Anthony Williams (Interview 2)

Lewis: [00:00:02] Well good afternoon.

Williams: Good afternoon.

Lewis: [00:00:06] It is Wednesday, January 3, and I’m Lynn Lewis here with Anthony Williams in his beautiful apartment [smiles, laughter] in Baltimore, and this is the second session that we’re doing.

Lewis: [00:00:27] Anthony is cofounder of Picture the Homeless, so, we’re going to talk today about when he and Lewis [Lou] Haggins, who is the other cofounder of Picture the Homeless, met. So, Anthony, could you tell me the story of when you and Lewis met?

Williams: [00:00:45] Yeah. So… I was struggling with substance use—alcoholism, and crack— and I… So, you know where to go—you go into a detox. You know—you drink a beer; you go into a detox. That’s how it was in New York. And, in order to get help, I couldn’t go into detox and say, “I’m a crackhead.” Because they wouldn’t accept me. I had to go there as an alcoholic, and then they accepted me. Then, I said I did coke and other drugs. So, I went in as a crackhead, but with the cover of alcoholic, and—so I made it in. I got in. I got a bed that night, and I was—you know—I was detoxing from drugs and alcohol, and um

Williams: [00:01:49] and I think… I didn’t even know Lou was there. Like, I didn’t know who he was, when he was there, but I didn’t know that he was there.

Williams: [00:02:01] What happened was, there was a crazy little Italian cat, [laughs] that got into a beef with these Bloods—that were, I would say, hanging out—you know, hiding out in the detox… Because you could see… You knew they weren’t drug addicts, and you knew, “Well, why are you there?” But they were there. They were young, and they were there, and I know it had to be they were hiding out. And so, the little rowdy Italian cat got into a big beef with them_, I mean bad, _and those guys were going to put a beating on him.

Williams: [00:02:48] So… They were going back and forth arguing. So, I went to the Bloods and said, “Hey, come over here. Let’s talk. Have a seat.” And I said, “There’s something I have to tell you. I’m going to tell you something about my life… And how you don’t have to go through the struggles of life, you know. You could avoid a lot of unnecessary pain and hurt, if you listen to me.” And—so I proceeded to talk to them about the importance of life, and about—you know… [sighs] I just told them my life! I just told them about my life. How I grew up in foster care, how I didn’t have parents… That I struggled—I was in my thirties then, and I struggled so much, I struggled so hard—to just maintain in life—and “You’re not… Don’t throw your life away because you’re mad at a crazy little Italian.”[Laughs], “You know, this is a detox; this isn’t—you know—jail. This is where people come to get help, and they have issues.”

Williams: [00:04:20] So, Lou… So, this guy comes over… And says, “I listened to your whole story!” He said to me, “I know a film guy.” And he said, “I would like to hook you up with this film guy, and you could even do a documentary or tell your story. Because your story is very powerful… Okay?” [Laughs] So, you know… Of course, I… You know, of course, in detoxes, you hear everything. You hear all kinds of stories. You don’t know who to believe, not to believe. You don’t take things—

Williams: [00:05:11] So, it was a process of Lewis getting to know me in the detox… Because he was really in bad shape. He was very dehydrated. He was in bad shape. _But you could tell that it was more to him… You know… _Than the fifty—what is it—the fifth of vodkas, you know—the fifth of Jack Daniels that he consumed every day. There was a reason why he did that—to the point that he would kill himself, and that’s how he ended up in the detox.

Williams: [00:05:55] I was really messed up emotionally, you know—and I had to go back on medication and get help and get therapy. And they kept me even longer. So… Lou got his discharge date from the detox, and B.R.C. —I forget the acronym, but it’s a treatment program, outpatient, that the detox refer you to go over there.

Lewis: The Bowery Residents’ Committee?

Williams: Yep! That’s it. Yeah.

Lewis: [00:06:42] And where was the detox?

Williams: The detox was on Lafayette [Street].

Lewis: Downtown?

Williams: Mm-hmm, and Bleecker. Mm-hmm. And… They had, I think they had meetings there—but it was a medical detox, so, they had medical people there to monitor your blood, your blood pressure.
 
Williams: [00:07:08] So, Lewis said, “Well, I tried to find the guy, but I’m having a hard time tracking him down, but I still will keep you in mind and keep trying to track this guy.” Because” he said, “I think he’s out of the country.” I said, “All right—whatever.” So…so yeah, that’s how I met Lewis, in a detox. We didn’t… So, he got released before me, and so he was already in B.R.C., and they had already got him into Bellevue [Homeless Shelter].

Lewis: And this was in the early nineties maybe, mid-nineties?

Williams: Ninety-nine!

Lewis: [00:08:01] This was in ninety-nine, okay. So, the same year Picture the Homeless was founded.

Williams: Pretty much.

Lewis: Okay.

Williams: Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, yeah.

Williams: [00:08:12] So, he got released, and he was going to B.R.C. and staying at Bellevue. So, they wouldn’t… So, I was still staying at the detox, but I would go to groups at B.R.C. And I had a psychiatrist there that prescribed me medication. And so, I would sit in groups, and I would see Lou… Because they have lunch there, they have different groups and stuff so…

Williams: [00:08:52] So, Lou would always come up to me. [Laughs] So, he would always come up and say, “Hey! How you doing, man?” He goes, “Man, you’ve got a powerful story.” He goes, “Would you like to do an interview on the radio at WBAI?” And I said, “Not really, no.” He goes, “Well, I think you have a powerful story, and I think people need to hear your perspective.” And I was like, “Well, all right, whatever.”

Williams: [00:09:31] So then, he goes, “When you leave here, where you going?” I said, “Well, they want me to go to this Saint Francis thing in the Bronx, I don't know. I don’t really want to go there.” And he goes, “Well, you know they got beds at Bellevue, in the clean and sober dorm.” I said, “Yes, but I am on psych meds, and I don't think they’re going to accept me.”

Williams: [00:09:54] He goes, “Well let’s see about that.” [Laughs] I said, “Who the hell are you, basically?” [Laughter] I was like, “Who the hell are you going to see about that? I mean, who are you? You’re going to tell my social worker that, you know—‘this guy deserves to go there,’ and, you know—what the hell is this?” I said, “Okay, though! Go ahead. All right.”

Williams: [00:10:15] So, we go into the office of the supervisor there, and he says to her, “Hey. Bellevue has beds—and they have beds for the homeless, and it’s a clean and sober dorm, and Anthony should be there.” And she goes, “Well Anthony can’t go there because he’s on psych meds.” And Lou was like, “No! No, we need Anthony to go there! He needs to be there. We want him there! He needs to be there, in the clean and sober dorm.” She goes, “Well I can’t put him there. I have to send him to the Bronx.”

Williams: [00:10:52] And I didn’t want to go to the Bronx, [laughs] so I was glad that he was fighting for me. And finally, she said, “Okay. Off the record. I’m going to write you a referral, and do not mention that you’re on meds.” And I said, “Fine.” And I did. So, Lou was happy. [Laughs] For whatever reason, he was like, “Oh, cool, good, good.”

Williams: [00:11:26] So now, he’s got me close to him. Right? So now he has me—and more close to him now. It’s not like… And I didn’t realize this until later, but he actually had it where he wanted me close to him. And he was… And he had a vision that I knew nothing about, and I… You know, he has things going on that I knew nothing about.
 
Williams: [00:11:57] So, I didn’t know who this guy was, or what his angle was, except that, once I got into Bellevue, he would say… He would come to me and say, “Hey, Ant, how you doing? I was out and about, and I was looking at some articles. I found this article about CHARAS, a Community Center.”
 
Williams: [00:12:24] But so… But even before that, you know—he kept saying to me, “Anthony,” he would come to my room, every night, and say, “want to go down to the radio station and do an interview at WBAI?” “Ah, no.” So, I kept telling him no, no, no, and we’re still were in the same outpatient program, B.R.C., so I would run into him there, and he would say it, same thing to me again, “Anthony, you want to come to WBAI?” And I was like, “Ah… I don't know.”

Williams: [00:12:59] He goes, “This is the last time. This is it. This is final. It’s either you’re coming with me to the radio station, or this is it. It’s your last shot. This is it.” I said, “Okay, Lou, I’ll come with you.” He goes, “You got to get up, three in the morning—and walk down to Wall Street.” I said, “Okay! I’ll be up at three. I’ll be up at three.” And sure enough, I got up at three and we left Bellevue and headed south [laughs] towards Wall Street, from Thirtieth Street—no money, no food, no nothing, just going to a radio station, and early in the morning.

Williams: [00:13:55] So, Wake Up Call was the name of the show, and that started I think at six, something like that, with Amy Goodman. It was Amy Goodman, Bernard White, and Errol Maitland, and Robert Knight, who passed away. So, we walk into the building on Wall Street, and we go up to like the tenth floor, and there’s this big studio. We go in.
 
Williams: [00:14:28] You know—Errol Maitland comes out, and Lou says, “This is Anthony Williams, and this is the story—this is the guy that you need to hear from, because I think his story is powerful, and that…” He says, “Well, we want to hear what the plight is with the homeless. We don’t know what’s going on with the homeless. We know that things are different here in the city, but we just don’t understand what’s going on with the Giuliani administration.” And Lou said, “Well I’ll talk about Giuliani. I got that. Don’t worry; I’ll deal with—I’ll talk to you about Giuliani. But you need to hear from Anthony of what’s really going on with the homeless, because he knows.”

Williams: [00:15:14] And so, we go in, and he says, “Well I’m going to give you guys five minutes.” We was there for at least fifteen, at least, on the radio, talking about—and people calling in, and we were just saying how, you know—it’s different. You don’t just see… I mean you see homeless people in the street homeless, but you don’t see the homeless that are in the shelters, you know—because you can’t tell. You don’t know, you know? And that’s why you think that they’re doing something. The City will say that they’re reducing homelessness, _but they’re not. _It’s just that people have became more… people have gotten more—you know, when they get in the shelters, they get fresh clothes, they get showers, they don’t look dirty, they ride the trains all day, they go to libraries, they do a lot of… You know, they’re in mixed with the population, so you can’t distinguish who’s homeless or not, except for the hardcore people that live on the streets, and the people that live underground in the subways and stuff like that.

Williams: [00:16:29] And then Lou started with Giuliani. He is a… He was ranting and raving about Giuliani, how he’s a dog, and then this—the thing with the brick-throwing incident.
 
Lewis: Paris Drake.

Williams: Paris Drake, he started talking about that, and he was like, “You know, this guy wasn’t even homeless! You know… And the homeless caught hell.

Williams: [00:17:02] And I remember when the police came into Bellevue, and—looking for people with warrants, and also looking for a homeless person that committed that brick-throwing incident.”

Lewis: And what was the profile; what was the description of the person that they were looking for?

Williams: Homeless.

Lewis: And what else?

Williams: I’m trying to remember… African American… And I think, more detail, I don't remember everything in detail. But Lou knew pretty much that, you know… They finally caught him after two weeks. They caught Paris, and they found out that he had a place to live, but the Giuliani administration, “We have to get those crazies off the street.” And that—you know, “We have to do something about the homeless.”
 
Williams: [00:18:11] So instead of them just like… So, they did a sweep—a whole, all-out assault on the homeless population. People living in boxes—wherever there was homeless people, they were targeted, and you know—rousted up. The shelters were—I mean, we even went to other shelters to find out that they were doing the same raids.

Lewis: [00:18:36] Describe what it was like when the police came into Bellevue.

