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Crystal
abolition is for everybody is a podcast that tackles the sometimes-difficult conversations around prison abolition. I’m Crystal.
Graham
And I’m Graham. This season is about the media’s involvement in carceral or abolitionist thinking.
Crystal
How it uses narratives to impact, radicalize, and shift culture.
Graham
Just a reminder friends, though the title of this episode may give you some warning, remember that harm itself tends to create situations of alternate harms.
Crystal
There will likely be other painful topics brought up too. Take care of you.
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Crystal Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of abolition is for everybody. This episode, we’re talking about houselessness, and drugs. Before we get started, we wanted to mention why we’ve lumped these two really different topics together. Simply put, we’re highlighting how they are often conflated in the media to help sensationalize stories, despite the reality of the situation and we have a guest to help us walk through that. Today, we’re joined by Selena Miranda. Welcome, Selena, so happy to have you here. Thank you for being with us. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you?
Selena Hey everyone, I am Selena Miranda, I use she/her pronouns. I am actually an Outside Organizer with Initiate Justice and today, I am here to shed some light on today’s topics by sharing some of my loved ones’ stories, so I’m excited about that.
Crystal Selena, when you say that you’re here to share a little bit about you know, yourself and your loved ones’ stories, can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Selena Definitely. So I will be talking about three loved ones, all of them have experienced substance use disorder. They were also all houseless at some points and with their consent, I am just sharing their stories to also dispel a lot of the misinformation that goes on in the media.
Graham You mentioned disinformation and something that’s coming up for me is the way that the media addresses drugs specifically, and makes it appear like it’s just it’s a social problem. It’s something that people could just stop if they just go to rehab, and would you go with the symptom of the options that are provided to them. And that’s kind of how its represented. Is that what you’re speaking about?
Selena Yes, I actually have a loved one who went into rehab, but it was court mandated. And since it was court mandated, luckily, they were able to go into rehab as soon as possible. There was a bed available and everything, but just the overall situation that my loved one found themselves in, eventually they relapsed and my loved one does talk about this a little bit here and there. Currently, they are struggling right now with the substance use, and a lot has happened because of that, and a lot of it, they backtrace to that court mandate of, you know, having to go to rehab. And the reason why that was there was a court mandate is because they were pregnant at the time, at the hospital, they found substances within the baby and so automatically, Child Services got involved, completely removed the baby from their care, and also the other child that she had at the moment as well. Completely removed them and automatically did that court mandate and just looking back, my loved one does talk about how they didn’t do it for themselves. And that’s why they relapsed now. They did it so that they can get their child back, which they did. You know, they they were in recovery and everything. They went and got a full time job. They went and got their first car, their first apartment, and everything was, you know, nice and dandy for a little bit. But then next thing you know, everything just started falling apart just because of being forced to go into rehab when they weren’t ready to do it. And so now, you know, it’s kind of hard. It’s actually really difficult trying to navigate that with them and everything. And, you know, a lot of people do say, why don’t you just stop? You know, you have you have children, why don’t you just stop? And I think that’s one thing that they wanted to highlight when I spoke with them that it’s not easy at all. They even said it themselves, “If I could stop, I would stop.” But this is a disease. This isn’t just a choice or a habit or anything of that sort. So yeah, that’s one of the many things that we both noticed in the media.
Graham I think that, speaking as someone with a history of addiction and drug use, that’s one of the things that I’ve noticed, too, that the media absolutely misrepresents because they show still shots, they show just vivid imagery, and you’re not able to take the actual emotional component of what addiction does to the body, to the mind, of the spirit, into reflection, in those still shots. So you see it the same way, as you would view like as some folks, not myself or anyone here sure, I’m sure but some folks would view unhoused folk on the street like this is an optics issue. Like why don’t they just pull it there because we view everything the way that the media tells us to it’s all optic.
