The homeless, still

Yes, my last post was about the homeless, but, at least with the way things are, they aren’t going away. The following is my column in today’s Claremont Courier.


DO WE BEWARE THE IDES, AND OTHERS, TOO MUCH?

Two weeks ago, it was warm enough on Friday afternoon for me to take off my shirt and just wear my overalls. What’s more, I could sit and read out in my backyard.

Not bad for March 1. And it was yet another reason, or perhaps the reason, we love it here in Southern California. We have all heard the stories about people calling their relatives or friends in the frigid Midwest and gloating or of people getting up on snow-bound New Year’s Days and turning on the television to watch the Rose Parade in impossibly sunny, balmy Pasadena (and how many then move here?).

But it was still winter. Even as I enjoyed getting an early start on my tan, I knew that winter wasn’t over and that it would be cold and wet in a few days. Sure enough, a couple storms came through last week.

That, as I learned when reading an article in the Los Angeles Times late last month, didn’t stop Los Angeles from closing its Westside winter shelter for the homeless on March 1 “for the season.” Never mind that the next week was forecast to be wet and cold. Never mind that, even now, “the season” isn’t over for another week. And never mind that, even in sunny, funny SoCal, the first month or so of spring can bring rain and chilly weather (after all, “April showers bring May flowers”).

And what about the summer heat and smog? Never mind giving the homeless shelter from that.

The article I was reading was about a storage trailer made available in a pilot program in Venice Beach where the homeless could keep their stuff not allowed at the overnight shelter. The unit was accessible for two hours each afternoon and was, like the shelter, slated to close down on March 1.

“We’re going to bag and tag [their items],” said Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice. “We want to make it inconvenient but within the law.”

How convenient - or inconvenient - will Claremont make it for the homeless on its streets? Will we put up with them until a certain random date no matter how cold or how wet or how hot it is and then that’s it, we kick them out....to where (they’re already on the street)?

I’ve been wondering about this as Claremont has been discovering its homeless in the last year or so. That’s right - “discovering” - for, after declaring that there were three homeless people in Claremont, the City, with the assistance of people involved in Occupy Claremont, saw that it was off by a factor of 10 and that there are thirty people at least living on Claremont’s streets.

Not only that, but the City has been discovering that it has to do something about the homeless, other than throw them out (to Pomona, to Ontario, to L.A’s skid row, if we really want to answer the “to where” question). Back when the City presumably thought that there were three homeless people in Claremont, it passed an ordinance outlawing public camping and sleeping, essentially banning the homeless, but there was a court ruling saying that such a law is unconstitutional.

Since then, there has been another court ruling, stemming from Los Angeles, decreeing that a homeless person’s items, left unattended, cannot be discarded. Los Angeles has been wrestling with this, recently requesting an appeal, and it appears that the storage trailer in Venice was an answer.

Another answer in Los Angeles has been something called S.H.A.R.E, in which a small group of homeless people live in a house, made available by its owner and with rules, where they get the services they need to regain or gain stability in their lives.

Maybe one of these houses can be in Claremont. The City Council has recently decided to make the homeless a priority, and as it ponders what to do with them (other than kick them out), is there a reason why there can’t be a house like this here?

Or will the focus be on getting the homeless out of Claremont? Will the City do everything it can to deter the homeless, certainly not to attract them, and not to reach out to those who are here and try to help them?

There are those who argue that offering services attracts the homeless. Yes, “beware the Ides” may well be good advice, but compassion and charity are also known for good results. Making the homeless more of a problem may well only make the homeless more of a problem.

Something like this happened about ten years ago when L.A County came up with a proposal to have five regional service centers for the homeless rather than having so many of the homeless funnel into Skid Row in L.A. However, there was so much of a NIMBY outcry that the idea was shelved, and now Skid Row has become even more of a sinkhole, with, probably as a result, a rare strain of T.B being the latest problem.

I wonder if such a service center or a S.H.A.R.E house here is even possible when there was a commentary in these pages last week stating that “many neighbors are vehemently against” hospice, assisted living and community group houses in northern Claremont. The worry is that these residential homes for the dying, the elderly and other “challenged” individuals, regulated and monitored by the state, are a threat to “our treasured neighborhoods.”

Dying people. Foster kids. People in wheelchairs. A threat? Really?

And this is the homeless we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about convicted sex offenders who have completed their prison terms and are listed in a public registry and who are trying to be constructive members of society. They are being driven out even in L.A, where small “pocket parks” are being put in. Yes, it’s good that some areas are finally getting parks, even if they are only a swing set and a bench on a patch of grass. But, as was pointed out in a recent Los Angeles Times article, these new parks also have another, perhaps primary purpose: convicted sex offenders can’t live within 2000 feet from parks, as well as schools and other such places.

