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Speaker 1: Previously on We the un Housed.

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Speaker 2: The first thing that I tell people who don't have

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Speaker 2: any knowledge of the resources that exist in our systems

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Speaker 2: is that there are virtually none. Folks with mental illness

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Speaker 2: don't have any entitlements from the state of California. Right,

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Speaker 2: so you're stuck. You're not going to have a social

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Speaker 2: safety net. There's no income, there's no housing. A lot

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Speaker 2: of times there's no adequate medical care either.

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Speaker 3: They stop using the medication and so then you know,

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Speaker 3: then it's a whole lot of chaos. And then they

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Speaker 3: have these laws they have to decide theyselves. You know, well,

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Speaker 3: how does a person that's not fully functionable make decisions

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Speaker 3: on their own? It boggles my mind.

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Speaker 4: Welcome to Whedian House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson. This

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Speaker 4: episode is about further intersections of houselessness and we'll learn

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Speaker 4: a lot from our guests Sakoya, including what body farming

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Speaker 4: is and how it affects the indigenous community.

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Speaker 1: But first and house news. This week, we want to

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Speaker 1: remember the.

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Speaker 4: Life of a past guest on our show, Sydney McAllister.

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Speaker 4: Whiedian House takes certain responsibility and remember a people Indiana

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Speaker 4: House community gone too soon. Who left the world a

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Speaker 4: better place. My name is Maybe Poplo. I'm the operations

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Speaker 4: manager for sela Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, and I'm honored to

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Speaker 4: be here memorializing Cindy McAllister, who is a beloved SEALA

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Speaker 4: participants and volunteer. Cindy unfortunately passed away a few weeks ago,

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Speaker 4: somewhat unexpectedly, and so we're here at CELA just sort of,

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Speaker 4: you know, remembering Cindy and just trying to keep.

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Speaker 5: Her memory alive. And we were so grateful to have

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Speaker 5: her as a participant, as a volunteer, as a member

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Speaker 5: of our community. I first met Cindy when I started

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Speaker 5: at CELA about a year ago, and at the time

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Speaker 5: of Cindy's passing, I would say she had probably been

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Speaker 5: a part of the SEILA community for about two years.

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Speaker 5: And Cindy was just really special. She just had one

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Speaker 5: of those smiles that lit up a room, and everybody

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Speaker 5: loved Cindy. I was really happy as a trans non

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Speaker 5: binary person to see Cindy, who was a trans woman

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Speaker 5: so openly welcomed into the community and we got to

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Speaker 5: share some special conversations. Cindy shared with me that she

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Speaker 5: actually used to be a drag queen, and I'm a

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Speaker 5: drag queen, and so that was something that we were

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Speaker 5: able to bond over. And I was really excited to

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Speaker 5: hear about her her storied history and how she was

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Speaker 5: an actor and she actually acted as a drag queen

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Speaker 5: in movies. She told me that she made a cameo

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Speaker 5: in an early two thousands movie called Not Another Gay Movie,

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Speaker 5: and so I'm excited to rewatch it to think about

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Speaker 5: Cindy and keep her her memory alive.

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Speaker 1: Cindy was more of a person who experienced houselessness.

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Speaker 6: Hi, my name's Rachel Sanov. I'm the volunteer engagement manager

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Speaker 6: here at CELA. So the things that are just Cindy

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Speaker 6: the person. She had such a fun sense of humor.

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Speaker 6: She had amazing styles, like every time I saw.

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Speaker 7: Her, I cannot wait to see what she was wearing.

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Speaker 6: Always color coordinated, always accessories. She was very spiritual, and

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Speaker 6: she was very open about her spirituality, and that also

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Speaker 6: means very open about anybody's spirituality. I know that her

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Speaker 6: ability to speak to that part of her life was

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Speaker 6: comforting to a lot of our participants who also were

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Speaker 6: as spirituals her.

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Speaker 8: She used to text me just the silliest, sometimes dirtiest jokes.

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Speaker 8: And I mean we text it every day, and I'm

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Speaker 8: going to miss that so much. I'm also really going

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Speaker 8: to miss her sense of style. I think she may

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Speaker 8: have talked about this in her interview, but Cindy was

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Speaker 8: defined by her fashion. You know, she's a trans woman

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Speaker 8: and she will forever be a drag queen.

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Speaker 7: She loved her style.

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Speaker 8: And coming to Cela, she was you know, she always

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Speaker 8: wanted to pick out her clothes and she always wanted

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Speaker 8: to help other people pick out clothes. You know, she

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Speaker 8: was like, she loved her fashion, and I will miss

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Speaker 8: her style. She always rocked in wearing the most incredible pants,

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Speaker 8: and yeah, I think I'll just miss I'll miss her light.

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Speaker 7: She was wonderful.

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Speaker 5: I was able to look at some of her belongings

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Speaker 5: after her passing and just seeing some of her little

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Speaker 5: nick knacks and chowchke's and it just sort of really revealed,

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Speaker 5: you know, a part of who she was. And I

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Speaker 5: felt very fortunate to be the receiver of one of

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Speaker 5: her articles of clothing. It was a blue button up

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Speaker 5: and it had all of these patches of Divine the

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Speaker 5: drag Queen all over it. It's a really really cool piece

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Speaker 5: of clothing, and so I'm honored to be able to

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Speaker 5: keep that and you know, to be able to remember

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Speaker 5: her by it.

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Speaker 4: Cindy had a friendly, welcoming personality, one that was demonstrated

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Speaker 4: when she sat at the front of the Seala Neighborhood Coalition.

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Speaker 7: Cindy was a really special member of our community.

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Speaker 8: Cindy is a representation of what we really try to

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Speaker 8: practice here at SILA, which is true community. So she

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Speaker 8: was someone who started coming to SILA as someone in

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Speaker 8: need of services, someone who we identify as a participant

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Speaker 8: in our programming, and then became a volunteer when you know,

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Speaker 8: we supported her with getting into permanent supportive housing for

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Speaker 8: the first time in decades, and once she was settled,

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Speaker 8: she came in, started working the front desk and really

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Speaker 8: gave back to her community here. So I got to

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Speaker 8: know Cindy through that housing process, helped her move out

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Speaker 8: of a tough situation and into her permanent supportive housing.

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Speaker 8: She radiated light. You could just see people were drawn

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Speaker 8: to her. She was truly a center. I used to

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Speaker 8: joke that she would hold court when you would come

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Speaker 8: into a program and you would just see tons of

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Speaker 8: people around a table and it was just you knew

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Speaker 8: Cindy was in the center of it.

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Speaker 4: I hope people realize that Cindy did not just become

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Speaker 4: unhoused one day.

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Speaker 8: She was loved by her mother and she was loved

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Speaker 8: by her sister, both of whom lived in Arizona. She

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Speaker 8: came out here to follow a dream to be a

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Speaker 8: performer and was injured on the job and financially just

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Speaker 8: wasn't able to sustain herself, ended up like many people,

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Speaker 8: being prescribed pain medication and fell victim to the same

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Speaker 8: cycle that a lot of Americans fall prey to. And

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Speaker 8: she worked really hard to pull herself out of that

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Speaker 8: cycle of addiction. She passed in her sixties, and it

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Speaker 8: wasn't until her late fifties that she actually started living

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Speaker 8: as Cindy full time. She was living as a gay

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Speaker 8: man for most of her life, and I just think

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Speaker 8: it took so much bravery, and again, it's like all

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Speaker 8: of that courage, all of that love, the depth of

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Speaker 8: that story, everything that went into that life, you don't

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Speaker 8: see when you see someone pushing a shopping cart down

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Speaker 8: the street, And I think that that is again, Cyindy

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Speaker 8: is more than a symbol, but she is just a

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Speaker 8: really clear example of why we do what we do

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Speaker 8: here at CELA, because she is just one person, and

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Speaker 8: every person here has a story that is just as dynamic.

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Speaker 4: Cindy lived a very interesting life. She was also an

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Speaker 4: actress and performer.

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Speaker 8: I think you know it wasn't that many years ago

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Speaker 8: that someone would have seen her walking through the streets

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Speaker 8: of West Hollywood pushing a cart and thinking putting all

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Speaker 8: sorts of things onto her right, making assumptions, thinking they

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Speaker 8: knew where her story was, and not realizing that she

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Speaker 8: had had this incredible vibrant life, like she had an

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Speaker 8: autograph book where she had met like every TV star

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Speaker 8: from the sixties and seventies. She was at one point

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Speaker 8: like an incredibly prolific drag performer.

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Speaker 7: In West Hollywood who was just known.

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Speaker 8: She once was a personal shopper for share She helped

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Speaker 8: John Waters design his own toy like she was just

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Speaker 8: she was iconic in so many ways and prolific.

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Speaker 7: And it was a series of things that.

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Speaker 8: Took her to where she ended up living on the street,

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Speaker 8: and some of them in her control and some of

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Speaker 8: them out of her control.

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Speaker 4: Fun fact said they'd never let her flare with the

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Speaker 4: arts die down. Even when she was unhoused.

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Speaker 8: Like I said, you would have seen Cindy walking down

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Speaker 8: the street pushing her cart, and what you wouldn't have

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Speaker 8: known was in that cart were crystals. Like you would

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Speaker 8: have seen crystals and wigs and performing outfits because it

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Speaker 8: was who she was. She was deeply connected to spirituality

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Speaker 8: and her faith.

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Speaker 4: Cindy also wanted to be an example to other people

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Speaker 4: affected by houselessness that there is a light at the

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Speaker 4: end of the tunnel. Here's a clip of our interview

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Speaker 4: from earlier this year.

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Speaker 9: Well, my name is Cindy McAllister and I listed transgender

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Speaker 9: man to a woman. I've been coming to sea Live

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Speaker 9: for about a year and a half now, and sea

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Speaker 9: Let people are so welcoming and so friendly. I don't

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Speaker 9: know my time here, and I try to be a

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Speaker 9: friend to everybody who I know who comes here. I

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Speaker 9: try to be a positive attitude and I'm a class

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Speaker 9: of friends just because I'm a nice person.

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Speaker 4: Up until her passing, Cindy was in her community, volunteering,

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Speaker 4: referring friends to services, joking and enjoying time with her friends.

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Speaker 5: One of the reasons that it really hurts finding out

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Speaker 5: about Cindy's passing was we were actually supposed to have

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Speaker 5: an outing with her the very week that she passed.