Crystal And I know we’ve talked about this in the previous seasons and in this season a lot, is the media portraying it as an individual’s failure as opposed to a systemic failure that we have not only for folks that are struggling with substance abuse, but folks who are also houseless. Selena to take us back a little bit for listeners who aren’t as familiar and something that I actually don’t know very much about, what does a court mandated rehab look like? Was your loved one, like in a facility? Was your loved one able to see their children during that time?
Selena It was actually very difficult. Oftentimes, we weren’t actually able to speak on the phone. I received one letter from my loved one during that time that they were away. And although they were able to visit with their child, at the moment, it was a long drive that another loved one of mine had to do drive about two hours away, just for them to visit with their child in an open setting with others. So it wasn’t very intimate at times. And I believe it was once a week that they were able to do that, which, you know, I believe really helped her, you know, keep hope. But it was very isolating to be quite honest. know they often, well the one letter that I have, from my loved one, a detailed how it was very structured. They woke up at five. They had classes and meetings to attend. And oftentimes, you know, as of lately, I have another loved one who’s also well, who also has a substance use disorder as well who’s currently incarcerated, and it kind of sounds similar to a schedule that they have as well where it’s very rigid and very isolating. And just very, you know, there’s always that sense of you being watched and everything. And so it wasn’t an very, you know, there’s times where you come across individuals who go to rehab in Malibu in a nice home, and they have a beach view and everything, that was they, were far from that. So, and even then I even mentioned that as well. My loved one was saying, “that is just ridiculous. Like, I can’t believe stuff like that exists” and everything. But I don’t know, just the reality of those two different, you know, when you have money when you don’t. So, yeah, it was a very, very tough time, which I believe, is also a reason why my loved one wouldn’t want to go to an inpatient facility again, because of how that environment is. And so I think that’s where my loved one is kind of stuck, where, you know, we don’t have the money to go and afford that, you know, nice rehab, but then again, at least my loved one does look after their mental health, and they know that that’s probably the not the best route to take at the moment.
Graham I was gonna say, as you were talking that that sounds a lot like prison. And then you you got to that point. And in my lived experience, I’ve been in a couple treatment centers, they were not the fancy Malibu ones, and it’s exactly as you described. So I mean, what motivation would someone have? Especially under a court mandate, it definitely would feel like you’re getting sentenced to jail, incarceration. You’re pulled away from everything, you know, you have to start all over again and you’re on a rigid structure with all sorts of punitive measures employed to try to keep you sober.
Crystal Yeah, it’s that threat of Child Protective Services right away getting involved and like taking your children from you. So I also have a loved one who experiences substance use, and one of the things when talking to other folks in my community who also have loved ones who experienced the same thing, one of the things that they always tell me is, you just have to wait until they’re ready. Like you can’t force them to get sober, you can’t force them to go into a facility. You just have to be ready for when they come to you. So I I personally think it’s pretty cruel that they force somebody to get sober, and take their children away and force them through incarceration, really, with the threat of like never seeing your children again. And I think it’s even more cruel, that we don’t have community care and systems in place to prevent folks from from getting addicted to begin with. Because one thing that the media gets wrong all the time is what you mentioned, Selena, people saying like, “well, you can just stop. You should just stop. You were sober for one year, why would you go back to it if you were sober for one here.” And when it comes to houselessness, my loved one experience substance use and was houseless for some time, and for a really long time I fell under the belief system that it was their choice and it would get me very angry and very sad. Like how can you choose to live on the street and it wasn’t for a long, long time, that was like, oh, well, they’re not choosing this. They just need help. And there is no help. And I think, and I think that’s a pretty sad realization to come to. Like when you look around, sure, California has 30 Something prisons, but you don’t have places where my loved one and your loved one, and Graham could have gotten to to get the help that they deserve. And last season, I did talk about, you know, the struggles that my loved ones go through with incarceration and substance use and I believe last season, I mostly said, addiction. And I’ve started using substance use. But for our listeners, can you explain a little bit more the difference in the language that we should be using?
