AUSTIN ADVOCATE

HOMER SAYS: HOUSE THE HOMELESS!
by Lori Cervenak-Renteria, adopted godmother of 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 Naure 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 the Homeless Goose

Homer and Hazel

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Cold Hearted Crusty Cur Award…
By Richard R. Troxell

Periodically, House the Homeless presents the Curtis Ray Wilson Compassion Award for those showing compassion toward their fellow human beings at the highest level.

We now find ourselves compelled to present the Cold-Hearted, Crusty Cur Award for those contributing to the continued suffering of people experiencing homelessness.

Police Detective Lisa Morrill was the 1st Curtis Ray Wilson Compassion Award recipient. Now, the City of Austin Police Department is hereby awarded the Cold-Hearted, Crusty Cur Award for conducting a “sting” operation against people experiencing homelessness. Undercover police officers approached several homeless people in “an area with a significant homeless population…” and presented them with a “stolen” bicycle valued at $1,800. The accused were told that the seller needed “a lot of money” for the bike for which the seller then accepted a variety of payments: $2.00, one marijuana joint, one cocaine rock, and from a man living at the Salvation Army, a trade for a day planner, a jacket, and a pair of sunglasses. They were all arrested and jailed. Bail was set between $2,000 and $10,000. All were charged with a felony. Conviction of a felony carries with it a 10 year homeless sentence in addition to jail time as they will be excluded from being eligible for housing with the Austin Housing Authority for a 10 year period.

The police will contend that they were targeting those who prey on the homeless. Actually, at least 3 of these people were living in homeless facilities and what the police don’t understand is that while someone may be housed at the moment, people at this economic level move in and out of homelessness over and over again.

Offering a homeless person who has absolutely nothing, an $1,800.00 bike for $2.00, is abusive and unconscionable. It is like offering to sell a starving man a big, fat, juicy, stolen steak. Who wouldn’t bite? What these people need is to be paid a living wage not a ticket out of town by way of the state prison.

Finally, people having been caught in this abhorrent police sting should contact this author at Austin’s Resource Center for the Homeless, ARCH for possible free legal representation. So far, many of these cases have been thrown out based on the absurdity and abusive nature of the sting. Let’s House the Homeless…not target them.

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Signs of relief?
By Joanne Zuhl

You have to go to the bathroom, and we all do from time to time, so what do you do? For the housed, employed and dining, it’s a no-brainer. But what if you have no home, no business, and no money when the need arrives? Where do you go when you don’t have a place to go?

The answer is right before our eyes, and that’s the problem. The lack of access to public restrooms is a problem not only for the thousands of people experiencing homelessness in this city 24/7, but also for the people leaving bars in the wee hours of the morning, and travelers coming into town from the city’s bus and rail services. Public restrooms in downtown Portland close by midnight, and only one is located in the Old Town/Chinatown district, the city’s hub of nightclubs, transportation, and homeless advocacy services.

“It’s a massive human dignity issue,” said Nikki Jardin, operations manager for Sisters of the Road Café, a grassroots organization serving people experiencing homelessness. “If you’re on the streets and you have nowhere to go, what are you going to do? When do you stop being human?"

To find a solution, Jardin has joined with business owners, homeless advocates and residents in the Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood to find a solution to public urination and defecation. PHLUSH (acronym yet to be assigned) is an ad-hoc extension of the neighborhood association. Since coming together in August, the group has been gathering information on options for creating 24-hour public restrooms in their community. On Feb. 7, PHLUSH will present its findings at a public meeting at the Portland Arts Center, 32 NW Fifth Ave. The meeting begins at 4:30 p.m.

“It really sucks when you're downtown and you gotta go and you’ve got no place to go and nobody will let you use their bathroom,” said one person experiencing homelessness. “So you’ve got to find a bush someplace, but downtown, there’s not many of those. And if you get caught, you’re gonna get in trouble. It’s just ridiculous. It’s serious. There needs to be more public restrooms.”

Those comments were one of dozens made by interviewees of crossroads, a project of Sisters of the Road. The organization conducted 600 interviews with people experiencing homelessness, and the issue of public restrooms was a common theme: there simply are not enough places to go, particularly at night.

