Akron City Councilwoman Margo Sommerville asked me to call her today because she felt I was being too negative. I tried to reach out to her but I couldn’t get her. This is what I wrote to here:
Hi Councilwoman. I tried you a couple times this morning. But your mailbox is full.
I really only have one issue: we need alternative shelter solutions for all homeless people in Akron and particularly men. As you know, the Haven is the only shelter for men here. One size fits all solutions don’t work for any humans, much less, homeless humans. The Haven is good. But the requirement of 3 Christian church services a day, no curtains on the toilets and showers, and intense congregate living don’t make it possible for all people to live there… not to mention all the people who are banned from there.
Sanctioned tent villages and tiny house villages are going up all over America because homelessness is increasing. And now with the moratorium ending on evictions, we are going to see a significant increase in homelessness.
I want to shelter people at zero cost to the city in tiny houses and tents. But now I’m facing administrative penalties by the City of Akron for doing so. The way we treat homeless people in Akron and America is a crime against humanity.
I am not going to go through the process of requesting a conditional use permit again. I did that and you voted against it. I don’t trust that the Akron government has any interest in actually dealing with our homeless crisis. If you are genuinely interested in working on this issue I need to see real action on the part of the government to help the Akron citizens living on our streets year-round.
Until then I will be doing my direct action protests by sheltering a few people on the Houseless Movement property and other direct action activities.
Thank you for your time.
Sage
Comments
3 responses to “My Letter to Akron City Councilwoman Margo Sommerville”
She responded back very nicely. She said she still wants to talk but was on a Zoom call. This is my response to that:
Hi 🙂
We all seem to live on Zoom these days. I just got off a Zoom call too.
Please know that I am not just some angry, unconsolable ass. My goal is to create meaningful change for our homeless Akron citizens. We truly need to do something. I want to work with you so bad. But I am concerned that we are just going to end up with no real action happening. I feel like the Akron city government gives people like me the run around to try to get us to shut up and then nothing gets done.
I’d love to talk if there is a goal for us to talk. What would you like to get out of it? And how can we start taking steps to trying something new with homelessness?
Until then, I’m going to keep doing me.
Thank you.
Sage
The word is that some city people think I’m a terrorist. That I’m never going to stop attacking them. The truth is… I worked my ass off to get the city to work with me in any way. About 8 council people came to look at our village.
I did every single thing they asked of me. I wanted nothing more than to work with them on innovating in the homeless space.
I honestly believed they were going to thank me for trying to innovate in the homeless space. Instead, all they did was shut me down.
I WANT TO WORK WITH ANYONE THAT WANTS TO WORK WITH ME.
I am not trying to make a career out of making hilarious memes. I am trying to get these people to let me shelter homeless people for zero cost to the city.
i feel you brother! it’s very hard to get city hall to stand up for people.
you keep going!!