- [Mark] Rachel?
- Yes.
- [Mark] You're homeless in San Diego?
- Yes, I am.
- [Mark] Tell me about it.
- Homelessness is the hardest job I've ever had.
You only have two, 24-hour bathrooms in San Diego.
There's no 24-hour showers.
They want us to work. Some of us can't work.
And the ones that can cannot get clean.
If it wasn't for EBT,
we wouldn't know when our next meals are coming
except for when they do the feedings out here.
- [Mark] So when you say they want you to work,
what do you mean by that?
- They want you to be employed.
They want you to be productive members of society.
- [Mark] You mean the public?
- The public. - [Mark] Right.
- The officials. - [Mark] Right.
- The powers to be.
- [Mark] Well, how do you keep employment
when you don't have showers?
- You can't. - [Mark] And-
- You can't go to school.
You can't do anything without a shower
because you don't, you're embarrassed.
- [Mark] Right. And you're standing in front of your tent.
- Yes, I am.
- [Mark] How do you lock it?
- I have a lock that I lock it with.
- [Mark] Oh, you were able to lock your tent?
- Yes, I am.
- [Mark] But still, it's canvas and-
- Oh, yes.
- [Mark] You know when you go to work,
I mean, people don't understand all the roadblocks.
Getting a job isn't so hard.
It's maintaining a job.
- Yes, it is.
- [Mark] You know?
And we're gonna have a train going by.
What? Let's... How do you guys sleep here?
- The trains stop running at one o'clock in the morning.
They don't start again until four.
At night, (siren wailing)
it's actually relatively quiet under the bridge,
- [Mark] Yeah.
- other than the trains.
And I sleep better out here.
- [Mark] Yeah. - Than I did in a shelter.
- [Mark] Right.
- Any of the shelters I've been in.
- [Mark] Well, let's keep on the work thing a little bit
because, so, how young are you?
- I am 55.
- [Mark] Right. And you know, ageism is very real.
Finding a job as an older adult is challenging.
- Yes, it is.
- [Mark] And you know, being homeless,
people don't understand
there's no job that you're gonna get
that's gonna be able to pay for you to get an apartment.
- You don't make enough money out here.
- [Mark] Right.
- You have to have three jobs.
- [Mark] Yeah, and you know,
they don't understand how poverty is expensive.
You don't have refrigeration.
- No.
- [Mark] So you can't store food to cut costs.
- No.
- [Mark] Anyways, what we need to do
is get people like you, who may be willing to work,
into housing-
- So we can work, and be clean,
and not be embarrassed, and have our dignity.
- [Mark] Yeah. Exactly.
So you told us earlier you don't do drugs.
- No. I don't drink. I don't even smoke weed.
- [Mark] So, how did you end up homeless?
- Circumstances and happenstances.
It was over 10 years ago, and bad choices.
I used to do drugs, I'll be honest about that. Yeah.
But, not anymore.
- [Mark] I'm the same way. I have 28 years sober.
And even still, you know, everybody makes bad choices.
If homelessness was a punishment for bad choices,
we'd all be homeless.
- Exactly. Just because you have a door you can lock
doesn't mean that you're a cream of the crop and an angel,
that's for sure 'cause people do more dirt
than they do out on the streets, behind a locked door.
- [Mark] Yeah, well that's one of the things
because I spend a lot of time in homeless camps
that I've noticed
is that it's just like being in the suburbs.
You know, you have people that are nice,
and people that are
- Not nice. (chuckles) - [Mark] not so nice.
And then, you know, people that are angry,
and yelling, and people doing drugs, and whatever.
You don't see it because they're behind walls.
- Yep.
- [Mark] And you guys are living out in the open.
It's crazy. - Yes, it is.
And not everybody is mentally ill that's out here.
Some of it's drug induced, and some of it is mental illness.
- [Mark] Yeah, well it's extremely hard
to do homeless sober, so.
- Yes, it is.
- [Mark] Huge props to you.
I don't judge anybody that's out here, you know, using
because they gotta cope with the trauma.
- Yes. It's very hard. - [Mark] Yeah, so-
- It's very hard.
And lo and behold, even in the shelters,
there's a lotta drug use.
I'd say just as much as out on the streets.
And you even have employees of shelters
that sell clients drugs.
- [Mark] Speaking of trauma,
today you had to move all your stuff across the street.
- Yes. - [Mark] And then back.
- Yes.
- [Mark] Because the city comes through
and does homeless sweeps.
And if you don't move your stuff, they take it all.
