Down and Out in Fresno

In June, Esquire published an article about being down and out in America, specifically California. As it turns out, the author, Colby Buzzell, lives in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco and actually seems to like it. It's inexpensive and he's learned to navigate the obvious hazards and besides, it's more fun to drink with colorful characters than with boring suburbanites.

That's fine. Every freelance writer needs to live through his bohemian phase. But the article starts in Fresno. Fresno scared the shit out him. Three days later, he was back in the comforts of the Tenderloin.

First, he ventured into Motel Row. Seen from the 99 Freeway, Motel Row is a row of mid-century motor lodges that were located on the "Old 99," now Golden State Boulevard, and were part of the early auto culture in California. Palm Springs is full of properties of the same vintage and architecture and slowly they're being recaptured into hip, lively destinations. In Fresno, their fate is quite different. Many of them, like the Storyland (see the link below) devolved into de facto SRO housing. Families, sometimes large families, crammed into small motel rooms; prostitution, drugs, the list is familiar. They are scary properties, and would be anywhere.

The problem is, what's the alternative? When the City of Fresno shut down the Storyland Motel this winter, displacing something like 60 families, where do they go. The Astro, next door? The solution, of course, is safe, clean, affordable housing, but the Fresno Housing Authority has a waiting list of 20,000 for public units. I think that's about 8 years.

Then there's the actual homeless. The second part of Buzzell's stay in Fresno was in one the homeless encampments near the Union Pacific tracks. I think what he learned was that housing of any type, even a small flat in the Tenderloin, was preferable to living in a "rented" tent in a homeless camp. We forget that safety is one of the things we take for granted, and something that the homeless never take for granted. The ongoing stress of just being homeless takes a physical and mental toll that takes a long time to unwind, even if they are placed into housing.

An example of just how tought the problem is, the City made a commitment to shutting down one of the encampments, in part because it bought the property for a future downtown water tank (more on downtown water in a future post). They received about $600,000 in Rapid Relocation funds from HUD and working with the Housing Authority, moved about 130 people into permanant housing. Several months later, about 95% of the relocated are still in housing, which is a good track record. But the problem hasn't gone away. A month ago the tents started appearing again, this time at Ventura and F Street, just off the freeway.

Sometimes it feels like we're dealing with teaspoons.



Down & Out in Fresno and San Francisco

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/us/26tents.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=6527424&rss=rss-kfsn-article-6527424

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/04/19/18590374.php

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=6858971

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/65578.html