Transcript

J Mar Hapa: This is our living room. The City of Olympia is our living room. That’s the number one reason we took over that as well. It's because we want to ask the city of Olympia: “If you take our place to sit, could you at least help us find a place to sit?” 

[Music begins playing in the background.]

Mindy Chambers: Welcome to Community Roots, a community oral history project based in Olympia, Washington about how people come together to make change and create new possibilities for themselves and their neighbors. I’m Mindy Chambers. I have lived in Olympia since 1989 and for many years I’ve worked with dozens of others to bring about practical and lasting changes to a system that puts housing out of reach for a growing number of people.

Today’s story is part of our series about the origins of Camp Quixote, a tent city that emerged in downtown Olympia, Washington in February 2007. It was the first visible, self-governing tent city in Olympia, a short chapter in a much longer and unfinished story about our community’s relationship with our neighbors experiencing homelessness. We were interested in how the tent city first took root and the alliances and community learning at the center of this story.

[Music ends in the background.]

Today we hear from J Mar Hapa, one of the first Camp Quixote residents. He was there on the day the tent city came to be, and stayed for a year. He believes the camp gave people a chance to better themselves by removing just a small part of the stress and worry homelessness causes. Today, he works as a certified nursing assistant at a local memory care center, and regularly travels back to The Philippines to offer support to families there. Here’s J Mar.

J Mar: Before February 7th, there was a law that was going to take effect: the seven-second rule. The seven-second rule is downtown businesses in Olympia will have the right to kick any individual person sitting or standing more than seven seconds on the street. But homeless people have no place to hang. So if they kick us out and get us arrested for being there for more than seven seconds, then where are we going to sit? In the woods? 

How we can find a safe place for each other because there's a lot that happens in the jungle or in the woods that we feel unsafe. So we decided we should have a space somewhere - that the government can help us - a little bit safer than the jungle. Because we are human too. So we decided that we would like to ask the City of Olympia to give us a place to stay. But we had no idea where we were going to end up, but we sure want a safe place to stay for homeless people like us. 

[Music begins playing in the background.]

Mindy: The city of Olympia’s pedestrian interference ordinance, referenced by J Mar as the seven-second rule, which took effect on February 1, 2007, is a misdemeanor crime that still is actively enforced. Among other things, it prohibits people from sitting, standing, or lying on sidewalks in the immediate downtown area between 7 a.m. and midnight.

[Music ends playing in the background.]

J Mar: When we were parking in front of The Senior Center, the City of Olympia was unhappy with us being there. We weren't that organized in the beginning. Because it's the beginning of tent city, of course there was no organization. Our kitchen wasn’t even allowed. We don't have gray water so, therefore, we're not allowed. But yet we established the kitchen and the cooking stuff in there. Food was coming from many different directions from different churches, and supporting us, which is very nice. And we established this kitchen and organized and cooked food almost every night. So we make sure we keep the kitchen clean for the City to prove that we are capable of taking care of ourselves.

[Music begins playing in the background.]

The police showed up. Woo, they were not so happy. They're not happy and they're ready to arrest us. Some of us were scared. I was one who was scared because I’ve never been arrested. We asked them, “Will you let us stay here for now? We will stay here until you find a place for us, otherwise you gotta arrest us all.” So we waited, but luckily the police didn't arrest us that night. They gave us one week. “After one week you will all get arrested.” And we said, “Okay, we will wait until then.”

[Music ends playing in the background.]

The Unitarian Universalists stepped in. “You don't need to get arrested. Pack your bags and go to the parking lot. And over there you guys are safe because you are under federal law and the City of Olympia cannot arrest any of you guys.” And then we moved to the Unitarian Universalist parking lot on the seventh day.

Mindy: The Olympia Unitarian Universalist congregation provided not only space for the tent city, but facilities such as porta-potties and pallets to keep the tents off the ground. Its hosting of the camp was possible under federal law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person Act, or RULIPA, which safeguards the religious freedom of faith organizations to host encampments on their properties.

[Music begins playing in the background.]

J Mar: Homelessness, it takes a lot of energy.  If we are not in a safe place, we just worry about where to sleep and what we’re going to wear. If I decided to find a job, where am I going to shower? My shoes, my socks, my clothes are constantly cold. If your mind is constantly struggling, and you have no place to sit and relax, you can't think of better things to do. So we decided we want a safe place to be so we can have time to better ourselves.

[Music ends playing in the background.]

Homeless people everywhere, they need help. But also heart-breaking to know that the system cannot support them. They get help, yes. Food, yes, a little bit. Housing, some. It’s only like 3 percent who are really getting help. It’s better than nothing. But yet, being homeless is not easy. It’s hard to express. It's more than just money and food. When you cry, when a person cries in a corner you feel the most horrible thing. But if you're watching that person and you cannot help, that is the worst as well.

[Music begins playing in the background.] 

I grew up in the Philippines homeless already. So this is a little bit easier for me being homeless here. But the people that are homeless here, if you stay with them for just a day you won't be able to handle what they go through.

[Music ends playing in the background.]

In the church, you guys saw that, and that's why you guys keep showing us love. That's another reason the tent city exists to welcome - what we call normal people that had jobs - to come in and to get to know us.

[Music begins playing in the background.]

Some of them are still scared - the elders volunteering there - but they change. They change after the weeks that they come. They become open, and then they tell their family. And even the children sometimes come and see us. And then they change as well. So since the tent city started, a lot of different churches that got to know us had changed their view on homelessness as well. They are more appreciative, and so are the homeless people as well. They’ve seen grace, and that’s a good hope.

Meg Rosenberg: Community Roots is produced by Window Seat Media. This story was a collaboration between J Mar Hapa and Mindy Chambers. Mindy is one of our Community Roots cohort members. She brought this story idea to us and interviewed J Mar and helped to edit this story. Elaine Vradenburgh did the audio editing for this story and Nick Rawson produced the music for this series. Funding for this series was provided by the Thurston County Heritage Grant program, the Marie Lamfrom Foundation, ArtsFund, the Community Foundation of South Puget Sound, and from community support from people like you. To learn more about Window Seat Media, hear more stories, or to make a donation to support this series, visit www.windowseatmedia.org. To learn more about Quixote Communities, the organization that grew from this tent city, and to support its work, go to www.quixotecommunities.org.

[Music ends playing in the background.]