OlyCap should stick to housing and the good things they do for kids and Domestic Violence Victims, and low income they may do a lot of good there, however, OlyCAP should not be running a shelter and should sub-contract that out to a qualified, caring, compassionate, aware non-profit or several that can help them and focus just on that.
OlyCap is to Big and to Busy to even know what is happening to these people and they have no Homeless Shelter program manager that is qualified and can actually help the homeless to move on from the shelter and keep there mental calm. While at the same time intelligent, experienced, articulate people such as I and others who have been homeless in Port Townsend have told OlyCap, told the Police, told the Commissioners what is happening at the shelter and ignored 5 years and counting.
Meanwhile there are lots of suicides, there is violence and rape and all that criminal demonic chaos at the fairgrounds that led to injury, mental anguish and death and massive suffering of the neighborhood residents. The homeless cry out to authorities and commissioners and are not heard, to the point of killing themselves, they have no advocacy outreach. To me that is all on how it is managed, and that they are providing no true solution to helping homeless to move on with their lives and live a better quality of life, while at the same time causing public anger toward the homeless as the public don't understand what is actually happening behind the scenes to create it all. The homeless here have no true advocacy or support in OlyCap, they simply need to let go of trying to help the homeless as they are and have been hurting them and this leads to unrest throughout the entire community.
Homeless are different, you cannot use the same approach as low income or any other sector of society, it is different in so many ways I cannot explain to you as I don’t believe most have the sense to truly get it. It is one of those things you really had to be there to really get it.
Myself, and other local nonprofits that do know what is really happening among the homeless, and don’t turn a blind eye to the experience of the individual human beings who go to the shelter and those who live in cars, we apply for state and federal money for our non-profits to actually help them, and we are denied grants and funding as we are told there is a non-profit here providing that service. Yet the service of actually services the homeless in a way that adds to their quality of life and helps them to move on, that is not being done. They are not providing a healthy environment, an environment of non-bias and non-discrimination, a place of safety from threats and theft, privacy, quiet, bullying, discrimination, light and noise, and basic human rights, in my experience and opinion after being in it, among it, near it for 7 years in a row in Port Townsend.
OlyCap must eventually admit they can’t do this and let it go, do they not see the deaths, the mental anguish, the crimes, the torment? They just must think oh they are just mental issues, that is not necessarily so, it is how they are treated. It is about being bullied, gas lighted, religious and sexuality discrimination, and not believed or heard.
OlyCap cannot do a good, efficient, ethical, moral job with the homeless sheltering be it tents, cars, campers or the shelter, that is not bad on them it is simply not their thing, however they are in the way of those of us who can help the homeless for REAL. Yes people SURVIVE, for the most part, Physically, but to me that is not enough, they need to move on to a better quality of life not a breeding ground for a lord of the flies type island approach, that affects the entire community.
OlyCap should, in my opinion, Stick with big projects such as housing and programs that help low income, and some recent homeless, domestic violence victims, helping children and other good things OlyCap does along those lines. However, the homeless are different than low income, they, we have different needs, different steps to housing that low income don’t necessarily, such as a long time out of the system and things that we need to go through to get back in it, not wanting authority, having to deal with paperwork, opening up to the rules of government, deep connections to the land and spirit for many, and the mental health (spiritual) steps it takes to be able to moving back into housing, it is not as simple as if you build it they will come, not if they have to conform, change, be bullied or treated less than, most, as I, would rather freeze to death, we are simply different.
SO many are treated for addiction but given no real solutions as to how to get out of the mental state that caused the addiction to rule their life. With most homeless the addiction comes later surprise surprise, it comes from wanting warmth that some drugs and alcohol bring, it comes from the massive need for mental calm and relief and no other way taught to them, it comes from being homeless for most and not that the addiction led to homeless, some yes but not MOST. There is so much that the general public cannot know about being homeless, knowing the moment before you freeze to death, scared of no way to find food or get out of the cold, no privacy and yearning craving for it, always rousted in some way, discrimination, no showers, no restroom at times. They don’t know what they don’t know and if you don’t know, or won’t believe and call what they truly experience UNTRUTH, how can you possibly truly effectively help them out of it?
OlyCap management does not respect the individual humanity of each homeless person as a Sovereign Individual, accountable for all things in their life and they have valid experiences to share, they matter, they are living breathing beings, each with individual needs, accountability for their actions and reasons for being homeless and staying homeless for so long. OlyCap just don't know, that is fine most don't however, they are paid to provide this service and they simply do not.
~ Reverend Crystal Cox
Universal Church of Light
ReverendCrystalCox@gMail.com