#97. Nezzie Wade: Homes, Dignity, in Humboldt County CA

Some conversations change how you see your neighbors. This one does. We sit with longtime educator and advocate Nezzie Wade to explore why Humboldt County’s per-capita homelessness ranks among the highest in the country and what can actually move the needle: community-first design, small-scale villages, safe parking, and dignity-forward services that meet people where they are.

Nezzie's story threads from Catholic schooling and decades of teaching sociology to co-founding Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives (AHA). Along the way, she lays out a clear diagnosis: California’s housing targets are chronically underbuilt; income thresholds exclude those in crisis; and institutional models struggle to support people who’ve been surviving outside for years. The alternative is both humble and powerful—mutual aid as infrastructure. Think tiny house villages that function like neighborhoods, with roles and support baked in, not imposed. Think safe sheltering that invites participation and grows stability.

We also spotlight AHHA’s mobile shower program: a custom trailer with ADA access that’s delivered more than 7,000 hot showers and services to 16,000+ guests across Eureka, Arcata, and McKinleyville. It’s a blueprint for practical compassion—hygiene, food, clothing, and referrals—built on local donations and grit, not red tape. Nezzie makes a direct ask: partners with land near transit, donors willing to seed operations and simple utilities, and listeners ready to help turn proven concepts into living spaces.

If you care about Humboldt, housing, or humane policy, this conversation gives you facts, context, and a path to act. Subscribe, share with a friend who cares about solutions, and leave a review with one idea you’d support locally—land, funding, or time. Your voice helps build the village.

Transcript

Meet Nezi Wade

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors and ships out at sea, uh other folks, I'd like you to meet my new friend Nesi Wade. Hi, Nessie.

unknown 0:38

Hi.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 0:39

I'm doing well.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Tell us who you are and what you do. And uh I like my new question. I come out of the gate. What hey, Nesi, what's your deal? What what what do you what do you do in the community?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Oh, well, I do a lot of things. I'm uh I've been a teacher here. I raised my son here. I have a home here. I've been a resident for 46 years.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Uh and I um have lived in the same house for 46 years. Well, actually 47 years I'm a resident, forty-six years I've lived in the same house. And I am a gardener. Uh I find that my association with the land is probably in my DNA. My dad was a farmer. His dad was a farmer.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Wow. And uh in Bakersville? We'll get we'll get there in a minute. I'm jumping ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Okay, that's okay. Um in my every day when I get up and do my thing, I um am on the board and currently president of the board for Rebu uh Sorry, that came out of nowhere. I I I was on the board for Rebuy Community Action Agency, but and a founder, but I am on the board and a founder, a co-founder of Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives, better known as AHA.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Aha. Oh, wait. Aha.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Aha. Uh-huh. Because it's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

So you've you founded this and you're on the board. What are you what are you guys all about?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Well, we came up with the uh idea that we should do something to address the lack of housing and the systemic social inequality we have that leaves a lot of people in Humboldt County, too many people, without a roof and without the amenities of home. So we've been trying to work hard at creating a shelter crisis, which happened in our county in about 2018 and in the city of Eureka in 2016.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

And from there, we've thought we could use SB2 zones, which were identified as already principally permitted shelter zones. Then once we had a shelter crisis, all you need to declare that is that a significant number of people are without housing and cannot obtain it, and their health and safety is threatened.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

So we get a heavy rain or an icy stow on the coast. That kind of shelter, emergency shelter? Aaron Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Well, it was intended to be emergency or other shelter for whatever. They were already principally permitted, already approved. It would have been possible, we thought, to move people there and help them begin to thrive by being stable and connecting them with the things that they needed. And we're focused really around community, the development of community. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Is that idea still on the table to use those shelters that have been permitted?

unknown 3:26

No.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

No, that's all changed. They did use those ideas, though, to put Betty's village in place, which is a good thing. We contributed to that.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

That's down on the bay.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah. Well, there's the there's the Blue Angel Village, and then there's the um Bayside Village.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

And they're they're very different i it um operations.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Take me back and tell me the Nesi story. So you were raised in Bakersville?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Wow. There's I I know a lot about Bakersville because my wife's in Porterville. Where it's super warm in the summer.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah. It is very warm. Uh we grew up uh in a neighborhood in the 50s that was classic 50s neighborhood with just a ton of kids, a lot of people having kids. We only had three in our family because my dad died when he was 27.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

And my mom was 26 and wait.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

So your mom raised all you guys.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yep. It took a village. That's I I was raised in community, and I and my family also was community. My godparents had 12 children.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

So uh a mutual friend said to remind me to ask you what was the promise that your dad your mom made to your dad before he died?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

There was certain certain some promise. Aaron Powell Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

A little back up a little bit. My mom came from a family of Mennonites for the most part, and they were really community-oriented people. Her mom was a very um community-oriented person, was very involved in helping members of the community for various reasons. And she lost her mom when she was twelve. Her mom is a terrible story. She was looking at fabric in a department store, and she was looking up and stepped into an open freight elevator.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yeah. And she recovered. She had broken arms and things, but it was a blood clot that about a month or two months later took her out.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

So it's a lung fall.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

It was. And then um, so she lost my dad and his her and her well, her mom and then her dad. But her my dad's parents became her parents, basically.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Oh.

