It Could Happen Here - Aiding the Un-Housed Community in Columbus Ohio

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

We talk with Elizabeth Blackburn from the FIRST Collective about a volunteer run encampment on the near-east side of Columbus. first-collective.orgSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, the podcast about stuff falling apart, and perhaps how we could begin to put them back together. Today, I'm your host, Garrison Davis. perhaps how we could begin to put them back together. Today, I'm your host, Garrison Davis.

We've had a lot of doom and gloom the past few weeks here on the pod, so this episode will be more focused on the putting stuff back together side of the spectrum. We'll be talking with Elizabeth Blackburn of The First Collective, a group of volunteers, organizers, and activists in Columbus, Ohio, focused on direct grassroots action and mutual aid. But we'll be specifically talking about a volunteer-run homeless encampment that's currently serving around 20 to 30 people in the Near East side of Columbus. Here's some of the history from Elizabeth. The project started as a warming station at the end of January and has morphed into a autonomous encampment that's largely self-governed and managed by a loose network of mutual aid organizations that came together during the 2020 uprisings. This is as flat an organization as we can make it. And we're trying to make it flatter. And I just think it's important that

the people recognize going out with resources is great, but going out and finding out what resources people need is better. There are so many groups in our city that are supposed to be doing this work that are not, and they're being paid to do this work and it's ineffective. And all I want is for more people to try and do it their own way, to try and do what their community wants, you know, to the best of their abilities. We've seen lots of projects grow out of the mutual aid networks that were established in 2020. It's been interesting to see how people in the wake of the George Floyd uprising have built off things that started two years ago, what's changed in their practice, and how it's evolved since then. This past winter, in this area of Columbus, Ohio, there was community needs not being met.

People having to be out in the cold and not having a place to stay. This problem was recognized by people, but unfortunately, far too many people just look at problems and just be like, oh yes, here's a thing that sucks. Well, that's too bad. But today we'll be talking about how a collective of people didn't simply acknowledge a problem, but actually went past that point and decided that even with limited resources, they had the capacity to actually figure out how to solve this themselves and provide a solution

for the community. I think the first time I really tried something like that was in December. A friend of mine had reached out about a camp on the south side of Columbus that was being swept by the city. And they had needs. They needed new tents so they could set up elsewhere. They needed food and water like they always did. elsewhere. They needed food and water like they always did. And they needed people to be there to keep, you know, to prevent violence from occurring as much as possible. So hearing about that, I started a, I set up on my street in a bougie part of Columbus with a little sign and collected goods, whatever people dropped off. I collected

money. I raised about $2,000 and I think we ended up buying around 22 tents. Got other people there as well and tried to make sure everybody had what they needed so they could get set up elsewhere. But that was my first experience with that, doing it hands-on and seeing that that worked that encouraged me to do more so then how has it grown and changed since then there's still a need for people to stay um it still gets pretty cold at night um so how throughout throughout winter how did the project kind of morph and change how'd you go about finding like places to actually like set up the physical spot right like that's that's a whole it's a whole other problem um it's all like the is all like the logistical side of things yeah exactly um well we happen to

have a space uh late last fall i was invited to join a collective firstective that was operating out of a church that's largely falling into disrepair, but still operating as a church. And because we had that space, a couple members of the collective encountered some folks in the neighborhood who needed a place to sleep. They were sleeping in a bus stop on a snowy night. And we just decided to start giving them a place to stay because we had a place. It wasn't a super popular decision, but we had community backing. Conflicts from some people in the neighborhood who were more nimby-minded did obviously come up, along with the complaints from the church that the First Collective was operating out of. For the community's part, when we were at the church, we were in a part of the neighborhood

that had largely been gentrified. And so there was some resistance, some concern about the changing face of the community and about the safety of kids and so on and so forth. But we didn't have any real safety concerns, not inside, beyond a couple encounters that we had to deescalate and a few people that we had to remove based on their behavior. But from inside the church, from the church organization, the conflict started pretty early on. They didn't really like how we operated and we got a reputation as a warming space with no rules. And so they felt like because couples could sleep next to each other, because people could go outside for a cigarette at night because they weren't locked in the building, that we were running a space that was out of control. Well, until we were kicked out of the church on March 29th,

I think it was, the physical infrastructure was there. It was just a matter of getting cots and blankets and making sure that people had food. Most of that was either through just one-off donations to my cash app or I bought it with my own funds. Once we were forced to move outside, it got a lot more complicated because at that point, we didn't have any tents. We had to go out that night and purchase, the day that we were removed, we had to go out and purchase, I believe, 10 tents to start and then had a couple dropped off.

