Something to think about for tax day

 A form of prophetic witness that RantWoman would be happy to have enough resources to need to think about.

In Lieu of Easter Pageantry: Bach Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor and prayers

RantWoman held modest quest for Easter pageantry via Youtube. Then RantWoman settled on Yoyo ma, Bach Cello Suite no 2 in D. 

RantWoman is seasoning ruminations on matters of resurrection and vocational rehabilitation and topics that still need more words than RantWoman should attempt tonight.

Today in a Zoom breakout RantWoman and others were speaking of the trial in Minneapolis of former police officer #DerekChauvin.

The trial is being televised. The entire country needs to be held in the Light!

RantWoman can barely handle the short snippets of story in her public radio diet. RantWoman is in awe of one Friend's spiritual fortitude for using his New York Times subscription to dip into the television broadcast of the trial.

The Friend was particularly commenting on one moment where the lawyers and the judge needed to work something out but the jury was led out of the room. RantWoman is intrigued by this procedural moment. RantWoman assumes that putting discussion on the record was part of the point of having a discussion in open court instead of a sidebar. But RantWoman is not a lawyer and will now go back to permanent cringe mode.

May Easter blessings find us all anyway.

Easter Hallelujahs

RantWoman needs the Easter bunny to bring her laughs and good musical licks way more than she needs an Easter basket full of brightly colored sugar.

This is definitely one way to get a video captioned and also way more visually entertaining than the average Hallelujah chorus performance.

RantWoman does also have some awesome 70% cacao organic fair trade chocolate to help sustain the buzz from getting to hug RantMom for the first time in over a year, just a bit over a year since RantMom's first negative COVID test after testing positive for a little less than a month. The RantFam, the entire Seattle wing gathered chez RantWoman in a very large place INDOORS that RantWoman has a key to, shared pizza, salad, beverages and our choice of toppings (frozen on sale organic blueberries, thank you very much. We are SO blessed.

The IF Project Documentary April 6, 5 pm. Register for Webinar

RantWoman apologizes for imperfections in presentation of this invitation. The button to register at the bottom should work.

This invitation comes via the Criminal Justice Working Group of Quaker Voice. RantWoman will be interested to hear what questions or comments rise for anyone who participates in this webinr.

RantWoman will not complain, beyoned this mention, about the lack of captioning or audio description in the trailer.

RantWoman notes the option of buying a copy of the video but digressing about electronic libraries is a call for another day.

RantWoman also will not immediately be entertaining questions: in several states, women in prison have the opportunity to learn Braille transcription. That is a prized opportunity when available but the issue of prison-based braille transcription programs is the subject of vigorous discussion in the blindness community.

Now, please sign up for the webinar.

The IF Project Documentary Trailer from Kathlyn Horan | TinFish Films on Vimeo.

 

The IF Project - Screening & Panel Discussion April 6, 2021 @ 5 pm PT Join us for a very special screening and panel discussion of The IF Project on April 6, 2021 @ 5 pm PT. In the U.S., there are over 6.4 million people in prison, jail, on probation or parole. That is 1 in every 40 adults. Perhaps even more alarming is that women are the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population, increasing at nearly double the rate of men since 1980. The IF Project is a feature length documentary that explores the reasons behind these staggering numbers. The film follows a group of women incarcerated in a maximum security prison who are part of a writing workshop co-created by a Seattle police detective and a woman serving a nine-year sentence. The writing workshop provides access to an emotional depth and intimacy we are not often afforded with those behind bars. We journey with them as they take a brutally honest look into their past and work to explore, often for the first time, what exactly led them to prison.   Special Guest Panelists will include: • Kelly Olson - Civil Survival, Policy Manger - MODERATOR • Kim Bogucki - The IF Project, Co-Founder (featured in the film) • Lakeisha “KeWee” Hamilton - The IF Project, Community Outreach Coordinator (featured in the film) • Kurt Myers - The IF Project, Project Coordinator • Cory Walster - Civil Survival, Community Organizer   Screening of the film will start at 5 pm, then followed with a panel discussion with members of The IF Project, including people featured in the film, and other impacted persons. We will also discuss voting rights restoration and the bill that just passed to restore voting rights to people as soon as they are released from prison, HB 1078.   View the trailer @: https://vimeo.com/162596857   Sponsored by:              R

April is Autism Awareness month with automated captioning

RantWoman will get more clearly to autism content in a moment.

