Chico

Bev’s Wisdom and Grace

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Without a Roof: What brought you back to Chico from Grass Valley?”
Bev: “Well I was ousted by the cops.” She laughs, “I was run out of town literally. I called an ambulance on a guy that was having an overdose in Marysville and his buddies and him wanted to beat me up in Marysville. So I decided to catch another ride to Grass Valley thinking I could seek refuge at the Hospitality House. Then I got driven out of town.

Without a Roof: “And you were given a bus pass to Dixon?”
Bev: “That was in Vacaville where the police wanted to arrest me for possession of a shopping cart, after escaping from Palo Alto where the District Attorney dropped my possession of a shopping cart charge. They run out all the street musicians on University Avenue in Palo Alto. For some reason the people driving the Porsche’s,the Tesla’s and the Mercedes Benz don’t like to see people like us.”

“Believe it or not; not every homeless person has a substance abuse problem or severe mental illness. I think I have become mentally ill since I lost my place to live in Tahoe in the middle of December, and lost my car a month later. I just haven’t ever really been able to get on my feet like I should have.”

“I know everything that homeless people go through. I never thought I would become homeless myself. In a way its made me a better person. One time I had a hari Krishna guy in Sacramento come up to me, with some of that delicious hari Krishna bread, and say that I was really blessed leading a true Krishna life living off the blessings of other people and he blessed me. I’m a recovering catholic and he gave me this bread which was kind of like having communion. Ever since then I have changed my thoughts, that it is really a blessing that I can live without all of these material possessions and I’m pretty much off the grid except for my cell phone habit I’ve developed.

Bev had a prescription from a doctor in San Francisco that read… “Beverley’s dog named Leonardo is a service dog for her condition of limited mobility; helps her with maintaining her balance.”

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Mama Rose canning to stay housed… prayers

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Mama Rose is struggling to keep herself off the streets of Chico California and needed $50 by the end of the day to pay her motel bill. It’s societal extortion that people like Mama Rose are forced to pay exorbitant weekly rent for a hotel room because they have NO INCOME and can’t qualify for low income housing that is available to only 25% of the people in Mama Rose’s situation.

Mama Rose’s husband died in December, 2014 and she was evicted from her condemned apartment in January 2015. Without a kitchen and serving area her Chico Sunday meal for the homeless has gone dark after nearly 2-decades.

Without a Roof “How much have you spent for the hotel room up there?”

Mama Rose, “$2,605 since the 5th of February.

Without a Roof: “All because you have no place to stay and no income?”

Mama Rose: “I have nothing. I lost my house, I lost my husband and I lost my Sunday’s. I can’t even cook. You know how it kills me now not being able to cook? Your making me cry.”

Without a Roof: “God bless you Mama Rose.”

I don’t have to be…

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Rick Shaw was lit in the sunshine at a busy downtown corner in Chico, California, surrounded by college students slashing away on his guitar smiling and hamming it up between his gravely voiced singing, sprinkled with a few spirit inspired staggers for good measure.

The kids scattered when Rick asked for help buying cigarettes. I took him up on his offer and another one he presented… buying him a beer so we could talk. Rick was itching to know how the audience reacted to his harmonica vignette in the “Poor People’s Palooza.”

“People started clapping and several yelled your name.”

Rick puffed up with pride, “Really?” I answered, “Yes Rick, really it was neat as hell.”

Rick sat up straight and said, “watch this.” 

Rick left the bar an hour before I did, returning to the street to look for his guitar case. I saw him as soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk playing away to another small crowd of young people, one of whom was playing air guitar alongside Rick with his longboard. Rick was a happy man doing what he loves best, playing live music for a crowd. God bless you Rick Shaw!

We promote shelter NOW! and basic human rights for people experiencing homelessness and poverty. http://woaroof.tumblr.com

Poor People’s Film Festival — THE TRAILER

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Without a Roof owes a debt of gratitude to the tenacity and compassion of two staunch Northern California allies for the poor, Paul Boden from San Francisco and Debra Carey from Southern Humboldt County. This production simply doesn’t exist in its form without them… period.

COMING TO THEATRES AND VENUES THIS SUMMER… THE POOR PEOPLE’S FILM FESTIVAL…

The Poor People’s Film Festival is a collection of 46 Without a Roof YouTube vignettes filmed in twelve different Northern California Communities between 2012 and 2014. These shorts contrast the lives of roofless human beings and the Samaritans that help them against misconstrued societal beliefs, including harassment, beatings and criminalization based solely on ones housing status.

This 112-minute journey touches nearly all aspects of homelessness and spotlights its root cause… the lack of affordable housing and jobs. You’ll meet homeless individuals as young as 6-months and as old as 96-years and hear from educators, children, activists and Samaritans as they lay claim to the right for all human beings to exist in a community as one.

Hey You, Ya It’s Me

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I see Billy, sunburnt and dusty, in the foreground of a liquor store shuffling across a busy intersection, his left hand clenching a brown paper bag. I come alongside him on the sidewalk with a hearty hello and a gentle clench of his shoulder. After a dozen strides I tell him I’m going to bring back whatever he wants to eat.