Williams: So, when they would come in… So, particularly—the incident that happened was… So, he was in a three-man room, and Russell was on one side. Remember Russell?

Lewis: Yeah!

Williams: So, Russell was on one side, Lou was on this side, then it was another guy on the other side. There was three of them.

Lewis: I didn’t know Russell was there.

Williams: Oh yeah! He was in the—we were, you know—he was sharing rooms with Lou and another guy.

Williams: [00:19:12] What happened was, the—the Warrant Squad came in… Made him get out of bed… Rousted him up, slammed him up against the wall. I mean, they really roughed him up. And Lou watched it, and came over to me, and said—he came to my room, like three in the morning—pissed, “We got to do something about this.” I’m like, “What?” “They just beat up a homeless guy, that was sleeping right across from me.” I said, “But that’s nothing new.” He goes, “No! No. They… We got to do something about this, Anthony.”

Williams: [00:20:03] “So, what are we going to do? I mean, this is what they do! This is the shelter. This is the norm. This is like, yes! You know—this is what they do. You know if the Warrant Squad come in, and wake you up out of bed, and if you attempt to resist or whatever,

Lewis: Mm-hmmm.

Williams: if you attempt to resist, then you get an ass whooping, and that’s what you get, because you’re homeless. You get what you deserve, right? An ass whooping.” “No.” Lou said, “No! No. It’s just wrong. _I watched them _beat this guy up, with no clothes on, just in his underwear, okay? I—No. This is just—we got to do something, Anthony.” And so, I was like, “Well, this is—I don't know what we could do. [Laughs] What?!” You know what I mean? Like, what? And so, that’s when I went, decided to go with him to WBAI.
 
Lewis: [00:21:15] So, Picture the Homeless, did it have the name—

Williams: No.

Lewis: —by then?

Williams: No, it didn’t even have a name.

Lewis: okay.

Williams: So, we went down to Bellevue, and that’s what we talked about. That’s what Lou talked about, talked about the Giuliani administration, talking about the assault on the homeless, and that something needs to be done.

Lewis: [00:21:37] Did Lou knew someone at—he knew someone at BAI?

Williams: Oh yeah! Oh yeah, they—

Lewis: Who did he know?

Williams: Oh yeah, he knew Errol Maitland, he knew Amy Goodman, he knew them all. He knew them from… And I didn’t know how he knew them! See, I didn’t—so, that was just the beginning. Again, it’s… It’s something I didn’t even know, so… So, this guy is doing these things with me, and I’m like, “Okay, let’s go to the radio station.”

Williams: [00:22:10] So, I let out my cry, and my plight and what was going on and you know—but I, you know—I didn’t understand the civil rights aspect. I didn’t know how to talk about the injustice part, but Lou did. I just talked about the homeless folks being very vulnerable in the shelter system, and that needs to change, because it’s a vicious cycle.

Lewis: [00:22:43] What was it about Lewis that made you go with him?

Williams: [Pause] Consistency… He kept pressing… Because he asked other guys! He was asking other guys in the shelter. Don’t think it was just me. No! He was asking other guys. And he couldn’t get anybody to go, and he just _felt _that he had a shot with me. He just felt it. He just knew that “I got to get this guy, because I heard him talking in the detox. I got to get—I got to get this guy. I got to get him.” And that’s—and…

Williams: [00:23:39] I remember Lewis telling me one time on the subway… He goes—after we named the organization already—he goes, “That’s for you, Anthony. It’s not for me. Picture the Homeless is for you. It’s for you to talk to the congress. It’s for you to talk to government. It’s for you to let them know about the homeless situation. This is new to me. I just… It’s the first time I ever experienced it.” And he goes, “So, Picture the Homeless is for you. That’s you. That’s for you. You know—we’re doing this together for you.” And even I didn’t understand it then.

Williams: [00:24:15] But so, he… So, he… So we went to BAI, did the interview, then he tells me what’s next, like I said before, and then he—so we go back, [laughs] late at night. It’s probably like twelve, one in the morning, and he comes to my room and says, “We got to call ourselves something now.” I’m like, “Well, there’s a Coalition for the Homeless… There’s this organization… There’s that organization.” He goes, “Well we got to call ourselves something, Anthony.” I didn’t even know a mission statement was in the scene. This was just naming ourselves something, right?_ I didn’t even know_.

Williams: [00:25:00] So he… I said, “Okay!” So, I’m walking back and forth, and I’m like, “Oh! What about Picture the Homeless?” He goes, “What do you mean?” I said, “Picture that person that you see every day. Picture what’s going on... Picture this… Picture that... Picture the homeless! Picture the people. Understand who the people are. They’re not just—a photograph or a photo op—it’s picturing the person. It’s seeing the person. It’s picturing their life. You know—you’re picturing them. Your picturing… Picture the people! Picture the homeless. It’s not photos that we’re talking about, we’re talking about actually picturing someone’s life. We’re looking—we’re talking about the inside of people, picturing that person, you know—and you’re looking at that person. You’re actually picturing the person.” He goes, “Oh, wow, I get it!” He goes, “I get it, Anthony. Okay. Good.” So—so okay, that’s done.
 
Williams: [00:26:14] A couple days later, he comes to me, and he goes, “I got this article about this organization on the Lower East Side.” I said, “Yeah?” He goes, “It’s called CHARAS, and they’re having problems with their building, but they have plenty of space for meetings!” And he said, “I want to have a meeting with the homeless. We should have a homeless meeting there.” [Laughs] And I was like, “Uh… [sighs]

Lewis: I love this look on your face. [Laughter]

Williams: [Laughs]… Like, okay…” And he goes—So he goes—So then… The next day, he comes back and goes, “I got a waiver. They’re not going to charge us to use the space!”

Williams: [00:27:10] I’m like, “Okay! But how are we going to get the message out?” He goes, “Oh! I’m going to do flyers. I’m going to put flyers around the shelter, about this meeting.” And I’m like, “Well, when is this meeting going to be?” And he goes, “Well, I’m going to set the date up, I’ve got to sign some stuff with CHARAS. I got to sign a waiver, whatever, and then, I have to write this letter.” He said, or something… And then, whatever he was doing, he was doing. And then he goes, “Okay.” So I go, “Okay.”

Williams: [00:27:45] So we’ve got this… So, we got flyers up around the shelter now, and the shelter’s up in arms. “What is this? Who is these people? Who are these guys?” And they start hearing us on the radio. So, they heard us already on the radio. Now they’re hearing this, “Picture the Homeless, Picture the Homeless, these homeless guys, two homeless guys… “ Whatever, “Picture the Homeless.” Then so now, a lot of people heard us on the radio, okay, so… So, the word is out that there’s this group of two guys out here that’s talking about rights, and—rights for homeless people, and changing the system, at the same time.

Williams: [00:28:34] So—okay, we got the name. So then… So, I went to check on him one night, you know, in his room with Russell and they’re all there—and he’s writing. He’s sitting on the bed, writing. And he goes, “I’m writing a mission statement. Want to help me write a mission statement?” [Laughs] I said, “What is that?” And he goes, “Well, we need a mission.” [Laughs] I was like, “A mission for what?!” He goes, “Well, you know—you, you know, we—you know—you need a mission statement to say what you do and how you do it, and why you’re doing it, so that people can understand what you’re doing.

Williams: [00:29:16] It could be like, you know, “We are not going to be the flunkies of the city, and we’re not going to tolerate this and that.” You know, he was explaining to me the wording and how to put the wording together. And he put the wording together, and he says, “No race, no color, no creed… ” Bu-buh-buh—all that, he put… So, he said that… And then I said, “Okay, and we’re not going to be the… The—whipping boy”—oh—

Lewis: The shopping cart pushing…

Williams: Yeah, “Refugees of the street.”

Lewis: Mm-hmmm

Williams: Yeah. And so… Yes, he wrote it! Did I sign it? I don’t think he had me sign it. I don't know if he did. No, I don't think we signed it. I don't know.

Lewis: I have it.

Williams: I don't know if we signed it.

Lewis: So, I will find it.

Williams: Yeah you’ll find it and…

Lewis: Because I have it; I have it in my—

Williams: But, so anyway, yeah… So, it was written. He wrote it. We wrote it. We wrote it. So… Wow.

Williams: [00:30:26] So then… So, I think he says—you know, “Come with me to CHARAS.” I said, “All right.” So, I went down there with him, and he introduced me to Chino. And that’s when Chino said, “Do you mind if a friend of mine—she’s a woman, she’s interested in coming to your meeting. Would you mind if she came?” I said, “No. I don’t mind. Do you mind, Lou?” He goes, “No.” He said, “Okay.”

Williams: [00:30:57] Now, Steve Loff—who is a film guy, heard us on WBAI. Well, it wasn’t him, it was his girl that heard us, and said, “You’ve got to hook up with these guys. And I got a phone number, because Anthony left a phone number, you know—on WBAI, how to reach him.” And guess who the phone number was from? Jennifer’s phone number, 475-688… So anyway, [laughs] so, I get a call! I get messages, and sure enough, you know, “I want to meet with you guys.”

Williams: [00:31:35] So, Steve Loff comes, and he says, “Can I come to your meeting?” So now we got you, we got Steve Loff, that wants to film and interview, then [laughs] we got Lewis and another guy, and your son… And we set up all those chairs. [Laughs]

Lewis: It was about thirty—it was a big circle. [Smiles]

Williams: [00:32:08] Right, and I’m—and so—again, I felt—I didn’t know how to feel, but it was kind of disappointing. I felt kind of disappointed. And I felt like, “Dag, man, like—you know—wow. They don’t care? This room should be full of homeless people! Right? This room should be packed with homeless people, and we only got like four people…,” Or—you know what I mean. Like, it was like—

Lewis: Who weren’t homeless. [Smiles]

Williams: [00:32:45] Who weren’t… [Laughter] Except the one guy who was talking about how his shelter was, and then Lou said, “Hey, we’re here to change the system. We understand your plight, but we’re here to change the system.” And I think that’s what got you.

Lewis: That’s got me. I’ll never forget that.

Williams: And I’m talking about my life, and you’re asking me questions. [Laughs] And so, so we finish that meeting, and we leave—sorry.

INTERRUPTION: Mic was tangled up,

Williams: Oh, it’s got to be up?

Lewis: I just don’t want it to rub on your shirt.

Williams: Oh, okay.

Lewis: There.

Williams: [00:33:24] So, we—so much happened, now that I look back. So, we—so, anyway… After the mission statement was written, after the contract we did with CHARAS, he asked me a question. He says to me, “What do you think about Sharpton?” I said, “You mean the guy that uses the nigger word, the n-word all the time?” I said, “Yeah, he uses the nigger word all the time. I don't know. It’s not my—you know.”

Williams: [00:34:06] He goes, “Let me show you something.” And he showed me the National Action Network brochure. He says, “What don’t you see on this brochure? Anything about homelessness.” He goes, “Would you like to come with me to the National Action Network and meet the Rev?” And I was like, “Okay. Okay, let’s see where we’re going to go with this.”

Williams: [00:34:43] So, we… So, we go to National Action Network on Madison—and so, I’m sitting next to Lewis. Donna Lamb and Brent [Buell] is behind us, but we don’t know who they are.

Lewis: Oh!

Williams: We don’t know who they are, but they’re behind us.

Lewis: Mm-hmmm. That’s when you met them?

Williams: Yeah, but they were sitting behind us.

