https://www.kqed.org/news/11548018/fresno-woman-dedicates-herself-to-helping-citys-homeless
The link above will take you to the story of a woman I was lucky to have had a brief conversation with. Her name is Desiree Martinez, a Fresno woman who lives in California, and dedicates her time to the homeless population. Our newspaper, tribunodelpueblo.org, republished an article on the death of Christine Chavez, a California houseless woman who was killed in a gruesome death.
It has now been over a month since the incident, and there are more questions than answers at this point. In my phone conversation with Desiree, she mentioned how the police are not doing their job, and have yet to interview witnesses as well as not having tested the driver of the lawnmower for drugs or alcohol in their system. Currently, there is an ongoing lawsuit with the town of Modesto, as the family waits around for answers and sees the time pass by, it is important that we continue to tell the story of just one of thousands of homeless people in California right now.
Dez wanted to make it clear that, a lot of homeless people are going through mental illness, and the world needs to focus on fixing that issue instead of criminalizing homelessness. Not only that but there needs to be a 24/7 crisis outrage team for them, there needs to be more resources that its community based and city based.
The life of a homeless woman seemed to have little meaning to the police; unanswered questions don’t seem to bother them one bit. Pieces of Christine Chavez were left at the scene for family members to come and find; we must continue saying her name because the law enforcers are getting away with treating a person less than a dog, just because they don’t have a place to live.
Dez Martinez is a special hero, due to her being formerly houseless herself. She does more than just pass around iced water bottles on a 100-degree day; she’s the founder of We Are Not Invisible.org. We Are Not Invisible is a 501 (c)3 non-profit organization that helps provide for the needs of those who are homeless in Fresno. This organization’s mission is to ‘rehumanize our chronically homeless and help the less fortunate’.
The We Are Not Invisible website comes with many resources to get behind Desiree’s mission. This includes donating, a list of food and supplies to send, as well as two current projects named ‘Project Safe Camp’ and ‘Pot lucks in the park’. If you’d like to read how the organization began, read the story.
Luz Melissa Cortes Nieto is a Gen X student majoring in Communication with a minor in Journalism. She came to the United States at the age of 7 and has always had a passion for writing and the environment. As a member of El Tribuno del Pueblo Editorial Board, she is the Climate Change Desk. She hopes to bring awareness about climate change and how we can all come together to mitigate environmental consequences.
