Month: September 2023

by Travis Mateer

The image above was on display near the Santa Monic Pier, along the promenade where fancy stores sell fancy shit. I laughed, then chatted with some guys who work on trash detail about the brilliant plan to allow “self-policing” camps in every ward across the city, which you can read about in one of the local posts I managed writing up while traveling.

Is this the kind of self-policing Council person Jordan is referring to? From the link (emphasis mine):

The first crews on scene saw heavy black smoke come from the back entrance and located a fire in the bathroom.

The house has been boarded up and condemned, with reports of homeless people and transients entering the property, according to Stewart.

I’m technically a transient right now, since I’m moving about the country withOUT conventional housing. In fact, for the last two nights, I’ve slept in my car while going from Austin, to El Paso, to LA, then Reno, where I’m writing this.

Before leaving LA, I crammed in some bucket-list items, like seeing Jim Morrison’s last shitty motel he stayed at before going to Paris and supposedly dying, and driving the hills to check out Laurel Canyon and Mulholland Drive.

I’ve got another Jim Morrison related location I’m traveling to next, though that wasn’t my original plan. My plan was to check out Burning Man, but luckily some fellow travelers warned me it’s fucked, as in flooded and turned into a mud hellscape the even Chris Rock needed help escaping.

Hopefully I can avoid any other pitfalls that may lurk ahead, but we’ll see. Now I’m debating whether or not to approach Black Rock City with the goal of finding and rescuing friends, so we’ll see.

Now, here are the week’s links:

Insanity Is Doing The Same Thing And Expecting Different Results (September 1st, 2023)

Another Austin Dispatch Before Going West (August 31st, 2023)

Dispatch From Smiley Face Dead Land (August 30th, 2023)

My Book Will Be Better Than Jack’s (August 29th, 2023)

Rollerblading From My Airbnb To A Certain Plaza Where An Occult Ritual May Have Taken Place (August 28th, 2023)

If you appreciate my work, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is one way to support me, while using the donation button at my about page is another.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

The new normal, says City Council person, Kristen Jordan, is accepting rampant addiction and the forms of inhumane living conditions this state of being too often produces. But wait, there’s more! Jordan wants the city to go so far as to sanction a network of outdoor camps in what used to be city parks, but instead of the failed Authorized Camping Site model, Jordan wasn’t ZERO security because these houseless subpopulations will just police their own, she thinks.

Are you fucking kidding me? From the insane link (emphasis mine):

Opening several authorized camp sites for the homeless in city parks and vacant lots in each of Missoula’s six voting wards would provide some homeless residents a “place to exist,” one City Council member argued on Wednesday.

Council member Kristen Jordan detailed her concept during a two-hour hearing, saying the authorized city camps would include outhouses, needle disposal bins and trash containers.

The “pilot program,” as she described it, would establish 12 sites with two camps in each city ward. Three to four sites would operate at any given time and rotate every two months. They would cap the occupancy at 35 occupants and operate unstaffed and without security.

She said the camps would self-regulate if permitted to do so.

“We’re looking at a new normal, folks,” Jordan said. “Things haven’t changed for a while, and we need to start thinking outside the box on how we’re going to help our unhoused community.”

Sure, it’s the “new normal”, but does that mean we have to telegraph our impotency to the forces that benefit from illegal drug sales, which is the fucking cartel and other criminal elements we DO NOT want to openly empower by giving up, which is how I interpret Jordan’s “plan”.

On my travels thus far, tent living has been visible in every city I’ve stayed in, whether in the 9th circuit court jurisdiction, or not. Here’s a visual of the terrain covered by the 9th circuit:

My travels will soon be taking me to several districts of California, so I’ll get a chance to see the epicenter of west coast homelessness soon, and you better believe I’ll be writing up reports from these travels, so stay tuned!

And, as usual, I could use the financial support of you, the reading audience, so the ways to do that include Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), and using the donation button at my about page.

Thanks for reading!