Jun 23, 2021

The truth about affordable housing in Humboldt and California



This craigslist post covers some of the facts conveniently ignored by the privileged, the protected and their psychophants in Humboldt  who sit silent while the inept County, government officials, City of Eureka Code Enforcement, other city and government agencies and certain incompetent Judges screw up lives, livelihoods and do not enforce laws. Why should decent landlords and tenants suffer for the actions of others who profit from the status quo in Humboldt?

We don't need an extension of the eviction moratorium. We need people in charge who know how to uplift and make others prosper, opportunities to earn a decent living and be provided the basics which include a stable, peaceful, clean roof over without the price gouging or scam rentals.  

Newsom' useless GOP opponents have all the information they need just using Humboldt as an example but they are too busy running expensive ads with ineffective Trump/RNC talking points.  Newsom has no reason to  worry because his opponents and their funders are out of touch with thousands of voters including business owners who signed the petition to recall Newsom. Corruption, greed and out of control bureaucracy are not partisan issues.

Text of craigslist post:

I just want to take this moment to point out that when my contract was terminated in the Bay Area, and the owner of 2011 Shamrock, in Fortuna, evicted I, my wife, and my four daughters - repeat Humboldt County Spelling Bee champions, members of the Fortuna Marching Band, and straight A students, all - we didn't hear anybody objecting.

When we were forced to move into a bedbug-infested, mold-infested apartment at 137 12th Street - an apartment that, based on information and belief, the manager, living directly above, had connected to his own water supply and used, for growing marijuana, creating the mold problem which we inherited - and then PPM evicted us for withholding our rent ... I didn't hear anybody objecting.

When Humboldt County Child Welfare Services tried to kidnap my children because I was unemployed and the county was unwilling to hire an experienced UNIX systems and network engineer with thirty years of experience, to do ANYTHING COMPUTER RELATED AT ALL, because they preferred to hire their own children ... I didn't hear anyone objecting.

We can go back even further.

It's not just Humboldt County.

When I was in San Francisco, in 2000, during the First Dot-Com Collapse, I remember seeing entire houses full of programmers being evicted, dumpsters full of peoples' possessions, people living in each others' closets while hoping that things would change and they wouldn't be forced to return to wherever they had come from, a few years before.

The same thing was happening all over the Bay Area. Property owners who had made enormous fortunes renting marked-up housing to programmers and web designers and electronics engineers who built the New Economy, took their fortunes, kicked out the people who had done the hard work, and never looked back.

It was ruthless. Owners are ruthless. One has to be amoral to participate in the rentier economy. Amorality is not good for society. It destroys the union between citizens. One doesn't need to be a sociologist to see this. Any five-year-old can explain it.

Truly, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests", but we have no place to lay our own heads - and this is carefully crafted policy, intended to drive us away from the very marketplace these assholes claim to worship.

Whatever happens next, it's not like this county - this entire state - doesn't deserve a thorough horsewhipping from the Fates, for what you did to my children, my wife, my family, and me, and everyone else like me.

What would Jesus do? I say, He would treat you like the money-grubbers that you are and chase you from His Father's temple. Deal with it.

Go live at Swimmers Delight, in a tent, for a few weeks or months, while you save up enough money to leave Humboldt County, or enough money to rent one of those granite counter top apartments they are building, for "low income people" - yeah, right - in Fortuna.

Bring your kids to Swimmers' Delight, too. Live in a tent. Cook over a stove. Let me know how it feels. Hope your car doesn't have problems - it's a hell of a long walk. Good luck hitching a ride from the 'locals'. Hope you get your living situation straightened out by the end of summer. It gets cold, outside. HCSO finds homeless people who froze to death, sleeping outside, every winter. Hope you're not one of them.

If you are facing homelessness, my best advice is to buy yourself a military surplus, three-layer sleeping bag - the third layer is a Kevlar envelope so you can sleep in the rain and not get wet. And one for each member of your family. They go for about $60 apiece. At least you'll be warm, and dry. Buy it now, while you still have a mailing address to receive things at.

Meanwhile, in snazzy Fortuna, we have a dog park, but no campsites. Why is that?

https://humboldt.craigslist.org/pol/d/eureka-is-craig-newmark-facing-an/7339381264.html

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