Sequoia Redd

I complain about my little redneck nudist bubble, but at the end of the day considering where the rest of the country seems to be according to that last article I posted, I guess my little 8′ x 16′ shed is better than having to wait in a mob of people for government housing.  Woo!

Chaos after crowds swarm Fort Lauderdale street for housing help

Thousands try to apply; police shut down the line

By Andrew Ba Tran |South Florida Sun-Sentinel

February 22, 2009

FORT LAUDERDALE - Thousands of people seeking government-subsidized housing packed the street Saturday morning in front of the Robert P. Kelly Housing Authority building until police shut down the line because the crowd had grown unmanageable.

Officials estimated that 4,500 people were waiting in line at 8 a.m. when the Housing Authority of Fort Lauderdale Is your Fort Lauderdale restaurant clean? - Click Here. began distributing the 3,000 available applications for Section 8 housing, a federal program that provides rent subsidies to landlords to help low-income people find affordable housing.

But the application process was shut down earlier than expected because of the overwhelming turnout, police spokesman Sgt. Frank Sousa said.

“It was a much larger crowd than anticipated,” he said, adding he was unsure if all the applications had been distributed.

Though the crowd grew unruly, only one person was arrested for trespassing, Sousa said. He had no details.

Outside the Housing Authority building at Sunrise Boulevard and Northwest Fifth Avenue, discarded blankets, fast-food containers and plastic chairs littered the curb where thousands had gathered.

Carmen Garcia arrived too late to get an application. “It’s really unfortunate. Times are really hard right now, and this could have helped out,” she said.

Applicants were told specifically in fliers and ads not to arrive before 7 a.m. Saturday, said Tam English, executive director of the Housing Authority. But the number of people who showed up after dark Friday grew out of control, he said.

Police said they cordoned off the entire block early Saturday morning with barricades to organize the crowd, which included children and elderly in wheelchairs.

“It was a big turnout and it shows what the need is right now in the current economic situation,” English said. “There’s a lot more need than there has been in the past.”

Broward had the eighth-highest foreclosure rate in Florida in January, with one of every 182 households in some stage of foreclosure, according to a recent RealtyTrac report. Though home values continue to drop, the battered economy has kept those prices still out of reach for many, who then are left to navigate a rentals market in most cities that have not seen rates drop as drastically as many home values.

Applicants were allowed inside the building at 8 a.m. one at a time, and about 2,800 forms were handed out before 9:15 a.m. The crowd outside had grown considerably since 7 a.m. and police decided to shut down the operation, fearing the crowd would storm past the barricades to get the few hundred remaining applications.

With the voucher, low-income applicants would pay 30 percent of their monthly income on rent, while the housing authority would pay the rest, English said.

English said he would consult with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials in Miami to determine whether to distribute the remaining applications and, if so, how.

“If we take a few hundred less applications than we had anticipated, that won’t significantly impact the people on the wait list right now,” he said.

The owner of the first application picked following Saturday’s handout could be called by the Housing Authority in six months, English said. The 2,000th voucher could be called in about three years.

The situation Saturday morning mirrored the huge turnout in 2003, when the Housing Authority passed out a limited amount of applications at a single location at a Fort Lauderdale apartment complex. “I was told it was a disaster then,” English said.

For Saturday, officials chose a nonresidential location with better parking. “The big difference is the demand now. We thought we had fixed one problem, but then another came around and bit us in the rear end,” he said.

It also marked a change from the last time the organization passed out applications, in 2006, after advertising online and accepting mail-in applications for up to 10,000 people. By limiting the applications and by spreading the word through limited advertising and word-of-mouth, English said he hoped fewer residents from outside Broward County Click here for restaurant inspection reports apply.

“It was crazy here, just so unorganized,” said Karen, a single mother from Pompano Beach, who declined to give her last name because she didn’t want people to know she was seeking government assistance.

Karen said she saw one woman buy an application from someone for $10. “I would’ve given $50 for that,” she said.

check out my latest installment at IFeelMyself.com called breezy_1

(my concentration face)

(sorry for melting your coffee pot, breanna )

would any ladies be interested in starting a private blogging circle?

lately I’ve been feeling like I should be dividing my writing between personal and sex/sex work related. any thoughts on this?

there are so many things I would like to write about my personal life but not things I would necessarily want a customer to know about. but the thing I like about blogging is having the instant feedback to your writing and/or ideas.

any thoughts?

image via Sexy Witch

I love this painting.

Lately I’ve been busy with helping out the camp a lot. This week will be my last big effort of work and then I am pretty much done.

How do you balance volunteer/activism and helping out with projects that really need it with working and getting ahead and making more time to futhuring your own career?

This year I have decided to make a leap and go to the Sex 2.0 Unconference. I’m not sure what to expect but I’m desperately seeking community within the sex work field and there just doesn’t seem to be any down here. There isn’t much of anything down here and that sucks. Part of me wants to be apart of helping South Florida evolve with the rest of the world and the other part of me wants to escape back to Cali-fuckin-fornia where all the sane people live and grow pot. Like in the movie Humboldt County, in which I actually got teary eyed watching when someone used the term “tweakers” in the movie.

I was born in California, San Francisco to be exact. The epicenter of everything cool, don’t deny it. Northern Cali is where all of the sane people have escaped to despite the high cost of living out there. When I was younger I actually thought California was magickal. Like real magick. Where there were mountains and lakes and seals and pretty views. My mother forever had a plan of moving back out there someday and I always believed it. Thats where I thought I could really live life. South Florida has always been the place where I sit and mold until something better comes along. This year I was actually thinking when we moved to this camp that I could be apart of the first cool thing down here that ever was. Something that would pull people away from the malls, shallow nightlife and South Beach. But here, the biggest battle is fighting something I like to call Redneck Syndrome. Its waking up to find budweiser beer cans floating in your pond. Its trying to convince someone that recycling is a good thing even though you can’t get paid from sorting your trash. Its having five different conversations with people about how the raccoons and iguanas are just hungry which is why they go through your trash and eat your flowers, if you feed them regularly they won’t come looking for more and no beating them to death is not fucking necessary. Its frustrating.

So where do you draw the line? Are these people for the most part past being helped? I feel angry watching them abuse this property and part of me can’t help but get involved and say something and do something.

What do you do when you’re living on the perfect property for community and organic gardens when all the owner sees is more concrete pads?

whats funny is that in order for them to receive the payment message they would have to click on the payment button.

hardy har har har.

I feel important when people find the time to send me asinine messages to try and prove to me how cool they are. Awesome, seriously. So cute, keep up the good work little boys and girls!

more craigslist fun. this ad is serious though.

(haggard model/farmer pictured above: shaman hawk)

homegrown is the shizzle. thanks for making the shot, babe.