Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Hello, welcome to an new episode of the Block Series on Discomfort. This is the third episode we are recording about this topic. I am Maria Mat Santi.
Speaker 2 00:00:14 I am Maria Victoria Longo. Hi everyone.
Speaker 1 00:00:16 Hi, I'm Juan. Together with Juan, we started a series of priest blocks where we discuss ideas around discomfort space and how the comfort of bodies is made at the expense of the discomfort of others, often marginalized and racialized bodies. Today we are with Sasha Plot. Niko Saha is a critic and designer living in la. She's also a teacher, writer and editor, and her work is concerned with the relationship communities have with the build environment and how they respond when capital is property relations get in their way, such as written two great articles and also recorded another bridge block for failure architecture. And today we will discuss the last article she published in April of this year. The article is called A Cage by another name. If you haven't read it, you can find the link in the description of this podcast. The article received a lot of attention and was widely visited, shared and commented. Sasha, hello and thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 3 00:01:12 So great to be here with you all. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 00:01:15 So I think the best way to start is if you can tell her listeners what is the article about
Speaker 3 00:01:21 Her. So, um, almost a year ago, I would say, um, construction started on this like very mysterious, um, kind of compound <laugh> very close to my house. Um, and so I kind of started walking by it every day and it looked like maybe temporary bathrooms or like garden sheds or something that were just kind of multiplying across this site. Um, and so I kind of started looking into it and realized that it was another one of what I think at that point, maybe there were a handful, maybe two or three, maybe four of these, what are called tiny home villages that already existed elsewhere in LA that I think had only opened over the past few years. Um, and the intended purpose, or the stated purpose of these tiny home villages is to temporarily house any number of currently unhoused or housing insecure people while they wait for permanent housing.
Speaker 3 00:02:15 Right? So of course there's that promise of permanent housing at the end of all of this. And so I started looking into it a little bit more. I saw that, you know, the, the construction was kind of wrapping up. Artists were coming in and painting each of these things with like gummy bears and sons and hearts, which wasn't the case at some of the other ones, though I noticed that they, they were all kind of dressed up in various ways, right? Because when they're barren, it looks almost exactly like what I imagined an internment camp would look like. And the sites are always, you know, the two that are kind of near where I live are right next to freeways or freeway, um, exits and on-ramps. So it's super noisy, like a very hostile place. Um, and you know, I think not a place where anyone would build a house, right?
Speaker 3 00:02:59 Not even a place where anyone would maybe wanna rent an apartment for nine months if they're like studying here. So not even a place where anyone with the ability to choose would actually choose to live there temporarily. So that was kind of what started me on it. And at the same time, I'd been involved with the tenants movement here. So the LA Tenants Union and Street Watch LA which is, um, kind of a, it's a grassroots organization that advocates for the rights and self-determination of unhoused people. Um, and they of course were also kind of keeping, um, their eye on these things because these tiny shed villages, which is really what we call their mer Tiny Shed Camps, um, were going up at the exact same time as these really, really cruel laws were being put in place, um, that essentially make it illegal to be, to be visibly unhoused in public, right? So if you're sitting or lying down with a lot of stuff around you, you're, um, increasingly subject to police violence and, um, and also vigilante violence, right? Where private citizens can basically just call the cops on you for looking for outside of their house.
Speaker 2 00:04:02 I just wanted to start with a, with a question for you honestly is just, and it it might be just a question about English and it's why, uh, so I I just noticed that we are using two different concepts to address one same situation and is that some of us are talking about homeless people and you talk about unhoused people, and I would like to know if there is anything at stake that difference in that conceptual difference? Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:04:29 I mean, I think among us, we're talking about the same thing, and I don't really care what word you guys use. Okay. Um, unhoused has become like the, even politicians use the term unhoused in the US that like liberal politicians, um, obviously taking it from unhoused people themselves and activists. Um, and I think the, for me, the important difference is that when you refer to someone as being unhoused as opposed to homeless, you're not necessarily talking about them not having a community. You're not necessarily talking about them not having like a city or a neighborhood that they're from, right? Or that they call their home, but you're specifically, you're specifically putting the blame of their situation on the housing market. Um, and the fact that, you know, it's what they don't have is a roof, right? But they could, might well have a home, right? And I think a lot of people, you know, when I think about home, it's not so much the apartment I live in, maybe sometimes, but it's more the people I'm surrounded by the things I can do in my apartment without being jailed, right? Um, being able to host people, cook dinner, um, be comfortable and safe. Um, and it's, yeah, it's maybe less about, um, the whether or not I actually like identify as this as my home.
