Dear students: Welcome. Gotta dollar?

And what else might one expect? This writer is homeless. He should be shuddering under a blanket with his own version of the same old sign all the other homeless people use - "Cold, broke, no family, desperate, whatever". But he's here on the internet - so how does that work?

Answer: It doesn't. (Continued...)

This blog. aHBiNYC is now available as an eBook. It covers the writer's homeless experiences in New York City from September 11, 2011 through January 2013 in 245 pages and 50 chapters. To order simply use the PayPal button in the sidebar, send $10, and include your email address in the PayPal memo form. Thank you.

Emergency Assistance: Thank You Melissa

On Wednesday, just hours after my post for emergency assistance, I received a PayPal notice of deposit for $50 from a woman I had not heard from in years. It was the first help I've seen since my illegal arrest and the confiscation of my property by the NYPD last Friday. The next day, I received the following note: 

"I've been keeping up with your journeys via your blog and various updates that you do such a great job of putting out across the social media spectrum. Bravo! Your journalism is both candid and captivating. I'm terribly sorry to hear of the arrest and loss of your of supplies. I hope that I was able to help in some way. What you're doing takes some real balls and I absolutely admire that."

Demand #4623

And Melissa and I have never met. A few years ago, while I was living in Vietnam, Melissa had been referred to me by a colleague for some assistance in helping her secure an internship at my alma mater, Leo Burnett - so my job was to be a virtual mentor of sorts. Melissa never got that job and I never became the President of America but we've both gone on to Occupations that suit our talents and places in life. Melissa occupies a 9-5 insurance job in Las Vegas and I occupy New York City in hopes of bringing positive social change to a world that greatly needs it. Yet our missions are the same. Contrary to many people's beliefs, the Occupy movement is not anti-capitalism,  but it is anti-irresponsible capitalism. And contrary as well to conventional wisdom, occupiers may not have conventional jobs, but they definitely have a collective Occupation. With well over 12 hours a day invested in Occupy over the last 8 months, my being arrested by the NYPD has signaled that I am so constant an Occupier and so resilient an artist that I have now become a threat. And generally, this is a good thing. That means that I am doing very, very well at my job. Rarely a day goes by at Union Square that I am not approached by the 9-5 class and given thanks for doing a job that they are not able to do. And that job is to raise awareness about the issues that affect humankind the most - Economic justice - The right to a job and home - and non-profit healthcare for all.

Without the 9-5 Melissas and others out there, Occupy could never survive - but together we can continue to reshape and control the destiny that is our lives and the lives and futures of our children, grandchildren and beyond. Long live this Occupation. And thank you again Melissa.

Emergency: Donations Needed - After Arrest, NYPD Steals My Business, Belongings and Portable Home

Scene of no crime

As per my previous story on being arrested on the morning of April 27th, that day, while I was in police custody, officer Lombardo and crew raided the OWS (legal) encampment on 15th Street and confiscated not only our OWS donations box, but my personal belongings in the form of a rolling suitcase containing all my artwork, supplies, paints, brushes, clothing and a Lumix camera I had been given as a gift. When confronted by OWS supporters objecting to the removal of the luggage, the officer responded, "That guy was arrested this morning - so his stuff is 'unattended'. Haul it." So in the space of one day, the NYPD not only arrested me illegally, but confiscated both my business and my home in one rolling cart. Somehow, I'm sure America is safer for this:)

To restart my sign-painting business, replace my camera and regain my rolling home, I am again soliciting donations (many of you helped me with a phone earlier this year). Yes, I find it deplorable that our law enforcement officials are being actively aggressive towards the homeless and in my case, even taking the small supplies that I use to make my income. Denying a man a home is one thing. Denying him the right to work is quite another - that denies him the right to better his life.

Please help fight this injustice and contribute liberally to this cause. A recent comment to my post, "Arresting Developments" stated, "You make us all proud, David. We can't all be there, but you're a terrific surrogate." With that sentiment, please understand two things:

1) I have been homeless since September 11, 2011.

2) I am on the front line fighting against economic injustice every day with Occupy Wall Street in New York since September 18th, 2011.

Please use the PayPal donation button in the left sidebar and help me survive to fight again another day.

Arresting Developments

Street Graffiti 

On Friday, April 27th, I was arrested by the NYPD for essentially, being an Occupier. When asked why I was being arrested, officer Kevin Wahlig said, "I don't know, a couple of things. We'll discuss it on the way to the station." Not until much later in the day before my arraignment in court was I aware of the actual charges and I was never read my rights. Stated as (1) Disorderly Conduct and (2) Resisting Arrest, I found the charges interesting in that my conduct was one of sleeping on the sidewalk and my resistance to arrest was premeditated in the officer's mind, well before I was actually arrested. It seemed immediately that preparations for disrupting Occupy's May Day plans were underway.

