The Homeless Amazon on Florin Road

There's a danger zone, not a stranger zone...

I should entitle this thread "The threat of an imagined passive aggressive war with the homeless." On the Amazon…

A facility like a church in a neighborhood like this is sort of an ecosystem. We currently have three "regulars" who spend the night here and another dozen or so who sort of come and go through the ecosystem.

As with any ecosystem there are assets and niches that various individuals nest in, use, abuse, etc. I'm sort of playing a "God game" like Sim city here by manipulating the infrastructure to insure the ecosystem stays in balance.

There's a lot of balancing that has to be done. You can be a consumerist tyrant and lock everything down driving this population out of the ecosystem for the sake of the "customers" who actually pay the bills.

That's sort of the obvious choice, but to do so undercuts some other deep values of the ecosystem informed by founding myths like the story of Lazaras and the rich man. You can lean into the consumer culture and betray your founding myth, so you balance.

I play this balancing act constantly between the consumer pressures and the mythos underlying the ecosystem. This summer water became an issue. I do have a camera that does some monitoring of the ecosystem and water was being abused.

Of course the church water system is within the network to the larger CA water system, etc. which is also in coordination with the neighborhood reputational system. Water running down the street during a severe drought harms the church's community reputation, etc.

So this summer I took the drastic measure of locking down some of the spigots. I did so strategically, only locking down the most obvious spigots. Many of the hard core regulars know this ecosystem better than a majority of the "consumers" who pay for it.

I manage this ecosystem with this knowledge because in this "God game" I usually have a better vision of the whole picture than most. So water resources went away from some key locations but I quietly kept water on at other places.

I know the water is used because I can see signs of habitation by the less well know watering holes. Plastic forks, discarded food containers, used water bottles for refill. Yep. My system is working. I can cut down on some abusive water use and still provide for others. check.

But managing resources with human beings is much different from managing it with the mice, the roaches and the ground squirrels with which I usually contend. We humans read each others minds.

I knew that cutting off the water in the prime spots, the spots near the comfy places for overnighting, for pot smoking, for beer drinking and for other human recreational activities would be unwelcome for some in the ecosystem.

I had resisted this move for a long time for this reason. I knew that there would be prices to be paid that I decided I would only pay if I must. You learn things about individuals in the ecosystem with moves like these.

Sunday morning, report of a spigot left on. The spigot I choose to leave open was one in plant beds. If left on it would at least water the plants. Acceptable compromise. Who left it on though? What was his diagnosis? Bi-polar or schizophrenic? It makes a difference.

Tuesday morning. Women's bible study on site. Doing a randos convo. "bang" on the door. Angry fist. Hmmm. Makes a difference who THAT is. Gotta check the ladies, make sure they are OK. Pause the convo, head out looking for the angry fist.

Oh, it's Ray. Young hispanic/asian/native-american unmedicated schizophrenic. About 5'8, 160 pounds. I've got 6 inches and 80 pounds on him even though he's younger. Usually avoids contact. Gives verbal protest but retreats quickly.

Likes to go on multiple day drug benders right by one of the locked down spigots. Likes to bath naked at the spigots in the full light of day. Yeah, he's not happy about the locks.

Usually stays at the periphery of the property. Won't be a threat to the ladies. One of those ladies who just turned 81 could take him in a scrap anyway. She won't back down from hardly anyone.

Neighbor knocks at the door today. Reminder to not stress the church/neighbor reputation aspect. His report, that spigot was left running all night. After the Sunday deluge we had water running in the street. Also a Sac City code violation.

Was it Ray? Ray knows that faucet. He's camped up there before when D had the prime spot next to my office. Ray is beneath D in the pecking order. D outweighs Ray by 30 pounds and can be pretty unstable. D's bipolar makes him more rational than Ray's schizophrenia.

But what about PVK? Can I know it was Ray? Should I cut off his last water source? Ray is less of a regular than D or B or M. He stays a few nights and then goes somewhere else. Is Ray unhappy with me or has a beef with someone else?

With so many other paranoid people in the ecosystem it's important not to join them. Don McClean had a song about this...