British Columbia's Sol Mountain Lodge is in the Monashee Mountains in Canada. The lodge is a destination for backcountry skiing.
Mark Sundeen skis the powder at Sol mountain lodge.
]]>
British Columbia's Sol Mountain Lodge is in the Monashee Mountains in Canada. The lodge is a destination for backcountry skiing.
Mark Sundeen skis the powder at Sol mountain lodge.
]]>
Written by Jeff Pflueger
More Photographs, and interviews with Al and Cynthia by Jeff Pflueger at http://castories.com
Fresno, California
Nov, 2009
Just off the highway on Olive Street in Fresno, California is the “Donut Queen.” Framed but faded pictures of smiling clients hang on the walls. A tight community of regulars crowd the chairs and tables. They chat loudly as they read the paper and wash down big bites of doughnuts with coffee. I met Al Williams here each morning.
Al would lock his bike outside. “My mule,” he'd say, grinning. He had with him a small black bag tidily containing all his valuables. Everything else, his bedding, shelter and clothes, were cached somewhere on the streets of Fresno. He'd always joke with the smiling woman serving doughnuts at the counter, “you ready to marry me yet?”
“We'd do anything for each other,” Al said of his friends at the Donut Queen. “We're all here every morning.”
Over two days, Al showed me the underbelly of Fresno, a California city crippled with staggering poverty. I'd learn about the silent, but violent, war against the homeless and the inefficiencies and dysfunction of the services provided. I'd see first hand the massive difficulties faced by the city and its homeless residents.
If one is looking for inspiration to help the complex and ballooning homeless situation in our nation, the violent and politically conservative town of Fresno, California seems an unlikely place to search. But as I learned, it is precisely because of Fresno's brutal response to its growing homeless population that an unusually hopeful story unfolded. Desperation, the victory of an epic legal battle, the unexplained death of one of the homeless movement's leaders, a heroic local journalist, a visionary architect, and villages made from recycled waste and straw bales, are each pieces of a story that may transform Fresno into an international model for housing the homeless.
Across the street from the Donut Queen is the MacDonald's where Al's deceased wife was once arrested for trying to use the restroom. Al told me that the police rolled her in her wheelchair into the middle of the parking lot in the cruel summer heat while they slowly did their paperwork in the shade. Each day, some of the homeless come to the parking lot to sell trinkets and crafts, or ask for money. Next to the MacDonald's is the Ambassador Motel. Al and his wife lived in the dirt field behind the motel for some time before she died. She was in her mid forties. Al explained that she had been “patient dumped.” After denying her treatment for a prolapsed rectum, the hospital dropped her off in the parking lot with what Al described as “open wounds.” Al's wife died a week later from an infection she contracted from her untreated condition.
Al told anecdotes like this, of life on the streets in Fresno, as if he were talking about the weather. I was reminded of when I was interviewing Iraqi refugees in Syria fleeing from the war, or when I was in Southern Lebanon talking with families in their destroyed homes after the 2006 war with Israel. The injustices endured are so great, and so numerous, that the understated stories can easily be missed even though the words are being spoken.
Cynthia and Al
Al Williams was born in 1947 in Oklahoma. Soon afterwards, the family moved to the San Francisco Bay area where Al's father, in the military, worked in the shipyards. In 1952 the family moved to Bakersfield. When Al graduated from high school in 1963, he left home and moved to Fresno. Al then spent 9 years in the military and fought in Vietnam.
Al was first homeless in 1991. He had two children at the time and was working as a plumber. Losing his children is what Al says put him on the streets.
“I came home one night to an empty house. My two kids gone, my lady gone. I went to court about my kids and the judge said, 'she can do anything she want to do.' To hell with the system, to hell with society, I spent a lot of money on court....and she took my kids out of the state, which is illegal, and I just gave up then. I was homeless for probably about eight years.”
Cynthia Green lives across town, but Al and Cynthia have grown close through their years on the streets.
