True Homeless Experience of “Sweeps”
These are only a few of the typical Stories of the Homeless Experience of Sweeps. Names have been changed to protect against police retribution.
- DDC “Sally”
Stephanie has been homeless in Redding since 2017 when she moved to Happy Valley to recover after domestic violence that broke her back. She was unable to work, and is still fighting for social security because she can’t get documentation to court to prove who she is. She struggles with the constant trauma of both the homeless and the public stealing from the homeless and then the homeless stealing back from the public and the prejudgment of all, especially the police department that she is a criminal, too. There was no kindness to be found. Her first sweep was after she was kicked out of her house and set up a camp in Breslauer. “They came with bull dozers. They took all my stuff, and again at Masonic and three times at Mercy. They came with bulldozers and took everything. Everything! At that time they red tagged you and gave you 3 days warning, now they don’t even give you 24 hours. They offer resources, like rehab, but, like me, not everyone is on drugs.” The shelters don’t take dogs. She has 3 dogs small dogs, corgi, beagle & dachshund mixes, and they are like her children. One was the “seeing eye” for his blind brother. They were always together and protecting her. “They’ve been through everything with me and I couldn’t see my life without them. They give me hope and something to look forward to, something to drive me to do better, you know?”
She went to (n..b ) for 92 days, but they didn’t do things right. “They were embezzling money, putting homeless with 290s, sex offenders, & buying themselves things with money they were supposed to use for the program. The staff was not properly trained and everything was “willy nilly” and she never had any case management. She had to “resource out” from there to get help which she found with Dr. Patton. They put her in a motel for 6 months when she was kicked out of her encampment home. She used to camp on the streets, but had to move every 2 days, then made herself invisible, “trying to blend in with the trees” of the forests, “nice and cozy” so she can feel she “belongs somewhere.” But she had a partner that would not hide and attracted attention and others joined their site. She tried to keep it clean and quiet so as not to disturb their public neighbors nearby, but it became more and more difficult to pick up everybody’s trash. “It’s difficult to establish a place to live when you have no family, no income, no anything, and they take it away from you. It’s devastating.” The last time she was swept, recently, she was arrested and had to leave her camp alone with her dogs tied up outside because the police said the truck was already full of dogs being taken to Haven Humane. It was the first time she was put in jail. By the time she got out, she found her camp still standing, not bothering to go back into the forest to raz it to the ground, but she was afraid to stay there after that and her dogs were traumatized. One of her dogs had been attacked by a pit bull that was also left there, also, inflicting 8 puncture wounds to his lungs and chest. If she hadn’t had antibiotics and training, it would have died. One of her dogs, Falkor, was gone with only his collar and lead left on the ground, which she has reason to believe was stolen by one of the policemen leading her out in handcuffs, who showed interest in him because he looked like the Luck Dragon that was his namesake. As the police were taking her to jail, they had her put all her valuables, her money, driver’s license, birth certificate, phone and prescribed medicine in her back pack, saying they would keep it at the police department to pick up when she got out of jail, but when she went to get them, she was told they had taken it out by the airport to their storage on the Oregon Trail, which was almost impossible for her to get to because busses do not run there. They tell you there is only one day a week you can go to pick up your stuff, but she got there, she was told she had to make an appointment. So she made an appointment, but then she was told they had “no record” of her stuff, even tho’ she last saw them on the floorboard of the police car. Her medical case manager was there to help. “The cops just take my stuff and throw it away. They don’t care. She even tried to contact the new recruit who arrested her and said he would “look into” the loss of her stuff. She heard nothing more and could no longer reach him. So, for the third time, she has to start all over again trying to prove who she is, still trying to get social security disability.
- (DDC Pete)
After his mom passed in 2017, he came to Redding to see his daughter. When he met her boyfriend, the guy got vulgar in talking about his daughter, she threw him out. He got some odd jobs, put together bits and pieces of survival stuff “what I could trade and bargain for” to create his first camp.
His first sweep, he heard footsteps outside then, he lamented, “Someone was unzipping his tent. His girlfriend was naked and he quickly tried to rezip the tent door. Then, the tent was literally torn open and there were guns in his face. He and the lady were told to grab what they could carry, and “get the f… outta here!” As soon as they did, the police tore down the tent, dumped all their life support supplies in the truck and drove off. He has suffered similar “sweeps” 10-15 times since then. “Bad enough I gotta worry about the cops taking all my sh-t, but I have to worry about the (homeless thugs) and those (homeless) who lost everything in a previous sweep around here, now, taking my sh—t, too?”
“I have been in-and-out of N…L… a couple of times and I just got new bedding, then it’s all gone, again. Recently, he was resting during the day on the City Hall “park” grounds when he asked someone to watch his stuff, while he went to the bathroom at city hall. When he returned all his property and “friend” were gone. Another time, recently, he was “beaten to the ground…broke my ankle and foot… because some (homeless) guy wanted my phone.” An ambulance was called that took him to the hospital. They wrapped up his injuries and sent him to the M…. They said I fell outside their code of care and sent him back to the hospital to be housed for a disabling medical emergency. The hospital said they were not authorized to do that and returned him to the M… who repeated that they could not help him and put him back on the street with nothing to protect him from the weather. Only the wheelchair supplied by the hospital.
