The Framework for an Equitable COVID-19 Homelessness Response
Lived Experience Storytelling in the Twin Cities
A group of people with lived experience who had been advising housing justice work happening in the Twin Cities came together to tell the story of who we are and why we matter. There was no designated destination when we began. We saw the path unfold with each step we took together, and each and every one of us played a role. This process mirrors what we have experienced as advisors throughout our journey to advance housing justice in the Twin Cities.
We got together to tell the stories of our experiences as advocates, as people who have experienced homelessness and housing instability, and as people in this world. We believe that transformation happens when we grow and change ourselves alongside the structures of oppression that prevent housing justice.
There is a story to be told about the Twin Cities - one of struggle, of civil unrest, but also of community and resilience. We will not let each other or our stories fall through the cracks.
You can think of this project as a collage, representing the fact that we are not monolithic people, and our experiences aren’t either. The following pieces are our collection of work.
We don't always choose the circumstances that occur in our lives, and then those times we do. But homelessness shouldn't be for anyone that becomes a way of life. Everyone should have a place of their own to call home. Safe and livable and reasonably affordable. I appreciate storytelling of our lived experience of being homeless: to hopefully be able to provide insight from our perspective of what it is to be homeless.
Mz. Marla Dotson
We documented our process for this team of advisors, and for another body of advisory work as a part of the Framework for an Equitable COVID-19 Homelessness Response. You can find more information about that process here.
Glimpse of Kristen
Kristen Miller
A glimpse of Kristin means to me that I have accepted myself finally in life and just because I’m different doesn’t mean I don’t deserve respect; we’re all the same but different, and that’s what makes the world so beautiful.
- Kristen Miller
Just Because I’m different
Doesn’t mean I’m wrong
Doesn’t mean Your Better
and doesn’t mean we’re not EQUAL
Just B/c u say I’m an “ADDICT”
Doesn’t mean I’m not compassionate
Doesn’t mean I’m not fucking fabulous
Doesn’t mean I’m not HUMAN
Just B/c I see fireworks
doesn’t mean you can’t as well
doesn’t mean I won’t put on a show 4 u
doesn’t mean its not its not enjoyable 4 me
Just B/c you don’t see like I do
Can’t I just feel accepted?
Won’t you just let me be?
Don’t you see?
I Deserve to be Happy
Freedom Fighter
Lewiee Blaze
Freedom Fighter is a song by Lewiee Blaze, is a musical artist, entrepreneur and community educator born and raised in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Local community means a lot to Blaze. At any given time he is helping communities in the Twin Cities through volunteer and education efforts. He co-founded youth-led community organization, N4, (New Mindsets, New Media, New Leaders, and New Narratives). N4 utilizes artistry as activism to combat social stigmas while providing healing and transformation to society.
Homeless
Marla DOtson
H is for Hindrance of Place to Call Home:
O is for Ostracization of Why; What; and How Are You In This Situation:
M is for Multitude of Families; Youth; Mature Adults, and Single Adults Living In Homelessness:
E is for Exhausting Frustration of This Existing To This Magnitude:
L is for Let's Remove This, That Has Become A Travesty Of Mass Magnitude:
E is for Extinguish The Matter At The Root Cause Of It:
S is for Sit Down At The Kitchen Table, And Devour This Issue:
S is for Say With Love; Hope, Care; Kindness, and Respect...
Homelessness Must Stop Now For The Betterment Of Humanity.
Loved Ones
Lexi Kramer
I am a singer who puts her life or feelings into a song because writing my own music is the best coping skill I could ask for. I wrote Loved Ones because of how the system treats black and brown bodies around the world. But I mostly wrote it because of the lives that were being taken by police brutality. I also had to include the families that get their children taken by Child Protection. I included all of them together because these issues are not being addressed and it is what I see on a daily basis happen. All the shootings and beatings that are happening within the system are not being raised awareness of.
- Alexis Kramer
Knowing thy Own Darkness
Carla Weidemeier
It was cold and dark. Wet tears escaped corners of my eyes. I feared the worse has happened and the horrific was soon to come. As I laid there, naked; body suffered with wounds-scrawled out against the pavement, my cheek was numb. I cried for help, and there was none. The other people in the space turned away, whispering to themselves while leaving me for dead.
“She is not deserving of any of our love.
Just let her whimper” -they said.
“Bwahaha!” I turned my head as soon as I heard her from across the space, it was a lady with such mystery carrying a stick and a knife. She wore across her face a smile evoking even more chills that thrills this longed season of strife. “She fell over there,” the man in the crowd declared… “FINISH HER OFF! AND LEAVE HER NOTHING TO BE SPARED” …They cheered.
As her heels hit the floor, her steps drew closer near me and I said my last request.
“The thing about darkness,” I spoke raising up my hand… “It flees from the smallest flame no matter how dim, lurking in the shadows eluding such grim shine”… quivering my last breath while pointing my finger up to the sky. I choked for a bit and coughed much more, but before I could continue and restore…She started to hoist her stick in my throat so deep. I thought she had lost interest, and then she started to speak.
“My, how I love to shut up the weak. The difference between you and me dear, is quite plain - look around you, you will see, that light means absolutely nothing and very little to shadows like we. But I'll let you continue - I suppose I am a bit curious to what such silly insignificant things you must say...” She lifted her stick.” Now go on as you may”
She has done this before I thought to myself.
Suddenly it hit me – The mystery and all.
This woman? She is me. Her darkness and all.
I peered deeply into the eyes of hatred, rage, anger, and fear.
It was fear of thyself that was I lying right here.
I reached for the one thing that woman didn't have. I gave her my heart and attested my last action of will. “In darkness you must live, it is this I must give.”
I took my last breath…
“WHAT?” She replied; confused, in puzzlement of what I just did.
Complete frustration in what seemed like her newly acquired ability to give.
She stood up immediately, gazed at my lifeless body so still, until something she never felt before came across her own will.
What she felt with was now her whole heart.
T'was the new yearning and frightening thought of us being apart.
Her voice was now stripping in the effort to hold back her own tears...
“W-we-we killed her, how could we, - I mean, I. How could I be so cruel?”
She fell to her knees with heavy head, wanting no other to experience again this kind of pain and dread. She picked up my Heart, her Knife and her Stick and quietly she wandered back through, into the depths of the darkness she once came. This is the story about a woman that never saw life the same.
Who really died that day? Is the story that clear? Perhaps no one died. Just a young woman taking a hard look in the mirror. Broken, but still incredibly brave, this truth to herself she courageously gave. The moral of my story to be as it may; is that whether you are keeper of light, or an empty shell in the dark, our destiny of our character remains our own to embark.
Garden
Kristen Miller
Why I took pictures of my flower’s progression was because my garden came from the first flower pot that I painted “grow with love” on it. My garden has struggled as all my sunflowers got whipped down and my flowers taken from the pot because they would have snuffed each other out so the pot thrives while I water words like love and your hearts over struggles because when I’m not here it’s not done.
- Kristin Miller