Catholic Schooling, Early Loss, And Resilience

SPEAKER_00 5:37

And with the help of my grandmother, she uh helped raise us. My grandmother, my dad's family was very large Irish Catholic family.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

My grandmother had one boy and six girls.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

A lot of girls.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

One of them became a nun, and the rest of them produced a whole lot of grandchildren.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

And good Catholic thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

As they do.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah. But it was my my mom and dad were living on uh on a farm, a ranch that was producing um barley. Alpha alpha in Bakersville. Yeah. And um when my dad died, he was in partnership with his dad. His dad, his dad died one month before he did. Wow. And so they were in partnership. And so um it was a very strange thing. My mom and my grandmother became partners in farming, neither one of whom was a farmer. That's interesting. Mm-hmm. And and they left the farm. We left the farm. And my grandmother got a house at 2617 Bank Street. We got a house at 2617 Fifth Street, three houses away from the Catholic school.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Because my dad made my mother promise she converted to Catholicism in order to marry him. She three-day shy of 17. She was very young. And he knew that she didn't have the background in Catholicism to raise us Catholic on her own. So she he made her promise that she would send us to Catholic schools. And with my grandmother's help, she did.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And I think it's probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Wonderful. All the all the kids.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yeah. I mean, w I I just went came from my 58th high school reunion. Some of these people I've known since I was like before school. Still friends. Yeah.

unknown 7:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Wow. So how many kids went to Catholic school?

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Oh, the there were lots of Catholic schools. There were feeder schools that all went to one Catholic high school.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

So this is K through twelve?

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Mm-K through eight.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

And then high school?

SPEAKER_00 7:42

And then high school. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Wow. And uh So uniforms for sure back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Oh, yeah. Uniforms, Oxfords, sweaters, blazers.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Guess who taught at a Catholic school?

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Did you?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, St. Mary's in Arcada.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Guess who taught at a Catholic school?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

No way.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

That's right. You're a teacher.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Well, but I I was laid off my job here at College of the Redwoods back in about uh 82, I think it was, when CR had to pay a million and a half dollars back to the state for carrying students on their rosters uh who never completed the course, so they had to pay ADA back.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Oh wow. I think I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

They laid off about 60 part-time teachers, I think it was.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

A bit of a scandal.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah. Well, I lost my job at that point.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Aaron Powell What did you teach?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

I taught sociology. Huh. And I and I've taught a lot. Community college back in the day was so wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

I bet.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

We I we could teach a lot of things. In fact, I um partnered with several people to teach courses that if we could offer them to the community and get 25 people to enroll, we could teach them.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

And so uh Zaretti Goosby and I taught a course called Community Process, the Dynamics of Change.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Down downtown at the campus, and there were lots of people who became uh board members, directors, and different nonprofits in the area.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Came from that.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Zaretti's still in the area, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Okay. I've heard really good things.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah. He's a he's a wonderful human.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Yeah. Is he retired too?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Yep. He is.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Likely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Yeah. He's a gardener also.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Another gardener.

unknown 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

So it's like that therapy and the earth.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

It's true. That the I I had injuries in the last several years that kept me from being able to do much, even sit at a table or my computer. But um this year I discovered after purchasing a shovel from one of our unhoused neighbors who was trying to sell the shovel that was looked like a really good shovel. And I said it forest service kind of shovel. Sold. So I bought it and I took it home, and it was a really wonderful, sharp shovel. And I stuck it in the dirt. It was like hot knife and butter. And I thought, wow, I can do this.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

And with everything that's going on in the world today, that the best therapy I could have had. I had a wonderful garden, lots of produce.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

A lot of therapies out there today.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah.

Teaching, Sociology, And Community Change

SPEAKER_01 10:02

We do a lot of walking. That's good too. Yeah. Jenny's a runner and a hiker and a walker. And we have nine kids. And my joke is I'm Mormon and she's Catholic. So we have a lot of kids. I told that joke in Texas, the kid who had a Mormon Catholic parent combo said, Oh, dude, I'm so sorry. Just kidding, man. I'm just kidding with you. So you went to school did you do uh university there too?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Or no, I I uh went to high school and my dad being a veteran, he died as a result of having been in the service. And um my mom got, I think it was like five dollars a month or$10 a month for each of us kids. There were three of us. And she put it in the bank. Yeah. And um when I was going into high school, she uh I begged her, can I please have that money? Can I please have I want to use it on, I want to take a trip around the United States. There was a coach at one of our high schools that took a trip every year called the USA Tour. Thirty uh thirty-five states in seven weeks, and two busloads of kids, ninety-eight kids that went.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Brave soul.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

It was wonderful. Well, they had we had parent chaperones, but when the bus loads of beautiful trip was amazing. It's the most it's the single most impacting thing other than my long-term education that has sh shaped me as a human.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Seven weeks.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah. And you have to understand this was before Civil Rights Act, before the Voting Rights Act, before a lot of the people's movements. It was just in the beginning. This was in um 63, 1963.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

And it was phenomenal in terms of its impact. And I saw things that really uh never have left me in terms of what the dynamics of interracial relationships and dynamics and yeah, everything.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

So we went through the South or part of the South?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yes. Wow. We did. And it was um it was the year before, the year after Freedom Summer. So there was a lot of um stuff brewing.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Aaron Powell This is way before Hayde Ashbury in San Francisco, too.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Yeah, but I was up in the Bay Area when that all was happening. Really? Yeah, I was teaching.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Did you go hang out at the Hayde?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah, I took my students. No, I took my students on field trip and we went to San Francisco when we went to Haight Ashbury, and we also went to Telegraph Hill and we went to all these different places. We hung out at the international airport so that they could sweet.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

All these people coming in. Wow. Yeah. So you see it all. So hey, if you're just joining us, Scott Hammond at 100% Humboldt Podcast. I didn't say those words when I opened up. 100% Humboldt Podcast with your host, Scott Hammond, and my new best friends.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Nezi Wade.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Nezi Wade. And uh we're just talking about uh uh her background. And uh so tell me more. So where did you end up at college?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Um I I went, uh graduated from high school in Bakersfield, and um my teachers were remarkable. And they um I I loved biology. I wanted to be a biology major. My biology teacher was also my philosophy teacher.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