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Speaker 5: We had plans to go to drag Bingo together, and

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Speaker 5: then we didn't hear from Cindy that week, and we

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Speaker 5: started getting really worried. And then we had found out

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Speaker 5: that she had passed away in her apartments, and so

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Speaker 5: you know, that was just really hard to deal with.

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Speaker 5: After her passing, we set up a little makeshift memorial

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Speaker 5: at our Saturday program and literally the very first person

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Speaker 5: that walked into the program saw the framed picture of

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Speaker 5: her and the candles, and they just gasped and they

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Speaker 5: were like, oh my gosh, what happened to Cindy. And

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Speaker 5: I witnessed this over and over and over, just everybody's

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Speaker 5: shock and sadness about this very valued community member that

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Speaker 5: we lost.

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Speaker 9: I'll sit at the dusk and I'll sign people in,

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Speaker 9: I'll help, you know, donate my time, and sometimes we'd

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Speaker 9: come here like today just to hang out with my friends.

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Speaker 1: And here's more unhoused deuced.

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Speaker 4: Our first story talks about the elderly unhoused, the number

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Speaker 4: of people aged sixty five and older who are unhoused

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Speaker 4: jump more than seventeen percent since last year and more

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Speaker 4: than thirty six percent in two years. Elderly unhoused are

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Speaker 4: estimated to be the fast and growing population in California.

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Speaker 4: Services are being cut due to the Trump administration, such

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Speaker 4: as cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. This means that this

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Speaker 4: vulnerable population are being turned away from free food programs

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Speaker 4: and other supportive services. They are now struggling to choose

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Speaker 4: between their medications, having food to eat, or paying their rent,

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Speaker 4: says Yvon Son of Special Services of Group Silver.

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Speaker 1: Our last story.

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Speaker 4: San Francisco bans the unhoused from living in RVs. This

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Speaker 4: band targets at least four hundred recreational vehicles in a

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Speaker 4: city of eight hundred thousand people. The San Francisco cost

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Speaker 4: of living is very expensive, making RV living essential. The

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Speaker 4: band sets a two hour parking limit citywide for all RVs,

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Speaker 4: regardless of whether they.

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Speaker 1: Are being used for housing.

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Speaker 4: People in RVs who arrive after May twenty twenty six

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Speaker 4: will not be eligible for the permit program and must

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Speaker 4: abide by the two hour rule, which makes it impossible

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Speaker 4: for a family in an RV to live within city limits.

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Speaker 1: And that's on house deuce.

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Speaker 4: When we come back, I will speak with indigenous activists.

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Speaker 4: Sequoya Decent. Welcome back to Witian House. I'm THEO Henderson.

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Speaker 4: Here is my interview with Sekoya educating us on the

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Speaker 4: issue of body farming.

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Speaker 7: Hello. My name is Sequiathisen.

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Speaker 10: I am a scholar and abolitionist. I also consider myself

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Speaker 10: a policy advisor more recently, and I'm very passionate about

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Speaker 10: the unhoused issues because I myself have suffered in that

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Speaker 10: situation not really knowing where to go. Especially when I

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Speaker 10: first came out to California, I was a victim of

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Speaker 10: patient brokering, and so that's something that I talk about

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Speaker 10: a lot.

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Speaker 1: Where did you come from originally, and how long were

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Speaker 1: you in house?

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Speaker 10: I'm from Montana, and so actually growing up I kind

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Speaker 10: of walked two different worlds because my dad is a felon.

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Speaker 10: But my mom she went to school when I was

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Speaker 10: really young, she got a nursing degree, and she really

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Speaker 10: tried to provide the best that she could life for us.

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Speaker 10: I was pretty stable in my childhood other than you know,

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Speaker 10: my father's kind of stuff, and I started using drugs

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Speaker 10: around the age of.

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Speaker 7: Like sixteen ish. I had chronic pain.

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Speaker 10: My dad and me also like my dad was super strict,

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Speaker 10: Like he was very abusive, which he doesn't like me

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Speaker 10: to talk about, but this is but it's real, like honestly,

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Speaker 10: Like he can be mad, but it's real. Like So

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Speaker 10: in Montana, it's pretty common for like kids, especially Native

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Speaker 10: kids to start drinking at like ten eleven years old, like,

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Speaker 10: and so that was my story too, and I used

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Speaker 10: it to cope.

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Speaker 7: And then as I.

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Speaker 10: Got older, I also like did a lot of workaholism behaviors,

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Speaker 10: just kind of throwing myself in work. When COVID started,

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Speaker 10: I started a couple of different businesses. I was doing photography,

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Speaker 10: I was doing different things, baking art.

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Speaker 7: I was also teaching.

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Speaker 10: At the time, I started teaching middle schoolers, and like

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Speaker 10: I said, post COVID, you started seeing like all these

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Speaker 10: kids that were dealing with anxiety, displacement, they were having

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Speaker 10: issues socially, and to me, it kind of just showed

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Speaker 10: like how much the youth is neglected in general, Like

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Speaker 10: we don't really think about them when big things happened.

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Speaker 10: They were definitely an afterthought during COVID, and so I realized, Okay,

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Speaker 10: I really need to get help if I want to

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Speaker 10: help these kids. So I came out here to LA

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Speaker 10: to actually go to rehab, and the first place that

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Speaker 10: I went wasn't technically bad. But this is why I

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Speaker 10: talk out about this stuff is because I feel like

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Speaker 10: the rehab model in general is just very broken. I'm

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Speaker 10: like a big proponent for harm reduction. I feel like

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Speaker 10: treatment is one of those things that people need to

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Speaker 10: make a lot of decisions for themselves, and it's not

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Speaker 10: like a one size fits all kind of deal. And

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Speaker 10: so in Los Angeles specifically, this is one of the

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Speaker 10: SUD hotspots of like the whole nation, substance abuse disorder

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Speaker 10: treatment is rampant here and what's really unfortunate is that

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Speaker 10: they target the unhoused populations, not just in LA but nationally.

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Speaker 7: And yeah, so I came out here.

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Speaker 10: I met my ex girlfriend who was actually I think

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Speaker 10: she's been being patient brokeer for like six or seven

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Speaker 10: years at this point. Like she's been in this rehab

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Speaker 10: scene since she was like eighteen. She's never been able

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Speaker 10: to escape it. And I spent about a year dealing

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Speaker 10: with that, and the entire time I was very like adamant, Okay,

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Speaker 10: I want to go to school. I want to you know,

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Speaker 10: just I wanted to get my own place. I had

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Speaker 10: always lived on my own too, like before I lived

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Speaker 10: out here and so, but what's crazy is that I

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Speaker 10: had left my home.

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Speaker 7: I had left everything.

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Speaker 10: There's nothing wrong with losing everything as an addict, but honestly,

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Speaker 10: I had given everything up to come and get clean.

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Speaker 10: And so when I did come here, I started immediately

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Speaker 10: being introduced to the fact that not all rehabs are

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Speaker 10: created equal. And I was like, oh, okay, you know

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Speaker 10: this is interesting. I met my ex girlfriend. She really

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Speaker 10: educated me, like street knowledge type shit, everything, like taught

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Speaker 10: me everything there is because she had been.

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Speaker 7: Wrapped up in it and so for so long.

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Speaker 10: And so I was being housed by UCLA, and UCLA

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Speaker 10: is such a vibrant community. There's like so many different groups.

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Speaker 10: Westwood itself is very vibrant, and so I started thinking

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Speaker 10: to myself, like, I really want to go back to school,

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Speaker 10: like this is.

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Speaker 7: Something that I want to do.

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Speaker 10: And when I would start to try to mention this

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Speaker 10: to the people at the facility that I was at,

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Speaker 10: they would get really hostile with me and they would

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Speaker 10: basically start to gaslight me and they would be like,

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Speaker 10: you need to focus on your recovery. And this is

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Speaker 10: a very common theme.

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Speaker 7: Like they like to be little school.

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Speaker 10: They like to and for me, like I have to

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Speaker 10: say that school is not about earning knowledge at all.

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Speaker 7: It's about contributing knowledge.

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Speaker 10: And that's what I love about your podcast too, is

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Speaker 10: like going to the people who have actually been unhoused,

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Speaker 10: because I tell these lawmakers all the time, what do

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Speaker 10: you know about liberty? What do you know about justice?

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Speaker 7: No offense? Like you've never been without those things? Even truth?

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Speaker 7: Have you ever been without truth? Have you been lied to?

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Speaker 7: Have you been coerced? You know?

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Speaker 10: And so this is like a super important part of

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Speaker 10: restorative justice is honoring people's lived experience. And so I

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Speaker 10: got really just okay, I need to leave this. A

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Speaker 10: couple months later, I got my own place with the

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Speaker 10: help of my family. And this is another reason I'm

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Speaker 10: so passionate about housing issues, is because I would not

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Speaker 10: be where I.

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Speaker 7: Am at all if it wasn't for my family.

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Speaker 10: I can't even fathom what it's like to have to

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Speaker 10: navigate these systems without those kinds of resources.

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Speaker 7: And I've seen it just in my advocacy, like.

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Speaker 10: Okay, you have to go here, you have to wait

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Speaker 10: three months in order to get a voucher. You have

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Speaker 10: to you know, you've got to spend two hours just

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Speaker 10: on the phone with this person.

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Speaker 7: And it's so dehumanizing.

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Speaker 10: Because I think that even when you're in an emergency,

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Speaker 10: because I've been in this situation before, when I was

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Speaker 10: being patient brokered, it was like being put to this rehab,

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Speaker 10: this rehab, this rehab because after a while, like you

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Speaker 10: can't really stay anywhere long term, like you just don't

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Speaker 10: have the capacity mentally because sobriety has been commodified. That's

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Speaker 10: the problem with treatment in LA, I feel like, is

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Speaker 10: that there's so many places that it's kind of hard

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Speaker 10: for people, at least for me to commit to one

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Speaker 10: place because it's almost their fault because you can just

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Speaker 10: start over at a new place. And the problem is

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Speaker 10: when they're offering you X, Y, and Z and you're

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Speaker 10: already in a situation. This is like when I was

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Speaker 10: being patient brokered from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 10: that was like the only time that I had ever

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Speaker 10: really been I guess, unhoused in my life, and I

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Speaker 10: was out here in LA. And one thing I want

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Speaker 10: to mention about patient brokering too, is that I just

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Speaker 10: want to define patient brokering REALM.

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Speaker 1: That was my next question ahead.

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Speaker 10: So, patient brokering is when people are being offered money, luxury, housing,

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Speaker 10: a job, various different things. Sometimes it's hormone replacement therapy,

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Speaker 10: sometimes it's a shopping trip.