- Yes. They take it all.
And they're supposed to go through it
and keep whatever they would think is valuable to you,
but they don't do that.
I've watched them throw away a plethora
of people's stuff and their tents,
and everything they own, and not search a thing.
- [Mark] Tell me about the criminalization
of homelessness here in San Diego.
- It's all about the almighty dollar.
That's what it boils down to.
They wanna make their money
by criminalizing the homeless because we're an easy target.
- [Mark] And what do you mean by that?
So what, from my understanding,
a lot of people that live in this camp
once lived downtown and that they were pushed here,
and you know the criminalization,
they don't give you any place to go.
- No, they don't.
There is only 1700 some odd shelter beds,
and there's more than 25-plus hundred of homeless people.
That's only the ones that they have on record,
not the ones that are off the grid.
And there's a lot off the grid.
- They just said there was a news article this week
that all the shelter beds are full up.
- They are full up.
When I got a 30-day timeout from Alpha Project,
I had to start the process all over again at HRC
to get another shelter bed.
Well, every day that I was there,
I couldn't take care of my own business.
I couldn't go to doctor's appointments.
Whatever appointments I had, I couldn't go to
because you have to spend from eight till five
to see if you got a bed there.
- [Mark] What's a 30-day time out?
- Due to miscommunication,
I was kicked outta Alpha Project for 30 days.
- So they remove you, and then you gotta come back.
- Exactly.
- [Mark] So back and go to the bathroom outside
in homelessness,
and in 30 days you can come back.
It's like a punishment.
- Yes, it's a timeout.
- [Mark] Yeah, that's kinda crazy.
- It is crazy,
but I'm grateful that I'm out here and not in there.
Alpha Project made me lazy.
I got clean and sober in Alpha Project,
and they supported me through all that,
and I'm grateful for that.
When I came out here, I found my NA meetings,
I met my boyfriend, I met a plethora of people and contacts.
I would never be involved like I am
advocating for the homeless right now.
It changed my whole life.
I found my calling in life, finally.
- [Mark] Yeah. So it gave you purpose.
- It gave me purpose, yes.
- [Mark] And you're fighting for other homeless people?
- Yes, I am.
The people out here that don't have a voice.
- [Mark] And you just spoke in front of city council?
- Yes, I did. Twice.
- [Mark] Twice? - Twice.
- [Mark] Yeah. - Yes, yes.
And it was nerve-wracking the second time.
There were a lot of people there. (chuckles)
- [Mark] Yeah? And what were you advocating for or against?
- I was advocating to have 24-hour bathrooms,
have 24-hour showers,
to put trash dumpsters on the corners down here.
I gave them two examples
of like the C Street Inn is empty,
and it's a huge, huge apartment complex
that they could turn into a shelter.
The Friendship Hotel in Hillcrest is also empty.
There's a plethora of buildings down here.
The old post office building could be used for shelters.
They have no excuse not to have shelter beds
for every homeless person out here.
It's not safe camping.
That's not the answer.
They have safe camp in other places,
and they cram 80 tents in a little place.
How's that safe when you're right next door
to all these other people?
I mean, up on each other. That's not safe.
It's not comfortable.
That's why, I mean we have space between us
because we're lucky.
But if you look around, everybody's so cramped.
- [Mark] Yeah. Have you gotten tickets for being homeless?
- Years ago when they first started the encroachment,
- [Mark] Right.
- and illegal lodging laws,
laws, so they say,
they offered me a shelter bed.
They did not have one available.
They took me to jail for seven days.
- [Mark] Wait, wait, wait, wait.
You got arrested for being homeless
because they didn't have a shelter bed.
- Yes, I did.
- You're the second person that's told me that.
- Yes, I did.
I spent seven days in jail. My tent got broken into.
I lost all my valuable things
by other homeless people, not the police.
- [Mark] Right.
- And I had to start the whole process over again.
Re-accumulating my stuff, my clothes, my phones,
whatever I had, I had to get back again.
- [Mark] Yeah.
So seven days for the crime of not having a home.
- Yes. And nowhere in the constitution does it state
you have to have a house. Nowhere.
- [Mark] No, it's just-
- We started off in America not having homes.
- [Mark] And the amount of taxpayer money
that goes to all that,
I mean you have the processing, the police,
the incarceration 'cause-
- It's a waste of money.
- [Mark] It is. And 'cause you're still homeless-
- When you get out, nothing's been fixed.
No problem Has been solved.
- [Mark] Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
Horrible.
- It is horrible. - [Mark] Horrible, horrible.