Being cautious and on guard is all well and good, as the Ides of March remind us. But I wonder if the upcoming season of renewed life and hope, of newfound freedom and peace, has a message for us as we consider how to deal with the others in our midst.

Those inconvenient people

“We want to make it inconvenient but within the law.”


It was all good when I was reading the article in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago until this quote came up. I was glad to see that a storage trailer was being made available at Venice Beach where the homeless can stash their stuff. Then Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice, opened his mouth. He also said this: “We’re not going to let [homeless people] keep items on the beach anymore. We’re going to bag and tag [them].”

What’s being bagged and tagged here? The homeless?

I couldn’t help wondering, as Mr. Rosendahl made it perfectly clear that the storage program really wasn’t about being compassionate and charitable towards the homeless, making their lives easier. The pilot program was about tolerating the homeless and co-exist with them and their stuff - and not necessarily in a way that is easy for them. People could only store things for a week at a time, and the trailer was only accessible from 3 to 5 and scheduled to close today, March 1, when the city’s homeless shelters close, now that winter is supposedly over.

I thought about this on a recent Sunday morning at the close of Quaker meeting when the children reported learning about the homeless and not thinking that a person who is homeless because of a drinking problem is any worse or less worthy than a person on the streets simply due to dire financial straits.

Then there was the news yesterday that Los Angeles asking the Supreme Court to throw out a lower court ruling that the City can’t throw away items left unattended by the homeless. The City says it’s a public health issue.

Seeing things on a visit

Shortly after the new year, I got a large envelope in the mail from my brother who lives up north in the Bay Area. Inside was a colored-in paper doll cut-out with a letter signed by my six-year-old nephew. The letter was a form letter clearly written by a teacher and explaining that the paper doll was Flat Stanley, a character in a children’s book who loves to travel, and part of a class project. I was asked to returned Flat Stanley along with a letter and photographs and other memorabilia.


I had never heard of Flat Stanley, but the project sounded cool, and I was happy to do it, although it did get to feel like homework or even a take-home final after a while. My contribution was about my life with a disability as much as it was about Claremont. I also had fun with Flat Stanley in my column which came out in Wednesday’s Claremont Courier and appears below.

The project was also a nice way for me to be more involved with my brother and his family that I don’t see much. In addition, it made me think about maybe writing a children’s book about being disabled. Mmmmm...



FLAT STANLEY TOUCHES DOWN IN CLAREMONT

Dear Flat Mom,

I don’t need to tell you that, like being green, being flat isn’t easy. You’ve been telling me this since I began life as a little paper cut-out. Especially when 3-D has been all the rage - although I recently heard that those movies aren’t quite so popular now. There was this one guy, a grown man, who saw me a couple weeks ago and couldn’t stop laughing. Ouch!

But, as you also told me, being flat makes it a whole lot easier to travel. I don’t need to worry about getting a seat or paying those insane fees for baggage. I am baggage! Just put me in a suitcase or a backpack or even an envelope and I’m there. For a guy like me who loves to go places and see new things, this is one sweet deal and sure beats bumming rides!

An envelope was what I was in when I arrived here in Claremont, where I’ve been staying with a man named John. In fact, I was mailed here from the Bay Area in Northern California from his younger nephew along with a letter. I guess I’m part of a class project. Whatever. As long as I get to be out on the road.

John was very surprised when I showed up at his house. It wasn’t that he had to have a bed for me or to feed me or anything. I was happy just laying on the couch. (Another advantage to being flat and an easy traveler!) But he said that he had never heard of me.

Maybe I’m touchy, but this bugged me. But on the first day that John took me out, a woman who walked by said, “Oh, you’re with Flat Stanley!” It was nice to hear her talk about how there’s a very popular children’s book all about me. So much for that man who couldn’t stop laughing at me!

Actually, other than that laughing man, Claremont has been a really nice and interesting place. I think what I like best about Claremont is that it is a small town but has a lot going on and a lot of interesting people.

For one thing, there are eight colleges here in town, and they are all pretty well-known and regarded. John took me all around the campuses and showed me a lot of great buildings. There is the ornate Little Bridges and the gigantic Big Bridges at Pomona College, and Scripps College has Garrison Theater with awesome mosaics of scenes from Shakespeare’s plays on its facade. John said there are lectures and concerts going on all the time at the colleges - often more than one at the same time - and he loves going to many of them.