Billy’s face is flushed, his speech slightly slurred. “Oh,” he pauses, “I don’t care what you bring back.”

I said, “Sure you do Bill Abernathy. Tell me what you would get to eat if you could get anything.”

Billy stammers a bit. “I’ll have a double cheeseburger,” he says.

I smile as he connects with what I thought he would say. “You got it Billy Abernathy. I’m heading over to Big Al’s right now to get you a burger.”

“That’ll go down just fine cause I’m hungry. God bless you.”

I return with a burger, fries and Gatorade and sit with Billy on the bike path curb where he once recited his poem, “Hey you, ya it’s me.[1]” Fittingly Billy says, “Today is Sunday, God’s Day.”

Our casual conversation pauses while Billy chews and swallows. Halfway through his meal Billy nods his head at the burger in hand and exhales a satisfied grunt. Billy is, as always — humble, thoughtful and kind.

I depart for grocery shopping and return 90-minutes later to find Billy nestled and nodding on a blanket in the tall grass. He awakens as I’m fetching him an apple and banana. He reaches out for the fruit with a glint in his eye.

“I’ll take those,” he says. “That’s good food.”

Billy looses has balance easing back onto his blanket. Once resettled he mumbles incoherently, eyelids fluttering. My goodbyes and blessings are soiled by his alcohol daze.

Billy grins and says, “Stay out of trouble.” I reply, “I won’t get caught which is the same thing.” Our eyes lock for a second with mischievous grins.

“God Bless you Billy Abernathy.” “and you as well,” he replies.

[1] Hey you, ya it’s me – by Billy Abernathy

Hey You, ya it’s me
What’ going on with you
For I’m still me
I’m with you everyday
I’m with you when you pray
I’m with you when your happy or sad
And yes, I’m even with you when your mad
So you know that you,
Can always turn to me
For I’ll always be there
For you

Without a Roof: “Billy, what did you think about that listening to yourself?”

Billy: Well it was a wonderful feeling and it teared me up, because… sometimes I make wrong mistakes, do stupid things. But I always turn to the Lord, because he’s there for me.

Flashback Feb-2013: A Typical Housing Impaired Day in Chico

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Frequenting a nearby coffee shop is a thin woman of character, well spoken and respected. I see her downtown often, perhaps everyday I have lingered a half-day or more. She is always stylish, head up, chin high. Not easy to smile, though not stern. She doesn’t walk she swaggers. She’s proud of her artwork and cherishes the portfolio she carries neatly rolled up and stored like a sheathed sword in her backpack. It gives her strength, hope and life, or perhaps vice versa.

I witnessed her unroll her work onto the sidewalk outside the coffee shop. She quickly pulled out a specific piece and showed it to several men gathering outside. She was deliberate, leaving her art exposed only as long as it need be, quickly re-rolling and re-sheathing, all the while talking to the gentlemen.

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All Hoodies Matter

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Click here to read Paul Mullin’s Hoodies, Color Lines, and Black Visibility

All Hoodies Matter
By Guillermo Mash

It was an evening, just after the New Year, as I looked up at a person walking by my table at Chico California’s Downtown Starbucks. I remember nothing about that person, not even their gender. It was the man in a hoody casting dark menacing shadows onto his face seated some thirty feet away that stuck. His silhouette startled me for a few seconds while I processed his persona… a man sitting politely erect, cell phone in hand with his head tilted down just far enough to see the phone while leaving his dark complexion face semi-visible. With his back to the street side window he was in the most visible seat in the store, irrespective of his clothing choices and God given genes.

My head began to nod up and down; a wry and deeply appreciative smile crept onto my face as all of societies ingrained stereotypes and racist undertones swept out of my mind… I thought to myself, “I love this guy.”

Over the next two weeks I would often see this man seated in the same spot, wearing his hoodie, holding his phone and keeping to himself. He became a soothing inspiring presence to see; a man living his God given right to be a decent and honorable human being in a public setting, bothering no one, except those who don’t like to see a hooded human being sitting comfortably and decently.

I made a frantic Facebook plea on January 21st after witnessing a Starbuck’s employee ask him to leave their Downtown Chico store for not making any purchases. The images and pain from last January’s arrest of another African American in this very same store compelled me to act, and to act decisively. Starbucks corporate ultimately apologized for last years incident and said they were searching for the victim, Gerard Devaughn Hamlett, to give him a free gift card.

Before leaving I went over to “All Hoodies Matter” and flashed a peace sign saying, “peace to you brother.”

He looked up and nodded, with the same look and smile I had shown him not two weeks ago. In that moment I thought it well could be Gerard Devaughn Hamlett himself coming back to make a stand for civil and human rights. If it wasn’t for the hoodie I would have known for sure. 

I love revolutionaries who have the courage to stand up against the status quo. They’re always misunderstood, but they’re the ones who are standing up for human rights. — Richard Hatch

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