Category: Blog

A woman who had been beaten for the last 30 years and was escaping the sex trafficking business came to us yesterday for a place to sleep.

The first thing I asked her was if she went to the battered women’s shelter. She said they required that she call in to get in. She doesn’t have a phone.

She also had all of her identification stolen.

The fact is: she had nowhere to sleep last night.

I asked her if she was safe. She said she was not.

We are a terrible and cruel society that has no place for this woman.

I don’t have much else to say about that. We are terrible and cruel.

 

 

 

Photo by Rachel Ruquet on Unsplash

I’m not sure which is worse: cruelty by decision or cruelty by ignorance.

This story falls into the category of cruelty by ignorance.

The City of Akron is currently on a rampage against their homeless citizens. They are hunting homeless people.

Since the beginning of the year I have personally seen them shut down at least a half dozen homeless camps.

They don’t tell them where to go. No homeless service providers show up to offer help.

And if the city can find them they will immediately throw them out of any place these people try to hide.

The madness of this is infuriating and frustrating. But it’s not actually the urgent story I want to tell you about today.

Today I want to tell you about the complete incompetence the city is exhibiting in the way they go about closing these camps.

Last night I was watching a video about a man trying to build tiny homes for the homeless people of Los Angeles. In the video they talk about how the city cleans camps. You can watch that here if you’d like:

But what is important is the systematic way they go about it.

They educate the workers on what they are going to experience. Things such as powerful opiates, needles, feces, urine, rats and other bio hazards.

On top of that they give them safety equipment like bio hazard suites:

They duct tape the arms of the suites and wear thick rubber gloves:

And when they are done they then thoroughly power wash the sidewalk:

These are professionals doing their job professionally. (Notice his boots. Those are quite likely protective quality as well.)

This is the scene at an Akron camp cleanup:

These are people required to do community service work. They aren’t paid. They aren’t volunteers. These are people REQUIRED to do this work.

They are in their own street clothes. They were given fabric garden gloves to do the work. They were given no training or even warning about what they had gotten themselves into.

It is no exaggeration to say that this community service work could have been a death sentence for these people.

As of today Summit County now has 81 reported cases of Hepatitis A.

On May 30 I wrote that The Ohio Department of Health reported that Summit County (Akron) had 64 reported cases of Hep A… Compared to Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) which had 54 cases.

Two weeks later the numbers are:

Summit county: 81 Cases

Cuyahoga County: 62 Cases

We have increased Hepatitis A in Summit County by 27% in 2 weeks! Cuyahoga County increased by 12%.

The population of Cleveland is 385,525. The population of Akron is 197,846.

So not only do we have more Hepatitis than Cleveland. We are outpacing them every day.

This all becomes more critical in the face of what Dr. Drew recently said about LA:

Dr. Drew Pinsky warns Los Angeles could be at risk of a deadly epidemic this summer | Fox News

He said: “I want to give you a prediction here. There will be a major infectious disease epidemic this summer in Los Angeles.”

“Pinsky described to Kilmeade what he believes to be the almost medieval conditions in the City of Angels and compared local politicians to Nero, the infamous Roman Emperor who allegedly fiddled while his nation burned.”

Our mayor is fiddling while Akron burns.

On top of that he is putting unsuspecting community service workers in harms way.

We are living in a town of insanity.

I don’t know how to yell louder than what I’m currently doing. But this is serious. We are on the edge of a very serious infectious disease outbreak in Akron Ohio.

Someone PLEASE listen to me.

What is happening in LA is going to happen here.

They don’t clean these camps properly. They don’t try to help the homeless stay clean. They just scatter them to the wind. They are making everything worse.

We are looking at rodent-borne, flea-borne illnesses, plague, typhus.

It’s all very possible because the administration isn’t taking their homeless problem seriously.

These people need to be living in a place with running water, toilets and trash service.

Whether you care about the homeless is irrelevant. This is an infectious disease emergency.

SOMEONE DO SOMETHING!

 

 

Many of the difficulties of this work just roll off my back. They don’t make me angry.

I don’t think I even had a minute where I was angry towards the woman who burned down our porta potty and caused $5000 worth of damage.

A tenant called the cops on me yesterday for going into his office to show it to another tenant even though I gave him 3 days notice. He owes me about $1500 in back rent. The cop just walked out. I wasn’t mad at that.

