You may have seen this among my various social media posts:

“A couple of us decided to give homeless (unhoused?) people a voice. They aren’t stereotypes. They are people. It is amazing to see how hard we make it for people to simply live.“

A new Podcast: Traffic Jam at the Intersection of Health and Housing. (And I helped a bit.)

On Spotify (~43 minutes):

Yes, I’ve helped start yet another podcast. I’m glad. Amidst all the talk about homelessness and affordable living, B. Alice and I decided to get past the stereotypes that feed the media and debates. These are people’s lives, not tropes or generalizations. One answer doesn’t fit all. 

Rather than blather on about our impressions of the situation, we decided to let them tell their stories. Some will have jobs. Some will have kids. Some will have parents. Some want to be left alone. Many can’t reveal their situation for fear of being ostracized. We may have found a way to let them tell more of their stories. 

Along the way, the host, B. Alice, noticed that with uncertain housing comes uncertain health care. One study in Seattle found that giving people a place where they could lock up their prescriptions meant there was less theft, and therefore lower costs; and having ready access to reliable supplies meant they were less likely to rely on emergency rooms, and therefore lower costs. The lower costs were enough to balance out the price of providing a home.

Every person I know who has troubled housing has some solution that works for them. Sometimes it is a place to park a car, or pitch a tent, or moor a boat, or build a cobb house, or, or, or… They have solutions but they are not permitted to enact them. Literally, land use permits are denied. Usually, the denial comes from not owning the land for whatever they think works. They frequently have solutions in mind. There are even solutions for providing land.

Having listened to enough of them, I know that they should explain those situations. Hence, the podcast.

B. Alice runs a company in Port Townsend. For much of her time there, she had to hide that they ran the business out of a tent on the end of a long extension cord. She’s the host (and I simply helped), so it makes sense to let her describe her situation first. I almost lost my house in the mid-2010s, and was poor for about a decade. I wasn’t homeless, but I could see it from there. I have a few comments too.

As it says on Spotify;

“Traffic Jam At The Intersection Of Health And Housing is a solutions-based investigative journalism podcast about the increasingly dangerous realities of obtaining housing and proper healthcare in our modern United States of America. AL and contributing partner Tom guide listeners through a larger conversation about society’s relationship to the social contract–and encourage those experiencing the impacts of systemic oppression to define what help means for themselves. When we listen, it turns out there are as many solutions as people experiencing hardship.“

These are people who are living, somehow, in these dire situations today. While meetings are convened and comments collected, these people can be living in the weather, every day and night, now, today. They may even have solutions, but don’t have the luxury of spare time to attend public meetings, or research which official to contact. Jobs, families, and chores can account for their every waking moment. 

There are several episodes scheduled and getting ready to be published. There are lots of stories that are too real to be covered in the news. These are people’s lives, not sound bites and political proclamations. 

We hope that their perspectives can help them find solutions.