HOMER SAYS: HOUSE THE HOMELESS!
by Lori Cervenak-Renteria, adopted godmother of Homer the Homeless Goose
Willie Nelson meets Homer the Homeless Goose
I'm sad to report to friends of Homer the Homeless Goose that his sole surviving daughter, Hazel II, died peacefully in her pen on Monday, February 6th after a very short illness. She was 14 years old and like Homeless people, she did not have health or burial insurance so I buried her in my front yard. A memorial gathering for Hazel II will be held at the Homeless Memorial on Town Lake on Saturday, April 1st at 2 pm. We will also celebrate Homer's 18th Birthday and kick-off a campaign to recruit and select an appropriate retirement home for the famous Goose. For those of you who don't know the story of Homer the Homeless Goose, a little history lesson is in order.
In 1986, the Mayor's Task Force on the Homeless created the 5 Step Plan to End Homelessness and said the best place to re-locate the Salvation Army Shelter was near the police station. Mayor's Task Force members formed a non-profit called Austin Homeward Bound to try to build a 24 hour service center next to the new Salvation Army Shelter because the Sally was not going to provide some essential services identified in the 5 Step Plan. (Note: it took twenty years for the ARCH to finally be built on the same site with some of the same services identified back then.) Mayor Cooksey was supportive of the Plan and served as the chair of the Affordable Housing Committee for the National Conference of Mayors and he organized a national convention in Austin in 1997 to bring together homeless and housing advocates from across the nation. We organized a housing tour as part of the convention and showed-off the best and worst of Austin's affordable housing projects, including homeless camps near downtown. After the convention, Homeward Bound members got a private meeting with the Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, Louisa Stark, to ask her advice on how to get the City Council to fund the 24-hour service center. She told us something like, ".... first, you need to take off the fancy suits, put on some jeans, go out in the streets and organize the homeless people to speak for themselves. You'll never be able to get the politicians to champion the cause unless you let them meet real homeless people and hear their stories. I'll warn you in advance, it won't be easy and your personal relationships with the City Council will be a love-hate relationship. They will love you when the homeless people praise their actions, and they will blame you when they get attacked. When you first organize the homeless people into your group or help them set up their own group, they will have an angry voice and want to do things that could hurt their cause. Your job, should you decide to take it, is to give them their own voice, to support their actions, connect them to the media and provide needed resources because most of the local homeless providers will not want them organizing their clients in their facilities, and most importantly, try to keep them from taking actions that will get them thrown in jail."
Our group decided to take the risk and bring homeless people onto the board. I was selected to take off the suit and hit the streets and bring them to board meetings to hear their stories and groom them to eventually be selected to serve on the board. After a few meetings and some very wild stories of police brutality, provider mismangement, and people dying on the streets, the board disbanded formally and a few of us committed to helping the homeless folks we met form their own group. The Street People's Advisory Council, or SPAC, was born in the winter of 1988. The main organizers whose names I remember were Captain James, Bruce, Carl, Brian, Roger, Ron, Mother Nature and Diana. We met at the What-a-Burger on the Drag and a pizza joint on Congress where the management had provided odd jobs for some of the homeless organizers. By early spring, we were ready to start a campaign to make ending homelessness a major issue in the upcoming City Council elections. The first recruitment event to solicit members for the group was called, The 1st Annual Swan-a-thon and held under the I-35 bridge at Town Lake. The unusual name came from a discussion about how to provide food for the event. Mother Nature and her band of dumpster-divers wanted to serve recycled food, others wanted to snatch the newly donated Birthday Swans on Town Lake that the editor of the Austin American-Statesman had criticized in an editorial as being outlandish. A woman had held a $10,000 Birthday Party at the Four Seasons hotel and donated swans to Town Lake as part of her giving back to the community. The editor had suggested the cost of the party could have fed a lot of homeless people. When we found out that snatching the swans and cooking them for the event would be a misdemeanor, we decided to call it the Swan-a-thon and go to restaurants downtown to beg for leftovers or else they would have to eat the Swans. We had more food than we could use from the finest restaurants in town at that BBQ. Over 100 folks came and agreed to support the group. They decided to come up with a list of 10 demands that they would promote as their platform for the SPAC ATTACK TO END HOMELESSNESS CAMPAIGN. Someone suggested that having a list of demands is great but unless there is a consequence for not meeting the demands, no one would take them seriously. A homeless Vietnam veteran said that in Berkeley to get people out to protest the use of napalm bombs which burned everything to a crisp, they had puppies in cages and threatened to burn the puppies at a demonstration to show people what was happening. They had a huge turnout and all kinds of animal lovers and religious people came out to join the peace activists in protesting the war in Vietnam. Another guy suggested we do the same thing and snatch a swan and threaten to cook and eat it. No one wanted to go to jail because that would have been theft of city property, so we passed the hat and collected change to buy our own swan.
