I have been served notice today that Shasta County decided to pursue the charges against me for the criminal offense of sleeping. 49 weeks after the incident. They have given me 4 weeks to appear in court despite my request for more time as I am living in Thailand now. My original plan, below, was to become homeless in protest and live outside the courthouse... but I am glad I didn't, I don't think I would have lasted 49 weeks. Especially not in Shasta County.
This was the plan;
Becoming Homeless Action Plan
The first feeling that arises is… stress. There is fear, but more prevalent is a stress of obligation with a smaller uncertainty of the discomforts awaiting. I have ten days left to make a decision, to make a plan, to build the resolve to follow it through. This moment is overpowering all my other life considerations save but one. I would really appreciate the Fates allowing a reunion with my wife.
My wife must wait. The California Judicial and Executive guarantee of an arrest warrant being issued if I keep to my original plans has too heavy of life consequences and repercussions. The authority of the Shasta County administrative masters is too real to ignore, and the complications too chaotic to handle. The navigation of the American legal system is no easy burden. Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness is now on hiatus. If I may quote F. Herbert; “Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.” I apologize for waxing idealistically poetic, just practicing for the verbal and mental parry in the courtroom that will determine my life course in 2023.
Or, perhaps, I will just hire a lawyer, it is an undue financial burden but… I don’t feel it is fair to me either way… to spend my time, or my money, or both, defending myself from an accusation of fucking ‘sleeping’. I can’t even begin to describe how enraging such a charge is. But, it isn’t fair to keep Jaybird waiting on me because of this.
My mother was indigent for a time. I wanted to tell her how proud I was of her, for enduring those years in the van with more grace than I believe I could have. Perhaps some of my motivation is from a place of guilt for not helping her more than I did. I managed to fumble my burden of responsibility to her as much as I felt she did to me in my youth. But, that is an exploration for later, perhaps I will have the time to consider my interpersonal dramas and traumas while protesting homeless in front of the Shasta Courthouse.
I don’t want to be homeless. Yet, I refuse to accept the legitimacy of a law criminalizing sleep. Sleeping is a human right, and deprivation of it is considered a violation of Constitutional (8th Amendment) rights… when used on prisoners. How then can the United States government justify its use as a deterrent to the existence of American, albeit indigent American, citizens? Can any possible benefit, other than the discrimination and forced exodus of the poor from a community… can any benefit of this law be articulated?
VERY IMPORTANTLY: SLEEPING IS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT.
While on a roadtrip to Oregon to see my mother I stopped for a nap in Shasta County, California. I pulled into a Camping World parking lot and was perceived to be a transient human by some passing cops. I was treated in something other than a pleasant manner, handcuffed, detained, and my phone and vehicle visually ‘investigated’. I was formally accused of the criminal acts of sleeping and camping. I was threatened with jail and clearly told to get out of town, and more concerning than anything else, I was made to feel less than entitled to my rights as an American, as a human.
Redding is not the location of the violation, but it is where I considered the situation I was placed in during my attempted nap in Shasta County. 42 is no longer the age location of my life in this event, but it is still the perspective of experience from which I approach it. Notes as follows:
Homeless feels synonymous with ‘outsider’. Beneath the organization of society, not entitled to the same considerations. There is a mentality that pervades Shasta County, a feeling of you’re either with us or against us. Like a stop at Station Eleven on a traveling symphony 10 Years After the collapse of society. “I’d love to change the world but I don’t know what to do.” The New American Attitude™.
Questions
Do homeless citizens have the same rights as resident citizens?
How to hold all accountable?
Problems
Homelessness is a problem. If you don’t believe it, ask anyone who is homeless. Then ask who is at fault? Is there a personal responsibility for that situation? Is it an issue of fall down, stay down and society is culpable? How much fault, praise, blame, consideration is given to each? How much personal accountability do you and I have toward the condition of life for our fellow human? A democracy requires we all be represented, our voices heard, our grievances addressed. Are the homeless all victims of their own choices and actions? Or ours? Surely both must have affected our current California.
How many of us are flawed characters in this Shakespearean comedy and tragedy of being human? All of us.
Are there really so many bad people, personalities that simply can not function in our society, our economy? 200,000 people live homeless in California. Social darwinism is a real son-of-a-bitch.
How/Action
First, get the camping charge dismissed so the focus is entirely on the sleeping charge. I was there with permission, it is omnibus notum understood you may camp at Camping World when tired on a roadtrip.
Research locations of resources, public library, courthouse, public transportation, places to stay warm, to sleep
It is unethical to use these resources without an actual need… how to navigate that?
The only ethical move is to have the homeless voluntarily tell their stories, hopefully the truth, and give them the opportunity to do so anonymously.
I would love to have our public officials answer all these difficult questions, not so anonymously. When we ask these questions there are never direct answers, never satisfactory authenticity, or there is an outright decline to take a stand on their beliefs. We ask again and again;
How is our local government addressing the issues of large corporate interests continuing to affect control on our national politics and policies, and continuing to do so in a way that disproportionately benefits a minority financial interest, undermines the values of democracy, and causes economic instability.
