places to land

*no AI was used in the making of this essay, or any essay of mine for that matter FUCK THAT SHIT. USE TOOLS, BUT NOT THAT ONE.*

i can't tell the future!!! i don't know whats to come exactly, but i have some big plans in the mix and i'm excited.

this is an attempt to introduce myself, a new me, and my mission. it's possible, like everything, and its deeply personal so hop on and pick a role, or quietly exit. we are gonna end homelessness through radical reimagination of space AND time AND resources. sounds lofty but i'm scrappy and feral, and committed to getting this done. its ok if you wanna stop now. its ok if you are curious, read this, and back out. but its even better if youre like oooh, i can [insert skill here, there's no wrong answers, this is work meant to save and bolster working people, tradesmen, as well as provide access and support to disabled folks among us, be it temporary or permanent], or you read thru and say yeah, i know someone who would [consult/plan/build/finance], OR are/know someone who would like to live in a community as will be described, do me the highest favor, and share this. i hate to be that person, but a homeless 37 y.o. was set afire in New York City THIS MONTH. they died. we need to fix this shit, i am not ok and neither is society. so! comrade, grab a tea, let's move some mental chi:

here's the foundation, you gotta read a bit contextualizing my experience, bc it shows why i know i can be part of a team spearheading solutionS to end harm against our siblings:

i started kindergarten at small public school in rural connecticut in 1998. by 6th grade i knew everyone's birthdays and many phone numbers. summers were spent outside playing. i was particularly fond of birds and orange salamanders. i loved being outside. i still do to this day. sure i get shit for being a smoker, but that's one thing we're not gonna do in this neighborhood/"complex for the complex", shame people for using substances to cope with pain and other symptoms. we can designate areas and if we are doing shared units, pair people together based on their preferences and activities, sensitivities, etc. we will play matchmaker, and people will have input and a chance to meet who they're living around and with. this is all about finding the flow for a whole lotta people who society typically casts aside.

the small town was a holding container for me to grow up in. it was walkable/bikeable when the store existed. that was my first gig, making coffee on saturday mornings at the WGS&C. iykyk. there are elements of that small town in this planning. hell, one element might be to put this community in that town if there's still space. anything is possible.

when i was 11, my mom drove me to a private school on the base of a mountain for an admissions interview to a private school. the head of school asked me what i liked to do in my spare time. i responded, honestly, i like to play. i'm turning 33 this year and can confidently say, my answer remains. but i also like to rest, study, and work, in differing order. my candid answer impressed him, and i got accepted. in the early days, i excelled in everything the school with a shitty ass name had to offer. even volleyball. i lost contact with many of my public school friends, and at 15 i left for boarding school, the epitome of white privilege. i've had it since birth, and i'm wielding it now by taking these risks. with my rich sounding name, my government name, i shoulda fit right in. but for 1 i was a scholarship kid, 2 i started realizing i was in pain all the time, and experiencing other kinds of rough symptoms. that held me back at times, but makes me a top pick to provide structure and care to other sick folks. i know this cuz i been doing it for elderly family for 5 years, and before that i spent about 10 years doing childcare and even teaching for kids aged 0-17. i include this resume line to say, there's a caregiver and a teacher in me that can unite and organize folks as a reflex.

my education was not meant for me. i mean that when i say it, and i will say it again and then explain. a private, and not just private but tippiest-top tier, brand name high school and college, was not created with the poor kid in mind. especially not the poor disabled kid who's radically bent. i mean look, my takeaway from these communal living experiences was not: graduate and keep the machine turning, it was jam a wrench in that cog, and start a utopia housing co-op for disabled and working folks, and let them live and use drugs as they see fit.

my high school's founders did try actually for equity by providing some scholarships to local farm kids, in an attempt to have more than just a clubhouse for wealthy NYC kids to play. i was a recipient of that tradition receiving hefty financial aid. i am from a blue collar family. we sought each other out. though we had the ability to attend, the culture so strict and like competitive?? it wasn't a comfortable space much of the time. the dress code especially was horrendous and like, for what? to look corporate? at 16? barf bags. i can't believe i tolerated that shit, especially as someone who loved playing in the woods so much. but my high school was also in a small, rural connecticut town, and so there was a lot of woods and fields to frolic in. i am a woodland fairy indeed, people witnessed me doing weird shit on the regular. i've never fit in, always stood out, and i guess i got to liking the stares...ya'll know i love to keep an audience's attention, i believe in slow, longform content. do i have you still?

i graduated from hotchkiss, and matriculated to my top choice, where else would a smart connecticut chick go but yale? it did not meet expectations. lol. i worked really hard to afford shit, and it was in many ways a continuation of the competition of my high school. my favorite semester of undergrad was away from yale, i went abroad. i spent 2 weeks in san francisco, california, learning about the group of students from different universities, and the fundamentals of the type of learning and academics we would be engaging with. the focus of our program was food water and energy, the politics of global climate change. (lemme tell you. the worst of it is yet to come. my plans are climate sensitive, taking cars off the road and having garden and green spaces!! lets go!!!)

