[Chapter_Fourteen] the fence

[Rachel A. Buddeberg]

Wow!  There is lot to digest here, so I am only going to respond with some initial thoughts, probably more questions/reaction that I had when reading these... 

Sit/Lie passed on Tuesday.  To me this shows that the majority of the voting City does not want to see homeless.  Homeless remind us of the inequality we've created in this land of plenty where some don't even have a place to sit or sleep or wash.  To me this means that the farm represents a real opportunity to show that things can be different.  But it also means the prevailing winds we have to deal with: Homeless are mostly seen as a nuisance not as human beings with needs.  

As I was walking from the Farm yesterday to one of the cafes to use the restroom, I watched a homeless guy comb his beard and hair.  He seemed strangely dignified, as he was doing something so usual to us  - trying to maintain a resemblance of dignity in a very humiliating situation.  Are there maybe some homeless who are not addicts and could offer some suggestions and/or help?  Why are the people using drugs (beyond the addiction; addicts are very wounded people)? Would they get off drugs if they had hope for something?  Homeless are part of our communities.  Most people don't see them that way and we often don't talk to them to see if they have solutions.  

There is a garden very close to the Farm run by the Project Homeless Connect (it's on the other side of Octavia on Oak St).  Would working with them might help us figure out a solution?  Also, what did the HOT people say?  (It looks like you linked to a Google doc. If that's true, I am not able to access it).  Also, there's dignity village in Portland (http://www.dignityvillage.org/).  

I am not sure how to approach the communication issues other than mentioning a couple of reactions: Calling HOT seemed like a breach of the consensus and I am wondering if the person who called them realizes that; do you have a process set up for making decisions.  That's one thing Diana Leafe Christian talks about as one of the absolute necessities for a community: a written agreement on how important decisions are made.  To me, how to deal with the golden fence seems like a very important discussion that might need to be made more formally.  

On Nov 7, 2010, at 3:01 PM, margaretha haughwout wrote:

> Last night a few of us went to see Starhawk’s new movie called Permaculture: the Growing Edge  at Madrone Studios. One of the things Starhawk said during the panel discussion is that the edge is where the gold is. The margins, the fence line, the difficulties. It’s interesting because there’s a way in which all of our problems/ opportunities (in permaculture problems and opportunities are the same) at the farm can be tracked to the reality and the metaphor of the fence. How can we make the most of this edge?
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> On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Jay <protojay at gmail.com> wrote:
> The morning after the “Attack on the Bees” at Hayes Valley Farm, I was walking around the fence line looking for holes, evidence of the vandalism, hoping to find a can of Raid or something that could be fingerprinted or traced.
> 
> I met one of the farm’s neighbors on this walk, the property manager of the building on Octavia and Hickory. I asked him about the holes in the fence on Hickory Street, and mentioned the vandalism that had occurred the night before.  He offered to keep an eye on the site from his window and when cruising around the neighborhood in his car.
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> Since then, he has called me a few times.  The day after our first encounter, there was a burglary at the site, someone stole 3000 pounds of cardboard, and my new friend called to let me know when the east gate was open and not locked.  This is how I learned about the crime. After that, there were a few other late night calls with thoughts on security, and a few neighborly hellos over the summer.  We talked about the fence-line some more, the new neighborhood-watch styled public safety group being formed to ensure safety and security on the farm and in the neighborhood, and friendly small-talk.  I invited him to participate in the Public Safety Meetings with the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association.  Later, I learned that he has lived there for years, has been his old cars in the alley since the before the freeway closed (he actually used to have more of them), and had even complained about the farm (on behalf of his tenants?) in the earliest of days of the project.
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> Two weeks ago a security specialist walked the site with me and assessed areas of concern, mostly along the fence and in a few places within the site. Just last week, during METHODS 101: Permaculture Design Basics, one of the students decided to address safety and security on the farm as their design project.  During the site assessment, issues were  identified.  
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> There were some trees and overgrown brush along the alley at Octavia and Hickory Streets that were preventing any of the lights from the big parking lot on Oak and Octavia from shining into the alley, creating a dark, boxed-in area that was obvious to the both the security specialist and the newest of observers as the easiest access point and biggest “hole in the fence”.  
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> The assessment continued to describe the problem with clean up here is that the trees were hanging over the old cars.  Cars which belonged to the same property manager.  Apparently he had been asked many times by the community to move them, to help in clean up the alley, and he had always ignored these requests.
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> Near the end of the METHODS 101 class, I noticed Robert parking in the alley, and began to talk to him again from the top of the off-ramp berms.  We talked about the trees and the light and he offered to help.  We talked about his cars being in the way, and he offered to move them.  He went on to to tell me why there were so many paper plates near the corner of the farm’s fence. He explained he had been feeding some cats who patrolled the farm at night by.  We talked a little bit about how the pile of plates weren’t really the best thing for the plants growing on the fance, and that maybe we could figure out another way.  Feeding them on the outside wouldn’t work, putting a dish on top of the fence wouldn’t work.  He liked the idea of a feeding tray attached to the inside of the fence, that he could pour food into...  
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> Then, we talked about the tomatoes.  He was very impressed with them and I gave him a handful to enjoy, here is the shot I took through the fence -  http://protojay.tumblr.com/post/1489300766.
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> -Jay
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> On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 2:59 PM, margaretha haughwout <xmargarethax at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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. 
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> 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. 
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> 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.
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> On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Jay <protojay at gmail.com> wrote:
> My good friend tells this story: 
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> “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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.  
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> 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.
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> So, the footage is in an archive somewhere (for now) and one day she might come back to shoot some "after" shots...”
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> -Jay
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> --
> http://protojay.tumblr.com/
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> 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.
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> ...
> 
> 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 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."
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> 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, 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.
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> 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.?
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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://www.beforebefore.net/
> http://www.bitterpattern.net/
> 
> I am best contacted by email:
> xmargarethax at gmail.com
> 
> 
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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://www.beforebefore.net/
> http://www.bitterpattern.net/
> 
> I am best contacted by email:
> xmargarethax at gmail.com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> chapter_fourteen-beforebefore.net mailing list
> chapter_fourteen-beforebefore.net at lists.beforebefore.net
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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://www.beforebefore.net/
> http://www.bitterpattern.net/
> 
> I am best contacted by email:
> xmargarethax at gmail.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> chapter_fourteen-beforebefore.net mailing list
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