How is our local government addressing the symptoms of this influence, obscene global and national greed and the indifference to a crumbling economy that is killing the poor, and killing the middle class to replace the poor. We are being culled from the bottom up.
These are rhetorical statements more than actual questions. The local governments are doing nothing, they have as much power to affect change in this regard as the gentleman pushing his stolen shopping cart of soiled clothes to the laundromat.
I would like to add, of the corporate interests affecting control of our national politics and policies none is more blameworthy than the multinational financial system. The evidence that economic instability, being beneficial to the banks as was clearly shown in the 08 subprime mortgage scandal, can be considered a shrewd wealth strategy. The banks are unregulated, sure they must pay fines when they break the rules, but "illegal by a fine means legal for a price". The banks were declared too big to fail. Too Big To Fail. So, that means violations are only bribe payments since any actual recourse that would threaten the institution is… is just not possible… the citizen taxpayers are required to cover expenses. I had so much hope for the Occupy movement.
Focused Action
I just realized I have jumped tracks of thought. These are parallel tracks but it comes back to how do I fight an unfair, unconstitutional law? Just plead Not Guilty? A technical win of one. Each point counts but there isn’t much progress up the field of play. How do we win the game?
Email/Contact/Research agencies (gov., non-profit, citizen groups) that help the homeless. TikTok? Youtube? I thoroughly dislike those mediums of expression. Should I email Anderson Police Department and see if they can be allies, or are they the natural enemy of progress in empathy toward the poor? Just kidding. I was treated as an enemy and treated with prejudice.
I must stay as neutral as possible. It’s all subjective… but I need to try.
How to interview the homeless? Talk to them? I don’t think I’m a good enough writer, coherent enough, to tell their stories. Have them tell their own stories, thoughts, feelings… that feels right. Just create a platform for their expression.
No… I must be homeless, I must experience it. I must go to Redding and protest as a homeless man, chant. Originally I was considering “No Rest, No Peace. Know Peace, Know Rest.” Then, I was considering song lyrics, Underwear inside the pants song, Ghost of Tom Joad.. but instead I think I will just yell out positive affirmations, I believe the root issue is so much anger and hate thrown back and forth between people, building as it does, snowballing into an avalanche that will bury us all… I want to start positive reinforcements and hope for humanity, I want to chant to people; “You will accomplish all you have set out to do today!” (Hopefully that won’t be directed at my prosecuting attorney) and “The difficulties you face will be overcome”, “You are a beautiful person” “Do not let the things you can not do stop you from doing those you can”... Chants of that sort. It’s the only answer.
Decision
Okay, fuck, I’m afraid. All these paragraphs have just been an avoidance of facing the facts in the very first paragraph. There is danger from the authorities. Danger from the parts of society that the cops won’t be able, won’t want to, protect me from. Danger from the cops themselves. What higher authority can I ask protection from? The highest authority in my life has always seemed to be simply luck. It has always been tempting to imagine a guiding angel, but I think I’ve just been lucky. So, good luck to me, cheers to not getting my skull bashed in by a cruel drunken bum-hunt party. Cheers to not meeting the same fate by a billy-club. Cheers to not meeting the same fate by a drug addicted fiend desperate for what few possessions and money I will have on me. Cheers to not freezing to death sleeping outside in winter. There was a lady who was recently accidentally driven over (to death) by a garbage truck while she was camped on the side of a service road. I would assume it was an accident by either party, for if not it is more of a tragedy than I want to imagine.
Not convinced I can do this. I have to give it my best shot. Well, I’ve got to give it a shot. Kinda hard when I haven’t determined my ultimate agenda.
#1) Get home to jay asap. That means no getting bashed, no getting arrested, no prolonging the case… shortest route to jay.
#2) Justice.
I now need to experience what I have been accused of being; a man without resource or home. I need to see if sleeping is as criminal as I was made to feel. I need to see if the homeless population of Shasta is as criminal as the police present them.
I will be selling my car and restricting access to my own money, so I will have few available resources, not much other than the dollars I will begin with. I will also have the government/agency services designed to help the homeless, and the goodwill of the people I meet, but I can’t in good conscience use these resources. I am trying to stay optimistic about what I may experience, but I am terrified of doing this.
Can I really make a difference? How much will this cost me?
I don’t know how to go about documenting this experience, the logistics of trying to upload video/audio from the street, and the intrusiveness of video recording seems both difficult and dangerous. I would prefer to just write about the experience but I’m not convinced people would be interested in just reading… blogging is out, vlogging is in. I have almost zero experience vlogging, so I don’t know what equipment would be ideal. I am considering using my phone to make live stream videos, but I would still need someone able to record the call. I need help with this.
On my first day of homelessness I went to meet a friend for lunch and chat about my issue and my ability to have any affect on the world. He advised me to forget it, fighting the American Government is a no-win situation, I am paraphrasing, but that was essentially his advice. On our walk after lunch we passed this vehicle, it had been ticketed and looked abandoned. There was a bed laid out in the back, just another city camper, probably not of the vacation variety. Everywhere I looked there were signs of a collapsing empire. Should have made a quick vlog video. That's not really my style though.
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