comment from a Homeless Task Force member: Administrative Mandate Building

Interesting comments have recently been presented to the Arcata Homeless Task Force (HTF), since these comments were not all made publicly available, I thought it best to present a background on what is being said and done. Professor Jane Holschuh, a self-described “survey expert” (HTF-City Council-HSU Consultant Team planning meeting, June 7, 2005), Principal Investigator of the Humboldt State University's (HSU) Consultant Team to the task force, passed out a communique, she found “interesting,” at the HTF Meeting, June 2, 2005. It was subcommittee meeting minutes by the HTF sub-committee that was supposed, “to balance the rights of the homeless with the rights of the housed, to insure Arcata's quality of life for all citizens,” but it soon degraded into the community impact sub-committee. The meeting was between Arcata's chief of police Randy Mendosa and the sub-committee which included: Mark Leppanen, Dr. Virgil Davis; Business Owners: Kate Christensen and Julie Vaissade-Elcock; and Pastor Tim Doty- (HTF) chair. The meeting was held June 1, 2005.
The Mendosa report made many absurd accusations, but due to space restraints I only wish to touch on two and their implications for Arcata, the first is his coining the term “urban anarchists.” Prince Peter Kropotkin, an exiled Russian theoretical anarchist of the early 20th century, said; “Anarchism [is] the name giving to a principle of theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government – harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.” We really have no way of knowing what Mendosa means by “urban anarchist”, but we do know from these minutes that: “they don't cause physical danger”, “Randy [Mendosa]” is not sure they're “all or even mostly homeless”, “they use services intended for homeless people in need”, “they create negative community backlash”, “decrease Arcata's economic base and quality of life”, and “make people angry” (italics mine). What Mendosa certainly doesn't say is that these “urban anarchists” are criminals. He does however, closely link the “urban anarchist” with the “urban traveler” and “homeless activist” and freely interchanges the terms.
Under the question on the minutes “Urban Travelers/Anarchists vs. Homeless People?”, he tells this sub-committee, “It would seem that many homeless people would want the Homeless Activists to leave because they just keep people from wanting to help them.” (italics mine). As a resident homeless activist, in Arcata, I believe that the tactic of implanting an idea as logical, by civil servant authorities, is really the act of politically lobbying the power base and those who wish to serve it. The Arcata Police Department regularly entices homeless to preform as informant/undercover/provocateurs in the villainization and arrest (primarily marijuana offenses and there resulting warrants) of other homeless. Why would I be surprised that the chief of police is advocating something that is easy for him to incite, especially when others who are closely associated with the desired outcome, “want[ing] the Homeless Activists to leave”, have advocated and offered support for this outcome?


Dr. Virgil Davis, a emergency room doctor, and a member of Arcata's economic development committee, at the time of his appointment to the HTF, repeated Mendosa's lobby in an editorial (Arcata Eye, June 7, 2005). The good doctor points out his belief that “almost all of the negative impact on our community” is done by “about 10 percent” of the homeless and they are either “urban travelers or homeless activists”. Though just this unqualified statement shows how Mendosa is inciting those from this sub-committee, Davis' explicative statement, in the above editorial, “we want to run the 10 percent out of town!”; this is a hate crime at best and if their lynch-mob rhetoric goes too far, it could be accessory to murder. Hate Crime is defined as: any act that is intent on bringing violence upon any minority group (e.g. homeless activists); running someone out of town is violence.

To further insinuate Mendosa's theory HSU, HTF consultant, Dr. Betsy Watson stated at the HTF/HSU/City Council planning session meeting, June 7, 2005, that she had been informed by “people at the night shelter” that I did not represent the homeless. As homeless activists, we have always been supportive of the night shelter. We always held the All Faith Partnership up as a model of efficiency, generosity, community and, at least to me, a good example of God's Love working through people. They are the people who opened their churches last winter during the coldest night. We did, however, have one problem with the rules of the night shelter, and that was - that nobody who stays at the night shelter is allowed to be absent after curfew and thus can't participate in government, at city council meetings and homeless task force meetings. This grievance has never been addressed, because only rarely does someone want to go to the meetings. Does Professor Watson want me, or maybe those who don't know the issue, to believe that people at the night shelter, who have only seen one task force meeting (Thursdays, 7:00 pm, channel 12) at best, think I don't represent them, and Mendosa does?
This community impact sub-committee has self-decided to tackle the task of stirring up contempt against those who live different lifestyles, (chosen or not). Mark Leppanen states (Arcata Eye, letters to the editor, May 25, 2005) that “environmental catastrophe”, “illegitimate government”, and the “status quo [being] not only 'non-sustainable' but inherently evil”, and those beliefs by the “homeless by choice” is “disillusioned[ment]” and “hyperbolic rhetoric” that “is patently hysterical and insidious”. The good doctor Davis suffers from the disillusionment that he “live[s] in a democracy”instead of a country that has a Bill of Rights, to protect the individual and from a majority rules, democratic, mob mentality. “Might” made “right” in fascist Germany, but, at least in theory, people here have liberties. This sub-committee, heavily representative of “Arcata's economic base,” decided they needed a survey to prove the democratic realities of their gentrification agenda.
Professor Holschuh, the self-proclaimed survey expert, came to the rescue. The task force gave Holschuh a list of questions to poll non-homeless people about how they perceive homeless problems. The statecraft of measuring the psyche is called psychometrics. Psychometrics is the think-tank imitation of what science calls quantum mechanics. As any first-year social science student can tell you, statistics can be used to appear to prove any psychometrics theorem. If I asked 10 dentists, “would you recommend some particular tooth-paste, which is basically the same as other tooth-pastes, and 9 out 10 said they would, then I could claim honestly, “9 out of 10 dentists surveyed recommend this particular tooth-paste”. If I target a group of downtown business owners and their proponents with a question like Holschuh's question in the original draft of the “community survey”:
“Should people who are homeless in Arcata be required to participate in a case management, social service, substance abuse treatment, or mental health treatment program (contingencies) to help them move out of homelessness in order to receive basic services such as: Food?, Showers/restrooms?, Emergency shelter?
I would be distorting the truth, planting seeds and inciting violence. To “require” “case management” “to help” in order “to receive” “food, restrooms and shelter” is violence! This question was eliminated by the next draft of the survey.
What ever the final version of this push-poll (a survey intended to propagandize) is, its repercussions will be harmful by planting the seeds of new forms of oppression and then justifying the policies made from the survey as “democratic” mandates. It further distorts the nature of homelessness and its main cause, lack of wage jobs, implying instead that irresponsibility, substance abuse, and mental illness are not just the cause of homelessness, but that the “contingencies” actually have been shown to work. For anyone, especially doctors, professors and city management personal to use their credentials to justify gentrification agendas (running homeless out of town) is what I would call insidious. At the time of this writing I don't know how this poll will be gathered. Printing it in the homeless bigoted Arcata Eye tabloid, mailed to water bill holders and surveying at grocery stores are methods that have been suggested. It seems that when spin-doctors work at the tabloid stage we can point to the reports, at the report stage we can point to the data, but at the data stage the “experts” rein supreme. If the survey is skewed, then it should be skewed in defense of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution's Bill of Rights. Please fill out the poll, remembering that if one person ends up involuntarily medicated, imprisoned, exiled or otherwise assaulted due to their homeless status, these policies are unacceptably costly and therefore “inherently evil”. When will we see that it is past time to dismantle a machine that doesn't work and grow an organism (community) that does?



love eternal
tad