According to a 2000 court order from the New York State Supreme Court, sleeping is protected as a form of "public expression", so I couldn't possibly being arrested for that, could I? Well, not legally, but if my sleeping was disorderly I suppose I could be cited (funny just thinking about that - "You hogged all the  covers so now you're under arrest!").

My Occupation

The police had come at 6:30am to wake up a host of Occupiers sleeping across the street from HSBC and helping Max in his vigil to highlight the plight of the homeless. I had awaken but fallen back to sleep due to a succession of rainy days and need of sleep. Waking me a second time no less than four officers were in charge of me with Wahlig taking the lead. As I prepared to collect my things and began putting on my shoes I was asked for my ID which I produced and continued packing up. Asking for my ID back was when I was told I was being arrested, so I immediately reached for a cigarette (knowing I wouldn't have one all day) and began to light it - but that set the four officers off in a flurry of trying to grab my hands to handcuff. Arms pulled behind me, entirely too much force was used to detain a 143lb man and the cuffs wrenched so tightly my left wrist was bruised and cut - my body pushed around and manhandled as if they needed to create a scuffle to make it look like something was happening. But nothing was happening except another routine illegal arrest of a member of Occupy Wall Street.

Sign of the times

Since the beginning of Occupy on September 17th, 2011 over 17 million dollars have been spent in NYPD overtime, policing a non-violent movement and over 2200 arrests have been made according to the National Lawyers Guild. I wonder how much it costs to arrest a homeless man for sleeping? Whatever the cost, it's too much taxpayer money that could be going to creating jobs and alleviating the homeless problem in the US, but in NYC it seems no amount is too much when it comes to funding the police department. Earlier in the week I overheard an officer say, "I hate Occupy but I love the overtime". Great. That's your tax dollars at work, harassing citizens, suppressing free speech and taking us yet one step closer to a police state - with officers just making up the laws as they go. At Occupy though, we see the NYPD overreaction as a measure of our success. Only if we are truly a threat to the status quo would they react with the brute force and numbers that they have.

My day proceeded with being handcuffed and thrown into a van, not able to take my rolling cart with all my artwork and clothing in it. So I left it with my fellow Occupiers, sure that they would keep an eye on things and I could pick it up later - but that would not be the case either. Once at the station I was relieved of my personal belongings, finger-printed, retnal-scanned and pitched into an empty cell. With no other customers that morning I was doing all I could to keep Precinct 13 alive and buzzing with the smell of a fresh kill. This crime fighting stuff is indeed a serious business.

An hour at the precinct and I was transferred downtown in a van to what is referred to as Central Booking. It's basically a city jail and as opposed to the rules at the precinct where I was required to remove my belt so I didn't hang myself from the shame of my charges, I kept my belt, wallet and ID and was put in a large cell with 10 or so other prisoners - and if one had to judge the state of criminal activity by this lot, it might be assumed that we were all living on Sesame Street. One guy was in for "moving cardboard" in an attempt to arrange a warm sleeping spot for himself. Another for DWI, of which he seemed totally capable, and yet another for short paying a cabbie claiming the guy ripped him off by driving a longer route. No axe murderers, armed robbers or drug dealers. Unless prisoners are arranged by the severity of their crimes it seemed this early morning crew of primarily black and hispanic customers were doing nothing but giving the cops a way to keep their operations budget and make the monthly arrest quota with just days to spare.

Hours passed and we were served dry bread with a piece of cheese on it for lunch at noon. Hours more passed and we were served another two pieces of dry bread with cheese on it for dinner at six - and by this time, very few people had been processed through to arraignment. So we were basically sitting around with our thumbs up our butts comparing charges - all misdemeanors. Finally, a number of us were moved to another cell to be able to speak with our respective attorneys. We were transferred by chain gang, all handcuffed together and began, one by one, to have short meetings with our public defenders. Outside we could hear both the police statements of events and the accused accounts. During the DWI guy's meeting we could hear the attorney speaking on the phone with the guy's wife who was downstairs posting bail for her husband. "She wants to know if there's a bar in the building", the attorney said, "While she waits for you to get out". Funny, this 'he and she' separated by phone and crossbars, seemed the perfect couple for the times.

My attorney had been arranged by the National Lawyer's Guild and came prepared to hear the trumped up charges. Representing the Legal Aid Society who had been retained by NLG to handle an overflow of cases (Of the over 2200 arrests made of Occupiers, nearly 700 from the Brooklyn bridge march back in October are now finally going to trial) currently going through the system, he recommends that we fight the charges instead of taking a plea bargain that would drop them after six months if I remained out of trouble. Now knowing the police can just make up charges whenever they want, I didn't feel confident that I could keep out of jail until then, and with any other arrests, even bullshit ones, I would be looking possibly guilty on the standing charge - and so I agree with my council and decide to fight. It's a no-brainer since we're now seven months into  the battle anyway. Methinks it's time to start winning.

