PHOTO/SARAH MENEFEE
CARMEL, CA — Growing up in New York in a comfortable “middle-class” family, CeliaSue Hect says they used to walk over homeless people on the sidewalks. She never imagined in her wildest dreams that she would be homeless at 65. College educated and a skilled journalist, she has traveled the world helping other people in need. She was a full-time public-relations specialist for a nonprofit assisting Native Americans in Nevada battling the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository Project when, burned out, she left the position in 2002. Since then, she has survived on part-time jobs and freelance writing work.
Forced to take early social security retirement benefits, she cannot afford rent in the beautiful and wealthy area of the Monterey Peninsula in California, where she and her dog live out of her aging car. With only $672 monthly, a room cannot be found for less than $600/month. She has been surprised to discover that government help is essentially nonexistent. The social service agencies have no answers and even the religious leaders tell her to move someplace else.
But where is she to go? And now that she is facing some serious health issues requiring major surgery, moving to an unfamiliar area could be deadly. Instead, she is trying to raise funds via crowd-sourcing to build a tiny house but that is proving to be more difficult than she first thought.
While seeking assistance, CeliaSue discovered there are at least 350 other homeless women in the area. She estimates that the number is actually 500 to 1000 because she has seen them. Most, she thinks are over 50. They sleep on the ground or wherever they can find a place that’s safe. Other issues faced by homeless women, she has realized, include poor nutrition, stress and worry, financial upkeep of a vehicle, health concerns, weather, hygiene and loss of dignity.
CeliaSue’s case clearly exposes the lie told by our ruling class that blames the economic and social crisis on the workers of previous generations, such as the “Boomers.” As the economy continues to replace human labor with computers and robotics, the value of all labor, including mental labor, is reduced. As Guy Standing states in his lecture on “The Precariat Class,” we are all potential members of the precarious class except the tiny few who own all the means of production, the banks, corporations, the land, etc. We must unite around the program of this growing class (for food, shelter, health care, etc.) who owns no private property and are being discarded by the new labor-less economy. In the words of CeliaSue, “We must find creative, humane and compassionate solutions.”
Editor’s note: CelisSue can be contacted through her voicemail at 702-225-8206, or via e-mail at celiasue.hecht@gmail.com.
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Cathy Talbott is a former telephone operator, a job lost to automation. She was a homeless mother of two and fights for welfare rights. A former co-host of a weekly community radio program out of Carbondale, IL, “Occupy the Airwaves,” Cathy is the Environmental Desk for the People’s Tribune.