I’ve had a table thrown at me. I’ve been punched in the face. I wasn’t mad at either of those people.

So many things have been stolen from our facility I can’t even begin to make a list of them. I’m not mad.

But this. 

This gets under my skin.

The Portage and Summit County Rotary clubs have been organizing a cookout for the homeless for several months. It was scheduled for next week.

Last night we got notice that they are canceling the event due to the “recent controversies.”

Was it the controversy of us running an illegal campground for the homeless for 2 years?

Was it suing the city for the right to shelter the homeless?

Was it the house we bought from the Land Bank and then as soon as the paperwork was done we got notice from the city that it was condemned?

Was it the op-ed the mayor did telling everyone that I’m an idiot?

Or perhaps it is that I supported two homeless men for holding a protest camp in a park because the city repeatedly threw them out of the remote camps they quietly tried to exist in?

Which “recent” controversy pushed them over the edge?

At what point was it that they decided we had gone too far and now they must punish the homeless further by taking away the cookout they had been planning for the last couple months.

People running away from me is nothing new. And they love to do it by telling me that if I don’t change my position they will have no choice but stop supporting us financially.

They love to threaten me with the risk of losing their precious money.

That’s always amusing to me considering it shouldn’t take a particularly astute observer to recognize I am not in it for the money.

Every time someone chastises me for “going too far” because I dared stand up to a machine that oppresses and criminalizes the poorest and weakest among us I immediately think about all the people that must have scorned actual brave heroes from our history.

The White Rose (German: die Weiße Rose) was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in the Third Reich led by a group of students and a professor at the University of Munich. The group conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign that called for active opposition to the Nazi party regime. Most were in their early twenties. Three were executed by guillotine.

Hermine “Miep” Gies was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank and her family.

Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist and a member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust.

John Brown was an American abolitionist who advocated the use of armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. (We have the John Brown house right here in Akron.)

Dorothy Day was a political radical who established the Catholic Worker Movement, a pacifist movement that combines direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf. She practiced civil disobedience, which led to additional arrests in 1955, 1957, and in 1973 at the age of seventy-five.

Would the Rotary have stood up for those people? Or would it have been too controversial?

I have had several people in high positions tell me that they support me privately but they can’t support me publicly. Then what is the point of supporting me at all? What is the support worth if it is in theory only?

At what point does human rights abuse become so severe that finally someone stands up and says I can bare it no longer. I will stand with the people who have been abused.

My observation is that there is no line. There is no amount of torture and abuse of fellow human beings that will make people finally straighten their moral backbone.

About the residents that lived next door to Dachau Nazi Concentration Camp:

Although the population as a whole realized the utter bestiality of the SS and the nauseating occurrences beyond the barred gates of the Camp, they were afraid even to say anything – much less do anything – because the shadow of the Camp hung over them as well.

And that gets to the heart of the matter. These people are afraid. 

They aren’t afraid for their lives, mind you. They are afraid for their money. What if the Akron Democrat Machine turns on them? What if they are no longer in favor of the power mongers of Akron? If there is even a remote possibility that they could lose some money, the cause will always take a back seat to the money.

People very close to me tell me that I am acting against the interests of my family by helping the homeless. “How could you even think about helping someone that isn’t your family?”

WHO THE FUCK ELSE IS GOING TO DO IT?

People cower and hide like mice in the floorboards of a rotten shed.

They keep their heads down while great atrocities go on right outside their doorways.

What have we become as a species? Who are we? What do we stand for?

Is our own personal gain the entirety of it all? “I got mine and mine is all that matters.”

THIS is what makes me angry.

 

 

 

A person would think that if they spent a few years working with the homeless that they’d be fairly well versed in the level of poverty in their town.

But I’m here to tell you: every day I uncover a new layer of extreme, severe poverty that continues to shock me.

Yesterday a woman told me she left her tent for a week. When she came back someone had moved in and setup a Barbie child’s tent inside and was RENTING out that portion of the tent. This person found that they could sublet a fucking tent.

Also yesterday a person told me they were going to be out on the street soon because they couldn’t afford the $150 A WEEK rent they were paying for the room they were in.

