[Noisebridge-discuss] Shelter and housing

[jim]

    i talked to someone who's in and among the homeless 
and some of the available shelter and food resources. 
that person promises to bring some brochures; i promise 
to put those brochures into some kind of noisebridge 
community resource binder, maybe with extra copies of 
brochures that people can take away. 




On Tue, 2011-12-06 at 10:21 -0800, Liz Henry wrote:
> I do still think that people at NB could maybe meet to have a discussion 
> about housing, what they are doing to cope with homelessness or marginal 
> housing situations like SROs.  Since there are a bunch of people who are 
> part of Noisebridge who face these problems might it help to have a day 
> of discussion and brainstorming and trying to come up with ways for 
> people to organize to help each other?
> 
> That is probably best done in person not on a mailing list.  And it 
> would likely involve people feeling that they could trust the other 
> people there with information about their lives and personal situations. 
> It seems fraught to me for people, potentially, even to come to such a 
> meeting to say Yeah I'm in a bad situation, as then, other people might 
> be judgemental or target you as a homeless person who is a problem and 
> sleeping at NB or whatever.
> 
> I shouldn't organize this discussion, but I would be happy to help make 
> it happen, if anyone thinks it should and could happen...  I think it 
> could work well as a peer support group.  Same for people's problems 
> with alcoholism or substance abuse.
> 
> It seems like once in a difficult situation, it would be hard to find 
> others to live with or rent with in a shared flat, to come up even 
> collectively with the huge deposit and first and last month's rent, to 
> get the previous-landlord references and credit checks landlords want, 
> and prove employment and income if you don't have it!  I don't know how 
> anyone does it.  I would think either by faking some of that 
> documentation and reference, and hoping the actual credit-checking 
> doesn't happen --- or, having one documentable/referenceful person to 
> ride point and do the actual renting.  Then, as another dimension to 
> things, you have to all trust and tolerate each other well enough to 
> live together and merge finances to that extent, which might take some 
> time to develop and would likely be a fragile trust... Given that one 
> factor of being in that situation in the first place might be having 
> already burned through all one's couchsurfing and friends helping options.
> 
> If it were me I would have a hell of a time tolerating organizational 
> charity, social workers, religious people trying to be helpy and all the 
> authoritarian bullshit that goes with that and I would certainly drink 
> to cope with being stressed, cold, and alienated. So my sympathies. 
> Anyway, though, lacking financial resources, the best thing we have is 
> social resources and the network of other people at NB.  That's why I 
> keep thinking, we should have a Hacker Housing Task Force.  Which might 
> help address the problems people have rather than just dismissing them.
> 
> Doesn't it make anyone else a bit nauseated to be supporting Occupy on 
> the one hand and then throwing people out of our community for having no 
> where else to go?!
> 
> Could people who have been homeless and gotten out of it -- maybe even 
> by banding together with others from NB -- talk about how they managed it?
> 
> 
>