Yesterday and today I helped someone move their encampment that had been set up near my place for a couple of weeks. They were super clean and quiet, but unfortunately they were really easy to spot from the main roads. It is a big open plot with nothing on it and as long as I’ve been here (a few years), there has not been any businesses or anything of use there. I believe when I first moved they were going to make it a sanctioned camp, but that never happened.

I hadn’t gone to talk to them, but yesterday I saw a city cop pull up on my dead end road and go talk to them. The person camping showed them a big pink sheet of paper (which is usually a notice to relocate). I stood outside to watch the interaction. It seemed innocuous enough, but after the cop left I decided to go chat with them to see if everything was alright.

They told me that the land they were on was owned by the county (which it is). That cop had no jurisdiction in that area at all. This person had been swept nearly every week for months, usually by this cop that came yesterday. They shared that on one of the hottest 100+ degree days this summer, he swept them immediately. And, swept them another 3-4 times in the same day, in the middle of the afternoon. People who camp are legally supposed to be issued 72 hour notices, but often, if it is the cops that come to sweep, they will give 24 hours if they’re “nice”, or, 10 minutes.

They told me that the county told them that they could move to this spot and that dumpsters were going to be brought in, porto-potties, “the works” and yet again attempt to establish a sanctioned sleep site there. They shared that they started getting rid of trash that was dumped there and even ran off some folks in a truck who were going to dump trash who were obviously housed. They started clearing out the blackberry. And yet, they got issued that notice maybe a week and a half after they had gotten established. The county worker who issued the notice was apparently very apologetic and didn’t want to give it to them. Sounds like it may have been neighbor complaints, or other county officials who are anti-homeless.

So, according to the notice they had until noon today to get all of their stuff out. So, I offered to help move their things. In my tiny beat up sedan we took about three car loads of stuff to where they could store their stuff.

They shared that they are a huge advocate for the unhoused in this town. They have been interviewed for a bunch of news articles, they have been writing of a code of conduct and proposal to present to the county to get the sleep site approved. They feed all of the street kids, some as young as 11 years old. Many of those kids don’t utilize any services around town, even those that are super radical and geared towards youth. This person is one of the only people they depend on and trust, and there are hundreds of them. They told me that over the past few months many of them seem to have just disappeared. Their best guess is that many of them died; probably of overdose. I asked if maybe they got housed up or moved and they said that usually they’ll come back and visit with this person, but that hasn’t been so.

At the end of the day, another advocate in town came and dropped off a ton of produce and other food to them because they know that this person feeds dozens and dozens of people (they set up a nice kitchen set up and cook all the time). They came and knocked on my door and insisted that I come and grab some food for the help. I got potatoes, green beans, asparagus, and some other veg and roasted them for dinner. In hindsight I wish I would’ve gone and given them a bowl, damnit.

Then today I went to check in and it sounds like their other unhoused friend was supposed to come with a car to help load out the rest of their set up but there was something wrong with the car so they hadn’t come. They seem stressed, it was about an hour before the sweep was supposed to commence, or at least it was an hour before the earliest time it could commence. They were very adamant that they didn’t want to leave anything behind, because that’s just in their nature but so that there was nothing they could get busted for or have used against them in the future. So we went to work and started moving stuff again. They came to the realization that it was a Saturday and usually the county people don’t work on the weekend. It’s possible that they intentionally issued the notice for the weekend to buy some time. Even then, though, they didn’t want to take any chances and have that asshole cop show up anyway.

They shared a lot with me in the short while that we talked. They used to be a wild land fire fighter, traveling all over the country. They were front line workers for FEMA doing body retrieval in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Then their house burned down and their son died all around the same time and they lost it, and ended up homeless. They told me all of this, and said that they still try to work, and want to work and get off the street, but because of the sweeps they can’t keep a job and have been let go from them. They said that they used to think that not being able to get a job was just an excuse by houseless folks, but after trying and trying and trying, they said that they finally understood that for many, it isn’t. You can tell that they are still a work horse, too, they were moving all day and all night and day again. I couldn’t do what they did even if I tried.

I don’t know how to end this, really, I just wanted to share their story with someone. It fucking kills me so much to very intimately know some of these folks and who they WERE and are and how no one really knows how heartbreaking and rich their life stories are. Many who I talk to have laid their lives on the line before they were homeless, and after, and always have been some of the kindest people. I’m glad that I met them, and I’m hoping that I’ll have the energy to try and establish more connections with local advocates to see if we can help them establish this as a safe site, still. Community support will be very important, but it will probably be an uphill battle due to the NIMBYs. We will see how it goes.