T. Marshall Jones

555 E. 5th Street Austin TX 78701  tmjen555@gmail.com

September 22, 2012

RE: An open letter to my fellow Austinites on homelessness

Dear Austinites,

Recently my wife and I started watching a new Drama on television called Perception. In this show, the protagonist, Dr. Daniel Pierce played by Eric McCormack, is an eccentric neuroscientist diagnosed and living with schizophrenia who teaches psychology in a college setting and helps the federal government (a past student specifically) solve various crimes.

Dr. Pierce hallucinates people that aren’t there often conversing with them about his thoughts and, even more often, that conversation usually leads him to the answers necessary to solve the crime. However, as with any psychological disorder, it begins to affect his ‘normal’ life and his interactions with the real world. The conundrum: get back on his meds and stop the hallucinations (and therefore the conversations that help him tap his consciousness) or continue as is and possibly sacrifice his sanity and real relationships.

What I like most about this show is the honest look at someone living a seemingly highly functional life while truly being on the brink of the end. I mean, think about it; don’t we all wonder about ourselves a little bit when we do something odd, unusual, silly, weird or just plain out character? How close might we all be to the brink?

“Are you finished yet?”

Sorry, I was just trying to let the reader in on my thoughts.

“Don’t you have something important to say? They aren’t going to stick around reading your dribble forever.”

They can always jump to the bottom if they’re out of patience, but again, my apologies. Why do we apologize so often and so readily? I’ll have to think about that, but there are some things I will not apologize for including my view of the homeless in Austin. Let me explain.

My wife and I moved downtown seven and a half years ago living at 5th and Neches in the Hilton hotel (yes, there are condos in there). Anyone who has been downtown recently knows what I mean when I say we have a terrible homeless problem. Terrible. I mean they are everywhere. All the time. Screaming, panhandling, begging, sleeping, wandering, loitering…

“Now I’m sorry. Did you say ‘they’?”

Yes. They. Them. Those people. Always panhandling. Always asking for money for the bus, for food, for beer, for anything, I know they really want to buy drugs.

“Maybe they really are hungry.”

Nope. There are 44 meals available, for free, for anyone downtown alone.

It’s not easy living downtown.

“Then why did you move there, genius?”

I didn’t realize the problem was so bad. I didn’t know my wife would be screamed at from a few feet away while walking the dog before the sun comes up. It was irritating. I decided to do something about it.

“It?”

Yes. It. So I joined in a conversation to stop panhandling downtown. We drew a circle around an area we could define as the ‘tourist zone’ (because clearly having them attacking our visitors is bad for the city economically), we made speeches, we rallied the troops and we made our pitch to City Hall.

“Crashed and burned, right Mav?”

Right. This was not a popular issue at City Hall amongst out politicians. They went out and bought ten foot poles to not touch this issue with. So now I had to try something different. I joined several groups focused on the safety of downtown. I started a blog cataloging crime in downtown. I wrote articles. I tweeted. I was determined to get these people out of my way.

“Damn right. You were just trying to live your life and had a right to do so in peace. You paid good money for that condo, you work hard and you pay your taxes.”

Damn right! We started a neighborhood watch group because of all the drug dealing going on right in front of our building. Drug dealers would walk clockwise along 5th Street from Trinity to Red River and the drug buyers would walk the same beat counter clockwise. This had to stop.

“What does that have to do with homelessness?”

Believe it or not, some of those walking counter clockwise were actually buying the drugs. As I said, begging for something other than food.

A few years went by and things remained the same. The homeless were homeless, we were not.

A funny story though, my wife and I were walking to 6th street one Sunday afternoon and as we passed Forbidden Fruit this seemingly homeless guy holding a guitar…

“Seemingly homeless? With a guitar?”

Seemingly. And yes, he had a guitar with a price tag hanging from it as if it were just purchased from a pawn shop. He was talking to two women who were in from out of town when he very, very quickly spun around and saw my wife and me. Without a pause he screamed, I mean screamed, “Jesus Christ has cursed your sex life”. Actually, to do it justice, I’ll type it like this: Jee-Zus   Christ   has  CURSED   your  SEEEXX LIIIIFE!

I have to say. I’ll never forget that man.

“Wait, so now ‘they’ are people, like you and me?”

What do you mean?

“You said ‘man’ as opposed to ‘it’.”

I never said they weren’t people did I? But no. They are not people like you and me. They live on the streets acting crazy and begging for money for drugs. That said, I kind of liked the guy that pointed out that our sex life had been cursed. Probably just saw my wedding ring.

I continued my good works downtown becoming President of the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association (DANA). We all agreed that panhandling was really a big problem and we needed to do something about it.

In my attempt to still see that there was order downtown, I was asked to join the Downtown Austin Community Court Advisory Committee (DACC).

Downtown = my neighborhood. Court = stopping people from doing the things they were doing that they should not be doing.

It is basically a City Board (very official) that helps determine the course of the Community Court and see that they do their job effectively. A community court is not like your typical municipal court in that they do not put people in jail, they instead use another type of justice ‘sentencing’ those guilty of public disorder (public intoxication, urinating in public, sitting and lying where your not allowed to, AGGRESSIVE PANHANDLING, etc) to do rehab, community service or pay a fine. Aha! This was perfect for me because I could now find out why we have so much panhandling downtown and end it.

Did you know that almost EVERY ticket given for aggressive panhandling is given to a homeless person? Same with sit/ lie. So of course the same with PI, right? Wrong. Turns out those are reserved for college kids, army servicemen on leave and knucklehead tourists.

“And you?”.

