[Chapter_Fourteen] the fence

Sun Nov 7 14:59:32 PST 2010

That story reminds us that our presence is new on this site. Homeless folks
have been on site for much longer than we have, and this is an uncomfortable
positioning. Many of us know the narratives of gentrification and
marginalization that frequently come with the creation of urban gardens; the
white people come and make a robust and pleasing green space, the rents go
up and so does intolerance. And yet we also have an obligation to the city
government for permitting us to be on site, and an obligation to the
neighborhood, to look “respectable.” We need to protect the daytime
community from getting hurt, and the tomatoes from getting trampled. How do
the permaculture values of earth care, people care, and fair share figure
here? How do we care for all the people that tread across this site? What is
the fair share? Who gets the food? Who recognizes it as food? Is it too far
fetched to think this farm might help the drug addicts that trespass here?
Today Jay and I discussed designing a safe enclosed space with small trees
and other food forest layers for the nighttime users.

Another acquaintance regularly meets with the upper crust designers in Hayes
Valley (of which there are many). These are people who don’t know
permaculture, never come to the farm, but think they know urban design. She
says they frequently ask what the hell is going on over there. Why doesn’t
it look good? Our fence line is in flux right now. There’s a big area we’re
sheet mulching and there’s a lot of cardboard. It looks like trash because
it is! We’re closing that loop, turning trash into nutrient and resource. We
start all of our plants from seed, rather than buying big full plants, so we
aren’t transforming overnight. We’re a farm.

Somehow to me the fence is emblematic of our unique positioning as an inner
city farm. It is a constant reminder of the larger national, civilized, and
urban infrastructures we operate within: of land ownership, upper class
values, of real and perceived dangers that come from class divisions and
unequal distribution of resources.

/m

On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Jay <protojay at gmail.com> wrote:

