I’ve enjoyed Metro Transit’s slogan, “We’ll get you there.” There’s a high bar. As opposed to, “We’ll leave you by the side of the road two miles from there.” Or, “We’ll go there ourselves and bring you back a colorful postcard.” Or, “Our buses have tires.”
I feel somewhat the same way after learning from our editor Nicole Meoli that she did not know last week’s column was a 20-year anniversary retrospective. That’s Nicole “Reading Every Word I Edit” Meoli.
To repeat, it’s been 20 years, as of Aug. 1. Since I looked back on the 20 years last week, maybe I should look ahead this week. What can the future bring to this weekly pile of 666 words?
One thing is certain, I’ll still need to resort to my muse. Cindy, my imaginary but highly effective Muse of Other, muse of few words, has often been able to help me fill blank spaces on pages.
She’s sharing the window sill with the cat. “Well, you’ve talked about homelessness before. That seemed to work.”
Aha! Yes.
Homelessness still exists. Reports that homelessness would end in Seattle in 2015 were incorrect. When I began in 1995, I was actually required by the editorial committee to discuss homelessness in every single installment, and it still needs talking about.
My first column brought up the fact that I’d been a car camper. It was my second bout of homelessness, during the ’80s, when I lived out of a broken-down ’69 Rambler permanently parked in space B2 in the University of Washington’s underground parking lot, beneath Kane Hall. That was more than 30 years ago.
Almost nothing has changed since then. Homeless car campers are still harassed the way I was.
If anything, matters are worse today.
When I was car camping it was technically legal. Even sleeping in a parked car on the UW campus was legal then.
The campus police knew that and hated it. They wanted to get me out of there but couldn’t.
One officer in particular admitted he couldn’t just run me off, but then forced me to listen to him talk for more than an hour, so that I couldn’t get any sleep. He did this because he was angry that he had to pay rent for an apartment, and I didn’t have to.
I asked him if he had a car and he said, sure he did. So I told him if he thought I had it so cushy, space B3 is available, although I’d prefer he’d pick a different level altogether, because he’s a lousy neighbor.
Now I live in subsidized housing in the International District.
As I walk the neighborhood every day, I spot cars that are obviously being lived in, and I’m reminded how hard it was to sleep in a car parked along the curb.
The whole reason I parked in the underground parking lot in the first place was for the warmth. I couldn’t run the engine and use the car’s heater. I couldn’t afford much gasoline.
I was too mentally ill at the time to find any better solution than to park indoors in a relatively warm space.
Even when the car broke down, it was worth it to pay the daily parking fee to stay warm.
Had I still been there when the state law changed and car camping on campus was finally outlawed, the effect would have been to force me out onto cold streets with no car. I’d still have had my cushy rent-free lifestyle, I’d just have been freezing again.
That’s still the effect of laws that interfere with car camping today. Every time a lived-in car or camper gets towed, the occupants are left with less than they had, so they are that much closer to nothing.
Someone’s walking the streets vulnerable and freezing, for the sake of no common good that compares with the degree of harm done.