First a word about use of Zoom automated captioning.

Friends at one local Meeting have received rave reviews for making Zoom automated captioning available. Another Meeting is not so pleased. RantWoman will not opine further about ways to adjust, strategies for dealing with the imperfections.

RantWoman was very grateful when settling in to last month's FLGBTQC worship to see the captions in use. Captions on a PC look great to RantWoman. On a phone, they hog all the screen space, a little frustrating if lipreading is also part of one's communications strategy. 

Later in that worship, a friend spoke, as RantWoman recalls of his own autism and of the autistic youth he teaches and how they receive or communicate information often more in signs than in words. Then the Friend said he was not sure why he was called to give that message.

The message a little bit brought RantWoman up short partly because of the Tweet stream in this prior post:

Isn't Autism Awesome?

Was RantWoman's wording perceived as hurtful? Were the tweets about non-speaking autistics meaningful? Listening to the message in worship, RantWoman was thinking "I see you. I lift you up. I lift up the people you teach."

Another autistic voice RantWoman is familiar with: Lydia X Z Brown. Lydia is a lawyer, a voice of Disability pride. She can be found on Twitter @Autistic Hoya 

One intern at the STAR Center openly identified as autistic. Just having things to file made her extremely happy. She also is considerably more challenged even than RantWoman about how to relate to sports.

RantWoman has met two autistic men who both apologized a lot. They both had persistent vexing but not necessarily objectionable behaviors and kept saying "I'm sorry." After awhile, RantWoman starts to find all the "i'm sorry" harder to deal with than just accepting the actual behavior.

RantWoman knows someone and realizes she does not know what pronouns they currently prefer. This person has Asperger's, in current parlance part of the autism spectrum. One time this person said they find RantWoman easy to be around because RantWoman does not make eye contact. RantWoman finds that person easy to be around because they don't expect eye contact. People used to eye contact are allowed to find ti belildering when there is no eye contact, and God still asks us all to get along. RantWoman also finds it helpful to know that other people besides blind people have trouble about eye contact.

There. Enough autism awareness for now. 

Forum on People living unsheltered in the U district

 RantWoman here posts almost verbatim the article from the UFM newsletter about the Forum on People living Unhoused in the U District. RantWoman is DEEPLY grateful for the detail of these notes and for how well they capture key points that RantWoman would have to fish out replaying the video. There is a link to the video RantWoman mentioned in her earlier post. RantWoman will offer additional comments and questions below the text of the article.

Notes from Forum at UFM on People Living Unhoused in the U District.

Over twenty-five members of the UFM community gathered with six panelists on Saturday, March 6, to learn about the presence and needs of unhoused neighbors on our campus and in our community.

First, our lifelong member Merlin Rainwater gave this historyof UFM’s relationship with houseless people: In the mid 1990s, UFM became aware of a group of people camping under the eaves of our building. Our caretaker at the time, Luke Painter, was an advocate and friend to this community and comfortable with setting behavioral boundaries.

Luke left in 2002. In 2003, UFM released our member Larry Gaffin for a ministry of accompaniment with homeless people. We also set up a portable toilet for campers and established  a hygiene center for some days when showers, laundry and haircuts were available.

By 2006, the encampment had become hazardous and UFM  decided in business meeting that we would no longer allow camping on our grounds. We established a Committee on Homelessness to explore other ways of responding to the needs of unsheltered neighbors. This committee then worked  with the SHARE-WHEEL organization to host a self-managed shelter in the worship room. Meeting reviewed and  renewed this relationship every 6 months for the next 9 years, until SHARE-WHEEL closed its church-based shelters in 2016.