One night recently, John went to see Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and commentator, speaking at Scripps College. It was part of an annual program to bring conservative voices to campus. The young woman who was ushering asked John, “You here to see this guy?” and then rolled her eyes and said, “Should be interesting.” John told me that it is important to hear people who have different viewpoints. That way, he said, you know how to talk to and argue with them.

Even so, John was surprised at the warm reception that Mr. Krauthammer got - there was a thunderous standing ovation when he appeared on the cozy office set on stage - and when all the questions people asked him were soft balls. John, who is disabled, said that if he had had his wits together, he would have asked Mr. Krauthammer, who also uses a wheelchair, how the disabled would get the expensive equipment and help they need if the government offered fewer services as he and other conservatives advocate.

The colleges aren’t the only things that make Claremont interesting and unique. There are a lot of artists and musicians living here, and the downtown area, called the Village, is full of nice, creative shops, as well as good restaurants. If you’re ever in the area, you should check out the Folk Music Center. And there are also a lot of incredibly active older adults, including the not-so-retiring retired church workers living at Pilgrim Place.

One weird thing, though, is that there is a City Council election going on that looks to be not much to do about nothing. The vote is on March 5, in less than two weeks, yet there has hardly been any discussion or debate, because, apparently, nobody thinks that the guy who made a late entry to run against the two incumbents for two seats has a chance of winning or something. I don’t know. I don’t live here, but it looks pretty silly, not to mention like a big waste of money.

Speaking of weird, John can’t get over the fact that, as of March 1, the newspaper in Claremont, the Courier, will no longer come out on Wednesdays and Saturdays, as it has for as long as he can remember. We’re talking decades here. The paper will come out once a week, on Friday, because there will no longer be Saturday mail delivery. John says that he is happy that, unlike with some other newspapers, the Courier will still be coming out in print but that this all (including the part about no mail on Saturdays) is about as shocking as a pope resigning for the first time in 600 years. Times do really change.

Perhaps the best thing about Claremont, at least at this time of year, has been the spectacular weather. The Bay Area was wet and cold when I left, and most of the country has been frigid and snowy, most days here have been sunny and bright, relatively mild, with snow magnificently capping Mt. Baldy nearby. John still laughs at the guys at the colleges, probably from freezing states, walking around in shorts and tees and flip-flops on chilly nights and even in the rain.

On a drive up on Mt. Baldy after a recent storm, the little village up there was covered in white, and John said that he keeps forgetting that there is another world up there so close by. His friend, who was also from out of town, commented that Claremont he it all, with the mountains barely half an hour away and the beach and Los Angeles about an hour away.

I couldn’t agree more, but it’s time for me to be moving on. You know how much I like to travel!

Your son,

Flat Stanley

But what about me?

I recently saw The Impossible, the powerful, harrowing and ultimately inspiring film directed by J.A Bayona about a family that survives the huge Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26, 2004 while on a Christmas vacation at a luxury beach resort in Thailand. Naomi Watts is up for the Best Actress Oscar for playing the mother.


There are horrific scenes of the mother and the oldest of the three young sons (breathtakingly played by...I forget who!) surfacing after the initial wave and thrashed about by seemingly endless subsequent waves and debris as they frantically try to swim toward each other and a place of safety. I couldn’t help but be struck by how much courage and gumption they had.

I also found thinking myself that I’d be out of luck, to say the very least, strapped as I am in my heavy wheelchair, even if I could swim.

I have the same thought every time I’m in an elevator and see the sign saying not to use the elevator in case of fire. How will I get downstairs and out of the burning building alive? Can I count on someone, perhaps a stranger, to carry me?

There was recently an article in the Los Angeles Times about an earthquake warning system, like the one that saved many lives in Japan, being developed here in California. People will theoretically be notified a few or perhaps more seconds before an earthquake. Would I be able to control my nervous spasms enough to maneuver my chair to a safe place, if not to open the door and get out (if I’m home, not in bed, alone), in time?

But, although I have gathered some emergency supplies, I often wonder if I want to survive “the Big One,” when all will be chaos, to say the least, and my attendants may not be able to come.

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

In posting my column which appeared in Wednesday’s Claremont Courier below, I just want to add that I didn’t know how much of a pioneer Mary Ellen Kilsby was in getting Christian churches to welcome those in the glbtq community. Apparently, she got several congregational churches, including the one in Claremont, to be among the first “open and affirming” churches. According to the obituary in the Courier, in one of her first sermons at the Claremont UCC, she said that Anita Bryant was wrong about homosexuals, and some people walked out. Wow! I wish I had known. Also, I’ll add that John York attends the Claremont Quaker meeting.


