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t Donations sought to help formerly homeless woman by Cynthia Laird
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formerly homeless woman living with HIV who spent more than five years sleeping outside the Pottery Barn in the Castro has accepted housing through a city program but is now seeking donations from the community to help cover storage costs for her possessions. Janice Cason, 65, had spent years living on the street in the Castro with her beloved cat, Goldilocks. City and nonprofit officials, let by Bevan Dufty in the mayor’s office, were able to persuade her in August to accept housing at the Richardson in Hayes Valley. Dufty, director of the Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement program, or HOPE, told the Bay Area Reporter that a number
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Shepard book
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book more than a dozen years ago, said he relied on his interviews with over 100 people – including McKinney, Henderson, and numerous law enforcement officials, and several people who knew Shepard – as well as “voluminous public records.” However, some have criticized Jimenez for, among other reasons, including anonymous sources. Jimenez, who’s set to appear at a Monday, October 28 event in San Jose, spoke about the book in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “I thought the complexities surrounding Matthew’s murder were important for us to understand if we’re serious about preventing these kinds of acts of grotesque violence and hatred, and we need to understand the factors that came into play, all the factors that came into play,” said Jimenez, 60. He added, “A full portrait of who Matthew was as a person, as a human being, was missing from the public narrative.” The main motive for the murder that Jimenez puts forward is that McKinney, who beat Shepard with his gun, believed Shepard had at least six ounces of methamphetamine, which would have been worth thousands of dollars. Jimenez said he first learned from McKinney himself that his plan the night of October 6, 1998 had been to steal the six ounces of meth from a dealer. But Jimenez told the B.A.R. that McKinney didn’t tell him directly that he’d thought Shepard had the six ounces the night of the beating.
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In-law units
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through the roof. There are a lot of people who are in unstable housing situations.” He said, “It can be very hard” for people who have to move because of evictions or other reasons to stay in the city. The Castro has been hit particularly hard, he said. “Rents are very, very high,” said Wiener. “We’ve had too many evictions.” Many longtime neighborhood residents include seniors who “don’t have a lot of savings” and live in rentcontrolled units, he said. If they lose their housing, “they’re in trouble,” he said. He also expressed concern for young people and others who come to the neighborhood “trying to make a life for themselves.” For buildings that have between one and 10 units, one in-law unit could be added. If a building has more than 10 units, up to two in-law spaces could be added. The in-law units would be approximately 300 square feet at minimum and couldn’t be larger
October 24-30, 2013 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 13
of providers collaborated to help Cason find supportive housing. While the city provides funds for Cason’s housing through the Mayor’s Homeless Fund, Dufty said that public money cannot be used for things like storage facility bills and has turned to the community for help. “She may lose her possessions,” Dufty said. “We need a little more to close it out.” Cason, who is straight, nonetheless supports the LGBT community and said she’s a 30-year HIV survivor. She had previously lived with her best friend, she said, but became displaced several years ago. “In the 1980s I came out here from Ohio and the community was marching down to City Hall to protest Reagan,” she said, referring to early AIDS
Connect event to crowdfund protesters who were fighting for people it profiles. Founder for federal recognition and Rose Broome said that Cason funding to help those living is currently being featured. with the disease. “People can make donaBrian Basinger, director tions,” Broome said. of the AIDS Housing AlliDufty said HandUp has ance, worked with Dufty to helped raise donations for find housing for Cason. others and he hopes the com“She was homeless for munity can respond to help many years,” Basinger said, Cason. adding that the good relaJane Philomen Cleland “It’s a tool so that people tionship he and Dufty built can help donate,” he said. with Cason eventually led Janice Cason, left, talks with Rose Broome of HandUp about having her profile on the crowdfunding site. For her part, Cason said to her accept housing. she would be grateful for any He added that they don’t help from the community. want to see Cason lose her litical activist. She described herself “I need help,” she said, “I don’t possessions. as “kind of reserved” and wanted to want a lot of fanfare.”t “She has accrued significant storquietly ask for donations. age bills that she’s not able to take Dufty enlisted the help of HandUp, care of on her own,” Basinger said. which recently launched a pilot projTo donate to Cason, visit https:// Cason is a former teacher and posecure.handup.us/m/janice. ect at the August Project Homeless
“To this day” McKinney claims “he did not know Matthew Shepard before walking into the Fireside that night,” said Jimenez, referring to the bar Shepard, McKinney, and Henderson had been at before Shepard was attacked. However, the book refers to several people saying that McKinney and Shepard had known each other before that night, and a man named John Earl Baker Jr. said that McKinney “had mentioned something to him about a drug deal and ‘getting dope from Shepard. ...’”
mean to kill [Shepard],” said McKinney. Jimenez wrote, “Aaron said the decision to use that strategy in court was ‘a little mine ... a little of the lawyers ... [but] it was mostly me.”