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Speaker 7: It could be a whole bucket of things.

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Speaker 10: They're being offered those things to stay in treatment, and

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Speaker 10: this is something that begins cycle for people. So this

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Speaker 10: is happening on a national level and a local level,

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Speaker 10: and it's draining billions of dollars out of our insurance

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Speaker 10: all of our insurance networks that are private, so like ETNA,

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Speaker 10: Blue Crossbow Shield Signa, a lot of them are under

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Speaker 10: the same name.

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Speaker 7: But actually ETNA.

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Speaker 10: Is going to officially take their healthcare off the marketplace

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Speaker 10: because of this kind of fraud. And for me, it's

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Speaker 10: not really about what the insurance companies are losing, but

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Speaker 10: it's about the lives that are lost because, like I said,

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Speaker 10: like sobriety becomes commodified. You are told that if you

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Speaker 10: don't tell the doctor that you're not feeling well or

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Speaker 10: maybe that you want to relapse, then your benefits will

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Speaker 10: run out. And this becomes something where people are just

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Speaker 10: then in treatment just to get housing, and I've even

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Speaker 10: seen this on the inside of the LA jails. I'm

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Speaker 10: in the pod with like thirty women and they're like, yeah,

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Speaker 10: you know, the judge ordered me to go to treatment,

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Speaker 10: but I've already been in here for like three months.

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Speaker 10: And it's really unfortunate because a lot of them are

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Speaker 10: going to be swept up by places that don't actually

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Speaker 10: care if they actually get sober or not. What they

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Speaker 10: want to do is they actually want to keep you

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Speaker 10: sick because they can bill you as much as possible.

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Speaker 10: And I think that three thousand people in I believe

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Speaker 10: January were made homeless at one time because of one

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Speaker 10: of the most infamous body brokers that we know of.

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Speaker 10: His name is Nathan Young, and he owns fifty five Silver.

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Speaker 7: I think it's Hollywood rehab.

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Speaker 10: Helping Hands and what he calls Santa Monica Rehab, but

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Speaker 10: there's really no such thing as Santa Monica Rehab. So

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Speaker 10: if you ever hear that those names, it's like those

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Speaker 10: aren't real places. And then same with there's a woman

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Speaker 10: named Annie Mira Zion. She owns a place named Revived.

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Speaker 10: She's been sued by EDNA. Both of them have been

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Speaker 10: sued by EDNA. For basically taking millions of dollars overcharging

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Speaker 10: for things. And what's really sick is that they go

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Speaker 10: to the unhoused populations and they will offer insurance policies,

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Speaker 10: which is healthcare for a lot of people. That includes that,

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Speaker 10: they offer housing, they offer surgeries sometimes like for our

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Speaker 10: trans relatives, and honestly just safety, like they tell you

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Speaker 10: that they're going to keep you safe. And also this

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Speaker 10: is the other part, is that it's not uncommon for

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Speaker 10: outreach workers to walk around with clipboards collect things like

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Speaker 10: social Security number, name, birthday. When these patient brokers collect

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Speaker 10: those things from our unhoused relatives, sometimes they instantly sign

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Speaker 10: them up for a policy right then and there. And

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Speaker 10: then what they do is they're charging these people for

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Speaker 10: sometimes months before they're able to realize I'm actually seen

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Speaker 10: people die and then they're still being billed by an

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Speaker 10: insurance and it's so it's so.

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Speaker 7: Sad.

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Speaker 10: And then a lot of these places that they will

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Speaker 10: bring you to are essentially trap houses.

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Speaker 1: And for the audience, what is a trap house?

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Speaker 10: So we have, you know, places that are really messy.

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Speaker 10: Typically there's no security, like the door will be kind

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Speaker 10: of like faulty, Like I said, drugs throughout the house.

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Speaker 10: One time I arrived to a sober living and there

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Speaker 10: was three separate people overdosing, one of them in the

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Speaker 10: living room, one of them out in the back patio,

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Speaker 10: and then one of them in a bedroom, and the

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Speaker 10: police were there, the ambulance was there, but I was

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Speaker 10: just arriving, like with my stuff, and I remember going

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Speaker 10: upstairs and it was so ironic because I'm gay, and

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Speaker 10: the guy was like, oh, we don't allow that here,

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Speaker 10: and I'm like.

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Speaker 7: Broh, you guys have people like overdosed.

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Speaker 10: On the couch, Like that's notise. I promise you being

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Speaker 10: gay is not an issue. And so the problem is

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Speaker 10: is that they only.

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Speaker 7: Really started caring about this stuff, I would.

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Speaker 10: Say in twenty twenty two, which is when they're this

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Speaker 10: California Sober Living and Recovery task Force was created. And

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Speaker 10: what's really sad is that they it was only created

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Speaker 10: because of neighbors of these sober living places saying wow,

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Speaker 10: this is so crazy. A lot of them honestly complaining

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Speaker 10: and treating us like we're some kind of sense in

439
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 10: their life, right yeah, and just talking about us like

440
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 10: I remember one time. Because I'm a part of the

441
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 10: task force now, But I remember they one time they

442
00:24:59,320 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 10: told the story.

443
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,240
Speaker 7: It was very dehumanizing the way that they told this story.

444
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 10: They were like, yeah, you know, there was a young

445
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 10: man and he was given too much medication, and then

446
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 10: he was taken to another rehab and he was given

447
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 10: too much medication again, and then he ended up having

448
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 10: some kind of and he went to somebody's house and

449
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 10: somebody shot him.

450
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 7: And what was really.

451
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,919
Speaker 10: Upsetting is that the task force kind of acted like

452
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 10: the homeowner was the victim.

453
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:30,440
Speaker 7: And you know, of course the homeowner.

454
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 10: Was probably scared, that's why he did what he did,

455
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 10: But he wasn't the victim in this situation at all.

456
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 10: And I try to remind these people of that is like,

457
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 10: no matter how annoying you see somebody to be, that's

458
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 10: just so ignorant because you don't understand, like that could

459
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:48,439
Speaker 10: be someone's lowest point in their life.

460
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 7: And then for you to just write.

461
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 10: It off as annoying, it just shows how individualistic our

462
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 10: culture is and how people don't really care to It's

463
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 10: so one of the reasons I stopped teaching, because people

464
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 10: look at and they say, oh, the kid is being bad,

465
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:04,880
Speaker 10: why are they acting like that? But then they don't

466
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:06,960
Speaker 10: really think about the fact that the kid, you know,

467
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 10: maybe has things.

468
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 7: Going on at home and trauma and all kinds of

469
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 7: other stuff.

470
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:18,399
Speaker 4: So to back up a little bit to talk about brokerage.

471
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 4: Patient brokerage is simply a type of fraud that uses

472
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 4: to induce or to overcharge and get money in a

473
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 4: fraudulent manner. Yes, And the person that needs the most

474
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:36,199
Speaker 4: help is without help. They are being spun around or

475
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 4: they are being you know, volunteered involuntarily for benefits or

476
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,919
Speaker 4: insurance or other incentives in order to keep them in

477
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 4: this loop of staying involving the system where their focus

478
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 4: was if they were dealing with substance usage issues and

479
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:57,160
Speaker 4: they were on the detox end, now they were focused

480
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 4: on housing. They have to play the game, yes, to

481
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 4: stay into the system. If they don't, then they're going

482
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,919
Speaker 4: to be in a different dilemma. And with what's going on,

483
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 4: which I want to interject here to remind the community

484
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 4: and our audience of what's going on right now, there

485
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 4: has been a wave of ordnances laws all across the

486
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 4: country to criminalize unhouse people. And if you listen to

487
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 4: my show, I have a segment called Unhoused News, and

488
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 4: I try to keep as much as possible it happens

489
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 4: so rapidly, to let people know what is going on

490
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 4: for unhoused people, to get a heads up, even if

491
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:39,919
Speaker 4: you don't live in the area, but to understand, to

492
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 4: see the connection and see how these interlocks or interlinks

493
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 4: with the conversation. Now it has reached to the White House.

494
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 4: Most recently, President Trump's issued an executive order, and this

495
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 4: executive order goes and basically makes out that unhoused people

496
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 4: are criminals. Demands the cities, the force on house people

497
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 4: to go to treatment, to go to alcohol subst usage,

498
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:09,639
Speaker 4: and to involuntarily volunteer and house people to go to

499
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:15,120
Speaker 4: mental asylums or mental health agencies. These all interlink because

500
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 4: of the narrative that's out here about unhoused people. You

501
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 4: have to understand when you hear people say that unhoused

502
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,880
Speaker 4: people don't want a job or people like being out there,

503
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 4: they are contributing to that negative stereotype. There's over sixty

504
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,679
Speaker 4: six thousand unhoused people here in California alone. When you

505
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 4: say those things, you cannot intelligently think that that's realistic.

506
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: It's the same.

507
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 4: It's like I would bring another similar though closely related

508
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 4: topic about immigration, where people were talking about people doing

509
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 4: immigration the right way, but we see the lie to

510
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 4: that because they are being swept away or attacked while they're.

511
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: Going to court doing it the right way.

512
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 4: See when you contribute to those kind of conversations or

513
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 4: agree with that, this is what the end result is.

514
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: So understanding this now, this is where we're at.

515
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 4: Now. On house people and advocates and people that are

516
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 4: involved in the in house community have an upio battle

517
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 4: because now they've got to go to war with the

518
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:15,720
Speaker 4: government because now they have singled them out as nothing

519
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 4: but criminals, substant usage users, and mentally ill, which has

520
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 4: been a pernicious stereotype and the in house community for

521
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 4: at least thirty years that I know of.

522
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 10: Yeah, and this is crazy because I want to say,

523
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 10: in my area right in body brokering, there is an

524
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 10: advocate who's out there saying that she loves ventanyl act

525
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 10: and all that stuff. And I'm like, what a contradiction

526
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 10: you're saying that. You know, you advocate for body brokering,

527
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 10: but this is actually going to make body brokering worse

528
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 10: because now you know the administration has real stakes in

529
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 10: the game. You know, in fact, they're probably investing in

530
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 10: those companies as we speak, because that's kind of how.

531
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 7: The administration does things.

