Decibel
“We’re people too:” The Impact Of Homeless Camp Sweeps
Clip | 4m 39sVideo has Closed Captions
One woman tries to navigate her new life after homeless camp sweeps impacted her camp.
“I just want everybody to understand that we’re human,” says Christina Ralson. She's one of dozens of individuals who have found themselves lost in the shuffle of recent homeless camp sweeps. City officials say they're being done to comply with state and local law, and connect people with services. But Ralson says she doesn't know where she'll go.
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Decibel is a local public television program presented by Austin PBS
Funding for Decibel is provided in part by Texas Mutual and Roxanne Elder & Scott Borders
Decibel
“We’re people too:” The Impact Of Homeless Camp Sweeps
Clip | 4m 39sVideo has Closed Captions
“I just want everybody to understand that we’re human,” says Christina Ralson. She's one of dozens of individuals who have found themselves lost in the shuffle of recent homeless camp sweeps. City officials say they're being done to comply with state and local law, and connect people with services. But Ralson says she doesn't know where she'll go.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Now do y'all want to go see the Texas tornado?
I started throwing things that I did not want to keep, but I did want to keep it.
You know?
So I threw them like grr.
Because I was felt hurt, betrayed by the town I love my barbecue pit in the ground.
This is one of my favorite cities.
I've been here since I was 18.
And I'm 40 so that's a long time.
This is was my home.
And then the city goes and just takes it out from under us.
This is the first time I've actually experienced the sweep, sweep.
They told us, two weeks ago that we had until the 11th to move out.
Or that when they come in to bulldoze that, they're just going to let us take one backpack and then that was it.
They're going to go people stuff and demolish stuff.
It's hectic because you have to decide what you're going to take with you and what you're going to leave behind, and some of the things you don't want to get rid of because somebody gave it to you or you found it, and it's one of your favorites, and you still got to get rid of a lot of it because you can't you can't travel with so much stuff.
You really can't.
It's hard, especially for one person.
They made it way hard for us to even be surviving or living as humans.
It's stressful.
Draining.
Like, but then you also, when you try to sleep and get rest, you just sit there like or lay there and you can't fall asleep because you're stressing.
They've been trying to do housing the homeless for how many years now?
And they can't get no consistency of, of a right way to do anything.
They offered me shelters and I told them I was in a shelter.
I listed the shelters.
They said that I had one too many cats for the Marshalling Yard.
They're my babies.
And so I don't know if there's any other place for me, I really don't.
They didn't come back to tell me nothing about it.
I got the Hershey kisses.
Mwah.
It's a lose-lose situation for me.
That's what it feels like at least.
I'm not asking to be out here.
A lot of us aren't.
Reporter: Are you kind of like reminiscing?
I see you looking around.
Yeah.
I am going to miss this place.
It was so peaceful at night.
Literally, when it got real dark, it just got quiet and all you'd hear is the birds.
I just want everybody to understand we're humans, we have the right to live the only way we can not the only way we want, but the only way we're allowed to.
We are people too.
And these sweeps are making us not have any life to us because we have nowhere to go.
We have no one to turn to, to help us.
We have nothing as it is.
And they're taking what little bit we did have of safety, security, peace of mind and our sanity.
They're taking it all away.
It's not right.
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Decibel is a local public television program presented by Austin PBS
Funding for Decibel is provided in part by Texas Mutual and Roxanne Elder & Scott Borders