Cynthia told me, “Me and Al became tight in that we was thinking along the same lines. He was losing his loved ones, I was losing my loved ones, we was getting beat up, harassed and everything, put down, sit on the curb, so that made a bond between us that will last a lifetime.”
Al said, “A lot of people say we're married...but we can't stand each other half the time, but we love each other dearly....We call each other brother and sister basically.”
In 2000, Cynthia was working three jobs, one at Fresno's Zacky Farms, and two in-home service jobs caring for medical patients. Cynthia's in-home service work was taking all of her time, so she quit working at Zacky Farms. Soon after she lost her other jobs along with her apartment and, “was on the streets overnight.”
Cynthia explained that she was fighting hard at the time to create a union for in-home care workers. She said that a month and a half after she lost her job and apartment, the union formed. “I wouldn't have lost my jobs and my apartment if we had the union, but the timing wasn't meant to be.”
She has been homeless ever since.
Fresno's Challenge
The city of Fresno, California is struggling under enormous pressures due to poverty.
A 2006 Brookings Institution report, using 2000 census data, ranks Fresno as having the 4th highest poverty rate in the nation at 26.2%. But Fresno ranks 1st on perhaps a more important figure; with a 43.5% concentrated poverty rate, or the percentage of poor individuals in high-poverty neighborhoods, Fresno’s poor are geographically concentrated like nowhere else in the nation.
By city estimates, roughly one in a hundred people in Fresno, California are homeless. According to some homeless advocates the number is much higher; if “homeless” also includes the people who are “displaced”, that is without a home, but living temporarily in some form of shelter like a Motel room, the number may be as high as 1 in 20.
Across the city homeless encampments have swelled into villages. Each has a name like “The Hill”, “New Jack City”, and “L Street”. They are comprised mostly of camping tents packed closely together. Sleeping bags, blankets and tarps are often draped over the tents to provide additional insulation and weather proofing. Some homes within the encampments are shanties made of freely available materials such as pallets, plywood and blankets.
Fresno, Cal Trans and the Fresno Police addressed the homeless situation by conducting coordinated “sweeps” of the encampments. After police ordered residents to leave, bulldozers scooped up entire settlements and literally threw them away.
Al described one sweep, “They were brutal. They took everything. They threw our food away. They threw our clothes away....They destroyed my wife's wheelchair. They destroyed her medications....When I tried to stop them from destroying our stuff, they would actually pull guns on me.”
Cynthia told me about everything she lost, “I don't have a thing left. No identity. No papers. Nothing to say that you existed. They took my birth certificates, all ID, all family photos....that's why they call homeless people invisible people.”
In October of 2006, a Federal Judge issued a temporary restraining order to stop the city from conducting sweeps. Soon after, the homeless of Fresno won a rare victory in the form of a 2.35 million dollar class action lawsuit. Funds from the lawsuit went to the individuals whose possessions had been destroyed, as well as into an account to provide money for housing and medical care for them.
During the legal process, Pamela Kincaid, homeless herself, was a high visibility named plaintiff. She was beaten in the streets and hospitalized with brain injuries. Local journalist and homeless advocate Mike Rhodes is a central figure in helping to improve the situation for Fresno's homeless through his tireless reporting and activism. Mike Rhodes reported that according to a witness, the people who beat Pamela Kincaid were saying, “Drop the suit, drop the suit, you’re hurting us, you’re hurting them, now we’re hurting you.”
Two days after the class action lawsuit was certified, Pamela Kincaid was found dead after falling four stories from a balcony in the the hospital where she had been recovering. Mike Rhodes thinks that her death is suspicious. Pamela Kincaid's death was not investigated by the Fresno Police Department, nor was the beating.
Since the settlement, the city of Fresno has changed its behavior. Fresno now pays consenting motels $65 a night to house a homeless person. According to Al, after the voucher period is over, the people are most often back on the streets. Many of these hotels are dangerously run down. Recently, the city of Fresno closed one of its voucher motels, the “Story Land Inn,” because of building code violations due to mold, broken windows, and bad plumbing. Roughly 100 residents were evicted.
