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<\/a><\/div>\nHumble Surroundings: Cory Meek (left) and girlfriend Rita Acosta stand outside of Soledad Street\u2019s Tent City on Christmas Day. Arvin Temkar<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Arvin Temkar<\/p>\n
Thursday, January 3, 2013<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It\u2019s Christmas on Soledad Street. \u201cFestive\u201d isn\u2019t a word normally associated with this part of Salinas, where crates and tarps substitute for homes, and worn buildings hover stonily over drug deals and fights. And yet, even in this refuge of the desperate or addicted, there is evidence of holiday cheer.
\nMarking the entrance of Tent City is a Christmas tree, adorned with red and gold ornaments and battery-operated lights. Barely taller than the tents themselves, the tree is a point of pride for the residents who live here.
\nTent City, also known as Tents by the Gardens, is a collection of about 20 tents and 30 or so people occupying a corner of an otherwise empty lot. Next to the lot is a garden, maintained by CSU Monterey Bay students involved in the university\u2019s service learning program.
\nResidents are careful to distinguish their living area from the other illicit encampments that have mushroomed around Soledad Street\u2019s Dorothy\u2019s Kitchen, a gathering point for the city\u2019s homeless. Tent City is a community.
\nFurther into the encampment, more signs of Christmas. A few bright stockings hang above the doorway of a spacious gray tent, and inside, over a cabinet, there\u2019s a wall clock with a drawing of Santa and his sleigh. A pillowcase on the mattress that was found in a nearby dumpster says, \u201cMerry Christmas.\u201d
\n\u201cChristmas is my favorite holiday,\u201d says Rita Acosta, who lives in the tent with her boyfriend and two dogs, Princess and Prince Charming. \u201cJust because I\u2019m here doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not going to celebrate.\u201d
\nAcosta, 45, and her boyfriend, Cory Meek, are leaders in a movement to organize some of the homeless on this street. Their mission: To create a safe environment in which they won\u2019t be bothered by the police or neighboring derelicts.
\nTent City is about two months old. It was started after the last \u201csweep,\u201d when police forcibly uprooted the clusters of tents that had sprung up on the street and its alleys.
\nBut it\u2019s also possibly part of a cycle: Tents and jerry-rigged homes crop up, and eventually degrade into dens of drug-use and filth. Someone calls the cops, the cops kick everyone out, but sooner or later people come back.
\nTent City wants to break that cycle, at least for its own people. The residents \u2013 mostly couples, but also a few single women who want the protection of a group \u2013 think if they can prove that they\u2019re responsible, the city and the cops will leave them alone, and maybe even help them out.
\nTo ensure orderliness, residents must respect a few basic ground rules: no visitors after 10:00 pm; no drugs or fighting in or around tents; respect your neighbors; no harassing any tent neighbors or visitors; no clutter or garbage outside of tent area.
\nSo far the rules seem to be working. The community has already kicked out a couple of residents who were using drugs, Acosta says. And, the lot is clean, compared to surrounding encampments. In front of Acosta\u2019s tent is a small trash can, and there are other larger ones scattered about between tents.
\nAnother major element is safety, which means no unwanted guests. Residents say they feel safe for the first time in a long while, knowing they\u2019ve got others to watch out for them. It may seem strange, residents say, but petty thieves prey on the homeless too.
\nProfessionals who work with the homeless on Soledad Street know little about the movement.
\n\u201cI would really say that\u2019s an emergent organic leadership that\u2019s coming to the fore, more than anything we\u2019ve instigated,\u201d says Seth Pollack, director of CSUMB\u2019s service learning program.
\nAcosta says residents got the idea after attending a meeting of the Salinas Downtown Community Board, a homeless advocacy council now working to get portable toilets for Soledad Street.
\nDuring the meeting there was talk of the Dignity Village, a city-recognized encampment in Portland, Ore. Acosta hopes Salinas will follow suit and partner with residents to create temporary shelters that will allow them to get on their feet without fear of getting caught up in another sweep.
\nShe says not everyone on the streets is an addict \u2013 she was the victim of housing fraud, and lost her home and her job. Others in the community just want to be left alone, and not be mixed up with the roughhousers elsewhere on the street.
\nDorothy\u2019s Kitchen coordinator Rick Slone believes the effort could bring public empathy to the plight of the homeless \u2013 a step in the right direction. But he isn\u2019t confident the plan will work, at least not before the next sweep. There are a number of issues with the lot Tent City occupies, not least of which is the toxic lead beneath the ground.
\nResidents say if they get swept away, they\u2019ll just restart the encampment.
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s really cool everyone\u2019s come together and banded together as a community,\u201d says DJ Olf, 25, who says he\u2019s been homeless in Salinas since February. \u201cWe all kind of look out for each other as family, which is a really rare thing among homeless people.\u201d<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www. Humble Surroundings: Cory Meek (left) and girlfriend Rita Acosta stand outside of Soledad Street\u2019s Tent City on Christmas Day. Arvin Temkar Stable Shelter Salinas homeless build a rules-driven tent community on Soledad Street. Arvin Temkar Thursday, January 3, 2013 It\u2019s … Continue reading