Speaker 2 00:05:44 Yeah. Thank you. And that's, that's part of what you mentioned in the, in your article, right? Like how these spaces precisely cannot be conceived as homes in many aspects and how not only, uh, its design, but also the rules, uh, that are applied to these spaces are, as you call them in your text, carceral in nature. And so I was just thinking for myself after, after editing your text, I was one of the editors of such's text. I was thinking about the relationship between like the penitentiary system and the speciality. There is a very strong relationship in the sense that, I mean, the concept of justice that we have as punitive justice is a concept that is attached to the carceral system. And so rethinking the carceral system also implies rethinking the form in which we understand justice. That's why there are all these efforts about precisely rethinking, uh, or trying to understand alternative ways of justice that do not have to pass through jail, and at the same time reconceived spaces to have these forms of restorative forms of justice.
Speaker 2 00:07:01 Okay. So what I just wanted to to know, if you could tell us something about the, the carceral nature that you see and that you analyze and that you clearly pre present on your article about these spaces and how that already is configuring a certain form of subjectivity in these people. How these bodies while being received in these spaces with a certain carceral nature are already being treated as criminals, You know, like how space configures a form of subjectivity. What if you and inhabit a certain space with certain characteristics, What is it that is happening on your body while inhabiting those spaces? Well,
Speaker 3 00:07:43 Yeah, I think that's a really great question. And I think that maybe the root to answering it is understanding that the way that the whole complex of city agencies and non-profits that operate these things, or you know, the nonprofits operate, then the city kind of funds and constructs them. Um, but they're working in alliance, right? And these alliances understand homelessness as the fault of an individual, right? This idea, this myth that is very, very strong in American politics, American exceptionalism, um, this idea that, you know, if you're down on your luck, you gotta put, pull yourself up by the bootstraps. And there's nothing stopping you from that, right? There's nothing getting in your way from just getting a job and you know, just paying the rent like the rest of us do. Um, and so it understands people who can't be part of that system because they're disabled, because they're discriminated against, be because they're racialized or queer, um, you know, because they have to pay for their family's wellbeing, right?
Speaker 3 00:08:47 Or who knows, right? There's so many ways that people in the US actually fall into, um, or yeah, maybe fall out of any sort of support system or fall out of essentially employment is kind of what we're talking about, employment and the ability to pay these exorbitant rents. Um, I think that these alliances that construct these sheds understand that to be, um, yeah, the fault of an individual. And so anybody who is uh, unable to participate in that system is then somehow a deviant right? And deserves to be criminalized. That's my, that's how I understand. They understand this problem, which is the, the rise of homelessness in Los Angeles. Um,
Speaker 2 00:09:31 And in a certain way, sorry, in a certain way that explains why the architecture of these spaces is as it is, right? I would say, I mean, it might be a long stretch or, or an insidious look at it from my part, but it makes sense in that way.
Speaker 3 00:09:45 Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I think that, I mean, one thing that I'll say as a caveat, cuz I feel like the podcast format is maybe a little bit more, um, like appropriate for this is that like, and house people are not a monolith, right? So when I was writing this article, I wasn't claiming to speak for everybody because the tiny shes are actually great for some people. Like, I've talked to people who actually love it in there, but I don't feel like it's my role as, you know, as a neighbor, as a comrade, as whatever you wanna call me to reinforce this system that just simply isn't good enough. It's not my rule to applaud something that I would never choose for myself. And so I think the people who I spoke to who didn't like these things actually described a lot of what you're talking about, Maria Victoria, which is that they don't feel like they have any agency, right?