Selena Yeah, personally, I started using Substance Use Disorder, instead of addiction, just because over time, it’s gained a negative stigma. Oftentimes, when someone mentions, you know, addiction, sometimes even addict, it’s very, you know, there’s also there’s all these negative terms that come to come to mind for a lot of people and the media exacerbates that a lot. So even for unhoused folks, even using words that are more, you know, person centered, it humanizes the people that are affected by this, you know, just using humanizing language. You know, even though those words were probably used for, you know, years, decades, they’ve gained a lot of negative connotations that come with it. And, you know, oftentimes, just like today, how we’re talking about houselessness, and drugs. Imagine combining those two, which is what the media often does, you know, they say a lot of houseless folks are drug users and so they use those terms and they put them together, which creates this even more negatively charged phenomenon. So it doesn’t help anybody. Just using those words, really removes the compassion and empathy that we need to be using towards people who are, you know, battling with substance use disorder, and also, you know, who are unhoused at the moment.
Crystal It creates that narrative that we see in the media, all of the time, that people who are experiencing houselessness and substance use disorder are less than in our societies. Just like how people who are incarcerated are seen as less than. One of the things that always trips me out when I when I drive around is it makes me so sad that as a society, we have kind of, in a way accepted that our fellow human beings are sleeping like under the freeways and going cold and going hungry. And then this hostile architecture that we’ve seen lately with like bus stops and pointy things so that people can’t lay down and like sleep anymore. So I don’t know if y’all have any experiences or any thoughts, thoughts about that? I think the thing that comes to mind is, it just makes me so sad that we were not doing better for our fellow community members.
Graham I fully agree, I think the amount of money that goes into invest in it like the amount of investment financial investment and otherwise that goes into deterring unhoused folks from staying in certain areas could be reinvested and reallocated to build build shelters, build substance treatment centers, that aren’t punitive, that aren’t carceral. But we’re so it’s all optics, it’s like we were talking about in the beginning, it’s really just that most people are trained, and the media reinforces that these are stains on what otherwise is beautiful imagery, it’s aesthetics. And, you know, because it’s insulting to the eye.
Crystal Especially in LA.
Graham Yes, absolutely. You want to you want to like kind of usher all all those folks to a certain areas so that they’re out of the prominent areas out of the affluent areas, and don’t stain our path through everyday life. It’s upsetting because that money could be spent much better.
Crystal On keeping families together, as well. Like why why is there a need to separate Selenas loved one from their children in order to receive help?
Graham Yeah, absolutely.
Crystal Like we’re so used to that punitive, you know, Selena your loved one said that they felt isolated, and it was so far. And I know for example, recently, I’ve learned, I don’t know if y’all knew this when there’s concerts in LA, they spent some time leading up to the concerts to clear out everybody who is houseless and we see that all of the time a y’all are not if y’all are listening, and they’re not from LA and California, like Google it and look it up, and you can see very, very sad videos of the cops just coming and dumping everything that is in the streets from from these folks.
Selena I would like to point out since you mentioned concerts, I know we’re supposed to have the Olympics in LA, I don’t know, later this decade or, you know, a couple years from now.
Crystal Some time coming up.
