This is the one on housing I promised in the last lessons from yesterday.
The trafficked orphan who lost her sister spoke often about not being housed, and how terrible it was. She compared herself longingly to those who had homes. She knew first hand the struggle, the ever increasing rents...She also felt rejected by her uncle, who refused to take his nieces in because, as she described, 'he was too busy living the American dream'...taking vacations, living in big homes, and living the good life.
I sensed her frustration with comparison. I grew up poor. We barely had enough at the end of the month to get by. But we would take drives through Bixby Knolls, and look at the mansions, just for fun. We had each picked out our own house, and my mother and sisters and I would dream. It was an impossible dream, we knew, and we never questioned why some people were able to live there, and others, like us, could not. It was a different form of being on the outside looking in.
It wasn't until Friday night on call, after the work was done, that I realized just how unfair the system is. Vince, the scrub tech, had to drive forty minutes to get home after a long night's work. He said his apartment is in Whittier. (I had booked a nearby hotel room, because there is no call room for me. I was thankful for this blessing.)
There was no call room for Vince. He was just as much on the hook to get called back in as me.
I know Vince.
He's a good tech. He works hard.
He even worked two jobs to put his daughter through college. He would leave our OR at three in the afternoon, and would go to the neighbor hospital to make more money. Once she graduated, he let go of the second job.
It's not fair.
It's unjust.
People who work hard should be able to have a decent life, a house of their own if they want it, and not be at the mercy of landlords who keep raising the rent.
People like the little girl whose parents died, should have a place to go besides the horror of the streets and being unwanted.
I felt it in my soul.
I know that the woman who was pimped out with her sister to survive, has CPTSD and her coping skills are maxed out from her struggle. It's been her whole life! I don't blame her.
I do know that many people in her situation have been victim of SRA. They are the blood sacrifices and sometimes the meal.
Even intelligent, hard working women like Daisy who met the wrong man (The Baron) fall victim to the horrors of SRA. Once she saw the photo in his office of his family and confronted him, since he was telling her he was single--he had her put through trauma-based mind control in a shed in the back, and when that was done, he made porn movies with her in them. Bestiality ones. And she also got hooked on drugs. He wouldn't give her enough money to support her habit. So one day while he was throwing a party, she hung herself from a tree right in front of the windows. Kerth and others helped to take the body down and hide it, so as not to spoil the party. But to be honest, I doubt anyone in their sect would have cared and probably would have laughed at her distress.
Yes it was bad, to be orphaned and on the streets and pimped and raped and have your sister die. It is horrible, unimaginable, and trauma that no young woman or man should have to face. She has every right to tell her story and help others awaken to such conditions, and be moved to help improve them.
That she lived to talk about it, to tell her story, to marry and get an education is a testimony to the angels who guided her away from a SRA fate.
I have a problem with apartment life. As you can see by this photo, it's too far from Nature. People need access to Nature for their health.
How cities got to be, with so many people, I don't know, I don't understand...and again, it just IS.
Like the people with the nice houses and the ones with the cheap houses and the ones with no houses.
In a way, the industrial revolution took people away from self-sufficiency (large families, farms) and into dependency on money to survive.
And even before agriculture, humans were nomadic. Just like the Yosemite tribe--they would go to different places at different times of year, always taking care to maintain the balance with Nature.
In Canada the First Nations were like this too. And also the early Hawaiians.
Are humans meant to be nomadic?
Is life supported by earth meant to be for small tribes, low technology, and ample resources?
The ultimate in minimalism is a yurt, which can be packed up and moved anywhere.
I read of a woman who lives in a school bus, and of others who live in vans. RV's are very popular for vacation. I know some who are retired in them, and park them at the beach, paying the camping fee every night to stay there.
Then there are the digital nomads, like this one below...who eke out a living on the road...with some success.
What if, people who are 'urban camping' are not good for 'the system'? They don't pay property tax. They don't have an address. Are they expected to file federal and state taxes? Is this not a form of freedom in that resources from the state can be accessed (not much, but in an emergency, such as a hospital medical crisis)--and yet they are exempt from adding to the bottom line?
In Puna, many are seeking housing because of the lava destroying their home or making it uninhabitable. Some kind souls made a village of tiny houses for the most vulnerable and frail. Some are permitting camping in their farmland. These are people who are well adapted for this challenge because many have been successfully living off the grid there for long time. Plus, there is aloha. Hardship is there, and very un-aloha people have been looting what homes are left. But in general, aloha is more present in Hawaii than on Mainland.
With an apartment, there is 'freedom' in that if anything breaks, the managers fix it, and also, there are no property taxes (it's actually factored in to the rent, I'm sure). You can pick up and go at any time. This is becoming more popular here in Southern California. A huge surge in apartment building construction has been going on for about three years. So there is a little bit of 'nomad' to it. However, there is also being at the mercy of both the neighbors (upstairs and downstairs and side to side) and the landlord who typically keep raising the rent.
And there is no possibility of self-sustenance with growing your own food or chickens.
Advanced societies have already figured this one out. Once we are really free of the system which entangles us and makes us work so many jobs just to have food on the table and a roof over our heads...I am sure that new developments will be made...ensuring a safe, warm, and healthy future for all.
I don't know how we are going to arrive there, but I do know that counting the days is the next best thing I can do. We are at 337 today.
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Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Peace,
Ross and Carla
The Reiki Doc Family