532
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 10: As we've seen, like a lot of people get well

533
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 10: off of their stocks and they clearly are doing something

534
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:07,719
Speaker 10: shady with that, and so yeah, it's so dehumanizing, like

535
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:09,479
Speaker 10: to just assume. And that's one of the reasons I

536
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 10: tell my story, like when I went back to school,

537
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 10: I was able to discover some new history that I

538
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 10: hope to publish in the next year. And it's such

539
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 10: a disgusting stereotype to say, Okay, you know unhouse people X, Y,

540
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 10: and Z. I keep saying, I remind politicians, lawmakers, city officials,

541
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 10: the subaltern, the people who you consider so far outside

542
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 10: of society's bubble. Those people are so much smarter than

543
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 10: you give them credit for. Those people are capable of

544
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 10: so much more than you give them credit for. In fact,

545
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 10: those people are smarter than you. Those people have more

546
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 10: capable in their bones than you do, because they've.

547
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 7: Survived things that you never could.

548
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 10: And so I remind them of those things often, because

549
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 10: that's one of the conversations with brokering too, is like

550
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 10: they try to criminalize those people, and I say, you

551
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 10: realize that somebody to rehab because they wanted to get

552
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 10: clean at one point, so there's no reason to. I

553
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 10: mean there's no reason too anyways, but especially in that situation,

554
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 10: like and in my experience, most of the people that

555
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 10: I've met that are on housed don't even use drugs,

556
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:18,479
Speaker 10: Like it's like a very few, and it's such a

557
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 10: negative stereotype and people don't It's one of those things

558
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 10: that people have to be willing to put out of

559
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 10: their mind.

560
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 4: But also too because it didn't have to be willing

561
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 4: to have one empathy to put in the work, and

562
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 4: it's easy to hold on to, you know, pernicious stereotypes

563
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 4: because you don't have to do any work. You can

564
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 4: just like for example, I have this friend of mine

565
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 4: that it just drove me crazy because every time we

566
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 4: would talk and I was in house and I was

567
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 4: trying to educate him, like you don't understand the quagmire

568
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 4: that people have to go through, and he only focused

569
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 4: he zeroed in on the segment of they like being

570
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 4: out there, they don't want it, And then I have

571
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 4: to break it down to him, if you're in this system,

572
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 4: you don't understand and why people give up. You don't

573
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 4: understand and understand the frustration and the never ending cycle,

574
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 4: the broken promises the city gives you.

575
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: You're waiting for.

576
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 4: No one in the right mind wants to stay in

577
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 4: a shelter or short term shelter. They would rather just

578
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 4: go through all of the paperwork. They need one time

579
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,719
Speaker 4: to get into housing and be done with it. They

580
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 4: don't want to be making these five or six trips.

581
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 4: They don't want to be dealing with this interested caseworker.

582
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 4: They don't want to go all the way over this

583
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 4: way to get this paperwork. It's too much. Especially if

584
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 4: you're on house, you have to be on top of that.

585
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 4: If you have health conditions, then you got to be

586
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 4: on top of that. Then you have to basic upkeep,

587
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 4: which is another paid in rebut when you're out there

588
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 4: in the house as well, so you are juggling all

589
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 4: of that. Not just like you're in a house where

590
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 4: you can go and remove your clothings and put other

591
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:51,239
Speaker 4: clothes on the hump of the shower, or you can

592
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 4: take a quick nap and then you can go to

593
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 4: the doctor's appointment here and that you know, it's not

594
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 4: that And one of the things that I also want

595
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 4: to point out about substant usage is many people turn

596
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 4: the substances when they're on the street conversely, because they're

597
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 4: dealing with the adverse conditions of trying to survive and

598
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 4: coping and trying to maintain a mental equilibrium, if there's

599
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:15,239
Speaker 4: such a word in a crazy system being swept all

600
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 4: the time, being harassed all the time, or Billy dealing

601
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 4: with the trauma that caused them to be in house,

602
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 4: or they're having a low point at whatever. Where our

603
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 4: society has so much stigma, so much harsh consequences for

604
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 4: people out on the street, it makes it can be

605
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 4: very difficult to bear.

606
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, you're right.

607
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 10: One of the most like transforming experiences, transformative experiences that

608
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 10: I've had while being in LA is that I got

609
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 10: fifty two to fifty one time fifty fifty two because

610
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:46,720
Speaker 10: they keep you for two weeks.

611
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 1: Oh really, I didn't know that one.

612
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 10: Yeah, fifty one, fifty is the seventy two hours, and

613
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 10: then fifty two is where they extend it for two weeks.

614
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 7: It was so bad, it was, Oh it was.

615
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 10: But I learned a lot in there because I was

616
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 10: around a lot of different people, and there was this

617
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 10: guy in there, and he was an older man and

618
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 10: I would talk to him pretty much every day, and

619
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,839
Speaker 10: he basically said, like, you know, they keep trying to

620
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 10: force me to go to a shelter. I don't want

621
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 10: to go to a shelter. And I was just like

622
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:14,440
Speaker 10: and I was like younger back then.

623
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 7: I was like, oh, why not?

624
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,840
Speaker 10: And he was like, because I've had horrible things happen

625
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 10: to me in shelters.

626
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 7: You know.

627
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,840
Speaker 10: People have stolen from me, people have hurt me, people

628
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 10: have you know, done all kinds of things to me

629
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 10: for no reason, you know. And and finally I looked

630
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 10: at him and I was like, wow, you know, that

631
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 10: actually makes a lot of sense. And he starts talking

632
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:36,359
Speaker 10: about how, you know, he sleeps at this park every night,

633
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 10: and he said, no one has ever bothered me at

634
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 10: this park. Nobody like people walk by me, if anything,

635
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 10: they're like scared of me, you know. And he was

636
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 10: like the sweetest guy too, and he lived in the

637
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 10: valley and he said, every single night nobody bothers me,

638
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 10: he said, but when every time I go to a shelter,

639
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 10: it's one of the most traumatizing experiences.

640
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 7: You know, that I've ever had.

641
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 10: And I was like, wow, you know, that's real because

642
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 10: even like at the shelter, like they're not providing people

643
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 10: the adequate care I feel like that they need in

644
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 10: order to be successful. At most of them, it's kind

645
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:08,799
Speaker 10: of like you're allowed to exist there is what I've seen.

646
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 7: It depends on where you are too.

647
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 4: And my experiences with shelters, which I didn't like go

648
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 4: on either, but trying to explain to hardheaded or unwilling

649
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 4: people to understand that people that are living in this

650
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 4: world have much more advanced knowledge and experience with it.

651
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:25,359
Speaker 1: So when they're telling.

652
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 4: You these things and you just you know, they waste

653
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 4: the time, they waste the energy, and then you just

654
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,360
Speaker 4: turn around to do the same damn thing. Then it's like,

655
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 4: but what is the point of trying to argue, complain

656
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 4: or talk to you. It's just like, you know, I'm

657
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 4: just going to give monosyllabic answers and just leave it alone.

658
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:45,399
Speaker 4: And so I had very difficult times in shelters too

659
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 4: because of the car sural nature, like you have to

660
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:50,879
Speaker 4: be back at like a curfew, or if you don't,

661
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 4: then you call and you have to have a explain.

662
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 4: And if you're at work, I'm like, you know this

663
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:56,399
Speaker 4: is a shelter. This is not like you know, where

664
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 4: we're children, we have to have a note like from

665
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 4: a doctor and things like that, or you know, those

666
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 4: kinds of things really just annoyed me. Were the food

667
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 4: restrictions or you couldn't have this behind, or you couldn't

668
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 4: bring this into the other room, or you know, it's

669
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 4: just yeah, to the point where it can be very difficult.

670
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,320
Speaker 4: On top of that, Ice focuses on the undocumented that

671
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 4: house as well. But most importantly, what they're talking about

672
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 4: the conditions in these hotels. They cannot have guests, they

673
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 4: cannot have this curfews and things like that. So when

674
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 4: you hear these glowing public relations statements, people are not

675
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 4: looking in deeper to it. People are not asking the

676
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 4: hard questions. People are not calling the service providers on

677
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:40,880
Speaker 4: the carpet. Why is it that these are grown adult

678
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 4: people that they can't have guests? Are you saying that

679
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 4: they are incompetent or stupid people that they can't have

680
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 4: a friend or they can't have a relationship, or they

681
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 4: can't bring people in Every place, even the hotels that

682
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 4: I've gone through allow you to have a guest. So

683
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 4: it just it begs the question to be humanized, yes,

684
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 4: and to try to talk to people that are so

685
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:06,759
Speaker 4: adamant about trying to say that people don't want help

686
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 4: and things like that. They're so hard headed, so you

687
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 4: can't penetrate too because they believe deep down that unhoused

688
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 4: people should be punished. But they won't go out and

689
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 4: say it because they know it's an ugly statement to say.

690
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,760
Speaker 4: But they honestly believe that, and that's by their actions.

691
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 4: They do those things or say those things in a

692
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 4: way make it criminality or make it like, for example,

693
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 4: unhoused people that live near their care or elderly centered

694
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 4: or something. They make it sound like the unhoused person

695
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 4: is jumping out of bushes and attacking old people or

696
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 4: in attacking children and things like that. Most often not,

697
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 4: the unhoused people are just trying to survive or you

698
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 4: staying near resources, or they may have relatives or whatever

699
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 4: it is that it is. But it's the whole picture

700
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 4: that they pay. When you can be able to demonize

701
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:53,279
Speaker 4: the people, then you can criminalize them.

702
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:56,319
Speaker 10: I always say that, yeah, no exactly, And it's such

703
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:59,959
Speaker 10: a contradiction too, because the whole point of I unders

704
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 10: stand it, like mayor Bas's like interim housing program is

705
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 10: to give people autonomy, right, like, okay, you have an

706
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 10: hotel room instead of going to a shelter. But then

707
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 10: they just completely cancel out every single benefit that you

708
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 10: would have by having like your own private room, your

709
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 10: own private space. If you do have your own private space,

710
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 10: you know, the idea is that you could be more

711
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 10: successful because you have that autonomy, and that autonomy is

712
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 10: so important. Like taking people's autonomy is basically like making

713
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 10: them a slave, Like you're not giving them any options

714
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 10: to do what they want to do, and then that

715
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 10: kind of affects people's will to live, It affects basically

716
00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:40,880
Speaker 10: everything about their mental health, and then it's going to

717
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 10: make it harder to motivate yourself.

718
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 7: Like there's a book by Virginia Wolf actually called The

719
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 7: Room of.

720
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 10: One's Own and it talks about like how important it

721
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 10: is just as a woman to have your own room.