Selena And that’s definitely going to happen, they will remove everyone because, you know, they want to, you know, back to what Graham said, it’s aesthetics. And you mentioning that, I noticed there’s also you know, when I’m driving around, I noticed there’s a lot of RVs and motorhomes that people live, you know, they live in and I noticed there’s this trend of, you know, affluent people converting their vehicles into mobile homes or some type of camper vans, and they can go and sleep in any neighborhood they want, they can go and and unbothered for the most part. And, you know, they make it this luxurious life of, you know, living off grid and everything like that. And yet we have individuals, families, you know, people who still continue to go to work, and you know, they have the, you know, they live out of an RV or motorhome and so it’s just how people view you know, people who live in RVs or motorhomes versus people who converted their $75,000 vehicle into a home. And, you know, that was something that occurred to me. And I remember I was speaking to my sibling about that and how it’s just mind blowing that, you know, one thing is okay, for certain population and the other one? Nope, we’re going to criminalize them remove their, their home from them, take everything away, trash it, and disrupt their life essentially. So
Crystal Yeah, when when white folks do it, they call it a minimalistic lifestyle. And when brown and black folks you have, you know, young brown and black men sleeping in their cars, waiting for their shift, waiting for the next shift and getting shot by the cops. So thank you for bringing that up, you know, the portrayal that we see in the media, because I also see a lot of headlines of different programs that happen, you know, like we’ve seen the minihouse architectures that are happening, you know, or a lot of diversion programs that are happening, but if y’all if y’all haven’t listened to season two’s episode of abolition addresses murder manslaughter, we heard over and over and over again, how Dan was turned away. You know, as a veteran with PTSD and substance use disorder, and being turned away over and over and over again, when he went to ask for help. You know, I know your loved one didn’t have a great time, Selena, with that court mandated rehabilitation center, but Dan was ready. And he went to us for help. And over and over again, they didn’t have a bed for him. And they turned him away. And eventually, because he, he didn’t get the help that he needed and the help that he deserved. Now he’s in prison with a very, very long sentence. And you know, one person lost their life in that situation. So I think that is one thing that I would like to highlight in this episode, is paying attention to the individual and human stories that are happening, and not buying into what the media is saying, when they say we’re doing X, Y, and Z to help out. And a lot of times when you open up that article and read it, you know that a lot of these efforts are always overseen by the cops and by Child Protective Services. And if you fuck up, you’re gonna go right back to prison, and you’re not going to see your children anymore.
Graham What the media also doesn’t talk about is how incredibly difficult it is to actually get a bed in a shelter. How difficult the system that they’ve created for you have to line up at three in the morning, even then you’re not guaranteed a bed they make you have to really work for it. You have to be sober, you have a curfew, you can’t take pets, you can think like some of some folks have support animals that have been with them for the entirety of their time out on the streets, and they have to give them up to go into this place. They have to maintain a modicum of what whatever the treatment center or or shelter says in terms of personal hygiene, the way that you carry yourself the way that you communicate to others. Sometimes they have very, very, like religious guidelines that guide these places. So you have to structure yourself under something that may not be your belief system anyways. And so the motivation to actually go through that process waiting at three in the morning to not get a bed. Do it for two three days in a row in a crowd of people who also are in the same situation have you the motivation is unlikely. The motivation is unlikely. It’s much easier just to speaking from personal experience, just to camp out wherever I am because then I don’t have to go through all of this dissection of who I am as a person, what I do and try to change everything about myself when I don’t, when I think that the some of those things are just me. And then I’m also thinking of, there’s a place right across the street from me, it was a developmental center in the 60s 70s 80s, for people who had like cerebral palsy palsy were on the autism spectrum. And they were placed there and they had housing, they had educational options, they had everything, it’s essentially empty right now. 2300 beds. There’s 80 people in it. 80 people. They don’t use that, like that money, there’s been no money that has been allocated to build that out into something that could be reasonably used for unhoused folks to maintain services that they don’t have access to otherwise. Instead, they invest money in law enforcement. And then they, they hire a liaison that also works for law enforcement that deals with unhoused issues. And so it’s kind of goes along with what you were saying before Selena that, like, you know, if there’s no bed in the shelter, there’s always a bed in jail, right? There’s always a bed in prison. And that’s kind of the path that they want to send people on, really.
Crystal And they make you believe that, because I know some of my loved ones have this misconception, that media is so good at selling the carceral system to you that I have had members of my community and loved ones tell me that if my loved one, ends up in prison, at least they’ll have food. At least they’ll have shelter. At least they’ll have three meals a day. But what they don’t tell you is that that is another traumatic oppressive system, and there’s still drugs in there too. And when you’re talking about really investing in people, how come the media doesn’t talk about the $89,000 per person per year that we spent in the state of California to incarcerate people? I’m pretty sure my loved one and Selena’s loved one can take half of that, and use it so much for themselves, you know, for for their mental health, physical health, emotional health, their loved ones, and be okay. But instead, we’re spending more and more and more and more money to maintain this punitive carceral system that we’re just, we’re just so used to.
