Vendor Art & Writing

Located in Space Adrift in Time

JEN A.

The chair

Found by the side of the road

Hauled through time

On the strong frame of a bicycle

To a room

I sit

My mind travels

Zigging and zagging

Through the past

At the speed of light

Until confronted at the

Fluttering dark, uncertain curtain

Of the future

Things Change

WILLIAM B., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR PAUL A., CONTRIBUTOR VENDOR

I’m coming to you to try to tell you how much things have changed over the years. I remember when I was a child, I used to play kick the bucket, hide the handkerchief, red rover. Things have changed so much, you just don’t hear those games anymore that we used to play back when we were young.

When I was young in school, we got those weekly readers. The future things I saw back in those days, they’re here. Microwaves, cell phones — those were in those weekly readers back in the ’60s. I said, ‘oh no,l... this will never happen.’

I remember when I was a child, I was born into church because my mom and dad were both members of a church. It was my daddy’s brother’s church. Uncle Koger was his name. When my oldest brother got murdered that changed my mother and my dad’s point on the Lord Jesus Christ. They couldn’t understand why they took their son, my brother. He was 15 years old when he got murdered. This really hurt the family. It took a year, actually, before it hit me and when it did it hit me very hard. Caused me to be locked up in a mental institution for 10 years, from age 7 to 17.

Over the years some things have been so good to me, some things have been so bad. I’ve had more bad than good. It seems like it should have evened out but I don’t think it will now. I’m 71 years old now. I’m doing what I always wanted to do, playing music. I still sing a little bit.

I got me a wonderful church called Ethos. I love them all to death. Of course I miss them because of this Corona thing going on. going to step in and take these kids. I see it coming.

They need to figure out what they’re going to do. You’ve got nonprofits involved, but they only get their funding once a year, and their funding is going to run out quick. They don’t have enough money, I don’t think, to cover everything that’s coming. So what are we going to do?

I want to know what the city, and the state, and the county are going to do to help. I know they have budI don’t know what to do, because I don’t want to lose my church family, and I’m so afraid this Corona could take us all out. I’m thinking what we all really need to do is get down on our knees and pray the Lord Jesus Christ does away with this here Corona.

One of the good things in my life is this Contributor newspaper. Now that I’m with The Contributor, I love it. I love meeting people from all over the United States and some other countries. Some of them do interviews with me and ask, “what’s get constraints. The mayor has said it time and time again. He had to raise taxes. He didn’t want to, but he had to raise taxes. You lose a lot of houses, and you’re going to have to raise taxes again because you’re losing your tax base. I’d like to see the city do more. They have vacant buildings, vacant land. If they’re big enough, convert it into apartments. You don’t have to charge a lot of rent, but you could take some of that money and put it back into the city.

There were 2,016 homeless my story?” And I tell them my story and they’re amazed.

I’m in the process of writing a book based on my life story. I can’t remember the things going on in my life today, but I can remember a lot of things from my past because I have a lot of post-traumatic stress in my life. Those things I want to forget, but I can’t.

I’m not going to quit. I would be happy if I just died on the streets playing music, or in the church. With the Lord Jesus Christ in my

Start Thinking About Evictions

By Paul A.

How many people are going to be evicted that have mortgages or rent to pay? And they’re not working. They say homelessness is a paycheck away. That was told to me last year, and that stuck in my head. I do believe it. If I didn’t have what I got coming in each month, I could be a check away from homelessness again.

There could be families affected, people with kids! And then we’re going to have a pandemic in this city and in this state with homelessness. It’ll be widespread like the virus. It’s going to add to the pandemic we already got. Crime is going to go up. These people are not going to know what to do. The resources for the people who are homeless right now are dried up, pretty much.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I can see it coming. It’s coming faster than a lot of people think. And a lot of people aren’t thinking about it. I’ve been there. I don’t want to see anybody go through it. Especially people with kids, because the state’s

heart, things will change. counted (in this year’s Point-In-Time count). I don’t think they counted them right. I think there’s more. I think you’re going to see more and more homeless camps.

I understand the coronavirus. I understand the mayor talking about it twice a week, and giving the statistics on that. The news, they put out numbers every day. We need to find out how many are homeless, that are newly homeless. We need to find out what the statistics are, because I think it’s going up and up.