Dissenting, or Seeking Shelter? Homeless Stake a Claim at Protests

[FarCenter]

LOS ANGELES — Robert Gaffney, who came here from Oklahoma 10 years ago, settled on a scrap of burlap the other day on a grassy hill outside City Hall, surveying the tents and crowd that make up Occupy Los Angeles. For many of his neighbors at City Hall Park, this is a center of protest and political grievance. For Mr. Gaffney, it is the latest piece of land that he calls home.

It is, he said, more comfortable than the sidewalk in Hollywood that he has been living on for the last few months. It is safer and less sketchy than Skid Row, the homeless colony a few blocks away.

“It’s different here,” said Mr. Gaffney, 31. “I find myself getting sleep. Interesting conversation.” He held up a pair of dirty socks. “But I haven’t figured out how to do laundry.”

Mr. Gaffney is hardly an unusual presence in the Occupy demonstrations across the country these days. From Los Angeles to Wall Street, from Denver to Boston, homeless men and women have joined the protesters in large numbers, or at least have settled in beside them for the night. While the economic deprivation they suffer might symbolize the grievance at the heart of this protest, they have come less for the cause than for what they almost invariably describe as an easier existence. There is food, as well as bathrooms, safety, company and lots of activity to allow them to pass away their days.

“When the tents went up, everybody moved in,” Douglas Marra, a homeless person in Denver, said. “They knew they could get stuff for free.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/us/dissenting-or-seeking-shelter-homeless-stake-a-claim-at-protests.html?_r=1&hp#

[blogslut]

1. OFFS

[Arctic Dave]

2. Didn't they try this meme already?

Is the times saying that if someone is without a home then they don't have a voice? They don't count? Seems this should be about them as much as anyone one else in the 99%.

[Ikonoklast]

3. Homeless people are citizens, too.

They probably have much more to protest about than the average person there.

[I Have A Dream]

6. Exactly. nt

[Earth_First]

7. +1

Thank you!

[ellisonz]

4. Hoovervilles

[Earth_First]

5. One of our biggest supporters is a local homeless man...

A man with a heart as big as Kansas.

I will not use his name here, however...

He was arrested in protest with us.

He serves on several working groups, is there almost all day and well into the night.

He helps facilitate the needs of our homeless population who frequently visit us.

So long as our homeless are not disruptive, we have encouraged EVERYONE to join us, and they have.

[PETRUS]

11. Same phenomenon at Zuccotti.

There are homeless people in working groups, doing the job of sanitation, security, etc. Even the folks who don't get too involved otherwise are helping to hold the space.

[Skittles]

8. it is possible to be homeless AND dissent

[Earth_First]

9. Most certainly!

What the media is attempting to create here is an issue that can be used to discredit OWS.

Because if the 1%ers hate anything more than #OWS, it's "homeless vagrants" squatting in their 'economic development zones'

[MADem]

10. The problem is not homeless people, it is mentally ill and unmedicated homeless people.

And like it or not, that can be problematic. Pretending it is a "meme" or a false accusation isn't going to make it go away. One homeless person in LA pointed it out in the article, along with an organizer in Nashville:

“There are a lot of them here that have mental problems and that need help. They are in the wrong place,” said Jessica Anderson, 22, who is herself homeless, sitting with friends on a tarp at the Los Angeles site. “They have been creating more problems. There was one guy who showed up last night and he would not shut up: Saying all kinds of crazy stuff all night.”

In Nashville, organizers described the homeless as more of a detriment to the movement than an asset. “This is keeping people away: It distracts a lot of energy away from the issues we’re fighting for when we’re just managing life in the camp,” said Bob Titley 56, one of the participants in Occupy Nashville. “A lot of women felt unsafe camping out at night. It discourages a lot of people from participating.”

The influx of homeless has been continuing at a steady pace, even as the overall populations of some of the demonstrations have faded under the pressures of dropping temperatures, the passage of time and increasingly aggressive police tactics. Some organizers estimated that as many as 30 percent of the people camping out in some cities were chronically homeless, a figure that seems impossible to verify.