And her her uncle was Tilliard Deschardin, and she was very much um uh a purveyor of information about the makeup of the human.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Remind us who that is, her uncle.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Uh he's a philosopher. Uh-huh. French philosopher. But anyway.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Famous.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, famous. But to go a lot about um how wear makeup, what what what what makes us go. Sorry. Anyway, she um inspired me to be a biology major.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

And so I went off to college at the local community college to be a biology major.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Is that BCC?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Bakersville College, yep, BC. And um I did that for two semesters, but my biology lab teacher was also a Marine Corps sergeant in the reserves. And um this was during Vietnam, and he offered us extra points on our quizzes on Fridays. Our labs were from three o'clock to six o'clock on Fridays, if you can imagine.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Brutal.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah. But he was he was gung-ho Vietnam, and he would give extra points if we could tell the number of Viet Cong we killed that week. And it was awful. It was awful. So I switched over and became a sociology major.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Of course. That'll change it.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

And so uh did you go where'd you go beyond BC?

SPEAKER_00 14:45

So I um left Bakersville College and I got married, and my husband was going to San Jose State, and I we moved to San Jose. And um I didn't get accepted at San Jose State. I had to put in another year for a community college. So we went to West Valley College. It was very fun because the college that I went to was the previous high school campus, and across the street was the previous, it was the previous elementary school campus. Across the street was the high school, and then it became the college. So it was kids that in my classes had been in elementary school, went across the street to high school, and came back to be in college.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

They returned. It's all in San Jose.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Yeah. Well, it's Campbell, a subsidiary of San Jose.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Beautiful town. You stayed there?

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Yeah. I was in San Jose for eleven years. I got my degrees at San Jose State.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I got two hips in one day at Stanford.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah, about 14 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Thank you, Dr. Bellino. That was good work. That was quite a day.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah, two in one day.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

I know. I got a two for one. I'm not sure I would do that again, like in that order, but uh the number yeah, it was well, I had a great coach, her name's Joni. She um uh she hung in there with me. But yeah, uh pretty pretty major surgery. That's why they have heavy drugs like oxycotin and roxycodone and all the things. Because that's pretty incredible pain. But I could walk right away.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

It was it was uh life-changing.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

So that was what, how 14 years ago?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, 2014. And uh summer of 13. Yeah. So I had a kind of bad like hip dysplasia like a dog would get.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Aaron Powell You didn't do a lot of stuff in 2013 then.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

No, I changed careers. I became a good neighbor. They recruited me while I was recovering. It must have been the drugs.

Moving North: Why Humboldt Became Home

SPEAKER_00 16:38

To become an i I worked for a state farm insurance agent when I was in college.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Aaron Powell Oh, how about that? Yeah. In San Jose?

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah, there was two Jim Phoff and uh Don Schwank. And they they they would leave the office and just leave the office to myself and the other woman who worked there.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Aaron Ross Powell Good. Go golfing, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Well, one went on vacation. One had a motorcycle, he would go off on vacations. Oh, cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Hey. It's it's a nice gig. Um so tell me more about uh fast forward, so you guys were married there and then what brought you to Humboldt? Or what um what transpired between there and Humboldt?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Aaron Ross Powell, I I was married to my husband for 68 to 74. And he in 72, 73, uh was identified by his company as the fair-haired son. And so they wanted him to stick with them. And um he did. He went to Los Angeles for three months and worked with the vice president of operations, and then he went to New York City and worked for the right-hand person national finance officer. And he did, and he was very successful. And he um uh we bought a house in Connecticut. He moved to Connecticut. I had finished my master's degree and my credential and all of that at San Jose State, and so I was had applied to Rutgers in Columbia and was gonna do the PhD thing. My dis my thesis was uh a dissertation already, so I was groomed to go to Columbia to be under the person who dominated the field for years, but that's another story. Anyway, he got uh sent back to California. So I didn't do that, but I had been offered a job before I went back there. We'd lived in Connecticut for five months, I think. And I called and said, I'm coming back and I get a job. And they gave me three classes to teach, and I started teaching, and he went to work for the national headquarters or the headquarters in Menlo Park.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

And then we stayed together for about another year and we got the So you s you stayed for You stayed at cla and in Connecticut in that case.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah. No, I didn't. I came back to the Bay Area and took a teaching job. And then I continued to teach. I took a I worked in the private sector for a company called Professional Resource Associates too, working on affirmative action and seminars and that kind of stuff. And then I ended up um getting married again. And uh my husband didn't want to leave the Bay Area, but I was really done with the population and the density and everything.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Even then, getting busy.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Well, I we were in Campbell, but one night a policeman came around the corner. We lived real close to the city hall, came around the corner, ran into the back of my car, and my bedroom window was about as far as from here to the end of the table.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

And I said, That's it, I gotta go. Gotta go. I gotta go. And and then my cousin's husband, who was a state farm agent, invited him to come up and visit and go fishing on the Klamath River.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

He was saneing at the time. He he left State Farm and went to fishing game. Oh, cool. Yeah. And went up to the fishing game first and then went to state. I don't remember. Anyways.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Came to Klamath.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah. And he came home and he said, Oh, it's so beautiful. Let's move to Bend to the Promised Land. Yeah. I just grabbed the calendar and said, Pick a day.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Wow. So that's how you got up here.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

What did you do when you came here?

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Well, I we backpacked in Hawaii for six weeks before we moved here. We put all of our stuff in storage, quit our jobs, and did that. But I had an endometrial attack when I was there and I had to have surgery in Hilo.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

And so I wasn't able to do anything at first. But we moved to Arcata because my cousin lived there and we lived down the street from them.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Yeah, it was fun. And then uh a couple months later, we moved to Eureka in the house that I live in now.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Wow. So what year was did you come to Arcata?