We now have around 20 to 25 tents. A lot of those were purchased by me or by donations that we received or had been dropped off by friends or people in the neighborhood. That has been, you know, the physical infrastructure is mostly tents and canopies, and most of them are being held up by pieces of old tents or large tree limbs or whatever we can to survive the wind because it's been nothing but wind storms for the past, well, since we got here. Our first campsite was set up on a lot that was connected to the farm, a four-season city farm.

Several of the members of the collective are former paid employees of the farm or multi-year volunteers. It's a large organization in this part of the town, Old Town East, with about 15, I believe, years of history and goodwill. So we set up next to their lot, but because they're on land bank land, we didn't want to interfere with their lease with the city. So rather than risk the farm getting fined or having their lease broken, we looked next door to a lot on the other side of a chain link fence. Two lots, actually. One is owned by the city.

That's the one where most of our tents are. One is owned by the city. That's the one where most of our tents are. And then one is owned by a private owner who's a rather wealthy person in the neighborhood. We've done our best to stay on the city lot, and that has been good for us. But we're also maintaining both lots and doing our best to keep the trash to a minimum, to make sure that we're not tearing up the ground as much as we can, though it's hard with all this rain, and just do our best to be good neighbors.

And I think that has helped us a lot. Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters

to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In recent years, lower-class Columbus-area residents lost 20,000 units of housing due to unaffordable, spiking rent prices. An annual point-in-time tally this year, organized by the Community Shelter Board, found the number of homeless people in official Columbus and Franklin County emergency shelters increased by more than 200 people since 2021. And online data from the Shelter Board, a non-profit organization that receives funding from the City of Columbus and other organizations, indicates that as of March 2022, there was a 7% drop in the rate of people exiting their program and moving into stable housing as compared to last year, going from 33% to 26%. A lot of times, more formalized shelters are not ideal for people to stay in. There's many issues with formalized shelters regarding the specific rules of when you can get inside, how long you can be inside, whether you're locked inside the building, what stuff you can bring with you. At best,

they are challenging to navigate. At worst, they are simply hostile to people looking for shelter. I asked Elizabeth what her take on the homeless shelter situation is like in Columbus and the ways their encampment is different from the more official shelters. We have limited beds and then the beds that are available are mostly under the governance of the shelter board. And the shelter board wasn't too fond of us either because we weren't following all their rules. And there are a lot of concerns about the way the shelters run. The people that stay with us,

the people that come through, they feel safer here. There's considerably less drug use. There's basically no distribution. We try to keep a handle on that because it would bring problems to the camp should it happen there. We are a safe use space. We do have harm reduction materials and they know that. And we do our best to just make sure that people have the care and the safety that they need.

And that is kind of a dirty word. Well, all of those are kind of dirty words. And the shelter organizing community, I guess, care and, you know, making people comfortable. It's just not really the goal. Next, I asked about what types of connections the Encampment and First Collective have been making with various organizations for infrastructural support or daily needs, as well as inquiring about the relations the camp has with the city government. Here is Elizabeth's response. We reached out to the different, you know, harm reduction groups,

the different houselessness groups, the emergency action groups, the different serve groups. And we just asked them to bring what they could or to send people if they could just, you know, whatever they could spare. And it's worked. People show up with whatever they have to offer from all over the city and just from around the corner, which has been wonderful. The grassroots community support has just blown my mind. I thought they were going to hate us. And here we are, like making friends with everybody. Our first goal is to make sure that we've met people's needs as best we can.