Williams: [00:35:04] [Laughs] So, me and Lewis was talking about Picture the Homeless. Then the Rev walks in, says, “Lewis Haggins! He started out with us in Brooklyn with the watermelons being thrown at us, in… ” [Laughs] What is it—Ozone Park, out there, somewhere... You know where the racists—where the kid got ran over running away from—

Lewis: Crown Heights?

Williams: Well, running away from—the Italian neighborhood over there.

Lewis: Michael Stewart?

Williams: Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis: That was on the train?

Williams: Yeah.

Lewis: That was on the train—when he got off the train? Okay…

Williams: Well, he was running, and he got… Yeah. So—and I knew his dad. His dad was part of the National Action Network—got to know him. He was there, Stewart, yep.

Williams: And so—so yeah, Sharpton goes, “Oh, there’s Lewis Haggins! He started out with us.” I was like, wow.

Williams: [00:36:16] And I said to him, I said, “What did you do?” He goes, “Ah, I just did outreach, and did some investigative stuff, and you know—we did some organizing work, and you know—getting people to—you know… ” He mentioned Tawana Brawley, and these different reverends that was working with the Rev, and he said, “By the way, Anthony, she was raped.” He was very adamant about that. And I was like, “I’m not sure about that.” He goes, “Anthony. She was raped.” I said, “Okay. We’ll leave it at that. I’m not going to, you know—get into that discussion about Tawana Brawley.” “But” he says, “but I want you to know, when it comes up, I want you to know, and I’m telling you, so that you know, that she was raped, regardless what anybody says, okay? She was taken to Reverend Jones’s church, and that’s where he had a doctor do—or to perform the… ” I guess they call it a paps—what is it?
 
Lewis: An exam.

Williams: [00:37:35] Exam. So. And he was very adamant about it… And—so, he knew Teresa Ballard! He knew she was _crazy _and wild, and doing stuff with—but he knew that. He was like, “Well, let’s get involved here, Anthony.” And he said, “I want to meet with—I want you to meet with me and the Rev.” And so, I said, “Okay.” I don’t know if you came to that first meeting or not.

Lewis: No, you guys went, and you told me about it.

Williams: [00:38:14] Right. So, we met with the Rev, and he says, “Yeah! Head it up. You guys, take it and run with it.” But we still had to deal with Teresa, [makes sound of disgust, then laughs] which—you see… And you know how that went, so… A coup, I guess? I want to say it… I don't know, but…[smiles]

Williams: [00:38:30] So, anyway, she was… So, but I think—so what happened was, because… What’s his name? The Martin Luther King Day of Action—was that some squatters and I forget the guy’s name, but… He was the one in the building, occupying the abandoned property, bringing it to light with the media there, to talk about abandoned properties, and that we’re doing this on Martin Luther King’s birthday to show that, you know—we are going to take over this building, and dedicate it to Martin Luther King. And so, we’re outside. They’re inside. They already planned to be inside, and I think they had Teresa Ballard involved. It was a whole organized thing, and with the Lower East Side, and D.A.N. [Direct Action Network], and a few  other folks.

Williams: [00:39:48] So, they had it all chained up and everything in the building, and—to hold it down, and then me and Lewis were outside—Picture the Homeless. So, I’m standing outside, and he goes—so he starts bring the media to me—like, “You got to talk to him—him! See that guy there? You got to talk to him. “Talk to him? Well, who is he?” He said, “Well he’s—he’s you know—he’s with Picture the Homeless! He’s one of the guys that you need to talk to. You need to hear from him.” And I talked about the significance of abandoned property, and about homelessness, and how like—you know—we need housing, right? And people saw me talking. So, it made several channels that evening. And so, the guys at Bellevue saw me talking on TV, you know. [Laughs] They saw me, you know—and it wasn’t the first time… They saw me several times after that, but…

Williams: [00:41:00] So, Lewis was basically… He knew—he understood starting an organization, organizing an organization, and with his skills with outreach and media, and bringing and taking your story, just like with Stewart’s story—like with the people that were affected by the killings, the Amadou Diallo’s, and the Patrick Dorismonds. Well, that’s the kind of stuff Lou was doing with the National Action Network, you know?
 
Williams: [00:41:47] In the beginning, when he started with the Rev with the jogging suit and the medallion, that’s where they started at, and, you know—Lou used to babysit for Sharpton—he used to babysit his daughters, you know—for the Rev, and he knew his wife then. So, he told me about all this, and he says, “You know Anthony, you know—I did a lot of work with the Rev, and I did a lot of behind-the-scenes work with the Rev to create the National Action Network.” And I was like, wow.  
 
Williams: [00:42:31] So it wasn’t… So now, I was able to see him—not as a drunk that I met in a detox—but as somebody that, for whatever reason, had power, knew how to use power, and knew how to get things done! Like, you know—I could never have done that! I mean, I could’ve just heard on a radio about Paris Drake, and it just went by me, just like when the cops beat up the homeless in the shelter. _It bothered me, but I don’t have any power! _

Williams: [00:43:24] How, you know—how do I bring attention to this? I never did it before! I don't know how to go and talk to newspapers, and go to the Voice, and go to WBAI, and go to WBLS… And he knew all these people! Not just those people, but he knew Beady… He knew people… He knew the guy that owned the Cotton Club! He knew people that owned the Apollo… [Percy Ellis] Sutton! He knew these people.

Williams: [00:43:54] And what he said to me was, “We need an office space… I know someone who has an office space, Nellie Bailey. She’d be willing to let us use her office space.” And I… I—it was—and we would go visit her, but it wasn’t really—I mean, she was really doing a lot of housing stuff, like with the community stuff. But I think… And I don’t want to jump too far ahead.

Williams: [00:44:25] But I want to—so, the mission statement we wrote in the shelter, the waiver we did in the shelter, and the outreach we did in the shelter, and caught hell for it… And retaliation from the City Department of Homeless Services was to send them both to Bellevue. “Get them out of our hair, because they’re creating a stir.”

Lewis: To Bellevue, or Camp LaGuardia?

Williams: [00:44:55] No, Bellevue. Well… They were going to transfer us to Camp LaGuardia, but because of the havoc we were wreaking in Bellevue. We was bringing a lot of attention—there. We was—we, you now… Patrick Markee ended up showing there. It was like, a lot of… We brought a lot of attention to that 950-bed shelter—with the radio interviews, with the media interviews with the Martin Luther King, and...

Williams: [00:45:33] So, yeah… So, Lewis was able to bring something like—I think it’s—it’s something he had. He even told me one time he was like a… he was into putting together music, something around music, doing music engineering stuff, along with the stuff he did with the National Action Network.

Lewis: And he got royalties from some songs that he wrote.

Williams: [00:46:02] Right… And, so, we… So, he says, “Anthony. Don’t mention that we met in a detox.” [Pause] “Fine, we met at Bellevue.” [Pause] Until I met his sister, and she said, “Anthony, you should tell that story.” I said, “But Lou didn’t want me to...” But she said—and she said to me, “But he was getting help. People need to know that. He was getting help, Anthony.” I said, “I know, but he said… I’m just telling you what he told me, and I just wanted to run it past you.” And she goes, “You should tell it. He was getting help.” Even his dad said he looked better—better than when he was at home. Because that’s how bad alcoholism had… He looked better in New York City—when his father saw him in New York City doing stuff in the media and stuff. He said, “He looks better, he looked much better than when he was here.” You know, and…

Williams: [00:47:43] So… Lewis was also doing outreach, on the Lower East Side. Not just with CHARAS, but with Aresh [Javadi]. He was hanging out in a frog down there on Sixth Street, in this iron frog that the guerilla—what is it?

Lewis: Green Guerillas?

Williams: Yeah, yeah the Green Guerillas.

Lewis: The Esperanza Garden.

Williams: [00:48:09] Yeah, the Esperanza Garden folks—wow. And he goes, “Ant, you’ve got to come check this out. They got a laptop up there, and you go in there, and you climb up there, and they’re holding down this garden.” And I went up there, and it was like, wow. It was like wow.

Williams: [00:48:30] But this is about green space… But it was important somehow… To talk about green space, homelessness, and housing—and align them together somehow, which was hard. It wasn’t an easy sell. I mean, I don't think it was, but we did it. I don't know how we did it, but we did it. Because we were able to do a press conference, with the Green Guerillas, with the garden folks, and talk about, you know—the bulldozing of a garden, and space, but also no affordable housing. You want to build luxury housing. That’s what it was! You want to knock down a garden to build luxury housing, but you’re not building housing for low-income people! You’re building luxury housing.

Williams: [00:49:32]_ So,_ we’re not for that. We’re totally not for developers bulldozing gardens for luxury housing. If they want to build housing for affordable, for folks that are homeless, then we’re all for that, but no, we’re not for you bulldozing a garden! So that’s what I talked about in a press conference, with Aresh and them and we talked about homelessness, and they talked about—you know, and standing in front of bulldozers.

Williams: [00:50:09] And we had a…  So, not only did Lewis have a relationship with Aresh, he had a relationship with Michael Shenker,

Lewis: Mm-hmmm.

Williams: and he had a relationship with Tobocman.

Lewis: Seth.

Williams: Seth Tobocman, he had a relationship with Seth and Mike. So, and what was the other… There was another kid there too that was going to N.Y.U. He—

Lewis: Ben Shephard?

Williams: [Pause] Maybe.

Lewis: He’s a professor now. And he was involved with Esperanza Garden, and Tim Doody,

Williams: Oh.

Lewis: I think was involved with that.

Williams: [00:50:53] Yeah. And there was another guy that was also involved with Picture the Homeless, from the food and dumpster diving, the—what is it called?

Lewis: Food Not Bombs?

Williams: Food Not Bombs, right.

Williams: [00:51:08] So, Lewis was already linked… So, he had these linkages with the community on the Lower East Side, and the organizing efforts, but he was taking the homeless issue, along with the housing issue and the bulldozing of the gardens, and bringing us all together, and then, the ultimate was the squatters. Because they told me, “We want to help you guys take over buildings. We’ll show you how to do it.” And I was like, “What?!” They go, “This is what we’ve been waiting for. We’ve been waiting for this! We want to show you… “ Seth was like—they all were like, “This is what we’ve been waiting for, the homeless. We want to open up buildings for the homeless. [Laughs] We want to open up space for the homeless! We want… ”

Lewis: That’s the uprising.

Williams: [00:52:11] “We need people to do that! You know, not just the white kids that are squatters on the Lower East Side.” Although they fought three administrations and got a lot of scars. What was her name? G.O.L.E.S. [Good Old Lower East Side, Inc.], what’s her name? She told me she had a lot of scars… Spanish lady, that worked for G.O.L.E.S.

Lewis: Damaris [Reyes]?

Williams: Yeah! She passed away?

Lewis: Oh no! Carmen passed away.

Williams: Carmen! Carmen.

Lewis: And her husband, Alfredo, plays the flute.

Williams: Carmen.

Lewis: Mm-hmmm.

