August
15, 2014
The
Union of Grass Valley
By Dave Brooksher
In September, the Nevada County
Board of Supervisors and the Grass Valley City Council will have to respond to
the civil grand jury’s June report, “Panhandlers, vagrants and transients in a
neighborhood near you?”
But well before that response
was due, the language used in the report drew criticism.
The report used the phrase
“panhandlers, vagrants and transients” so frequently the authors coined an
acronym — PVT. The term appears 38 times in the 11-page report.
A number of individuals
interviewed for this article said they preferred to be called “houseless” or
“displaced residents.” Others think “homeless” is more or less the right word.
But the grand jury’s term of “PVT” generated strong emotional responses for
some.
Days after that report was
released, Hospitality House hosted a healing workshop for some of its
residents. As part of the nonprofit’s mission to shelter Nevada County’s
homeless and help them find housing, the workshop was an effort to help
participants address some of the root causes of homelessness.
“We’re trying to empower them to help them to
heal, but you can imagine what it must feel like to be a homeless person when a
report such as the one (the grand jury) wrote was released,” said Cindy Maple,
executive director at Hospitality House. “It was really hurtful to them.”
Hospitality House sometimes
uses poster-board and markers as tools in those workshops. The idea, Maple
said, is to help its clients rethink how they see themselves, using “power
words.” Several participants focused on the grand jury’s acronym, PVT.
“We were sending messages back
to the community as a healing exercise, and they were so meaningful that we
took pictures,” Maple said.
Robert Marquardt is a homeless
veteran of the United States Army. He made a sign saying “I am not a PVT. I’m
just residentially challenged.”
Marquardt worked in security
for more than 15 years, and later found work as a trucker. He’s currently
unemployed, but looking for work and making use of the services Hospitality
House provides.
He said he doesn’t want to be
called a PVT.
“It does offend me,” Marquardt
said. “I’m not a panhandler. I’ve never stood on a corner with a street sign
begging for money.
“I’m out there trying. It’s not
like I’m sitting back on my butt doing nothing. I’m trying to get something
done, and to be lumped in with people who don’t want to do anything is just
frustrating,” he said.
“I don’t know who’s on the
grand jury, but I’m sure that they’ve never actually gotten out and talked to
people who are homeless,” Marquardt said.
Laurie, another Hospitality
House resident who asked to have her last name omitted, criticized the lack of
evidence in the grand jury report’s list of facts.
“I just don’t appreciate that
the grand jury is assuming and relying on … numbers that are maybe, not
exaggerated, but guessed at,” Laurie said. “They don’t have hard facts that the
homeless are actually part of that problem.
“I think the grand jury went a
little over the line in trying to describe this problem, quantify it and pin it
down,” she added.
Tim Robison, another
Hospitality House client, said he was outraged at the grand jury’s choice in
language. In response, Robison made a sign saying, “P.V.T. — It wasn’t me.”
He’s a contractor, and he used to run his own business. Robison said he owned a
home in Roseville, but lost it in a recent divorce. That’s how he ended up at
Hospitality House.
“There’s people in here that
are school teachers that are out of work. There’s people in here that are
nurses that are out of work. I’ve seen a few bad apples. That’s not anybody in
here, but we’re being classified with those people, too,” Robison said.
Similar sentiments were expressed
at a free weekly lunch in Pioneer Park, provided by Sierra Roots.
“It’s heartbreaking, really,”
said Ray, a homeless resident of Nevada City who asked to be identified by
first name only. “It doesn’t surprise me, but at the same time, it’s very
disheartening. There’s obviously no compassion, none whatsoever. It’s a lazy
mind, and it’s discrimination.”
Most of the homeless people
interviewed for this story agreed that the individuals who make up Nevada
County’s homeless population should not be lumped into a single category.
And members of the Nevada
County Civil grand jury might agree with that.
“The Nevada County grand jury
recognizes that any discussion of the homeless problem is politically
challenging. There is a fine line between providing needed services to a
deserving population and enabling or encouraging the less desirable element,”
members of the grand jury wrote.
But many of the individuals
with behavioral issues actually have homes, according to Michael Lucas Butler,
and most homeless people wouldn’t even understand the term “PVT.”
Butler lives in unincorporated
Nevada County, where he camps with the property owner’s permission. He moved
here in 1993, and has been without permanent housing since 2003.
Butler sees the grand jury’s
report on PVTs as a mild embarrassment, but said there’s a silver lining. He
hopes it gives them a reason to re-examine their work, and possibly revisit
this issue at a later date.
“Now that they’ve made
themselves look a little foolish, this gives them the opportunity to come up
and shine like a star,” Butler said.
Among the homeless individuals
interviewed for this report, there was a consensus that the solution to
problems associated with the homeless community would involve more access to
mental health services.
They also tend to agree that
there are dangerous, obnoxious or “less desirable” elements within the homeless
community that do cause serious problems.
But several homeless
individuals interviewed also stated that this is a national issue. It’s much
worse outside of Nevada County, they said, and the extent of the problem
locally may have been exaggerated.
“I know what panhandling means,
and I’ve seen very little of it here,” said Laurie at Hospitality House.
“What’s happening here is not as big a problem as I’ve seen recently in other
places.”
To contact Staff Writer Dave
Brooksher, email dbrooksher@theunion.com or call 530-477-4230.
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