“At nights, there is nowhere,” said one interviewee. “I lived out there for six months. I could not find a place to go to the bathroom at night. Toilet paper? Hello! Where do you find toilet paper in the middle of the night?”

According to one interviewee, the shortage of bathrooms is part of an oppressive cycle against the homeless, lumped in with anti-camping ordinances and a system of fines and incarceration on people who have no money.

“How are you going to pay your fine unless you agreed to slave labor or unless you quit going to the bathroom or you quit going to sleep?” he said.

“My wife and I, we sleep out, and sometimes women have women problems,” said another interviewee. “And there’s nowhere to, you know, to take care of your woman things. You go down to the mission and they tell you they can’t because they’re either having church or something like that. And I’ve noticed, me and my wife have both noticed, here there are not enough places.”

The Portland Parks and Recreation Department manages about 90 restrooms throughout the city, said Bob Downing, service zone manager for the city’s downtown district. But only a handful of those are open year-round, with the rest open only for seasonal activities or special events. Most of the bathrooms in downtown Portland are on the south side of Burnside, and all are closed during the evening. There is one bathroom north of Burnside in the Smart Park facility at Davis and First streets. A facility under the Burnside Bridge remains closed due to construction.

The city contracts with Clean and Safe to maintain its park facilities. Workers open them between 5 and 6 a.m. and closing them between 10 and 11 p.m. Downing said there are problems with drug use, vandalism, and people locking themselves inside. In one extreme case, workers recovered a body in the portable facility at the north end of the East Bank, Downing said.

Rachel Livernois with Clean and Safe said the agency receives thousands of calls each year, up to 14 calls a day, from business owners and residents complaining about public urination and feces.

Bathrooms are available through many of Old Town/Chinatown’s social services and organizations, including Sisters of the Road Café, Street Roots, Union Gospel Mission, Transition Projects Inc, and Rose Haven. But access is limited by their hours of operation and public awareness that they’re even available. Most restaurants in the area post “No public bathroom” signs in the door, reserving their facilities for customers only. Several of the homeless interviewees for the crossroads survey said they bought food or beverages simply to be able to use a restaurant’s bathroom.

“On a Sunday, I ran into customers and I said, ‘Ok, Sisters isn’t open, TPI isn’t open, Rose Haven isn’t open: What do you do?,” Jardin said. “And the guy basically said you’re screwed. You go back to your camp, or you try to clean up and go to Amtrak. If you’re down here, and all the services are down here, what do you do?”

According to Lt. Todd Wyatt, day shift lieutenant at the Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct, people caught urinating or defecating outdoors could be charged with offensive littering or disorderly conduct, both misdemeanor charges carrying a find of up to $1,000 or $1,500. Wyatt says he’s aware of the problem downtown, among transients and people leaving the bars.

“I think that there are a lot of doorways that shop owners have to hose out first thing in the morning,” he said, adding that he also sees firsthand another side of the issue. “Restrooms are a place where people can go and lock the door and they can engage in sex, drug deals, and drug use, so public restrooms are a problem. I’ve seen the plusses and minuses going both ways.”

Some people on the streets expressed concern for getting charged with indecent exposure, a sex offense, simply for going to the bathroom. However, Wyatt said that wouldn’t happen unless the person were masturbating or stimulating someone else.

Jardin bristles at the idea that public restrooms are impractical because of potential abuse. Cleanliness and safety are top priorities for establishing a 24-hour restroom, but even if people use them for illegal activities, they are still critically needed.

“To already assume that the population that needs it the most is going to abuse it doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said. “If our population and our community down here sees a real concerted effort to make public restrooms a priority, I think we will see ownership. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’d like to think that it is. It works on the other side of Burnside why wouldn’t it work down here”

Restrooms are not just a public sanitation issue, Jardin said. The lack of a sink, toilet paper and soap make it also a health issue. Urinary tract infections are a common issue among women on the street, Jardin said. Women are also more vulnerable to attack.
“It’s not just a human dignity issue,” Jardin said, “It’s also a crime issue, a public safety issue, and you’re targeted for being a criminal for having a basic human need. I would think that Portland could be a better city than that.”