You know, that involves right now keeping propane on site so that they can cook some of the food that's brought. We get a lot of prepared meals, but we also get a lot of ingredients. And there are quite a few people here that cook and have done pretty miraculous things with a couple of propane grills. We try and have meals prepared

every day, but it doesn't always work out. And sometimes we fill the gaps with Little Caesars or something else, whatever can be scrounged up at the last minute. Some of our biggest allies so far have been the local Food Not Bombs. They've been wonderful, as well as some different church groups that run nonprofits like Community Kitchen. We get our meals provided six days a week by a church that's basically right down the street and around the corner. But as far as the city goes, for the first couple of days, there were a lot of roll-bys, a lot of city officials taking pictures, no one really talking to us, but there was clearly concern. It wasn't until a man who works for the city in outreach under the

Safety and Security Department, Sean Stevenson, came out and talked to us that we really started to see the possibilities of working with the city. And so much as they'll let us. He brought a city attorney, Steve Dunbar, and a gentleman from the office, Jason Jenkins, by to talk to our folks. And they listened. They listened to the people at the camp who explained to them why they were here, explained to them why the resources that are available didn't work for them. It was a tearful conversation. And since then, they've largely left us alone. We wish that they would provide some of the resources that they talked about, like a couple porta potties and a dumpster. But, you know, we do our best with our composting toilet and the good grace of some very kind

neighbors. Police raids and sweeps are always an existential fear for those living in DIY encampments. Here's what Elizabeth had to say about sweeps and police interactions. What we've been told is that they've been told to leave us alone. We've heard this from the cops themselves. We've heard this from people who have talked to them. But the precinct that is in this area has been told not to mess with us unless there is a violent conflict that they need to do cop stuff at. There are a lot of sweeps that have been threatened around the city of different camps. They've received notice or notice of notice. So they don't know exactly when, but it's supposed to happen sometime. But as far as we're concerned, we haven't really had that problem. Cops have come through. There are a couple of times when they've been called by

people, disgruntled residents or by neighbors. But for the most part, they talk to us and then they leave. We do our best as volunteers to get between the police and other groups that come out. Even the outreach groups that we know are here to help just because those interactions can quickly get volatile if, you know, if people aren't sure about other people's intentions. So I would say that one of the best interactions I've had with the cops is they did come through here once and

talked to a few folks. And a sergeant from the police department said, roughly, that they couldn't make us leave because this was city land and they didn't have anywhere else to send us. So. Okay. I'll take it. I'll take it. I've got the audio, so I'll take it. Elizabeth does hope that one day the relations between the church that First Collective was previously operating out of could be mended and once again work to utilize the space to serve the wider community. She also discussed the possibility of moving into vacant buildings and helping to restore them while also having a place to provide more stable housing. So where the church is concerned, I haven't given up hope. We aren't in the building now. I don't have a key, but I go to church every Sunday. I'm not a Christian.

I don't believe in God, but I do like the messages that I get there. And I want to continue to use this really wonderful building as a part of the community. There are a lot of goals that we as a camp have, and some of them include the church. And we'd love to get back into that space and fix the two bathrooms in the basement that are just sitting there. Build some showers, laundry facilities, a free store, kitchen. There's so much that we could do if we could currently working on a proposal for the city for some of the relief funds that have been received but not dispersed

with the goals of ideally building little cabins on platforms on the lot that we're on now just to start to get people out of tents, to start meeting some of the code requirements, to improve the sanitary and living conditions. And then from there, we'll ask them to give us a building to restore. There's a lot of really skilled people out here and they want to work. And they want to work on all of these old buildings that have been allowed to fall apart all over the city. There are so many

rooms available. There's so many units that they could work on, that they could live in. And that's what they want to do. So that's what we're going to try and help them do. The camp functions under a sort of direct democracy, with residents and first collective volunteers, some of whom are also residents, hold regular community meetings where camp occupants vote to make decisions about camp guidelines. There's been a couple instances of violence, a couple particularly scary moments that we had to try and de-es could. But we try and we try to talk through the way that it goes down with the residents, among the volunteers.

We try to be transparent about, you know, why we make some of the decisions that we do. And for the most part, we leave it to the community. There have been some really great community meetings that go so long, but they talk about everything. They talk about, you know, shared concerns, about safety concerns, about how they want to live together and what would make them feel safer and establish guidelines and occasionally vote to remove people, though we've managed to resolve some of those conflicts before they went that far.