It is not uncommon for me to learn that a person has snuck into one of our two houses and is now living there. Shoeing people out of our houses is a regular occurrence.

A woman recently told me that the house she is staying at is constantly filled with people that aren’t paying rent.

HUD organized the homeless in 4 categories:

Category 1 is a person that is literally homeless. They are living in a shelter or in a place not fit for human habitation… like a tent.

Category 2 is where homelessness is imminent. They will lose their residence in 14 days or less.

Category 3 is a person considered homeless under other federal statutes. They haven’t had a lease for the last 60 days. They’ve moved at least twice in the last 60 days. And this trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

Category 4 is a person fleeing domestic violence and has nowhere to go.

We all think of Category 1 when we think of “the homeless”.

But, I’m here to tell you, that’s just the tiny tip of the iceberg. Category 2-4 is a massive storm raging under the surface.

These are people that are mostly invisible. They are nearly impossible to track. But they have become like this endless nightmare in my life. I see them everywhere. They are like ghosts that “proper” society can’t or won’t see. They are living in an uncertain limbo. Not in a tent. But also certainly not on stable footing.

We know that the poverty rate in Akron is 24.1%. One out of every 4.2 residents of Akron lives in poverty.

That is 47,681 people.

A ward in Akron is roughly 20,000 people. You would have to JAM PACK 2 full wards with the people living below the poverty level.

The numbers, while shocking, become antiseptic and theoretical.

A new study, American Neighborhood Change in the 21st Century: Gentrification and Decline — just released by the University of Minnesota Law School, examines poverty and causes in the country’s top 50 metro areas. They write:

The Cleveland region features two central cities, Cleveland and Akron. The region’s neighborhoods are experiencing powerful economic decline and virtually no gentrification or growth.

The report goes on to say:

But neighborhood decline is much more severe in the cities of Akron and Cleveland, where about 75 percent of population lives in a strongly declining area.

I see how those numbers manifest every single day.

A house becomes a life raft for a ship that has sunk long ago.

If you bought a $5000 house and just let anyone move into it I can pretty much guarantee within a week you’d have about 15 people living in it.

A man yesterday was thinking of offering one of his rental properties to 6 homeless youth he knows. He’s not in the homeless service sector. He’s just a landlord that knows 6 HOMELESS KIDS.

I have also started to observe where rage begins in your body. I feel pretty confident it begins in our intestines, moves into your stomach and then fills your heart. I know this because I feel rage on a very regular basis.

Society just accepts these things.

Mayor Horrigan, in a perfect caricature of elitism and being out of touch said “living in tents is simply beneath human dignity and should not continue.”

Oh. Do you think, Dan? No wonder you became mayor with that astute observation. I wish I had thought of that.

So, while you let us all know that people shouldn’t be living in tents they are now living unsheltered under bridges, in doorways and in dumpsters because you are sweeping away every god damn homeless camp you can find in your city. You are making things worse. Not better.

You are overseeing a city swirling down the drain while you tell us we are experiencing a Renaissance.

The only place in northeast Ohio that is experiencing anything even close to a “Renaissance” is the little neighborhood on the near west side of Cleveland called Tremont.

North Korea lets its people live in abject poverty so it can play war games with the rest of the world.

Tell me there aren’t similarities with how Akron is being managed right now. Ignoring real problems, while telling everyone else how amazing Akron is.

You don’t have to be some soft-hearted person to understand the real consequences of letting this infected wound linger and fester.

This deep, inset poverty poisons the entire system. Does anyone think a city can’t go bankrupt? Does anyone think a city can’t disappear?

If Akron’s systemic poverty numbers were the cause of a hurricane we would declare a state of emergency and take immediate, drastic action. But because Akron is a pot that slowly turned up the heat to boiling we have accepted the devastation in which we live.

We blame the victim. We tell them to stop being so lazy, stop doing drugs and get a job.

Extreme numbers of addiction is the product of total hopelessness. That turns into depression. And the end result is systemic failure. Akron is failing. Akron is in retrograde. I’m not over stating this. I’m telling you as a person on the ground, in the trenches experiencing the hurricane of Akron poverty, we are in deep shit. It’s not going to just fix itself.

We have to take immediate, drastic actions. The only way we are going to turn Akron around is by doing things no other city in America is doing because no other city is experiencing the severe, chronic, massive levels of poverty concentration we are experiencing.

We need real, innovative, drastic leadership. TODAY!

 

 

Opiates kill people in many different ways.

From not knowing what kind of drug you are taking, to using dirty methods of delivery.

Kids are dying because marijuana and party drugs are being secretly laced with carfentanil… a tranquilizer used on elephants.

We live in an insane world.

But fortunately there are groups like the Summit County Health Department that are focused on saving lives and keeping people healthy.

I’m incredibly honored that we have been chosen as a the newest Summit County Harm Reduction Clinic Location.

Every Tuesday from 9:30am – 11:30am they will be offering free Narcan classes and free Needle exchanges.

If you know of ANYONE that is using any kind of recreational drugs we now live in a world where it could be a death sentence. Marijuana is being laced with super powerful opiates.

PLEASE come take our Narcan class if you know of anyone that is using any kind of recreational street drug.

You can come any time between 9:30am – 11:30am on Tuesdays.

There is a 20 minute video you watch and then you get a free Narcan kit. The information is actually really interesting.

It only takes one time to lose a loved one. Come get the Narcan kit.

 

Yesterday at an unstructured homeless camp this was the scene:

The city brought approximately 8 people to clean up a homeless camp. These were not paid city workers. These were people required to do community service work. They used free labor to do this work.

I watched as the 2 or 3 paid city workers stood around and directed these community service workers to destroy tents, and throw everything into trucks to be thrown away.

This is how we do things in America. Just destroy the lives of homeless people. They don’t matter. They are nothing other than a cancer on the skin of our cities. So sweep them away.

I’ve become so jaded that doesn’t even shock me any more. But there is always a new level of atrocity and shock that finds its way into my mind.

These camps are basically toxic waste dumps.

• Needles
• Shit
• Piss
• Rotten food
• Rats

These are centers of disease.

I know for a fact that a person living in this camp recently got back from a long stay at the hospital because he contracted Hepatitis A.

The Ohio Department of Health is reporting that Summit County (Akron) now has 64 reported cases of Hep A… Compared to Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) which has 54 cases. The population of Cleveland is 385,525. The population of Akron is 197,846.

The Atlantic is reporting that Typhus and Tuberculosis Are Spreading in Homeless Populations in California. It’s only a matter of time until they come to Ohio.

The reason these camps are so toxic is because cities refuse to work with these people. They are given no trash service. They are given no toilet service. All of those things would be considered luxuries that would make the homeless “too comfortable”.

So as the city vindictively tortures homeless people because they hate them, they are spreading disease.

Akron ignores diseases that shouldn’t even exist yet are sweeping our city.

This is not anything new to me. It’s just Akron.

But what was new to me was that the city of Akron put truly unsuspecting citizens who were required by law to do community service in the heart of this environment.

I walked over to a group of workers and said, “That tent could be full of needles, go slow.”

They looked at me with big, shocked eyes. They had no idea what they had been forced to get into.

The only protective gear these people had been given where cloth gloves. No rubber gloves. No masks. Just their personal clothes, personal shoes, a yellow vest and cloth gloves.

I’m not an expert in communicable diseases. But I would think OSHA would see this as a nightmare.

I don’t know if these people were given a choice as to which jobs they were required to do as part of their community service. But I sort of doubt it. They probably were forced into this scene.

I’m not overstating this scenario by saying: this job could have been a death sentence. They worked all day in this camp. And they still have more to do.

And they will do this work over and over again as homeless people move, set up camps with no support services and are swept away again.

All homeless haters love to tell me what a piece of shit all these people are. But then conveniently  they never tell me what we should do with them. I only see 3 options: kill them, lock them up or treat them.

It doesn’t take a mental giant to realize that killing them might not play well on the evening news. And we already don’t have enough space in our jails for the criminals we currently have. So, the way I see it, we have one option: Treat these people.

Work with them. Engage them. Give them basic services that help minimize disease and make it so they are less likely to steal and do other crimes.

I know the mayor thinks I’m an idiot. But I’m here to tell you: The city of Akron is spreading disease, pushing homeless people further away from society, making them less likely to engage with service workers and now is jeopardizing the lives of people that were forced into disease-ridden, toxic environments because they got a speeding ticket.

This is madness. And it all stems from hatred. The homeless are ruining the mayor’s vision of an Akron utopia filled with bearded hipsters and wealthy senior citizens.

This is no joke. This shit is real. And it’s only getting worse. This is a disaster and public-health crisis and the administration is doing nothing about it.

 

 

Martin Luther King Jr,’s  Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.] starts this way:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work.

It seems to be a recurring theme for those in authority to see the acts of someone who stands up for the oppressed and those victimized by the system to be “unwise and untimely”.

Mayor Horrigan made a video that said “sometimes the loudest voice isn’t the wisest.”

And a recent Editorial Board article in the Akron Beacon Journal declares that “Tents are for camping. They are not an adequate response to homelessness.”

They all sit in their comfortable bubble never once asking the homeless themselves how they feel.

Yesterday I asked Dave Butler and Rebecca Reeder what they thought about tents. They were one of the couples that got housing at the end of our tent community only to be quickly thrown out because they had dogs… something the facilitators of the housing program knew full well. At the end of that process they were just trying to jam people into houses as fast as they possibly could.

Dave said, “At the end of the day a tent is better than sleeping under a bridge or out in the rain. That sucks.”

That pretty much says it all. You don’t need a fancy blue ribbon panel of elitist intellectuals to come to that obvious conclusion.

Intellectual, wealthy, powerful people have always loved to create policy that suits them and hurts the poor. Sadly, it is a scene in the theater of human history that gets played out over and over again. They never seem to learn.

We know what Keith Stahl, the director of residential services at Community Support Services Inc. believes because he has told it to me at least twice: “The street is motivating.”

I’m sure he is thinking, “Dave, if you hate sleeping night after night exposed to rain and snow with no shelter you should get a house.”

He got a house. And then he was thrown out of it because he had a dog.

These are the messy parts of reality that governmental systems try to sweep under the rug and hope we never question. They will attempt to spin it that Dave and Rebecca have somehow failed the system. The system certainly didn’t fail them. “The system works” is a motto they love to repeat endlessly.

The Akron Beacon Journal editorial board article begins with the words “Sage Lewis”. They are attempting to turn my name into a villainous phrase. “Sage Lewis” A trouble maker. A fool. A person who is causing more harm than good. “A person who hasn’t moved the needle”, as the mayor has said in an editorial that also included my name in the first sentence.

It’s not about the homeless for them. They don’t care about the homeless. It’s personal for them. Our movement is making a dent in their decades-long complete and total control. They don’t like anyone saying anything even slightly different than what they are saying. It’s shocking to them that they even have to deal with this annoying topic of homelessness.

It hurts their egos that have become fragile over 30 years of no one ever standing up to them in a public way.

“The homeless”

We, as a community, will never even begin dealing with this human rights atrocity until they begin their articles with the phrase “The Homeless.” Not “Sage Lewis.”

I am not the problem. The problem is that we have people suffering and festering on the streets with nowhere to go. The problem is not that they have an activist trying to solve their systemic problems.

The problem is that the system does NOT work. It needs severely retooled.

Just because they don’t like tents doesn’t mean that American citizens who have lost everything have to suffer because their sensibilities are hurt.

The homeless are the ones dying in the streets, in the backyards, in the abandoned houses and in the sewers.

Their feelings will recover. The homeless are dying.

But saying this is all pointless. They are The Borg. They are now the system. The system is now them. Any other input does not compute and therefore is wrong.

“The system works.”

If the system doesn’t work for you then it is you that must end. Long live the system.

We have to move around them. The system is merely a rock in the river. We are the water.

We have to use tools that ignore their machine language “if then” statements. They have lost their way. They have lost their humanity. They have lost their very ability to adapt and learn. Their program has been written and there is no room for new code. They are “the Collective” called the government. The only way we will solve the actual problems of the world is to work around them while they fight us every step of the way.

We are on the right side of everything good and meaningful in history. Every great thinker, philosopher and spiritual leader would stand with us. Jesus, the man they pray to every single city council meeting, would stand with us.

We just have to continue to do the work.

In 1935 Akron became the home of AA.

Akron will become known as “The Recovery City.”

It is in our DNA. It is in our heart. It is in our soul.

We will be the city that teaches the rest of America a new form of recovery. A recovery for homelessness. A recovery for opiates. A recovery for systemic hopelessness.

This is our true Renaissance. Not a pseudo Renaissance artificially created by 15 year housing tax abatements.

The real Renaissance will be profound, revolutionary and innovative.

It will be a Renaissance created by the people in spite of the government who can’t see the forest for the trees.

And once we do all the work, I assure you they will take all the credit. They will say it was their idea all along.

But that too is just the way of the world. The credit is irrelevant. All that matters is the work.

People are living on the streets because the system is a blunt force tool. It is a hammer that thinks everything is a nail.

Homelessness is complicated. Homelessness is a condition.

They need to stop talking about me and start talking about the actual problems in their city. But that’s how they do it. They attempt to assassinate the character of their enemies in hopes of confusing the people and getting away from the real issues at hand.

We will not waiver. We will not quit. We are right. They are wrong.

We will be waiting for them on the the right side of justice and humanity once they wake up from their zombie trance and realize they can’t ignore their actual problems because it makes them feel icky.

(The featured image is a picture of a statue at the National Prisoner of War Museum, Andersonville National Historic Site, Georgia, United States.)

 

I came to work yesterday to find our porta potty completely burned to the ground.

Fire is a powerful force.

If you had not known there was a porta potty sitting there the day before you would have just thought that you were looking at a small fire.

Except the windows around the porta potty got so hot that they blew out. Black smoke went up the building.

This was the remains:

We believe this was the work of an angry person that we had kicked out.

It’s easy to cast blame on the homeless, the drug addicts, the drunks.

But nothing like this happened when we were a fully running village.

Ask anyone who was around when the village was fully running and they will tell you the exact same thing: It was never like this.

I’m telling you: the city of Akron destroyed the community these people created and took with it their dignity, hope and their very humanity.

They know not what they did.

So, we are left to clean up the ashes and move on.

The fire department and I had a long talk yesterday. We were both concerned about this incident. The lower level of the building has not been yet granted its occupancy permit.

So, together we made the decision to temporarily close down the lower level until our occupancy permit has been finalized.

I believe we are looking at 1 to 2 months work.

By temporarily closing that level we will be able to much more easily do the work that is needed to get that level where it needs to be.

IN THE MEANTIME: we are going to move our day center into the back yard.

This is going to give us all projects to work together on. And it is also going to give us a chance to think about what we want the back area to be where the tents once where.

We are going to need to think about where we are going to temporarily have our clothing room and our food pantry.

Between the red house and the upper level of 15 Broad street we will still have laundry, bathrooms and showers.

For now, instead of coming down the right side of the building, come down the LEFT side of the building. We will be in the back area doing our work there for the time being.

This is actually a nice time of year to be outside.

I truly believe every step of this journey has been pre-ordained. I truly believe we are all on a spiritual journey that is going to come to a place of profound salvation. We just have to keep walking the path.

So, come check out what we are working on in the back yard. If I know the homeless, you are very likely to find something cool and beautiful.

 

 

One of the issues I struggle with when talking about homelessness is the blanket thinking about the homeless.

“The homeless.”

That’s like saying “What are we going to do about “the people”.

There are so many different kinds of people in the homeless community.

• Some have mental health issues
• Some have drug issues (which really needs to be broken down by drug type)
• Some are alcoholics
• Some don’t have any mental health or addiction issues at all
• Young people
• Old people
• Various races
• Veterans
• Families
• Chronically homeless
• Newly homeless

It goes on and on.

That’s why “the system” of homeless services breaks down at some point. Systems are very rigid and are one size fits all. So when you don’t check all the right boxes of the kind of person the system caters to then the system spits you back out onto the street.

My belief is that ALL humans deserve some sort of shelter. Being a drug addict shouldn’t make you exempt from having some place to sleep. Akron native Jeffrey Dahmer got 3 hots and a cot and HE ATE PEOPLE!

So, I wanted to try my hand at sheltering people with active drug addictions.

I started letting them into one of our houses because I no longer have a place to put people in tents.

Do you know the phrase, “trap house?” I hadn’t ever heard of it before doing this work. But I know EXACTLY what it means now.

A trap house can be many things.

For example, I’ve seen a drug dealer go into a house and offer the owner of the house some drugs in exchange for getting to stay at the house. Eventually, the owner of the house gets in debt to the drug dealer. Then the dealer takes over the house. He moves all his friends into the house and the actual owner of the house becomes “trapped” in his own house.

I’ve seen a person who lives in the suburbs rent the kitchen of a house in the inner city to cook meth. The other residents of the house get trapped in the house because they are now stuck in a place that’s cooking meth (and they can’t use the kitchen, which is its own kind of annoying).

But mostly I see houses where people use drugs. Drug dealers show up. And drugs move in and out of the house. There are used needles everywhere.

A trap house is hell on earth.

The mayor has publicly said “living in tents is simply beneath human dignity“. He should spend some time in a trap house. He’s got them all over his city.

It is very common for people to move into a tent because they are sick and tired of the bullshit that goes on in the trap house they currently live in.

And they are everywhere.

We have a huge drug issue in Akron. And it’s all being run out of these trap houses. A lot goes on behind the walls of the houses of Akron that “proper” society can’t imagine.

Trap houses are dark, evil places.

Severe drug addicts become zombies. Nothing matters. Lying, cheating, stealing, violence. It all makes sense when you are in a deep, dark addiction.

Lying is the worst of it.

Lying makes up look like down. It makes even a sober mind question the essence of reality. Where does the truth stop and the lies begin? Does truth even exist anymore? It’s dizzying.

Without 24 hour surveillance and a highly secured building where only the residents can get in and out, a place where active drug users are allowed to live will turn into a trap house.

This is the food chain of homeless shelter options from bad to good.

1. Trap house
2. Tent in the woods
3. Tent in a sober village with security
4. Tiny house in a secured village
5. Sober group transitional house
6. A house or apartment of their own.

A tent is not the lowest point of shelter. A trap house is. (I didn’t include a homeless shelter in here just because you can plug it in at any point in the continuum. It’s always an option for some people. And it’s not an option at all for other people. Some people can’t or won’t use a shelter for many reasons.)

I have an A B C concept of transitional sheltering for homeless people.

“C” is living in the woods in a tent. You aren’t ready to engage in a community. You are still using drugs and not getting help for your mental health issues. But you are also tired of living in a trap house. A shelter won’t take an active drug user or drinker. That’s why you need tents in the woods.

“B” is living in a tent or tiny home community. This should be a drug free / alcohol free community where people are required to contribute to the community a certain amount of time each day. You also need to be working on your housing, mental health and addiction issues. You can drink and use drugs. But you can’t drink or use drugs in the community. You also have to be sober while you’re in the community.

“A” is a sober transitional house where you pay rent either with cash or working in the house or a neighboring homeless community. You are highly engaged in your mental health treatment and addiction treatment. And you are working on a realistic housing strategy. Any kind of drug or alcohol use in the house will immediately get you kicked out of the house and you’ll be moved back to the B Level.

A person can move through A B and C levels over and over again as they work on their homeless recovery. You need all 3 aspects for the program to work. I’m telling you: You need tents and a homeless village to help people transition out of homelessness. 

Homelessness is a condition. It is not simply the lack of 4 walls and a door.

But a trap house is not part of the homeless recovery program. You are never more homeless than when you are living in a trap house.

I simply do not believe you can take a regular house and make it a shelter for active drug users. It will become a trap house every single time.

So yeah. I ended up with my very own trap house.

A lot of landlords are proud owners of trap houses all over Akron. 50% of our housing stock in Akron is rental property. Of course wealthy landlords are running trap houses. It just happens.

Fortunately for me, I know a lot of homeless people that don’t want to live in a trap house. They want to live in a house that is safe and nice.

We kicked out every single person living in this drug house I created out of good intentions. We are cleaning it and painting it from top to bottom.

No one will be able to live in any of our houses that aren’t actively working on addiction recovery in a certified program and also working on their mental health issues with a mental health professional.

Gary Mikes, who is an incredible example of what a person can become in their life, told me from the beginning that I should not let drug users in any of our houses. But I’m a slow learner. I learn best by failing.

Now I know. I’m not going to be running “wet houses” any more. You just can’t do it in a regular house.

I still have a strong desire to shelter ALL homeless people. But right now I’m doing it in the woods. And I’ll send them to one of the many trap houses in our community if they haven’t gotten sick of that lifestyle yet.