talking heads

I was interviewed by a news producer the other day (ahem, I. Want. To. Share. But. Can't.) and during the course of her interview she wanted to know why I thought homelessness was a problem in our communities. The camera was on and I was of course simultaneously worrying about looking stupid and of course, whether my hair looked okay so I started to lose my train of thought. I started talking, babbling really, and replied with some sort of wingnut response about freedom. About how I can't be free if other people aren't. And she stopped taping and looked quizzically at me and asked what freedom had to do with homelessness.

And for some reason her question made me aware of this anger I carry. Anger that there aren't easier solutions. Anger that homelessness exists. Anger that we still keep asking silly questions. Angry that I feel angry. I meant what I said, but the more elaborate answer is something along the lines of homelessness is a problem because we are choosing to allow others to suffer in exhange for consumerism and capitalism. That we have purposefully set up a system where we need weak people to boost a few strong people. That we care more about our living room furniture than we do our neighbors. So I told her all of this with the camera off and she smiled and nodded and I asked her if she wanted me to repeat it on camera and she gently told me it wouldn't work but that she appreciated my position.

She turned the camera back on and we finished the piece with different questions and after it was done I asked her why people were so afraid of hearing what people really think and she looked at me and smiled and didn't have much of an answer. I figured it was either because a) she thought I was insane or b) didn't really care and was just doing her job. And either way I left a bit frustrated because I still don't know how to get my point across in a way that isn't so critical of everything else.

proxy voting

I've spent my entire adult life working for NGO's. Three years with juvenile offenders in a group home setting, two years in domestic violence. Ten years in homelessness. I chose this path; blood and guts has always drawn me, and in the drawing, there are sacrifices. Working more holidays than I can remember, zero money for retirement, living slightly more than paycheck to paycheck. The money has never really been an issue. We rent, our cars are each a decade old. We live simply and never have to worry about being able to buy food. My footprint is still larger than most.

But after all those years and thousands upon thousands of people nothing is getting better. Homelessness grows every year. It's getting worse. It's the lack of impact that troubles me, the terrifying notion that this has all been for nothing.

I am not sure how much longer I can do this. For years my entire identity was wrapped up in my work, was defined by it. With J and M things have changed. I am entirely grateful for that, to have something besides this to call my own, my home, my reason.

But a girl's gotta eat. And while I may be a hard worker, it's always been driven by passion. I cannot work to simply earn. I see the value in that, but I am too stubborn and too childish to do it. I can't bring myself to find a job. I've got to find a cause. Otherwise, I'll be fired in a week. I'd much rather be in Goa, Chile, Kenya. I'd be fired in a week.

So I sit here heartbroken. I'll be turning 37 in less than a month and I've spent my adult life working for a cause that is going nowhere. I am whining, a pathetic middle class angst, yes. I know. I know. But I have nowhere else to do this, nowhere else I can actually allow myself the space to heave. It's my blog, I'll write what I want.

Please, please, don't read this and want to make me feel better. You make me feel better all the time by all the support and community you offer. I don't need to feel better about this. I need to figure out what the hell to do. And it's okay to be heartbroken for a while.

If you finish a really big project and still get a D, does that mean the effort was for not? Or does it mean the project is incomplete? I don't really have those answers, either.

And there is an element of abandonment. Of giving up. Of knowing that just because I turn my face it doesn't mean it goes away. So that's worse, isn't it? Worse to give up before it's done. But it won't ever be done, will it? Perhaps it's the death of a long held ideal I am mourning, a belief that the world can actually be changed.

J has a theory that the government is thrilled by NGOs because people who are passionate about social issues work for them and spend their years spinning their wheels, and our attention and efforts go to the symptoms rather than the heart of the problems. We are safely tucked away whittling the years trying to plug all the leaks. But there are always new ones. And we are too busy with our fingers and toes in the other holes to notice, and before we know it the water has risen. And so we scramble to plug the new holes, never once thinking about how to stop the water on the other side.

And eventually everyone drowns. That's simple physics, right? Water will expand to the space it is given.

In the spirit of good blogging everywhere, I know I am supposed to end this post with an upbeat, I'll be fine! Really, just prattling on about nothing! Perhaps, I am. But who knows. So instead I'll leave you with this.

I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle! - Alice in Wonderland

by proxy

I've talked before about J's work with the severely mentally ill. Our paths cross occasionally, more often than not when his group is at wits end with housing someone and they need a last resort.

But lately, we can't. The folks he's helping lately are too sick. Too ill to be on their own in any capacity and yet they have nowhere to go. Last night J came home and talked about a private meeting he had with some MDs at the hospital, docs who are freaked out and frustrated because they too can't help the people who need it because the requirements for inpatient have become tighter still. Simply, they can only keep folks who are assaultive or catatonic. Schizophrenia is no longer enough, Axis I out the window. They are just not sick enough. The MDs are scared, and when MD's get scared it scares me too. Doctors, see, they know things.

Shit rolls downhill. J's group is impacted with folks they really aren't designed to care for, the ones who previously would have been tucked in at the hospital. And then the ones they really want to help are unable to get into their program. Shit rolls downhill.

And then these cats end up at a shelter. You can't roll much farther than that. There are people making decisions based on money who cannot possibly ever take the time to see what is really going on outside.

It's a ticking bomb. And it scares me, because everyone's noose is getting tighter. I anticipate it getting much harder to continue doing this work, but at the same time I don't see a solution coming. People are not getting healthier. The government is not stepping up. It's a pushback to the NGO's to come up with solutions, and we can barely keep our heads above water let alone solve problems that we elect people to solve for us.

I often wonder how much NGOs contribute to the problem. We enable hospitals and providers by offering shelters and programs. We give folks an out to not fight harder for what is right. There is someplace else to put people. Even if that someplace else is absolutely wrong for the mentally ill woman who has no idea where she is, or the guy with end stage cancer sleeping on the floor.

But for how long? And much less importantly (but something I am thinking about more and more): how long can I?