Editor’s Note: The stories on this page are by women writing about homelessness and our society, reprinted from Facebook posts with the author’s permission.
‘Help Us or Leave Us Alone!’ says Homeless Woman
By Monica Martella
PETALUMA, CA — My place is intact and drying. I’m grateful to have a relatively safe place to be that meets my needs. The sleep supplements are still here, so I can hopefully curb the insomnia.
I wish for stability: working out, showering enough, enough clean clothes to get through a 45-hour work week, eating what I should instead of sugar-filled, processed stuff. Not having my belongings stolen. Having calmness at home (space from other humans). Being around free nonhumans.
These are the blessings the haters are trying to take away from me because I don’t have what they have.
So many unhoused are in hell on earth because of conceit, selfishness and greed in our government and society. I’m fortunate to be where I am, and I wish every poor person had a safe place to be where their needs were met and they were not punished for their poverty. I wish the humans capable of that would do it.
I hope my struggle will somehow help strengthen the basic rights of all unhoused people. The governments are waging a war on us, using ostracism and deprivation as weapons.
Please help your unhoused neighbors directly when they ask, if you can. My needs are met; I’m talking about the ones with the signs or who beg verbally, and others who are obviously in need.
Much if not most of the “help” we hear about is a smokescreen for a growing parasitic industry of poverty perpetuation, helping the bare minimum and producing richer bureaucrats, richer police and more hate fencing, at the expense of destitute people.
Leviticus 19:18b; Matthew 25:44ff; Luke 6:36
Shoutout also to my atheist heroes who do so much for others. Thank you.
Editor’s Note: Monica Martella says of herself: “I’m unhoused in a tent in Petaluma, 51 years old, two jobs.” Formerly an animal rights activist, she says, “l don’t have much time but want to again. I try to advocate for the rights of my unhoused neighbors, but most of the time l work.”
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Practice diversity, not displacement! L.A. is Tongva Land
By Diana Morris
LOS ANGELES, CA — Displaced, distressed, and dispossessed… Where do people go when they are ignored and seen as “at-risk, homeless, poverty-stricken, disturbed and/or unworthy.” Many are displaced by gentrification, greed, misplaced values, prejudice and ignorant leadership. It doesn’t happen overnight.
I grew up in LA in the 40’s thru the 70’s. I am Tongva Native, historically have heard the stories of ancestors who were “disappeared” by genocide, conquest and ignorance. People should be number one priority whatever the society’s needs, because whether “caring for or cared for by,” people are part of nature, and if given the opportunity can and will surprise, contribute, create, and offer real solutions, gratitude, and love for humanity, when humanity exists.
I don’t understand this world, where people are living in million-dollar penthouses, while children, elderly, disabled, dispossessed live on sidewalks below. Many helped build LA or had relatives who helped make LA into a magical metropolis over the course of a hundred years. LA …Yaangna..
Topaangna. . . is a well-spring of welcome diversity and thought. People are in LA because nature has willed them there. When balance is restored, there will be a place and purpose for every living thing, every rock and spirit, and the energy to create and maintain peace will flow through every cell of everything. City of Angels. City of Lights. Winds of Time make way for the Future!
Thank you for being a voice for oppressed people.