This is the final installment of a three-part series I've written on a single meeting held Monday night. I've used this meeting as an opportunity to delve pretty deeply into the tensions and issues surrounding the tent city of Occupy Madison as it moves from neighborhood to neighborhood. Things have happened since Monday; developments in this story are ongoing, and for timely updates I urge you to check the news section of this paper, which has had the best coverage of any traditional media in Madison, or a blog called "Forward Lookout" written by Brenda Konkel, about whom we will learn more shortly. Despite the fact that this meeting occurred Monday, over the past three days I have used it as a snapshot to provide insights into the escalating breakdown in communication between the homeless and, apparently, the whole rest of the world.
When we left off, tensions were high in the Dane County Human Services Building, where a meeting was being held between the homeless community, the neighborhood community and the neighborhood's elected officials. Anger over the presence of the unhoused on neighborhood greenspace had become anger at the city and county officials' inability to move forward on this urgent issue in any timely way. Several men and women, housed and unhoused, had broken into tears at the predicament of the Occupiers. Emotions were truly raw in every corner, and there had been several outbreaks from each “camp.” Supervisor Melissa Sargent, who facilitated the meeting, deserves much praise for keeping the meeting from devolving into utter chaos.
The big, vital question on the table was whether the homeless people on the site had to be there. If they had other options, as the mayor and other officials had maintained, then the Northport residents couldn't see any justification for camping out in tents in their park. If they had no options, if there was no housing and the shelters were full, then the omnus certainly seemed like it was on the government to do something pretty darn quick.
And then Lynn Green spoke.
Lynn Green is the director of Dane County's Department of Human Services, which provides services to over 300,000 people in Dane County each year. These services aid the disabled, the elderly, the unemployed, the addicted, the immobile, the homeless and probably many others. Half of the entire budget of Dane County goes into Human Services. Some of these services are provided directly and others are provided by awarding non-profits and agencies contracts.
Green maintained that there were openings in the shelter system (never mind the bed bugs, the belittlement and the indignities). However, she acknowledged that there had been failures in communication between service providers and the homeless people living at Occupy. She attributed this to the highly amorphous nature of the group. It was impossible, she said, to keep track of or in touch with homeless people in need of services at Occupy Madison. Someone living there one week may not be there the next. Besides, the horizontal structure of the group prevents providers from knowing who in the group is responsible for receiving and dispersing information.
And so Lynn Green made a vow: A vow that, in her eyes and in the eyes of the Northport community, would settle the matter. It sounded, and was calculated to sound, sublimely reasonable and charitable, but it was still steeped in the false premises and misunderstandings of a top dog used to top-down leadership. She declared that she would personally meet with each of the 28 people on site and would connect them with services. She needed names and contact information. And she identified Brenda Konkel as the person who would give it to her.
Brenda Konkel is a tireless, invaluable advocate for the homeless community. Of all the outstanding allies of the site—I include myself in that proud number—she possibly has given the most time and energy. She has been an alder. She has spent decades in the non-profit sector. She is amazing. But she is not the leader of Occupy. Lynn Green, top dog, pointed her out and did what top dogs do. Look for other top dogs to grapple with. People at the head of hierarchies never know how to interface with horizontal groups. She foisted the leadership framework on us, making Brenda personally responsible for the 28 people living at Occupy, the way a captain is responsible for his troops, or a dog-walker is responsible for her dogs. Lynn Green was offering systemic solutions within a system which actively undermines the kind of collaborative dynamic that has allowed Occupy to survive for a whole year. The neighborhood itself was clamoring for this kind of systemic solution.
And so we, the homeless and their allies, were presented with what would be perceived by many as a great victory. An opportunity for members of Occupy Madison to jump the line for services. To meet personally with the director of the Department of Human Services. Isn't this the big break we’d all been working towards?
No. No it was not. First off, Brenda has a day job and doesn’t have time to be a case manager for 28 people. Second, taking this offer, as a group, would be selling out. Once the needs of these particular people are addressed, Lynn Green and the other arms of the government will wash their hands of the whole movement, calling it resolved. This is a trick. Defining discrete goals is an invaluable tool toward action. Like mowing a fenced-in lawn is easier than mowing an endless meadow. But after the homeless people on site have been treated, the glorious window of opportunity will close again. It always does. And whatever tent city pops up next (there will be more tent cities) will have no momentum, no advocates, no attention and no sympathy. The current site is amorphous because the homeless population is amorphous.
Of course no one will say outright that the problem of homelessness is solved. But the departure of the issue from the public eye amounts to the same exact thing. I am not demonizing Lynn Green, the county’s human services department, or Porchlight. But there is no legal place for homeless people to go or to sleep. It’s illegal to be homeless and on the street. And after these 28 individuals are safely sequestered away in shelters, it will continue to be illegal to be homeless.
We’re not working to get these specific 28 people who have fallen through the cracks off the street. We’re working to make sure everyone in Madison who has fallen through the cracks, and everyone who will fall through the cracks in the future, has the right to community. The right to band together and take care of one another on unused public land, which is the closest thing we have to commons. We need support in developing infrastructure for spontaneous, democratic and sustainable communities. Give a man a shelter bed, and he’ll stay disenfranchised, stay wretched. Let a man or woman form community, and s/he can raise him/herself and those around him/her up. We acknowledge that permanent solutions are outside the scope of budgets. They lie instead in mutual aid and solidarity.
