Comments

1
Thanks for this piece, Tobias. (Your description of Jerry's body language when the guard approached made me tear up a little, but I don't hold that against you.)

About half of America lives paycheck to paycheck. Have trouble identifying with a homeless person? Remember that person could easily be you, or at the very least someone you know. Our society has no safety net.
2
@1 Jerry was a homeless vet with PTSD. He couldn't find a reliable shelter b/c most refused his service dog's papers immediately.

Don't worry, I cried a lot writing this story. And pretty much every day after work at Real Change.
3
I think about this topic a lot as I walk through Century Square to get a Starbucks and then head to work. Security guards there are also hired to keep the "undesirables" out. Just that word "undesirable" pretty much says how they treat someone who doesn't look like they're a tech worker or on their way to a corporate job, and it always bothers me. It's profiling on a most horrible level - not even on behavior, but on whether you even LOOK like you "belong" or not. It's disturbing, and I don't know what to do about it.
4
@3 Make an effort to include everyone in public spaces unless they give a clear reason not to. Step in when you see security guards profiling. If it costs you $2 for a drip coffee to give a homeless person a moment of respite in Century Square, a place to use the restroom and get their shit together, I say it's well worth it!
6
This was an interview. Where are Jerry's words?
7
@6 No, the interview was for publication in Real Change, this was a recollection.
@5 Yeah of course there are some bad actors, housed and not housed. Moving on.
This was beautifully written, thank you.
8
I call you on your concentrated vitriol toward *your* version of "other," which is anyone who sees the world differently than you do. Pearl clutchers is code for what? Single family homeowners? Women over 30? It is most certainly a slur. And to say "the Cindy Pierce's of the world". I know Cindy Pierce. She fights for homeless people harder than any advocate I've met and harder than most city council members. Buying someone a sandwich and interviewing them does not equate to making their life better. You will be a far more effective advocate when you treat all 700,000 Seattlites as people deserving of respect, and stop throwing people who do not align with your view under the bus. YOU are not helping.
9
@8 Cindy Pierce's words have done real, demonstrable harm to homeless people. See: the persistence of sweeps. You trying to flip it around act like the people with the power in the situation are the victims is a page straight out of the Richard Spencer playbook, and not a good look.

Also, you're correct, buying someone a sandwich and interviewing them does not on its own make their life better. It's a small thing. But working hard to give homeless people a voice does, as people like Cindy—people with the time and money to show up at City Hall for midday hearings—tend to dominate the conversation. I have done that work whenever I am able, and your comment is, if anything, a reminder of why it's important to continue doing it.
10
@SwampThing As if there aren't some really bad housed people? What's your point?
11
I have seen Cindy Pierce shake a Jae of needles in the face of her own Council Member demanding that "heroin RVs" be banished from Magnolia, which they were when the City posted dozens of "No Parking 2-5am" signs in that and several other neighborhoods. Cindy Pierce wants homelessness criminalized and help given only to the "deserving poor." Cindy Pierce is a pompous, self righteous bitch who should be called out for her small minded cruelty at every opportunity.

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