> My good friend tells this story:
>
> “Last fall, a group of us would meet for brunch on Sundays.  This was
> before we were given permission to open the gates (to activate the space
> and provide the community with access to it). We were dreaming about
> "Volunteer Work Parties" on the giant lot.  After brunch, we would walk
> around the perimeter fences to observe the site.  After a few walks, we had
> met quite a few neighbors, who loved to talk about the potential for the
> space and what they had been observing over time.  We came to know the fence
> line very well.  We would admire the recently dumped furniture, look for
> freshly cut holes in the fence and other signs of life.
>
> Along Laguna Street, at the west gate, two large gates locked with a
> formidable chain and series of married locks.  The fences were all topped
> with barbed wire. At the south gate, along Oak street just east of Laguna,
> there was a hole in the fence big enough to crawl through but not so big
> that you could push a shopping cart through.  The hole in the cyclone
> fencing was hastily cut and sharp of the passageway.  The more formal double
> doors at the east gate was unlockable.  The frame of the doors was
> stationary and the fencing slid open like a shower curtain.  It was clear
> people had been camping under one of the Melaleuca trees.  A tent and tarp,
> piles of trash, and a dumpster lined the path. On one section of the fence
> near the east gate, an entire section of the fence was removed from pole to
> pole.
>
> On one beautiful sunny day last December, we visited the site with a good
> friend who was excited to shoot some "before shots" of the site for a
> documentary. We parked in the Octavia and Oak street parking lot, turned on
> the camera, hauling tripods and some extra gear, and approached the east
> gate.  As we "slid back the curtain" of the fence and walked right in, we
> were immediately warned off by a barking dog.  The large, gray black lab-mix
> was protecting its owner's campsite. We continued, and proceeded along the
> ravine.  We took video of the homeless' camp, the tents and trash that lined
> the inside of the path. And the broken bottles and needles that lie all over
> the place.
>
> We slowly walked through the site and up towards the west gate.  We had
> been there for a little while, testing different lenses and lighting and
> shooting some footage of the ramps.  At one point, while heading back down
> the offramp, we noticed something "going down" at the east gate.  A couple
> of more people were now assembling there, milling about behind the parking
> valet shack that was stationed right outside the gates.   We wanted to get
> out of there, but all of this new action was happening at our entrance (and
> planned exit).  With some adrenaline, we remembered the hole in the south
> gate and decided we should try to squeeze through their rather than "run the
> gauntlet" of the barking dog, the camp, and the new gang forming at the
> gate.
>
> I went first through the hole, to show my documentarian friend how to get
> low and avoid the spikes.  As she got through, she started to stand up and
> scratched her arm on the fence.  It looked pretty bad.  That night,  after
> showing her family what happened, she never came back to the farm.
>
> So, the footage is in an archive somewhere (for now) and one day she might
> come back to shoot some "after" shots...”
>
> -Jay
>
> --
> http://protojay.tumblr.com/
>
> On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 2:47 PM, margaretha haughwout <
> xmargarethax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On our farm we find heroin needles in between the broccoli plants. We have
>> a barbed wire fence that wraps around the entire 2.5 acres of our "freeway
>> food forest" -- a food forest that is rising from the ruins of a freeway
>> that collapsed and then lay dormant for 20 years. At night there is a
>> pregnant cat that makes the place her own (all the sheet mulching has
>> stirred up the mice and rats). Other folks crawl through the fence at night
>> too. With perhaps one exception, the people that come at night aren't the
>> same people that come during the day. Often “fresh” needles appear in the
>> morning. The stories we write about here all have to do with the chain link
>> and barbed wire fence that was on site when we arrived. The forces it is
>> meant to keep out, the forces it is meant to contain, the edge it creates
>> around our site, the fact that it is there at all.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> There are regular potlucks Tuesday evenings on the farm. Last week I
>> didn't go, but I live really close by, so I got a text message from a friend
>> saying she way stopping by. She came up saying she wouldn't stay long as she
>> was getting up at 5:30am tomorrow morning to let H.O.T. - Homeless
>> Outreach Team<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m2-j1YZPmjG-sh_s3PdcieqLL_wQqrW9Rwxr1dCYgC8/edit?hl=en>through the gates to talk to the folks that were sleeping there. "I guess
>> someone called them,” she said. I said I’d get up with her. I was curious. A
>> few minutes later I got another text message from another friend leaving the
>> potluck. "Coming over!" it said. Friend no. 2 came up and we told her how we
>> were getting up early for the Homeless Outreach Team. "Oh," friend no. 2
>> said; "I called them. That was me."
>>
>> This call was predicated by several debates in our community about the
>> homeless. Some feel we should let them sleep in the farm, others are more
>> wary. Personally, I like the idea of city worn homeless people finding the
>> soft sheet mulch to sleep on, and maybe even helping themselves to some
>> cherry tomatoes. For a farm built on the principles of people care and fair
>> share as well as earth care, we are torn by what it means to give them the
>> boot. Youth education coordinators despair over the fact that a child might
>> come across a needle before they do, and since we lost our bees this
>> summer from a senseless act of violence<http://www.hayesvalleyfarm.com/blog/324-two-killed-and-one-attempt-at-the-farm.html>,
>> we are all a little more skittish. The last time I sat with the women who
>> were at my house after the potluck, we had heated debate on the topic around
>> another table at another house in the neighborhood. It ended with all of us
>> agreeing if there was such a thing as a needle drop box that was configured
>> in a way that you couldn't reach back in and use the old needles, it would
>> be a good idea to install a few of those around the perimeter. We also
>> agreed that eventually we should probably just take the fence down.
>>
>> The obvious issue at hand in this story might be how to handle the issue
>> of homelessness and nighttime drug use on our urban farm. The not so obvious
>> issue in this story, but one that we want to tease out and explore is how we
>> decide what to do about the homelessness and the needles - and the fence.
>> In the scenario above, some of the farmers debated it at length and then one
>> person took action ad-hoc without really having a method of checking in with
>> the rest of the community. Also, the way in which the conversations occurred
>> were very ad-hoc, and happened at a variety of nodes located not only on the
>> farm but in the neighborhood around it - both inside and outside the farm.
>> There is a lot to say here about how we make decisions on the farm,
>> particularly when they negotiate between the farm and the city, the inner
>> and the outer, day and night, permacultural and urban. A lot of times
>> decisions happen exactly in the manner I’m describing above. This is a
>> thread someone might pick up for discussion: the thread of decision making
>> and accountability when our values ask us to be responsible to the land, the
>> common people and the terms of our lease asks us to be accountable to a
>> larger hierarchy. I love the unfolding at play in the story above, but what
>> if friend no. 2 decided to call the cops instead of H.O.T.?
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> ♫ Spread the word, please help us support the farm on Kickstarter!
>> http://bit.ly/hvf-kickstarter
>>
>> Lead Researcher, Hayes Valley Farm
>> http://www.hayesvalleyfarm.com/
>>
>> Lecturer, Film and Digital Media
>> University of California Santa Cruz
>> Communications 151
>>
>> chapter fourteen<http://lists.beforebefore.net/listinfo.cgi/chapter_fourteen-beforebefore.net>
>> http://www.beforebefore.net/
>> http://www.bitterpattern.net/
>>
>> I am best contacted by email:
>> xmargarethax at gmail.com
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> "If we're not working together, we're destroying each other."
>
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>

-- 

♫ Spread the word, please help us support the farm on Kickstarter!
http://bit.ly/hvf-kickstarter

Lead Researcher, Hayes Valley Farm
http://www.hayesvalleyfarm.com/

Lecturer, Film and Digital Media
University of California Santa Cruz
Communications 151

chapter fourteen<http://lists.beforebefore.net/listinfo.cgi/chapter_fourteen-beforebefore.net>
http://www.beforebefore.net/
http://www.bitterpattern.net/

I am best contacted by email:
xmargarethax at gmail.com
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