Originally published on August 30th, 2011 before Ron Chase withdew from the race –
Recently, I exchanged e-mails with Joy Eckstine (executive director of Carriage House) in re Ron Chase, who is being touted as the “homeless” candidate for Boulder City Council. To quote her briefly: “My interest is having homeless and poor people having a voice in Boulder. I certainly would love to hear your ideas about how that could be accomplished.”
I have difficulty understanding your premise, Joy. I’m homeless myself; do you doubt that I have a voice in Boulder already? Presumably, for the sake of argument, homeless candidate Ron Chase also has a voice in Boulder (and he speaks for himself). I know many other homeless people who have their own voices, also, and speak to the extent that they each consider appropriate in their individual circumstances.
This is true of people from all walks of life, it seems to me.
However, I’ll grant that there is a significant number of the homeless in Boulder who are, in effect, wards of the homeless shelter/services industry here. It saddens me to see these folks so very helpless and needy, and being so very poorly served by the so-called system. Apparently, they have given up their own voices for lack of anyone in authority to listen to them.
To be blunt, Joy, I don’t think that you’re listening, either.
I oppose this whole concept of a “homeless community” which we hear and read about so often in Boulder. Homeless people are individuals first, no two being identical, and creating a homeless ghetto in their hearts and minds is counterproductive. I frequently look at the Carriage House FB Wall to keep track of what you’re up to, and I generally find nothing there which will uplift a homeless person who desires change in his/her life (not all of us do). To the contrary, it’s stuff like a Homeless Flash Mob — now renamed Cause Mob — in which participants are encouraged to advertise their homelessness and even celebrate with refreshments and a troupe of dancers!
(Barfing).
Does anyone among Carriage House’s homeless clientele ever express a differing opinion in re homelessness, and receive respectful consideration from the True Believers who follow Joy Eckstine? It can’t be only one voice for Boulder’s homeless people, Joy, it must be as many different voices as there are homeless people in our fair city — and many of them don’t like what’s going on with the influx of transients, who overwhelm our resources for no good purpose.
I say that because this group of transients is notorious for disrespecting others and trashing everything they touch, as their way of giving society the finger. Frankly, their only voice should be the one saying goodbye as they board the RTD bus back to Denver.
How do we encourage a homeless man or woman to have his/her own voice? The first step, logically, is to STOP thinking and acting as if the homeless person needs a spokesperson. That attitude is so very condescending, and when I have pointed this out to the Housing First Manager at Boulder Shelter for the Homeless, he has seemed bewildered. Even those homeless people with serious mental health issues are expected to function on the streets, simply because there are no group homes or psychiatric facilities with resources to take them in. A Life Skills class ought to be ongoing at several venues in the local homeless shelter/services industry, to teach those in need how to advocate for themselves.
Instead, we have warehousing of the homeless program residents at BSH and a Cause Mob at CH. I’m afraid, Joy, that you and I aren’t even speaking the same language.
Absolutely Life Skills classes would be beneficial! I know of a least one instance where a security officer here in Boulder helped a veteran get his benefits and an apartment. That kind of help is only one of many kinds of help that could be offered.
Many of these folks who get into some kind of subsidized housing aren't able to remain in it; their poor behavior and bad choices cause the landlords to evict them.
Unless they can learn how to cope with life in an effective and appropriate way, the revolving door will continue. This is why so many of Boulder Shelter's transitional living clients are there year after year — they don't know how to behave and no one is teaching them.