722
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:53,760
Speaker 10: But I feel like you could apply that to everyone,

723
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 10: especially when you've lived a life where maybe you've been

724
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 10: controlled by others, you've been dominated, you've been a press,

725
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 10: you've been told what to do, and when you have

726
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 10: your own space and you can just like I remember

727
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 10: when I got out of sober living, and I've always

728
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 10: lived on my own, but when I had got out

729
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 10: of the sober living, human trafficking unhoused space, and I

730
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 10: just was like going back and forth to the store,

731
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 10: and I was just, like you said, like doing those

732
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 10: basic things like Okay, I can go out until ten

733
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 10: pm and I can come home.

734
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:22,720
Speaker 7: Like people take those things for granted.

735
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 10: So much like like you said earlier, people take just

736
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:28,360
Speaker 10: being able to shower and change their outfit at home

737
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 10: for granted. And I think about that a lot, especially because,

738
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 10: like I said, like that's such a contradiction. The idea is,

739
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 10: if you want to give people housing, you also need

740
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 10: to give them their own room, you know what I mean,

741
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:43,879
Speaker 10: And that needs to be there.

742
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 4: And let me add another thing too, just this is

743
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 4: not only just hotels inside safe these are also SROs,

744
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 4: because like I'm in an SRO right now, and it

745
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 4: really frustrates me because again, the denseness or the resistance

746
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 4: to create humanity for people people go only so far

747
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 4: they create a kind of humane kind of solution. But

748
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 4: I remember I was having this challenge with this racist

749
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:08,239
Speaker 4: person that lived in the same sorrow what it was,

750
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 4: and this person tried to make it so difficult for

751
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 4: me to stay there and was creating situations and then

752
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 4: pretended that he was the victims. He's because he's you know,

753
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 4: he has a record and all of this kind of stuff.

754
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:23,919
Speaker 4: But it got to the point where they were like, well,

755
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:25,840
Speaker 4: you just stay on this floor, you know. And the

756
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 4: way this SRO is set up is the kitchen is

757
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 4: on the floor, he's on.

758
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 1: The laundry is on this one. What he's on. They

759
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: don't keep up.

760
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 4: The showers like they're supposed to, so I usually use

761
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 4: the other one because it has better water flow, what

762
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 4: needless to say, And to try to elucidate these type

763
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 4: of points, it was like we didn't want to hear

764
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 4: it out there. Other they just didn't comprehend and it

765
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 4: got so exasperated, which is why sometimes I get tired

766
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 4: sometimes of house people that are in our communities and

767
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 4: they are resistant to understanding sometimes like why are you here?

768
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 4: Why do you join this place? And you don't want

769
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 4: to listen and to the people that are being impacted.

770
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 4: And when we come back more with the choir, welcome back,

771
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 4: it's to Steve Henderson with weedy in house.

772
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:14,879
Speaker 1: Let's get back to It.

773
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 4: Here's the rest of my talk with Sakoit, who initially

774
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 4: started out this city, and the government was against hotels

775
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 4: because of the pandemic. Activists advocates like myself and others

776
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 4: push for if you wanted to get rid of on

777
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:33,319
Speaker 4: the house so much, the house's issues so bad, why

778
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:36,279
Speaker 4: not get these empty hotels. There was such a kerfuffle

779
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 4: that they didn't want to do it because they were

780
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 4: worried that the brand was going to be impacted and

781
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 4: things like that. So now they're using one or two

782
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:48,719
Speaker 4: star or CD places to use these places. There's one

783
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:51,359
Speaker 4: hotel where on house people are. They can't use the towel.

784
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 4: They get one four week a paper towel to use

785
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 4: to dry themselves off.

786
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:57,839
Speaker 1: I had one out an eagle rock.

787
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 4: This is why I'm like, I don't know, why do

788
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 4: they get these advocates, But there was just one advocate

789
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 4: was in an uproar or was against there's other unhoused

790
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:11,839
Speaker 4: people from having a coffee maker inside that room.

791
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: Put that in your mind, a coffee maker.

792
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 4: It's insinuating that unhoused people don't drink coffee. It's insinuating

793
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 4: that they are too stupid to not you know, to

794
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 4: use know how to use a coffee machine. And I was,

795
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,280
Speaker 4: for the life of I'm like, I was so stumped

796
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 4: when she said, I thought she was joking. It says,

797
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 4: why would that be such an issue? Because everybody you

798
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 4: go too, even the see hotels, they have some kind

799
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 4: of coffee maker or something like that. Why would that

800
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 4: be such an uproar issue or issue that you take

801
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 4: issue with. It just didn't make any sense. I hear

802
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 4: abolitions always say stop the cough in your mind, I

803
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 4: would add, I would add, stop the judgment and lack

804
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 4: of empathy in your mind. Out of house people are

805
00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 4: human beings. They deserve just this much of the accouterment,

806
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 4: the incentives, like everybody else. If they want a coffee

807
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 4: machine in there, there should be no reason. If they

808
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 4: take a shower, God forbid, the world is not going

809
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 4: to end if they have a towel.

810
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 7: That is that's pretty shocking. I don't want I like dang.

811
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 1: Like I said.

812
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:19,800
Speaker 4: When I get the show and started going to different

813
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 4: places and talking to other unhoused people and listening to

814
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 4: their stories, it opened the world to me to understand

815
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 4: how these stories don't get told at how it flies

816
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 4: under the radar. Under the auspices of being helping unhouse people,

817
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 4: and when you really hear them telling you the stories

818
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:41,359
Speaker 4: and saying, no, this is definitely more than.

819
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: Met the eye.

820
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 7: No, it's true.

821
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 10: Actually, that's one of the things I told the Sober

822
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:48,799
Speaker 10: Living in Recovery Task Force. I said, stop looking at

823
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:51,920
Speaker 10: unhoused people, stop looking at people who suffer from addiction,

824
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:55,400
Speaker 10: stop looking at all of these people like somebody you

825
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:56,320
Speaker 10: need to manage.

826
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,760
Speaker 7: You don't need to manage us. We don't need your management.

827
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:03,919
Speaker 10: What we need is like real tangible resources that you're

828
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 10: already giving to other people. I'm on the land back

829
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 10: in Operations House Force in Santa Monica, right, And there's

830
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 10: a lot of conversations, especially around reperations in California, like, and.

831
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 7: I remember I called this out in the meeting the

832
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 7: other day.

833
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,160
Speaker 10: I was like, okay, but didn't the city council just

834
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 10: create this whole big plan to make Palisades businesses who

835
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 10: were burned down by the fire, probably mostly white owners,

836
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:29,440
Speaker 10: to be honest, move them to Santa Monica. Didn't you

837
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 10: guys come up with that in how long like three months?

838
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 10: So and you guys are saying that you guys can't

839
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 10: come up with reparations. You guys can't come up with,

840
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 10: you know, real solutions to even the unhoused issue in

841
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 10: Santa Monica, like they refuse. The culture in Santa Monica

842
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 10: is disgusting.

843
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 4: And I was going to say I was on house

844
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 4: out there in San Monica before I I forced me

845
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 4: to move back down here because do you know it

846
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 4: is again they were voting to you ban for unhoused

847
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:57,360
Speaker 4: people to have blankets and pillows.

848
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: Yep, that's how backed up this. Yeah.

849
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:02,879
Speaker 10: Yeah, I always get into it with people that live

850
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 10: in Santa Monica because you know, one of the things

851
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 10: I advocate on the task for us a lot, And

852
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 10: I say, you know, you cannot keep funding the police

853
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 10: the way that you do in Santa Monica and then

854
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 10: claim that you care about the unhouse population or claim

855
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:20,399
Speaker 10: that you care about minorities because they literally target both, yes,

856
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:21,880
Speaker 10: like aggressively.

857
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 1: Yes.

858
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 10: And I had a professor who was a prosecutor in

859
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 10: Santa Monica, and he actually straight up said that pretty

860
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 10: much all of the penal codes in Santa Monica and

861
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 10: civil codes and stuff are made up by white people

862
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 10: who have nothing better to do. Hate in their heart

863
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 10: and they hate unhoused people, and they hate black and

864
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 10: brown people and pretty much all that they ins a

865
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 10: lot of women, and all that they do is make

866
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 10: laws like you can't ride your bike in Santa Monica,

867
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 10: and that is specifically to target unhouse people. They will

868
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 10: never stop a tourist with that penal code ever, exactly

869
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:56,479
Speaker 10: never in their life will they do that.

870
00:45:57,080 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 4: And they will never have, but they will never stop

871
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 4: tourist that will put out a blanket in land the mouth,

872
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,759
Speaker 4: but on the house person, that's what that's what they're

873
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 4: aiming for. And it's like it's so aggressive and so

874
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 4: openly disrespectful. They make it shown that the antipathy is

875
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 4: so known, you know, you can only stand there stay

876
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 4: there for some time. I used to go to before

877
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 4: they changed, the people concerned the Samuil Shell that used

878
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:23,399
Speaker 4: to have an ocean park, and the way they will

879
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 4: talk about on house people, the way they were using

880
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 4: staff to try to convince unhouse people that we deserve

881
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 4: to be treated this way.

882
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: That's the that was what really turned me off. And really.

883
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:39,720
Speaker 7: That's the craziest part. They literally make themselves the victim.

884
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 4: There was one staff member I have to tell this story,

885
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 4: and I was so infuriated because if you have to

886
00:46:45,560 --> 00:46:48,360
Speaker 4: go to the restroom there, it is so difficult to

887
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 4: go into that, you know, unless you know it was

888
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 4: a McDonald's there. If you're not there, then you have

889
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 4: to be trying to be creative and go. No, if

890
00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 4: you don't get to the when they finished that new

891
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:00,400
Speaker 4: part in time, then you're going to have that accident.

892
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 4: But before that, the staff member comes to us all

893
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 4: over the young house there and she says, well, you know,

894
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 4: there's this person that went to use the restaurant out

895
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 4: of the street. And I was appalled. I was so

896
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:14,880
Speaker 4: offending and furious by it. I was like, you know,

897
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:16,720
Speaker 4: have you ever tried to go up usually the restaurant

898
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:19,720
Speaker 4: out here and you're unhoused. You can't use the restaurant

899
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 4: out here, because a lot of people don't allow you

900
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 4: to use the restaurant out here. You know, they are

901
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:27,880
Speaker 4: very adamant against there's no facilities, there's no free facilities

902
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 4: at the time, So of course they're going to have

903
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:31,839
Speaker 4: to you know, human beings are going to be able

904
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 4: to either the use it on themselves, and they they

905
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:36,919
Speaker 4: probably didn't want to do that, so they had to

906
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 4: be able to do what they needed to do. I

907
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 4: almost got arrested because I was out in the house

908
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:44,800
Speaker 4: and waiting for the bus by people that was standing

909
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 4: out on the bus stop. And I don't never forget

910
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:50,239
Speaker 4: it was a rainy Saturday at the time, and they

911
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 4: just saw me standing there and obviously I was must

912
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 4: be menacingly at God forbade it was rainy. I had

913
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 4: a hood on, right, I was going to attack these

914
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 4: people waiting for the bus. And that really was the

915
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 4: turning point for being like, you know what these people are.

