PHOTO/SARAH MENEFEE
This conversation between San Francisco poet Sarah Menefee, of the People’s Tribune and ‘First they came for the homeless’, and poet and homeless advocate Suzanne McDonald, who has been homeless in several states, took place on social media in August. Suzanne added a meme about homelessness in Portland OR, where she has experienced it also.
Many such conversations, on various platforms, in meetings, camps, and on the streets, are going on every day around the country, as more people fall into homelessness and more homeless people struggle to create community and fight criminalization, as they demand housing. We would like to hear about your experiences, stories about where the resistance is happening, from people who are organizing toward a society that guarantees housing as a right and a priority.
Sarah Menefee: “If there are six empty houses for every homeless person in this country, why are we debating about shelters and whether people should be allowed to be in tents or ‘tiny houses’ or sheds, live in cars, sit on the sidewalk etc., etc.? House people now, the housing is there! What did you say, capitalism and corporate bottom lines, private property and the profit motive? If that’s what is standing in the way of taking care of everyone’s basic needs and to ending this mass suffering we all hate to see, then time to change it up!!”
Suzanne McDonald: “Yep, a year ago on this day, and still no real conversation about THIS. But lots of sad emojis. And a handful more “beds” at congregate “homeless shelter” compounds—and in jails, too—as well as a few “innovations” in shanty-camp NOT-Solutions….
P.S. The real number of homeless people in Portland, Oregon is estimated by homeless advocates on the ground to be closer to 12,000, and not the 4,000 counted by a handful of volunteers in 3-4 hours on one night for the federal HUD count. And that’s still more than one vacant apartment for each homeless person. Since a great many of these homeless people are couples and families including children, it’s likely less than half of those vacant apartments could house them all—right now. This scenario of more vacant housing than homeless people is the same in cities across the US and globally.
San Francisco poet and organizer Sarah Menefee is a long-time homeless rights activist. She is the Homeless Desk on the People’s Tribune Editorial Board, and a founding member of such organizations as the San Francisco Union of the Homeless, Homes Not Jails and 'First they came for the homeless’. Known for her poetry about the streets, her latest collections are Winter Rose, Sign and Holy Eel.