SEEING THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE CLAREMONT

“You know the Byrds?”

“The what?”

“The Byrds. B-Y-R-D-S.”

“The Byrds?... The band?”

“Yes.”

Yes, my friend had heard of the Byrds. He is almost half my age and probably wasn’t even born when the band was playing, but I figured he had probably heard “Turn, Turn, Turn” or “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man” on the radio, maybe in a diner or a thrift store or an auto repair shop.

Not only that. My friend knew that the Byrds had been an important band, well-known for its jangly, folky, sunny guitar sound. He was in town for the weekend, and we had just seen that John York was playing in the area.

“He was in the Byrds,” I told my friend.

“That guy was in the Byrds?”

“And he lives in Claremont.”

“Really? Mmm!” my friend said, no doubt making a mental note to google or youtube John York later on his phone. Or maybe he was doing it right then.

Really? Who knew? I hate to say this, but I have to admit that this is what I thought when I read the obituary for Ray Collins in these pages a few weeks ago.

I had seen that there was an obituary for Ray Collins a few days earlier in the Los Angeles Times (although I didn’t read it). And I had seen the man around in the Village for years. But I hadn’t put the two together.

I didn’t know that the guy with the headlining obituary in the Los Angeles Times was the guy in the Village. I didn’t know that he had been in the Mothers of Invention, another influential 1960's rock band. I didn’t know there was this quiet treasure trove of rock history and colorful stories, complete with partnering with and then not speaking to and sometimes speaking ill of Frank Zappa, in our midst.

And now he is gone, no longer in our midst. Ray Collins is no longer here, where he chose to live out the end of his rich, creative life, making Claremont all the more rich and creative.

I wish I knew this before now. I wish I knew about Ray Collins like I know about John York. Like my friend now knows about John York.

And about how he, along with many others, is what makes Claremont such a rich, creative community.

I’m certainly glad - all the more now - that I knew Mary Ellen Kilsby, who died a few weeks ago. As I write this, I think about going to a memorial service for her on Sunday.

I also think about how, last year when I saw her for one of the last times at Pilgrim Place where she then lived, she hugged me so hard that it hurt. It occurs to me that she hugged Claremont in the same way.

For years, when I was growing up and before she and her husband Bud moved to Long Beach, Mary Ellen Kilsby embraced Claremont, giving this community much of her remarkable energy. Among other things, she served on the Claremont school board and was its president, all while I understood she was a pastor at the Claremont United Church of Christ, Congregational.

It was actually not until later in my life, when I became friends with her daughter, Kathy, and after she moved to Long Beach to serve as the head pastor of the big congregational church downturn, that I met Mary Ellen. But I had always heard and read about her and what she was doing in Claremont. While here in Claremont, she was always one of those people making this town a better, more caring community.

She still cared about Claremont after she left. I would occasionally see her, and be subject to her enthusiastic hugging and kissing, at events at Pomona College, where she was active - once again, active - in the alumni organization. One year, she gave the address at the colleges’ baccalaureate service. And it felt right, like a circle closing, when, a year or two ago, after her retirement and the death of her husband, I saw that she was living in Pilgrim Place.

The circle is always closing, just as the years keep going and coming. And people like Mary Ellen Kilsby and Ray Collins, with their wild stories and boundless enthusiasm, come and then go, enriching our lives and our community. Do we know them and the many others who make Claremont before they are no longer here, before the circle closes again?

Not gun shy, to say the least

“[Ryan] Girard said he tried to go to the show Saturday but the out-the-door line was more than four hours long. He opted to come back about 6 a.m Sunday, three hours before the event opened. He said about 500 people already had staked out spots by the time he arrived.


“‘I’ll tell you right now, Obama is the No. 1 gun salesman in the nation,’ Girard said. ‘The NRA should give him an award.’”

- - - From an January 7 Los Angeles Times article about the Crossroads of the West gun show, held (on the last days of the Christmas season, when the Three Kings offered their gifts, by the way) at the Ontario Convention Center not far from here, and the enormous crowds there, similar to those at gun shops, shooting ranges and other such events, spurred on by the desire for protection after the Newtown school shootings and fear of stronger gun control measures favored by President Obama and other officials.

“Public Defender Matthew Hardy argued that the boy’s sense of right and wrong was corrupted from growing up in a household filled with violence and hate. Neo-Nazis frequently gathered at the family home in Riverside, family trips to the shooting range were common and loaded guns stashed around the house.”

