SERIES:
HUMPTY DUMPTY
HOUSING
Of her smiling companion, Wanda says: "His name is Brian Mask. We went out to dinner last Christmas Eve (2015) after attending candlelight service at UU. He belonged to the church a short time and then moved up north. He is a wonderful human being."
Part 1 - Can Monterey's Cracked Low-Income Housing Market Be Fixed? (February 23-29, 2018)
REVIEWING movies isn’t my reason for coverage of Monterey’s cracked housing market because of almost
no low-income housing; if, however, I didn’t mention two films that inspired this new series, I’d be remiss. So,
here goes:
First film is a nominee for Best Picture, “Darkest Hour,” that I saw on Presidents Day in a theater
packed with people the age of my 1952 high school classmates.
It’s about British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s first weeks in office in 1940, during the German
blitzkrieg that was crushing Europe. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 2 - Like A Chorus Of Silent Voices Once Again Singing To Be Heard (March 2-8, 2018)
DROPPING in unannounced is an investigative reporter’s way of observing sans invitation or appointment.
If I’d sashayed in, I’d have said, “Well, imagine meeting you here at 8 a.m. on Monday morning!” and
then sat near Lois Varner and Judy Peiken as they conducted the weekly Burger King Ministry for Homeless
Women in Seaside between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. last Monday.
It was raining as I tucked my notebook under my arm and dashed between a shopping cart piled high with
plastic bags and bicycle with sacks attached like saddlebags on a two-wheeled horse.
Lois and Judy faced each other across a window table. Three homeless women were in the aisle. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 3 - Will Dreaming, Daring, Dodging or Dancing Solve The Crisis? (March 9-15, 2018)
BEATING the impending housing crisis after World War Two required implementing a theretofore- untested
dream: coupling government with private industry to set the nation on peacetime feet.
If the plan succeeded, government-issued low-interest loans to GIs, along with privately built affordable
housing, would create a win/win situation.
It worked!
Sacrificed to save society were, in lieu of people, vast agricultural acreage and groves that sliced up
America’s purple-mountains majesty by tractizing the fruited plains at their feet. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 4 - A Prophet Without Honor In Downtown Pacific Grove? (March 16-22, 2018)
LOOKING for houseless persons for the 2015 Point-in-Time Homeless Census & Survey was rough, since
unsheltered people, students and visitors wearing backpacks looked alike to me.
If it weren’t for my reporter’s “nose for news,” I’d have missed the old man with one front tooth who
was out of place in the city known as America’s “Last Hometown.”
He looked like a homeless panhandler outside the Pacific Grove post office last Friday afternoon, just
two days after city council adopted affordable housing as an agenda item to be explored.
(CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 5 - Can The Starfish On Our Beaches Be Saved? (March 23-29, 2018)
SAVING starfish was the theme of an essay that became a legendary metaphor for rescuing homeless people
one by one.
If you aren’t familiar with the “Parable of the Starfish,” here’s the way I heard it from Tia Fechter when
she was campaigning for the right to safe parking for homeless women living in their cars and vans a few years
ago:
A man walking along a beach littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the
high tide spotted a young boy throwing starfish back into the ocean, one by one. “What are you doing?” the
man (some tellers call him Jesus) asked.
“I’m saving these starfish, sir,” the child said. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 6 - And The Jefferson Awards Honoree Going To Washington, DC, Is... (March 30 - April 6, 2018)
CITING homelessness as a growing problem, KSBW 8 anchor Dan Green opened Monday’s 2018 Jefferson
Awards ceremony at the Steinbeck Center in Salinas by announcing, “One of tonight’s nominees will represent
the Central Coast at the National Jefferson Awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.”
If this wasn’t enough to arouse curiosity, a strange thing happened when the Jefferson Awards logo
crashed from the dais with a bang. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 7 - Rekindling The Belief That With Good All Things Are Possible (April 6-13, 2018)
DASHING through last Monday’s afternoon rush hour traffic to get my blood pressure tested before Doctors on
Duty closed, I cut through La Tierra’s parking lot in Seaside.