916
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 4: I don't irredeemable, but I just think there's no point

917
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:11,399
Speaker 4: in trying to convey to them the humanity because they'll

918
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 4: never see it.

919
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:12,919
Speaker 1: Yeah.

920
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 7: No, there's people on the task Force even who are like,

921
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 7: let's go to the Santa Monica community. I'm like, no thanks.

922
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:19,880
Speaker 10: If you want to do that and you want to

923
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:23,360
Speaker 10: get vitriol hate from white supremacists, you go right ahead.

924
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:25,360
Speaker 10: But what I want to do is I want to,

925
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:27,839
Speaker 10: you know, hit up the people who already support us

926
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,400
Speaker 10: and bring love to Santa Monica, because that's honestly what

927
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 10: needs to be done. Like people need to go to

928
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 10: Santa Monica and use their voice because right now, the

929
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 10: white supremacists just take over those city council meetings as

930
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 10: far as like you know, and I feel like they

931
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 10: feel empowered to do that because in LA it's a

932
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:45,239
Speaker 10: little bit harder to do that, you know, you have

933
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 10: to watch your mouth a little bit more. Yeah, but

934
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 10: over there they really feel and like I was saying,

935
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 10: they really feel like they're the victim too.

936
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 7: They sit there and they're like, I'm not safe to

937
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 7: take my child out. Just shut the fuck up, bro.

938
00:48:57,239 --> 00:48:59,120
Speaker 4: Well, if they see it in the house and can

939
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,400
Speaker 4: admit they feel like the child is going to be attacked.

940
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 4: It's like Sant Louis Abispo. When I was doing an

941
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 4: episode for my show, I went out there the San

942
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,319
Speaker 4: Louis Abispo and it reminded me of Santa Mona. I said,

943
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 4: this is this is so surreal, and it's just the

944
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 4: way that people were acting and reacting. And what I

945
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 4: noticed is there was two people, two white people, and

946
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 4: I was asking questions and one white person was trying

947
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 4: to put a spin on it.

948
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: The other white person was just telling like, no, this

949
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 1: is a racist place here. And the guy was.

950
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 4: Getting frustrated because he didn't want that part to be known.

951
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 4: And then when I started, you know, because I already

952
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 4: knew the answer, but I was asking the question to

953
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:44,319
Speaker 4: see just how they would phrase it. And they were

954
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 4: phrasing it just like people from Santa Monica that they

955
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:49,319
Speaker 4: were just decent people. They just they the quality of

956
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,160
Speaker 4: life was being impacted when they see unhoused people there.

957
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:53,959
Speaker 1: Was it was so hard.

958
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 4: Was that the unhoused people were literally living on the

959
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 4: edge near a river, a muddy side the river, on

960
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:03,080
Speaker 4: a hill. And I'm talking about elderly people and things

961
00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:05,400
Speaker 4: like that. So it got to the point where on

962
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:09,399
Speaker 4: house people were hiding because if they were shown throughing,

963
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 4: you know, the city proper, they were going to be targeted.

964
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:16,880
Speaker 4: And that was another is that's always what I noticed.

965
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:18,879
Speaker 4: You know, when you see young house people who are

966
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 4: in the outskirts or in far flung places, chances are

967
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:26,799
Speaker 4: very good that the people there, the house people there

968
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 4: are very are very nasty.

969
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's really it's really disgusting. I don't like the

970
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:32,439
Speaker 7: culture there.

971
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:34,960
Speaker 10: And I've been saying this, I'm like, it's difficult to

972
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:37,439
Speaker 10: navigate when those are the people that come and they're

973
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:40,879
Speaker 10: so loud, right, And I remember one of my best

974
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 10: force members tried to be like, oh, they out organized this,

975
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:47,319
Speaker 10: And I'm like, no, just don't say that, because that's

976
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:49,919
Speaker 10: not an excuse for city council to not see through

977
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:50,400
Speaker 10: that stuff.

978
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 7: Because these are people who are supposed to be educated

979
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 7: on policy.

980
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:55,400
Speaker 10: These are people who are supposed to care about all

981
00:50:55,440 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 10: their constituents, not just you know, the rich white people

982
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 10: who have the time to come here, and and it's

983
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 10: a lot of time you got to dedicate to go

984
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:07,840
Speaker 10: to city council meetings. It's like seven eight hours sometimes

985
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 10: they be going on and so on. How's advocates are

986
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:14,279
Speaker 10: so important because, like you said, like you just get

987
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 10: so beat up after a while and you're just trying

988
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 10: to survive. Like I remember when I was going through

989
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 10: all this, Oh my god, I couldn't have cared. Like

990
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:22,880
Speaker 10: when people are saying things, it's like, oh my god, whatever,

991
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:26,439
Speaker 10: like it's just noise. But then once you're like out

992
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:28,080
Speaker 10: of it, or once you're trying to get out of it,

993
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 10: and then you start looking back at it, you're like, wow,

994
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:33,480
Speaker 10: people are really people almost knock you down to that

995
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:37,000
Speaker 10: point you like you're you're at that really low point

996
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 10: fiscally right, you don't have money, but then also emotionally

997
00:51:40,719 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 10: and socially, people are trying to minimize your existence all

998
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 10: the time, and so it's hard to bring yourself out

999
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:49,919
Speaker 10: of that. And that's why I told the California Past Force,

1000
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 10: like you need to invest in these people, like, not

1001
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 10: just okay they're surviving, invest make sure they're good.

1002
00:51:56,760 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 1: And not only that too.

1003
00:51:57,719 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 4: I think one of the things that really turned it

1004
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:03,440
Speaker 4: around from me to start to reinditt it was having

1005
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:07,239
Speaker 4: people to talk about it, because when I noticed too

1006
00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:10,279
Speaker 4: that I was telling unhoused people too. When I did

1007
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:14,400
Speaker 4: the show, I noticed on house people felt so relieved

1008
00:52:15,040 --> 00:52:18,600
Speaker 4: that I asked their opinion and they loved to talk.

1009
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 4: They talked so long and it frustrated the producers and

1010
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 4: other listeners.

1011
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:24,720
Speaker 1: And I have to always get on the house people.

1012
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:25,360
Speaker 1: I like, listen.

1013
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 4: If you can listen to a kinburns or other things

1014
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 4: for three hours without changing the channel, that you can

1015
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 4: listen to onhouse people venting when they finally be heard.

1016
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 4: If you need to take a break, take a break,

1017
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 4: put a pause on it, and then come back. But

1018
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 4: come on, you know, it's like it's just so disrespectful.

1019
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:44,799
Speaker 4: Just make it ten minutes. Just move on. But the

1020
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 4: second thing that I noticed about it too. Was when

1021
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 4: you're dealing with this kind of conversation. I was telling

1022
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 4: onhouse people this, I says, you may not think voting

1023
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 4: is important, you may not think having a voice is important,

1024
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:03,640
Speaker 4: but I guarantee you somewhere somebody is at a meeting

1025
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 4: discussing a way to put you in a position that's

1026
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 4: going to cause you harm. Somebody voted for an ordinance

1027
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:15,320
Speaker 4: against you. And if you don't think about that, or

1028
00:53:15,400 --> 00:53:18,279
Speaker 4: you don't realize, because if voting was not it was,

1029
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:21,759
Speaker 4: it's a waste of time. They wouldn't take time to

1030
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:24,399
Speaker 4: do it, they wouldn't organize, they wouldn't put money into

1031
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 4: and as an African American person and it was trying.

1032
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:30,960
Speaker 4: That tells people that this was an issue that our

1033
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:34,319
Speaker 4: ancestors were killed for. We couldn't do that even when

1034
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:37,480
Speaker 4: we had the right. They intimidated so much because they

1035
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 4: knew that if there was a collective party or a

1036
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 4: collective block of people to stop what they were doing,

1037
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 4: then they would change the game entirely. So that was

1038
00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 4: another Colonel of a nugget of wisdom that I keep

1039
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:54,440
Speaker 4: making sure they're certainly a voting batch. You look what

1040
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:56,959
Speaker 4: we got in the office. Now, look what they're doing.

1041
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:00,640
Speaker 4: He just set out in a horrible executive order. It's

1042
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:04,239
Speaker 4: giving license for people to go out and target on

1043
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:07,400
Speaker 4: the house people in the most horrific of ways and

1044
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:08,280
Speaker 4: making it legal.

1045
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 1: And you can say we'll voting.

1046
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 4: Into this, or they the same kind of part, or

1047
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 4: whatever it is you go to say, but you have

1048
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 4: to see the reality of it.

1049
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: This is what's just happening to you.

1050
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:18,759
Speaker 4: So you're going to have to figure out a way

1051
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:23,759
Speaker 4: to reconcolve yourself or understand the political process and understand

1052
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:25,200
Speaker 4: how you need to be a part of it.

1053
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:28,080
Speaker 10: Yeah, I agree, And I always tell people, I'm like,

1054
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:29,840
Speaker 10: when you start to feel like I feel like a

1055
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:32,520
Speaker 10: lot of people when they think of justice, there's a

1056
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 10: reason that we think of like cut handcuffs and.

1057
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 7: Jails and like laws and stuff.

1058
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:41,239
Speaker 10: It's because, like, traditionally the law has been used to

1059
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:45,920
Speaker 10: restrict people, like you said, like target people, knock people

1060
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:48,360
Speaker 10: down a peg. And so when I'm thinking about like

1061
00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:50,799
Speaker 10: restorative justice, I try to give people hope and say,

1062
00:54:51,280 --> 00:54:53,319
Speaker 10: you know, we can make laws that actually give people

1063
00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 10: second chances. We can make laws that target the corporations

1064
00:54:57,080 --> 00:55:00,120
Speaker 10: and the people who are actually exploiting us rather than

1065
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 10: us who are just trying to make a living and

1066
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 10: just trying to survive. And like, not to bring up

1067
00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:09,040
Speaker 10: the subaltern again, but the subaltern is I think Gary

1068
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:11,520
Speaker 10: Spivack is her name. She's a scholar and she's a

1069
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 10: postcolonial scholar, and she talks about this idea of the subaltern.