Selena I guess you can also look at, because it’s an election season right now and so there’s been a lot of, you know, campaigns going on and everything and there was one campaign that stuck out to me, where, I guess you can argue in a way does push for more criminalization of, you know, houselessness. And even, you know, it can, you know, even be geared towards substance use disorder, but some politicians were saying that we need to clean up LA, and just that thought of, you know, using that word clean, and, you know, what’s the opposite of clean? It means dirty, filthy and so they’re already kind of pointing out how everybody that is currently living on the streets, you know, and trying to survive and live, we need to clean that up. We need to just put it all away and just make a bunch of homes, and that’s going to solve the issues and everything, which, you know, affordable housing is one of those things, but also addressing other you know, they need resources and there’s a lot of other factors that lead to people being unhoused in the first place. There’s other reasons that lead to people to using substances in the first place. And so they’re not really addressing anything. They’re not addressing the root cause, which is why having an abolitionist views is very important, you know, we need to address those root causes, and really help our communities and everything like that. And kind of back tracing to what you were saying Crystal about how our loved ones will say, you know, at least they have a bed, they have three meals a day, at least we know where they’re at, at least we know that they’re safe in some sort of way and so, you know, just the fact that prisons are considered a resource to some of our family members is just heartbreaking, because, you know, just visiting my loved one that’s currently incarcerated, even though they say this was the best prison they’ve been at, you know, in their life and everything I’ve just, you know, breaks my heart because it’s just how how, how did the system break you down so much to make you feel that this is what you deserve? Which is not even the bare minimum. And so it’s just heartbreaking. And so once my loved one got to prison, you know, it was just kind of reinforced in there, but they were already experiencing that on the outside just because of the way the media continues to push and use these harmful terms in regards to people who are unhoused, and who have a substance use disorder. My loved one already saw themselves as someone that society doesn’t care about. And that’s why, you know, now that they are in prison and being treated somewhat decently versus other times, other prisons that they’ve been at, it’s just, it breaks my heart every single time.
Graham It’s kind of like a settling like a shifting baseline of what we’re willing to accept, right? Like, we we in extreme poverty, houselessness terrible situations outside and so we settle in prison for my lived experience, also, for the bare minimum. “Three hots, and a cot” is what they often call it. The guards often call it that, in fact, three hots and a cot. What it brings to mind is like the the misconception that the majority, if not all, unhoused folk are dealing with substance use issues. And that is actually not the case most a large number, I’ll say, because I don’t have the actual numbers, a larger number of survivors of harm, veterans, it’s often said that most Americans are one paycheck away from being unhoused. I joke, a lot of times with my friends, and I’ll be driving because you know, I’ve good months and bad months financially, there’s good months and financially, there’s bad months. And I’ll be like, that vans for sale, I could I could buy that van, I could live in that van, Coco will be fine in that van because it really is that close, in terms of how close I cut, it with my bills. And so just imagine, if you didn’t have I was given tremendous access upon coming home. My friends, and people who supported me looked out and gave me access to things if you don’t have that kind of access, you don’t have that kind of community support, you really are one paycheck is the end of the world as you know it. And people don’t consider that. And they don’t consider that drugs, everybody knows that drugs are an easy escape. They don’t consider the hold that it has on you. So if you’re in that situation, oftentimes the drugs are secondary, even if drugs drug use during unhoused, drug use while you’re on housed is like a combination issue. They don’t consider that that is the escape that people find it’s an easy escape, and then you get trapped in that hold. And it’s very difficult to get out.
