VENDOR WRITING

HOUSING FOR THE PEOPLE: Give our neighbors a safe place to call home

BY BY VICKY BATCHER, CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

Housing for the People is a column produced by the International Network of Street Papers from people on the frontlines of the housing justice movement in America and beyond.

For INSP’s Housing for the People column, Vicky wrote about Tennessee’s latest attempt to make homelessness illegal.

The world is changing. Many American cities are experiencing a crackdown on homelessness. Individuals and families without a safe place to call home are being displaced with no place to go. People are losing their belongings. In Tennessee, it’s become extreme. On July 1, a new law will pass making homelessness a felony “for a person to engage in camping on the shoulder, berm, or right of way of a state or interstate highway, under a bridge or overpass or within an underpass, of a state or interstate highway.” A felony for trying to exist, to sleep.

We don’t have enough shelter space, much less housing, for all the people who are homeless.

For those that don’t know, Tennessee is nicknamed the volunteer state. It’s a place I call home. We’ve been through a lot. In 2010, massive floods impacted my community in Nashville, along with many others. People suffered. Still, Tennesseans came together and helped each other. We didn’t wait for federal aid and the troops to be called in. We did what we had to do until aid could be dispatched. Images filled the TV with trailers, cars and even schools floating away. Many people’s homes were destroyed, yet we still came together. Neighbors helping neighbors because that’s what we do in Tennessee. We volunteer to support one another.

Just before we went into lockdown in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak Nashville and our region was devastated by a series of tornadoes.

Neighborhoods lay in ruins. Streets were littered with the remnants of what were once family memories.

In 2021, tornadoes struck again. This time, during the height of the pandemic. Again, people’s homes were destroyed. Tennesseans rose above. We carried on. Helping strangers without thought of reward or five minutes of fame. Still, we came together. Regardless of the hardship. Again, volunteering for one another.

That’s why I am in a state of shock knowing our state has chosen to literally criminalize homelessness on public lands. A law that could potentially punish people with up to six years in prison. Not Tennessee. After all the hardship and loss of housing and witnessing so many people’s lives being destroyed. Honestly, it feels like someone is ripping our collective hearts out. How could this be?

I’m housed in affordable housing in Nashville, but there are 2000+ that remain on the streets and call encampments home. There are thousands more around the state and tens of thousands more around the country living with no toilets, no running water, no electricity and no roof over their head. It’s unacceptable. It’s inhumane.

We’ve thrown out our most vulnerable populations into the streets. There is no place left to go. Moreover, there are thousands more awaiting their fate. The eviction courts are overwhelmed. It’s heartbreaking to see this happening. Through all of this, people will be forced to hide their existence just to avoid arrests.

If we can hold drug dealers accountable for the deaths they cause, why can’t we hold politicians to the same standard? It’s never been done, but maybe just maybe, it’s time to start. Maybe it’s time to really hold politicians accountable for the lack of affordable housing. We have laws protecting our dogs from being left without food and water during inclement weather. Yet, our leaders choose to create laws making people’s life, which was already harsh, even worse. For Pete’s sake. At what point do we stand up and say this isn’t working? At what point are we going to receive the human rights we deserve?

There’s no question we have failed our neighbors, but I’m convinced it’s time like these we must continue to come together to help one another. We must all volunteer and use our voices for housing justice in Tennessee, in America and throughout the world. To be honest with you, I feel like shouting fire in a crowded theater right now, “Give our neighbors a safe place to call home!” It’s something we all deserve.

Vicky Batcher is a writer and housing advocate. She also sells The Contributor in Nashville, Tenn.

Save the Guns — Kill the Children

BY JEN A., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

It has happened again. A lone 18-year-old gunman walked into an elementary school with a legally purchased AR-15 rifle and murdered 19 innocent children and two teachers.

The majority of Americans watched the aftermath of this senseless tragedy with horror and disgust. They called for common sense gun laws that may have prevented this latest school massacre. But Republican legislators and the militant gun-rights groups that contribute millions to their campaign coffers, having raised their interpretation of the second amendment to near-sacred status, posited their belief that unregulated gun laws are an inalienable right of every American. They choose the right to own a gun, over the lives of our precious children.

More children in our country die by being shot to death with a gun than by any other cause. This past March, a Memphis three-year-old, picked up his mother’s unsecured AR-15 pistol and shot himself in the face. That same month, a Davidson County 3 year old found his mother’s unsecured gun in her purse and shot himself in the abdomen. In January, a Goodlettsville man shot and killed his wife, then continued on through the house to shoot and kill his two daughters, aged 13 and six. These are not isolated incidents. This carnage happens every day in America.

And it isn’t only children who are victimized by unregulated guns. Mass shootings occur in grocery stores, in churches, in synagogues, in mosques, in doctor’s offices, at graduation ceremonies, at parties, at bars, on any random street. Our Declaration of Independence from British tyranny guaranteed every U.S. citizen the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The children of Robb Elementary School and every other child killed with a gun in America have been cheated out of the lives they were promised by our founding fathers. And our current legislators know it. So they poison the well with lies and subtrefuge.

They distract the simple-minded with their rhetoric of smoke and mirrors. They are the tyrants now.

Tennessee State Rep. Chris Todd (R - Madison County), who must be a favorite of the militant gun lobby, co-sponsored several pieces of proposed gun legislation during the last legislative session. One, HB1735/SB2291, would have lowered the age to carry a hand gun without a permit in Tennessee from 21 to 18. While the House passed the bill, it was “taken off notice” in the Senate Judiciary Committee, supposedly killing it. But as those of us who thought the bill that made camping on any public property a felony know, though once killed, it suddenly came back to life and was passed on the floor of the Senate. So this could still happen.

Of his gun bill, Rep. Todd reportedly said, “All this is doing is removing infringements on your second amendment rights provided by God first and our constitution.” I have a lot of trouble with that “God first” part. A lot of our legislators say stupid things from time to time, but this seems particularly egregious to the point of blasphemy. I’m no Bible scholar but I’ve done a fair amount of reading. NOWHERE in any version of the Bible does it say people have an unregulated right to own a gun. As a matter of fact, it says the exact opposite. Christians are taught to put their trust in God to protect them.

I would direct Rep. Todd’s attention to the 10 Commandments. These were sent down to Moses at Mt. Saini and reportedly written by the hand of God Himself. Since before the time of Jesus, these laws formed the basic framework for our religious societies-Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. There’s that first one about not having another God before Him. Then the second one is about holding up graven images. Then there’s the biggie: #6 thou shalt not kill. Rep. Todd might want to take a refresher course in his Bible study.

Imagine how you would feel if a member of your family was shot dead at their school, or at work, or at a baseball game. I don’t have to imagine. My brother, John, was killed by a gun. That kind of loss leaves an oozing, festering hole in your heart that never heals. Like me, the surviving Uvalde families will erect memorials to their children and tend them until they turn to dust. They will collect relics their children left behind: a favorite toy, that one special picture, that construction-paper Christmas ornament with all the blue glitter on it, their T-ball jersey, their first poem. The families will cry until their tears run dry.

The first duty of any government is to keep it’s citizens safe. Our current government seems to have forgotten that. It’s past time we all demanded they do what they were elected to do — keep us safe! Let’s say, “ENOUGH!”, as often and as loudly as we can and mean it: or our streets will continue to be rivers of the blood of our children. Save the children — get rid of the guns.