SPAC officers jumped in my truck and we headed to Calahan's General Store to buy a swan. Unfortunately, swans cost $300 and it would take 6 weeks for delivery. With a little over $17 in the hat, we headed for the bird cages to come up with Plan B. Diana was the first to see the baby goslings and declared, "I've found our mascot, meet Homer the Homeless Goose. He will lay us the golden egg." We also bought a duck that would be grilled at a press conference planned for later that week at Barton Springs pool to show people we were serious about our demands. Homer and the duck were in parakeet cages sitting next to a BBQ grill on an open fire circle when the press arrived. The organizers read off their list of demands, told some horror stories of life on the streets and ended it with Carl swimming up out of Barton Creek with a large Bowie knife between his teeth and grabbing the duck to slice its throat and throw it on the grill. The press talked us out of it and the duck was released on the creek. The front page of the American-Statesman on City Council election day, May 7th, told the whole story. The Humane Society threatened Class C misdemeanor Goose Abuse charges. Bird lovers in Austin went nuts. The Statesman editor, Arnold Rosenfeld, wrote another editorial chastising the bird lovers who were trying to get city funds to buy bird habitat for vireos and warblers to help house the homeless. He drew a campaign button for us which we used as a fundraiser along with Friends of Homer friendship pins. Letters to the editor flew. The Austin Sane/Freeze and Peace and Justice Coalition provided technical assistance and financial aid. The campaign was a huge success, even though the organizers had been banned from the Salvation Army, they were getting offers from churches and individuals to shelter them. Harry Whittington, the man recently shot by VP Dick Cheney, gave the SPAC officers free office space and permission for them to sleep in his building, the one that just burned down on E. 5th Street. Homer had outgrown the parakeet cage and they made a bigger wooden cage and Homer slept in the office garage.
Over the next few months, progress was made on the demands and relationships with City Council members, Labor Unions, housing providers and neighborhood groups strengthened. The Peace and Justice Coalition and Sane/Freeze connected our group with national homeless advocates all over the country. Homer was granted a 'Stay from Consumption Emancipation Proclamation' at a "Build Homes, Not Bombs Rally" in April. We connected with the Blackland Neighborhood Association which was fighting UT who had bought up houses to demolish in order to expand the campus into East Austin. On June 25, 1988, Mitch Synder, the nation's most famous homeless person, came to Blackland to announce a national campaign called "Take the Boards Off." Homeless advocates and the neighbors to save the houses from UT's bulldozers gathered on July 14th, and as planned, they entered and slept with Homer in an old hotel until police arrested them. Homer went to the animal shelter, SPAC members went to jail. Days later, at the break of dawn Katherine called me from the Blackland, "Hurry Lori, bring the homeless folks, the bulldozers are bashing into all the houses, it looks like Beirut." We got about 15 folks on top of the roofs and stopped the bulldozers. Blackland neighbors committed to SPAC that if possible, they would use the houses that SPAC saved to house homeless families and SPAC could run the hotel. The homes were moved to another location and are still being used as transitional housing for homeless families.
Later in July, campaign supporters along with the Texas Alliance for Human Needs raised funds for Homer and the SPAC members to join others in the People's Camp at the National Democratic Convention held in Atlanta, Georgia. Homer flew 1st class on Delta airlines, the homeless folks drove and barely made it in Veon's old car. Homer and the guys met Mayor Andrew Young, presidential first lady Rosalyn Carter, and Jesse Jackson. They learned about Atlanta's Mad Housers who made portable, collapsable plywood rooms for homeless folks to use. The Mad Housers would donate the homes and when police came around the room could be hidden from view by quickly collapsing it among the brush and it could easily be transported by bike trailers. Upon return, we started organizing Austin's Mad Housers program.