McKinney’s account
At one point, Jimenez produced an ABC News 20/20 story on the case. Some of the material gathered for that story is included in the book. In 2004, McKinney talked to ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas about his account that he’d attacked Shepard after Shepard grabbed his leg. He said he hit him. “I was already going to rob him,” said McKinney. When Shepard grabbed his leg, “I guess that just gave me a jump ... to get it started ...” McKinney told Vargas that he stole $30 from Shepard. When Vargas asked McKinney why he’d beat Shepard with his gun even after Shepard had given him his money, McKinney described the rage and loss of control he experienced while coming off a meth binge, saying, “I was hallucinating pretty bad ... It was almost like an out-of-body experience ...” Jimenez also quotes what McKinney said after he’d questioned him “innumerable times” about the gay panic alibi he’d given. “At the time, that seemed like ... the best way to prove that I didn’t than 750 square feet. The legislation would not allow for existing dwelling units to be subdivided. Each in-law space “has to comply with the housing code, which requires a bathroom and a kitchen, so these have to be full, complete units,” said Wiener. Among other provisions, units created in rentcontrolled buildings would also fall under rent control. Wiener said the city can’t impose a maximum rent. He said for this legislation, the Castro has “roughly” been defined as Hill Street to the south, Church Street to the east, 14th Street to the north, and the area around Clayton Street to the west. “It’s hard to say” how many units may become available, said Wiener. “People will obviously have to make an investment to building these,” but “I hope we get quite a few.” Alan Beach-Nelson, president of the Castro/Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association, called Wiener’s proposal “a terrific idea.” “The Castro, as everybody knows, has a dearth of housing that’s affordable” for people who are living with HIV and on disability, and others, said Beach-Nelson, who added
Shepard Foundation responds
One of the most prominent critics of the book has been the Matthew Shepard Foundation. The nonprofit’s staff includes Logan Shepard, Matthew Shepard’s brother. “Attempts now to rewrite the story of this hate crime appear to be based on untrustworthy sources, factual errors, rumors, and innuendo rather than the actual evidence gathered by law enforcement and presented in a court of law,” a statement provided by Jason Marsden, the foundation’s executive director, said. “We do not respond to innuendo, rumor or conspiracy theories. Instead we remain committed to honoring Matthew’s memory, and refuse to be intimidated by those who seek to tarnish it.” But in 2004, several years before he became the foundation’s director, Marsden, who’d been a friend of Shepard’s and a newspaper reporter in Casper, Wyoming, essentially agreed with much of what would be put forward in the book. According to Jimenez, Marsden said at the time, “The quick and easy description of Matt Shepard gay bashed ... is about as far from the actual nuanced truth of what happened as it can get.” As for the possible role of drugs in Shepard’s killing, Jimenez quotes Marsden as saying, “... I remember thinking ... especially when it started to come out that McKinney was sur-
that his organization hasn’t yet taken a position on the legislation and he was speaking on a personal level. Some of Wiener’s critics said that his proposal may help people but more is needed. “I haven’t heard specifics about Supervisor Wiener’s plan but I hope that in addition to this idea he will demonstrate a stronger commitment to preserving affordable housing in his district in other meaningful ways,” Tom Temprano, president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, said in a Facebook message. “In a district where long-term queer residents are being displaced at an alarming rate we are going to need a lot more than a few new inlaws,” he added. Wiener said he has done other things to increase affordable housing, including work on the housing trust fund, aid to homeless and at-risk youth, and allowing smaller efficiency apartments, known as “micro-units.” “I’ve been working on affordable housing since I took office,” said Wiener. “This legislation is the next step in trying to create more and diverse housing options for our residents.”t
rounded by people who were deep into the methamphetamine problem, that this was perhaps the most spectacular methamphetaminerelated crime that had ever happened in Wyoming ...” He also said, “I remember thinking at the time that the Matt Shepard case would forever go down in history as, you know, one of the saddest examples of gay bashing, but what it also was, was one of the saddest examples of the desperate lengths people on methamphetamine will go to.” Asked about the comments, Marsden told the B.A.R., “I was not afforded an opportunity to review any of that interview material before [the book] was published. I can’t tell you if I said that or not.” He noted Jimenez uses several ellipses and, among other concerns, he said, “I don’t recall the context of that interview nine years ago,” although he
added, “I believe he discussed the fact that there was a rumor about methamphetamine related to this case.” Since then, “I have never seen hard evidence from the case record that indicate that rumor was true,” said Marsden. “If [Jimenez] is asserting that I agree with his theory of the case, that is not true,” said Marsden, who said he never knew Shepard to use meth. The Monday, October 28 event is set for 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the San Jose Public Library, Willow Glen Branch, 1157 Minnesota Avenue. The prosecutor who oversaw the Shepard case and some other law enforcement officials who were involved have shared conflicting opinions about the book with the B.A.R. Their comments are included in a longer version of this story, available online at http://www.ebar.com.t