An Open Letter to Churches, Charitable Intervention Agencies in Nashville, Barbara Ehrenreich, the Powers That Be at the Occupy Org

I have way too much to do to be noodling on my personal webspace about anything not pertaining to sports.  Still.  Sometimes life impinges on our best-laid plans. Woman proposes and God gets the giggles and says, "That's cute.  Now get with the program."  So today I am writing about the occupy movement.

Speaking as someone who has just now gotten back her capacity for taking in lungful of air without wanting to punch a wall because it freaking hurts, I understand that some people are contributing the best way they know how.  For some of us, the best way might be to offer those who are camped out items that will aid in their comfort and well-being.  We can also use our words, our reach as writers, photographers and artists to tell the story of what is happening.

In telling that story, we sometimes have to make choices.  I understand what many commentators are trying to do when they point out the fact that homelessness is an important issue and it has a place in the discourse of this movement,.  The problem is. they are also pretty blithely sidestepping the uncomfortable reality that these  homeless people  include individuals who are in the throes of addiction or are mentally ill.  They need care.  More care than their fellow occupiers might be able to give.

This past Sunday I went to Legislative Plaza in downtown Nashville, Tennessee to speak with members of the Occupy Nashville Movement and take pictures.  My hope was and still is to spread the word that there are people Nashville who care enough to put their well-being on the line in order to get the message across.   While I was there, I sat in on what turned out to be an emergency community meeting to address problems with alcohol being brought into the encampment, theft between campers and the need to protect more vulnerable members of the community from assault.  

Some of the women stated that they did not feel safe.  One volunteer, a registered nurse who was physically small in stature stated that she spent the previous night in fear for her safety.  She was shouted down by a much larger man who towered over her and accused her of bring a quitter and running away.  As I spoke with her and a few other volunteers later on, it came out that drugs and alcohol were a problem, that there had been instances of women being assaulted on the grounds. While we were having this conversation, a few feet away an obviously un- or undermedicated mentally ill woman was hectoring a volunteer who was trying to feed people. 

Does anyone involved want to see these people removed from the movement?  No.  Everyone stated that to do so would make them as bad as the people they are protesting against.  I'm not saying that the people who are coming to the Occupy camps shouldn't get help.  I am saying that it's not constructive to point to situations like  the increasing number of longterm homeless people at the Nashville encampment, declare that it proves a point and leave it at that. The people who are suddenly finding themselves in the position of caregiver, referee and mental health care worker need some help, too. 

You see the affirmation of your stance in the abstract.  I see a woman young enough to be my daughter who spent the night being held by her husband as she wept.  Her tears were for her own fears, not just the ones about her financial future that led her to Legislative Plaza, but for her own safety.  Her name, by the way, is Sara.  She is an RN, a caregiver by nature and vocation.  She is there because of her own needs and those of her mother and everyone else whose medical needs are not being met because somewhere someone decided the corporations who hold out that access to the highest bidder are actually people themselves, special people with more rights than your rank and file citizen.   The problem is, Sara can't really address that because she is doing the work of the agencies, the churches and the coalitions.

I should note that when I got a look at who was there, I recognised more than a few people from my decade and a half as a counselor, advocate and social worker. Before I even had a chance to talk to anyone, I suspected that what was happening here was similar to what happens whenever there is a chance to get basic needs met.  Shelters stay inundated with calls and walk-ins from people who were turned away elsewhere.  Social workers who should know better call every place, desperate to keep clients from falling through the cracks.

 In 2010, I volunteered at one of the community centres that served as an information clearinghouse and distributed food, clothing and cleaning supplies after the flood. Maybe a fraction of the people we helped were actually displaced by the flood. Refugee advocacy groups sent clients to get what they could. People who had been displaced well before May of 2010 came, pitched in to help and were given what we could spare.  I credit the representative from the Mayor's Office and the staff of the community center, who turned no one away.  I credit the people who worked along with me, some of whom, like me, prayed that we wouldn't run out of cases of water or food boxes from Second Harvest but did - sometimes hours before closing for the evening.   Sometimes all I had to offer the workers on the ground on my way home were donated cookies and flowers. It felt like the cliche about the bandaid in the open wound brought to life. I bring this up because that same sort of wave of need is hitting the men and women who are staying at Legislative Plaza.  To those who have the administrative power and (admittedly limited) resources, I say, "You know this is going on.  You should also realise these people are standing here to speak for your interests and those of your clients.  Where are you?"  

Not everybody can and should spend the night at the Plaza. We should not be forgetting about those who do.  While you and I and everyone else goes back home to their computers to argue the Big Issues online, that very real young woman and her husband are still back at the camp, struggling to meet the needs of those who see the movement as a chance to get some small respite from their problems. There are many people involved but I am focusing on her so you will know the name of one person there and maybe think twice before shunting her aside as an illustration for your talking points.  The fiduciary malfeasance has a very human cost that is unacknowledged by the people in power.  Those of us supporting the movement from our safe vantage points should do better than the 1% we're criticising.