One hot summer day, working the cheese line at St. David's church (it was the only lunch served at the time by Caritas volunteers out the side door) Homer passed out. They called me, desperate to find a vet and pick them up so they wouldn't get charged with goose abuse. Dr. Miller at West Gate Pet and Bird Clinic volunteered to see Homer and explained that geese sweat from their feet and Homer had a heat stroke. The vet told us Homer couldn't live on the street; that he was a bit malnourished and needed a home where he could stretch his wings, dip his head in water regularly, and eat high-protein cat food if he was to survive. We found out that Homer was a yard bird not water fowl and would live 5 to 7 years with a good diet and clean living environment. SPAC members begged me to keep him at my house and that they would call me to bring him out when they had a protest or press event. I asked my husband who hesitated but finally agreed when I told him the goose would only live 5 years at most.
On October 30th, the Austin Mad Housers were ready to donate their first home to SPAC members. SPAC members wanted and got rafts to float on Town Lake as a constant reminder to House the Homeless. They called the raft "The SS Homer," a sign on one side said "Austin's Boat People, Ronald Reagan's Refugees." Another side of the cabin was made from a disgarded "Another Capital Improvement Program of the City of Austin" sign. With the Cuban refugee boat people crisis making international news, it brought national attention to Austin's boat people. Because we had purchased night time fishing licenses for the SPAC members living on the raft, the city could not use the park curfew to kick them off the lake. During a bad storm one night, James called that Homer's raft had capsized and he was missing. He asked me to call police and put out an APB. They had managed to bring the raft to shore but had lost a lot of their equipment. We organized search parties and combed the shores of Town Lake for days looking for the homeless goose. Then one day, the police called and asked if I could come down to the station and identify Homer. They had arrested some homeless people who had slaughtered a bird and were about to BBQ it when police arrested them. James and I went to APD, James could not identify the bird because the head was missing so they allowed him to interview the suspects. Turned out the guys knew Homer and assured James it was a duck not a goose they had snatched to cook and eat. We found Homer about a week after the storm huddled in mud by the Lakeside Apartments. Homer's vet gave him a checkup and special food that my sister, the nurse, administrered by syringe for a couple weeks. He still tries to bite anyone wearing all white. He recovered but moved back to my house. The vet reminded us that Homer is a yard bird not water fowl. On November 11, 1988 Willie Nelson sang at the HOBO Thanksgiving Dinner at Palmer Event Center and he was supposed to sign Homer's Theme Song written by a famous songwriter and donated to the Peace and Justice Coalition on behalf of SPAC. We never got the lyrics to him but he did meet the Goose back stage and HOBO donated a mini-mobile home for Homer which was presented on stage. Here's Homer's song:
Chorus:
Homer on the Range,
Where that dear little gosling must pay.
Where seldom is heard,
From the web-footed bird,
"Save me! Help the Homeless today."
1st verse:
"Oh, give me a home
So I don't have to roam
Throught the alleys and Dumpsters today.
Where seldom is heard
An encouraging word:
They just wish that we'd all go away!
2nd Verse:
I can't pay the rent,
So I live in a tent
Beneath the Montopolis Bridge.
I just need a home,
With a bed and a phone,
A stove and a toilet and 'fridge.
The next few months living on the rafts took a real toll on the group. Few members wanted to live there because of the cramped quarters and the difficulty of rowing to shore every day to take care of basics. With the officers taking turns staffing the office, doing the meetings with supporters, lobbying for housing and keeping someone on the raft 24/7, the SPAC membership dwindled. Because the SPAC officers were in the media so often, there was a lot of backlash from some providers and from some of the homeless people who were kind of jealous of the officers getting all the credit, gifts and donations. Believe it or not, but the TV show 48 Hours came to Austin and spent 2 days filming with SPAC members on and off the raft. A few weeks after the shoot, the producers called me and said it was a great story but too controversial for prime time TV, especially the cussing and the drinking and some illegal activity caught on camera. Things had changed some. The Labor Unions started looking at ways to help create training opportunities and protect day laborers from being ripped off or injured. Newly elected Mayor Cooke was trying to create a sweat-equity program to help rehab old motels. And HOBO and the Legal Aid for the Homeless Project were making great strides in bringing private sector scrutiny and resources to beef up the service delivery system. It took the City Council until mid-March of 1989 to change the ordinance to ban overnight fishing from rafts on Town Lake. The rafts were confiscated and SPAC members were homeless again.
