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Last night the neighborhood downtown was as disrupted as I have ever experienced it. City policy to move people around, to enforce rigidly (kind of) the federal judges restraining order about sleeping between 9:00 pm and 6:00 am, to place a sense of instability for those who live without property rights has succeeded. We noticed it last week and it has taken time and energy. The city seems intent on fulfilling the formal requirements of the judge's restraining order so that it can then begin ticketing and jailing those who live without property rights on the streets -- thus criminalizing the poor per se.

For my blog, I would like to post letters that I've written to the Captain of the Central City Precinct that covers downtown, and three letters to the editor of the editorial page of the San Diego Union-Tribune -- which had an editorial today related to our friends who live on the streets, and a final letter to the editor of a portion of the editorial page who informed me that they have two editorials coming tomorrow on "homelessness." It represents my attempt to engage the various levels of city officials on behalf of my friends who have taught me so much.

I have been a little disappointed that the SD police have not returned my attempts to speak with them more, though the Captain of the precinct, Mark Jones, has impressed me as a person of integrity; Bill Osborne of the editorial page of the SD Union-Tribune, has been very open and gracious.

Dear Mark:

My head is still spinning from the events of last two weeks downtown. I've tried to process our meeting, but besides "opening a dialogue," I'm not sure what it's purpose was. I know that your time is important, but I need to understand better your aim. I heard three things from you: (1) you don't want people to become settled who live on the streets; (2) you desire for everyone to find housing; and (3) once the conditions that fulfill the legal requirement of the federal judge's ruling are fulfilled, you plan to clear the streets for arresting people for illegal housing. Do I have this correct?

I was disappointed to hear, if it was true, that the sections of downtown were "cleared" both Tuesday morning and last Tuesday afternoon, both around the Ace Parking lot on Ash and the front of the library. It was claimed that the clearing in front of the library violated an agreement that had been established between those who rested there and the library. The officer who cleared was named Officer Hegel; another officer came through later to re-clear out, and the word was that he refused to give his name (it was a male). One couple asked if there was a "safe" spot as they were removed from the vicinity of the Ace Parking lot on Ash, came down to the library, and found people being moved from there.

I noticed that tensions were higher, and that the officers were taking the blame - I'm sorry. In good news, we did get a man sent to Las Vegas where he had a job waiting; I also found out a little about the perceptions of people for why they do not respond to the HOT officers as well as they might.

I have a call into Sergeant McGrath; I don't have the name or contact information of the HOT officer that met with us - I'm sorry. I do have two suggestions: (1) that an officer whom you trust or most appropriate walk with me through the area on Tuesday evening to greet persons and meet them by name - and whom I can introduce; and (2) the formation of "neighborhood watches" from those who live on the streets to work for the oversight of the area.

Even if I could go through the neighborhood before the next day to cut down tensions, so your officers don't have to be the purveyors and enforcers of inconvenience from the perspective of those who have set up sleeping turfs, I would be glad to do so. My goal is to reduce tensions, the struggle of various "interest groups" for space downtown in order to work toward some sort of common good.

Peace,

John W.

Dear Bill:

I have just read the editorial in the paper today, "Too Many Questions." I was wondering if you might be interested in another perspective on the issue for an op-ed. I found the editorial very troubling at multiple levels.

The editorial repeats, unsubstantiated, many stereotypes of those who live without property rights downtown and shows that the underlying purpose of the city's action with the transformation of the San Diego Athletic Club is to criminalize being poor through illegal lodging ordinances. It masks what has been happening on the streets -- the police, presumably under the directives of the city, have been relocating people downtown regularly over the past several weeks in preparation, for this meeting. Other practices this spring have included the police relocating people on directives of the city to disperse numbers from the area around the winter shelter before the census of those who live on the streets took place -- so that numbers would be less. This is a cynical act of which the public needs notified. Spending time last night on the streets, I found my friends and the tensions as high as I ever have during my 12 years of friendships with those who have lived in San Diego without property rights.