Williams: [00:52:39] So, Carmen used to talk to me. I used to always go to G.O.L.E.S. I don't know, I got hooked with them. I don't know. But anyway, I liked them a lot, and she would talk to me about the scars. She goes, “Anthony, I have a lot of scars, from squatting.” And I didn’t understand what she meant, then—until I started doing it. Then I realized—the scars. I didn’t know what she meant by scars, because it’s a lot of… It’s a lot involved... It’s personality, people—I mean, habits, everything... It’s—you get hurt. You—I fell through roofs... Cut my hands up, you know... So, I—you know… You put yourself in a lot of dangerous situations through squatting. And you know it’s—until you get it to where you want it to be, it’s a lot of hard work. But I don’t want to talk…

Williams: [00:53:41] But so Lewis… What Lewis was doing was organizing people, right—with the skills he had with creating the National Action Network, with top leaders of the community, and also leadership within the Black religious community. And because of Sharpton, and James Brown, he was able—he did a lot of work with the Black community when it came to police brutality, and he did a lot of work on that with the National Action Network. And so, he started introducing [laughs] me to—he introduced me to Jesse Jackson, his sons. He introduced me to Martin Luther King, III.

Williams: [00:54:40] I mean… So, [pause] So, I think what was hard, I guess, was understanding Lewis, but then, you know—also feeling a bit embarrassed sometimes, because of his drinking. And every time there was an issue, someone would come to me and say, “Hey man, your friend, man, what’s up with him, man? He’s drinking.” And I’m like, “Stop! Don’t.” You know what I mean? It’s, “Stop, like don’t—you know what I mean—like, stop telling me, you know. I know. I mean, you know—it’s a struggle. Like, we’re struggling! We’re struggling! It’s, it’s, it’s… you know—but don’t… “
 
Williams: [00:55:36] And I think the _worst _thing is… So, when we got involved with, and Lewis warned me about the Aesthetic Realism [Foundation] folks, Donna Lamb, and Brent. So, we’re in front, so, we’re at the National Action Network, they’re behind us. So, they hear me and Lewis talking, and then Donna Lamb puts her ear in and goes, “I heard you on the radio! Can I write you a check?” [Laughs] “Yeah! Let’s right him a check!” You know…

Williams: [00:56:13] And I was like, “Well… ” and then Lou was like, “Well let me talk to Michael.” You know Michael, the lawyer for Sharpton.

Lewis: Michael Hardy—we used to live in the same building on Fourth Street.

Williams: Yeah. Michael Hardy, and he goes—

Lewis: We were neighbors.

Williams: “Well let’s talk to Michael Hardy.” I said, “All right.” [Laughs] And he said, “Yeah, it’s okay. Long as it’s not over five-hundred dollars, you’re good.” So, but anyway—so, they were ecstatic. She was like, “Wow!” And so, so we started getting these—I started getting a following, but Lou was very adamant about, “Do not talk about Aesthetic Realism. Don’t mention it.” And I did it anyway, but—I did it. I did the deed… And I was coached by them to do it.

Lewis: So—

Williams: [00:57:03] But because of Michael Stoops’ relationship with Aesthetic Realism, he wasn’t that all happy about them, but that he understood what Eli Siegel did with the photos of homelessness—sorry—of homelessness. You know? And Michael Stoops, like, “Why you always have those people, Michael, there?” He says that “Well, because they’re Aesthetic Realism and they support homelessness, you know—they support us, and you know...” And so, I got to know—yeah.

Williams: [00:57:47] So, he was already… So, Lewis was not for Aesthetic Realism at all, and I think that… Getting caught up in a cult, again, it’s the same scenario—being overwhelmed by doctrine, and not standing up for yourself, which is the lesson I learned, you know. If someone tells you, “Don’t, it’s not a good idea to do that.” You should listen, and I didn’t listen to him, and he was mad at me about that, but he didn’t hold it against me. But he told me, he was like, “I told you not to mention that.” And I said, “Yes, I know.”

Williams: [00:58:38] But we went on, with that. And we… So, Bellevue was getting intense…  They were threatening to send Lewis to Camp LaGuardia, and he just kept ignoring the notes. But they didn’t leave me a note. They came and got me. Security came, [laughs] they said, “You’re getting out of the shelter tonight and you’re going to Bellevue [Camp LaGuardia].” There was no avoiding notes. Lewis was getting these warnings.

Lewis: The twenty-four-hour transfer—

Williams: Yes.

Lewis: —letters thing?

Williams: [00:59:18] But, they came directly and got me. They came and like, “Hey.” And I said, “Lewis, what we going to do, man? I can’t be here tonight. I’m going to Camp LaGuardia.” He goes, “No you’re not! We’re leaving together.” [Laughs] I said, “Okay! You ready?” I said, “Yeah!” He says, “Yeah, I’m ready.” I said, “Okay. Let’s go do this. Let’s go… Let’s go.” And that, _the next day, man, was the roughest. _
_ _
Williams: [00:59:49] So, we went and talked to Chino, me, and Lewis, and we were kicked out of the shelter. We had slept in SoHo the night before—

Lewis: Where?

Williams: went over to the Bowery Mission to eat, and then from there, we went over to CHARAS. And Chino… So, we went to the Catholic church across from CHARAS. What’s the name of that church?

Lewis: [Holy] Trinity [Church], and next to it was Saint Brigid’s.

Williams: So, we went to Trinity. Me and Lewis went to Trinity, and they turned us away, and I was pissed. I was pissed. I was like, “Why!? Aren’t they supporters for CHARAS? Aren’t they like this, that, what?” You know?

Williams: [01:00:40] Anyway, so we go into CHARAS, and then Chino says, “Hey! What about Judson [Memorial Church]? Why don’t you go check out Judson?” And then I was like, “Fuck them churches!” You know what I mean? Like, “Fuck them. I’m not going, I’m not, no. Fuck it, I’m done.” And Lou was like, “Anthony, we got to go to Judson. We have to go talk to them.” I said, “No, I don’t have to talk to them.” And I said, “I’ll walk over there with you, but I’m not going in that church to talk to them.” He goes, “All right—I’ll be back.”

Williams: [01:01:19] So he went in. [Laughs] He went in the church and talked to Peter Laarman. And he came back out, and said, “Anthony! They want to meet with us. The reverend wants to meet with you.” [Pauses] I was like, “Hell no, I don’t want to meet with him.” He goes, “Anthony, come on Ant.” You know, I mean… He really—he was like, “Hey, I need you to come and talk to him. We need you to talk to him. I need you to talk to the Rev, to Reverend Peter Laarman. He wants to hear what we have to say. So, we should at least let him hear us out. Okay?”

Williams: [01:02:00] And I said, “Okay.” [Pause] Peter Laarman looked at me as the weaker one and looked at Lewis as the stronger one. For whatever reason… He pegged Lewis as the stronger, although he listened to what I was saying about the homeless and the plight of the homeless.

Williams: [01:02:32] He said, “Okay, let’s do a vigil—for you guys—you know, for going up to Camp LaGuardia.” [Sighs] I was still overwhelmed with that. I was still… I was like, “Wow. Wow.” Then you came, that day, right? We were out there for—

Lewis: Mm-hmm.

Williams: how long, twenty-four hours?

Lewis: Twenty-four hours.

Williams: Yeah.

Lewis: Angie [Hernandez] came.

Williams: Angie came.

Lewis: We had made flyers—

Williams: Yeah, was giving it to people.

Lewis: It was still cold.

Williams: Yeah, it was cold, and we were staying… So, they left the door open so we can go inside and lay down and get warm.

Lewis: [01:03:16] So, the meeting at CHARAS, the first meeting, was on January 20, [2000] and I don't think that Judson twenty-four-hour vigil was much longer after that, because it was still cold.

Williams: Right, it was still cold.

Lewis: [01:03:33] And then the meetings at the National Action Network were happening at the same time.

Williams: Hmmm.

Lewis: But it was a committee of National Action Network, not Picture the Homeless, per se.

Williams: Right, right, right. And, so, that was… I think getting involved with Lewis and the National Action Network—I wasn’t really happy with that. Picture the Homeless was different. It was something different. It wasn’t—I would, you know—I would call you my secretary. I’d  say, “That is my secretary. That’s my secretary. She’s great! That’s my secretary.” [Laughs] And he goes, “Man, I haven’t seen notes like that, ever!” [Laughs] You know, your writings were very important to him. I mean, he saw the potential in what you were doing. He did see it, Sharpton.

Lewis: I still have the minutes from those National Action Network meetings.

Williams: Wow. Really?

Lewis: It’s all going in here in the archive.

Williams: Wow!

Lewis: I still have the minutes.

Williams: Wow. So… But I wasn’t there to raise money for a homeless committee. That wasn’t what we were there for

Lewis: Yeah.

Williams: Although that’s what they pushed, that’s what they pushed at us. “Well, you guys got to do some fundraisers. We got to raise money.” But I knew that raising money wouldn’t be for the homeless. It would be for other reasons, beyond. I just knew that it wouldn’t—that’s not why we were there. And I had a thing of trying to keep things pure that way.

Williams: [01:05:39] Then Lou would always say to me, “So, I know Beady. I know Percy Sutton. I know all these folks. I know Adam Clayton Powell, Junior.” You know, he knew all these folks, right, and he said, “We could get a space up in Harlem, and we can get money and support, Anthony.” I said, “No.” He goes, “What do you mean, no?” “I said no, I just… “ I said, “Because, remember the sixty million, that Baltimore City got for the homeless, right?” He says, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, that’s the reason. There’s plenty money for the homeless, it’s just that it’s not—it’s just misdirected. It’s not for the homeless. It’s just misdirected.

Williams: [01:06:32] And I need to know more about it. I don’t understand sixty million dollars and raising money for the homeless when [laughs] the homeless don’t even see the money. I see a shelter bed and a locker, but—I see the… I didn’t even know about the CoC [Continuum of Care], either, until we went—met you, met up with you! Then we were able to figure out, that’s when… I think Lou asked you, or I asked you about the sixty million. Something—but it came up, and you would say, “Yes, oh, I know where. I know...” You were like—you had all this paperwork! [Laughs]

Lewis: [01:07:11] You guys, after January 20, that first meeting, you guys were talking about… So, you came over to dinner

Williams: Okay.

Lewis: in Brooklyn, where I was living in Brooklyn, and you said you wanted to write a letter to the executive directors of all of these agencies

Williams: Mm-hmmm.

Lewis: and tell them what was going on. And I… But the caseworkers didn’t share that information of who these people were, and I said, “I have the names of the executive directors of all the groups…” Because of the work I was doing on the Continuum of Care. And then you all were looking at me like, well who are you that you have that, and like—you know those people? [Smiles] And I had a filing cabinet in my room, a big, heavy filing cabinet.

Lewis: [01:08:06] And so we started writing. You guys started just naming all these different issues that you wanted to bring up.

Williams: Mm-hmmm.

Lewis: [01:08:14] And that was the year that Giuliani had… Violated the order that—the Continuum of Care assigns groups in terms of gaps and needs,

Williams: Yep.

Lewis: And, so, he didn’t like the Coalition for the Homeless and Housing Works, so he knocked them down.

Williams: Right.

Lewis: And then Cuomo was head of H.U.D. and he threatened to not give New York any money. And then, in the Federal Register, I had showed you guys where it said homeless people are supposed to be part of this,

Williams: Yes!

Lewis: and so, we went to that meeting, and Lewis spoke. And I don't think he ever was really involved after that. You took it on. You took it on because of the business—how homelessness is a business, and you were like, “People need to know this!” And you took it on.

Lewis: [01:09:07] And then we did those teach-ins in CHARAS with New York City AIDS Housing Network,

Williams: Yeah!

Lewis: And Coalition was provided tokens

Williams: Oh, okay.

Lewis: and we did teach-ins to people about that money,

Williams: Mm-hmmm.