Fresno also began housing homeless people in tool sheds. In October 2009, Fresno dismantled the “H Street” camp and relocated the estimated 150 residents at a cost of $700,000. Many of H Street residents were moved into “The Village of Hope,” a settlement made of dozens of plywood tool sheds packed into two fenced lots. Residents live two per shed, without electricity, water, or insulation. Nobody can be in a shed between the hours of 8am and 5pm.
Violent behavior towards the homeless is still apparently common and defended in Fresno's police department. Brutal stories circulate on the streets that are difficult to verify, but on February 9, 2009, two officers in the police department were filmed as one restrained a homeless man while the other punched him repeatedly in the face and head. Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin and Police Chief Jerry Dyer both promised an internal investigation and an external investigation conducted by the Fresno County District Attorney. Today, nearly nine months later, according to Mike Rhodes, no external investigation has occurred and the Fresno Police Department refuses to release the results of its internal investigation. And the two officers? “As far as I know, they are still with the Fresno Police Department,” wrote Mike Rhodes in an email.
Radical Solutions
As bleak and violent as the homeless situation has become in Fresno, Fresno is a city desperately in need of creative solutions. Local architect Art Dyson has been working on solutions as radical as the problem. “All marvels of history would have been history without bold decisions,” Dyson wrote in his proposal.
Dyson served his architectural apprenticeships with Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruce Goff, and William Gray Purcell. His work has received over 150 local, state, national, and international design awards and he is featured in more than 400 publications and in over two dozen books.
Dyson's work is integrative, drawing upon many traditions and ideas. His approach to helping the homeless situation is perhaps the most integrative of all.
Art Dyson is creating a visionary program through Fresno Pacific University. The program is interdisciplinary, integrating sociology, anthropology, planning, architecture, and revolutionary ideas from sustainable building to create “Eco Villages” to house the homeless. The graduate students in the program will design and ultimately build the villages with the assistance of volunteers and the homeless themselves.
Each village will be limited to 20 residents. Small private shelters, built from reused and sustainable materials, will be arranged around community space and centered on a small-scale local economy such as the production of bamboo, and crafts created from bamboo.
Due to the recent housing collapse, land is cheap in Fresno. The villages themselves can be built for nothing claims Dyson, since the materials will be either reused or donated.
Dyson hopes to make Fresno a model for how other cities around the globe can help people without homes. Already he has traveled internationally to present his vision in cities desperate for solutions.
As ambitious and technical his plans are, they are rooted in a deeper passion about connecting diverse people experientially through the process of the project. Dyson writes in his proposal, “The program will help cultivate a culture of mutual acceptance and respect, solidarity and compassion, open communication and cross-cultural outreach by example. The program will serve as a catalyst to produce the highest aspirations of humanity into a practical reality.”
Dyson's approach is modeled clearly in the first tangible outcome of the project. Al and Cynthia collectively invested $16,000, a portion of the settlement money, in the purchase of a home that will become the Pamela Kincaid Neighborhood Center. Art Dyson and some other investors also chipped in to purchase the $28,000 dollar home that sits on 1/3 of an acre. Cynthia moved into the residence, along with some students who are assisting with the renovation, landscaping, and experiments in small scale economies. The center is to be a place to help the homeless. Dyson's drawings for the property feature extensive gardens, and a vegetable stand. The investors hold weekly meetings in Dyson's office.
Talking with Dyson and advocate and journalist Mike Rhodes, it is clear that the partnership is empowering the homeless to help themselves. Through their support, Cynthia and Al are bolstered in their work with the homeless. Cynthia told me simply, “Its about caring. You just need to care.”
“We won the money, we didn't win the war....The whole thing was to keep on fighting,” Cynthia said defiantly as she sat in the Pamela Kincaid Center that she partially owns.