Legal aid attorneys recruited volunteers to help file a freedom of speech lawsuit against the city for confiscating the rafts. Judge Kennedy heard the case and ruled in favor of SPAC but was unable to award damages because the SPAC members did not lose wages and could not produce receipts for the cost of the rafts or the equipment lost. The attorneys were reimbursed about $30,000 for their time. We held a victory party at Palm Park on the next Sunday but it got real ugly. Some folks claimed the police went to the camps after the news reported the win and harassed them. Others demanded that they share the money equally among anyone who had attended any SPAC event or protest. Others threatened to hurt them because they felt they had been punished by providers because they had affiliated with SPAC. Lunch ended early and we all left very depressed. The lawyers called me a few days later and said they gave each of the guys a $1,000 bucks so they could leave town and the rest was donated to homeless service organizations. We held a final meeting to say our goodbyes and to decide what to do with Homer. They made me promise that when he died I would stuff him and take him on his raft decorated with all his press coverage down to the Austin Nature Center and demand his place among the birds that Austinies love so much. If the Nature Center declines to put Homer on display, I'm suppose to give him a Viking Burial and torch him on the raft and set him afloat on Town Lake for all to see. And that was the end of the Street People's Advisory Council. I got the goose and had to revise my will to ensure my family doesn't eat him at my wake.
On Homer's 7th Birthday I started talking about his death coming soon and my dad bought me a book about illness in geese. That's when I found out his kind can live up to 30 years.
Homer's been a daily reminder for me for the last 18 years that there are homeless people on the streets that need my help. I do the best I can do to advocate for affordable housing which is the only real solution to help homeless people get off the streets. Homer is a White Chinese Goose and his kind are very social. They mate for life and suffer depression when they lose their mates. With the recent illness and death of Hazel II, Homer has been honking all night long. We are buying him a baby gosling to adopt to keep him from being lonely once a chance of freeze is over. All this grief has led my husband and I to get Homer a better home. This very long article is a call for potential adopters.
My husband and I are getting ready to retire, the $8 per week in Alley Cat Food (he's spoiled and won't eat anything else) and cleaning his pen gets harder for us each month. Finding folks to feed him when we travel is even harder now that our children have families and pets of their own. He needs a nice pond because he's so old he can't climb into his bathtub anymore. We need to find someone who will keep the promise I made to James and Brian and Carl about Homer upon his death. Homer could live another 20 years, so this is a long term comitment. And like homeless people have to apply to live in a shelter and meet certain criteria, so do the potential adopters of the Homeless Goose. Potential adopters should send the information required below to Homer the Homeless Goose, c/o the Austin Advocate, 500 E. 7th Street, Austin, TX 78701..
1. Be compassionate and understand that homelessness is not a crime, it can happen to anyone and whether or not a person ends up on the street is determined by whether that person has a strong support network of family and friends who will help them get back on their feet when they first become homeless. Potential adopters must provide a written essay describing how they have or will help Homer AND homeless people in Austin. TIP: enclosing donations to The Homeless Advocate and House the Homeless earn extra points.
2. Own and live in a house with a fenced yard, no dogs, and a ground level pond at least 5 ' x 5' with a step so you can train him how to get out. Renters and transient workers need not apply. Proof of ownership, address, and photos of your yard and pond are required.
3. Financial capacity to buy Alley Cat Food, buy a pet carrier and pay vet bills, and upon his death will hire a taxidermist to stuff him, and participate in his funeral as described above. We'll be able to decide if you can afford him by your address and photos of your home.
4. Attend and present yourself for interrogation by our selection committee at Homer's Party at 2 pm on April 1st.
5. Adopters upon selection by our committee will be required to sign an oath swearing to all of the above and that with 48 hour notice, access to the famous Goose by homeless advocates and/or media will be provided at your home. Selection will occur on or before May 10th.
6. Be prepared to pick him up before May 25, 2006.
If you are interested in donating or volunteering at Homer's 18th Birthday Bash, please call me at 478-6770, anytime after 10 am and before 9 pm.
Homer and Hazel