Speaker 3 00:10:35 The rules, I don't know if like we can go through them this very long list, right? But from curfews that like white adult has to live by a curfew, an adult, like any adult that's not to name one adult that's not incarcerated that has a curfew, you know, or incarcerated in some sense. Um, the like amount of stuff that you can or can't bring in is imagine, you know, if you had to leave your house and they told you that you could only take two trash bags of things like how would you choose, right? And, you know, there have been like recent articles about the hoarding problem amongst unhoused communities and it's like, look at, I mean, how much stuff do I have? Am I a hoarder? No, I just, I can afford to like store it on like beautiful bookshelves, right? Um, and so there's, there's all these rules that actually strip individuals agency and freedom and self-determination down to basically zero.
Speaker 3 00:11:27 And again, it it's, they're always told like, Oh, this is temporary. Like we just have these rules so that we can all kind of live. You, you guys can live here and we can, um, make sure that you're like, you're doing okay. Right? And there's kind of this watchful eye on everything. Um, and you know, at the end of all this, you're gonna get permanent housing, but that housing just simply does not exist. Like, there's no other way to put it. Like there's, there's just no permanent housing in Los Angeles, like the kind of permanent housing with supportive services that a lot of folks who have been traumatized by living on the streets might need, right? And so what the system relies on are section eight vouchers, which for those who aren't in the US I'll explain a little bit. They're basically government vouchers that pay part of the rent that a private landlord is asking.
Speaker 3 00:12:14 And so essentially they're, these folks are just on the housing market the same way that any of us for would be if we're looking for an apartment. Um, and I think we've all seen how discriminating landlords can be, right? Like I, I think I had to provide that I can pay three times my rent or something, and like that I make three times my rent in a month, which like no one does anymore. You know, um, credit checks all of this stuff. And this is like, you know, for someone with a graduate degree. So you can imagine if you're coming out of these tiny sheds and that's like the last place that you lived, what landlord is going to choose you over like a, you know, somebody who's, um, working a full time job at an architecture firm, for example, right? Um, so yeah, I think maybe went off topic a little bit, but, um, I think it's, it really just comes down to, you know, the amount of rules that, um, exist in these spaces in my mind completely take them outside of the, the realm of housing or homes, right? It's, it's like, it's really just carceral. It's, it's a place to contain visible poverty in neighborhoods that can no longer tolerate it in neighborhoods where, yeah, the comfort of, um, you know, young urban professionals, um, is going to be the thing that keeps new businesses alive, right? And keeps the rents going up. And that's all any of these agencies care about really.
Speaker 4 00:13:41 I, I think what you just mentioned like really brings up two main aspects. Well, the first one is the one that you just finished with, with that is like this idea that's not only like a solution for, or maybe it's not as much as a solution, uh, for the unhoused people, but rather a solution for the, and to, to achieve comfort in certain areas that are having a process. And then the other aspect that I think it's important, um, and maybe you can talk about it more, um, is, uh, this idea that you, in your article, you start showing that this solution, this new tiny housing Taiwan houses, uh, seen as a solution are not alone by themselves. They are part of a larger system of taking into account that our podcast is on comfort and discomfort, but it's part of the system of to produce comfort for somebody while just maybe they are trying to make comfortable in, in some sense or, or, or awkward view of what is discomfort that this, uh, and how people deserve. And so these, the gummy bears, these, uh, uh, phrases that you show in, in the pictures, like these self, uh, help phrases, but can you talk more about these, uh, these larger system, including these spatial enforcement songs that I also, I don't know, I wonder if if it, if it's something just, uh, very, uh, specific to LA or you think it's part of, of these larger, uh, responses. Uh,
Speaker 3 00:15:25 The, the sit lie band is kind of at the root of all of this. I think that's kind of my analysis. Um, and that's something that has like a very long history across all of the us, um, dating back to, you know, black codes, um, anti sort of anti deviant or like anti hippy codes, right? So, um, laws that were beginning to target, um, again, like racialized queer, maybe non nonconforming populations that weren't kind of like the white Christian American from public, from the public view, from public space, from really using public space and the way that, um, I think we, we can all imagine it should be used, right? Um, and so this, the sit lie ban most recently has kind of a history even in the federal, in the Supreme Court, it's been actually deemed unconstitutional. Um, and the way that the sit lie ban works is essentially, you know, if you, if you have, um, a certain number of, um, bags or like items with you, right?