1070
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 10: And in the cast system, in the India cast system,

1071
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:22,360
Speaker 10: there is the bottom cast is the subaltern. And it

1072
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,799
Speaker 10: said that the subaltern can't speak, like spiritually they're bound

1073
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:28,960
Speaker 10: from speaking. And so in this article she poses the

1074
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:33,440
Speaker 10: question can the subaltern speak? And the idea is, yes,

1075
00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:36,920
Speaker 10: we can speak the most oppressed people in society, the

1076
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:39,000
Speaker 10: people who are on the sidelines the most, those of

1077
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 10: us who have had the hardest lives, we can speak.

1078
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:45,759
Speaker 10: In fact, we can speak much louder. The fact that

1079
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 10: we're not heard, that's the problem. People don't listen. And

1080
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:51,800
Speaker 10: like you said, like the fact that you give a

1081
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 10: voice to the subaltern, it's so powerful because these are

1082
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:57,240
Speaker 10: the voices that people really.

1083
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 7: Don't hear from that often.

1084
00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:02,160
Speaker 10: I think that's why people are grab imitated towards especially.

1085
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:03,920
Speaker 10: I feel like in the past couple of years, things

1086
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 10: like soft white underbelly or whatever, like yeah, I know.

1087
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 4: He's so exploitive and likes Yeah, that's another thing.

1088
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 10: But people, I think are gravitated towards that because people

1089
00:56:13,719 --> 00:56:16,480
Speaker 10: are curious and people do want to know, you know,

1090
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:19,560
Speaker 10: what our lives are like. It just is unfortunate that

1091
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:22,560
Speaker 10: people still exploit us for that trauma porn.

1092
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:23,719
Speaker 1: And that's another thing.

1093
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 4: With one of the things, there was another I don't

1094
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 4: want to give anymore notoriety a person, but there's another

1095
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:33,319
Speaker 4: one that has another uh a program that does the

1096
00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:36,120
Speaker 4: similar thing. And then two we're gonna behind which I

1097
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:39,360
Speaker 4: bring up like the white saverism they have, like or

1098
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:45,480
Speaker 4: try to shape the conversation into white Saverism narrative. That's

1099
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 4: what I'm trying to be as poliged as that possibly can.

1100
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:50,400
Speaker 10: I know, I agree because there's a lot of connections

1101
00:56:50,440 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 10: between colonialism and homelessness.

1102
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:54,279
Speaker 7: Yes, because what's crazy is.

1103
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:57,719
Speaker 10: That some of the first homeless people were white settlers.

1104
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:00,880
Speaker 10: And it's funny because when they were homeless, it was, oh,

1105
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:03,279
Speaker 10: my god, the government needs to give me land, the

1106
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 10: government needs to give me five horses, and.

1107
00:57:05,400 --> 00:57:09,080
Speaker 7: Blah blah blah. And they did. They subsidized so much.

1108
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:12,040
Speaker 4: But also too, like back in into even how the

1109
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 4: narrative would negatively frame and in some respects for them

1110
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:17,960
Speaker 4: too is he does not work, does not eat. I

1111
00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:21,520
Speaker 4: remember being in this coat shelter that was saying that

1112
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 4: about non house people who knowunsn't worked, don't eat. So

1113
00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:26,560
Speaker 4: you have to have to do a job in order

1114
00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:29,439
Speaker 4: to get your suffer, or you have to pay, like

1115
00:57:29,440 --> 00:57:32,360
Speaker 4: like the at one point and rescue mission, in order

1116
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 4: to stay you have to pay part of your gr

1117
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:38,160
Speaker 4: to stay there in these packed bunks. And so it's

1118
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:41,920
Speaker 4: it's so these things are so intertwined in how the

1119
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:45,080
Speaker 4: conversation of house blessness is. It is always sent for

1120
00:57:45,280 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 4: some kind of negative way of twisting support or there's

1121
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:51,920
Speaker 4: some kind of way of making sure that you're that

1122
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:55,000
Speaker 4: he is always on the neck of vulnerable people. But

1123
00:57:55,480 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 4: the soft underabilities and those conversations always has to have

1124
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:03,360
Speaker 4: a phase of the white saviorism that's going to pull

1125
00:58:03,720 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 4: the poor minorities out of their condition because they are

1126
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 4: unable to do it themselves. And in order this has happening,

1127
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:14,320
Speaker 4: and I have seen it happen, they can dictate how

1128
00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 4: they do it by shaping or being in the forefront

1129
00:58:17,720 --> 00:58:20,560
Speaker 4: or the front line or pushing themselves into it. I'll

1130
00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 4: give you one last example. There is this one creator

1131
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:27,479
Speaker 4: won't say the person's name, but this person goes into

1132
00:58:27,520 --> 00:58:30,800
Speaker 4: a rage, and I explained it to the person before

1133
00:58:31,160 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 4: I says the reason why I call it weedy in

1134
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:37,000
Speaker 4: house because the term is much more up to date.

1135
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:40,760
Speaker 4: It also gives a chance for the person that is

1136
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:43,680
Speaker 4: displaced on housed just have us say how they want

1137
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:47,880
Speaker 4: to be called. And it also opens the conversation and

1138
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:52,320
Speaker 4: the mental landscape for people to realize not everyone responds

1139
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:55,080
Speaker 4: to the word homeless. Not everyone wants to be called homeless.

1140
00:58:55,240 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 4: There's a person a friend of mine, calls herself ruthless.

1141
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 4: There's another person that calls themselves yeah, you know what

1142
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:08,600
Speaker 4: were called four walls removed. There are so many people

1143
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:13,400
Speaker 4: that have a personality choose a conversation, but this person

1144
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:17,600
Speaker 4: flies into a rage and enlist other homeless people that

1145
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:20,360
Speaker 4: are okay with it to say these things. And I

1146
00:59:20,440 --> 00:59:24,680
Speaker 4: have to always says, why does it puts people into

1147
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:27,760
Speaker 4: a rage that people are using their own autonomy, They're

1148
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 4: using their own voice to say what they want to

1149
00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:33,959
Speaker 4: be called. Why would you want to relegate? Because again

1150
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:36,440
Speaker 4: it goes back to that white say riism complex. It

1151
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:40,200
Speaker 4: goes back to that punitive kind of belief system that

1152
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:44,960
Speaker 4: they cannot they cannot kill the you know, puneral cards

1153
00:59:44,960 --> 00:59:47,920
Speaker 4: through nature in their mind about on house people or

1154
00:59:48,280 --> 00:59:52,840
Speaker 4: homeless people or displaced people, ruthless or four walls removed,

1155
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 4: or however you want to say what your condition is.

1156
00:59:57,080 --> 00:59:59,480
Speaker 4: Because you once you start to take ownership of who

1157
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:02,280
Speaker 4: you are and how you want to be called, it

1158
01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:06,480
Speaker 4: shifts the mental landscape and it makes you much more

1159
01:00:06,480 --> 01:00:09,280
Speaker 4: confident in how you will be addressing your situation or

1160
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:11,120
Speaker 4: how you want to address it, and what you want

1161
01:00:11,160 --> 01:00:14,200
Speaker 4: to say when people talk to you, because you demanding

1162
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 4: that they see you instead of just looking and at

1163
01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 4: another homeless person on which the idea escapes in it

1164
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:22,880
Speaker 4: really does, and it escapes a lot of people. They

1165
01:00:22,880 --> 01:00:25,040
Speaker 4: don't get that deeper context to it.

1166
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:26,960
Speaker 7: So yeah, no, I think you're right.

1167
01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:30,160
Speaker 10: Actually, when I first escaped body broken, there's no resources

1168
01:00:30,200 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 10: for people who escape body brokeing. So I remember going

1169
01:00:33,400 --> 01:00:36,480
Speaker 10: to different like nonprofits and different access centers and stuff

1170
01:00:36,520 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 10: and talking with different people, and I remember the term

1171
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:43,400
Speaker 10: unhoused actually helped me realize that I was actually being

1172
01:00:43,480 --> 01:00:46,680
Speaker 10: human trafficked in the first place, because you're right, it

1173
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:49,840
Speaker 10: is such a fluid term, and you start to realize

1174
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:52,280
Speaker 10: that different people are experiencing a lot of different things,

1175
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 10: and some people, you know, are couch serving, some people

1176
01:00:56,840 --> 01:01:00,000
Speaker 10: are you know, creative, and they're going and they're fighting

1177
01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 10: places to sleep that aren't necessarily legal, but you know,

1178
01:01:02,800 --> 01:01:04,160
Speaker 10: they're finding somewhere to sleep.

1179
01:01:04,520 --> 01:01:06,480
Speaker 7: And so I think it is much.

1180
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:09,439
Speaker 10: More of a fluid term that allows you to talk

1181
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:12,960
Speaker 10: about your really unique experience because everyone's experience is really different,

1182
01:01:13,120 --> 01:01:15,600
Speaker 10: and especially because a lot of it is based off

1183
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:19,320
Speaker 10: of like your safety, like what you feel safe doing.

1184
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:21,960
Speaker 10: Some people feel safe right here in Hollywood. Some people

1185
01:01:21,960 --> 01:01:25,080
Speaker 10: prefer to go to like a neighborhood and lay low.

1186
01:01:25,200 --> 01:01:30,360
Speaker 10: So I think you're right like honoring people's individuality and

1187
01:01:30,440 --> 01:01:32,880
Speaker 10: not judging them and just trying to come from a

1188
01:01:32,920 --> 01:01:35,240
Speaker 10: place of understanding like, oh why do you do that?

1189
01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:37,960
Speaker 10: Why do you feel more comfortable here, and not trying

1190
01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:40,840
Speaker 10: to judge them, but just trying to genuinely understand like

1191
01:01:40,880 --> 01:01:41,840
Speaker 10: where they're coming from.

1192
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:44,040
Speaker 1: And that's that's the hardest part too.

1193
01:01:44,160 --> 01:01:46,960
Speaker 4: Like, for example, it gives you you are the master

1194
01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 4: of your fate. It gives you a little bit more

1195
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:53,280
Speaker 4: control into an uncontrollable kind of situation. What you're dealing

1196
01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:55,760
Speaker 4: in housesness because there's a lot of chaotic things there.