What can you tell me,
I mean, the city's trying to pass...
I mean homelessness is already pretty much illegal here.
- Yes, it is. Unfortunately.
- [Mark] And they wanna pass more laws.
- Oh, they only wanna pass these laws
because it's rewording of the illegal lodging
and encroachment laws.
And they've been sued,
and they've lost a shit ton of fuckin' money due to that.
- [Mark] Yeah, so they're trying to change,
yeah, they're trying to change laws
to get around the- - It's the wording
'cause they don't wanna get sued again.
- [Mark] Right. Ah.
- Because it, from being here a couple days,
everybody's saying it's already illegal.
So the-
- It's not illegal yet.
- [Mark] Okay.
- We got it pushed back at city council
for six weeks I believe.
- [Mark] Okay. - Yeah.
- [Mark] So there's still, there's still time to fight it.
But like, some of the homeless advocates,
and here comes another train,
some of the homeless advocates said pretty much
because you have the encroachment laws,
you have the sit-and-lie laws.
- Yes.
- [Mark] It's already, they're arresting,
I mean you got arrested for- - Yeah.
- [Mark] Oh, my gosh. Crazy.
- Yes, I did.
- [Mark] Crazy. Crazy. - Yes, I did.
- [Mark] So what would you want people to know
about homelessness and homeless people?
You know, the public, the people driving by
that see you standing in front of your tent.
What would you want them to know
about homelessness that they don't know?
- I think personally
everybody should walk a mile in our shoes.
They should experience homelessness.
Not 24 hours, not 30 days.
Spend three months out here. See what it's really like
so you know what time it is, and how hard it really is.
We're not lazy by far.
We bust our asses to make sure we're okay,
and we can make it day-to-day.
- [Mark] Homelessness is a lot of work.
I mean, how far do you have to go to get your water?
- I go up to Walmart,
but we also get all the way
to Smart Vinyl past Albertson's.
- [Mark] Yeah.
- Refill water jugs for cheap. 35 cents.
But you have to take everything in a cart.
- [Mark] Yeah, it's like Africa
where you gotta wheel your water jugs there.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] Fill 'em up and then bring 'em back.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] That's work every day.
- Every day. - [Mark] Do you get a day off?
- No. - [Mark] Vacation day?
- No. - [Mark] Sick day?
- No.
- [Mark] You gotta go get your water every-
- It's every 24, 7 days a week.
- [Mark] Yeah, because without water you die.
- That's right. - [Mark] So you-
- Without food, you die.
You need sustenance, and you need fuel.
- [Mark] Right, people don't understand
that homelessness isn't lazy.
- No, it's not.
- [Mark] Homelessness is a super amount of work.
- It is. It is.
I've never had such a hard job.
- [Mark] Yeah. - Ever.
And I've worked my whole life.
- [Mark] Yeah, we got a...
it's been really shocking to me to be here
because, you know, it really was a slap in my face,
or a wake up call,
and I wish it was for everybody,
that, you know, we're at this crisis level,
and we've gotta get people into housing.
- Yes.
- [Mark] It's possible to get people into housing,
but you have politicians like here in San Diego
that would rather criminalize.
- Yes, they would.
It's all about the almighty dollar.
The more people they put in jail, the more money they get.
- [Mark] I think you're awesome.
- Thank you. So are you.
- [Mark] And I will put your Twitter down below
for people to follow you.
- Thank you.
- [Mark] Because I put a picture up of you earlier, and-
- It's going crazy!
- [Mark] And you started commenting,
and I think that's great.
So I came back out to say hello.
- Thank you. I appreciate you.
- [Mark] If you had three wishes, what would they be?
- I would wish
that homelessness would be solved
by letting us help them,
and letting us keep our dignity in the process.
I would wish that even while we're out here on the streets,
people would have passion, and be kind, and caring
because we are not trash and disposable.
We are homeless humans, as I'd like to call us.
- [Mark] Yeah. One more wish.
- One more wish. (chuckles)
For people to open their eyes,
And see it for what it really is.
It's a tragedy.
It is a tragedy that people live on the sidewalks,
and that they are homeless.
And we have the means and the needs,
but whatever it takes, the simple solutions,
the simple solutions to solve this problem.
They're really simple.
- [Mark] Well...
- They just make it hard.
- [Mark] Yeah. They make it complicated.
You just read my my mind
'cause that's what I was gonna add.
And you already went there.
So, thank you very much for talking to me.
- You're very welcome. It's my pleasure. Anytime.
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