Article 1 Section 1 of the California State Constitution was recently brought to my attention. It reads:
“All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.”
When delivering water last week, we were excited to bring a bike procured for someone in need of one. When we found him, we saw his tent and belongings had been burned entirely by another person. When the fire trucks came the night before, he and his neighbor told me, no one talked to them. No one asked if anyone was inside the burning tent. No one asked if anyone was hurt. No one offered them services. No one asked how it started. It’s likely they will be swept soon, because of the fire, which will further add to their loss, and the instability of their existence, their ability to survive. They had recently been to a transitional housing site nearby asking for help, but were denied. The program was full.
We were trying to stretch the ten cases of water further that day, for another community who was badly in need of it. But the person whose tent had burned pleaded for one more case than I had given. “Please! We just lost everything!” I gave him the additional water.
As we made our way through our deliveries, we came to the site where we had found people who were very, very thirsty. We brought the cases we had been able to set aside for them, along with some food donations. A clearly inhabited RV that had been there the week before was gone, and large logs had been laid down in its place to prevent anyone else from parking there. The week before, two people with disabilities were sheltering under a canopy attached to the RV. One of them said he was on dialysis. Like the RV, they too were gone. More structures and vehicles lined the other parts of the street, and we dropped the food and water off with the people who had gathered around the giant log.
Usually when I hear housed neighbors, and people in government, talk about “safety” it’s in terms of harming the poor so that better off people feel less fearful. It does not appear to matter what survival supplies are lost, what pain is inflicted, so long as the poor become invisible, and do not trouble people who own property with the consequences of their own policies and practices. Where is this right to pursue and obtain safety, if you’re poor?