NOTE: This is part of a continuing series on long-time WitnessLA commenter, Richard LoCicero, who—due to a series of circumstances (and unbeknownst to his online friends and sparring partners)—has for the past few years been homeless, living first in his car and then more recently on the street in Orange County. For the full series click here.
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Although he’d been dropping in from time to time to post in the comments section of WitnessLA, I had not gotten a personal update from Richard for a while. But then a week ago, he sent me this fragment of an essay:
As I approach what the writers call the “Autumn of my Years” I find myself once more enjoying a second childhood. That is, a second childhood courtesy of the law which makes ‘sleeping rough’ an offense. We used to have these things called ‘Curfews’ in California and it made it illegal for someone under the age of 18 to be out at night after 10 PM. Maybe some of you remember the TV Stations stentoriously announcing: ‘Its Ten PM. Do you know where your child is?’ Well those laws were called ‘Status Offenses’ and since only the status of age made it an offense the curfew got repealed.
Well, Homelessness is another type of ‘status offense,” and while nobody comes out and says it directly in this way, its illegal to be on the streets. As Celeste pointed out the other day you can be ticketed, have that ticket go to warrant and then, irony of ironies, be eligible for a period of government housing—called ‘Jail’—which is probably more expensive for taxpayers to fund than shelters or SROs.
Everyone I know on the street has a story about the hassling. It is part of the life. They also discuss having their belongings seized and their ‘camps’ razed.
(Yes Virginia, the homeless go ‘camping’
I’m wondering – is anybody out there aware of a room I could use? Just asking. I know its hard and all that but if I don’t ask….
Yesterday, Richard emailed another essay of sorts. When I received it, for some reason a whole chunk of the text was cut off. Frustrated at the truncation, I wrote him back to tell him so and asked if there was any way he could recover the rest.
In order to email or to post on a blog (He posts at Marc Cooper’s blog too), Richard uses a computer at whatever public library that is nearest where he is staying that day. Obviously this means that there is no way of saving text, or a file. So any archiving of the journal I’ve asked him to write, or anything else he might try to compose, has to be done by others. or not at all. Electronically speaking, each time Richard sits down at the computer he must rebuild from the ground up.
A few weeks ago, in response to my request, he was working on a narrative that was to describe how and why he went from college teacher to a man sleeping on public benches, but he had put that aside, he said, because right now it depressed him. I notice that Richard’s moods tend to dive as he nears the end of the month, which is premably when his money starts to run out.
Despite his difficult—often dire—situation, Richard is not, at least in my experience, prone to self-pity (although admittedly my contact with him has been limited to online or emailed exchanges, and more recently some phone conversations at the early part of July when he had the money for a few nights at a Motel 6, thus could be reached by telephone). But sometimes the circumstances of his life seem to rush together into some kind of critical mass that suddenly becomes too wearying for him to carry. Thursday seemed to be one of those days.
Right now I’m too disgusted so maybe I’ll try to rewrite the missing part later. But I’m totally flumoxed for now. You can’t image how depressed I am.
I don’t know where it went. This is getting old. I’m tired, and I can’t stay out on the street. Its much worse than living in my car. And I’m broke. And I can’t get to food kitchens so I’ll go hungry this week.
Yeah! I’m doin’ fine!
Then a while later, I got a this email.
An occupational hazard of the homeless struck today. Someone ran off with one of my bags containing most of my clothes and ALL of my meds. Now I’ll have to go and see if MediCal will replace them – there’s a limit on how many per month. I’m almost sure to end up back in hospital now. If I do I’ll call you from there.
Can things get any worse?
Scrambling clumsily for a response that might be even marginally helpful, I typed back the following:
This is horrible, Richard. Thereʼs got to be some kind of strategy. Youʼre so bright. It doesnʼt make sense that youʼre stuck in this situation. Let me know what happens.
Celeste, my “strategy” is simple. I need a place to stay. Now that I’ve lost all the contact info I’ll have to start over. But right now I’m too tired and depressed. Frankly, the only up time I have is on line where I can talk of other things. But the grim fact is I’m out of money and too sick to walk to the soup kitchens so my “enforced” diet is on again. Yeah, I really don’t want to say more but I’m nearing the rope’s end.
Sorry, don’t mean to bum you out. Its my doing, after all.
To be continued….