In 2017, UFM welcomed Operation Nightwatch to manage a shelter for 50 men in the old AFSC offices, and Facing Homelessness to serve people at its Window of Kindness, using our old childcare space. Operation Nightwatch has left due to the pandemic; Facing Homelessness continues its presence.

We heard next from the following people:

Cruz Valentin

Our current caretaker, who took that job after four years of knowing UFM as a SHARE member

Cruz sees the strain in the U District of the loss of the 50 Nightwatch beds on our campus as more people look for places to camp. He offers agency and shelter phone numbers, and water when he has some, to people who come onto our campus. Most unhoused people respect his statement of UFM’s no-camping policy. He calls David Delgado when an interaction becomes difficult. Cruz would like to see UFM interact more with U District business and property owners, in hopes of increasing understanding of the humanity of people who are unsheltered.

Raven Crowfoot

An Apache tribal member, advocate and activist who has lived on the streets for the past 17 years

Dee Powers

An advocate and activist who has lived in a motorhome since being priced out of an apartment in 2015; Dee also slept at UFM for two weeks in 1996 when their parents kicked them out for being gay

Raven and Dee both encouraged us to get to know unsheltered neighbors as individuals. Find out what people are good at, Raven urged, remember that each person is someone’s mother, son or loved one. We are your neighbors, said Dee, and you are much closer to homelessness than to being Jeff Bezos. Raven suggested that unhoused people might get keys to foreclosed homes that are sitting empty. Both Dee and Raven addressed the question of the language used about homelessness vs houselessness. Raven said “the” is a problem, identifying a group as “the homeless” others people who are having the experience of living without shelter and othering is like racism. Othering, with a “the,” implies that some people are better than others. Dee reminded us that homelessness is an experience, not an identity.

Dee offered that folks could contact them on Facebook or by email

dee@beseattle.com

if we have more questions. They also addressed the need of houseless people for drinkable water, especially in the summer. If anyone is refilling plastic milk jugs with tap water, we should be sure to label them as tap water to not harm those who need distilled water for medical or drug use. Having a shower would also be very helpful.

David Delgado

An outreach social worker with Evergreen Treatment Services David talked about the greater need for “low-income housing” vs “affordable” housing, because people he works with cannot access housing that is classified as affordable. “Affordable” housing is still way too expensive. Many people who are currently unsheltered need permanently supportive housing, which includes social services. This is in very short supply in Seattle. David also expressed frustration with SPD and the sweeps, which are materially costly and break relationships with support services. His experiences with SPD overall have not been good. Officers often don’t recognize him as a professional outreach worker, especially when he looks homeless.

The Law Enforcement Diversion group is a special group that wants to help, but they still don’t have the experience and expertise to deal with mental health issues. Since the George Floyd protests started, the Seattle police have exhibited an “anti-social-worker” attitude, not cooperating much with David and his colleagues. On the other hand, there are three officers of the University of Washington PD who have been more receptive to David’s suggestions. He has a list of businesses that used to call the police, but now call him instead. He can solve many situations by offering a cup of coffee. David had asked for a meeting with UFM to talk about ways we might support his work, which directly supports our campus. He said there are four things churches might do: direct service (providing food and shelter), working with community partners (taking care that we evaluate the qualifications, attitudes and impact of any groups we might support), advocacy, and education. He recommended Seattle Mutual Aid as a possible partner.

He noted that, since the pandemic began, only business and property owners attend meetings of the University District Partnership Clean and Safe committee and suggests this could be a place for UFM to step up. [We have since learned that UFM is a dues paying member of the University District Business Improvement Area, of which the U District Partnership is the Program Manager. Thus we could have a significant impact there.] Those partners have different motivations than UFM people, so our voice would help advocate for the houseless. Their solution is to hire security guards to make homeless people feel uncomfortable.

Education is another area where help is needed. Other organizations, especially of property owners, in the area are spreading hate speech about the homeless. The only solution to homelessness is housing. He told us, “A small church can have a big voice,” and urged us to find ours.

Karina Wallace

Staff at the Window of Kindness

Karina has seen the numbers of people who come to the Window of Kindness increase from seven to ten each time it is open to 40 or more since the pandemic began. Facing Homelessness has not had volunteers at the window during the pandemic because of the small space available but may be able to add a third window soon.

