bedroom apartment in a different building. When I mention that the old place was supportive housing, and the new place is nonsupportive housing, some people raise their eyebrows. “Why, Wes & Anitra? Why would you give up all that warm fuzzy support?”
Was I the kind of kid who hated Teddy Bears? Did I stick pins in them and kick them down stairs? Is that why I reject other people’s earnest efforts to help me through life?
Well, yeah, maybe. I was the kind of kid who could spot the lie behind Teddy Bears. Why do Mommy and Daddy give you a Teddy Bear to hug? Because they don’t want you hugging them.
Those earnest efforts aren’t always what they seem. Let’s talk about what supportive housing looks like to someone like me, someone who hates Teddy Bears. As usual I may exaggerate here and there, for the sport of it.
I got into supportive housing because I was homeless and have PTSD. That’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for those of you who never heard of wars, but I didn’t get mine from Vietnam, I got mine from my parents. The Teddy Bear bastards.
Theory was, an agency would provide permanent housing and also support tailored to my specific needs as one whose emotional wiring has been whacked. They would have professionals on staff for me, who understood me. So, at least, was it presented to me at the time I was offered the place.
I may have missed something in the fine print. After all I was homeless and I just wanted off the street.
However, looking back, I really think the best support I got was help leaving, just this past month.
For example, how is it supportive for someone who has PTSD to subject him to three room invasions per month?
To start, we had one monthly inspection. Because we’re all psychos, you see, we had to be forced to majorly clean our rooms once a month, instead of every Spring and Fall like normal people do. OK, I could see that if we really were all psychos, but guess what? PTSD doesn’t impair your ability to clean. It impairs your ability to tolerate room invasions.
Old time fans of Real Change might remember that Dr. Wes here once dabbled in the graphic arts. This ended roughly 1998, around about the time I moved the art supplies into my room. I set up an easel, laying down old newspapers to protect the floor. The room invaders cried, “Clutter! Awwwk!” Think Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1978. The easel had to be put away, the paints had to be put away, every month.
That and the woman upstairs screamed all night, and once even threw a chair through her unopened window, bringing glass and chair past my window to crash 3 stories below me, while I had flashbacks of Mommy screaming and torturing me. I complained for 2 years about the effect her disability was having on mine. She was finally evicted when staff decided she was too much for them to handle. I didn’t want her gone, I just wanted a quieter room, away from hers. So I could paint between inspections.
Then bed bugs invaded America, and we got an extra invasion per month because we had to be protected from bed bugs. Who’s the real bug in this room, I would ask.
Then we failed one annual inspection by Seattle Housing Authority, done by a retiring inspector who’d gone postal, and it was decided that to prevent that recurring the number of room inspections should increase by another 12, because by now they were just looking for ways to push my buttons?
I’m all for Housing First and supportive housing. But, can these agencies never learn that different people have different needs?
Showing posts with label DESC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DESC. Show all posts
Monday, January 17, 2011
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Be Silent, Consume, Die
[The title above was on the first Real Change T-shirt]
I'm a Consumer of Homeless Services. I'm not homeless now, but I was homeless, ten years ago, for so long I moved far down a waiting list for housing and I got housed. You don't hear that happening much anymore. Anyway, that means that just by virtue of having asylum, I am now a Consumer of a Homeless Service, until I'm evicted, move, or die.
[Right: Politicians invented "Consumers" originally as a substitute for the more problematic concept "Citizens".]
Homeless people are now all called Consumers of Homeless Services, even if they don't consume any. When I was homeless I never consumed any, except for food stamps. I've done all my homeless-service consuming post-homeless. But if things were then the way they are now, I would have been called a Consumer anyway.
A couple weeks ago I finally figured out why the service providers love to call us Consumers. It defines us relative to the service providers. It means that our meaning, our purpose in being, our purpose in being talked about, is entirely attached to our role as users of homeless services, which they provide.
What a great way to assert power over people! Don't even acknowledge their being except to note their dependence on the services you provide! Impressive. Most impressive. They are well on their way to becoming formidable Jedi.
I am trying to think of ways to return the favor. I want to call them something that says they barely provide services and have no other significance to me. I've thought of Stale Rice Cakes, but it's too metaphorical. Maybe someone can help me come up with something more straight-forward.
Speaking of stale rice cakes, I'd like to share my intercom story.
When I attained this asylum run by the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), it had an intercom so I could cry for help in emergencies. I didn't think about it at all.
Then one day, after I'd been here four years, I was told my intercom had never worked. I said, no problem, I don't need it. They said, "Problem! You need it for emergencies". I said, I haven't had an emergency for four years, I don't need it. They said, "We're fixing it."
They fixed my intercom against my will. Immediately, I got called mornings for free breakfasts. I got weekly messages, "It's Bingo night, come on down!" 10:30 pm alternate Saturdays I heard, "There's pizza in the community room!" One random night every month, around midnight, it was "The church group has sandwiches out front, hurry down before they're all gone!"
There is no volume control, it was permanently on loud. They said if I snipped the wires to the speaker they could tell downstairs. I doubted that but decided on the direct approach. I went down to the front desk every time they woke me up and told them I wanted them to shut themselves up.
I complained to higher-ups. They repeated my complaints to me to show me they heard my pain. But nothing happened, because the conflict resolution course they took only talks about talk. Doing things is a whole different course.
So I got a notebook, set it by the bed, and took down times and dates my peace was interrupted by intercom. Within a month the first page was full. I took it to the management and read off instances in which I had been woke up at midnight and then again at 7am the same morning. I said does this mean that I'm officially only allotted 7 hours of sleep per night in a DESC building?
Because if that's my ration, I need to plan for day naps. Might I be allowed to sleep siestas? Would they let me have 2pm to 4pm each day?
It worked! Within days we had an agreement that no calls would be made 10pm to 8am. I would be allotted a full ten hour window of peace every night!
Because of sarcasm, I sleep better, and my health has improved. I recommend it to everyone!
I'm a Consumer of Homeless Services. I'm not homeless now, but I was homeless, ten years ago, for so long I moved far down a waiting list for housing and I got housed. You don't hear that happening much anymore. Anyway, that means that just by virtue of having asylum, I am now a Consumer of a Homeless Service, until I'm evicted, move, or die.
[Right: Politicians invented "Consumers" originally as a substitute for the more problematic concept "Citizens".]
Homeless people are now all called Consumers of Homeless Services, even if they don't consume any. When I was homeless I never consumed any, except for food stamps. I've done all my homeless-service consuming post-homeless. But if things were then the way they are now, I would have been called a Consumer anyway.
A couple weeks ago I finally figured out why the service providers love to call us Consumers. It defines us relative to the service providers. It means that our meaning, our purpose in being, our purpose in being talked about, is entirely attached to our role as users of homeless services, which they provide.
What a great way to assert power over people! Don't even acknowledge their being except to note their dependence on the services you provide! Impressive. Most impressive. They are well on their way to becoming formidable Jedi.
I am trying to think of ways to return the favor. I want to call them something that says they barely provide services and have no other significance to me. I've thought of Stale Rice Cakes, but it's too metaphorical. Maybe someone can help me come up with something more straight-forward.
Speaking of stale rice cakes, I'd like to share my intercom story.When I attained this asylum run by the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), it had an intercom so I could cry for help in emergencies. I didn't think about it at all.
Then one day, after I'd been here four years, I was told my intercom had never worked. I said, no problem, I don't need it. They said, "Problem! You need it for emergencies". I said, I haven't had an emergency for four years, I don't need it. They said, "We're fixing it."
They fixed my intercom against my will. Immediately, I got called mornings for free breakfasts. I got weekly messages, "It's Bingo night, come on down!" 10:30 pm alternate Saturdays I heard, "There's pizza in the community room!" One random night every month, around midnight, it was "The church group has sandwiches out front, hurry down before they're all gone!"
There is no volume control, it was permanently on loud. They said if I snipped the wires to the speaker they could tell downstairs. I doubted that but decided on the direct approach. I went down to the front desk every time they woke me up and told them I wanted them to shut themselves up.
I complained to higher-ups. They repeated my complaints to me to show me they heard my pain. But nothing happened, because the conflict resolution course they took only talks about talk. Doing things is a whole different course.
So I got a notebook, set it by the bed, and took down times and dates my peace was interrupted by intercom. Within a month the first page was full. I took it to the management and read off instances in which I had been woke up at midnight and then again at 7am the same morning. I said does this mean that I'm officially only allotted 7 hours of sleep per night in a DESC building?
Because if that's my ration, I need to plan for day naps. Might I be allowed to sleep siestas? Would they let me have 2pm to 4pm each day?It worked! Within days we had an agreement that no calls would be made 10pm to 8am. I would be allotted a full ten hour window of peace every night!
Because of sarcasm, I sleep better, and my health has improved. I recommend it to everyone!
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Magic, Mushroomed
As many of you know, I am not currently homeless. I am in a 52-unit DESC building very similar to the one DESC, the Downtown Emergency Service Center, is proposing to create in Rainier Valley, and it really ticks me off to hear that some residents out there think people like me wouldn’t make good enough neighbors. So I bet you think that I, director of Rant Central, will write about that.
Ha! Fooled you. No, I chose to take my blood pressure meds early this morning, and focus my thoughts on sweet things like baby bunnies, adult bunnies, pretty flowers, and dead Eyman-initiatives. And with my thoughts so cleansed and cheerified I chose to use the remainder of my space to cherish the magic.
I was inspired to do this when DESC workers delivered a brand new “Magic Chef” refrigerator to the woman that drew me to my housing, Anitra “Co-Conspirator” Freeman, and she said, “What’s magic about it? It’s not even energy-efficient! Doesn’t DESC know they’re wasting power and money by buying cheap energy-inefficient refrigerators?”
Poor, poor, jaded Anitra does not see the magic! Here she has a box that sucks invisible stuff out of the wall and turns it into coldness! You don’t have to feed it ice to keep the inside cold! In fact if you give it water it will turn it, magically, into ice!
There is so much magic in our lives. Our running water for example. We have a cold stream and a hot stream in our apartments! Right inside our apartments! Next to our toilets!
Thinking about these things made the weird neurons in my head (the ones in the back) zap my amygdala, or so it felt. I was motivated to ask, “What’s the most magical thing ever in all of our lives?”
The answer I gave myself was, “Volition.” I didn’t have to give myself that answer; I did it anyway, because I WANTED to. Isn’t that amazing?
People can make choices, then tell themselves -- tell their own dumb bodies -- to do what they decide, and their dumb bodies do it! Like magic! It goes on all the time every day, week after week, year after year!
I’ll give some examples. I’ll give you a second to contemplate baby bunnies before reading them.
Right. Lt. Ehren Watada became a Lieutenant of his own free will, by enlisting in the Army in 2003, by some accounts AFTER the Iraq War started. Now by his own free will he is ready to go to prison for refusing to join in that war. And he probably WILL go to prison! Volition: magic!
Here’s another example: The United States Senate consented overwhelmingly (89-2) to the UN Charter in the summer of 1945, making the UN Charter a part of US law. Since then there has been only sporadic and relatively insignificant popular protest of that action. So it can safely be said that the vast majority of the current populace of the US either agrees that the UN Charter should be US law, or is too apathetic to give a damn one way or another. Volition: magic!
Of course, that means that it is “our” choice, the freely-willed choice of this vast majority, that preemptive wars be illegal. Our government signed it in 1945, and we have since, as a people, freely consented to it! We’re enlisted! When does the warmaker go to prison? Volition: magic!
One more example. Pharmacists on the Washington State Pharmacy Board want to give pharmacists in the state the power to refuse lawfully prescribed medicines, when they feel like it, one at a time, just by referring patients to another pharmacist, who could also refer them to another, and another -- effectively depriving the patients of THEIR power to make the moral choice themselves, and violating the principle, “my body, my choice, you bastards.”
Yo, Pharmacists, you enlisted! If you don’t like the duty, you can will yourselves to resign. Volition: magic!
Ha! Fooled you. No, I chose to take my blood pressure meds early this morning, and focus my thoughts on sweet things like baby bunnies, adult bunnies, pretty flowers, and dead Eyman-initiatives. And with my thoughts so cleansed and cheerified I chose to use the remainder of my space to cherish the magic.
I was inspired to do this when DESC workers delivered a brand new “Magic Chef” refrigerator to the woman that drew me to my housing, Anitra “Co-Conspirator” Freeman, and she said, “What’s magic about it? It’s not even energy-efficient! Doesn’t DESC know they’re wasting power and money by buying cheap energy-inefficient refrigerators?”
Poor, poor, jaded Anitra does not see the magic! Here she has a box that sucks invisible stuff out of the wall and turns it into coldness! You don’t have to feed it ice to keep the inside cold! In fact if you give it water it will turn it, magically, into ice!
There is so much magic in our lives. Our running water for example. We have a cold stream and a hot stream in our apartments! Right inside our apartments! Next to our toilets!
Thinking about these things made the weird neurons in my head (the ones in the back) zap my amygdala, or so it felt. I was motivated to ask, “What’s the most magical thing ever in all of our lives?”
The answer I gave myself was, “Volition.” I didn’t have to give myself that answer; I did it anyway, because I WANTED to. Isn’t that amazing?
People can make choices, then tell themselves -- tell their own dumb bodies -- to do what they decide, and their dumb bodies do it! Like magic! It goes on all the time every day, week after week, year after year!
I’ll give some examples. I’ll give you a second to contemplate baby bunnies before reading them.
Right. Lt. Ehren Watada became a Lieutenant of his own free will, by enlisting in the Army in 2003, by some accounts AFTER the Iraq War started. Now by his own free will he is ready to go to prison for refusing to join in that war. And he probably WILL go to prison! Volition: magic!
Here’s another example: The United States Senate consented overwhelmingly (89-2) to the UN Charter in the summer of 1945, making the UN Charter a part of US law. Since then there has been only sporadic and relatively insignificant popular protest of that action. So it can safely be said that the vast majority of the current populace of the US either agrees that the UN Charter should be US law, or is too apathetic to give a damn one way or another. Volition: magic!
Of course, that means that it is “our” choice, the freely-willed choice of this vast majority, that preemptive wars be illegal. Our government signed it in 1945, and we have since, as a people, freely consented to it! We’re enlisted! When does the warmaker go to prison? Volition: magic!
One more example. Pharmacists on the Washington State Pharmacy Board want to give pharmacists in the state the power to refuse lawfully prescribed medicines, when they feel like it, one at a time, just by referring patients to another pharmacist, who could also refer them to another, and another -- effectively depriving the patients of THEIR power to make the moral choice themselves, and violating the principle, “my body, my choice, you bastards.”
Yo, Pharmacists, you enlisted! If you don’t like the duty, you can will yourselves to resign. Volition: magic!
Thursday, June 26, 2003
African Wild Metaphors
Having been homeless a bunch of times has warped my conception of a good time. It used to be that a good time involved some activity. There had to be a convertible and a woman. I expected some state and federal laws to be broken. Two or three weeks' worth of spending money had to be thrown away within minutes. My idea of a good time is now and probably always ever will be to sit indoors someplace where I belong and not have to get up and move.
That's what I like about the zoo. What I can do at the zoo is pay my money (or someone else's money, I don't care) to get in, then find my way to the food pavilion, sit down with a burger and a drink and watch the other people at the zoo who are running around looking for animals to watch.
As many of you know, I am no longer homeless but live in a subsidized apartment building, the Union, run by the same people who run what's called the Downtown Emergency Service Center. These people, who also call themselves DESC, don't want me to just sit in my room and not get up. They try to entice me out of my room with ping-pong, bingo, parties, and games. Nothing much works until someone mentions a field trip to the zoo.
The zoo is wonderful. You've got your animals. Animals are cool. You've got your basic zoo paradigm: the animals are mostly locked up, but it's made to look like they aren't, if it's a good zoo. Every time I go to the zoo I think there has to be a wealth of political metaphor there. I think of Walden II, Brave New World, and lately the Matrix, and I'm sure I will have something insightful to say in this column about such metaphor, perhaps having seen the orangutans.
So last week I went to the zoo with a bunch of fellow residents of the Union. I couldn't wait to get my hands on some of those hot political metaphors I was going to write about, and then I would check out the snow leopard, and then I would retreat to the food pavilion to sit and not get up.