“What is a woman to do when she has to use the restroom in the middle of the night when everything’s closed up?” said one woman interviewed in crossroads’ survey. “And then she goes and squats and uses the bathroom. ‘Oh! You’re urinating in public! Thousand-dollar fine.’ What am I supposed to do, hold it ’til five or six o’clock in the morning when something opens up? I mean, this really needs to be taken a look at it. It’s something really serious.”

Among the options researched by PHLUSH are 24-hour, automatic public toilets, or APTs. APTs are used in Seattle, San Francisco and Boston, among other cities, and cost about $250,000. However, the cost could be offset thruogh advertising, Jardin said, which is sticking point in terms of public and city support. These facilities can be accessed with coins or tokens, and feature time limits to curb abuse. Another option could be a portable facility such as those used at construction sites.

A third option could be turning an empty storefront into an urban rest stop, a place with not only public restrooms but also tourist information and refreshments, much like common rest stops on major highways.

In fact, Old Town/Chinatown had a place that comes close to that description. For seven years, Our Peaceful Place served as a rest stop for people experiencing poverty and homelessness. It was a daily drop-in center with restrooms, phone services, refreshments and some counseling. Earlier this year, the center was evicted from its most recent site on Sixth Avenue because its services conflicted with the surrounding art galleries. Our Peaceful Place Director Barb Lescher is a member of PHLUSH, and is still looking for an office to set up a new drop-in center, and in particular, one with ample bathroom facilities.

“They were extremely important,” Lescher said. “That was one of the things at the top of our list for criteria when we found a place, and it will remain that way. It just adds such a dignity.”

Lescher said finding a new office has been difficult, partly due to the high prices of office space, but also reluctance on the part of landlords to rent to another homeless-oriented agency. Currently, Our Peaceful Place uses desk space in the Street Roots office, with Lescher connecting with people directly on the streets.

“We’ve looked at places that were ridiculously small, or just something we could afford just because we feel like it’s so important for us to be in some place,” Lescher said. “We really meet a need.”

With the city poised to install light rail down the bus mall in the coming year, PHLUSH members say any construction for a public restroom could be tied into the work planned along Fifth and Sixth Avenues. But even the placement of a portable facility would be a welcome beginning, Jardin said.

“I would like for people, especially those who complain about this issue of people using the streets or parks as a restroom, to perhaps find a little bit more compassion for the plight of people who don’t have the privilege of an available toilet,” Jardin said. “If folks could try to put themselves in the shoes of someone facing that kind of decision, even for a moment, it may bring a different kind of consciousness to the fore and that, in turn, may actually be able to make for some positive change.”

Reprinted from Street Roots
© Street News Service: www.street-papers.org

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Christmas Miracles
By Chris Allen

When we think of Christmas miracles, we usually imagine some Walt Disney Snowman coming to life and resurrecting an ailing polio-stricken hamster, or some one-armed Australian drifter who just happens to be the only person on earth who could fix that Wurlitzer in the rectory.

On the other hand, we don’t usually believe it to be the act of getting evicted, tossed out into the street two weeks before the Christian Savior’s Birthday. This, of course was my Christmas miracle beginning.

I’ve always been a firm believer in the old adage “Change is always for the best", it’s always a good thing. So no matter how bad it gets, how hard it hits the fan, I’m always the one telling myself and, of course, anyone who will listen, that there’s gotta be a silver lining here someplace. But I’ve got to admit even I was having a tough time turning this Yuletide warthog around.

Now this all begins with the act of being tossed onto the sidewalk two weeks before the big Christmas holiday. The funny thing was that I was not being thrown out for failing to pay my rent; no, that would be almost reasonable. I was being thrown out for paying my rent...wait for it... late. Well and a Merry fracking Christmas to you too. But enough with the negativity.

The truth is that these were the beginnings of a series of events that seemed, for lack of a better word, miraculous. Think dark, mean angry thoughts. Not to mention worthless, helpless and overwhelmed. Where would I go, how would I get there, who could I turn to? My car had a blown motor; I had no driver’s license anyway. I’d stopped doing drugs, so I had no friends to help me. My relationship with my parents was strained at best. Hell, I couldn’t even think of anyone who had a truck much less a couch I could sleep on.

And somehow I’m supposed to handle this? I was losing it. I had visions of carbon monoxide poisoning. Or maybe ending up in L.A. impersonating the bass player from that band that did “My Sharona”. This was truly insanity. And then it happened. I sat down, closed my eyes and thought “What would Kathy Lee Gifford do”? That’s it...bring on the rubber truck cause I’m friggin’ coo coo for Cocoa Puffs. But I was still there.