we held our contradictions of using up jetfuel, and boarded our first of like, 17 planes on february 14th 2016 to vietnam. that was my favorite month of the trip, i'd go back in a heartbeat if this shit doesn't work out in 5 years time. or somewhere in asia, study traditional east asian medicine at the source. after vietnam, we then went to morocco. i spent a night in the sahara desert, i hit a hashish pipe and stargazed. it was majestic. i bought trinkets from some children who approached me while i was writing my name in the sand. after our month in northwest africa, we went to bolivia. i got to practice spanish. would definitely trek around south and central americas again if we could make it accessible. it was on a mountaintop in cochabamba that i had the life changing realization that all the shit wrong with me, the pain, the allergies, the digestive disruptions, the sleep disorder, the fatigue, the all of it, that shit adds up to "disabled." i knew in some way that that trip was truly one of a lifetime. if i could eventually help disabled students have these kind of experiences abroad, that would be dope as hell.

then, as if no time had passed, i was back to connecticut. everything looked different. my world had been forever changed and shaped by the 33 folks i circumvented the globe with. all the jetlag, the meals spent together, the bonding, the love, the nudity, the cigarettes, the heartache, the poetry. i am not the same person i was before that trip.

same goes for my 2 and a half year stint in california postgrad, where i was houseless or housing insecure for the duration. let me tell you sometime about pixley, california. i'm looking at some properties there. if you're down for the plan, to lift some boats, i will research some areas. the central valley may be one...

idk if it was the weird trauma of moving around so much (every year of boarding school and college i was in a different room and building), and traveling so often, but i actually don't really care where *i myself* sleep at night, i do prefer it to be decently safe. it's nice when it's consistent for a while, but i will go where the current moves me. to where i am most needed. currently it's at good ol grandma M.O.'s in a lil town in a river valley in so-called new york. but i crave the livelieness of a campus full of similarly aged people. disabled folks. creatives. i have neighbors of different ages and i do do things with them. love that for us. but honey bees, listen to me when i say this, i started co-living with peers at 15, basically did so from 15-27, and it was challenging at times bc we were young and not fully formed, we had some oversight but a lotta interpersonal shit went down. as it does. but i do still hold trust and love for some of those people who held me through those times. we had fun. we learned shit, we had alone time, we had common spaces. we need third spaces outdoors, near our dwellings, and 24/7 spaces for people to exist are critical. not everyone's circadian rhythm is the same. if we create something specifically for folks between 18-55, who have a hard time finding accessible housing due to their lifestyles and histories, we can save lives. so this is the dream, ya ready?

the vision: we are to develop a property similarly sized to a boarding school campus (many acres). ideally just land, so we can design and build accessible everything. dorms or tiny houses for sleeping, lounging, bathing. a central building with a industrial kitchen, dining space, library, and different kinds of rooms where folks could do stuff like: screen a film, host a book club, knitting club, chess club. a building with exercise equipment, including a 10-15 person therapeutic heated pool for aquatherapy and aerobics. these buildings can operate as those third spaces for residents and even people who live in surrounding area. if we build out of dodge, as we might have to just based on affordability, zoning, and available land, we absolutely require further healthcare facilities onsite. a clinic for eastern and western medicine offered under one roof, i or someone can get us relevant certifications and inspections, and we can bill insurance for certain services. a dialysis suite for the folks with CKD. prioritize people on the periphery, put through a vetting process of who's trying to make this lil community work, but we will be designed with the disabled, those with evictions, the homeless, those with records, those using substances in mind. // I CAN'T GET ANOTHER FUCKING CALL OR TEXT THAT SOMEONE IS ISOLATED. TARGETED. OR BEING KICKED OUT. THAT ANOTHER HOMELESS PERSON HAS BEEN JAILED OR KILLED BY THE SYSTEM. I AM OVER THIS. ARE YOU NOT OVER THIS? LETS BUILD SOMETHING WE CAN ALL ENJOY, I DON'T CARE WHERE, I ACCEPT HELP IN MANY FORMS, AS LONG AS YOU SHOW UP WITH AN OPEN HEART AND THE UNDERSTANDING THAT WE ARE HERE TO FOSTER DREAMS, AND ESPECIALLY THOSE OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT HAD ACCESS TO LUXURY STYLE LIVING AND COMFORT. WE ARE BREAKING PARADIGMS HERE, AND ASSERTING THAT WE HAVE ENOUGH. THAT WE CAN AND WILL MAKE SURE EVERYONE HAS A MEAL. AND PLACE TO CRASH WHEN THEY ARE SLEEPY. i will prove to you just how simple it can be//

i have hard skills to offer as we proceed with this. i have my acudetox license, certifying me to perform auricular acupuncture in a clinical setting. i did a yearlong folk medicine mentorship with daydream collaborative clinic in beacon, ny, where i learned things like: tuning forks, moxa, aroma therapy, seasonal diets, unlearning subconscious bias, and more. i practice spanish regularly and have been doing introductory ASL on my library's website. i have worked in housing. i spent several months at a hostile hostel in garden grove, ca, seeing just how possible it was to throw something together, get some colorful sheets, and open for business. they however treated us like shit and had us living in a roach infested room behind a hair salon across the street. we will have a different code of ethics. i later worked for a non-profit that may have at one time been kindly aligned, but whose daily decision making did not contribute to a safer community. first off, the shelter i worked at was on a hill far away from everything, with nothing to offer not even clean water or an accessible entrance. local voices seem to think theres' unlimited space up on the hill, that all homeless folks can just go get a room at hillcrest. that's not so. now, if i'm involved making things work, we will have an expansive campus where folks are not trapped and feeling jailed. security definitely, but have them trained extensively in de-escalation and decarceration. that's the social contract: accountability and repair.

i'm not the first to do something like this. and i better not be the last. but i'll be damned if i don't do something for my disabled and down and out sibs. lets get creative and solve some motha fuckin problems!

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dream big, pj