Today, though Al and Cynthia are still very poor and on the brink of homelessness, they are leaders of the homeless community, fighting to improve a broken system. Al is on the editorial board of Mike Rhodes' Community Alliance newspaper, and writes articles for the paper. Both he and Cynthia tour with Mike Rhodes, presenting around the state about homeless issues. Al's business card reads, “Al Williams, homeless advocate.”
As Al and I visited the homeless encampments across Fresno, Al was like a gentle father, dispensing hugs, love and occasional reprimands to the massive homeless population. Everyone seemed to know and respect him.
In the Donut Queen I sat with Al as he checked messages on his cell phone. At that moment, gathering stories about life on the streets of Fresno felt like gathering belongings from a burning ship. There are too many important stories and too few hands on deck. Most all of the stories are being ignored. Eventually they will be lost. Tragic stories of homeless children and families were hidden everywhere across the city. I was anxious to get back to the streets.
Al put his cell phone away and looked at me. “OK. Where do you want to go?”]]>
An assignment to highlight some of the San Francisco Bay Area's beautiful and lesser known National Parks for National Parks Magazine]]>
San Francisco's Baker Beach, part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is the perfect place to break from the urban scene.
Eastern Design Elements define much of playwright Eugene O'Neill's former home, or the "Tao House" as it's commonly called. It was here that O'Neill penned a Pulitzer prize winning play.
A Woman Hikes Through Yellow Lupine on the bluffs of Tomales Bay in Point Reyes National Seashore. Towering Ancient Redwood Trees in Muir Woods National Monument provide a respite for San Francisco residents and tourists alike. A Lookout Near Chimney Rock offers stunning views of Point Reyes National Seashore.]]>
I came back from an assignment with the New York Times to raft and Kayak the remote Owyhee River in South Eastern Oregon with some wonderful photography and a flu I couldn't kick for over a week.]]>
Read the story about our trip down the Owyhee in the New York Times
]]>
Olaf Malver is the man behind Explorer's Corner - a company that leads expedition style kayaking trips in some of the remotest places on the planet. We had to arrange to do this shoot early in the morning for a profile in a magazine so that we could catch the Golden Gate in that foggy, foreboding mood it gets in when the fogs pours in from the pacific in the wee hours of the morning. So it is about 6:30 AM and I have big strobes set up below the Golden Gate bridge to light Olaf and make the background even darker and more foreboding than it was.
]]>
]]>
National Geographic Adventure features spread of hiking in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, in "The Most Beautiful Places: Parks '08"]]>
]]>
Canoe and Kayak writes about the oil spill in San Francisco Bay, and illustrates the story with my image from a day on the clean waters of the Bay.]]>
]]>
A recent assignment for the New York Times in the Hawaiian Islands.]]>
]]>
The New York Times sent me to British Columbia, Canada to photograph the helicopter hiking that is happening there. As a wilderness purist who has spent substantial time in the mountains, with all my summits earned only through sweat, I wasn't sure what I'd think of catching a ride to pristine alpine environments in a helicopter - but the experience proved that these disappearing environments are as special however you arrive, and that perhaps a helicopter is the only way to deliver many people to visit them.]]>
Read the Story By Joe Nocera on the New York Times website
See the Slideshow on the New York Times Website
"The Last Wilderness" - a depressing title for an otherwise great piece! Though stunning and remote, let us hope that Northern Idaho doesn't represent the last wilderness anytime soon. A six day assignment this spring in Northern Idaho produces a nice front page in the New York Times Sunday Travel Section, a great spread inside.]]>
See the sildeshow on the New York Times Website
Read the story by Timothy Egan online
National Geographic Adventure publishes a long feature I photographed about route 89, and a trip we made from Canada to Mexico along that route.]]>
Two for the road: The author (at right) and the photographer head south on two lane route 89. Opposite: the byway, the outdoor lover's answer to route 66, rolls from high mountains to low desert, through the heart of the American West.