SPEAKER_00 20:38

78. 77? 77 or 78.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

You and I, yeah. I came to 78.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Feral hippie child from San Diego.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Grad recently graduated and ready to rock and roll and live on my own. And that first year was not too pretty. In all the ways possible. Which is good. That's part of the journey. You got to hit bottom and before you look up and was that here? Yeah. Arcada. Yeah, went to Humboldt.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

I I didn't go to Humboldt, but my dad my my ex-husband did. I we got divorced also, but he wanted to be he he wanted to go back to the city. He was a city person. And I really didn't want to go back to the city.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

So you'd love to hear.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

I did. And my and my son was raised here. He's 46 now.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

And um he'll probably never come back here either.

Founding AHA And The Occupy Catalyst

SPEAKER_01 21:27

They often don't. We have we have nine, and how many live here? Um half are gone. And eleven grandkids said they none of them live here, which is a bummer. But uh imagine having to go to Amsterdam to see grandkids. Oh, wow. Kind of cool and kind of far away. Yeah, it is. So anyway, tell us more about Aha. Tell me, tell me your work with the homeless and what what what do you do? And how how long have you done this?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

And uh we well, we were we've been advocating since the uh Occupy movement in 2011. We had already created an organization out of the peace marches called Communities for Peace. And people who were involved with Communities for Peace were also involved with the um formation of uh AHA. There were three of us that were co-founders. And the Occupy movement hit in 2011, and with the occupation of the courthouse, there were a lot of people who were very unhappy about that. And homelessness became the the the public face of Occupy everywhere because it was an inclusive community. People had voice, they could find food, they could find comfort, they could find companionship, and they could sleep. And so um that we started Jim, a co-founder, Jim Packwin, he's now deceased, also, but a wonderful human being. He was a Vietnam Eravette. Anyway, we did these things called celebrations of determination on Fridays, and we brought coffee and soup and all kinds of things and got to know people really well. And Deborah Carey from Southern Humboldt, who'd been working uh with homelessness and and advocating for them and working on the streets, helping people for a couple of decades, was also a co-found-founder. And we um started putting out packets of information to show the gap between what we have and and what we don't have in terms of the number of people. And that there's nothing in and it's still the same. There's nothing in the middle for folks. You either have the streets or low-income housing or a few other options, but in Humboldt, there really isn't much. And we have you know 1,194 people in the last point in time count that were identified as completely without housing.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Or shelter. Completely without shelter.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Is that high percentage-wise for our population?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Aaron Powell Yes, it is. We're one of the highest in the country.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Aaron Ross Powell In terms of ratios to versus population.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Per capita, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yeah. Wow.

unknown 23:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00 23:58

What are what are some of the issues that cause cause that one primarily is lack of housing and lack of options. And we're rural and we're outposted, and we have um a lot of people who there's a lot of mythology around homelessness, but a lot of the people who are homeless here originated here. They came from this. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

I like outposted. That's a really interesting use of that word. We are we're we're an outpost. Lost coast. Outpost. Hey Hank Sims, what's up? Oh, say it's saying hi to Hank. He's not actually here. No, the uh I have had a guest or two that has said I came as far as I could away from the East Coast or from wherever.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

And I wound up as far west as I could be. And it was Humboldt County. Yeah. Hey, Humboldt County, it's right there. I was enough to use my prop. Have you ever been to Humboldt County? It's quite a place.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I worked at the university for 26 years. Aaron Powell Really?

SPEAKER_01 24:59

What did you do?

SPEAKER_00 25:00

I quit well, I was hired there. Well, after I was laid off my job, I moved away. I taught in a Catholic school for a year. Seventh and eighth grade. At St. St. John's in Huasco, California. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Wasco. That's out in the valley.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

And I taught religion and um uh language arts. And the religion part of it for the seventh graders that year was community. And I I'm all I'm all on community. I love community. And I live far away from family. So this community, Humboldt community, has been my home. My my home, my family, the people I I have here, I love just like family. So anyway, uh I was at HSU. I was hired to coordinate or to establish and then run a university-wide learning center, which I did do.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

What was it called?

SPEAKER_00 25:49

It was just called the Learning Center.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Now it was part of YES or It was under the umbrella of student support services, uh EOP student support services. I was an EOP student support services staff person and co uh coordinated the learning center, but also had an advisement caseload. And for a while I was the director of the intensive learning experience program, which was mandated by the state for students who were scoring in the lowest lowest quartile or the English placement in the math entry-level math exam. And it was to identify the schools that were producing those students, mostly in the southern part of the state. Okay. And so it was developing curriculum for students that needed to remediate. The state said, We're not going to penalize you for not getting what you needed from your schools. They gave them two years to remediate. And in some cases, that meant four semesters of English before they could go into English 100.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

But but they were a lot of them, probably 50-50 non-native speakers of English. And so uh the some of the curriculum that got developed was English 30 and English 31, 30 being vocabulary development, that kind of stuff, along with pairing those students with students who are learning English as a to teaching English as a second language. So that the people that were learning how to teach could have students to teach with.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Kind of a brilliant idea. So how many years at Humboldt?

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Uh altogether 26.

Why Homelessness Is So High Per Capita

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Wow. And you and you really nailed something that the spirit of Humboldt is family. I think that's Michael Keliman, the CEO of St. Joe's, has been here a couple, three years because it just feels like a it's like home. There's that embrace, that that love, that's an intangible. I don't want to give it a bunch of words because it's going to limit it. But yeah, there's something something special. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

It is. It's a context.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah. So if I were to give say, hey, hey, listen, tell us what's your take on homelessness? Why why do we have a higher per capita? What's maybe it's well beyond this discussion, but how how do how do we get here? Where are we at? Where are we going? Um what what's it look like?