I initially talked with Elizabeth in May 2022, but I was able to catch up with her a few weeks ago to hear about what's been going on the past month. try and make some allies and talk to people about what we think is a solution to a problem they don't know how to solve. I did get some unwanted attention. A local station, 10TV, came through with a bit of an agenda. Right now, the city of Columbus has a problem and it has to do with homelessness. A camp set up on city property along East Mountain Street in the middle of the Near East Side neighborhood is raising questions tonight about whether the 20 people who live there should be allowed to stay or forced to go. TGV's Kevin Landers has been working the story all day. Today he went to the camp and spoke to those who live there and

got answers from city leaders about addressing concerns from neighbors who say that camp has got to go. This unhousing community is located on East Mound Street. The people who live here, the city says, are technically trespassing. The city says they're going to let them stay here until they can find housing, but not everybody wants them here. They wanted to talk specifically about our sanitation situation and nothing else. We told them we'd been waiting on the city since April 15th for the dumpster, the port-a-johns that they'd offered, but they were still looking into it. So we took it into our own hands. With all that attention, we needed to do something.

So we contacted a port-a-John company who is currently donating to Port-A-Johns and servicing it once a week, which is great. We had a compost toilet before, and this is so much better. And we went out of pocket to pay for trash service. So we're getting our own trash service now once a week. It's not quite enough, but it certainly helps. We see code enforcement go by all the time. They've been driving by. I've seen them at least five or six times today. People are waiting for something that they can latch on to, but so far, so good. But so far, so good.

Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. With Columbus facing 100 degree heat waves, what started as a warming station in winter now serves as a cooling station this summer for its few dozen residents. As gears shift and new seasonal materials are required, the camp has been exploring alternative methods of funding to sustain the level of resources and services they've been able to provide the past few months.

We did launch a GoFundMe and we've had pretty good luck so far. We've raised $7,500. raised $7,500. This is just for operating funds. There's a lot that we would like to do here. There's a lot we'd like to do with the land, but for now we just need, we're just fundraising to keep going. The camp still serves around 25 people, so resources end up getting distributed across a large collection of individuals. All the donations received have been used to provide necessities to survive, including but not limited to shelters like tents, food, water, medical supplies, bedding, clothes, bus passes, medical services and prescriptions, harm reduction supplies, funds for individuals' immediate needs,

and assistance to pay with residents' phone bills. Sometimes funds are also used to compensate residents for extra labor put towards maintaining the camp, like cleaning up the campsite, cutting up firewood, and providing extra services like haircuts. The response has been really good. I think people understand what we're trying to do and are being really receptive to it. I can't say the same about the city, though. We met with Councilwoman Shayla Favor from the city on Monday and presented a proposal. for $181,500 over the next six months to continue operation, to pay a small salary to the three volunteers that are here all the time,

for health care, for a small stipend to give to each resident of the camp every week, additional operating funds. We came to them with this ask and they didn't really seem to get it. So we're going to keep trying. They felt like they can't really support a tent city in their minds. they couldn't give money to support people who were residing in tents because tents are an adequate shelter. But I mean, I can test that not having a tent is also an adequate shelter. The city of Columbus relies almost completely on the community shelter board to manage its problem with homelessness. Community shelter board has a revenue of around $44 million a year. They pay their director

half a million dollars just under, and a few other executives receive ample compensation. But their success rate for the entire county is labeled at 15 percent if you go through their data they have managed to get 15 percent of the people who come through their shelter into some sort of housing for the zip code that we're serving it's seven percent which equates to eight people over the past year. So what they're doing is not working at all, and they know it, but they don't know what else to do. Whenever we talk to the city, someone tells us to talk to this one particular person. Her name is Emerald Hernandez-Pera. She is the Assistant Director of Special Projects for the Department of Development.

If you have a problem with a homeless camp in the city, she is the person that the city wants you to talk to, no matter what. If you're homeless, that's who they want you to talk to. She's under the Department of Development. Her main focus is economic development. She's just special projects, which means she helps clear the way by getting camps out of the way for development projects. That's her role. And she is the city's liaison. No matter who we talk to, she's the one that we keep coming back to.

So I think it's pretty cynical and upsetting that this isn't under the purview of the Department of Health. You know, any other department would be a little bit better than the Department of Development. It just shows how much we care. We're planning to go back to the city, regardless of what they say about this initial proposal because there's a lot that we'd like to build here and we think they'd be amenable if they understood. We're drafting a second round proposal taking inspiration from Dignity Village in Portland. from Dignity Village in Portland. It's an autonomous village of unhoused people that's existed since 2000. And I think there's a lot of good

that we can learn from them for modeling this in a way that the city might better understand. We believe that what we're doing here is transitional housing and the people who are here want to be involved in building that transitional housing for themselves and then for the people to come after.

