Email Number One to City of Oxnard, dated June 13th, 2019.
My name is Peter. I was in the process of delivering my attached memo to the unhoused of the Armory when I received the no-go zone memo from the city.
My memo is about bringing us, all of us, together as a community. The memo we received from the city is something quite different.
It represents a marked departure from my perception of local folks opinion of us, and I think it will have quite a galvanizing effect on the social justice warrior contingent around the country as they peruse all the marked-off areas of public property we–as homeless people–are not allowed to exist upon. During certain hours, that is. When we’d be visible, I suppose.
This has made my job remarkably easy now. I thought I was going to have a challenge getting people interested in having social media accounts. Now, I’ve got folks asking when we’re gonna meet as a group.
I was trying to organize a community from out of the family we’ve become. Instead, it seems I’ve been handed a ready-made movement.
Funny how He works.
We’ll meet tomorrow and decide how to proceed. News release, press conference, that kind of thing. We’ll have some ACLU lawyers weigh-in on the ‘no-go zone for those without housing’.
We’ll interview local businesses that collect hundreds of dollars daily from us and ask which sidewalks are okay for us to be on and which are not.
We’ll get a news crew to take a walk around the area with us, so they can see the ‘debilitating effects of our presence for themselves.
We’ll take panoramic photos of all the places we could queue up where NO ONE would be bothered by the sight of us, where churches would bring us food daily.
Then we’ll all take the long, long walk of shame around town down to where we’re allowed to be.
We’ll be together as a group, the elderly, the crippled, the children. The press.
Email number two, to City of Oxnard, Mercy House. dated June 14th, 2019
When I send a letter on an important topic, such as a community harassment issue or welcoming new advocates and shelter management to the area, and I don’t recieve so much as a reply, I have to assume that the reader is hostile to our goals.
When meetings are held without representation from the subjects of the meetings themselves, despite clear and easy contact information, I start thinking about scorched earth marketing.
The local press might not want to publicly rip Oxnard a new one, and, really…they shouldn’t have to.
You know who can’t wait to do just that? Every other press outlet in the world.
I think I should hear something from the city by end of business today.
If you think we’re going to let you drive the elderly and infirm miles on foot each day, for no reason at all, you are sadly misinformed.