PERSONAL:

March 9

Update: Insult to Injury

A few days ago a storage unit opened up earlier than expected. Upon paying my deposit and going to the facility with my first load of boxes. I learned that my landlord, the person causing me to need a storage unit is actually the owner of the facility. Today I called another storage facility to get on the waiting list. This one has a different owner.

Again it’s after midnight, I haven’t been able to sleep so I have been getting caught up on client work, thinking about logistics and doing my best to make project updates. I guess my life is a project update.

I’m fortunate to have a roof over my head, not to have severe mental health, or addiction issues. My housing is unstable at the moment and though my income has gone up since renting my soon to be former apartment, I can’t afford even half of the apartment I’m moving out of. Even so I know I’m lucky, I can’t help to think of the hundreds of people sleeping outside right now as another massive storm is approaching.

On February Arts Alive, while I had my studio open and encouraged people to share their thoughts on housing and sit for portraits, my neighbors in old town were hunkering down for a storm. One was literally outside my building huddling under a tarp held up by a broken massage table. The clogged drain was flooding the parking lot and he was doing his best not to sleep in the expanding puddle.

He’s an addict, I spoke to him and a woman earlier that day, I offered them warm drinks and encouraged them not to use near the building since it hosts kids programming. The week prior he was passed out in the parking lot I checked to make sure he was alive. That night as the rain really started I offered another warm drink a spare tarp and some construction bags. I haven’t seen him since, it’s been over a month now.

Everyone should have the ability to put their head in a place that is at the very least dry, secure, and out of the wind…. Micro dorm housing 6x8 with a cubby, outlet, a sleeping platform, a door that locks, a smoke alarm, carbon monoxide detector, and a small electric wall heater. Shared bathroom. Incorporate these into various parts of town, make them mobile. Place them where needed. More than this is needed, but it seems so simple.

Over $500k per year for safe parking in Arcata, I’ve talked to people that tried to utilize it, one person expressed that it was more restrictive than being incarcerated.

Solutions are expensive and difficult. We need a housing triage team, we need to come together and demand a reasonable minimum.

March 1

It’s 3:24 am I’ve been trying to sleep for the last hour. Initially I went to bed around 11 but had racing thoughts about everything I need to accomplish this week, this month, and in the next three or so months.

I decided to be proactive with my time and went to my studio space where I worked on things to help me get ahead for later this week, I stayed until 2:30am.

I don’t have time to waste. I have this housing project which should be occupying most of my free time and energy for the next few months. I’m also primarily self employed so I need to maintain the day-to-day and do what’s necessary to have work over the next 6 months and beyond.

However, most of my time lately is devoted to moving. Being served a 60 day termination of tenancy, and being about half way though that window occupies most of my energy, physical and emotional.

After living in a home I could afford for the last 6ish years, and that home having an office I use for work daily. The realization that my budget doesn’t even afford me a home half this size, is stress. I’m in the process of downsizing, significantly.

I have a lead on a storage unit, it might be open on the 15th, two weeks before I need to be out.

I’m contemplating what I can keep, what to donate, do I sell the items I bought because I thought I was an adult living with my partner in a home we would maintain until we were ready for something better?

Do I keep the few items I have from my father? A box of CD’s, another of old photos, and a few of his childhood toys. These aren’t functional in my day to day, but they matter.

These are serious thoughts, but mostly I’m going over logistics. What’s the order of operations? What do I pack now vs later. Once it’s packed where do I put it, how many trips will it take to move everything? How much time will it take to fill the holes in the walls, how much time will it take to remove the medicine cabinet we bought and replaced ourselves? Will I ever see my security deposit again? What do I do with the garden? How many trips to the dump? How much is this going to cost? How many more gigs, and client communications am I going to miss because all of my time is involved in this process?

When will I have time to sit and think about this project? When will I have time to do good work, and reach out to editors at media organizations? When do I have time to transcribe my interviews? The Wall street Journal ran a story this week, I gave the reporter the contacts for two of the three people interviewed. I need to be on this project now. I need to have the work and send it out. But I also need to move, I need to vacate my home, move everything into storage and find another home. I need to be able to afford this too.

At night I have my to-do-list for this project, but in the morning my to-do-list for being displaced takes precedent.

Displacement is stress. I’m better off than many people I’ve met though this project, and I try to keep that in perspective, but day in and day out the list of things that need doing continues to grow and the deadlines seem intent to converge.