UFM volunteers might be able to organize supplies. Friends could donate snacks and water (mark as tap water if not distilled) to be given out at the Window; At least one member of the UFM community does this regularly. Liana, our QuEST fellow, suggested sandwiches, oatmeal, chips and snacks as useful offerings. To volunteer or donate, Friends can email Karina at

karina@facinghomelessness.org

Facing Homelessness has a donated sink that could be installed for handwashing. Karina wishes they could offer a day center with hygiene services. 

Liana Kostak A QuEST fellow who works with Facing Homelessness Liana spoke about the Facing Homelessness Block Project, which provides permanent housing in 125 square foot houses in neighborhood backyards. Stable housing is often only one of the needs of currently unhoused folks, and her work with the Block Project includes wraparound services. She also noted that living on campus has been “peaceful,” and attributed that to Cruz’s efforts and UFM’s patience and tolerance.In response to a question about issues for lobbying David, Raven and Dee all said that Seattle needs to stop sweeping encampments. Dee pointed out that any of us can attend a City Council meeting and sign up to give comments; they said that we need to divorce law enforcement and out-reach to people who are unsheltered. Raven noted the waste of resources in sweeps, for instance, people lose tents that have been donated. Sweeps undo David’s work in building relation-ships with people, work that moves them towards housing. Da-vid and Dee both said that, while the visibility of unsheltered neighbors makes housed people uncomfortable, we need to see the housing crisis, not move it out of sight. Dee and David also cautioned against supporting people or groups that value “parks over people.” These groups may use euphemistic names like “Safe Seattle” or “We Heart Seattle,” but act in ways that are harmful to our unhoused neighbors.

Final suggestions• Cruz: Influence business and property owners to under-stand the situation.• David: Find the place in the U District where your voice will have the most impact.• Raven: Don’t judge people by their appearance; get to know them.• Dee: We all need to learn to say “Yes” a little more, choose tolisten. Avoid those “helpers” who focus on the garbage in the parks. • Karina: “Just say hello”: support Facing Homelessness’s campaign to humanize homelessness. Be supportive however you can, establish relationships. • Liana: mindset, keep listening, change the narrative around unhoused people. Advocacy groups, legislation.The forum organizing committee thanks Katherine Spinner for taking notes! Video of the event is available for viewing on Vimeo.

Questions that we didn’t get to:• How could we use our space? A place to sleep? Hygiene? Laundry services? Storage?• What have David Delgado’s experiences with the North Precinct Community Police Team been?• Could Facing Homelessness use grant writing support?• Where did the U-District “Clean & Safe” group come from?

RantWoman comments and Questions:

David Delgado is doing really really important work. How can UFM support him, help prevent burnout, perhaps develop resources for more staff. What program details / job description info should be considered?

The Clean and Safe Program is a project of the U District Partnership. U District Partnership Anyone who wants can sign up for their email list. They also are on Facebook and LinkedIn.

UFM pays dues to UDP. When the Business Improvement Area was created, the expectation was that there would be grant money available to nonprofits to do many kinds of human services activities. RantWoman has not absorbed details but if UFM wants, for example, to do increments of direct service such as bathing, toilet it would certainly be logical to help Facing Homelessness apply for grants to UDP. RantWoman would happily defer to the other person who asked about grant writing. RantWoman at this point writes grants and is willing to do so on a contingency basis: if the grant is funded, RantWoman gets paid.

RantWoman goes regularly to meetings about transportation issues. RantWoman completely concurs with David about attitudes of many people in the U district. RantWoman speaks up about many things, but that scary blind person / people with disabilities stuff is always there.

RantWoman completely agrees with David that a well-focused faith community could have a big impact.

Questions that come to RantWoman

How important to Friends feel it is to pay attention to housing including low income housing in the U district and to how people get placed there? 

What paths can Friends consider to promote development of more low income and supportive housing?

What learnings do Friends consider important based on previous efforts to serve / be in community with people living unhoused?

