Redding Homeless Blog

  Shasta County Breslauer Way Needle Exchange Behind WinCo Zombie Drug Flesh Eating Tranq Fentanyl Mixed With Heroin Hits Redding I must admit, at almost two decades of homeless advocacy, I am absolutely stunned as a past outside on-site Securitas security guard at the vicious circle of poverty pimps in my opinion that make up the Shasta County public health branch needle exchange and welfare office. Addicts with festering sores, Stapf infections and angry red injection sites come from all over the neighborhood as well as homeless from surrounding bush camps to exchange dirty Meth, Fentanyl and Heroin syringes a stone's throw from Sheriff Michael Johnsons Breslauer way offices! You share the same parking lot! Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson I sat outside as a guard and witnessed many homeless from the area come to use what I consider to be a program that makes Shasta County officials guilty of aiding and abetting drug addiction and the dealers that provide it. You see after ...

  Shasta County Health and Human Services  I worked as a security guard at 1220 Sacramento Street in the downtown Redding Shasta County welfare office. I had a problem with who I should turn in my incident reports into as in my opinion a rather troubled client named "Donny," (not real name) had been swinging a cane dangerously close to my security guard partner.  Several days later this individual Donny was outside yelling and flipping the bird at somebody out in the parking lot. I later saw the fellow Donny was fighting with and individual said Donny "has raped several women in Redding." Next day this same individual was in office when Donny came in and started yelling "this guy is accusing me of rape" which supervisor "Sammy Jo" did an incident report. I told supervisor Athena about the Donny incidents and have been told by "Supervisor Athena" with Supervisor Fawn in Fawns office that "I was to quit investigating Donny" and ...

  It is known that homeless folks who sleep right next to busy lighted roads usually are afraid, fearful that they will be attacked. And of course they hold out on the hope that if they are attacked someone passing by will see and have the compassion to come to their aid. Often times senior citizens and the disabled will tell you juvenile homeless will beat and rob them of anything of value. A homeless man named Marcus , who slept on the sidewalk and bus stop on Cypress Ave. taught me this, having had first hand experience. You may remember Marcus, one of my first photos of him dropped off at the same place he was picked up, with a hospital discharge bag tied to his chair.....minus his ankles and feet. Now another poor soul who has spent years suffering in that same parking lot, bus stop with Marcus is quite possibly taking the same path as Marcus, literally walking in the same Valley of the Shadow of Death. Where will this suffering soul recover after his initial hospital care? Th...

Oh how I believe the powers that be at the City of Redding wish it happened a different way. Most homeless folks that die on the streets are invisible and forgotten, a team is dispatched and the corpse is collected, area cleansed of any unpleasantness, and nobody would know why you have now vanished. What is more tragic is the fact in most instances you will be listed as a John or Jane Doe and their will not be any trail to find the tragic tale you even ever existed. Not this time... Marcus - Corner LuLu's Restaurant - Deceased You see even I did not know that the photos I took of him desperately trying to shine the light on the plight of his condition would be later determined to be photos of Marcus dead.  So many homeless folks laying around Redding's streets at that hour, how can one determine who may be laying their sleeping, or a motionless corpse? Marcus - Corner LuLu's Restaurant So many homeless folks... I suppose a corpse with his p...

Shocking news from the Good News Rescue Mission, Redding and Shasta Counties ONLY night time homeless shelter. Reported at a recent town hall safety meeting in a Tweet by Record Searchlight / Redding .com News Reporter Katie Gillespie Good News Rescue Mission turned away 500 people last year due to staffing and resource shortages. #SafeRedding — Katie Gillespie (@KGillespie_RS) November 14, 2014 To be ticketed by Shasta County or Redding Police for homeless sleeping now seems more than ever a very real violation of homeless persons Civil and Constitutional rights 'They have no place': Rousted, relocated, Redding's homeless have few choices. "As the county's only shelter, the mission is scarcely equipped to handle its homeless population, said Community Relations Director Ken White. "We're feeling extraordinarily overwhelmed by the amount of services needed by people in the community," he said. "If the economy worsens, or even s...