So that's what we're hoping to get the city to sign off on. When we met with the councilwoman, one of the things that she said was, they, at the city, they don't have a model for serving the population that we're serving. Um, they don't, they don't know how to handle people who don't want to move inside, who don't want to move into the shelter system for whatever reason. And so all they can really do is move them around. We're trying to tell them that we do have a model.

And we think that we can help the city as long as they stay pretty hands off and give us money for it. So fingers crossed. I'm not going to hold my breath, but fingers crossed. The city of Columbus has been much more openly hostile to some other encampments providing cooling and shelter in parts of the city. We're not the only unhoused encampment in Columbus. There are a lot more. And there's one that is at a place called Here Park on the south side. We have a lot of friends there. Our organization works

with their organization. They were served a 14-day eviction notice on the 1st, and they have until June 14th to move out. So we're doing whatever we can to support them, but

it very much feels like we're being treated like the good camp and they're the bad camp right now. So we're trying our best to make sure that the city knows that we're with them. You know, whatever they think about us, we support those people no matter what. And we'll do whatever we can to help. We're trying to give them advice about the things that have worked for us to keep the city away. And hopefully, if they do have to move on the 14th, they'll be able to set up somewhere where the city will give them a break. Here is some audio of a press conference given at the here park camp just last week.

The city is not out here giving out water. The city is not out here making sure that people don't get heat exhaustion or heat stroke, right? They're nowhere to be found. So we are here to remind them they have $135 thirty five million dollars in American rescue plan funds where is this money going why do we not have housing this weather is just a little taste for many of us of the conditions that our unhoused neighbors out here can look forward to enduring for the entire summer the city of Columbus was planning on evicting our people today, June 14th. They delayed that eviction. It is a human right. So we are here to assert our human rights to housing. They're hoping that we're going to get hot and tired and wear out. Are we going to let up?

The Heer Park camp eviction was pushed back to June 21st due to a massive heat wave. And by June 21st, the temperature was still in the upper 90s, but the city followed through on their threat and swept the camp. At least 20 Columbus police cruisers, city attorneys, people from the Department of Development, and other city employees were on site for the eviction. Bulldozers and massive machinery crushed people's tents and personal belongings. Some folks, forcibly displaced, have lived in the here park for nearly a decade.

For wrapping up this episode, I had just one more question for Elizabeth. For people who would be interested in trying to create similar projects or help with similar projects in their area, what would be some advice you give to people who want to try something similar? What's the kind of stuff that you've learned the past few months that you were kind of surprised by? And if you could do anything different, what's the kind of stuff that you would approach to make the process smoother or slightly more improved? Well, I would have looked for more funders first. One of the most painful parts for me has just personally has been holding the purse, being the person that everyone knows to ask for, for cash, if they need it for something. Um, it, it is a, it is a real strain on, on compassion. Sometimes, you know, on compassion fatigue, uh, is real and it can be really hard day in, day out, having to field requests from people who you know need these resources,

but you can't always give everything. It's hard to say no. Learning to say no has helped, but diversifying our funding sources is also helping a lot. I've learned that I can't do it all and that I need to take breaks and that being here 24 seven is what I wanna do,

but that doesn't mean I need to always, always do it. Sometimes you've got to step away. doesn't mean I need to always, always do it. Sometimes you've got to step away. I wish that I had spent a little more time with my family rather than, you know, throwing myself completely into this. But two months ago, my ex-fiance asked me to leave. So I've been living at the camp too. So it's been a pretty stark jump to go from having a big house

and some retirement funds to living in a tent and having none. But I mean, I wouldn't change it. And I'm going to keep doing it. It's because I can, because I could. And that's really what I want people to see is that if they can do something, they should. You know, nothing is more rewarding than going to work and hanging out with your friends all day, like helping them get jobs and find apartments and meet friends. Like, there's so many wonderful people here and like me and the other volunteers, we love all of them we want nothing more than to see them succeed. So yeah, I just advise people to do what they can to ask people what they need and try and provide it. Anyone who wants to know more about the First Collective and what they're doing, you can go to first-collective.org. You can find links on Elizabeth's Twitter account at innate optimist. And even if

you disagree with some of the organizational or structural choices, I hope you at least learned something or got something productive out of this example of people putting in effort to fill in the gaps in their local community. That does it for us today. See you on the other side. community. That does it for us today. See you on the other side. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America.

Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.