Lewis: and how they had a right to weigh in on… So that was kind of also happening in that

Williams: Wow.

Lewis: [01:09:32] Spring of 2000.

Williams: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that was a lot. Now that I think back, I’m like, wow. Yeah, because you took me to the hearing, and Rita Zimmerman—

Lewis: Women in Need.

Williams: Women in Need.

Lewis: Yes, and you got a bunch of business cards you had from people,

Williams: Yeah.

Lewis: and I—

Williams: [01:10:54] I’ve still got a bunch of business cards. Look! [Laughter] I haven’t stopped! It’s like when I came here? This is all Continuum of Care shit. Like this, the business cards, and all these… You know, yeah—I got it. I got them all. I got the state, the I.C…. So anyway, it’s—Lewis taught me that. That was one thing he said, “Anthony, get business cards. Get their card.”

Lewis: [01:10:22] Well, what’s interesting… When you—if you were there as a client, they wouldn’t talk to you, right? You wouldn’t even be in the room. But being there representing Picture the Homeless, you’re a… All of a sudden, you’re a stakeholder.

Williams: Right.

Lewis: Right? But then, they didn’t expect you to be a homeless guy, [smiles] right? Because you have the other homeless advocacy groups but they’re not homeless people.
 
Williams: Right.

Lewis: [01:10:52] And then Patrick Markee, I remember, telling you and Lewis, like, “We got this.” Like, don’t worry—we got this. Don’t worry about it, like… And so those were all kind of steps along the way.

Williams: Mm-hmmm.

Lewis: [01:11:08] But you built a relationship with Judson, and that’s how Picture the Homeless got office space there.

Williams: right.

Lewis: But before we… Before you tell that story, talk about the other places, the spaces that Picture the Homeless met, where we had meetings in.

Williams: [01:11:28] So, being that—I would… So, I had like a twenty-year relationship with Jennifer Roberts, and she was a bartender, and she was bartending at the Downtown Beirut One, and the DB2, Downtown Beirut Two, and then she worked at the I-Bar, the International, on First Avenue and Seventh Street.

Williams: [01:12:01] So, me and Lewis would meet up between Bellevue and between B.R.C., and we would set our office up, [laughs] in the I-Bar, at the I-Bar. I wasn’t drinking—then, but we would meet there, and we would use the payphone, and you know—to talk to Steve, you know—he would contact us there, and other people would contact us. So that was a contact, and through Jennifer’s phone number, the 475 number, that was when we were able to get contacts with other folks, and they could reach me and leave messages. But our first office space [laughs] was basically the International, and then—

Lewis: [01:13:03] And there was a bartender there that was her niece, and—

Williams: Rena!

Lewis: —we talked about doing a website, and we drew a picture on a napkin.

Williams: Yeah, uh-huh, Rena.

Lewis: And I think she set up the first

Williams: She did.

Lewis: domain name, but then we didn’t have the information, and we lost contact or something?

Williams: Yeah. She worked for very wealthy Viacom.

Lewis: Mm-hmmm.

Williams: Then she ended up moving to Europe and getting married, and she worked for another bigger conglomerate. But she worked for big people like that, Viacom, and stuff, so. But she was cool, she was great. She was like my sister, in a way—Rena, and she was like, “I’ll do… Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it for you! Don’t worry about it Anthony… I’ll… ” And she did it. She did. She got us started, anyway—with the page and something else, but I didn’t understand it. And we got our first computer from ABC No Rio

Lewis: Yep.

Williams: I went and picked that up.

Lewis: That was hot.

Williams: Yeah. [Laughs]

Williams: [01:14:13] And—so also, we met in parks. We met in Tompkins Square Park, me, and Lewis. We met… in a—trying to think of other places.

Lewis: There’s a Wendy’s, I remember on Broadway

Williams: Uh-huh.

Lewis: near Bond

Williams: Yeah!

Lewis: where we met a couple times with folks.

Williams: Yep, yes.

Lewis: But it’s pretty hectic in there. CHARAS, we used to have meetings there.

Williams: [01:14:50] Yep. Yeah. And—so, our success with our first meeting flourished at CHARAS, because we were able to have a room full, a whole, full—remember that room that we had, with all those chairs, but only four people?

Lewis: And they were in a circle, and it was like an art space,

Williams: Mm-hmm.

Lewis: and there were paintings around. But then the teach-in meetings were in a different room.

Williams: Mm-hmm. And then when we had the vote for the Continuum of Care, that’s when—

Lewis: It was full.

Williams: —it really filled the place up, with homeless folks, and formerly homeless folks. And—

Lewis: [01:15:43] What did it take to make _that _happen, so that all those people came? What do you think made that happen? What are the things, because of course, no one thing?

Williams: Wow... So, Lewis was falling in, and out at that point, I think. He was staying in tune—in touch, but I started getting more involved with the Continuum of Care. And I think—so, New York City AIDS and Housing Network, and Housing Works, you that whole thing, the legal thing, and me attending those meetings with the CoC… And I kept telling you how, “This sucks, why you got me doing this shit?” Right, basically? I was like, “Man! I’ve got to be at this...” But then, I caught on though! Somehow it clicked—because you told me I need to be there. “You need to be there.” You said, “Anthony, you need to be there. You cannot [not] be there. [Laughs] You need to be there, because you’re homeless, and you need…” You know what I mean? Like, I think you were—you know, you…

Williams: [01:17:01] So, what made it click was that… I was able to talk about… I was able to talk to the service providers, and I was able to talk to them about homelessness that doesn’t—that really had nothing to do with [laughs] what they were doing, in a lot of ways. Like, they didn’t want to talk about gaps and needs analysis.

Lewis: Uh-huh.

Williams: But when I learned from you about the gaps and needs analysis, I said, “Well this isn’t what we’re talking about. You’re talking about gaps in the system. We’re talking about gaps and needs in your programs, and in the individual realm of people dealing with services. That’s the gaps and needs, not the organizational, financial gap and need, no. We’re talking about the lives of people, and the situations of people in your system.” Wow. Well put, huh? [Smiles]

Lewis: Yep!

Williams: So, anyway, and it still carries to this day.

Williams: [01:18:21] So, I, you know—and it happened because… It wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the lawsuit. But that opened up—it opened up possibilities—of organizing in a bigger way, through the Continuum of Care. We were able to say, “So, the VENDEX [Vendor Exchange System], that agency that was supposed to do the proper reporting for the CoC… ” So anyway, the VENDEX wasn’t really on the level—and so, at one—so King, Charles King, would always come to the meetings, and argue with the commissioner—right, about the VENDEX.

Williams: [01:19:30] And so, I said something like, “Well… We need a separate—we need…”  
I said something like, “We need our own committee here.” And I was talking in riddles about it, but I wasn’t really connecting the words, but I was talking about us doing it ourselves and having our own _control _of these meetings, right? And being able to give _our _input and give our reasoning and our voices to this process. And then Charles King said, “Oh! I got it!” He goes, “Consumer Advisory Board. Like, let’s put together all the populations and we’ll have our own meetings, and we’ll create our own bylaws.” Man! Yes, we—and what was that firm?

Lewis: Oh God.

Williams: You know what I’m talking about? Buch—what is it? It was these two gay guys that started this whole—

Lewis: I can’t remember,

Lewis: [01:20:55] but it’s another example of what we were talking about yesterday—when you win something, how that the system still corrupts it. [Laughs]

Williams: Yes!

Lewis: So, it was a way for them to keep control.

Williams: Right, right.

Lewis: But it was still progress.

Williams: What was that guy’s name? Anyway, he had a lot of respect for me, though… I can’t remember… But anyway—so, the consultants, they were the consultants—sorry—

Lewis: It’s okay.

Williams: —for the CoC.

Lewis: —brushing. There.

Williams: [01:21:30] So, they were the consultants to the CoC. I guess… The name is right on the tip of my tongue. So, they were the consultants that put together the Consumer Advisory Committee, and they put together the legal documents for our bylaws. [Sighs] It started off very powerful. We were very strong in the beginning. We were very strong. We had power. We had backup. We had backing with the AIDS and the folks with the AIDS, and we also had all the populations represented. Right? We had every population represented that was homeless on that committee.

Williams: [01:22:26] And… Again—so we bring folks… So, homeless folks was getting picked off, by the service providers, like Neal, right? You know, the light-skinned guy. What was his name?

Lewis: Yeah.

Williams: Neal, right? Very smart guy, right—but was homeless.

Lewis: Mm-hmm.

Williams: Well, you know—of course, they would… So, they started picking off—so every time we got people part of the Consumer Advisory Board, and the folks that were, you know… [unclear] I have to even use that word. But anyway, they would get picked off.

Lewis: Yep.

Williams: and…

Lewis: So, talk about the ways, like, did they get jobs, or—

Williams: [01:23:20] Yeah. So, I think… So, remember, [Warren] Prince’s thing was, “These motherfuckers sit around in your office and don’t do shit, right? And then they get jobs, right?” So… What we did was good! We were able to organize homeless people and get them involved in a process. So, every leader that we had that was decent or strong, they took. Either D.H.S. [New York City Department of Homeless Services] took them, or either service providers [laughs] offered them something more—you know. And I don’t think…

Williams: [01:24:08] So, Harriet [Karr-McDonald], fucking crazy Harriet [laughs] from Ready, Willing & Able, the Doe Fund, she was nuts, and the Coalition for the Homeless was nuts, and Housing Works was—they seemed all right. New York City AIDS and Housing Network seemed all right, but those were… But they had different fights going on because of the AIDS epidemic and the crisis with the AIDS, and that’s when we had problems—excuse me—that’s when we had to get to—come to some conclusion in our Wednesday meetings, and we invited Joe Capestany to talk to our folks, because our folks were very adamant about people with AIDS getting the upper hand, or getting the—housing before, because they’re sick.

Lewis: Right, well, and that’s how supportive housing is set up, right? So, that’s something that people are always mad about. They’ll say, “Well, I don’t have AIDS. I’m not mentally ill. I’m just poor.”

Williams: And “I’m not chronic.”

Lewis: I’m not chronic.

Williams: See? Same, yeah.

Lewis: Exactly what we were talking about yesterday, the funding goes—it goes to people based on what’s wrong with them, as opposed to, “You’re poor? You need low rent? Here’s some housing.” It’s like you were saying, they were kicking over the homeless crisis issue in Baltimore to the Department of Health

Williams: Yes!

Lewis: as opposed to housing. [Laughter]

Williams: Yes, right.

Lewis: And so that was always the tension, is that, why should any particular group get more than another group everybody should have?

Williams: [01:26:01] Right. Great. And so—so with all these different groups, we started discovering a lot. We were able—we discovered so… Wow. We discovered so many issues, and so many things wrong with the way the system was operating. Wow. And you know, we were able to address… In a strong way, we had a voice in that process.

Williams: [01:26:39] But what tends to happen with leadership—there’s folks that are leaders that continue to be leaders, and go to other places and lead, but then there’s are people that kind of like… They’re not really leaders, they’re just there—a bump. They’re just there. Like they, “Oh! I’m on this committee.” Okay, fine, but what are you doing on the fucking committee? You’re just on it. “Oh, I’m on the Continuum of Care!” Yeah, but what are you doing?

Lewis: Yep.

Williams: [01:27:10] So, there’s folks that we have that is only there, like, you know—the perks, like John Rhodes, and you know—I’m not saying… I mean, he did some things, but really, overall, he just was for the perks, right? Go to San Francisco, go travel to—any kind of perk, you know. So, I’m not knocking—that. Like, we need to show that we have homeless folks involved.

