Much of the history recounted below is from David Igler’s Industrial Cowboys and Mark Arax’s The Dreamt Land. Much appreciation to both. Also, kudos to Lois Henry for journalism in the great tradition. From the very beginning, water in the San Joaquin Valley has been manipulated, controlled and adjudicated by the wealthy and powerful. Its history is a story of exploitation, mostly through the use of serf labor, the courts, […]
Frank Carson Podcast: Damning Indictment of Stanislaus DA
Christopher Goffard is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who works for the Los Angeles Times. Most famous for his book and podcast about,“Dirty John,” a con man of bottomless moral depravity, Goffard’s most recent work covers the investigation and subsequent trial of Modesto attorney Frank Carson, a larger-than-life character whose public contempt for local authorities was the apparent motive for a charge of murder based on the testimony of a […]
Homeless: The Punishing Effects of Market Forces
For years, the dominant explanations for homelessness have been drugs and choice. Whenever the topic of homelessness arose, people were quick to say, “It’s the drugs.” And if they didn’t rant about drugs and needles, the alternative was to argue that homelessness was a “choice” people made to avoid the responsibilities of self-sufficiency. Occasionally, someone would point out that doing away with mental institutions and social services might have had […]
Endangered Homeless Woman Safe, United with Daughter
Cheryl Littlefield’s daughter, who prefers to remain anonymous, was stunned when she found her mother on the street last Thursday. “The last time I saw her was in November,” said the daughter. “She still had her room then. It was packed full of her belongings and a lot of trash, but her rooms have been that way for years.” According to her daughter, Cheryl has a history of mental illness […]
Homeless: Falling into the Black Hole of Help
We first saw Cheryl Littlefield on south 9th Street in Modesto in late January. She was badly soiled and had obviously been sleeping outside for several weeks. Her fingernails and toenails were grotesquely long and dirty. Prior to living on the street, Cheryl had had a room at a nearby motel. She said she lost the room when it, “caved in.” Her income is managed by a local payee. Payees […]
Homeless: The Journey Home
Look at Charles and Deanna Farish today and it’s hard to imagine them homeless. Both are 51 years old. Their eyes sparkle and their faces radiate happiness — but it was only three years ago that they both saw no way out of the park they were living in. Charles and Deanna met in Mellis Park, in Modesto. Both were homeless and single. Except when rousted by the police, they […]
On the Bus with Sue Zwahlen, Vito Chiesa, and Josh Harder
Just after noon on April 6, Modesto Mayor Sue Zwahlen, Stanislaus County Supervisor Vito Chiesa, and Congressman Josh Harder boarded one of Modesto’s zero emission buses at 1010 10th Street for a ride out to one of the city’s unincorporated “islands” near Hanshaw Middle School, just west of Crows Landing Road in Stanislaus County. They were joined by Modesto City Manager Joe Lopez and several Modesto City and Stanislaus County […]
Homeless: The Enduring Madness of Sweeps
Consider the case of a 74 year old woman who stood, sat, and slept in plain sight on the concrete along a busy street just outside Modesto’s city limits for over six weeks, her pants soiled with her own waste, her fingernails and toenails grotesquely untended, and the space around her littered with trash and garbage. Consider also that she is almost certainly developmentally disabled, has an authorized payee, and […]
RIP Edward “White Horse” Mendez
With a profile that could easily have served as the “heads” side of an American coin honoring its native residents, Edward “White Horse” Mendez was a legendary presence among the small circle of homeless people who lived in and frequented Modesto’s Beard Brook Park. He died Wednesday, March 10. He was sixty-eight years old. “White Horse taught me how to survive out here,” said one man several decades his junior. […]
Homeless: The Band-Aid Fallacy
Not long after the public launch of Stanislaus County’s “Focus on Prevention” program in October of 2015, Joseph Dean Dodd knew he had to do something positive for homeless people and do it soon. Dodd’s own experience as a homeless person and his position as President and Pastor of Church in the Park give him an on-the-ground perspective about poverty and homelessness that most people lack, even the best intentioned. […]