No. Remember, I live there and can stagger home pretty easily.

So now I know what I need to do: make sure we are effectively prosecuting aggressive panhandling and sit/lie and we are home free.

I served dutifully on the DACC. I did notice, however, that some of the homeless people I had come to recognize over the years were not around any more, but there were always new ones to take their place. Maybe the court was being effective, but maybe not. We should research this.

So we did. We turned the DACC in to a statistic machine. We pulled data over the life of the court and learned that (PI’s excluded) about 90ish percent of the courts clients were homeless. We learned they have co-occurring disorders including drug abuse, alcoholism, mental illness. Maybe if we were to help these people with these disorders, maybe they will leave me alone. We found out that 60 people had cases with the court since it began in 1999 and 176 people had at least 25 cases with the court in the last two years.  These people were not being properly punished or helped. They are the frequent offenders.

“Help? We? You said ‘if we help these people’.”

Maybe I did. It does seem that if we help them and get them off the streets they won’t be there to beg for money or scream at me.

But let me finish. We also learned that the homeless people are costing the taxpayer lots and lots of money by being homeless. They are mass users of our emergency systems including EMS, AFD, emergency rooms, court visits and more. For the amount of money we spend on them how can they need more of my money on the streets?

So basically, it’s less expensive to house the homeless than it is to leave “$1 million Milton”…

“Nice Malcolm Gladwell reference, but actually it’s Murray”

Thanks. Murray. Turns out it’s less expensive to house the homeless than it is to allow them to remain on the streets. So just economically it’s makes sense to house the homeless so let’s just do that.

“Seems humane of you.”

Not humane per se, but economical. So we looked in to what it would take to house the homeless.

We learned that we are unable to house our clients because there are no houses for them. They’re crazy. They’re criminals. They have no money. They have nowhere to go.

I was then asked to join the board of ECHO. The Ending Community Homelessness Coalition. I was ecstatic because I now had a new means to my ends. If I can help ECHO house the homeless, I can finally resolve my problem.

“Your problem? What a pompous ass. Did you ever consider there are other people affected by the homeless?”

Of course. It told you I was the President of DANA. I have spoken to countless people about our homeless population. I mean, these are my neighbors. Of course I know tit affects more than just me.

“Neighbors?”

Sure. I told you I was president of DANA. I have lots of neighbors.

“Do you have any other ‘neighbors’?”

Not that I can think of. Wait! Do you mean the HOMELESS?

“Sure. Why not? Are they not living downtown as well?”

Well, I guess so. Nonetheless, I prefer they live in a home.

“So that they stop ‘begging’ you?”

Nice play on words. Not so they stop bugging me.

“Well, how’s it going?”

How’s what going?

“Housing the homeless?”

Terrible! We can’t find them housing anywhere. Did you know that in order to get housed you need an ID. You have to pass credit and criminal background checks. You have to have $35 for an application fee and then be able to pay rent.  How in the hell are they supposed to get an ID, pass a bunch of checks and get money.  They’re homeless for christ’s sake.

“So what can you do?”

What can we do, you mean. We have to find a way to break down all these barriers to housing. We need to get people housed first and then worry about getting them an ID and application fees. Almost all of them qualify for Social Security to pay their rent. But in the current system this can all take 240 days and that’s with professional case managers helping them every step of the way.

“That’s a long time, but why does it matter that they get housed before becoming technically eligible to move in to their home?”

Why?? Because 140 people experiencing homelessness died in the streets last year!! That’s one person every three days! In the 240 days it takes to house a homeless person, 80 people will have died. Eighty!

“Not to mention they won’t be sitting in your way, lying in the streets, panhandling and screaming at you.”

Screaming at me? They should be screaming at everyone. No matter how loud they scream, no one seems to be listening.

“You seem to be listening.”

Am I? I adopted a dog to keep it from being put to sleep; why haven’t I adopted a person?

“That’s not how it works. Earlier you said you wanted the homeless off the streets to end ‘public disorder’. Maybe you really want them off the streets so they stop dying in a terribly inhumane manner.”

Of course I want them to be allowed to die inside. More importantly I want them to be able to live. In a home. They’re people. Not like you and me because something changed in their lives stacking the odds against them causing them to live day to day outside in the heat and cold. The rain and wind. Dirty with no shower. No bathroom. No water. No dignity.

“Like you said: They are homeless, you’re not”

No. I am not. However, I could be. All of us could be. Many of us are one bad incident away from being in the same situation. Divorce, medical bills, alcoholism, a bad decision.  None of us are invincible. Any of us could end up homeless. After all, almost no one is born into a life of homelessness. They end up that way.

“Sounds like you care. Sounds like you no longer care about public disorder and you actually care about the people who are currently homeless. It sounds like you want your fellow Austinites to help you end homelessness.”

Yes. It does sound like that. It is that. We can argue about panhandling, sit/lie, safety and many other issues resulting from homelessness, but that is not homelessness.

“It’s not?”

No, it’s not. It’s a result of being homeless. You see, if you put a homeless person in a home, they are no longer homeless are they? That’s the point. Hungry people need food, jobless people need jobs and homeless people need homes. If we house the homeless, they won’t act homeless. Because they won’t be homeless.

“True.”

So now I ask you to help me. Help me end homelessness. Help stop people dying in the streets. Help people live in homes.

Vote ‘Yes’ to proposition 15.

Vote ‘Yes’ to proposition 1.

Donate to ECHO.

Reach out to me for more ways you can help women, children and men alike live. Inside. With dignity.

Sincerely yours,

T. Marshall Jones