Williams: [01:27:45] To what degree of involvement… And I think one of the things that I remember… I was so fucked up back then—but I remember [laughs] going to Washington, and we brought a bunch of folks from New York, [laughs] and we all raided the refrigerators. [Laughs] We popped all the locks on the refrigerators and drunk all the booze and stuff. And I—
you know, and so, I felt—I felt bad, because I was like, you know, “Damn, wait a minute… We went to a conference, but like, you know—we probably cost them thousands of dollars, right—for—you know, like the stuff we did, you know...

Williams: [01:28:32] So… So, I could see a lot of things in organizing and working—can get skewed, or get… I think the—you know, we have leaders, right—we have leaders that really put work in and do the work, and then we have folks that really are there because they’re the numbers, and they’re just showing that, you know, “Yes, I agree with what they’re saying, and...” And that’s important too! So, I can’t—so, we can’t take away from the folks that don’t do shit—versus the folks that do do shit in the organization. They’re both needed.

Lewis: Yep.

Williams: And it’s very important to have both, because, you know—we don’t want leaders just standing up saying they’re leaders. We also want people to show that, “Look, we don’t understand all this, but we support our leaders.”

Lewis: [01:29:40] What do you think… Can you think of an example where, in the early days of Picture the Homeless, there was somebody who wasn’t doing much, and that they took—they stepped up and took a leadership role?

Williams: Yeah! I just have to think about it, but yes! There were a few… Because you get these surprises, like, wait a minute… [Laughs] You know, like—let me think. See, Emily [Givens] was always outspoken.

Lewis: You read my mind.

Williams: Hmm?

Lewis: You read my mind; that’s who I was thinking—

Williams: So, Emily [pause] again, it’s not like Arafa [Speaks]. We talked about Arafa, and bringing leaders, right—to the Continuum of Care in Baltimore, right? But she didn’t stay, but she brought leaders, and she’s a leader! But she didn’t stay because that wasn’t her thing.

Williams: [01:30:49] But Emily was brought by the guy that passed away, he was working down at Ground Zero.

Lewis: Jeremiah.

Williams: Jeremiah, wow. So, Jeremiah brought Emily to Judson. And I would run into them doing their thing [laughs] at the, you know, [laughs] but you know, and that’s the neighborhood but… So, but Jeremiah, yeah—brought Emily, because he got to know Peter Laarman, too, and talked about this whole thing with Ground Zero, and how his health is affected. Then he ended up going to jail and that’s where he died at… And so, Emily—so Emily did step up, because she saw the injustice, but she didn’t know what to do with it, so she would run and come and get us.

Lewis: And she was mad.

Williams: And she would come get us.

Lewis: [01:32:06] She came with the guy that got burnt,

Williams: Yeah.

Lewis: in Port Authority.

Williams: [01:32:12] Yeah. So, she—it was a different—so it’s difficult. It’s—you know how important a person is, although they’re not ready _to take on the task _of organizing or getting involved or speaking up.

Williams: [01:32:51] There are those who like Lewis, right? He felt that his work was done! He really did. I think he did—because he was like, “Anthony,” he told me, “this is for you.” And so, you know—but that’s the part that Picture the Homeless didn’t see. You would never have known if I wouldn’t have said that. So, he told me—that. You never heard that, but he told me that, because he’s been around organizing. He’s been around social justice stuff for a very long time, stuff that even his family didn’t know he was doing.

Lewis: And they’re social justice people, too.

Williams: Yeah.

Lewis: So, I think he grew up in that.

Williams: Yeah, because his dad was a Mason.

Lewis: Mm-hmmm.

Williams: And so, you know—yeah. Yeah. So yes, definitely, he knew…

Williams: [01:33:58] Sometimes it’s like—it’s, it’s like… Like myself—I think I had enough… I remember telling you one time, when we went to a—and I was all busted up, but we went to something on Varick Street—we went to an event, and then I came out the event, and I was like, and I said to you, “I think I’m going to make it. I’m feeling stronger.” I remember telling you that, and I really believed it—but I wasn’t.

Williams: [01:34:40] Because what happened after that was—very devastating. But I also grew a set of balls in the process, too. Because I, you know—because of what I did… Because of what I did, I was able to say, “You know what? I’m just going to go back and face the music.” It’s not… Because I was taught to tell the truth, and I was taught to just be honest, whether the repercussions could be harsh—_towards _me, but if I tell the truth, then… I told the truth, and then—and all the pain and hurt…

Williams: [01:35:35] Because I drove you to tears, I remember. I saw the look on your face, and I saw you crying, you know—when that happened, when that—with the moneybox, and… But I was already fucking up, leading up to all that, because I kept messing with the metro cards, and messing with the tokens. And so, you know—it just came to the point where, guess what? It happened. And I had no more control of myself…. You know, like, in other words, I didn’t have… I care about the organization, I care about the people, but I allowed… I allowed my own self to be destructive to the organization, and with that, I hurt a lot of people, including you, deeply—and...

Williams: [01:36:45] But I was—but I around… I was able to be—to hold on long enough… To, like Lewis—Lewis held on long as he could, and I held on long as I could, and I think, thank God we held on long enough to have you. Because if we didn’t have you, then we wouldn’t—then it wouldn’t be what it really was meant to be, because we need to stay true to what our cause was, and we need to stay true to the homeless folks… And we [pause] you know, it’s tough! It’s tough…

Williams: [01:37:56] Leaders can be failures. They can lead well… But Emily was exceptional in a lot of ways, I think… Because when we brought her to City Hall, she was able to tell them!

Lewis: Remember she sat, [smiles] she… When we went to meet with the head of D.H.S., which was Linda Gibbs, at the time, and the night before, Emily had gotten into a fight,

Williams: Right.

Lewis: So, her face was busted up. And she had washed her clothes in the sink at Judson and hung it up on a—we had a little clothesline

Williams: Mm-hmmm

Lewis: and the next morning, she took a bath in the sink, remember? You and Jean [Rice], the door was locked, and you all were banging on the door.

Williams: Oh, okay. [Smiles]

Lewis: And she was butt-naked taking a bath in the sink so she could get cleaned up_, but she was mad_, and I was mad, because she had a hangover, and I was like, “I’m not going to this meeting if you don’t go.” And she was like, “Fuck you.” And I was like, “Well fuck you! [Laughs] You’re homeless. I’m not homeless. You want things changed; you got to go to the meeting!”

Lewis: [01:39:04] [Laughs] And then she was so mad, you know? And she also had a bad hangover, and then we were walking, and you were like, [imitates voice] “Oh… I don't know…” And we were walking along West Fourth Street to the train, and Jean was the one that stayed behind walking with her, because she was still messed up! And you went in the store, and you bought some Vaseline, and put it on her cut. She had her face was cut. Someone had punched her in the face. You were like, [imitates voice] “Here, Emily, put this on your face.” And then she put it on her face, and—so we were all mad, but we all still went.
_ _
Williams: Yeah! Wow.
_ _
Lewis: [01:39:44] And then when we _got there… _She clicked into brilliant warrior mode.

Williams: Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis: And she sat next to where Linda Gibbs was going to sit.

Williams: Wow.

Lewis: But she put her chair extra close, [laughter] so she could… She was kind of like intimidating, kind of like, “You’re going to feel me.”

Williams: Good.

Lewis: And so, she did this whole power move… [Laughter] And she was brilliant! You know—she was brilliant, and she was—she was exceptional and… You know, you are exceptional, and Lewis is exceptional, and I’m exceptional, even though it’s embarrassing to say that.

Lewis: [01:40:25] But we know a lot of exceptional people!

Williams: Right.
Lewis: And I think, for me, one of the goals of this project isn’t to just have a history, to say, “Oh, we did all these cool things—in the past.” It’s also to say, “What can we do in the future?” Like, how did we do that?” None—no… You were not easy, Lewis had to—had to

Williams: Aw man…

Lewis: put in a lot of work
_ _
Williams: He did.
_ _
Lewis: to get you to even go to the radio station.

Williams: Yeah. Oh Yeah.

Lewis: And, you know, none of this was easy, and…

Williams: [01:41:00] Right, it wasn’t, because… He heard my story, and he stayed determined. And you don’t, again, you don’t know where people come from. You don’t know where people  been. Just because you meet them in a detox, or a place, doesn’t mean that they were always in that place. They were in other places, and sometimes places catch up with people, and their lifestyle catches up with them.

Williams: [01:41:39] But it doesn’t mean that—you know… You could be… When I’m at my worst, I could be at my best. And I used to tell Emily that. I said, “When you’re at your worst, you could be at your best, Emily. Yesterday is a mystery. It’s done. It’s over. Today is a new day. You can’t look at your life and just determine it because of what you did yesterday.” You know, I would tell her, “It’s a new day! Forget about that. Let’s go to this meeting. Like, let’s do this.” And then she would somehow, you know—and then she… But then it would click! She would be like, “Okay.” I said, “You’re fine. You’re all right. That was yesterday.”

Lewis: [01:42:28] The thing that… One of the things that I think was a big part of her political consciousness, was the rights of street vendors to sell oils

Williams: Mm-hmmm.

Lewis: and books—

Williams: Russell.

Lewis: So, Emily, she had all that down pat, that people had the right to set up a table and sell religious articles, and incense and oils. She talked about, “incense and oils.”

Williams: Her and Russell, yep.

Lewis: And so, she had something that she could use to defend herself against the police, and I think for her, that was one of the points—and also being a woman and getting a lot of shit. But you mentioned consistency before, and you know, one of the things that I think about with Emily is, she used to walk me to the train station, at Astor Place, and she sometimes would put my face in her hands, and she would say, “Are you really coming back tomorrow?” And I would say, “Yes, I’m going to come back.” And she would almost be crying, and I would almost be crying. And I always felt like I could never let her down, because if she believed in me a little bit, I had to keep earning that, every day.

Williams: Yep.

Lewis: [01:44:04] And so being consistent… When, you know—we got the office at Judson, and then people would show up and we didn’t have a schedule. And there were a bunch of homeless people like, “Let’s start a newspaper, let’s do this...”

Williams: Well, all kind of… A band.

Lewis: [Laughs] A band… And that was, “Oh shit! Now we have to be here.”

Williams: Theater... Yeah… Because homeless people do shit, and they could do some really good shit! It’s not—you know… We could do some good shit, it’s just, you know… We—and those doors—and it’s never over!

Williams: [01:44:50] Like, the struggle, it’s never over, it’s never… Remember one time you told me, “Wherever you go, you can make a difference”? Like, “Usually, wherever you go, Anthony, you make a difference.” I can’t deny that. It’s true.

Lewis: Yeah! That’s why I told you. [Laughs]

Williams: It’s true! Sure. Look!

Lewis: That’s what Lewis saw, in the detox.

Williams: [01:45:18] Mm-hmm. Yeah—he said, “Man, that guy, wow.” Yeah… Wow. So yeah, and that needs to be—and that story should be told. And that story should be told in a successful way, because his sister saw it as, “Wow, this guy is getting—went to get help. My brother, my twin brother, went to get help. He was helping himself, Anthony. You should not… There’s nothing to be ashamed about that. He was helping himself.” And it’s true. He was able to hold on long enough, and take care of himself long enough, and you know—he was overcome by a lot. He had a lot on him. He had a lot on him. I mean, you know—that, yeah, I just know he did.