If time hadn’t been tight, I’d have circled back for a double take at the scene by the green dumpster
behind the Mexican mercado. A lopsided little body I recognized was slumped in a big office chair by a pile of
black trash bags.
“I’ll check it out later,” I said.
Wrong! (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 8 - Might Osage-Style Stealth Resolve Monterey's Housing Crisis? (April 13-19, 2018)
"CIRCLING the housing crisis with stealth like Osage hunters trapping prey" was my take on COPA'S April 5
House Meeting at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Seaside.
If you aren’t familiar with COPA, it’s an acronym for “Communities Organized for Relational Power in
Action.”
Tim McManus, Lead Organizer, opened with, “Housing is a very local issue. Our purpose is to come up
with a COPA plan for Monterey County. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 9 - A Message For Dog Lovers Risking Old Mother Hubbardhood (April 20-26, 2018)
DIGGING into deeper meanings of nursery rhymes made me wonder: “If Humpty Dumpty can be a metaphor
for today’s broken housing market, what other Mother Goose rhymes might be relevant to homelessness
today?”
Google-search struck gold when Old Mother Hubbard popped up in this 6-line stanza most of us learned
as toddlers: (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 10 - Hidden Homeless Child Left Behind After Parents Were Deported (April 26 - May 3, 2018)
DURING World War Two, when pilots threw up in their air masks, seeds of a common remark were planted:
“Life sucks!”
If you’re curious, Marine pilots were instructed “suck it up” to avoid asphyxiation from vomit fumes.
“Suck it up” now means “shut up,’ “stop complaining” and “if you don’t like it, do something to change
it.”
If that doesn’t interest you, this should: (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 11 - Campaign Kicks Off To Help Gathering For Women (May 4-10, 2018)
HOUSING the Monterey Peninsula’s homeless women is the only major service not provided by the Gathering
for Women.
If you’re intrigued by the current 400-500-person community of homeless women on the peninsula, join
me in a brief tour and visit Franklin Avenue at Calle Principal, where the San Carlos Hotel once stood like a
sunflower-gold surveillance tower dividing the Upper and Lower Alvarado districts of downtown Monterey.
Upper Alvarado was the business block. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 12 - How One Small Step To Help Homeless Women Became A Giant Leap For Womankind! (May 11-17, 2018)
SETTING foot on the moon inspired astronaut Neil Armstrong’s historic1969 comment: “That’s one small step
for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
If my stroll across the parking lot at 147 Eldorado St., Monterey last week was anything like
Armstrong’s experience, it was awesome and scary. What started as a dream, and had never been done before,
actually happened within a block of the neighborhood where I lived from 1962 through 1964. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 13 - Will The Good Samaritan Center Survive Sand City's Redevelopment? (May 18-24, 2018)
PREDICTING the long-range outcome of a city council’s decision is like betting on a boxing match: OK or
KO?
If OK, no one is knocked out.
If KO, one party wins and the other loses.
Metaphors aside, unanswered questions arose during the public hearing portion of the May 15 meeting
of Sand City’s city council, at which members of the public presented concerns about the pending “South of
Tioga Redevelopment Project.” Leading the list was affordable housing. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 14 - Will The Good Samaritan Center Survive Sand City's Redevelopment? (May 25-31, 2018)
PREDICTING the long-range outcome of a city council’s decision is like betting on a boxing match: OK or
KO?
If OK, no one is knocked out.
If KO, one party wins and the other loses.
Seaside City Council will meet on Tuesday, June 5 to vote on several resolutions to determine the fate of
the current redevelopment bout for which ringside seats are still up for grabs.
Metaphors aside, the May 15 meeting of Sand City’s city council featured a public hearing at which
members of the community presented concerns about the pending “South of Tioga Redevelopment Project.” (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
(Editor's Note: This appears to be a duplicate of Part 13; however, it is the file provided by the author.
Part 15 - Where Will The Missing Children Live After They've Been Found? (June 1-7, 2018)
USING a fairy tale to publicize lost kids seems a thin stretch until you ask:
If the 1,500 missing children separated from their families at the border are found, where will they go?
