SLEEPS (Safe Legally Entitled Emergency Places to Sleep) AT WAYNE MORSE FREE SPEECH PLAZA – Interviews

Hundreds of people protested at the SLEEPS camp in Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza between 2012 and 2014.  Each one of them had their own story.  Some were housed, some just becoming unhoused, some worked, some couldn’t work because of disabilities and or age.  Some were chronically unhoused for so long it was hard to imagine how they had survived.  Everyone there had one thing in common and that was that they believed that certain human needs for survival cannot be criminalized in a just society.  If you cannot avoid sleep without death, then how can it be a crime for the unhoused to fall asleep in the city?

Each person in the following interviews share their version of what SLEEPS means to them and a little about themselves.  Getting to know people who are surviving on our city streets can be very enlightening and at the least, helps you to understand there are many causes that lead to the economic hardship which leaves people unhoused, it can happen so easily, and it is really hard to get housing after living without it for any amount of time.

Bethany’s Interview – Video by Lynn Porter/Homeless Action – August 14, 2013

James Chastain – Video by Lynn Porter/Homeless Action – August 19, 2013 

Ila and Ron’s Interview – Video by Jana Thrift – September 4, 2013

Dunny’s Interview – Video by Jana Thrift – September 4, 2013

Tearing Down the Barricades at Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza – Interviews with the Public