Are the car campers / people in motorhomes dispersed or do they congregate? Do they have any needs either practical or a place to gather?

What will coming out of the pandemic and the new light rail station mean for people living unhoused?

What leadings might individual Friends about where to fit in to all the different ways to promote full housing for everyone?

Footwashing on the bus, neighbors, neighborhoods, visions

Walls, probably not graffitied

From the prompt for the most recent Wednesday FCNL silent meditation 

“Amurallar el propio sufrimiento es arriesgarse a que te devore desde el interior.”

“Don’t construct a wall around your suffering. It can eat you from the inside.”

-Frida Kahlo as translated by Larissa Gil Sanhueza

To wall off your own suffering is to run the risk that it will eat you from inside.

RantWoman who can always find reasons to fuss with words even when or especially when she really likes a quote.

There was a message referring both to walls and to boundaries. RantWoman promises to sit with that distinction along with requirements and gifts in different measure in communities. Oh hell! RantWoman is likely to have a lot to say. For one thing, RantWoman has the kind of God that can also just blow apart walls sometimes. That can be a little awkward, for instance if someone's house is involved. In any case, first RantWoman wants to post and not lose sight of some meditations related to homelessness.

Digression for Footwashing?

From the other night's meditation, RantWoman have you considered footwashing?

On the bus? I think that would be weird. Sometimes I am willing to go there about that weird, but not today.

Okay virtually?

Ummm, how about it's obvious a lot of people just are not at their best and part of holy week is about people not living up to who they hope to be. What needs to happen to draw out...?

God only knows but the best RantWoman can do is more email, more blogposts. HOLD THAT IN THE LIGHT.

(Footwashing? RantWoman what ARE you talking about?)

Homelessness, part n+1: PEOPLE unhoused

Recently there was a forum on Homelessness at UFM. There is a video. RantWoman has seen the video and mostly likes the forum fine, thank you very much. Probably RantWoman could ask permission to post. There was no ask, though, at the beginning about anything but recording, readers are just going to have to live with RantWoman's filters or RantWoman's incurable insistence on augmenting other people's filters. Should RantWoman also jump op and down about how much SHARED discernment matters, shared carrying of concerns? Okay, JUMPING UP AND DOWN.

As someone who has long history and many reasons to travel in the area, from the perspective of public right of way, RantWoman feels goddamn entitled to offer her point of view. RantWoman of course would prefer that her opinions have nourishing ripples, but for now that might have to be acts of faith. Okay, RantWoman has been trying to say the same things for years and some related community presence things as well. Like one logical thing to do after the first very thoughtful round of property discernment report would have been to try some of the informal gatherings RantWoman suggested as described below.

RantWoman being faithful to that Light does not mean RantWoman has been clear about what steps would be next. Scratch that: RantWoman has multiple times suggested things like a potluck series with some kind of discussion and research theme, maybe open to the neighbors like all the new residential nearby. Instead RantWoman gets "no we can't figure out how to work with you on committees (Because no one has tried and people keep going "oh WOW!" after they fail for months, urk years trying to figure out some version of why RantWoman wouldn't / couldn't do as asked.

Cue one voice growling in email "You are not welcome here." 

Which you do you mean? RantWoman? People living unhoused and being represented in hostile terms in certain U district fora?

Sure. How many times has RantWoman said God keeps sending people with disabilities and telling us all to work it out. How many times in the Bible do people run away from God? And is that almost always a fools errand only because if they succeeded there would be no story?

What? You think that "not welcome here" comment is original? You think that's the first time anyone has said that to RantWoman? You think it's going to be the last? 

Can we maybe just stick with the video for now?

RantWoman's account of history:

One caretaker had a leading about allowing people to sleep under our eaves. That actually provided some more eyes on the property at night. There was also an experiment about a portable toilet across 40th st. That caretaker moved on and the next caretaker drove taxi at night and did not feel the same call to relationship with homeless neighbors, a call not particularly in his job description anyway. The end of people sleeping under our eaves involved police encounters, drug issues, and probably unmanaged mental health issues. 

