What reasoning to make such claims that one can jaywalk while another one can't? What reasoning to ask a harsh question if our forefathers may be embarrassed by us or that Booker T. Washington would be upset? The reasoning lies within money, power, and domination.
As the nation's economy flourishes to heights never seen before, Congress redesigns, hacks away at the ever most critical welfare programs and poverty safety nets. Reality is that fewer people receive assistance as more and more fall through the sliced safety net. There are reductions in funding and increases in restrictions to help the poverty-stricken locally which resulted in the multi-service center for the homeless shutting its doors on the weekends. For the first time, cash-stripped local homeless service providers have to compete with municipal departments for city's funding, and the department heads most likely would have an unfair advantage.
Such program cuts and inconsiderations for the poverty-stricken is unconscionable. How do they get away with the expanding (in both directions) gap between the rich and the poor, then pass laws and bills that will accomplish an even bigger gap while shaving off welfare assistance to those in extreme poverty? Don't we live in a country where the principle of its foundation that was arranged by our forefathers and the views of Booker T. Washington (who was homeless in Richmond before he moved to Hampton) is the protection of everyone rights?
Section of Richmond Master Plan:
"While concentration of services may be an efficient means of providing assistance to the homeless, it comes at a price to downtown image. Places with an abundance of people loitering or aimlessly inhabiting the streets are perceived as potentially confrontational and unsafe. The homeless issue is complicated by the casual use of the term homeless to refer to all ‘street people' — persons who habitually loiter on the public right-of-way and public spaces. The Downtown Plan does not provide specific solutions to existing and proposed sites for service providers. Instead, the plan acknowledge the seriousness the homeless issues has upon the economic and cultural health of downtown Richmond."
Over the decades, the influx of suburbanizing in surrounding areas of cities across nation and the deterioration of city's building structures plays a significant role in the economical health of downtowns, not homeless people. Those who practice condemnation, scapegoating, and alienation do so because they believe they are a superior class and those they disrespect lack the positive qualities that they themselves possess. It makes it easier to mistreat a disrespected class by regarding them as dumb, foolish, uneducated, incompetent, less worthy, not fully human.
This country started out taking in the homeless and offering a dream, a piece of the American pie. Today, out of all the cities in the nation with a population of 150,000 to 250,000 Richmond ranked last in providing year-round emergency bed spaces in proportion to the estimated homeless population. They are experiencing an awakening nightmare while living in deplorable conditions and being repeatedly turned away from full shelters for weeks and in some cases over a month at a time. They are being disregarded as unwanted outsiders as dominant groups bulldozed for zoning and general laws to target and criminalize the "other," in order to keep them out of site/out of mind, in other words to cleanse their neighborhoods. Constitutional law states that these people are a protected class. Municipal law considers them an exclusionary class and will ignore the civil and constitutional infringements they impose on them. The end result is the condemnation and scapegoating of the sufferers instead of the conditions, while offering no viable solutions. One of the notable reasons behind blaming the homeless and striping them of their zoning rights is so the city could attract tourist.
Is there any other sector of the population that can honesty say "We've been completely zoned out of the entire city?" The answer is "No" not even close. Every other sector of the population has their by-right zones and many of them. If the city is not becoming off-limits to the homeless population, then why have the harsh zoning laws opened the door to that very option which violates the Fair Housing Act along with the American with Disabilities Act? Didn't Richmond send a message to a particular insurance agency not to discriminate against a minority group in housing, and look at what its doing to the homeless?
In short, there is some good news for the homeless community. Richmond City Police has discontinued their police sweeps of homeless people forced to sleep outside. The Monroe Park bathrooms are no longer chain-locked during homeless feeding sessions but open 24 hours a day. Belle Island is open 24 hours a day to the homeless. The homeless people are sleeping behind the Daily Planet without the threat of being arrested. So in actuality there is a limited amount of public space accessible that in the past was not available.
Since last year, VCU has taken an adverse course toward the treatment of homeless people. Homeless grassroots advocates have received dozens of complaints by the homeless claiming that VCU Police is harassing and unjustly arresting them. There have been numerous arrests of homeless people for being in a public facility, which includes a public library and the commons, which has a McDonalds. Many of these people just passing through to another destination. The 7-11 store by Harrison and Grace Streets is a dangerous place for the homeless to visit. VCU police has arrested scores of homeless people there and was targeted because they appeared to be homeless. The police officer arresting one man, shoved his arms so far up his back to be handcuffed that it broke one of his arms. Later, they refused to give him a breathalyzer test to prove his innocence. The observation of the local Judges ' rulings is extraordinary to say the least. In nearly every informed trespassing charge against the homeless, the local Judges would dismissed the charges as long as the homeless person never set foot in VCU again. If VCU wants to gain the trust of the homeless community and their advocates, VCU "first" needs to stop the cleansing.
Today, my friends, the homeless are being stripped of their rights, dignity, and self esteem. And friends of the homeless who want to help or volunteer often face serious complications because of the zoning restrictions and municipal laws that will restrict these compassionate people from lending a helping hand. The homeless people do have dreams, a roof over their head that they can call their own, and a piece of the American pie.
Whenever one's rights takes a right turn, respect takes a right turn. Whenever one ‘s rights goes downhill, respect goes downhill. Respect plays an important role in how people are treated, what help one might receive, what economic establishment others would support. It's a gateway to economic advancement, invites connections, captures solidarity, and it breeds money, power, dominants.
Several weeks ago, I got a phone message from a Hard Times editor who was going to another job. So I called her back and our conversation led to the possibly of my looking into becoming an editor of Hard Times. After a considerable amount of contemplating, I decided that it would give the homeless community a needed sense of dignity for motivation and empowerment, it would give them a sense of pride to know that an ASWAN Co-Convener was becoming the editor of Hard Times. They would be proud as they distribute their newspaper. The paper would improve in quality, quantity, and a new creative web site would be added. So I approached the person in charge of hiring, and to my astonishment he told me that I was wasting my time and that Hard Times will be turned over to VCU.
How can they disrespect us like that? Maybe they think the homeless community and its grassroots advocates are so disorganized that they won't take a stand. Maybe they think they can use our paper to butter themselves while screening homeless people's writings to quash any negative writing that might scratch their polished surfaces. NO! We won't sit idly by and watch our newspaper turned state-run by a dominant group who continuously harasses, arrests, disrespects us, and violates our civil rights. We will march to the occasion! We will gain ground in respect and dignity. We will get more organized and run our own fund-raisers. We will start our own newspaper to print the truth! We will boycot the propaganda paper and refuse to sell it. And finally, we'll call our newspaper "The Real Hard Times."
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John M. Felts
ASWAN Co-Convener
ASWAN Main Page