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Uh it's a long story.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Aaron Powell, we have another 20 minutes. I don't want to spend on that. We got to do the quiz here pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

There are a lot of people who have a lot of ideas and feelings and thoughts about this, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

But um we have a significant number of people that are unhoused on the West Coast, the whole West Coast, because our climate is a little bit less severe than other places. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Sure. Not Minnesota. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

No.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

That's a factor. But the but the biggest factor is we just don't have housing. You know, c California has goals every year. They set the number of housing units that have to be developed by every county and every c city has goals. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

We'd probably fail abysmally, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Trevor Burrus We've only been able to not I mean in the whole state of California only meet like 15 percent of what our goals are.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

15, 15?

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Yeah. We can't possibly keep up with what we need to do. And so we have not come up with alternatives that because we've done a lot of single-family dwellings, we've done very now we're doing affordable housing projects. But of uh and the state's paying for a lot of those. But the affordable housing projects still leave that huge gap that people fall into where there's nothing for them. They can't they can't use them because affordable housing is often subsidized and people can't be in it unless they get a subsidy.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

And if the subsidy goes away, then they're threatened with losing their housing and often fall in and out of housing. For example, there's some housing projects that are going into the city of Eureka with link housing, and there's great great, great things. We need this housing, we need this housing, we need any kind of housing. But there's a minimum income level of sixteen thousand dollars to be able to qualify to get in them, and the ceilings at 54. So they're not for the population that we're trying to address, having just a level of stability that allows them to thrive. And we've worked with people, we've held conversation, we've spent a lot of time face to face with folks, and um a lot of people that have been chronically homeless can't just go into housing and meet the regulations that are they're required to meet in order to be in a safe place. Right. So we've been working on creating alternatives of we've got this into the housing element. We've had ordinances written about it, safe parking, safe sheltering, tiny house villages, emergency housing villages. But they are still extremely difficult to do because the way that they're set up is an institutional model. The way that they will work is a very different way, which requires mutual aid, uh collaboration, a lot of people working together, the community being part of it, people participating. Government. Yeah. Well, pe well, not government as we know it. Government's actually a little bit of a problem in trying to get these alternatives.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Because they're about making policy. And that's what they do. And that's why they're there. But we're talking about making community, and they're very different things.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

I think that's a great statement.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Differentiation. They were very different.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah. And and it's hard for a policymaker to want to trust mutual aid, volunteers, you know, things that you can't put on a bottom line. So we made a proposal for I made a proposal, for example, to the city of Arcata back in 2017 for a piece of property that's still available that could very easily be a tiny house village, a transition from camping to tiny houses.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

In Arcata.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

But when we made the proposal, you can see it. It's on Access Humbled or it's on our website. But it it was very good. But they wanted us to have a million dollars in hand before we started.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

And that really doesn't take a million dollars. It takes a community, it takes a village, it takes the people that are going to be served participating and buying in and being part of all of that. And we had providers, 30 or so of them, who said they would support providing services to a village if we had it. And we had people in the audience that were had pledged$30,000,$25,000 that were waiting for the city to say yes, but the city didn't say yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Surprising. A million bucks, that's a lot in the bank.

Alternatives: Villages, Safe Parking, And Policy Friction

SPEAKER_00 32:46

It is. And you can do a lot with that. I mean you can do the more the merrier. But people really want to participate in the solutions. And the people closest to the pain, those that are without housing and and on, you know, hunger, uh verge of hunger or or food insecure know the solutions. And it doesn't have to be complicated. It really doesn't. But it is very complicated by regulation and by how the money flows and all of the things that make it very difficult to do. So speaking of how the money flows, I want to make a plug for aha. Please do right now. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Nessie's got to plug aha. And so uh aha what I'm what I know about this, it's way more than just showers. But you guys provide showers for homeless. I know that much. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

We do. Well, that was one of the results of not being able to get the leadership to want to use SB2 zones and work with us on doing those kinds of things. We couldn't really morally accept that people were left with no options and no amenities of home. So we there was a grant that came through uh the county, through the Housing and Homeless Coalition, uh for uh emergency homeless aid. And we wrote a grant for the shower, mobile showers. And I visited a lot of programs, I talked to a lot of people and got really the specs on what we could do to make it really successful. And um, we wrote the grant and the grant was accepted. And we didn't knew we we learned the hard way. Everybody learns the hard way because they don't tell you these fine details. But you have to put the money up front and then you get reimbursed when you're working with a government agency. So we had to put a down payment down to show that in good faith we really wanted that. But it took a six took me six months. Uh we got we got a lot of, did a lot of research and put it all on paper and talked to people. And it and it took six months to build uh custom make it to what we wanted. And we have a three restroom shower trailer with one uh unit that's uh ADA accessible and compliant. So we have a wheelchair lift. We have a lot of people in our communities that have disabilities. Anyway, um we have a wheelchair lift and it's a big restroom that has a seat and a handled shower and all that. And two other small restrooms, and it's pulled by a nine-passenger van that is loaded up and we roll up and we pull up and we have a pop-up care center with information and referral, hygiene products, food prepared, and non-perishables to go. We have clothing all season, all weather, all gender, um, and we have hot showers. And I want to tell you the statistics on that. Please I just did them today so I would have them.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Fresh.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Since we started, we've done we've had five years of operation. We were off for 10 months during COVID. I mean what in 2023, and for the first few six weeks or so of COVID. So for the five years that we've been operating, and we've gone from Southern Humboldt, we don't go to Southern Humboldt anymore, it's too far, but we went from Southern Humboldt to uh Eureka to Arcata to McKinleyville. Now we just do Eureka, Arcata, McKinleville. But we have provided support and services to 16,000 and a few more guests. And we provided over 7,000 showers.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Aaron Powell Well, those are individuals, 16. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Well, they're there are people who come back to our program more than one time. But the showers are individual showers that have been given for sure.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

