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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

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Remembering Craig

Today was something called 'Homeless Memorial Day," meant to acknowledge if not honor those who die in the streets or in the beds of hospitals, clinics or shelters. I only found this out after I had ridden over to the 405 at Roscoe and spoke with Hillary and another fellow living in a small cluttered and dirty tent on the sidewalk, who confirmed what Gracie told me last week, that Craig White had indeed passed away, months ago they said it happened. He had finally agreed to hospitalization at Valley Presbyterian Hospital, and died later in some facility on Ventura Blvd.

 Craig was a fuckup, no question, and today I won't post the worst images I have of him (legs burnt from accidentally setting his tent on fire, or totally strung out, unkempt and bedraggled). As sad as it was, and as difficult as it was, to watch his gradual decline, from a humorous former child actor to a bent-over shell of himself, ravaged by viruses and addictions, something Hillary-- who knew him for 15 years-- said as she looked straight into my eyes there on sidewalk, really hit home. Quite simply, she reminded me that he was a kind person, with a good heart. Everyone should be so lucky to have someone eulogize them that way-- many a rich man will not be so fortunate.

We had our disagreements-- how he angrily chastised me when I tried to convince him to get into an EMT vehicle a couple years ago when his open MRSA wounds were oozing and he was shaking like a leaf; then a few days later he told me to leave him alone for good, which started a separation that lasted almost a year, until we crossed paths again in friendship. More importantly, I'll remember his boy-like excitement, for example when a Good Samaritan dropped off some European biscuits, and he offered me one with the exclamation, "these are some high-end cookies!" But mostly, I'll remember how I ran into him on the sidewalk in 2017 after returning from a month in China, where I had been making presentations at various universities on the subject of American homelessness, of the work I'd created featuring Craig and the others in his vagabond "family." Seeing him walking alone down the same old sidewalks, I choked up, partly in frustration and partly in shame that while I'd been using his images and video-- in exhibitions as well-- for him nothing had really changed. Sure it was partly his own fault, for not having the wherewithal to overcome his vices, but that didn't stop me from feeling helpless and useless and every bit the voyeur I've always tried not to be. The concern on his face as he comforted me? THAT was Craig White, RIP...

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Long time no see...

Finally caught up with Gracie after many futile attempts… her tales of woe continue unabated— temporarily in a Project Homekey room at the Airtel; tossed out of a moving car by her ex-boyfriend, just out of the hospital now from her injuries, and back on the street again... the ex is dead (“I had nothing to do with it”, Gracie is quick to add). Sad news; Gracie is certain that Craig has also “passed on,” a victim of what she calls “slow suicide,” a sure reference to his gradually declining health, an overwhelming drug addiction and a stubborn, well-documented refusal to seek medical help. Classic example of the “chronically homeless” unable to navigate his way out of the gaping chasm he fell deep into. Still, the news that our old friend finally succumbed to the hard knock life brought a tear to my eye and put a knot in my throat. 

Meanwhile, Kathy could not confirm Craig’s demise and left open the possibility that he came into some money and left the area. Very unlikely…

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Harkening back to his time in Occupy LA, Mike and his wife Temper have set up camp on the sidewalk in front of the Los Angeles Family Housing site in North Hollywood. He makes a spontaneous call for action, calling for a demonstration of solidarity by those who have found it nigh impossible to acquire housing vouchers. Of course the sidewalk wouldn't be big enough to fit just the people that I have personally heard tales of frustration from in this regard....  

Rita Dunn, truly an expert in this field, weighs in...

Good for them. It's too bad that they will probably be harassed and moved before getting the voucher everyone is waiting for. Everyone is waiting for a voucher. Why? Because LA officials obfuscated the truth using the regurgitation effect.

@ritaldunn what no one considered was the fact checking and then comparison of the different parts against the whole... WHY ARE WE STILL WAITING? Because LA did not get 70k vouchers, THE ENTIRE COUNTRY got 70k vouchers and BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of additional monies to not house people. instead of allocating those vouchers to warm bodies on cold sidewalks, they instead used them as "match funding" in order to secure the INSANE amount of money that was doled out in a panic stricken world to those who skulk around in shadows and have their sticky fingers in everything. They weaponize themselves with brainwashing techniques in these "non-congregate" housing facilities and gaslight the participants. WHERE IS ANYONES VOUCHER?

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Cheeeeeeeese

Now Jamie Kim on the other hand, who was cradling a beat-up Nikon DSLR when we met at Dearborn Park, is another story altogether. Unfailingly alert, polite, intelligent, somewhat conflicted about the prospect of getting into some sort of housing environment and not too pleased (a tired refrain) with LA Family Housing’s caseworker “service.” He told me how his father, Kenneth Kim, a professional photographer, taught him the craft as a youngster; how his film cameras had all been stolen; how he worked for years as an E6 film processor at A&I lab (longtime premier photography lab in Los Angeles) until it all went south… health problems that will require hernia surgery notwithstanding, Jamie, (pleasant and really happy to meet a fellow photofile and just anyone for that matter who will accept his offer to sit and talk to a “homeless”) won’t go anywhere that won’t let him bring certain items inside. So now he’s playing a little waiting game with the authorities that have served him notice to vacate the park, and his tattered American flag was flapping somewhat defiantly in the breeze. #lafamilyhousing #poverty #medical#nikonphotography