Speaker 3 00:16:33 There's kind of like all these little descriptors that actually don't matter because it ultimately, it's at the dis you're like at the discretion of the cop or the like right wing vigilante neighbor that comes out and sees you and reports you to the cops. Um, but essentially these laws target un house people who are using public space, which is really the only space that they have. Um, and it's been deemed unconstitutional because cities that were trying to enact this, and this is, I'm talking about over the past, I don't know, 40, 40 years so or so, um, cities that were trying to enact that lie bands actually didn't have anything on the other side of that, right? So they weren't saying like, you can't be in public space, you have to move into this public housing. There was no public housing, so there's no alternative.
Speaker 3 00:17:17 And so the Supreme Court actually said this is, you can't, you can't do this. Um, and so since then, the city of LA among other cities have found lots and lots of loopholes in this. Um, and, and most recently in the past, like year or two in LA it's really ramped up and they've really found a way to do it. Um, and actually this Thursday, their, the city council of Los Angeles is voting on, um, I believe it's like a 20% increase or something like that in these special enforcement zone. And so the special enforcement zones are the loophole, right? So instead of saying in the whole city of Los Angeles, you cannot sit or lie in public space, what they're saying is, you know, within 500 feet of a school, right? Or 10 feet of a hi fire hydrant, all these things, I don't remember the exact radius <laugh>, right?
Speaker 3 00:18:05 But they're, it's all these numbers that create these invisible circles all around the city. I have no idea where these circles are, right? Um, there are, there are signs for the bigger enforcement zones. There's actually one outside of my house because of the tiny shed village that's really nearby. And so now with the expansion that's being proposed on Thursday, they won't even need signs. It's such a huge expansion that it's basically the assumption is going to be that you're not safe anywhere if you're unhoused in public. Um, and so now the, uh, services Not Sweeps coalition, which is kind of, um, an alliance of a lot of tenant advocacy groups in Los Angeles is pushing for just a total repeal of this ban. Um, because we've seen what it does over the past year or two that it's been in effect, um, where it was, it was essentially installed at the, from the very beginning with the promise of outreach services, right?
Speaker 3 00:19:01 So before, um, communities were subject to being swept because they fall into one of these zones, there were supposed to be outreach workers from offering social services, putting you on housing lists, things like that. Um, and the city just isn't doing that in some neighborhoods. They bring in these, um, kind of third party like mercenaries, which have just proven to be like, you know, they basically what they do is they just leave a sandwich in the heat, like next to someone's tent and like leave and don't talk to anybody. So there's, there's just nothing on, you know, there's, there's no offer of support that comes along with this law. Um, and I think that's why, back to your question, Maria Victoria, I think it clearly falls under criminalization and not, it has nothing to do with housing. Like none of us has anything to do with housing. It's just criminalizing poverty.
Speaker 1 00:19:54 Going back to the article you mentioned at some point gentrification, which I think is interesting to like reframe it also in the topic of this series of bridge blocks and is how, okay, basically we have architectures these expression of these in policies and also as a punitive system that exists to control homeless people. Uh, but I think it's interesting also to think of gentrification plans as ways of, uh, creating comfort for certain bodies at the expense of this discomfort of others, which is something that you mentioned in your, in the article. So I don't know if you can elaborate a bit more on that idea of gentrification as this kind of policy that materializes all these conflicts.