In the deep dark all hope is lost, moment of despair, a calm came over me. They say that’s the way it happens just before you kill yourself. But I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. And then the calm became hope and apparently hope can make you a little loopy because I called my sister.

I swallowed my pride and called my sister and we talked it out. You know, life on life’s terms. When life’s sucking, suck it up. You know all of that.

Then I really swallowed my pride and after 15 years of being away, I called my parents and asked if I could come home. Asked if they would help me one more time. Scary, scary, scary.

They said, “Yes”. My dad came and took me home. When we got there, everyone was home for Christmas. I came home with my tail between my legs and everyone was happy I was there. Dad and I painted the barn and I helped with little things around the house. After a couple weeks, I got a job and the kicker was, mom and dad offered to give me a ride to and from work until I could get my license straightened out.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that things could be better. This is not “as good as it gets”. But it’s also a lot better than it was a few weeks ago. I’ve got a lot on my plate to straighten out yet.

Now though it seems those things are manageable. “I can do this” and even better yet, am happy to do this.

The reality is I couldn’t be happier and I’ll be damned if it isn’t some honest to Allah miracle!

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Jeremiah Hurta

Shorten verses holing more room for deeper thoughts
As even the simplest poem delivers a larger blow
Punches through words so deeply laid upon the reader
Kicking so much that gear or cog, laying idle in place
Yet, the concentration through that thought process…
Is bitten upon through nerves held in total tension
For we all must fall into those mental pitfalls
To awaken us to one more moment of reality.

Now so much to read, those everyday recurrences
Studying mankind for what it could have been
Lost within that of pride less jest, now played out
For curses within a childish game played upon
As life was nothing more than a foolish human game
Yet, the total consequence to survive err be passed on

Yearning for warm oozing ruby red blood
Cast out upon that ground of human soot
As sounds upon desert sands reveal war
Mortar fine upon years of violent rage
Yes, beyond our historical struggles we fight
Some speak of a holy war, but it is not
Barbarians of sand hold nothing more
Lost within that of earthly survival
Do not enter into Hell, unless you –
Be that wanting nothing more
“Then death within the Hearts of Beast”

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Free to Choose
Tumen Soliz

One mans freedom claim
Is another ones prison,
If we allow greed.

One mans terrorist
Some others freedom fighter.
For all? Or for whom?

Kill competition
That’s the way business is done,
Promote selfish peace.

Full disclosure joke,
Transparency clear as mud,
Twist the truth for you.

Multinational
Corporations need money,
Kidnappers as well.

Bin Laden’s cash works,
Like C.I.A. millions,
As old money does.

Belligerent man
Armed with nuclear weapon
Would impose his will.

Pretend to protect
The hard working taxpayer
By playing fear card.

One thing in common
Money is the negative,
Positive is free.

Rain is a blessing
But it can be a cursing
Respect lets one live.

Saltwater new cure
For old systic fibrosis,
Well what do you know.

Just think of the pain
We sure can eliminate
With Earth’s gifts for all.

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Imagine & Simultaneous Awareness
Tumen Soliz

Youthful minds see need for change
Our parents think we are all insane
They try to kill our fledgling thoughts
By teaching fear as it has been.

Only now we plainly see
Materialistic zombie parents
Only way to break away
Is to accept a brand new day

Loving child means mom no harm
But learning war and hoarding wealth
Leaves one no choice but life or death
And spirit is a fearful thing

Please wake up from horror dream
Wake up to a springtime breeze
Outgrow culture of survival
No work is drudge and love to all

If revenue from hard earned tax
Pays only what we need
Less stress for all, all work is shared
Youth play safe, old living well

Leave the specter of war
In the past as learning tool
Resources can now be used for good
Rich and poor adopt beneficial social rules

The seething undercurrent
Of hopelessness and discontent
Will burn everyone in the kitchen
Outgrow selfish wealth, recipe for peace.

Like the shot heard around the world
Internet communicates
Message of investing taxes
Only into necessary functions

All materialism is allowed
But citizens now choose simply
quality of life improves
Only passion is guilty

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