Where are they housed now? In cramped quarters with someone like the old woman who lived in a shoe
who had so many children that she didn’t know what to do?
If yes, does she provide them to traffickers (pimps) who hire them as laborers or sex slaves? (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 16 - Would You Offer Yourself And Your Home To Be A Foster Parent? (June 8-16, 2018)
WRITING this column is easy. If it isn’t interesting, however, no one reads it.
So? How have I made homelessness intriguing enough to keep the column going for 191 uninterrupted
weeks? Simple. I use techniques Donald Trump touts: hype and hyperbole.
Huh?
Yep. Big words work. They’re attention-getters! They’re not lies but can be innuendo.
Using metaphor helps. For instance, “Homelessness is a peninsula-wide disease.” (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 17 - Coastal Views: Parklets And A Plat Of Dune, Or Road Kill And Two Old Trash Bags (June 15-21, 2018)
REPORTING the full local housing crisis is impossible in 750 words.
If I squeeze, however, highlights condense into such factoids as the Safe Parking Program.
It’s not a Monterey County Board of Supervisors’ 2018-2019 budgetary priority; however, the
experimental One Starfish Safe Parking-style plan that lets occupants of 15 vehicles camp overnight in District
4 Supervisor Jane Parker’s parking lot in Marina wasn’t hacked from last week’s budget-cut proposals.
It’s still intact pending further outcome that raises the question: (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 18 - Are These Innocent Faces Future Friends Or Serial Killers? (June 22-28, 2018)
ATTENDING the first ever Central Coast Foster Youth & Homeless Education Forum at Cabrillo College in
Aptos on June 12 was a shocking eye opener as the non-political event made me realize:
If the Trump administration doesn’t act fast to resolve the message it’s sending—“You aren’t wanted”—
thousands of immigrant children now being kept in cagelike enclosures or warehouse-like Walmarts could grow
into a future generation of rebel fighters and/or mass murderers of our own making! (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 19 - To Educate Or Not To Educate Detained Immigrants' Children? (June 29 - July 6, 2018)
SIGNING his executive order to keep illegal immigrant families together last week raised a question Donald
Trump faces: If displaced (homeless) detainees in US custody are under 18, will we educate them pending
parental deportation hearings?
Since the immigration courts’ backlog is around 800,000 cases, and local educators preferred not to
debate it as a political issue, I time-traveled 2,400 years back to the place Democracy started.
I found Socrates standing in his famous trance, gazing into the azure Athenian sky. (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 20 - Border Crossing Labels: Poor White Trash Versus Brown Privilege (July 6-12, 2018)
CROSSING the border into Tijuana for my first time happened in 1939 when I was four.
If the Golden Gate Exposition of 1939-1940 (aka the San Francisco World’s Fair) hadn’t lured my
Missouri Aunt Peggy and her friend Verlee Houck to California, my Mexico trips might never have begun.
An old sepia-toned souvenir postcard rekindled memory of a mantra Mother chanted: “We’re poor white
trash.” (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 21 - If Immigrants Return Home, Do They Smuggle More Than Themselves? (July 13-19, 2018)
SMUGGLING was part of the cross-the-border game Southern Californians played when we traveled into Baja
California at Tijuana.
If petty theft is a cold-case crime, arrest me now!
Back in 1955, when my teenaged friend Ginger and I drove from Los Angeles to Tijuana with two male
friends, we broke the law. Deliberately, not accidentally. It was so easy! (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
Part 22 - Reprise The Seersucker Suit-Sucking Smugglers Of The 1960s? (July 20-26, 2018)
DERIDING the United Nations (UN) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) lately earned our
commander in chief airborne trips from the Brits as an effigy baby blimp wearing diapers.
If it weren’t so funny, I’d shudder at the ironic memory of a drug smuggler I met in the late 1960s who
tried to sell me a trip.
Therefore, I seek two answers:
First, where can I see this modern diaper-clad dirigible?
Second, (CLICK TO CONTINUE READING...)