“Here I am. Got nothing again,” he said, ‘cause “all of my stuff got stolen at the M…. They have places where they put your stuff in “storage,” all my bedding, everything, and then it comes up missing… and all they can say is they have no record of it.”
I’ve started over so many times in this town..I’m done!
“This is the last day! Too much pain! I need to get my pain medication! I’m not doin’ it! I’m not getting back in an ambulance to the hospital! I just want out!” When I asked what he meant by that, he said that: It seemed that nobody understands. Nobody cares. about his pain. It just makes me want to hurt someone. Seems like that’s the only way they can understand my pain. But I wouldn’t do that. That would cause trouble for my grand-daughter. And I wouldn’t do that for any of the homeless.”
3 (DDC Jo & R)
Jo has been living a very functional life-style under a couple of bridges in Redding, until recently. She receives some disability benefits from a broken back, so, with those little monthly Medical Benefits, she has chosen wisely to purchase quality-of-Life equipment for her and her husband’s encampment. She has gradually purchased a solar panel, a propane powered cookstove, environmentally certified disposable “potty” bags & stand (to prevent pollution of the water way near by) and 2 wagons to load up with her life-support tent and equipment, plus a motor bike to transport her most essential property, in order to relocate close by, on short notice, with the sweeps that repeatedly come.
Her husband is a gentle autistic soul who is focused only on collecting unique and beautiful rocks. He is unable to process her desperate directives for help in packing for an imminent sweep. The primary protection he offers her is his daunting size. Last year he was sitting in the vicinity of a violent altercation between others and swept up in the enforcement and prevention process, landing him in jail for a year. During that time, she has had to protect herself, dogs and camp to give him a home to come home to when he would be released. Even when fully compliant with sweep orders, she has suffered greatly by the harsh practices of the “sweep” policing/enforcement of the inhumane “illegal camping” ordinance” developed by the city of Redding and supported by other towns and policy of Shasta County.
One time, when she was encamped in her favorite spot, another homeless soul came in and camped on the only exit route. When the eviction time came, she was packed and ready to exit, but the other camper was drunk and immovable on her exit path. The police finally evicted the other person, which freed up her exit path, but because she was unable to exit initially, they confiscated ALL of her life-support processions, anyway.
When she followed the “community service” department directions, she kept getting the run-around that denied their retrieval. It was only when I stepped into the picture as a “501(c)(3) homeless advocate that they were willing to make an appointment at a designated spot which could not be reached by RABA, for other homeless to retrieve their personal property. When we arrived 15 min. early as directed, and they were equally late, when they did, finally, notify a back up unit at the unidentified “storage area” to come, with her stuff. The whole process took over an hour, but her belongings were ultimately signed for and released, in the wagon that held them. There was no inventory of items taken, nor time allowed for her to inspect and verify that all the property taken was actually being returned.
Another time, in front of witnesses, she was roughed up and thrown to the ground by the policeman evicting her. That was when she drew her “line in the sand” ending her quiet compliance. She obtained an attorney for the homeless to sue. On the day of her Pre-trial prep, the neighbors who were going to protect her campsite did not show. She tried to round someone up to no avail, and finally loaded up her tiny dog in her backpack and spent her last cash on a one way taxi to the meeting. When she returned to her camp, it had been completely cleared. The police department had punished her for her audacity to hold the policeman accountable for his inhumane treatment. Trying to get other survival gear from her U-Haul storage, which was only available to people in vehicles. So she spent the night huddled under a homeless shelter overhang truing to simply survive the rain and cold without as much as a sheet to cover her.
The next day, she came to my house to recoup. That did not last long, for shortly after, she heard from her in-laws that their mobile home was trapped by flood waters from the recent storm. Her mother-in-law was being moved to a shelter, but her husband was too sick to go to a shelter with his wife, and too sick to shelter in place, alone. Being Neurodivergent, she lacked impulse control and could not pause to consider the safe options that I tried to present. She was immediately triggered to run to the rescue. She called her husband in jail and started to load up all her belongings into her wagon to ride her motor bike through the flood waters to her father-in-law’s rescue. My husband and I could not linger to persuade her, for he had to be on time to his cancer treatment appointment. We had to leave her as she loaded everything she owned to drag behind her motor bike through the flood waters. We have not heard from her since. She has not responded to our texts. We have been looking for her, checking various locations she has frequented. Nothing. Is she alive? Did she drown in her panicky rescue attempt? Did she meet her husband when he was released from jail and settled on some new site? We are still searching for this lost, yet resilient and resourceful member of our homeless team.