- - - From an article in the Times on the same day about a 12-year-old boy on trial for (and since convicted of) fatally shooting his father, Jeffrey Hall, a Neo-Nazi leader, while he slept on a couch in the living room. The boy, who was 10 at the time of the shooting and who was no longer allowed to live with his drug-addicted mother, allegedly feared that Hall planned to leave the boy’s stepmother and shatter the family and was also allegedly beaten and berated by Hall, an unemployed plumber, during drunken rages.

“Guns are not for hunting. When will you people figure that out? Guns are for hunting down politicians when they steal your rights away through tyranny. Hello! Any call for gun control is treason... You can’t protect your freedom when the government has more guns than the people.”

- - - A phone message left for Times columnist George Skelton a few years ago, as quoted in his column on Monday.

Wow! Hello! As my friend Chris would say - and although there is plenty more I can mention, like the shooting yesterday at Lone Star University in Texas (yee-haw!) and gun show advocates referring to the shows as “family affairs” - ‘nuff said.

An answer to hate

Last year, at just about this time, I posted a column I wrote for the Claremont Courier about a very visible nativity scene in front of a church here featuring same-sex couples that was vandalized. Here, in my column that came out in Wednesday’s Courier, is an update.


WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE - AND READ - A STATEMENT

When I was in high school and college and for many years afterwards, my dad would see my hair and what I was wearing, and he would ask, “Are you making a statement?”

For years, I would adamantly deny it. “No!” I would proclaim hotly, both indignant and guilty. “I am not making a statement!” Like he was both accusing me of a crime and catching me red-handed.

Like making a statement is a crime.

It took me a long time to face up to it. Not that making a statement is not a crime. It took me a long time to see and understand that I was making a statement. Of course, I was.

Perhaps I was not sure of the kind of statement I was making. Perhaps I didn’t know exactly what I was trying to say. Or was it that I didn’t know that I could say something in this way, that it was okay to make such a statement?

Most likely it was all of the above. And no doubt par for the course for those working their way to becoming their own person.

I have been thinking about my father’s question since seeing the nativity scene in front of the Claremont Methodist Church over the holidays. With its seasonal tableau, it seemed that the church on Foothill Boulevard was offering an intriguing lesson on making statements. Either it was scaling back and toning things down, or it was making a bold comment about making bold comments.

That the church may have wanted to tone things down this Christmas is understandable. In recent years, the church has been known for its provocative nativity scenes. Jesus has been depicted being born in a homeless encampment and in a jail, among other places.

Last year’s nativity scene - the one closing out 2011 - turned out to be exceptionally provocative. A more abstract tableau depicting same-sex couples following a star, it was so provocative that it was vandalized. The star was taken down, and some of the figures were set askew or knocked over.

The vandalism took place late on Christmas Eve or early on Christmas Day and was written up in the Los Angeles Times. It was not good Christmas P.R for a church.

So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to see this year’s nativity scene, and I was both disappointed and not surprised to see a fairly standard version of the birth scene, complete with straw bales and cardboard camels. It was a nice touch, though, that Joseph was wearing a Claremont Community School of Music tee-shirt.

There was also a small sign explaining that “historical Nativity scene...stands as a symbol of acceptance and even celebration of those who have been outcast” and that Jesus “was born in poverty, out of wedlock and from a foreign land.” It went on to state, “In our effort to give meaning to OUR holiday, we have often stigmatized the poor and the undocumented people among us by creating customs and ceremonies that include those with means and say to the poor and those who do not look like us or speak our language ‘we were not thinking of you when we planned this’ or ‘you don’t belong.’”

This was a powerful statement regarding the outsider and what the Christmas message says about how we treat the outsider. But, as a friend commented after hearing this description, it was too bad that it wasn’t more evident in the scene itself. It is too bad, my friend commented, that there wasn’t an even bolder statement made after the vandalism the previous year.

But wait - what was the chain-link fence that the sign was on, that surrounded the scene? There was an opening at the front, but it was nonetheless weird and disturbing to see this ugly, stark barricade. Even more jarring were the two other signs that stood out much more, the bold red and white signs - one that said “No trespassing, loitering, unauthorized parking” and the other one warning that there was 24-hour surveillance.

I wondered if the fence and the warning signs were there to protect the nativity scene, to keep the vandals away. This made sense, but it sure was sad. I saw that, of course, this was the point, this was the statement. The ugly, stark fence and the bold threatening signs and the way they were weird and disturbing and jarring, the way they made me feel a bit like an outsider might feel, was the statement.

As another friend said after seeing the tableau, “This is what you got after a hate crime.”

This is just one statement in a world full of more and more statements. But it reminds us to take care and have the courage to make statements that need to be made and at least as much to take them.

Not a bad statement as we venture into a new year.