Speaker 3 00:20:35 Yeah, I think that's an interesting question. It makes me think of, um, there's this restaurant that recently opened, um, again, kind of in my neighborhood not too far from the, some of the tiny sheds that, that I wrote about, um, that serves $200 plates. So these are like incredibly expensive dinners, um, unheard of in this neighborhood. There's nothing like this. Um, this restaurant is called Dunsmore and it's run by like some top chef that like maybe has a show or something. I'm not totally sure. And some folks I know from Street Watch, um, and the LA tenancy and have been organizing protests outside of this restaurant, um, where they've been, and you can imagine this restaurant has like, you know, white curtains and these kind of like pendants over every table. Um, the food is probably like crap, like it's plated. Like it's a work of art, right?
Speaker 3 00:21:26 So these friends of mine have been organizing protests, um, right outside where long time residents of the neighborhood, which has a lot of working class Latinx family is right for decades, long time residents will like cook food outside, right? Um, like street vendors will come and cook food outside, um, will play party music. And there's also just a protest, right? People holding up signs saying like, you know, it's, it's about, it's this question of comfort, right? Like, are you comfortable right now? Cause you're making us uncomfortable. That's kind of the message. Um, and I think it's like that kind of tension that is created by a lot of anti gentrification, um, protest I think is super interesting, right? Because it's sort of flipping, it's like kind of flipping the, the kind of assault that gentrification itself actually wields on. Um, long time residents kind of flips that on.
Speaker 3 00:22:22 Its on like the other way around, right? So suddenly the people being made uncomfortable are the people who are actually who, who feel like they're finally home, right? They've arrived, they can get their $200 plate. And so yeah, I mean I think that that's, that question of comfort and discomfort is sort of at the root of it, right? Um, but I think that's also maybe like it's easier to understand it in that way. Cause I, I would say that those are pretty, pretty kind of like soft terms, right? And I think that in a way that, that understanding is, would be maybe be more common amongst new residents, right? So it's like, am I comfortable here? Am I uncomfortable here? Oh, am I making this person uncomfortable by being here? Um, and I think that, I mean, I would imagine that for longer term residents it's much more violent than that, right? It goes like way beyond discomfort. Um, and so I think it's super interesting the way that they can actually weaponize that kind of, you know, it's like that feeling, the feeling of being at home again to return to what we were talking about earlier, being at home and comfortable, um, and sort of flipping on its head and saying like, actually do you feel at home here? Right? Is this your home? Um, and what would it mean if you made this your home? Could, could it still be my home? I
Speaker 4 00:23:41 Really like your point. And you know what, this idea of comfort has the danger of feeling too soft, but at the same time, sometimes you use it so it's so common to or feel, uh, uncomfortable without acknowledging the profound violences that are in those processes of feeling of embodiment the way you, you live an inhabit a place. But, um, I was also thinking something about just returning to the how we name things. And that's something that I, um, uh, I think the three of us, Maria and Maria Victoria have enjoy thinking about like the meaning of words. So homelessness, you was one of the first words. And homeless is someone without a house, right? Like that's the meaning. And then you say, uh, we are using a housed. I, and I always been struck with the word in Spanish, which is a gadget, which is someone who inhabits a street.
Speaker 4 00:24:44 And I started to think about it, or I think we uh, started to think about this as we started working with an, an NGO in Columbia, the NGO Bloods is called. And, and again, returning to the subject, what, what it makes me think about this terminology or how we think of spaces is that when we said homeless, you are taking all your imagination into that there is no house and that everything should be regarded to the house. And then I, when you think about a gadget street inhabitant, and I, and I want you to know like what you make of this because it starts or it prompts you to think that a gadget that is, that your life, your private like also takes place in public space. There are certain services and provisions that we could think in public spaces that go beyond leisure that serve this population whose life takes mostly place, uh, in public spaces. And of course we're not talking just about the UN house, but also treat vendors, you know, people who work in the streets every day. So that's, that's always been in my mind and I think they are as creative with these facial enforcement songs that this also makes you or prompts to towards these alternatives that you, in part of your essay, you open up and show us how certain alternative have been basically denied and others that is affordable housing. It's also is a promise.