Up In The Air

Arraigned and out before 9pm, I make my way back to Union Square only to find that the police had harassed and raided the Occupy tables there and confiscated my rolling cart with the rest of my clothing and all of my street art business (Signs illustrated in photos here). Eye witness reports of Officer Lombardo from the 7th precinct rolling away my cart are plentiful and I have photography and video of the heist. Now I was not only homeless, but jobless by nature of harassment and theft by the NYPD. It seems once one is down, the procedure is to keep them there and I can assure you, the police are doing their best to oppress the less well-armed. Today I was asked if I ever thought I would get the bag back. "I don't know", I responded. But I can guarantee you, once I get back in the business of making those clever protest signs, I have a whole new target to aim fun at. It's generally a bad idea to piss off those who can write and draw:)

It's time the NYPD is outed and rightfully disrespected for the childish and boorish organization they have become - arresting the developments of a society that has had quite enough of the rich getting richer while the poor become continually poorer. I have not yet begun to fight.

To Donate or Not to Donate? A question.

You see these buttons all the time, almost as much as you see a homeless person sitting on the street with a sign asking for money. And mostly people roll right over the buttons or pass right by the people. It's just plain easier than any sort of confrontation - even a benign one sometimes. And what's the difference? What's the difference between an underemployed person or a stay-at-home mom seeking donations for work on a blog or a craft website and a homeless person? Is either one more a bum than the other? And does giving any money at all simply prolong the condition? Hell, if nobody ever got any money from anything they did, they'd just die and go away and that would be better wouldn't it? Getting all those people of no value out of our hair. That does seem to be what mayor Bloomberg wants these days.

But I can assure you that homeless people do have a job. They have a job being homeless and that's a job in itself. Whether living in a shelter or living on the street it's a job to simply maintain that bare standard to feed the government bureaucracy with all the mindless drivel they require or to shuffle off to one of what may be many 'spanging' spots throughout the day to pick up enough change for a meal. It's a job all the same, and not much different than sitting in an office and going through the inbox. The soup kitchen simply becomes your water cooler.

Just yesterday I received a note from a reader, and it turns out, totally by chance, that we both graduated from the same university. He's a retired journalist and had found this blog by way of its writing and subject matter. "You're not just homeless",  he writes, "you're persevering, surviving, informing, helping others, getting the word out." And that sounds like a job to me.

Thank you

If you've found the writing here of value, please donate. If you've read something you thought or felt but never put it to pen, please donate. If you'd like to contribute to something as valuable as a Kickstarter project in the form of a book I'm working on, please donate. I'm currently collecting funds for the purchase of a smartphone and name cards for the job search. Please donate. I thank you all for reading  and would appreciate your support.

Homeless 101: Week #1 at Bellevue - Welcome To The Machine

For the record, the men's homeless shelter on E 30th St. in New York is no longer known as Bellevue, but the locals still call it that. It is not an address of envy - not Park Av. for sure, although just a few blocks away. But as a participant in the US Repatriation program, one might wonder if the initial entry is just a little too first class. At JFK I am met at baggage claim by a pleasant man named Douglas. Douglas works for Heritage Health and Housing, a subcontractor for OTDA, the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, who gets the job from ISS, International Social Services, a subcontractor of HSS, the US Department of Heath and Human Services, who got the job from DOS, the US Department of State - it's a reasonably maddening combination of acronyms and agencies that make you wonder if the whole country, and not just Bellevue alone has somehow become a madhouse. But as Pink Floyd might say, "Welcome to the machine".

Douglas meets me at baggage and announces that his driver is waiting. How nice. Here I am, a man about to be homeless and I will be chauffeured into the city by a man and his driver. What's wrong with this picture? We'll get to that later. Doug's driver turns out to be his cousin, in a rather nice late model Jeep Wrangler. We trundle into Manhattan in this 4/WD and head towards Bellevue. I have not eaten on the plane as airlines in the US now charge for food and I have only $8 in my pocket. The food from Asia was part of the ticket price but in America it costs 3 to 4 dollars for a prepackaged breakfast biscuit so I decided to save what little money I have.

On the way into the city, Douglas leans over the front seat and hands me $150. "This is the first installment in your repatriation loan", he says. He also hands over a receipt and loan agreement to sign. The repatriation program allows a US citizen to borrow money from the government to get re-started in the US. The current amount for New York is $340 a month. I had read on the Internet that the amount was closer to $500 but have been told by Doug that it had been reduced by yet another government budget cutting program. How is it that we can afford to bail out banks, insurance and auto companies but can only give regular citizens $340 a month for food and needs upon re-entry? That's a question that the Occupy Wall Street protest will address as well, but that's not going to start until September 17th and here we are on the 12th. Nobody has any idea what's going to happen over the next month.