That's cool. God bless you.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah, it's a big it's a it's a very busy, big program, and it it's costly. So the plug for AHA is Please plug away. We're just moving into our, and I know everybody's everybody is looking for food, everybody's looking for donations, everybody's looking for money. But we are on the verge of being able to do some of these options now because the the the leadership has made it clear they're not going to work with us. We have to do this on private property. So if anybody has private property they're willing to allow us to use, or they want to donate to a nonprofit, or if they want to release long term with the option to buy, whatever, however that works, that's how we're going to have to go.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Somewhere close around the bay.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Somewhere. Somewhere. It could be around the bay or it could be not so close, but it has to be something where people can get to transportation. Gotcha. And and and and we should have, you know, basic amenities of water and power. But the other plug is the end of October, that's tomorrow. We kick off we kick off our end-of-year donor drive.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

So we're asking everyone who can, if they are be willing to support us in whatever manner you can. We we put a lot of things out about what we need by way of donations. But we buy produce, we buy, you know, uh clothing, underwear, fresh underwear, we get we got a grant for socks, but we do a lot of purchasing for the hygiene products. And we're trying to build capital, of course, to put in a fund where you have earmarked for building houses. So if anybody wants to help, if you have land, you know, we would ask is land. Yeah.

The Mobile Showers: Design, Funding, Impact

SPEAKER_01 38:02

So we don't need 50 people, just a couple that would say, hey, I got 10 acres of blue lake that has access.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Aaron Powell I'm really I'm I I'm really certain that if we were able to demonstrate how this would work with people, that there would be many more of them. It's a model it's a model that could be um replicated. And we should do that because we have so many people and we're going to have more. It looks like we're still going away.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

It's going to get bigger.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. If we look at what's happening now and the number of people that are falling off the edge just with the increased cost for health care and with the inc with the lack of food budget, and uh there's just way more than people can deal with.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Aaron Powell So there's actual homeless and then there's teetering. Those that are on the cusp.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Always.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

That are that fall into the category.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Aaron Ross Powell And it's once you fall into being homeless, it is really hard to get stable again. And that no matter how good an intention is, no matter how good people are, it's really, really difficult. And um, there's a lot of uh disdain for people that are unhoused. But and and for some people they say, well, it's their fault, or they're, you know, they're they're a drugie or whatever. And that's true. That's true for people that are in housing. But the people that are unhoused have a really difficult time having any time available to really focus on taking care of what they need to do. So, and they're not able to be in a place and be stable. They have to be moving about. Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Kind of dramatic almost.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

I know. And I know people get really angry because they're squatting on private property or they're where they're not supposed to be, but there is no other place. So let's start creating other places where people can actually thrive. And there's a lot of people in this community, a lot of organizations that want to support grassroots bottom-up efforts, including the people that are going to be resigning.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Speaking of which, how do we get a hold of you to donate as of kickoff day tomorrow, Halloween? Okay. So uh website?

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Uh yes, our website is uh www.ah-homco.org. And the phone number of our office is 298-1466. And the number where you can always get someone is 707-267-4035.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

You've answered correctly.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Yeah. They um so we can help. We can donate money time food.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Um hygiene products. If you have uh So stuff stuff is okay, the right stuff.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Yeah. I mean, we can't take big bottles of of shampoo and things like that because people can't carry big bottles of shampoo.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

We can use it in our showers, but we probably have plenty, yeah. Yeah. We provide soap, shampoo, body wash, and two towels for each person who takes a shower. And we have a laundry service that takes care of the towels because it's the most appropriate, um, you know, sustainable and healthy way to do that.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Aaron Ross Powell So I'd love to hear a couple of stories about homelessness and maybe victories, heartbreakers. But before we do that, it's your turn where we give back to you. But you got to earn this, Denzi. So I'm just gonna give this to you.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Um this is a uh Tanzania 65 percent dark chocolate Dick Taylor bar, manufactured locally here on the Bay in Eureka, California. So here comes the quiz. Are you ready? Hope you're prepared for this. Question number one. What's your what was your best day? My best day? Your best day ever. Oh, or one of them.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Probably the day my son was born wasn't a wasn't a healthy day. I mean, it was a good it was a good day. I had my tailbone broken when he was born. He was breached.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

Ouch.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

But it was a great, it was a great day for just I uh the anticipation that I had waiting to meet that little person.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Yeah, and looking him in the eye, it was like Does he live up here? No, he's in Sacramento.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Oh, nice. Not too far.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

No.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Well, was he born here?

SPEAKER_00 42:15

He was. He's born at Redwood Memorial Hospital.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Yeah. Oh, yes. We had a f with Dr. Um Johanson. Johansson and who's the other guy?

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Anderson.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Anderson Johansson.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

They had to have both of them when he was born because they do it with two doctors when they're breached.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Right. And they did they don't normally well was he was it C-section?

SPEAKER_00 42:34

No.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

You just went for it.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

No, I did. That's why they broke my tailbone because I they said I had a J-shaped sacrum, and early on he mentioned it just in passing. But they were afraid his neck would get caught on my tailbone. So they just reached in and broke it.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Ooh. Yeah. Those are two really great characters, though. They were great guys. Yeah. They delivered our firstborn Jacob. Okay, good job. Question number two. What was the worst day? Do you have a worst day?

AHA’s Donor Drive And Land Request

SPEAKER_00 43:04

I have some pretty bad days, but they were sad days mostly because of the loss of really iconic people in my life and probably for the world. The day um Martin Luther King died, the day John Kennedy died. You know. It was a pretty sad day the day my mom died.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Yeah, that you can remember where you were in those days. Yeah. Okay. Those are heartbreaking. Ready?