Speaker 3 00:26:13 Yeah. Well first I was kind wondering, cause I know, I'm trying to remember who I heard this from. Um, someone I was talking to somebody from Latin American, I'm sorry I can't remember country, about this question of like, how do you say unhoused in Spanish? And they told me that there was like a new term that was becoming more popular, but it's probably not everywhere in Latin America. That's like, um, I, it's like seen access <inaudible> maybe so like somebody without access to housing. But I think that like, that kind of the change in language is actually spreading a little bit into like different parts of the world too. And I think that's probably gonna be really helpful. Um, but I think to answer your question, um, yeah, so I think like, you know, we were talking a little bit before we started this podcast, um, on over email about the comment section of the article, <laugh>, and I actually didn't even know that like failed architecture had a comment set.
Speaker 3 00:27:09 Like I didn't know that you could comment <laugh>. And so I saw, I like went to my article cause I was gonna send it to someone and I saw there was like this big yellow box at the bottom and I was like, oh my god. Um, and so I just was like, oh, there's like this one guy, I'll just respond like this will be fine. And the thing that I said, um, and I said like the point of the article is that the tiny sheds are a bad alternative to public housing rather than being a good alternative to encampments, right? So that's the bottom line. That's like something that's just non-negotiable. Um, and something that I think anybody who has seen public housing, um, like examples of public housing around the world, cuz it barely exists in the US anymore, right? And has, um, you know, this history here of just being totally dismantled and like left to ro by the government.
Speaker 3 00:27:55 Um, anybody who has actually seen at work will see that it's, it is the solution, right? Um, it's not the only solution. There's also people need services. Um, we need rent control, right? So that even like privately held housing is actually affordable to people. Um, and you know, that's kind of a long term solution and that's my answer to that bit about how there's no permanent housing at the end of these tiny sheds. Um, but there are also much more immediate solutions, right? So there are um, very like tightly knit communities of people who live outside, not everybody, right? Again, unhoused people are not a monolith. Some people live out on their own. Um, but where there are these like large encampments which are now increasingly targeted by special enforcement zones, right? So the city will like find, you know, a school nearby and say like, Oh actually you can't be in this park anymore cuz there's a school here, Right?
Speaker 3 00:28:50 Things like that. Um, those people support each other, right? So there's always gonna be somebody who can like watch your stuff while you go and work your job so that you can like save up to like maybe be able to afford an apartment, right? That's just one example. There's like so many different ways that as we all know, like friends and neighbors can support each other. Um, ripping someone out of that community and that sort of network of support puts them in a worse position to get to like start accessing the system, right? Or participating in the system. Um, and so a lot of like what unhoused people have been demanding is, for example, something as simple as trash pickup at existing encampments, right? So again, this question of like comfort and, and like hygiene and all, all these talking points that these like rank right wingers use and increasingly liberals will use too.
Speaker 3 00:29:46 Um, you know, saying like, Oh, I don't wanna see this like trash in my neighborhood or whatever. It's like, well, great. Like what if your house didn't get trash pickup? How much trash would you have piling around in your, in your yard, right? Um, that stuff has to go somewhere, right? There's a famous children's book, Everybody poops <laugh> and it like has to go somewhere, right? Um, uh, right. And so also like porta potties on that topic, right? Or bathrooms, um, at existing encampments. So basically just like what one thing that is like clearly missing from any of this, again, because it's not actually intended to solve housing <laugh> or solve the problem of homelessness, it's just intended to make gentrifiers feel comfortable. What's missing is the understanding that unhoused people deserve the same level of self-determination that that house people have. Um, and there are definitely ways that the city can support that by actually providing very, very basic services that wouldn't even cost that much. Instead of violently breaking up these communities, putting cycling people through temporary housing just so that they end up on the street again. Often with more trauma, often with fewer connections, they've lost all their stuff, right? Cause they couldn't bring it. Um, all these things.
