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I had never attended any City/NC/Cmte meetings until they were held on Zoom. I muted the 1st few times I called into Homelessness for my NC & observed:
-lack of homeless people/lived experience
-casual talk of 311, sweeps, targeted harassment, forced displacements, arrest
https://twitter.com/safrazie/status/1359934706473594880
-lack of homeless people/lived experience
-casual talk of 311, sweeps, targeted harassment, forced displacements, arrest
https://twitter.com/safrazie/status/1359934706473594880
I started making connections with the names of people in the meeting (Not necessarily elected ones but people that religiously attend all Board & Committee Meetings) with names of people in an obscure forum where people discuss conservative politics & harass local homeless people
I’ve lived in the same public spot for a few years - since our PIT was 39. It was 211 in 2020 and has likely Doubled thanks to Project Roomkey (they still count as “Homeless” in Roomkey, but the count is cancelled this year, for many good reasons, mainly not spreading COVID-19
My fellow unhoused neighbor & his wife, who have been in this neighborhood for much longer than I have, were lucky enough to secure a Housing Choice/Section 8 voucher. His wife really wanted to stay in the neighborhood, which has 110 AirBnb listings & >1000 vacancies
[Cenus]
[Cenus]
They could not find a single damn place where the landlord accepted the voucher. This was just after prospective tenant discrimination based on source of income was specifically banned, too. I tried to search online for them shortly before the voucher was due to expire. Nothing
I ended up basically imagining that their only chance was to charm a landlord & plead with them to accept the voucher, but I didn’t even know where to meet local landlords, except for the then-in-person Neighborhood Council Board Meetings. I wanted to study some local landlords
As someone who has lost EVERYTHING I owned + my home multiple times due to 311 complaints, hearing the Chair of the NC Homelessness Committee help housed ppl weaponize city services against the absent unhoused ppl (that the Committee is named for) was really fucking depressing.
The first time I attended my NC’s Homelessness Committee, I was reading the minutes from the prior meeting (which mysteriously had a different Chair)
A Public Commenter was quoted in the minutes as saying something along the lines of: “Tell the homeless we don’t want them here!”
A Public Commenter was quoted in the minutes as saying something along the lines of: “Tell the homeless we don’t want them here!”
That comment was spoken by the same man who created an “Anti-Bum Movement” thread focused on harassing a harmless Mann struggling with mental illness in the specific area of my camp. Another thread, “Operation Gadfly” weaponized 311 to deprive my neighbor of all his possessions.
They sent three months writing letters to various agencies of concern trying to get him evicted. The business he camped @ & maintained a good relationship w for yrs apparently had an lender. Members of the forum harrassed both the business AND its lender about the “situation”
I started giving comment under a nickname bc I feared targeted harassment. I live outside in the open, vulnerable to housed, unhoused & transient criminals + police & sanitation. I’m hoping my SO & I both can vote with our shared mailing address which is in a different NC region
All this is to say that I actually relate to those NIMBY Karens-Nextdoor in that I fear retaliation when I speak up as the only homeless person to the Homelessness Committee
I have also begged them to just change the name of the Committee to something more accurate, to no avail
I have also begged them to just change the name of the Committee to something more accurate, to no avail