Crystal You know, Graham, that’s a really good point that you bring up one of the things that I learned in my I’ve mentioned in the podcast before that before my loved ones incarceration, I wanted to become a pediatric nurse. So you know, I took some health classes here and there, but in some of my psych and health classes, I learned the differences in advertisement in affluent white neighborhood versus a predominantly black and brown neighborhood, and how it’s so purposefully done, that at every corner, you know, if it’s mostly black and brown, folks, you’ll see a lot of ads for cigarettes, and liquors and drinking, and you drive up to Beverly Hills and Westwood and you don’t see that very often. Why? Because they know who to target. They know that we’re struggling over here. And they know that there’s no resources that are provided for us. So unfortunately, what do a lot of folks turn to? What do we have easy access to? And they spend a lot of money putting those advertisements. And another thing that struck me when you were talking about is a lot of people who are formerly incarcerated, end up houseless and we as a society, pat ourselves on the back saying that when we throw somebody in prison, they’re gonna get rehabilitated, they have, you know, made amends with society and paid where they have to pay and then when they come home, supposedly we’re going to embrace them. But then they end up living on the street. Do you happen to have any insight on that Graham? On a lot of formerly incarcerated people struggling?
Graham Absolutely. And it all goes to something that Selena alluded to earlier, which is stigma. She mentioned the stigma of substance use disorder, the stigma of being unhoused. Like when you come home, you’re hit with 40,000 obstacles. That’s the number that they usually give. 40,000 obstacles to successful reintegration along with that one of those obstacles, actually many of those obstacles is just the social stigma around incarceration, met with the fact that they give you $200 upon release. Some of that money goes to your bus ticket if you’re way up north, which most prisons are way up north. You have to put parole above employment. You have to put parole, like so if I have a job that’s a hypothetically speaking a nine to five, I’m forced to get a job by parole so I may not be able to get one but let’s say I get one. I have to meet my parole officer Tuesday at 10:30. There’s that’s non negotiable. So are they going to come to my place of employment? Am I going to take the day off? No employer wants to deal with that issue. So oftentimes, it’s very difficult to find employment. And if you do find employment, because you’re previously incarcerated, it’s probably what would be deemed a low level employment, menial labor, labor positions moving comp, I’ve worked at a moving company for my first three months out and I thought that that was it. So, of course, I mean, if, if you have all of those obstacles, meeting you, and you and you’re unsuccessful in your pursuit of a job, what options are there? Parole doesn’t do anything to put you into housing, they just say be here once a week. So if you’re homeless, or unhoused, then you just report once a week, and you’re fine, I just need to know you’re alive. That’s all that to sign off that day in their file. That’s all they have to do. And so in those situations, many people return back to what they knew, which is the neighborhood, which is substance use, which is whatever levels of comfort, you can find it in a very uncomfortable and unfamiliar world.
Crystal And then it becomes a nonstop cycle. Yeah, the recidivism rate right now is like 80-55%. Now, before we go, is there anything that we missed that you would like to say? Or that you would, you know, like to especially highlight to the listeners? I’m really curious to know as well as like you saying, Selena, what your loved ones wanted to make sure that you said in this podcast, that really stuck with me. So I would like the opportunity to know like, is there anything else that they want our listeners to know or to keep in mind, if they ever read or see the words like drug addicts, or homeless in the media or in their everyday lives?
Selena One thing that my loved one wanted, or want people to start taking the time to understand is that everyone has their own personal experiences. Everybody has a different reason to why they are, where they are today, whether that be that they are unhoused or that they are currently using substances. Everybody has a story to them. We are all different. We’re all human and we need to start looking at each other with compassion and empathy. And once we start doing that, there’s the hope that policies and change will actually follow from that. Because oftentimes, my loved one when they were struggling, they knew how people saw them. And at the end of the day, imagine just taking that all in and looking at yourself in the mirror and eventually you start seeing yourself like that as well. And so just having these narratives change, and having the media actually humanize our loved ones, and people just who are unhoused and struggling with substance use disorder, just having that you know, just highlighting the personal experiences that come with all of that.
[outro begins]
Crystal
You’ve been listening to abolition is for everybody. Be sure to follow us @abolitionIs_ on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for regular updates.
Graham
If you want to continue supporting this podcast and our work overall, you can donate to support Initiate Justice at initiatejustice.org/donate
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