Housing our Unhoused Neighbors During this Winter of Pandemic

 

 

Am I Invisible?  

 

By Jacob Folger

(January 26, 2018)

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People pass me by
I must not be here
Sitting alone, down and out
No one will come near.

No gaze from another
No concern for me
I am completely by myself
On this cold street.

In the Morning I wake
From my Homeless sheets
Where I slept the night before
Should I even call it sleep?

Homeless I am
Forgotten by the world
Am I invisible?

Am I invisible?

During our Quaker Holiday Talent Show, I felt led to share this moving poem by a homeless man and also mentioned that Pasadena’s Weather Shelter will not be open this winter. The Bad Weather Shelter was started in the 1980s when a homeless person died of hyperthermia here in our city. For the last 30 years it has provided shelter for those living on the streets whenever the temperature drops below 40 or it is raining. Due to COVID, the Bad Weather Shelter will be closed and Union Station is operating at one third capacity. The reason for this is that congregate sheltering is unsafe for staff and volunteers as well as for those needing shelter. To prevent spread of disease, it is considered best practice to provide individual housing in motels

It is of course more costly to place people in motels. Funds are therefore being used to place mainly high-acuity homeless people in motels, but these funds are limited. We advocates are pressuring the City Council to allocate extra funds to meet the need--70 of us spoke out during the last Council session---and the Council heard us and said it plans to increase funding to ensure that "everyone who wants a motel voucher will receive one." We plan to hold them accountable to that promise. But more than just city funds will be needed. My advice to those who care about our homeless neighbors is to give as generously as you can to Friends Indeed. Friends Indeed is not only handling the motel placement program, it is also providing food, clothing and other necessities to those in need. See  https://friendsindeedpas.org/fid/

It will also help to write to our city officials to urge them to approve emergency measures, such as sheltering in the FEMA trailers the city received from the State or other city-owned properties, allowing shelter in tents, and suspending ordinances that prohibit sleeping in vehicles overnight and sleeping overnight on city-owned property.  as my friend Sonja Berndt wrote in an op ed piece that appeared in the Dec 21 issue of Pasadena Now:  

 

“To ensure that our unsheltered residents receive the shelter they need this winter, concerned residents can email City Manager Mermell at smermell@cityofpasadena.net, your Councilmember (if known) and Mayor Gordo at vgordo@cityofpasadena.net and request that the Council approve all funding needed to meet the demand for sheltering our residents this winter.”

For more info, see https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/guest-opinion-sonja-berndt-will-our-city-make-sure-that-our-unsheltered-residents-are-sheltered-from-the-cold-and-rain-this-winter

I also read the following poem reflecting on Christmas by Jacob Folger.

Questions For You and Me

By Jacob Folger

Christmas Eve, 2011

Stuffed and overflowing stockings hanging by the fireside

Pretty plastic candlelights glowing in the night

Sticky candy canes hanging from pine tree boughs

This all presents questions, I will in this poem pose.

When a little kid with Christmas time coming round

The joyful music, it seemed was the only sound

But really, I wonder now what it all means to me

Is it all about that perfectly shaped and lighted Christmas tree?

Little, sweet baby Jesus sleeping in some straw

It seems to me that someone might notice a little flaw

What is the difference between that dirty man without a home

And the King of Kings that almost all of us must have known?

And tell me what was that message that He gave to you and me

Before His life was ended on that old and lonely tree?

Was it all about just taking care of little, selfish me?

Or is there more here, more for all of us to see?

I asked a lot of questions in this poem this Christmas Eve

I guess this time of year, the cold, and the suffering that I see

Fills my head and heart with old and sad memories

I am hoping that maybe from it all we will not always flee.

Little, sweet baby Jesus sleeping in some straw

It seems to me that someone might notice a little flaw

What is the difference between that dirty man without a home

And the King of Kings that almost all of us must have known?