Listen 28 minutes
Charlene Love
Are you making space in your lives for messes that these holidays can’t help but drudge up? Are you looking for a place to store your brining turkey? Under the bed, perhaps?
Oh, the dreaded holidays…have to find time to clean the doggone house…but…what if you didn’t have a house to clean? What if you were homeless, not only for the holidays, but everyday?  Meet Charlene Love—formerly homeless, on the fringe, disabled, and an activist. Charlene is ever hopeful, she puts her trust in a higher power and moves forward.
Charlene digs the dirt at the Wellness and Advocacy Center, which is funded by California’s Prop 63, the Mental Health Services Act. Voters agreed to tax millionaires to set up peer-services for the most vulnerable people with mental disabilities. There are three peer centers in Sonoma County, but these centers all around California are at risk today because the Murphy Bill is gaining traction in the U.S. legislature. Â
Ms Love praises The Living Room, Sonoma County’s Day Center for homeless and at-risk women and children, and she organizes as a member of Homeless Action!.
Homeless disabled man in Toyko. Photo from Wikipedia/homeless
According to the Feds, up to 25% of the homeless suffer from some form of severe mental illness. Those who live on the streets say the percentage is much higher.
We usually don’t think of homeless people as part of the disability community but in Sonoma County, for example, nearly two-thirds (63%) of the homeless reported one or more health issues in 2015. Over a third live with psychiatric or emotional limitations. Many others live with drug and alcohol addictions. And…30% of the homeless, almost a third, live with a physical disability.  It is not uncommon to find wheelchair users in shelters or even in outdoor encampments.
Often homeless people have a complex mix of severe physical and emotional disabilities. Chronic diseases, such as hypertension, asthma and diabetes, are hard to manage under stressful circumstances. Acute problems such as infections, injuries, and pneumonia are difficult to heal when there is no place to rest and recuperate.
It’s not surprising that the homeless are three to four times more likely to die prematurely than the rest of us, with an average life expectancy as low as 41 years. According to National Health Care for the Homeless, homeless people are 10-20 times more likely to suffer disabling health conditions than other low-income people.
In progressive Berkeley, the City Council has just instituted new laws against the homeless. Part of the law requires all homeless people to keep themselves and their possessions within a 2-foot square. On the other side of the bay in San Francisco, the homeless are being disappeared altogether to clean up for the big super bowl party…got taxpayer money for parties, but not for social welfare.
It’s clear that the disability community needs to claim and become advocates with our homeless members. We are a community of poverty and, like all poor people, are at risk for homelessness as the gap between rich and poor increasingly widens.
Shelley Berman and Adrienne Lauby produce and host.
Original air date: 11-20-15
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