After the dust settled from ending the sleeping under our eaves arrangement, UFM made arrangements with SHARE as space for 20 people at night. UFM was one of the only if not the only congregation where people slept in the worship space and being part of the group that slept at UFM was greatly appreciated. Friends also learned something about the SHARE community from regular interactions including reports every six months at Meeting for Business. UFM charged SHARE for costs and probably could have charged more. One of SHARE's metrics was "cheapest bed nights in the city. People close to SHARE talked about members of the community who would get up very early because they had a place where they could shower before getting to a janitorial job at say 5 am. Should UFM have been subsidizing employers who don't pay their employees enough to live on even if employee motivation is a positive?

SHARE/ WHEEL still exist and can be found with a search engine. The SHARE WHEEL website also has information about the Wednesday vigils in memory of everyone the King County Medical examiner reports as having died outside. RantWoman thinks that is enough said. 

RantWoman thinks the transition to collecting rent and providing sleeping space for even more people thought Operation Nightwatch was certainly more financially sound than the arrangement with SHARE. RantWoman thinks the amount of work and wear and tear was probably greater than expected at first glance. RantWoman was uneasy wanting to rely on a longterm rental stream depending on a continuing flow of homeless people but did not think quibbling about Operation Nightwatch was going to solve that. RantWoman has complicated opinions listed blow about renting to Facing Homelessness. Rent is rent and RantWoman still stands by a concern voiced in one of RantWoman's trademark worst business meetings ever about services to people with disabilities. RantWoman would never mind hearing about how that works on the UFM campu. Since that business meeting, thanks to other activity in the U district, RantWoman has asend of Facing Homelessness activities in more physically accessible places.

People wondering why RantWoman WILL NOT SHUT UP and will not sign onto guidelines which seem derived from efforts to silence her are asked please to hold this story. And people who are so sure they know more about how to be a blind person in meetings that RantWoman need to be held in the Light DOUBLE. 

Okay. It's spring. Maybe RantWoman just needs seasonal turning over of manure so that new things can flower?

Finally RantWoman in the first person email about the forum, 

--I was glad for the question about language.

--I think the comment about we need housing not just socks was important.

--If FH wants to have a hygiene center, they should figure out how to
fund and staff it.

--I think it would be interesting to see whether anyone besides me
might have a leading to push a conversation about public restrooms and
access to water in the UFM part of the U district I cannot take this
one on by myself but would love to cheerlead for someone else.

--I hate all the pollution of handing out water bottles and there are health issues with refilling water bottles but I wonder whether there could be some kind of tank available while FH is open

--(some comments about police based on the video ) ...relations between SPD and community are really bad and
there is a lot of blue flu and the city needs not to be sweeping and
spreading misinformation anyway. EXCEPT, I also get pissed off when
people block sidewalks with their tents. That is a safety hazard for everyone.

--I have other reasons to travel in that part of the U district besides UFM so Friends should expect that I will continue to voice opinions about public right of way, traffic accident hot spots, and
multiple other pedestrian concerns.

Snippets from email 2

The whole topic of homelessness around UFM frustrates me because UFM has such a reactive and hit or miss approach.

I wish UFM had a vision about changes coming to neighborhoods nearby including Eastlake, the U district, places along the Light Rail Wallingford. What would be opportunities for communtiy growth?

I wish there were space in the UFM conversation to listen to voices in Meeting who can talk about affordable housing development and voices who can talk more constructively than some of current rhetoric about asking police to do things that should be funded for other people to do.

I wish people at UFM had a vision of talking about all this as part of continually building community. But in the meantime one of my mantras near every light rail station in my regular travel orbit is "Safe continuous travel networks for all modes."

Oh and I wish there could be better conversation about rezoning Seattle. The facing Homelessness approach of putting one homeless person in each block of residential neighborhoods is inadequate to deal with growth. Also isolating homeless people one per block is a mixed blessing. Space can be a good thing, but so are relevant support networks. So I am skeptical.

That's a lot of "I wishes." And (another comment important to communtiy life but not helpful at this point in the blogosphere.)

Please hold sensible discernment in th Light.