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I met Brent somewhere along the Orange Line Bike Path in the West Valley… he was limping along, from an injury I soon found out happened when he was hit by a car while riding a bicycle. He was glad to have someone to talk to, it was obvious by the way he opened up and shared his story with me. A year ago, he had been panhandling near the 405 at Burbank Blvd, when he was startled by a tap on the shoulder. He wheeled around to find himself facing a woman holding some sort of badge or credential, and his first instinct was fear, trouble. Turns out she identified herself as the Director of LAHSA, and within a day or so had placed him in an apartment. Why and how he left that home was not made clear, as he went on to recount what seemed an endless tale of woe and strife—he was given an apartment by Hope of Valley, but said it was such a “shithole” and in such a terrible neighborhood that he was flushed out by the gangs that dominate the community. Two gangs, Brent said that run the area and both have “ a hard-on” for him, which he can’t understand because “I ain’t never done anything to them…” Health issues—a stroke the worst of them, have left the Canoga Park HS class of ’84 graduate still close but so distant from his old home, his daughter, his former life… still he keeps his sense of humor, almost laughing out loud when I suggested he hire a graphic designer to create some more legible lettering for his sign....

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Conversations with Flozie Quarry, former social worker at the Undugu Society of Kenya, and Mercy Gichengi, who overcame life in the streets as a child and today holds multiple college degrees and is working to help young women who are experiencing what she herself went through. This version also includes video shot in the 1990s when I was the Information Department Coordinator at Undugu.

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A chance encounter with an Iraq War veteran on the eve of 9/11. When I asked him if he could use $10, his eyes opened and he clasped his hands together as though his prayers had been answered. "I'm just telling you up front, this is going for Vodka." I didn't half mind, and minded even less as we got talking and I learned what a self-aware fellow he was. After a few minutes I asked him if I could shoot some video; we were on such friendly terms, he just said "absolutely!"

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Give a kid a camera and watch the magic...

Images from One of Us Project’s photography workshop with at-risk youth at the North Valley Caring Services in North Hills, summer 2021. The month-long workshop included field trips to the site of the abandoned original Los Angeles Zoo, and to the fabled “Mural Mile” in Pacoima. Thanks to three of my former CSUN students-- Shae Hammond, Josh Pacheco and Geovanni Botticella--  for volunteering to help mentor these great kids.

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Juliana in Hollywood

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Wonderland

Rather than enter uninvited, I leaned against the old chain link fence that separated the strip mall parking lot and the freeway embankment and waited to be noticed. After a few minutes, the silhouette of a shirtless man in a straw hat appeared from near the top. We waved simultaneously and I called out, would it be OK to come in and talk? “Si!” He said something else in Spanish but his voice was drowned out by the sound of traffic. Could I bring my bicycle inside the encampment? “Si.” With a welcoming tone, he waved me up the  embankment-- his embankment, very steep and covered with thick dirt, where he lives at the top of the crude Wonderland he is building, his shack abutting the cement wall of the 118 freeway. Peering over the wall on tiptoes one saw the cars buzzing by. I found him busy painting a walkway he has constructed diagonally across a landscape decorated with all manner of items he has collected-- bits of fence, signs, flags, statues, furniture, toys (even a kids’ slide). Down below, life went on, a typical intersection. He laughed good-naturedly about the paint on his hands and pants. With my rudimentary Spanish I was able to ascertain a few bits of information; His name was Jose; he was “sesenta y cinco” (65); there was no dog in the shack I need fear; the neighbors (for his was only the most decorated of a good-sized encampment) were all friendly; the chickens skittering about were not his; he would go down to the corner gas station to wash the paint off; if I could bring him one item, it should be a good-sized water cooler. Very friendly man...

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The NIMBYs are not amused...

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Kismet

How does it happen, that after scratching an itch I’ve had for awhile by riding over to this place (two days in a row as it happened), to note the contrast of the mural with the community that has taken place below it, the ubiquitous and modestly legendary Gary Leonard materializes with Sandy Bliefer, the artist who painted the “Cardines” back in the 1970s...

The absence of people lent an air of theatricality, like some dystopian installation piece.

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Dam It

It's a human mess along and within the unpaved section of river leading into Sepulveda Dam; a very natural ecosystem still appealing to an impressive array of avian life, and some of the most inventive yet still vulernable homelesss encampments in the region. Alas what could rival any rustic area in its clime-- touted as a place to Kayak, I've seen exactly one slicing through the narrows*-- is not to be.

Don't take my word for it: "The Los Angeles River and selected tributaries (the river’s two soft-bottom reaches consist of a 3.1-mile portion running adjacent to Los Angeles and Glendale known as the Glendale Narrows and a 2.4-mile portion in the Sepulveda Basin Recreational area behind the Sepulveda Dam) are impaired by pollutants (i.e., trash, metals, bacteria, nutrients) mainly because of the watershed’s large, dense population and the amount of impervious ground surface that prevents large quantities of runoff from infiltrating into the soils..... " Human waste is also cited elsewhere in the report...

* MRCA has determined that the Sepulveda Basin and Elysian Valley Recreation Zones will be closed for kayaking during the 2020 season due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

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The storied Venice Beach boardwalk is now also a refugee camp...