"If it were not for EPD, I would have given up on Eureka competely years ago. I would probably be dead, injured or incapacitated due to ongoing threats to my safety if it were not for EPD."

At 1:26 p.m. , I sent an email to certain people at Eureka City Council. I cced EPD Assistant Chief Brian Stephens and EPD Commander LaFrance. I was not expecting a response from EPD, I cced them because I am very grateful to EPD.

At 4:29 Councilmember DeLoach reached out to me to meet. She is the only one who has responded and twice. Miles is usually prompt in getting back to me. Crickets from the rest.

My email:

I am not writing this to you just as a blogger who knows the pulse of this community but as someone who has observed the challenges in Eureka for 19 years and lived in Eureka proper for most of my time in Humboldt. I am Eureka focused. I know what many people go through in Eureka and Humboldt because I have lived their reality.

I do appreciate the authorized encampment workshop and it is a step in the right direction but needs more people involved than just Betty Chinn and other current resources and people running the system.

I just did a post on lack of housing and affordable housing. Reality is far from the same things said over and over again in soundbytes, press releases and meetings.

https://johnchiv.blogspot.com/2023/03/vacation-rentals-and-air-bnbs-major.html?m=1

My post did not address the blanket guidelines imposed on EPD which do not help anyone genuinely seeking shelter. Just setting up authorized encampments with blanket rules and the same players running things will not help those who genuinely want help and change.

I am only sending this to people at the City of Eureka who actually listen & respond to me. Renee and Mario, as new councilmembers, I hope you will listen to these suggestions. When I lived in Old Town, I spoke privately with Leslie. She ignored practical suggestions I made which could have helped people instead of the dire situation this brutal winter. She does not listen to me or certain other residents and business owners. 

If it were not for EPD, I would have given up on Eureka competely years ago.  I  would probably be dead, injured or incapacitated  due to ongoing threats to my safety if it were not for EPD. I do not want to live anywhere else in Humboldt because I only trust EPD and have watched them daily do a thankless job under impossible constraints placed on them by politics.

Stop using EPD to address issues City of Eureka and Humboldt County have failed to address for the two decades I have lived here.

Telling EPD not to ticket abandoned vehicles in a blanket, knee jerk reaction will solve nothing. There are people who abuse camping out, parking their cars, and they create safety, nuisance and crime issues on a daily basis. EPD's hands are already tied. Just like any encampment, EPD officers who are familiar with the regular troublemakers should not have their hands cuffed; literally; in moving, ticketing or enforcing laws against these people.

These are the very people who are out at night and not seeking resources. Many are criminals I recognize. I actually had someone who got out of the system who used to sleep in his car, ask me why I moved from certain places I lived in Eureka. I do keep an eye on my neighborhood and call EPD when I see suspicious activity right away. This guy told me, "at least I could sleep when I parked where you lived. I felt safe when you were around." This is a former criminal thanking me. 

Betty Chinn isn't and should not be the only go to and does not and cannot help everyone. I am not the only person to express that to you and most won't in public. Isn't that the Humboldt way? 

Blue Angel Village had no openings a couple of months ago. Betty always gets the City of Eureka housing funds. So if Betty does not like you, you are screwed. Apply the same to Uplift, Salvation Army or a list of agencies, property management companies and anyone involved in transitional or affordable housing.

For now, this is just an email with suggestions to you. I cannot promise it will not be in a future post.

If you want to make  a dent in housing people, there needs to be leeway to house people working, even part time first. The system has failed people who actually have a chance to succeed. The City of Eureka isn't responsible for the entire problem but you need to do some inner evaluation. And you can start with Brian Gerving and arrogant Brian Issa, the biggest failure in standing up to landlords and code enforcement.

Comments today on Lost Coast Outpost:

Who would have thought  comments made by Angie and Allison Edrington today on Lost Coast Crappost have the same information I referenced yesterday and again in my email today.  

The callous anons and non anons who muddy every discussion about housing talking about drug addicts or the mentally ill are clueless haters. Then there are people like Matty Boy Owen who thinks Soylent Green is the solution. 

People struggling for years on the streets are vets, seniors, working people who struggled paycheck to paycheck. Greed, callousness, PG & E blackouts and COVID closures and Humboldt retaliation for speaking up against slumlords and scum property management companies have forced them on the streets. 

Go out and spend a year without your credit cards and cash and Humboldt connections or any help from your church, family or friends. You talk tough, prove it and do it alone.

No showers, no laundry and sleep on the street for at least a week in this brutal winter weather. Go look for a public bathroom while you get stared at or denied access. Heat up ramen noodles at the gas station that you have to eat outside and buy cold food you have nowhere to heat or store with dwindling CALFresh allotments.  Go get on a housing list, wait a year or five or ten and see if you are placed in housing. While you are doing all this, you better not be smoking and that includes not smoking weed, especially all you Republicans, conservatives and fake "Christians" who put your stash in your office drawer. You better have a job, maintain a bank account, be productive and never get sick. No home, no clean clothes, tough luck. Go back to where you came from. All the way to where your nth Humboldt generation got on the boat or wherever you were before you became a Humboldt transplant.

And do not complain about the substandard apartment or the bed in a room you get and suffer the pests, leaks, faulty appliance, no heat and black mold in silence. You could pay outrageous rent in Humboldt and still deal with that but extra judgement is reserved by the scum who won't fix their properties that most subsidize and bought with government money but they have enough daily to get drunk at their local watering hole.

A safe and sober house is the solution for single males who are not drug addicts. A bed that had a previous occupant the day or week before with no place to secure your belongings. If you keep yourself clean despite being homeless, then you are told you "don't look homeless." The HumScrooges who are the few locals in charge with multiple conflicts in development, insurance, law, politics, courts are in charge . They can and will throw you out and the two lawyers handling 90 percent of the eviction cases know the courts will rule in the favor of their greedy, immoral, cheap clients.

Every single non profit and government agency has petty, resentful frontline workers; others have mean spirited management.

Not up to doing this, then zip it.  Talking about something you have not and will never experience is easy. Living it for years with no hope and no way out is the reality of Humboldt hell. The evil created by the pompous filth who spew their bile online and in judgemental whispers while locking out the homeless from churches built on the backs of the faithful while the rich elders look down like gluttons and Pharisees they are.