If you frequent Washington D.C.’s homeless services, you learn one lesson very, very quickly: The leadership has all the authority, and the clients have none of it. When the leadership yells “jump,” we have little choice but to respond “how high?”
Why? Because, unfortunately, our lives depend on it.
I’ve been dependent on the area’s homeless services for about six months now. During this time, I have been constantly amazed at the number of rules that I have to follow. There are rules that govern every little thing we do: rules about when we talk, how we talk, how we dress, when we wake up, when we go to sleep, when we take showers, when we use the bathroom, what bathrooms we can use, what bathrooms we can’t use, when we eat, what we eat, where to walk, where not to walk, where to sit and even how to sit.
I’m not exaggerating here when I say we are constantly — and, I mean, constantly — subject to somebody’s rules. We usually don’t know when the rules were made, who made them or even why they were made. But we do know this: You gotta follow them.
What kills me about the rules is they’re so often arbitrary. Let me give you two examples.
1) At a low barrier shelter I frequent, there’s a “no smoking under the gazebo” rule. I always thought this rule didn’t make much sense because, well, smoke doesn’t know the difference between inside and outside of the gazebo. If you’re standing outside the gazebo, your cigarette smoke can easily make its way inside the gazebo and vice-versa. If the goal of the rule was to protect people’s lungs inside the gazebo, then it has failed. Folks inside the gazebo are still exposed to cigarette smoke.
2) At this same low barrier shelter, there’s a 10 o’clock bedcheck rule. They check your bed at 10 p.m. and then every hour afterward. I’m not sure what makes 10 o’clock such a special hour, but the idea that you need to be in your bed over the course of the night in case someone checks is absurd. It’s not even about making sure you’re in your bed over the course of the night. It’s about making sure you’re in your bed when someone checks. What if I need to run outside for an hour or two? Or what if I’m in the shower or need to pee when the guards tour my dorm? Why do I need to de-prioritize my own needs as a living thing in order to make room for the leadership’s authority over my life? Why is their ability to control my life more important than life itself?
Now, there are folks out there who will make the valid point that rules serve a purpose. And I understand the purpose of both examples I provided. The first rule wants to keep folks safe from secondhand smoke. The second one wants to make sure that folks are actually using the beds they’ve been assigned. These are important and noble goals. No doubt. Nobody is out here making rules for the sake of making rules. I mean, I guess there are those people out there, but I don’t think that’s the case for most leaders.
But here’s my issue: At the end of the day, the function of all rules should be to protect our humanity.
Just like federal law trumps state law, I would argue that the obligation to protect our humanity trumps all other functions of rules. If rules aren’t protecting our essential human rights, the right to live and thrive as human beings, then they aren’t rules worth keeping or following.
As it stands now, the rules turn those of us who depend on the city’s homeless services from human beings into something closer to slaves.
Each and every day, the city’s homeless are expected to follow rules that gives someone — or a group of someones — more and more control over our lives. This point become glaringly clear when you try to say “no” to a rule.
I’ve learned from personal experience that your options are pretty limited here: You either follow the rules or you leave. If you refuse to leave, than you’re banned. If you still refuse to leave, the police will be called and you’ll be charged with trespassing. You need to follow the rules each day — even if you disagree with them — or you can be banned and, if you’re banned, then it becomes a hell of a lot harder to get your human needs met.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have rules. I believe that rules are often an important and necessary way to solve problems. But, as James Baldwin writes, the “law is meant to be my servant, not my master, my torturer, and my murderer” I agree with this sentiment. The rules should be there to enable fuller expressions of our human will, they should be there to protect and preserve our humanity, not to force us into a slavelike existence. I should be able to say “no.” I should always be meaningfully able to say “no.”
How do we accomplish this goal? I think all homeless service providers should have a conflict-resolution process. By this I mean, there should be some process in place to allow clients to safely say “no.” For example, we could have clients who don’t agree with a rule schedule a sit-down with staff where they can discuss the disagreement and come to a just resolution. The key here is that we shouldn’t have to submit to the rule before this discussion. It shouldn’t be the case that I have to submit to a rule before I can contest the value of that rule. If I have to submit to a rule in order to be heard, then we haven’t solved the problem of how the staff and leadership’s unilateral authority squashes our spirits. Another idea is to allow clients to call for a vote. If there’s a disagreement, the client could ask for a vote, even an impromptu vote depending on the issue, and the results of that vote could be used to resolve conflict.
These are just two examples, and I’m sure there are many, many more out there. The point is our homeless service providers need to create procedures that shift authority to the clients. I’m tired of being sent to suggestion boxes when I have an issue or disagreement. The providers are not obligated to listen to our suggestions or take them seriously. Like all suggestions, they can take ‘em or leave ‘em.
The leadership needs to constantly ask themselves “how can I shift authority back to the people who I serve? How can I make sure the consumers have a genuine, ongoing say in how things are run?” It shouldn’t be the case that I’m made to feel like “the rules are the rules, and that’s the way it goes.”
Now some of the folks reading this will say “but, wait can’t you vote in local elections and use those elections to hold the leadership accountable?” Well, yes and no. First of all, it would require us to have the ear of candidates and elected officials in order to get our issues on their radar. And, unfortunately, the homeless are not an influential voting bloc. There are people who are worried about the “homeless problem,” but it’s rarely the “homeless” themselves. It’s generally powerful business interests or other constituents who want to “clean up our streets.” They don’t have the basic, day-to-day issues we face in the shelters in mind.
Second of all, it would mean that we would have to wait for another election cycle before we could get immediate issues addressed. It’s unreasonable to expect folks who have very complicated, very volatile lives to solve immediate issues through a process that wasn’t designed with our lifestyles in minds. I’m not worried about the next election cycle when I have to deal with not being able to eat because my shelter changed the feeding times without notice.
It’s time our providers stop creating rules to govern us and start making rules to empower us. If we’re truly committed to creating a safety net that protects our lives, then that safety net needs to have our ability to disagree in mind.
Jason Saunders is a Street Sense Media contributor.