SPEAKER_00 43:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Let me get my bell going. There it is. Number three, what's most fulfilling to you? What fills you up?

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Food.

unknown 43:48

Food.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

That's a good answer.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

I I love food. And I love to I love to cook. I love to grow food. I love the colors and the texture. And um yeah, I'm I I'm I'm not a foodie exactly. I have a but I have a I'm a member of a food food club. Oh. Yeah. Cooking club, we call it cooking club. Yep. For about I don't know, it's been about since 2011.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

That's pretty cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Like monthly or one person hosts and they and they pick the menu, they buy the food, and then we get all the recipes and sit down and figure out how we're gonna do it. And then last time, last we for for um Bonnie McGregor's 82nd birthday, we made beef wellington.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

Yeah. Yeah. But that was good.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Oh my goodness. Yeah, it took all day, but it was wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Why do I know her name?

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Uh Bonnie has been around for a long time. She's been involved with uh uh food banks. She worked on homelessness for many, many years. And she um has well she if you were at Church of the Joyful Healer, you might know her from there some years ago.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Um try to think how you would know her.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

I know her name.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Yeah. Well, she worked on the she worked on on the the um multiple assistant senator along with Ina Harris and a bunch of other people from in here's you know that name too.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Okay, question number three or four or five, or I don't know what who are you and what do you want?

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Ooh, uh I'm a community member and I want community to work together to be able to be inclusive and and involve all of the residents in our community.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Nice. Good answer. Well, it turns out it's your lucky day, but you're not quite there. Last question. So you get a free day to do whatever you want to do. Money's not an object, but 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. You've got to do it over there, not in the corner, but in Humboldt County. Where what do you do? Where do you go? What's your what's your day plan? Oh it's a U Day.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

I'd like to go to the wilderness. I'd like to go to some place sacred, like Dr. Rock or someplace.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Where's that?

SPEAKER_00 46:08

I don't even know if it's Humble County. It's just a very special place. I went there with my son when he was five, and we climbed it to the top of this rock, and there were big wells, like grinding holes, and we laid in them. And you're like on the top of the world getting all the energy.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

It's just a top of the world.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

It's a native sacred place. It's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

There's top of the world uh rock over um way up Fickle Hill that looks east, but uh that may or may not be that. Okay, so your wilderness is a part of that day. What else?

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Um plants. I'm uh I'm I'm a native plant enthusiast. I've worked with nature discovery volunteers for a number of years, and we did the uh original wildflower show for 26 years. Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

We had Griff Griffith on the show. He's native plant guy.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Amongst other things. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

I I probably put with my friend Stephen, who's my partner, boyfriend. We've been boyfriend and girlfriend for 43 years.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

That's sweet.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

It is sweet.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

That sounds like it's legal now.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

We've never been married. We've never lived together, but we do a lot together. But we probably put 50 to 70,000 miles on Forest Service Roads.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

Wow. So you guys go back back country.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Yeah. Joni's been my girlfriend for 46 years. Hi. Hi, hun.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Oh, yeah. You're so convincing. I'm certain they're there.

Humanizing The Unhoused: Skills And Stories

SPEAKER_01 47:32

She's not there. She's she's well, she'll she will be. Anyway. Um so anything else? Say wilderness and uh plant, some gardening.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Warmth, sun.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

Uh she's gonna go east a little ways, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Yeah. But I I really I'm so grateful to be where I am. There I can't think of any place else in the world that I would rather be, especially under the conditions that we're living with today. And I feel really blessed to to be a member of a caring community and um hope that I can carry that forward in a way that um honors how I feel about it.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Oh, I think you are already. Hey, guess what? Winner winner, chicken dinner. You are the proud new owner of I'm trying to smell the thing. You can't, it's so wrapped so well you can't smell it.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

Well, you know what, you know where this is going? This is going to my friend because he Steven is a chocolate guy.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

Oh, Steven, your boyfriend. Really? He may share some with you.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Maybe. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

Bum lucky. He's a chocolate dude. Yeah. Okay. Well, there you there you go. Um love a story before we go about for us that don't touch homeless people in in their lives, we're not part of their lives day to day. Um actually for I don't know if I'm speaking for me because there's I have homeless around my my um Zach is my friend in the in the in the alley. And Zach keeps a good eye on stuff and we're cool. But for those of us that don't have a lot of homeless exposure, how would you what would you say to us and and in terms of, hey, here's the deal. And what would you say in terms of um sorry when I go onto a podcast, my entire family wants to call me and say hi. Hi, Dad. Um what would you say to us and w and then maybe a story or two of what maybe a beautiful story.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

Um I think I've said this many times in in public meetings. There is a lot of misunderstanding about who who who is homeless and and and what that population is made. It's people like people everywhere, but it's a brain trust that we don't honor and value or utilize. And um people are really smart. I've watched people create light out of nothing. I have watched people be absolute top-notch medics take care of somebody who's seizuring because of epilepsy. I've watched people do amazing, amazing things. And I wish we could honor the good neighbors that they really know how to be, because they are that for other unhoused folks. And when people go homeless, you always hear these stories about how they couldn't get any support from any of the programs because they weren't really considered homeless because they hadn't been homeless long enough, or they couldn't get any help. And the people help who help them were the people who were already unhoused. Yeah. And so I um there's so many really good stories. Um I I can to when before they pushed people out of the Palko Marsh, I'm sure you remember that.

