It's All About the Shizit

September 24, 2012

Dear Aram James,

Once again you've crystallized an important conclusion.

You commented on Liz Kniss' hitting the s**t on Saturday (9/14/12) at the candidates' debate. (But she was no Mrs. Robinson. I saw The Graduate 29 times and she is no Mrs. Robinson.)

NOTE TO MS. KNISS: You sure did hit the shizit. You found the fecal, Friend. It's all out there now. Talk about putting your business in the street! It's on now! Yes, it is out, Scout.

Seriously, you performed a great service. You identified the nub of the support for the Vehicle Habitation Ordinance (VHO) for at least a certain part of the population. Call it—to use your phrase—“The Personal Business Faction.”

One of the proper functions of a leader is to highlight and communicate the essence of an issue--what really matters—for members of the public.

As I understand you, you are saying that for those opposed to allowing people to be free to live in/out of vehicles the main, motivating concern is where/how/when these people toilet themselves.

Is there some reason to think that houseless people forget toilet training? Or are not able to figure out where they can get bathroom access? Don't people using parks or just doing their jobs or chores or out running errands have the same challenge?

It can be messy, but it's much better to get it out rather than hold it in. If it's about the s**t, I say let it ALL hang out! I praise you for calling it what it is. It is about people's personal business. I think you hit the mother lode.

I think you've addressed the very core of the concern. It's not about po' folk having the nerve to live out of vehicles--when everyone knows the NORMAL thing to do would be living out of over priced housing like most everyone else in sunny Palo Alto—it's this big unknown, nagging question, “Where do these people s**t?”

(I keep wondering if the people who seem to want to take away our vehicles have thought through where they want us to go after we lose our vehicles. Their lawns? Downtown sidewalks? The low-cost and below-market-rate housing that the Association of Bay Area Governments is “shoving down our throats”? Oh, that's right, such housing is heavily resisted and avoided whenever possible.)

And a very white-bread, middle-class concern this is—the defecation location question. And don't white-bread, middle-class concerns have a right to be represented and heard?

Where/how/when do houseless people s**t? Let me say to all people so concerned—and I speak on behalf of a wide swath of hoboes, houseless, and transients when I say it--“Thank you, for making our fecal matters the focus of your concern. Who knew you even cared?”

  Let me assure you all that we all have toileting issues and take care of them much the way you all do, with just a little less convenience.  Maybe.  For all I know, my bathroom issues may be less burdensome than yours.

You'd have to ask others who sleep in cars and on the ground to get a fuller picture, but it seems to me you just figure out somewhere you can use a toilet before you go to bed and use it before you go to bed.

Thanks to the generosity of private Palo Alto residents, there are a number of bathrooms available 24/7 in the City, even though the City itself has a policy against allowing bathrooms in parks to be available at night. Sometimes the City builds parks purposely without bathrooms. Sometimes it just closes them at night.

I've been houseless here in Palo Alto for three years this past July.  I slept in the tilt-back front seat of my car in the alley behind Happy Donuts for the first year.  I just went in Happy Donuts and used the bathroom there whenever I needed to.  There is also a bathroom Jim Davis is kind enough to leave open 24/7 in his Valero station on the corner of Los Robles and El Camino Real, just down the street from Happy Donuts.  

And there's another in the Safeway on Middlefield that's open all night.  That's not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea.  There ARE bathrooms available.  There should be MORE bathrooms available--for us, for parents and grandparents who have to take their kids home from parks because there's no bathroom there, for shoppers, bicyclists, walkers, seniors--just folks who might need one.

After my year in the front seat of my car in the alley behind Happy Donuts, I developed swollen lower legs. I slept out on the ground in a couple of secluded spots. Then I went into the shelter in the Armory in Sunnyvale the following winter.  That is a fine program. I was reluctant at first. But after one night, I never left. Being able to sleep safe on a mattress on a flat floor was much better for my legs—much better than when they weren't supported in my front seat.  

After the Armory closed at the end of March, I slept outside again, but iit was still kind of chilly. I'd get up in the middle of the night and go to the Coin Wash next to Happy Donuts and sleep on the folding table in the back. Almost no one washed clothes after two a.m.

Eventually I applied and got into the Hotel de Zink where you rotate from one church to another for three months.  Also a fine shelter program.  Both the Armory and the Hotel de Zink had bathrooms, warmth, safety, and you could stretch out flat.  

Now I'm back sleeping in my car. I lost a bunch of weight and learned from a very tall unsheltered friend who asked if she could sleep on the front seat of my car one night that I could curl up on the back seat. At least my legs are on the same level with my heart, which the doctor says is mad important for heart health. I park near Happy Donuts and have the use of their bathroom again.  

