A group of unhoused people fight for a tiny plot of land and a radical idea : NPR

Scott Detrow, host:

Since President Trump deployed the National Guard and has claimed Washington control, DC police forces, dozens of homeless camps in the district have been authorized. And while many aspects of Trump’s strength show at DC are unique, it is not special. The political leaders of the two parties have repressed the populations of the homeless in recent years. California Governor Gavin Newsom, a frequent Trump critic, published a decree last year that ordered the Campements to clear state agencies. “Snap Judgment” by KQED has just published a five-part series which follows a homeless group in Oakland, California, and their fight for a radical idea, their own land in the city where they could establish their own rules and live according to their own conditions. The series is called “a little intrigue”. Host Shaina Shealy followed this small group for years and is there with me in the studio. To welcome.

Shaina Shealy, Byline: Hi. Thank you for doing me.

Detrow: How did you find this story?

Shealy: Yes, so during the locking of 2020, like many people, I started walking in my neighborhood and I lived in Oakland. So I started to see these signs of homeless all around me.

Detow: Yeah.

Shealy: And it was then that I came across this new local on a group of people who lived in a park in Oakland along the water called Union Point. When I went to meet people there, I immediately knew it was a group of people I wanted to follow.

Detow: Yeah, right away?

Shealy: Immediately. I mean, the first person I spoke with, his name was Deanna Riley. She was 45 years old. She had been homeless for a little over a decade. Many of her children were also homeless. And the people of the park, they called him mom D. As, adult adults called him mom. And she had six tents in the park there.

Detow: Very good, let’s listen to this.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “Snap Judgment”)

Deanna Riley: The tent turned into several tents. I had to have one for my bathtub.

Shealy: Did your bathtub had its own tent?

Riley: Yeah.

Shealy: And how did you have hot water?

Riley: Boil.

Shealy: Did you, like a small stove?

Riley: Like, propane – I had one, and I just put big pots of water.

Shealy: What were your other tents for? You have six – one for your bathtub, one for your clothes …

Riley: One for your clothes, one for a place for girls if we wanted to go and be girls because I also had a lot of nieces there.

Shealy: In any case, for several reasons, the city was desperate to make Mama D and the others who lived in Union go outside the park. And when the public works employees came to sweep the camp, this group of people actually organized to prevent the city. So they had elections. There was a mayor and a spokesperson. And then they collected large items like a broken dishwasher and a toilet seat and a burst mattress. And they used these articles to build a barricade around their tents camp. And yes, there was a confrontation of several days with public works employees.

Detrow: What happened next? – Because often there can be a dead end for a little time, but people give off the camp. What happened next?

Shealy: right. The residents, they did this really remarkable thing. They refused the usual offer of temporary housing in the city, and they negotiated something better, something they wanted.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “Snap Judgment”)

Riley: running water.

Matt: showers and bathroom.

Riley: A package for three to five years.

Matt: Weekly waste Camicette, a small community of houses and ours.

Riley: And we don’t want to do without each other.

Shealy: more importantly …

Matt: A certain level of autonomy.

Shealy: The city has agreed to support this group to build its own small village on a plot of land in the city. And the residents themselves, they could decide the rules. And the idea was that if it worked, you know, if the people in the park could really succeed, they hoped that they would have given the example, a kind of model that could help other homeless people in Oakland.

Detrow: This experience is therefore underway. You point out that. I wonder – what surprised you the most when you spent time with Mama D and the others there?

Shealy: Yes, I really don’t want to give spoilers because I really think everyone should listen to the end. But what I can say is that I stayed with this group for more than a year. And whenever I was with them, something happened which, as, was not at all what I expected. There was this group meeting, for example, and it was after months and months of this group while waiting for land for their experience. And the city finally announced that they had found a place. The field was actually in this very beautiful place, and I thought everyone would be delighted. But it was quite the opposite.

(Soundbite of Podcast, “Snap Judgment”)

Riley: The site of the site is a problem for me. We would have these houses, but whoever saw her child put in a body bag and have to see this [expletive] every day? No, nobody did it but me.

Shealy: Mama D’s son was murdered in front of this plot of land that was offered to them. For example, if you stood on the site and you look through, you could see the real place where Mama d saw his son being zipped in a body bag. And obviously, she didn’t want to have to wake up every day. And while the other residents were initially super jazzes about this plot of land, they finally said that they would not go without it.

Detrow: So you have this group of people in this interesting position, somehow sorting really intense problems like that. What – again, without giving up, what’s going on? What are your dishes to remember to report this and see all of this?

Shealy: I think if you listen to the end, you will really come to see through the stories of these people that obtaining a real type of accommodation is just a total glove. I came in the relationship of this story with the idea that these services are that can help the homelessness to enter real houses. But I was shocked to learn how these life lines or safety or security nets do not offer. And so I think that the big question that the stories we hear in this pose series is, you know, once you are homeless or once you lack money in this country, the choices that still find you real choices?

Detrow: it’s Shaina Shealy, host of the Podcast series “A Tiny Plot” by “Snap Judgment” by Kqed. Thank you very much for coming to talk about it.

Shealy: Thank you for inviting me.

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