1197
01:01:55,800 --> 01:01:57,800
Speaker 4: There's a lot of things that beyond your control. But

1198
01:01:57,880 --> 01:02:00,680
Speaker 4: what you can control is who you are are and

1199
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:04,120
Speaker 4: how you respond to the conflicts that are the storms

1200
01:02:04,160 --> 01:02:07,840
Speaker 4: of your life. But also I think because people don't

1201
01:02:07,880 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 4: think of it is like, for example, I'll give you

1202
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 4: the counter argument that they always spout off, well, if

1203
01:02:14,200 --> 01:02:16,920
Speaker 4: you change the name, you know, then it's not going

1204
01:02:17,000 --> 01:02:18,200
Speaker 4: to address the issue.

1205
01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:19,840
Speaker 1: I was like, well, let me put let me put

1206
01:02:19,880 --> 01:02:20,560
Speaker 1: it to you this way.

1207
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:25,160
Speaker 4: Black people have changed from Afro American African American Negro

1208
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 4: and we still have reasons for it, and the world

1209
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:32,400
Speaker 4: still moves. And the saving with people from the lgbtt

1210
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:37,200
Speaker 4: I plus community, they have used terms now back with

1211
01:02:37,440 --> 01:02:40,320
Speaker 4: I hear and when I was growing up and this

1212
01:02:40,480 --> 01:02:42,520
Speaker 4: is going to you know, on the grade, so give

1213
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:48,160
Speaker 4: the gray. But the fighting words was if we could

1214
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:51,040
Speaker 4: go back to time and time using the word queer,

1215
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 4: because that was that was you did not use that word.

1216
01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:58,200
Speaker 4: People try and selling that for older generation.

1217
01:02:59,640 --> 01:03:01,920
Speaker 7: Yeah, a lot of them, they're gay elders. Sometimes Like

1218
01:03:01,960 --> 01:03:03,919
Speaker 7: when I was like oh queer, They're like, oh my god,

1219
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:07,920
Speaker 7: we can't say that out Yeah, exactly exactly.

1220
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:12,080
Speaker 4: So it's the same thing, the evolution of those conversations.

1221
01:03:12,120 --> 01:03:14,440
Speaker 4: Why is it that when we're dealing with the houseless

1222
01:03:14,520 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 4: or the unhoused and homeless and displaced that we cannot

1223
01:03:17,960 --> 01:03:18,960
Speaker 4: use those.

1224
01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:21,000
Speaker 1: Same evolutionary terms again.

1225
01:03:21,160 --> 01:03:24,240
Speaker 4: We're going back again to the punitive nature of our

1226
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:28,160
Speaker 4: society and the punitive nature of our spirit, that we

1227
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:31,680
Speaker 4: are just trying to relegate or dictate what they can

1228
01:03:31,800 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 4: and cannot do and say what they can say. So

1229
01:03:34,560 --> 01:03:37,200
Speaker 4: I want people when they're listening to the show to

1230
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:41,480
Speaker 4: understand by the show it's so incremental and so instrumental

1231
01:03:42,160 --> 01:03:45,960
Speaker 4: to discuss these things and to walk away with a

1232
01:03:46,040 --> 01:03:50,200
Speaker 4: more nuanced and more humane approach when you're dealing with it,

1233
01:03:50,280 --> 01:03:53,240
Speaker 4: and when the terms are used, when people.

1234
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:54,960
Speaker 1: Ask, well, what do you what do you call them?

1235
01:03:55,200 --> 01:03:57,960
Speaker 4: Well, they're human beings you feel you ask you for

1236
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:00,720
Speaker 4: your name and say, okay, if you can say, what's

1237
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:04,320
Speaker 4: your pronouns? Okay, what do you like to be called?

1238
01:04:04,560 --> 01:04:06,560
Speaker 4: Some people say I'm homeless, when some people say I'm

1239
01:04:06,600 --> 01:04:09,080
Speaker 4: just out there. Some people just say I'm displaced. But

1240
01:04:09,360 --> 01:04:11,480
Speaker 4: what the point of it is is giving them the

1241
01:04:11,560 --> 01:04:16,080
Speaker 4: power of control and the respect. Now, you may be

1242
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:18,400
Speaker 4: want to be called something else. I maybe want to

1243
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:21,560
Speaker 4: be called this. Some people like being called homeless. Some

1244
01:04:21,880 --> 01:04:23,400
Speaker 4: don't like to be called homeless. They like to be

1245
01:04:23,440 --> 01:04:27,000
Speaker 4: caught hobos. Now that was a trouble word. But this

1246
01:04:27,080 --> 01:04:29,480
Speaker 4: group of people like that. That's the term they want.

1247
01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:32,480
Speaker 4: So what are you going to do, you know, yell

1248
01:04:32,520 --> 01:04:34,320
Speaker 4: at them because they want to be called what they

1249
01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:34,959
Speaker 4: want to be called.

1250
01:04:35,240 --> 01:04:36,080
Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense.

1251
01:04:36,640 --> 01:04:38,480
Speaker 10: And it's like a reclaiming of the term too, like

1252
01:04:38,760 --> 01:04:41,520
Speaker 10: like you know, yeah, who cares? Like, you know, I

1253
01:04:41,600 --> 01:04:44,680
Speaker 10: embrace it. Like the terms are always connected with the

1254
01:04:44,680 --> 01:04:47,680
Speaker 10: culture and how cultures are shifting. Like the term person

1255
01:04:47,720 --> 01:04:51,280
Speaker 10: of color was coined by the white abolitionists because they

1256
01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:55,200
Speaker 10: wanted a way to talk about black communities without saying

1257
01:04:55,480 --> 01:04:56,479
Speaker 10: the same things that.

1258
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:57,880
Speaker 7: The white supremacists were saying.

1259
01:04:57,880 --> 01:05:00,080
Speaker 10: They wanted a different term that was more respectful in

1260
01:05:00,120 --> 01:05:01,160
Speaker 10: their head, and so.

1261
01:05:01,440 --> 01:05:03,800
Speaker 7: Garrison came up with that term. Actually, and it's.

1262
01:05:03,640 --> 01:05:06,600
Speaker 10: Funny they've been talking about retiring it now yeah yeah, yeah.

1263
01:05:06,480 --> 01:05:08,640
Speaker 4: It's and then too, even in our communities we have

1264
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:11,880
Speaker 4: people when you were saying for people of color, we're

1265
01:05:11,920 --> 01:05:15,240
Speaker 4: trying to divorce ourselves from people of color and use

1266
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:18,120
Speaker 4: it for people that are not black or people are

1267
01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:22,200
Speaker 4: not African American because of the nuances of our conversations

1268
01:05:22,200 --> 01:05:28,160
Speaker 4: and their struggles. But yeah, it's again things change, time change,

1269
01:05:28,520 --> 01:05:30,520
Speaker 4: and we should be open to that and it should

1270
01:05:30,640 --> 01:05:33,880
Speaker 4: not be such a which, like I said, you know,

1271
01:05:34,080 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 4: just you know, it just made me more aware when

1272
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:42,080
Speaker 4: I'm interfacing with people that experienced houses, there's a homelessness

1273
01:05:42,120 --> 01:05:45,840
Speaker 4: that are non black or non I won't say a

1274
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:50,840
Speaker 4: person of color, but other races. They can't help themselves

1275
01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:54,040
Speaker 4: but try to dictate or snatch the conversation and for

1276
01:05:54,200 --> 01:05:57,760
Speaker 4: us other vulnerable people to follow their lead because they

1277
01:05:57,760 --> 01:06:00,320
Speaker 4: obviously know they feel that they know best, and us

1278
01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:02,800
Speaker 4: as people of color, as other house, we don't know

1279
01:06:02,880 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 4: what we're talking about.

1280
01:06:03,760 --> 01:06:06,880
Speaker 1: So right, well, I have enjoyed this conversation.

1281
01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:09,640
Speaker 4: I do not want to overstay my welcome, and I

1282
01:06:09,640 --> 01:06:12,200
Speaker 4: would like to invite you again to the show. I'm

1283
01:06:12,240 --> 01:06:14,520
Speaker 4: creating the panel and I'll probably reach out to you

1284
01:06:14,800 --> 01:06:17,000
Speaker 4: to see if I can invite you to. But I

1285
01:06:17,040 --> 01:06:20,040
Speaker 4: wanted to ask two follow up questions. You mentioned you

1286
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:22,760
Speaker 4: a native, were you on the reservation? Or were you

1287
01:06:23,480 --> 01:06:24,280
Speaker 4: independently out?

1288
01:06:24,640 --> 01:06:27,800
Speaker 10: So I'm from Montana Great Falls, and so from what

1289
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:30,720
Speaker 10: I know, Great Falls is partially on like what.

1290
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:32,440
Speaker 7: Is considered a reservation.

1291
01:06:32,560 --> 01:06:36,040
Speaker 10: Yeah, but technically I just kind of like grew up

1292
01:06:36,040 --> 01:06:37,000
Speaker 10: in the city.

1293
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:38,960
Speaker 7: But most like pretty.

1294
01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:40,720
Speaker 10: Much how it's like half and half where I'm from

1295
01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:45,000
Speaker 10: the past native population, half white and so I'm Ojibway

1296
01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:48,840
Speaker 10: descendant of the Turtle Mountain Turtle Mountain Indians.

1297
01:06:49,080 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, well, thank you very much.

1298
01:06:51,480 --> 01:06:53,560
Speaker 4: Is there anything else that you would like to add

1299
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:55,560
Speaker 4: to the conversation before Sol's on out?

1300
01:06:56,240 --> 01:06:58,120
Speaker 7: No, just thank you so much for having me, and

1301
01:06:58,160 --> 01:06:59,560
Speaker 7: I would definitely be willing to come back.

1302
01:06:59,680 --> 01:07:00,840
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you very much.

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Speaker 4: Of This is Theo Henderson from Whedian House and again

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Speaker 4: I promise you a very exciting and titilating conversation and

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Speaker 4: I have thank you, Thank you, thank you very much.

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Speaker 4: Thank you so much to Secoya for her time. You

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Speaker 4: can learn more about her work at the description. Thank

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Speaker 4: you again for listening to another episode of Weediant House.

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Speaker 4: If you have a story you'd like to share, please

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Speaker 4: reach out to me at Weedionhouse at gmail dot com

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Speaker 4: or at whedian House on Instagram. Until then maybe again

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Speaker 4: meet in the light of understanding. Whedian House is a

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Speaker 4: production of iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted, and created by

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Speaker 4: me Theo Henderson, our producers Jamie Loftus, Hailey Fager, Katie Fischel.

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Speaker 1: And Lyra Smith.

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Speaker 4: Our editor is Adam Want, our engineer is Joel Jerome,

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Speaker 4: and our local art is also by Katie Fisher.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening.