Mayor John Marchand is nothing if not a disarming, engaging and astute conversationalist. I have seen him several times at Tommie's Café and, more recently, at his State of the City Town Hall in which his engaging speaking skills were on full display. When a private meeting with him was offered, of course I took it, and scheduled one for the afternoon of Friday, September 27th.
Maybe I'm not being clear enough in conveying how disarming the Mayor is... first, he showed me a painting by Tilly Calhoun, who was a cousin of mine, hanging on the office wall. He showed me an fabulous ancient Fire-Engine Red Coke machine he had in the conference room we used... who told the guy I like old stuff? He also made it very clear throughout our conversation that he was quite familiar with most, if not all of what I'd written over the course of the last few months... I wasn't going to get away with a whole lot in this chat...
The Mayor took issue with a couple of things I'd done. One was beating up on LPD... we had an amicable disagreement over that. LPD Guys (and Gals), I'll remind you, you have always had my respect, and you always will. Mayor Marchand reminded me that LPD has been doing yeoman's work fighting crime lately... which is certainly true, all you have to do is go through he Police and Fire section of the Livermore Patch to see this. (Just an Aside: here's a brilliant piece on being a witness by Mayra Flores)
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The other issue was that I have written that the city does nothing for the homeless...
He gave me a sheet describing things being done with federal money aimed at the homeless. Two things I noticed in it. The first was Abode's Hope Van, which shows up once a week at Vineyard Christian Fellowship.
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The other item on the list involves a $900,000 Federal Grant (which certain people think they're gonna get a piece of) to prevent families from becoming homeless. Keeping families from becoming homeless is certainly a noble endeavour, but I have not nearly enough knowledge on the subject to even begin an intelligent conversation on it... read: no knowledge.
Abode is what it is, a government funded non-profit that provides medical services. Wonderful. We also have AXIS over in the Multi Service Centre on Pacific which is probably funded in some similar manner.
I stand corrected.
What seemed to concern the Mayor greatly is funding the Status Quo. He made it clear he doesn't want to do that. Finding real solutions would be high on his priority list if he could identify them...
Sorry, Mr. Mayor, if I knew, I'd share it with you, but I can make some suggestions that, hopefully, won't cost the city a dime more than it's spending now.
The first is this: Keep discouraging permanent camp sites. Mayor Marchand spoke of how anyone camping along a water way, such as Mocho Park, is simply unacceptable. It creates a health hazard. Yeah, being homeless is hard, but it's possible to be mobile even if you don't have a car... how often do I have to repeat this? Every encampment we spoke of had always become a disaster in short order.
Two: Please make it clear to Livermore Residents that giving money to people flying signs finances substance addiction! It's also the biggest single attraction for out-of-town homeless. If people want to give, there are plenty of more productive ways to donate money. They'll find some of those here. If people have the gumption, they could volunteer at the Livermore Homeless Refuge, which needs volunteers far more than it needs money.
Three: Encourage those groups helping the homeless to set strict behavioural standards. When standards are laid down, people do tend to rise to the occasion. Sure, they'll grouse about it, they'll complain and they'll whine... Mr. Mayor, it would so tickle me to hear you say: “Just feed 'em some cheese and tell 'em this is the way it is!”
And last, but probably most important: Encourage those helping the homeless to engage the homeless themselves in community service. I can't stress this enough. When people get used to performing a task, they tend to become productive.An object in motion... yeah, you being a Scientist, Mr. Mayor, you don't need me to remind you of this axiom. I see a lot of cigarette butts and other trash in Carnegie Park... and who was talking about Livermore Residents picking up trash a couple of days ago...? Hmmm?
The Mayor told me something that impressed me. He worked in a Library while attending University and had to deal with some of the vagrants in it, which I'm sure was very pleasant... not... so he does have experience at this level. He's seen the ugliness and bad behaviour first hand, which is a good thing. Couple this with the Mayor's new policy of community engagement, and I think his office has set course in a very positive direction.
What Mayor Marchand alluded to throughout the conversation was that problems with the homeless always involve Behaviour... Uhm... where have I heard that before?
No matter...
We did not have time to speak of the real economic barriers that keep the working homeless homeless. That's something that... well, I certainly can't imagine what would solve that outside of massive amounts of government money... and that's proven disastrous...
But... Mayor Marchand has been thinking...
...and what he's been thinking about is having another Town Hall on Homelessness sometime in the future. It has no set date, and may not happen for a few months, but he seemed very enthusiastic about it, and is likely terrorizing his own staff with the idea as I write this in his brilliantly engaging way...
Once again, Mr. Mayor, thank you again for seeing me. It was very much a pleasure.
