Reposted in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who saw the connection between war and poverty, peace and justice:
"Living is a political act."
I cannot conceive of politics as something divorced from daily life, from "real life." Maybe part of it was how I was raised. Just as it was taken for granted that adults, male and female both, worked to support themselves and their families; that reading books out of personal interest and writing just because you wanted to were common human activities; it was also taken for granted that "government of the people, for the people, and by the people" meant that each of us was obligated to have an informed opinion and do something about it. What happened in the world affected us, and we could have an effect on what happened in the world.
For most of my life, however, that meant voting, occasionally campaigning for a particular issue or candidate, occasionally marching and chanting "Vague Liberal Slogans! Vague Liberal Slogans!"
Becoming homeless, and becoming active in the organized homeless community of Seattle, made me much more active in participatory democracy. I learned that power protects itself by being boring, and that if you avoid all those dreary budget meetings and council hearings and leave them to the people who "have the time for such things," those people are going to have power over decisions that affect your life, and you won't.
I learned that survival is a political act, and that getting bureaucrats to consider survival an important issue is a horrifyingly difficult struggle.
I learned that homelessness kills.
June 28, 2006, our Women in Black group stood vigil for eight homeless people who had died without shelter, in King County. One of them was a newborn baby. Two weeks later, we stood vigil for a disabled homeless veteran who had been set on fire while sleeping in his wheelchair. One week after that, we stood vigil for a homeless woman who was very well-known to many of us, who was stabbed to death.
In the same period of time, several women in our community who had recently gotten housing died of various health issues. Homelessness takes its toll, even after it ends.
As the tragedies piled up, I was not handling them well. I couldn't even write about what I was feeling. It was the vigils and memorial services, sharing grief with others face-to-face and hug-to-hug, that kept me going.
And in the midst of this, I am working with the Committee to End Homelessness, repeatedly faced with the assertion, "It is politically impossible to create more shelter right now. Any money available has to go into long-term solutions, housing. The people outside can move directly into apartments when they are available -- they don't have to go to shelters first."
A man committed suicide last year after years on a housing waiting list -- his apartment came up three days after he died. Tonya Smith, the woman who was stabbed to death, was in recovery, and a treatment bed had opened for her -- people were searching for her for two days before she bled to death on the street. If she had a shelter bed, she could have been found. She would be in treatment right now -- not in her grave.
Since the King County Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness was launched, 1,300 new units of low-income housing have been created here -- and more than twice that many eliminated. That's a net loss. Under the Ten Year Plan, funders at all levels (public and private) are rewarding shelters and programs according to how many and how fast they get people into housing. Sounds good, hey? There is an increase on the street of people who are the most vulnerable, with the most difficulties, who are the hardest to get into housing. People like Douglas Dawson and Tony Smith.
People are dying out there -- while the Committee to End Homelessness trumpets success, and "it is politically impossible to create more shelter now."
And what does this have to do with peace? From the time I became active in this cause, through 2000, we were making a little bit of progress each year. The numbers of homeless people kept rising, but the shelters and services kept increasing too, and there were people getting out of homelessness every day.
From 2001 on, we have been slipping backward. It is a constant struggle just to keep what we have, and even with constant struggle, there is always some erosion each year. The numbers of homeless people keep rising. The numbers of homeless people who die outside without shelter, who die of violence -- including suicide -- keep rising. The economy keeps slipping, and states, counties and city governments are strapped for funds, and survival services to the very poor are the first to go. It's "mere survival." It isn't building anything.
While billions are spent each day on "security" that doesn't keep us safe and war that doesn't keep us safe, the economy is being drained, the poor get poorer, more people need help, and there is less help to be had.
The war in Iraq is killing my friends, right here on the streets of Seattle. Damn right I take it personally.
There have been many more deaths since I first wrote this. Not much else has changed.
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