Photo: “Washington State capitol” by Stephen Colebourn is licensed under CC BY 2.0 / Desaturated from original
By Daniel Mootz
Human grief, and its burdens, compound. Loss begets tragedy in malignant cycles that are all newsworthy, and that are each inherently profound. All grief is linked together in different chains of events, recurrent and impactful, heavy and immense. Everyone is, to some degree, both part and parcel to this scourge, this tempest that is death, that is absence. We each grieve in our own way; the experiences we share and the stories we tell are intrinsic and unique. Therefore, to truly understand another is to understand their grief, from their perspective, and how they seem to respond, or act, towards the absurd. This way we are able to find solidarity within division, belonging amidst exodus.
It is a harsh and trying thing to be homeless. It is taxing and traumatic to be without shelter. Homelessness is to become exposed, physically, mentally, and emotionally, to a specter of wild elements, to life and death situations, and to a stinging sense of social estrangement. It is a reality for millions, and is often fundamentally ignored, and misunderstood by the masses. Charity and good will are not enough to rectify a problem that is entrenched in oppression (dominion), anxiety (trauma), and grief (depression). Only friendship, and compassion, come close.
Sandra Bloom, a psychiatrist from Drexel, created the Sanctuary model as a way to organize “public health practice” around the realities of violence, trauma, substance use and mental and behavioral health. There are four pillars she invokes, which can be found on her website, sanctuaryweb.com. S.E.L.F. stands for “Safety, Emotional management, Loss, and Future,” and is a “trauma-informed implementation tool” designed for social healing. This framework for recovery was conceived by Bloom and her colleagues throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 2000, she and Kerstin Stellerman published Creating Sanctuary: Practicing Nonviolence in a Psychiatric Setting, which refers to the process as S.A.G.E., an acronym for “Safety, Affect management, Grief, and Emancipation.” Dr. Bloom’s work has inspired some 350 programs worldwide and is available as an informational, and organizational, therapy system.
Realistically speaking, reimagining homelessness begins with recognizing the actual laws in question. Last year the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of six plaintiffs living in Boise, Idaho, who sued the state in defiance of an anti-camping ordinance imposed on public land. The city is in the process of appealing that decision, but the case has caused new precedent across the Western U.S. The judgement states that if local authorities, or other social services, are unable to provide enough shelter beds for homeless people, then criminalizing camping constitutes as a cruel and unusual punishment, which is a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.
According to Kellie Purce Braseth, Strategic Communications Director for Olympia’s City Council, outgoing City Manager Steve Hall responded to the issue by saying “we’re using innovative housing interventions to engage and connect people to services and also working to create and maintain a safe and inviting community for all.” He refers to a “compassionate balance” that is needed to “scale up the regional response to this complex problem.”
In 2018, Thurston County issued a Point in Time census report on homelessness, determining the number of homeless residents to be approximately 835 (a 56% increase from 2017), while the number of beds available in local shelters was a fraction of that count—a mere 296. According to the census, which can be found online at co.thurston.wa.us, of these beds, a whopping 112% were utilized nightly, meaning there was excessive overcrowding and an exhaustion of resources. This not only speaks to the City’s untenable structural inadequacy, it also evinces a cruel and unusual approach by the City Council, and local businesses, to continue to exact punishment against the most vulnerable among us.
Last year, the government began cracking down on vagrancy, sweeping communal campsites and allowing private security to harass and terrorize the homeless living in, what The Olympian has called, Olympia’s downtown “commercial core.” According to the Olympia Assembly, or Olympia Solidarity Network (OlySol), these new measures effectively displaced hundreds, all in the name of economic development.
Recently, a modest campsite beneath the 4th Avenue Bridge became a focal point in the City’s uneasy relationship with homelessness. On Sept. 11, 2019, Tammy Mutasa, of KOMO News, reported that, following a contentious resolution to evict the 30 or so campers, a last-minute call by the City to delay their removal was issued.
This came on the heels of the Martin v. Boise decision, as well as in the form of organized pressure from local activists. Now, nonprofits and religious groups, such as OlySol and First Christian Church, are working to empower members of the camp to find more suitable alternatives for long-term shelter. This is just one of the many strategies being implemented to defend homelessness in Olympia. During the nightly patrols of downtown businesses last Fall, the Tacoma-based Pacific Coast Security was met with a wave of direct-action protesters demanding an end to the abuse and para-criminalization of Olympia’s houseless residents. Due to the effective nature of the protests, the so-called safety teams “indefinitely suspended” their campaign, according to Abby Spegman of The Olympian. This occurred just three months after Martin v. Boise, in December, 2018.
Incidentally, a significant contingent of anti-homelessness in Olympia consists of an odd trinity of media, executive/representative, and police-state violence. Articles published by alt-right apologists, and similar attitudes from legislators amount to a defense of the status quo, which exploits marginality. What we need are not more nuanced arguments about real estate, land management, and humanism—what we need is a deeper, more effective reservoir of human ethics, legislated as a new homeless tax that can only be offset by welcoming the unsheltered into our homes.
Amora Bo, an artist and freewheeling Evergreen grad, says “friendship has been my saving grace” while grappling with homelessness. He is young, originally from Boise, and attributes his, and others’, “uncertainty in where the essentials are coming from,” to “drug abuse, mental illness, and wealth inequality.” He is currently working on finding a job and a decent place to live. He has also committed himself to meditation and sobriety as a way to stay grounded.
With Winter fast approaching, it is incumbent upon Olympia to reimagine the housing crisis it has so-far neglected and, in some instances, has actually made worse by confronting. Moreover, providing enough beds for all homeless residents is not the only solution to ending the deep undertow of poverty and violence that tugs at the fringes of society, causing large swaths of the American public to slip repeatedly back onto the streets.
Unlike the class-based distinction of “affordable housing,” a new architecture invested in the idea of “comfortable housing” must become a top community priority. This requires an open dialogue between the City and unsheltered people to determine the best accommodations for feeling at home. Likewise, compassion, and a radical gift-economy (think anonymous mutual aid), are central to a community that prides itself on equity, and that understands the whole field—the vast spectrum—of deep ecology.