Last night a very bright man articulated that those who live on the streets (the 'homeless') are lumped together with those who get bored and have government support and come to the streets and make trouble -- the city and the police then lump these two persons together. I have been in conversation with Captain Mark Jones, the head of the downtown police precinct. One thing that I have discovered is that no one knows the names of those who live there -- even the head of the Homeless Outreach Team. Instead of listening, sociological stereotypes are placed upon people in mass. Even the proposal to transfer the "San Diego Athletic Club" has taken place among governing policy elite to respond to federal court injunctions -- not even listening to what those who actually live in the area think. If indeed there are only 800 persons on the streets downtown (a very contestably small number), it seems that leaders could easily be identified and known.

The underlying issue still seems to me that the "problem of the homeless" is treated by city officials and activists alike as species of invasive mammals that needs policy action to eliminate the issue, either through punishment or government spending, rather than listening to those who are the most articulate and understand what is going on. Behind the scenes are a political establishment beholden to large amounts of money and financial interests needed for election campaigns. My initial place to start would be quite simple: the formation of neighborhood associations of those who live without property rights, those who possess the local knowledges, as advisory committees to work with the city officials for their protection by the police against violence and bigotry that comes their way. We need to eliminate the social tensions that have arisen from the great economic disparity that has come to exist in the United States (and particularly San Diego) that remains invisible except for places like downtown.

Peace,
Rev. Dr. John W. Wright

Bill:

Thank you. That makes sense to me.

Any direction would be helpful from you or Pat. I will be glad to
conform to the directives as necessary. When you would like a draft and
its length would be a good place to start. Like us all, I am judgling
many things -- grading, writing lectures, church and such concerns as
this.

Part of the problem in our discourse, I think, is that we are working
with dated understandings of those who live on the streets in San Diego
-- the Great Recession has changed many things about those who live on
the streets. Unitary, coercive action on the part of government,
however, while solving one problem can create many more.

Peace,
John

Bill:

I really don't want to misread the editorial. I would not argue against the position in the editorial -- I think that the position is correct, although the first "public" that we need to hear from are those who live without property rights. I'm not sure I am for the proposal for the transformation of the property -- my feel is that the proposal provides financial aid to social service organizations more than to the small number who will benefit from the beds. The "interests" of the city officials, it seems to me, is to fulfill terms of the federal judges ruling so that the city can criminalize those who are poor; the proposal works to that end. I don't think, however, that more arrests will serve anyone. All those invovled in such a "solution, the police, city, and those who live without property rights, currently have their resources stretched so thin that they are barely making it now.

My concern is the data and perspective within the editorial. The editorial makes some claims that do not fit with my experience within a distinct neighborhood. First, it uses the term "homeless". Again, as I have argued, I don't think that this is good language -- within the United States legal system, a better description is "those who live without property rights". People construct homes where they live -- this is part of the root of the problem, because as city officials and the police do not want people to construct homes and neighborhoods of care -- and thus move them around. Several weeks ago, a woman told me that as a result of having her neighborhood disrupted and the social turmoil following, she was raped twice. We need to ask the question, "What is it like to live without property rights?" not how do we solve the "problem of homlessness."

Second, it states as factual that "most" of the "homeless" "have some combination of mental illness and drug/alcohol addiction or have a significant physical or medical disability". That is not my experience (although my experience is localized to a several hundred person population). Perhaps there is a higher rate of drug/alchohol addiction and significant medical disability from those in the police force or school teachers, but it is a higher proportion within a sliding scale within the SD population that we all face. I want us to frame our discourse beyond a "them" versus "us" binary system. With the recession, I have found many unemployed with no family backgrounds to support them; I have found upper 50ish year old persons who were ill, lost jobs and positions, and are waiting for SS benefits to kick in. I have found the sick and disabled, and the addicts often have some sort of government support (maybe $823 as a typical amount) -- they stay in SROs that cost $650 a month and move to the streets at the end of the month when the money runs out (with the expansion of downtown, the SRO's can charge more because of increased demand; thus the owners make more money from the government's support for the "disabled" -- they benefit, not those who need stable housing.

Because of such stereotyping, as was told me last night by Chris, a woman I have known for 5 years, all the programs require that one be an addict or alcoholic; if one is poor, there is no where to go because they don't fit the "slots" the politicians and policy makers had established through older statistical data, rather than personal knowledge. Such "solutions" as the tranformation of the SD Athletic Club, then, will be ineffective because they misanalyze the "problem."

I am not for the criminalization of living without property rights -- what I see as the root legal position adopted by the city council and driving the whole policy. The editorial seems to presume the propriety of this policy of criminalizing living without property rights. The personal situations and social trends are much too complex for such a single legal stroke to solve anything. We live in a society that wants to criminalize behaviors, but then doesn't want to pay for the life of those they have criminalized. Part of what has happened downtown is that the more stable of those who live without property rights have had their neighborhoods filled with the release from prisons because of state funding cuts. A vicious cycle is established, because this also criminalizes those who are trying to eek out a life. These persons are seen as criminals by the police, but have to live without any protection that property and the police afford. Fights are breaking out; people get hurt; hospital emergency rooms absorb costs, and it becomes more expensive, but more importantly, situations are manipulated by policy officials that do not allow persons to flourish in their own local environments.

I guess that I do not want to argue a letter to the editor against the position taken -- for I don't disagree with it. Maybe I could write an editorial against the criminalization of living without property rights. Instead, I would argue for city officials to aid in the establishment of neighborhood organizations for those who live throughout the city without property rights (and these populations are very different depending on where they live in the city) and the architectural recasting of city space to eleviate the social tensions and conflicts that can arise (much cheaper than what is proposed for just one building for the extremely high costs of the beds). This would involve a different strategy than that adopted by the Homeless Outreach Teams and the police, but more importantly, would call for the City Council to look at the complexity of the situation, particularly in light of the lasting impacts of the Great Recession, in new light.

I hope that you can see how tired I am of the "right/left" approach to issues in the United States. The last thing I want to be is an "activist for the homeless". I don't like legal "solutions" to problems; I want policy to be wise, local, and arising from the ground up to see what the issues really are. My friends who live without property rights have been a profound gift of God to me to see more truthfully. I would love to share this friendship and gift to others as well.

Peace,
John

Pat:

Thank you. I won't work on one right now.

I do think that we need to reframe the issue much more truthfully than the language of "homelessness" affords. I think our inability to respond to the issue is because of the deficiencies in our language.

The issue that I think needs addressed is the criminalization of living without property rights -- "rights" that in our legal system, implies wealth, and even a reserve of wealth. In some ways it is like the criminalization of not paying having for health insurance in its underlying legal basis. The difference is that life absolutely requires inhabiting space, and the criminalization for not having health insurance only applies to those who are able to pay for it. There is a broader, underlying trend. What is interesting is that while the American right protests the mandated government health care program, they support the criminalization of living on the streets. The American left, on the other hand, left supports the health care program, but protests the criminalization of living on the streets without property rights. With economic shrinkage, meanwhile, the government at various levels is trying to shift costs back to individuals or to different levels of government, to provide services that various interest groups see related to their economic interests. As a result a concept of "common good" is lost for identity group interests, or collapsed into an ever more encroaching absolutist authority for governmental offices.

I think that San Diego could be a place that may have the intellectual and social goods necessary to overcome such irrational bifurcations in our culture. If you are interested in a time when it would be appropriate for such an editorial, let me know and I will begin working on it.

Peace,
John Wright

Posted by johnwright at 5:07 PM

Just for the record, I didn't have the longest hiatus from blogging because I gave it up as part of a Lenten fast. I just haven't had the skills necessary to keep up with my blogging with the return from sabbatical. I am used to running behind, but it seems that I have managed to so overcommit myself that time has not been available or I've found myself so exhausted or processing the days/weeks activities, that I just have not been able to have the habitus necessary to blog. I apologize, for I've missed it -- and I've missed the interactions with comments, etc.

What has occupied me? I began the semester with 15 hours of teaching a week, not counting the Friday night classes at Mid-City for ordination for Pastors Moise and Manoah and several friends from the French-speaking congregation. Of those classes, two have been new preparations. I gave two papers at the Wesleyan Theological Society/Wesleyan Philosophical Society meetings; preached a wonderful weekend with the Pasadena Armenian Youth Group (they give me hope!); participated in a multicongregational conference at PLNU; participated in the ordination interviews for the So Cal district of the Church of the Nazarene; and have attempted to keep up with my regular responsibilities at the church. I have much to give thanks for in all these activities.

I'll try to get you caught up on reading, thoughts, and events at Mid-City. Three events during Holy Week stood out. First, during our Palm Sunday multicongregational procession, as we turned into the building to go to our different places of worship, three police stood five feet away, putting a young man into handcuffs. The incongruence in the scene, the profound ambiguity, still weighs heavy on me. Perhaps the best response I've heard of was that of a little boy who was walking with his parents. As he turned into the church and saw the arrest going on, he smiled and waved at those persons involved in the arrest -- and received a 'wave' back -- obviously not from the person in handcuffs.

Second, during our Maunday Thursday service we heard sirens. Friday morning I picked up the San Diego Union-Tribune and read that there had been a drive-by shooting about 7-8 blocks from the church -- not exactly our immediate neighborhood, but close. The "word from the streets" was that a man had just gotten out of prison and was visiting his girl friend. He walked out of the house drunk. Apparently some one was waiting, and shot and killed him; also wounding a 17 year old at the house as well. Again, I don't know if I have processed the incongruence (or is it congruence?) in this event.

Third, our Easter multicongregational service. I'm sure it stretched the English-speaking congregation because it lasted well over 2 hours. I had the honor of baptizing 9 persons. Perhaps because the water was cold and I was in it for a long period, the deep relationship between the foot washing on Maunday Thursday became apparent to me, not as an abstract idea, but as a concrete reality of our lives. During the service Rev. Simon Pierre, the Nazarene District superintendent from the Northeast Rwanda district, brought us greetings -- he told of his experience of the genocide, and how it happened because "the church was silent" and told us "not to be silent." Pastor Anthony Duclois of our French-Speaking congregation preached, incorporating slides of his trip to the tragedy/beauty of his trip to Haiti. To share Easter with Revs. Pierre and Duclois, the joy of the resurrection of Jesus amid those who have lived through two of the most tragic places in the world is a third experience that remains to be processed. It is all very humbling.

I'm not sure if Eastertide has a "message" or a "meaning" -- but through the week, perhaps I experienced a little how the celebration of Easter works in the witness of those around me. They endured. Amid the tragedy of arrest, human slaughter, disaster, I witnessed how faith in God and confession that Jesus is Lord and that God has raised him from the dead "works". Easter is not about some withdraw from the tragedy of sin and human life, even the physical life of the world; it is not about our ability to fix the world in its sin through "social justice" or organizing that can bring in some utopian existence for human life within the play of immanence. The resurrection of Jesus "works" on us to allow us to endure -- to keep going, to not be silent in the face of the sinful tragedies of the world, to call us into the sufferings of the world through works of mercy, not to fix it, but to remind the world that the play of immanence is not all there is -- that ultimately, God already has taken the sin and the tragedy into God's own self through the crucified body of Jesus, and raised, transformed, and perfected it in this same body, now resurrected into life everlasting. We are freed, not to change the world, but to participate in the world because God has already changed it in Jesus Christ. We keep going, persevere, endure, not because it's up to us, not because we're going to rid the world of its tragedies, but because the joy of live everlasting is ours, seen in the resurrection of our Lord -- and in its witnesses like the little boy who waved and Pastors Simon and Anthony.

Perhaps I can keep going as well. . . .

Posted by johnwright at 8:02 AM