Williams: [01:46:15] I remember… He came—
 
Lewis: [Oh, the mike]

Williams: —months later, he [adjusting the mic—[oh, sorry]]

Lewis: It’s okay.

Williams: [01:46:22] Months later, he came—and met me at the Baggot Inn. And, I went in, and he was sitting there, and he said, “I thought you wasn’t going to do that.” [Pause] I said, “Do what?” He said, “You didn’t want to deal with money. You didn’t want to deal with a not for profit, but you have a not for profit. You have an organization, and you are raising money! I thought you didn’t want to do that.” [Laughs] And I said, “I really didn’t.” [Laughs] I said, “I really didn’t want to do that, but we were able to create a steering committee of people, homeless people, and some formerly homeless folks that had skills in certain areas and understanding the importance of a not for profit.” It wasn’t all my call. It wasn’t my call. It wasn’t controlled by… That was something I had no control over. Although if… I just didn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t! Because it worked. It worked!
 
Williams: [01:48:03] It worked because… It didn’t work for me, but it worked for the organization, right? It worked for the organization. My dilemmas didn’t stop—one monkey didn’t stop the show, right? You know, my dilemmas didn’t stop the show—but the show was already in full bloom and going the day we signed those documents for the 501(c)(3), at Condé Nast. Although I was pissed about that. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t really happy.

Williams: [01:48:41] I looked out the window though, way up there, and that corporate lawyer, and that nice spread... And—we arrived… You know what Lou’s famous saying was? “We have arrived.” He’d always say that. He said, when we started taking off, he said, “Anthony, we arrived.” When we got to BAI, he said, “We arrived.” And I never knew what he was saying when he said that to me, “We arrived.” I have arrived! I have arrived in Baltimore. I have arrived.

Williams: [01:49:19] Now I know what he meant—we have arrived. And the reason why you arrive is because you have made it, you have made it. You have arrived! You’re at the door. You’re inside the door, and you’re there. Now you’re reaching _thousands _of people through the airwaves. You’re reaching the masses, and Lewis would always go about the masses. When he talked about the masses, he meant the masses. He didn’t talk about a few. There are masses of homeless people, the masses. And that’s when you know you arrive because you’re dealing with the masses. Our organization has touched the lives of people [laughs] all over the world.

Lewis: [01:50:12] One of the… In the other interviews I’ve done so far with members—maybe, I won’t say every single one, because I might be wrong, but many of them have mentioned the fact that people come from other countries to visit Picture the Homeless, and other parts of the U.S.

Lewis: [01:50:35] And, one thing I want to ask you about is, when we were—still back, but way back in those early days, and you went to San Francisco to visit. So, I remember the first time you went by yourself to a street newspaper conference, because Michael Stoops

Williams: Mm-hmmm.
Lewis: helped with that, and you went by yourself, and then, we went as a delegation. So, when you went by yourself, you know—describe what that was like, and what you saw, and what you took away from that.

Williams: So, you mean with the civil rights stuff?

Lewis: Well, the N.A.S.N.A. [North American Street Newspaper Association] Conference, I think. Did you stay—

Williams: Oh, N.A.S.N.A.

Lewis: Did you stay in the San Francisco Coalition office?

Williams: [01:51:22] Yeah. Oh yeah, I was there for the N.A.S.N.A. Conference, okay. So—wow… I was there in place of Indio [John Levi Washington Jr.], actually. Indio refused to go, and I went. Not as his representative or representing him, but I went because he just didn’t want to be part of N.A.S.N.A. And I saw—I was able to see why he didn’t want to be part of N.A.S.N.A. Because you had this European paper that was trying to monopolize the street news—in the nation, in the United States. And there was—and the street newspaper was very important for capital, for homeless people to write their stories and to make capital. It wasn’t for one bigger organization to say, “We are the N.A.S.N.A. street news organization worldwide.” Right? And these European folks were talking that way. Oh—and these European folks were talking that way. As if they wanted like, some type of union, or some type of, you know, and it just didn’t pan out good. And… [pause]

Williams: [01:53:09] A movement… Wow. So, what pans out with that, for me, was that—nationally, we’re doing stuff. Like, you got people from all over the country that are selling newspapers, that are homeless, that are coming to one place to talk about… Their work. Right? They’re talking about their work! Their art, their work, their poems, their stories, the brutality, the everything, like the spoken word. Right?

Williams: [01:54:03] Going—actually going to San Francisco, and seeing the performers, different ones, that was part of the coalition, L.S… All that was eye-opening experience, because you didn’t—you don’t… You don’t… We don’t… We don’t see—we think it’s… I don’t—so you don’t see homeless people in these places, doing these things. If the Coalition on Homelessness was the first running—led, homeless organization in the country… I guess, and the people that you see in that organization, at that time, those who are homeless and formerly homeless, working in the office, and sleeping there—I’m sleeping on the floor, and I’m doing interviews with people about New York, and—you know, these are major hubs. It’s nothing to take lightly… You know?

Williams: [01:55:30] When I went to San Francisco, I was amazed, just at the civil rights stuff, and I knew that if this is what homeless people are asking for, this is what we should give. If that’s what they want, then they should get it. I mean, that’s how we determine, you know. It was no miracle for them to talk about the police, and talk about how they felt about selective enforcement, and treated differently. And we saw… When I was in San Francisco and I saw those shopping carts, wow. I could not—that was so amazing. I, I… Wow. Then bounty hunters… Oh, wow.

Williams: [01:56:26] Just, what homelessness _generates—so much money… _

Lewis: For other people.

Williams: —for other people.

Lewis: It’s like prison.

Williams: Prison, industrial complex. But the homeless industrial complex it’s even worse. In a sense, it’s worse! Because it’s like, we keep seeing the same thing. You refuse—you get the money—you know… You refuse to do what’s right. When you know it’s the right thing to do but you won’t do it… That’s called sin! [Laughter]

Lewis: That have to be made… [Laughter]

Williams: That’s called wrongdoing! It is that simple!

Lewis: They have to be made to do it.

Lewis: [01:57:24] So, when… Tell the story of how you—because were the_—_you built the relationship with Judson, and we got office space in the basement. So, do you remember how that happened?

Williams: Yeah. So, after the twenty-four-hour action that we did, Peter said, “We have an office downstairs, just, it’s full of stuff. If we can clean that out, we can give you an office.” And I’m like, “Really?” He goes, “Yeah, we just need to clean it out.” Which took a long time, right? It took a while.

Lewis: [Smiles] And they still had, half of it had a bunch of stuff that was delicate.

Williams: Okay. But at least we made it in. We got in.

Lewis: I have pictures of you that first day in there.

Williams: Wow. The first day?

Lewis: Mm-hmm. I have pictures. Well now we can… You know_—_I’ll put them on Facebook. I had them on my bulletin board in my office all these years.

Williams: [01:58:51] Wow… So, yes, we got a phone. They supported us with a phone. We had a phone. Then we got a computer… Then, we were doing—site visits was coming to see what we do. You know, again, you can’t show people something that’s not there! Right? It has to be there for you to show them, for them to do it, and the only way to get what you need is by showing them that you have something unique, and you have something that’s worthwhile for them to come and support. And we had that. We had all of that. We had every bit of it. Wow. We had; you know…

INTERRUPTON: The mic was bumping Anthony’s hand.

Lewis: Got something in your hands.

Williams: Oh.

Lewis: These mics are crazy. They pick up every noise.

Williams: Oh, okay. So—

Lewis: We had every bit of that.

Williams: Yeah, we had every bit of that.

Lewis: [02:00:03] What did you… What was it like for you when we finally moved into that office space?

Williams: You mean Judson?

Lewis: Mm-hmm.

Williams: Wow… [Long pause] It was amazing. It was different. It was… Wow! Yeah… I was a little worried. I was scared. I had fears. I had fears of—are we going to be successful? How are we going to do this? Get a phone… You know, everything was on experience, right? Experience as you go—you’re experiencing it as you go. So, you don’t know. I didn’t have a start point when we moved into that office. We just moved in and then we started. Right? And then, it flourished. No plan. We didn’t plan it. I didn’t plan it.

Williams: [02:01:52] There was no plan, but we got an office, and you stayed _with me. You know, you helped me to stay on top of Peter. Because I think—he was getting a lot of flak from his board. I didn’t see the flak that he was getting, but he knew what we had was something, when he met with me and Lewis that day. And I think he even said, “This is amazing to me. Long as I’ve been here, in this church, and looking out the window and seeing homeless people… Wow, this is the…” You know, he kind of—you know, he _mentioned that. He said, “This is the first time I; you know—wow.”

Williams: [02:02:48] And he saw something_—he saw something._

Lewis: He pictured something.

Williams: He pictured something, yep. And he said, “Let me get them guys an office. Let me give them an office… ” You know, like, who would give two homeless dudes an office, or offer them an office? Why?! Because you pictured something in them. You saw something in them, right?

Lewis: You made them see something, also.

Williams: Mm-hmm. And those are hard words to say, but they have to be said, because yes, we did make them see something.

Lewis: No one else did.

Williams: Right.

Lewis: [02:03:34] You know, we were talking about this a little bit last night, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot_—partially doing this project, but also just thinking about my own life… And you know, you want to—you know, you do things because they need to be done, not because you get—you _want credit. And so, then when you talk about what you’ve done, you don’t talk about yourself, you talk about the thing that was done. But how did the thing get done? And so, it’s not being boastful. You were in the meeting with Peter Laarman, [smiles] and you did make him see something he hadn’t seen before, you and Lewis.

Williams: Right.

Lewis: That’s a true statement.

Williams: Right

Lewis: and I think that that’s part of the magic of Picture the Homeless, is that… I had somebody say that_—_something similar about Jean Rice, that she—she’s a lawyer, and she didn’t really see the big deal about the quality-of-life summonses, that… _So, what, they’re tickets… _Until she met Jean, and I didn’t even know that that had changed her whole viewpoint! And I asked her to write a little piece for those, little fundraising things that Picture the Homeless, that we did a couple years ago, and she wrote this amazing kind of essay about, until she had met Jean Rice, even as a lawyer—she works for the Civil Liberties Union—she didn’t think that the quality-of-life summonses were a big deal, and that changed her mind.

Williams: Wow. Yep.

Lewis: And she would’ve never talked to Jean Rice if he didn’t belong to an organization!

Williams: [02:05:34] Right. [Pause] Yeah_—_like so, I remember on the phone with Charles Barron… Because I had to call him and talk to him about the nickel being under attack… So, I finished talking with him, he says, “Anthony, that’s State. I think you’re going to be all right.” I said, “All right, cool.” So, I go outside to smoke a cigarette, and I see a guy reaching in the trash can, grabbing cans. I said, “You’re a canner.” He goes… And I say to him, I say, “You know they’re trying to take away your nickel?” He goes, “What do you mean? They can’t do that.” I said, “Well, it’s in the air. It’s being talked about. It’s being explored, in politics.”

Williams: [02:06:48] He goes, “And who are you?” [Laughter] I said, “My name’s Anthony. I’m with an organization called Picture the Homeless. You need to come down and talk to us, you know. You need to come and talk to me.” He goes, “Okay,” and he came, with his cans, he came down.