SPEAKER_02 50:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Then and that was by design. A lot of people were forced to go there as opposed to going to jail. You know, that was the option. And we had 400 people camped along the bay.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

But I used to, I I I'm not far from there where I live. I walk up and down the Hickshari Trail a lot, have since I lived here, and more and more and more. There were always people there, but more and more, many people. And so I got to know people and talk to people, and that's really what motivated me to continue to be an advocate for these places because I went through their camps and I saw there was the medic, there was the person who was the cook, there was the metallurgist who could fix carts and bicycles and the mom, the dad, the uncle. Yeah, and the people who did the shopping and security. Yeah. And there was just and they know how to take care of, they know how to do things.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

And I wish that we would create spaces where people could thrive in the way that they would love to be able to.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

So do we need to fear homeless people or those that are houseless?

Who’s Unhoused Now: Trends And Strain

SPEAKER_00 52:05

I don't. And I and I know a lot of people who don't. Some people do because they don't know what that is, but some people need to be feared. You know, some people are there's exceptions, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And and people who are desperate do desperate things. And you can't really know. But you can you can begin by being um open and talking to people and being friendly and giving a good vibe rather than a something else. Yeah.

unknown 52:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Betty Chinch goes, I I go, you just like roll in there. She goes, Yeah, I've never I don't fear anybody. I just like I go, she goes, they no one ever gets after me. I go, Wow, you're amazing. Um our pastor friends, Bethany and Jason Shea, a catalyst uh, he's on the board of Arcata House, which uh I don't know their vish their mission as much as I want to, but I know that they help homeless as well in Arcata.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

They do. They have quite a quite a bit of um programming. And I don't know uh there I know that they've lost some funding recently. A lot of programs have. There's greater demand. We are all pretty much a community-driven I uh AHA is a community-driven initiative. We don't get the big grants, we don't get a lot of that kind of stuff, but the ones that do get the big grants that have been federal grants have had some impact from that. And I know because they're asking the community for the same things we ask the community for.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

So demographically, a lot of women and children?

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Um Yes, but not as many as single men. You know, uh there are there are more youth all the time. And there are um people that are aged up in the population. We have a I got a call today, and I get them every day from a woman who's uh never been homeless before. She has children, she has a partner. Um they've she's called so many people, she's tried to get help, and um she can't get into someplace to be safe.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

And it's really, really hard because there's no there's no damage there quite yet, but you can't, you know, and and the longer people are left to erode and be in panic and all of that, their unraveling gets harder.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

And harder, yeah. Yeah, I would guess.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Well, cool. I mean, not cool, but thank you for sharing.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

That's hard stuff. Um how about you? What do you before we do one more shout out? Um what about your legacy? What would you like to be remembered for? Either at the eulogy or the celebration of life or something etched in your uh your giant tombstone I know what I will be remembered for. Please.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

Well, I have a lot of calamities. I've had a lot of injuries in my life and I've had a you know, I I'm not really a klutz, but a lot of things happen to me. And I know that a lot of people will re will remember those things because I've been just like that. Way late. But my family always anticipates that's gonna happen. I keep saying, don't think that. You gotta think differently. Don't, you know.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

I'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 55:29

Yeah, don't, don't, don't shape me in that manner. Think of me as, you know. So I want people to remember me as a healthy, happy, humorous, um, vigorous, fun, nice person.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

Those are good ones. I like those. Me too. I want to do a me too. One more shout out for AHA. So uh we can find you on the line. We could find you social media. Are you Facebook or anything?

SPEAKER_00 55:54

Yes, we are on Facebook. We have Instagram. Uh, we're gonna be having a housing forum in November that's really d just designed for people who are wanting to do an innovative project with us. It'll be at the labor temple. And and we're trying to really encourage people if they want to come and they want to do alternatives, they want to learn how we can collaborate and maybe figure out how to do funding and land and all of that together so that we can do this.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Is that the E Street?

unknown 56:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

Okay. 40 East Street.

Lightning Round And Personal Reflections

SPEAKER_00 56:27

Yeah. And and we'll we'll be putting um out material about that. But if they anybody's really interested, they can call us and we can talk to them more about it. So the number again is Social Media 707 707 267 4035. Social media on Facebook or Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives, um, and Instagram. It's AHA A-H-H-A, which is our acronym.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Right. And that's an aha email is aha or the website is aha-humco. Yeah, good.org. Yeah. Look at me, go. I can remember I can remember things.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

That's good. It's well, it's different from our from our email address. Our email address is dot humco at gmail, and our web address is aha-humco.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

So I could I bet one could Google all of this and easily find you guys.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

And donate, write a check. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Absolutely. Yeah, and our our PO box, our P.O. box is aha at 3794. PO box 3794, Eureka 95502.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

02. Thir 3794. Say no more.

SPEAKER_00 57:35

And even though we're kicking off our end-of-year donor drive, we need to be on a donor drive all year. So if it doesn't, if it's not the end of the year, please still consider giving.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

I think Nick and I are gonna be donors here really soon.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Oh, good. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Joni's got to absolutely. So hey, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 57:53

Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for all your questions. I feel like I left off half of the answers. That's okay. There's a lot there.

SPEAKER_01 57:59

That's uh there's a lot. There's a lot more to talk about. Enjoy that, Dick Taylor uh with your boyfriend. Thank you. Steve? Steve. Hey, Steve. Uh Scott Hammond with 100% Humboldt uh saying thanks for listening and uh like us, love us, uh hold us close, donate to us if you want. It's all there. And uh catch us on uh um well, all the platforms, YouTube. Um you this will drop Sunday night, so I'll send it right over to you.

SPEAKER_02 58:26

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:27

And then um, of course, all the social media platforms and uh the podcast platforms, and send us a comment, like us. And if you do, we put you in a drawing for one of these bad boys right here.

SPEAKER_02 58:39

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 58:40

YouTube could do a fluoridus soul from Dick Taylor. All right. Thanks for joining us. 100% humble, Scott Hammond. Thanks, Desi. Thank you.