Big Sky Ride. Clockwise from top right: A barfly in the Old Saloon, in Emigrant, Montana, recalls his early years astride a Harley; the author gets an elevated perspective in Montana; hiking to Glacier National Park's Iceberg Lake; byway, this way.
The West Gone Wild: Putting in on Greys River, Wyoming. A bull Elk roams Yellowstone National Park. Cruising a spur road near the Grand Tetons; a route 89 rest stop.
The Canadian Border;Cruising wide-open 89; Zion National Park; Gold found in the ghost town of Stanton.
Red Rock Run: Cruising Bryce Canyon National Park's hoodoos (above). Clockwise from right: Lodging in Stanton, Arizona; a perfect perch in Bryce; the author stops for a soak at Utah's Mystic Hot Springs.
Mark Sundeen and Jeff Pflueger "The Ballad of Route 89" From Montana's glacier country and the Tetons to the Grand Canyon, route 89 doles out a greatest-hits sampling of iconic US landscapes. "It takes you to some of the national parks' most spectacular spots, but our favorite sites were discovered in between," says writer Sundeen (above, left), who drove the 1,700-mile byway with photographer Pflueger (above, right) for our feature. "Stanton was the moment for me," Pflueger says, of an odd little Arizona encampment they came across. "To meet people reinhabiting a ghost town and playing out their gold-mining dreams in the desert was like seeing the Old West come alive."
]]>
Men's Journal runs a two page spread of my photo of the Ostrander Hut in Yosemite. I wonder if the caretaker, Howard, is going crazy with all publicity that the hut is getting...sorry Howard! Then again, if Yosemite National Park sees a lot of interest in the hut, perhaps they'll stop being so cranky about it, and maybe even pave the way for more winter ski hut opportunities in the Park.
]]>
]]>
An assignment to photograph stormy Big Sur in the winter. My photos are the front page and a big spread in the New York Times January 7, 2007 Travel Section.]]>
function openwindow() { window.open( "http://jeffpflueger.com/nytimes_big_sur/20070107_BIGSUR_SLIDESHOW_1.html","My Window","menubar=1,resizable=1,width=700,height=600" ); }
Read "Big Sur Without the Crowds" in the New York Times
Read "Big Sur Without the Crowds" on writer Greg Dicum's website
See the New York Times/Jeff Pflueger Big Sur Slide Show
See more of Jeff's photos from Big Sur on this website
Big Sur in the evening looking out from the Esalen Institute. Henry Miller was captivated by the area, which is home to rare wildlife like condors and sea otters.
Clockwise from top left: Looking at a gathering Pacific storm from an Esalen hot spring; a cabin at Deetjin's Big Sur Inn; towering redwoods in Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park; tuning up and sunset strolling at Pfeiffer Beach; breakfast during a rainy morning at Deetjen's.]]>
I shot a story for the New York Times about Sierra backcountry skiing and Yosemite's historic Ostrander Hut. The shoot was over six days and involved over 36 miles of combined backcountry skiing. The story was published February 19,2006.]]>
function openwindow() { window.open("http://jeffpflueger.com/nytimes_ostrander/20060219_YOSEMITE_SLIDESHOW_1.html","My Window","menubar=1,resizable=1,width=700,height=600"); }
See the New York Times/Jeff Pflueger Slide Show
Read the Article on writer Mark Sundeen's Site
Read the article on the New Yrok Times Website
Nettie Pardue (right) and Mark Sundeen (the author) work their way uphill near the Ostrander Hut for a run. Below Simon Kenney and Nicholas Ferlatte skiing in past a view of Half Dome.
(Above) Kelsey Ripple and Tim Bluhm get a bite in the hut's kitchen. (middle) Ostrander hut was built in 1941 with two foot thick granite walls. (Left) Howard Weamer in familiar territory above Ostrander lake.
]]>