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SIDE NOTE: The video above is a clip of Bruce Springsteen singing “The Ghost of Tom Joad” with Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine sitting in. It was recorded this past April on the second night of Springsteen’s two concerts at the Honda Center in Anaheim. I happened to be there and, as Morello blazed in with his bad boy baritone growl for the song’s second duet, all at once Bruce’s 1995 social justice ballad was reinvented as a hybrid of weapon and blessing, then blew itself through the roof with a force strong enough to heal the lame or start a new religion. This was especially true at the very end when Bruce nodded to Morello who, at the cue, launched into an incendiary guitar solo that this YouTube clip doesn’t really do justice. (But at least it will give you an idea.)
(And in case you can’t read the lettering on Morello’s custom stratocaster, it says: ARM THE HOMELESS.)
Look: obviously, listening to a song played by an aging rocker and his guitar whiz friend does nothing at all to help Richard or anyone else struggling with homelessness. But, still, the perfomance is loaded with passion and heart, and on dark days I figure we need all the passion and heart we can get. That’s probably true on the light days too.
A thanks to Richard for letting this be shared.
There was a This American Life story not too long ago about two guys that were going to be evicted, so they voluntarily went homeless. It didn’t have a happy ending, but in their initial interviews, they made being homeless seem easy as long as you could find stuff to do during the day and knew the places to go for food and clothes. True, they were in NYC, but still, the show gave me a weird feeling.
It’s also helpful to have this as a reminder to anyone that assumes that anyone that’s homeless is an addict, and somehow therefore deserving of their status, or just doesn’t want to work.
I’m not picking on Richard, because this is a larger problem than just him, but there surely have been numerous taxpayer-funded programs and church offers through which he and other homeless have benefited but which ran out or they slipped through–most likely by their own doing. Can society be expected to score 100% on saving people when the people needing help just make it harder?
I would be interested in seeing a list of the programs from which Richard benefited and what happened that he is no longer receiving help from them–and, possibly, which programs exist for which he has not applied.
Finally, out of an area of millions of liberals, I can’t believe that there isn’t someone who can offer Richard a place to stay. Who do you know, Celeste?
Celeste: Look: obviously, listening to a song played by an aging rocker and his guitar whiz friend does nothing at all to help Richard or anyone else struggling with homelessness.
Besides making himself and others feel good by the song, Springsteen could have donated the profits from that song to help the homeless.
Right now, my teenage son is intentionally trying to drive me crazy by playing “Southern Man” and other protest songs on the other side of the room.
I’m hoping someone has an idea, Woody. Hence the post.
About Bruce, all the proceeds from that song—his profits, those of the muscians, the record company, the song writers, the music publishers, and the first year of the iTunes profit—and also the same profits from a bunch songs and videos that were recently released on iTunes from that tour—are going to charity. Specifically, the money is being donated to the Danny Federici Melanoma fund, which goes straight to Sloan Kettering for research of the disease.
Danny Federici was the organ, glockenspiel, and accordion player for Springsteen’s E Street Band for the last 38 years. He died of cancer nine days after this song was recorded.
http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html
Richard, go to a nearby church of at least moderate size (a regular one, not a liberal one) and tell them that you need some food and a place to stay. They usually will provide church-paid tickets good for meals at a local cafeteria and a room at nearby motel. From your name, you’re probably Catholic, and they are always there to help. That doesn’t last forever, but, if football teams get time-outs to rest, so should you.
Celeste, that is good news about Springsteen, or, as you call him, Bruce.
In my past experience as a church-going active member and fundraiser (incl. for an xlnt homeless project called PATH — People Assisting the Homeless– run out of Westwood Presbyterian in West LA), if you join one of the smaller to mid-size churches of a more evangelical bent, as a member someone is likely to take a personal interest and take you home until they find a place for you. Of course, they’d drive ric nuts, with his politics, which is the only fatal flaw to this plan. Evangelicals or those leaning that way ARE a lot more likely to give someone an actual hand up than liberals, who are always “too busy” to do more than help with charities as their time or money allows.
This doesn’t address Richard’s most pressing problem, but as far as having his own electronic database he should try Google Documents. I use it all the time to make documents if I’m worried about accessing them from different computers. God, I sound like a mad evil flack. I swear, I’m not! But google documents really is magic if you don’t have a flash drive.
I’m not useful for any of the big problems but then again I don’t know how many people are here in LA. This is the homeless capital of the US, right? Yeah, I’d say go to a church. Maybe a Franciscan one? The Franciscans are all about working with the poor, hungry and sick. Now I sound like a Catholic flack.
Thanks, paperback, for the Google documents tip. I’ll tell him. Listen, it’s often the small frustrations that make the big one’s worse.