First we all rushed to see the tiger cubs. We studied our maps carefully and found our way to the tiger cub display. As we approached them I thought of all the injustices of child exploitation around the globe that I had ever heard of. I was thinking, boy, these are going to give me terrific insights. Finally we arrived to see them stretched out on some fake rocks in front of us. What a dearth of political metaphor they represented. I have never seen such a paucity of metaphor in a pair of cats as in those two. I have more political metaphor in my little toes.
Then we went to see the snow leopard. Whenever I had looked for the snow leopard in the past he was almost impossible to find thanks to his camouflage. There'll be a metaphor in that for sure, I thought.
Well, guess what. This year the snow leopard was out in plain view putting on a show for all the visitors. He wasn't hard to find. You could see, hear, and smell him as easily as an incontinent Great Dane. Not much political metaphor there.
There was a little relief in the form of the one neurotic porcupine. But I do neurosis all the time. I was hoping I'd find a metaphor that was more out of the way, a little less common. I can find neurotic at 3rd and Pine.
Finally, just as I was about to give up, our group approached the African Wild Dogs. As we walked up to them I could see four wild dogs running around their area in a single file, nose to tail, always in the same order. I shouted something stupid like, "Hey, everybody, look! Puppies!" Or something like that. The lead dog then made a beeline for me with his three buddies following him in their constant order, and he stood in front of me and said: "Hoo."
Then, when he was satisfied that I was nobody, the lead dog took off with the other three to look for other potential challenges to his power in their territory.
That made my day – I'd seen politicians themselves.
That's what I like about the zoo. What I can do at the zoo is pay my money (or someone else's money, I don't care) to get in, then find my way to the food pavilion, sit down with a burger and a drink and watch the other people at the zoo who are running around looking for animals to watch.
As many of you know, I am no longer homeless but live in a subsidized apartment building, the Union, run by the same people who run what's called the Downtown Emergency Service Center. These people, who also call themselves DESC, don't want me to just sit in my room and not get up. They try to entice me out of my room with ping-pong, bingo, parties, and games. Nothing much works until someone mentions a field trip to the zoo.
The zoo is wonderful. You've got your animals. Animals are cool. You've got your basic zoo paradigm: the animals are mostly locked up, but it's made to look like they aren't, if it's a good zoo. Every time I go to the zoo I think there has to be a wealth of political metaphor there. I think of Walden II, Brave New World, and lately the Matrix, and I'm sure I will have something insightful to say in this column about such metaphor, perhaps having seen the orangutans.
So last week I went to the zoo with a bunch of fellow residents of the Union. I couldn't wait to get my hands on some of those hot political metaphors I was going to write about, and then I would check out the snow leopard, and then I would retreat to the food pavilion to sit and not get up.
First we all rushed to see the tiger cubs. We studied our maps carefully and found our way to the tiger cub display. As we approached them I thought of all the injustices of child exploitation around the globe that I had ever heard of. I was thinking, boy, these are going to give me terrific insights. Finally we arrived to see them stretched out on some fake rocks in front of us. What a dearth of political metaphor they represented. I have never seen such a paucity of metaphor in a pair of cats as in those two. I have more political metaphor in my little toes.
Then we went to see the snow leopard. Whenever I had looked for the snow leopard in the past he was almost impossible to find thanks to his camouflage. There'll be a metaphor in that for sure, I thought.
Well, guess what. This year the snow leopard was out in plain view putting on a show for all the visitors. He wasn't hard to find. You could see, hear, and smell him as easily as an incontinent Great Dane. Not much political metaphor there.
There was a little relief in the form of the one neurotic porcupine. But I do neurosis all the time. I was hoping I'd find a metaphor that was more out of the way, a little less common. I can find neurotic at 3rd and Pine.
Finally, just as I was about to give up, our group approached the African Wild Dogs. As we walked up to them I could see four wild dogs running around their area in a single file, nose to tail, always in the same order. I shouted something stupid like, "Hey, everybody, look! Puppies!" Or something like that. The lead dog then made a beeline for me with his three buddies following him in their constant order, and he stood in front of me and said: "Hoo."
Then, when he was satisfied that I was nobody, the lead dog took off with the other three to look for other potential challenges to his power in their territory.
That made my day – I'd seen politicians themselves.
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