PREFACE There were at least 500 women living without shelter in one of the most affluent sea-side communi?es in California. Slowly, one by one, their bodies were being found dead in plain sight. Women who could no longer afford record-breaking rents and sky-rocke?ng home prices were being forced out of their homes and finding it impossible to secure housing that they could afford. White, single women in their six?es, seven?es and eigh?es were sleeping in their cars and living under freeways. They camped on the beach while ill and convalesced from breast cancer in forests adjacent to the tony neighborhoods of Monterey, Pebble Beach and Carmel. While I and others slept comfortably in our beds, these working-class women were frequently raped and vic?mized. They were invisible, eking out meager existences in the absence of services to meet their dire need for shelter, safety and community. Why was this so shocking to me? Was it because, I too thought that problems like poverty and homelessness - obvious in urban landscapes, didn’t exist in a place so many called paradise? Did I think that I’d escaped, that I had goTen as far away as was possible from the probability of systemic discrimina?on and bad luck? Had I grown so accustomed to the Black and Brown faces of homelessness (encountered on the streets of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco), that I had become desensi?zed? Why was the possibility of this different face of poverty so startling, so improbable? Somehow, I reached an emo?onal ?pping point and suddenly felt guilt and was complicit in my own blindness? In a surge of empathy, I had the sudden realiza?on that, although not knowing exactly what, there was something I could do to help? Homelessness was not a new phenomenon to me. I had been passing bodies lying on cardboard boxes or cowering in doorways for decades and (although cared) never acted. Like most, I succeed in crea?ng such distance between myself and those living without adequate shelter that I was overwhelmed by their growing number, failed to recognize their complex diversity, and became sufficiently unmoved by the breath of their humanity. How could I make a difference? They were not us. The part I could play in the lives of these strangers became unfathomable even to me, and they were grossly ignored. That is, un?l I too was broken in plain sight and could iden?fy with these unlikely sisters - White working-class women who looked nothing like me but who told stories I too could understand. Shocked but not daunted by this unexpected comradery, I formed an alliance that caught me by surprise. It started with a leTer that I received from a stranger aler?ng me to the catastrophe of homeless women and asking me for help. Having suffered my own sense of isola?on as a Black gay first genera?on American male, I knew what it felt like to be misjudged, invisible and on the other side of access. I quickly iden?fied with these women and was compelled to act on their behalf. I asked two of my friends (one Buddhist, the other Jewish) to join me on a quest to make a difference in our community and in the lives of women living without shelter. Over the course of the next five years, together with the Community Founda?on for Monterey County, we formed the Fund for Homeless Women, mobilized a community, raised public awareness, secured venture capital instrumental in opening five new programs specifically designed to 1 G:\2LEAF PRESS\reid-michael\manuscript\PREFACE-gd-revs.docx
address the needs of this unique and quickly growing popula?on, and started an endowment, making the invisible visible for genera?ons yet to come. Despite our best efforts there con?nues to be a severe shortage of affordable housing. People living in neighborhoods around the country con?nue to pay higher percentages of their household income on rising rents. Now the highest it has been in 10 years, the number of homeless individuals and families in my small community of Monterey County alone has increased by 27% and 37% respec?vely. Absent bold collabora?ve interven?on, this narra?ve will con?nue, and these numbers will increase. What my colleagues and I are aTemp?ng to accomplish through the Fund for Homeless Women is just one aTempt to address the needs of one homeless popula?on in one small region of the country. But ours is an important story to tell. Every aTempt to make a difference, does just that. No maTer how small, it makes a difference. In wri?ng this book, it is my hope that readers will recognize the broken and invisible in their own ci?es and towns, and be moved to help. It’s a call to ac?on, a call for us to see and connect with all of humanity, wai?ng to be discovered, regardless of what she or he may look like on the outside. Especially those who look nothing like you. I hope the stories revealed in the book will help reveal the call within you to take bold steps on behalf of others, and to do whatever is possible to make a difference and bring posi?ve change to the world in which you live and belong. NO VACANCY describes a journey from discovering a hidden secret on the Central Coast of California, to uncovering the complicated reasons for its existence, and being challenged by the barriers that prevent its ameliora?on – even in a place so many call paradise. In it you will read stories of women both dead and alive that may surprise you, challenge your no?ons of the homeless, and take you on the circuitous road of grassroots social change. This is especially relevant today when communi?es face weakened poli?cal will, dwindling financial support from the government and unreliable measures for social jus?ce; when we cease to see ourselves and those we love in the faces we call “other” and deem outside ourselves. At this turning of the 21st Century in America we con?nue to live with the growing reality of poverty and homelessness. But ul?mately, each one of us can make a difference, find purpose in our life and discover a way out of whatever may compromise our ability to dream and to act for the greater good. Someone once asked me why I cared so much about these women. I care because I believe that regardless of how we might appear – regardless of the categories we use to separate us, we are all interrelated and interdependent. At this moment in our history it may seem counter cultural, but I believe that our common humanity compels us to care for one another and to act on each other’s behalf, especially when it is difficult, inconvenient or even dangerous. Regardless of race, age or language, these women are our mothers and daughters, our sisters, our friends. These women living without adequate shelter are our present and our future. Their suffering is our suffering. Their transforma?on is our transforma?on. I care because I know we can do beTer. They are us. And that’s a story I want to be a part of. Hopefully, you will as well. 2 G:\2LEAF PRESS\reid-michael\manuscript\PREFACE-gd-revs.docx