Others spend the night parked in their cars nearby. Happy Donuts is one of the great houseless resources on the Peninsula. It has drawn unhoused folks from San Jose to San Francisco who need a place to spend the night.  When you're tired of riding the "Hotel 22" (Number 22 VTA bus), you stumble on into Happy Donuts and spend the rest of the night with your head down on the table in front of you or hanging back or nodding. Or you stay up and watch movies or play games or do school work or read or research or have interesting conversations or write or work on projects for work or for your own startup or email or browse the web for whatever you're interested in.  

The Coin Wash next door is open 24/7 like Happy Donuts and you can watch TV there, do a laundry, read, or just sit. Sleeping there can get you awakened by some interesting people at all times of the night and early morning. After being chased out a half dozen times, I began to think I wasn't welcome and just didn't come back anymore.

But I digress from the focus on feces.

I looked into the issues bothering the Greenmeadow Neighborhood Association (GNA) about the people camping in cars and on the ground at Cubberley.  The GNA folks also said they were quite concerned about "defecating and urination" by the people there.

One night when I was sleeping there (on a rectangular table on the plaza behind the library), I found the Foothill College men's room was open instead of locked as usual. It was a weekend night and there was a sign on the inside of the door saying that the bathroom was open on weekend nights.

Some checking with other car campers there revealed that the bathrooms WERE actually open on SOME weekend nights.  They were SUPPOSED to be open on ALL weekend nights (why not weekday nights also?), but when the weekend custodian was the one who didn't like houseless folks, the bathrooms were NOT open.  On the weekends when the custodian who WAS a houseless "car camper" at Cubberley was working, he left the bathrooms unlocked.

But even though the bathrooms are usually locked, there's still always a port-a-potty at the edge of parking lot where it meets the playing fields.

So, here was my proposal to the GNA, through their very friendly, very reasonable president Zachi Baharav:  Let's work together on getting those bathrooms open EVERY night and then your concerns are answered AND those who live there can live a little more easily—more like YOU'D like to be able to if you found that your best option was to live in your vehicle parked in some semi-friendly location.

That was at least semi-reasonable, right? Would you believe Zachi was not able to find anyone who had toilet concerns who was also willing to meet, to discuss, or even correspond on the subject? I was quite amazed.

So, that's why my hat is off to you, Ms. Kniss.  You popped the cork, opened the floodgates, called it what it is. I do thank you for making something clear--how basic this concern is.  And that it must be dealt with—it can't be ignored just because it's icky. You have shown the way.

My statement is:  we unsheltered take care of our s**t.  We (in general) use toilets whenever available and clean up after ourselves when they are not.  We take precautions and figure out where we can go when we need to go.  

There really is not as great a problem here as you might think from hearing the concerns expressed.  I've smelled a lot worse streets in most other places I've lived. Also, there are certain sights and sounds that one experiences in any and every urban location--and in most places it's getting more like that all the time. In Palo Alto the houseless population is not increasing. 

For those caught in the jaws of the economic trap often referred to as the "greatest transfer of wealth from poor and working people to the wealthy in the history of this country," there are certain dislocations in more than regular housing. Convenient toilet access is not the only problem.  

Decisions were made, countries were invaded, dead and dying are still multiplying.  Private enrichment at public expense has run riot and still rages on barely abated.  Wars--very, very expensive wars--were waged and not paid for.  Tax cuts were lavished on the populace and not paid for. Liar loans by investment banks (well, almost) were approved.  

Wouldn't it be awfully strange if those who've borne the brunt of the transfer of wealth didn't show a sign or two of despair, poverty, and deprivation? Losing jobs, homes, vehicles (from lots of causes, not just anti-vehicle habitation ordinances)--all these lead to many dislocations—some physical, some psychological. Houseless people—poor people-- have many pressures, worries, fears, and things to think about—where to use a toilet is only one of those concerns.

What are we going to do, Palo Alto?  Continue with the policy of "No Potties For the Poor" (So They Can Be Further Marginalized For Public Defecation?) like the mean custodian at Cubberley?  Or are you going to be like the good custodian at Cubberley and try to solve a "problem," instead of exacerbate it?

Don't be an exacerbater.  Open up the bathrooms. Cleanliness for all! 

I ask you, Ms. Kniss, to take up this challenge. You've identified the issue, clarified the issue--now bring porcelain to the poor!  Help clean up this problem.  You were the first to call it by name.  Lead the crusade. Let a thousand toilets  flush!

Chuck Jagoda, Houseless Advocate