Address to the Vigil, Homelessness Awareness Day, Vermont Legislature, 2020

Yea! I love you!

Thank you for coming to our Vigil for the homeless, my friends.
Thank you, legislators, advocates and esteemed guests,
Thank you to the fourth graders who chose homelessness as their topic to study,
for standing with the community of those we call homeless.
Thank you, Especially, those of you who are without housing,
Who are here today.
You made a special effort to get here, and this vigil is for you.

We are here today to think about, feel about, and remember, you,
the Vermonters who in their daily lives have to ask
“How will I stay safe today?”
“How will I keep my possessions safe?”
“How will I eat today?”,
“Where can I park my car so it won’t get towed away?”,
“How can I get my car out of impoundment?”.
“How can I get my children to school?”
“Where will I sleep tonight?”
We are here today to remember you.
Because being Homeless is a condition of desperation,
And we want better for you.

So let us remember,
People who pay into the engine of profit
– those who rent and those who pay mortgages –
are given permission to claim a space as their own.
But if you can't work, and if you can't pay,
If you refuse to work two jobs,
just to give all your money to a landlord or a bank,
If you can't manage your life, wracked as you are by trauma,
or living in the misery of mental illness,
If you are broken, and have no resources,
Or if you have been driven from your home by domestic violence,
You can't get that permission.

So you sleep in places that aren't your own.
You sleep in public, on a sidewalk or in a parking garage,
where someone who is cruel can kick you, or worse,
where someone also desperate can steal your few possessions,
where someone, too privileged to see themselves in that huddle on the ground,
might complain to the police;
You sleep in public, in a car where you worry about being rousted from the depths of sleep,
You sleep in a dumpster that is warm, yet deadly,
You sleep scrambling from couch to floor from friend to friend.

And the question "Where can I sleep, that is safe?”
hangs like a cloud over the entire day,
because there is no place for you to rest,
that is your own.

Your community does ASPIRE to house you in hard-wall housing.
But if your community had the will, a sufficient will, to build that housing,
a sufficient will
to make that housing affordable to people living on Social Security,
or a minimum wage job,
if your community had the will to produce housing,
That someone working from her car
Or bouncing from couch to couch,
could afford,
if your community had the will to produce housing a drunk or an addict would want,
then we could put everyone in hardwall housing,
then we could impart to all of you the dignity and safety
of your own locked door,
and then the sidewalk, lawn, ATM booth, tent or broken-down camper,
would not be part of our continuum of housing.

But they are,
And living outdoors, under bridges, in tents, cars, campers, and dumpsters,
Sleeping on a blanket thrown on the ground,
are solutions we resort to,
are solutions in our continuum of housing,
and are solutions we, your community, need to plan for :

With safe places for camping, parking, and bedding down.
With enough safe, humane, shelters,
For adults, couples, dog owners, youth,
For she or he fleeing domestic violence,
For the addicted, the person in recovery, that person with social anxiety, or disability,
For the LGBTQ person, the traumatized, the mentally ill.

So let us write a homeless bill of protections
that guarantees safe parking and safe camping,
in every community across the state of Vermont,
Let us write a homeless bill of protections that can comfort you,
as you search for that safe place to sleep each night.

Thank you!

[this proposal serves as an accountability device. The protection of human rights isn’t always comfortable. But the protection of human rights may compel the just solution that is also preferable.]