So I request a stop at Dunkin' Donuts. With $150 in my hand it's as rich as I have been in months. I deserve a donut. A stop at the shop and it is America in all its branded glory - with a Starbucks next door. We inhale a few donuts, down a coffee and it's off to the mansion, the former psychiatric hospital that was, just last year, a possible target for sale as a boutique hotel. Even Donald Trump wanted it - but it was not sold and remains the 30th Street Men's Shelter. A home away from all the other homes lost by men to the vagaries of life.

Entry to Bellevue is through a metal detector and a conveyor belt for x-ray scan of all your belongings. Guards watch and search and probe. So much for that first class ride from the airport. "Intake" begins in a small faded room with wobbly chairs and a big fat black lady sitting in a glass cubicle with a speaking hole fitted in the glass and a small slot through which to pass paper on the counter. She gives you a clipboard to sign and tells you to sit down. "This will take a few hours", says Doug, but what he really means is six hours. We are there by 10 but my room assignment doesn't come up until very late afternoon.

To be continued - Dear feed readers, I will continue this later tonight. I have a busy day and need to tend to things. Please check in to the blog later to continue...

Homeless 101.2: Happy, Scared, Known, Worried, Engaged, Hopeful, Resolved

Photo by Bryan Derballa for the Wall Street Journal

My friend says I have now been outed. Today's Wall Street Journal online features a slideshow on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstration in which I 'occupy' slide #4. It's a lovely shot and it features this blog address prominently. It also hits the point of the occupation square on the head. Why are able-minded people out of work? Hits here have gone over 500 today. But is it the kind of press I need to get a job? An old line says that any press is good press so I'm going to play it that way. I do indeed live in a homeless shelter and you don't get to be in the Wall Street Journal every day. But that's where the worry begins. Will my Back To Work program see it as a productive way to go about finding work (All of my social programs could be cut if any one of them takes issue with me for any reason - and reasons can always be manufactured)? Is street theatre the kind of job hunting that will pass the system's muster. I doubt it, but it's part of my arsenal as a creative business person and to not use it would be more of a crime than most of my roommates in the shelter have committed. (Continued...)

This blog. aHBiNYC is now available as an eBook. It covers the writer's homeless experiences in New York City from September 11, 2011 through January 2013 in 245 pages and 50 chapters. To order simply use the PayPal button in the sidebar, send $10, and include your email address in the PayPal memo form. Thank you.

A Homeless Blogger In NYC Occupies Wall Street

Brush with the law

Do I protest the system that both messed me up and partially supports me? One answer: "Yes". It's the only sensible thing to do. The only way to contribute to ending a system that gives back very little to those who support it - those 99% who don't share the wealth of the 1% who control it. I saw a sign at the protest recently  that said, "The System's Not Broken. It Was Built This Way" - and that's a sorry damned comment on the whole mess, because it might be true. And so in whatever hours I can, on nights and weekends, I Occupy Wall Street, along with thousands of others, to effect the change we elected, but didn't get. Unfortunately, the first thing Obama did was bail out the banks - while the rest of America, the tax base, was left hanging. Obama, for whatever we thought we bought, sold us out. And that's sad again because I supported him, as did much of the world.

McLuhan lives!

And so I paint. In my teens I taught myself to paint signs, because I loved typography and eventually ended up working as a professional sign painter to pay for college. It was a good job, much better for me than working at Mickey D's, and the solitude of the work was always peaceful for me. It is again. I haven't lettered in 35 years. I had forgotten the meditation it provided - to think of something, to design it in my head, and then to put it to surface. The end result is never the work itself. It's the reaction it gets from others. And that feeds both the artist and the viewer. Lovely. The work is all freehand and done from a scratchy ball pen thumbnail. Making it bigger is the actual art. The sign you see says, "The Medium Is Our Message". It is paraphrased from a Marshall McLuhan expression. In this case, I meant it to describe what the demonstration in Zuccotti park is all about. About the idea of expressing ideas by assembling, and creating mass communication (The business I ended up in.). The medium is the gathering and the signs and the message is simply whatever people take from it. Not a list of demands, not a manifesto, not a protest - but a gathering together to exercise the rights of our first amendment. That's the message.

If the painting looks better at the start than it does at the finish, that's because it was painted three times. Once on Friday evening. Then again on Saturday, because the tempera paint was washed away by the rain overnight. Then again on Sunday, because it was washed away a second time. Finally on Sunday, I switched to acrylic paint that could survive the rain. For that, I had to use colours that were less brilliant, but stable after drying. It went from graphic design to street art for all the repaints, and somehow, it works that way. Maybe I could get a job being a signpainter again - if this homeless writer thing doesn't work out :)