I remember my first feelings of my new town while dropping down on Voltaire, just west of Catalina Avenue. \u00a0The complete world changes at this point: the architecture, the types of home-owned shops, the air, the attitude, the energy. \u00a0From this point, I have entered the “World According to Ocean Beach.”
\nThat was in December of 1986; first time here and I knew I was home. \u00a0I still get that exact same feeling going down that exact same road, and I\u2019ve lived here the majority of the time since that original sighting. \u00a0It\u2019s where the cool ocean breeze begins as I am heading west. Not of much importance in May but wait until August when the hot, dry afternoon downtown air meets our ocean breeze. \u00a0Cool breeze always wins.
\nThe ocean would put me gently to sleep; would wake me gently in the morning. \u00a0And to make it even better, Tuba Man\u2019s Early Morning Spirits opened early and stayed open late and was only a short path and a parking lot away from my first apartment.
\nNewport Avenue was my Disneyland.
\nBut drinking alcohol, one of my favorite things to do, destroyed this and many other of my worlds. \u00a0This was the world in which the residents rose up to help me. This was the community I didn\u2019t run away from in shame. \u00a0I joined a group of sober drunks that had a plan to get me sober and keep me sober. They got the first part right off the bat. \u00a0
\nIt took them 17 years on the second part. I guess they just couldn\u2019t get it right. Some were very tired of my routine and I was disliked by some, but none of them ever turned their back on me. \u00a0I now have 14 1\/2 years without a sip of alcohol, and without any of the hard drugs available, first day: Sept. 4, 2003.
\nI owe every last bit of it to the community of Ocean Beach. \u00a0I could not have done this without the support and direction of my neighbors. I was on the streets and alleys and parks and beaches of Ocean Beach, intermittently, houses and apartments, occasionally, all that time. I never, ever, ever lost your support.
\nThe people didn\u2019t all support me. \u00a0There was a group that found me sleeping and beat me up with a baseball bat and jack boots. \u00a0It takes all kinds to make up a community.
\nThat\u2019s how we\u2019ve always done things in Ocean Beach. \u00a0“U.S. OUT OF O.B.” \u00a0Remember one of our favorite bumper stickers when we still had bumpers? \u00a0It didn\u2019t necessarily mean we didn\u2019t like the federal government, just that that wasn\u2019t how we handled things in Ocean Beach. \u00a0It meant we in Ocean Beach took care of our own. The federal government wears elephant shoes. They don\u2019t work in a finesse situation or in a flexible manner. \u00a0We handle our own. I propose a new bumper sticker for our bumperless cars, which reads, “U.S. OUT OF O.B.” “UNLESS YOU\u2019RE HERE TO WATCH.”
\nYou have proven that to me through all your years of support.
\nWe have an influential force in our community that, for purposes of self-advancement and greed, has decided to eradicate the homeless population from Ocean Beach. \u00a0It is at work, literally, by putting fear and fear-based hatred into the minds of the renters and homeowners of Ocean Beach specifically against our homeless neighbors and visitors. \u00a0They attack the churches that feed and console the homeless, among others, to achieve this end. It\u2019s quite a mess.
\nI have recently received a list of 14 concerns our indoor neighbors have about the homeless receiving food and small necessary requirements for hygiene and survival from the local churches. \u00a0Within three days seven of the 14 items had been solved using the homeless population to provide the solution.
\nWithout bureaucracy. \u00a0Without committee. Without outside organization. \u00a0Without support. We, some of the homeless population of 92107 have taken upon ourselves to clean up and help mentor those of the community unable or unwilling or too forgetful to understand we are living in a community. \u00a0We are going out, as your homeless neighbors, and picking up the trash in the neighborhoods surrounding every church support for the homeless. Seven out of 14 items in three days. The bureaucrats are still figuring out the seating arrangements. \u00a0Heck with that. Americans roll up their sleeves and get to work. We did.
\nWe have a comprehensive package of solutions that are “win situations” for the shops and businesses, win situations for the neighborhoods and indoor neighbors, and a win situation for the homeless. Even the tourists are rewarded and can take home a message of hope and photos from their phones brought to them by Qualcomm, to their community, about the beach community that is solving the same problem the tourists are having at home.
\nAnd Ocean Beach is prime to lead this message.
\nI don\u2019t believe it could start anywhere else but, once started, would sweep through the beach communities to the north (Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, La Jolla?). \u00a0It could be a force to reckon with sweeping through Normal Heights, North Park, Golden Hill, Mid-City. You get it. It could spread to other nearby cities, on and on and on. \u00a0Why would I think this, you ask? “Because we\u2019re Ocean Beach!” I calmly answer. \u00a0“It\u2019s what we do.”
\nAsk the questions. We have the answers.
\nThe number of special interest groups, with their own fingers in the pies of hatred and fear, the amount of pressure on my churches, the outrageously idiotic attempts to steal the plan once put into action, the threats and attempts to quash a “homeless-assisted solution” all factor in to proceeding without their help and relying on the individual and family members of 92107 to pull together and get this done. \u00a0It\u2019s too easy, too much fun, the rewards are great and easily attainable, there is no down-side in this attempt.
\nAnd we have Phases II through V, ready to roll. \u00a0The only thing that will slow us down would be lack of momentum, and we don\u2019t have any of that. \u00a0We need you. And you\u2019d have fun. And you\u2019d make new friends and see old ones while helping your community. \u00a0And, please.
\nPlease remember, what got us here can\u2019t get us there. \u00a0It can only return us to here. And “here” has taken us to a fear and fear-based hatred that can only end badly. \u00a0
\nPlease.
\nLet\u2019s meet on the beach just southerly of Dog Beach, northerly quadrant of Ocean Beach.
\nLet\u2019s talk it out.
\nLet\u2019s figure it out.
\nLet\u2019s do it.
\nThank you and sincerely,
\nMichael V. Garvey
\nMr. Hobo Man<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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