Williams: [02:07:01] He said, “You know, I’ve got a cousin that lives for stuff like this.” [Laughs] You guys—you know, he says, “He lives for this stuff, like this.” And again, the work, _the same work—_consistency. He kept pandering Jean, “You’ve got to go meet these people. You’ve got to go meet these people.” Lewis, “You’ve got to go do this. You need to go talk on the radio. You need to go meet these people. You need to go over here. You need to go here. You need to go here; you need to go over there…” And not even knowing how impactful it is that a persistent person is on you in a positive way to bring out the most powerful thing in you.

Lewis: You need to go to the Continuum of Care.

Lewis: [02:07:58] We used to go get Emily out of the bathroom, [laughs] in Washington Square Park, she was high in it…

Williams: Yeah.

Lewis: Because people are important! Sometimes people need to hear how important they are, especially when everybody else is telling them that they’re not important

Williams: Right.

Lewis: and then you’re some stranger and a person going, “You’re important.” Then people are_—_like you looked at Lewis, “Who the fuck are you?”

Williams: Right. [Laughs] Yep… Yeah.

Lewis: [02:08:29] Well, you have to hear Jean tell that story… Because he tells the story of Prince coming home, saying, “Whoa. You got to meet these people. I met this guy, Anthony.” And so, you’ve got to hear Jean’s version of that story. [Smiles]

Williams: Wow. I never heard that.

Lewis: Which is not a different version, but it complements, because it’s_—_you’re talking to Prince, and then Jean talks about what Prince was saying when he got home, and Jean saying something like, “Yes, why should I go to that?!”

Williams: Right. [Laughs] Right. What’s different? Right.

Lewis: [02:09:08] So, we’ve been going for awhile, and I guess I would want to wrap up by asking you, what do you think is important about Picture the Homeless?

Williams: [Pauses] What do I think is important…. [Pauses] So, that’s a tough one. It’s so many things, to just—excuse me—there’s so many things to just… Milk over_—but the most important thing is people who are affected by the system—_that’s able to turn around and change the system, and change the way people… All we… Everything we did was, we showed people, we’ve been showing people—[yawns] sorry—we’ve been showing people the error of their way, you now. We know things are wrong. The most important thing is showing how it’s wrong and changing it.

Williams: [02:11:17] Very simply, the plight of the homeless, it’s the homeless individual’s plight, and no one can tell you nothing if you’re the expert of your own fate, and what you’ve been through. No one could ever tell me how I felt as a child in foster care! Come on—you can’t tell me how I felt. You could never tell me how I felt. Could never tell me how do I feel day in and day out not knowing my parents. You could never, I could never—you could never tell me how I’m supposed to feel about that. You can never tell me that because I live with it every day. I know that I don’t know my parents. Do you know that I don’t know my parents_—_unless I said it to you? If I tell you I don’t know my parents, the first thing most people go to is, “That’s fucked up! That’s really messed up!”

Williams: [02:12:26] But I survived! _People are surviving. _People are making it. We are helping people do this. We are showing them that they could do this. We could show them that they have power! Most important thing is homeless people have power. They don’t need to be empowered. Kill that language, right?

Lewis: Yes, I hate that word.

Williams: [02:12:52] Like, really, they have power! They just need the direction, and we hope that the leadership of homeless people continue doing the same thing. Although we may move on in life, or we may go away, is the work still going? And why is it still going, is the question, right? Is it still going? Like, I haven’t stopped. You haven’t stopped. We’re both still moving forward with the organization, but just in a different way. We’re not in New York anymore.

Williams: [02:13:34] Matter of fact, I feel glad, because I could do it somewhere else where I feel_—where it started. It started here for me! So, I am happy to be here to fight, to carry a fight to them—_to the City. Like to really carry the fight to the City of Baltimore, and that’s what I’m doing, carrying my fight to them, because _I want them accountable for my life, and for every life in this city that they have neglected. Yes! And I know they did, and I know what the City has done. There is no way, there’s no way—_the wrongs that they have done—even money isn’t going to correct that. They need to change what they do. I’m not asking for money! I’m not asking for $350 million to end homelessness.

Williams: [02:14:42] I’m asking the City to change their fucking ways! And do things the right way! Do what’s right! Stop doing this bullshit_—_like making people sleep on floors still. Come on! It’s twenty-fucking-eighteen! You got people sleeping on floors on fucking mats? Still?! And I’ve been yelling this shit to you over and over again for the last couple of months and you’re still fucking doing it? What aren’t you hearing from me? What aren’t you hearing from the people that are affected? What aren’t you fucking hearing? You know what I mean? Really, what aren’t you fucking he—people are fucking…

Williams: [02:15:25] I have not seen one outreach worker go up to a person sleeping on a fucking grate!

Lewis: Just the BIDS people?

Williams: No! I never see them! You know, I left the office_—five-fifty this morning, to come here, and there’s people out there on the grates, okay? Hypothermia—wet! I have seen not one outreach worker. This is the stuff that really—_has my eyebrow—this is the stuff…

Williams: [02:16:03] That’s why Picture the Homeless is so important, because when you see the injustice and you see the wrong, then you have to let them know_—_to change it. _They’re not going to change it, unless you make them change it. _Right? Those hearings, those building counts, those trips back and forth to the E.A.U. right?

Lewis: The pressure.

Williams: Huh?

Lewis: The pressure we put on them—

Williams: The pressure—

Lewis: —so that they have to change.

Williams: Right_—with the people that’s affected. Yes. I’m affected. I mean, I—you know—2015, man—_I was on my ass, but I was not out of it. I thought I was out of it, but when you don’t—you know, but I wasn’t! I really—yeah. You know, I don’t want to have to go through this ever again.

Williams: [02:17:04] Whew… You know—you see all this stuff? Oh! You didn’t see the ultimate.

Lewis: What is that?

Williams: How I got the voucher! Look! My H.C.H. [Health Care for the Homeless] appointment cards. Look ahead, straight ahead, look. See that article?

Lewis: The blue ones?

Williams: And see that article?

Lewis: Uh-huh.

Williams: [Laughs] That_—I saw—I _got that out of the paper. I saw it. I was like, wow, so that’s how I got my voucher. Yes! They’ll say it, “Baltimore City gets a hundred additional vouchers.” I was one of those hundred, Lynn.

Lewis: And you read it in the newspaper?

Williams: Yes!

Lewis: [02:17:57] When I met you, one of the things you told me_—you and Lewis were both talking about it—_and I think it was like in—it was before Picture the Homeless started, before Paris Drake… Because the other thing Giuliani was trying to do was to take away the right to shelter. And make it be like a welfare benefit. So, you had to work, you had to do W.E.P. [Work Experience Program], like for shelter beds

Williams: Yeah.

Lewis: And the thing they had in the article that you kept talking about was… At that time, the City was spending $2,000 a month for shelter beds. Now it’s almost twice that. For couples in a room, they’re paying $4,500 a month, and you don’t even have your own bathroom.

Williams: Wow.

Lewis: But at that time, when you all were in Bellevue, it was $2,000 a month. And you were saying, something along the lines of, you know, “Two thousand a month, I could get an apartment, but they’d rather keep us here.” And then welfare was paying $250 a month, like if you—like—if you…

Williams: Two-fifteen a month,_ then._

Lewis: Two-fifteen, yeah.

Williams: Yeah. It’s $215.

Lewis: But if you’re in a shelter, it’s $2,000.

Williams: Right.

Lewis: The same person. The same person.

Williams: The same person.

Lewis: And so, who’s benefiting from that? That’s one of the things you were talking about—like the price tag on your head.

Williams: Right. Homeless people worth big bucks.

Lewis: But thank you for this, and then…

Williams: I hope I got… To you. I got it to you. I hope I got what I needed to you.

Lewis: Well, it’s a lot! And this is deep—

Williams: I mean, it’s morbid.

Lewis: —stuff, man, so there’s more. There’s more, but…

Williams: But isn’t this the perfect place_—_to do it?

Lewis: Yep.

Williams: No?

Lewis: It is a perfect place. [Smiles] It’s not…

Williams: [02:20:10] Did you ever think you’d see me—like this?

Lewis: In a beautiful apartment, full of your artwork? I mean, I always wished I would see you in it. [Laughs]

Williams: Well, you see me in it.

Lewis: I do, and it_—_was… That, in and of itself, was a struggle to get it!

Williams: Oh yeah. And you know what? I did not expect this when I moved back to Baltimore. I started writing. Because I said, “I better do it this time. I don't know why, but I better write it. I better write. Since I’m back in my hometown, I better start writing.” And that’s what I did.

Williams: [02:20:58] And I… You know, and_—I tell you, Lynn… I knew that, in some—you know—the help over the years from friends and people, and Jennifer Roberts, and therapy and… I finally got it. I think I got it! Like, I got it. I got it. I got it. Like, I really got it! Like, I—like I don’t have that fear anymore—_like I’m going to fuck up. Right? I don’t have that fear that I’m going to relapse tomorrow. I don’t have that fear because I’m content, and although it’s around me, I don’t engage in it.

Williams: [02:21:52] But what I do engage in_—_is for every motherfucker in this building that’s fucking up, and that’s under threat of losing their apartment, we’re trying to stop it. Because the evictions of homeless folks that have gotten Section 8 over the years, is up. People are losing their vouchers.

Lewis: And plus, if it’s a healthcare-for-the-homeless-based kind of voucher, they know people have issues, so how are you going to be evicting people, when their issues flare up?
 
Williams: Right! So, you have to have support.

Lewis: You have to have it!

Williams: [02:22:29] So we sold—the guy from the state office, didn’t even have a clue how rapid re-housing is a setup for failure—in a sense where it’s only support for a person for six months to a year. So, if you move in that apartment that day, you have to start that day! You have to start that day. You have to find a job, start working yourself to self—what is it—that fucked up word, self-sufficiency?

Williams: [02:23:05] But, the thing is, it’s like, you know—you know, again… Oh, this is what I wanted to tell you… We have to deal with H.U.D. We just have to. We got to deal with H.U.D. It’s no way around it, and I keep saying it, you know? I don’t care if we scare the shit out of the CoC. I don’t care. I just don’t. We’ve got to deal with H.U.D. We’ve got to tell them—_you know… _If Norm Secour comes here from H.U.D., right, and says that, “Baltimore City is one of the tenth worst cities in the country, and you guys’ got to change your ways.” He told us that.

Williams: [02:23:46] I said, “Wait a minute!” I said, “Norm, wait a minute. You are blaming the policies that you put together_—_now you’re blaming us and telling us that we have to make changes? We want to come to you and tell _you to make changes. [Laughs] Because okay, Baltimore failed over twenty years. Okay, fine. But the policies are still the same! You haven’t changed shit. To point the finger at us, and say to us, that, “Well, we’ve been giving you twenty-million for the last twenty years, and you haven’t did any matching funds.” I said, “But you didn’t… Yea, but you allowed it. You could’ve said something. You could’ve been stepped in and said something—_right? No? You could’ve been said, “Hey Baltimore!”

Williams: [02:24:46] You know, when I first started arguing about the Continuum of Care here, Joe Wood told me—he’s the chair—he goes, “I think things changed now. We don’t do dollar-to-dollar matches anymore.” I said, “When did that change?” When did that change? Did it ever change?

Lewis: I don't know if it changed.

Williams: No. That’s what I wanted figured_—_that’s what I was trying to figure out. Because he said, “Things have changed! Things are different than when you did it in New York.” I said, “Wait a minute. I don’t think so.”

Lewis: I would check it. We could talk about who to check in with, because that’s federal.

Williams: [02:25:24] Mm-hmm, yeah… Because it’s important that we—we’re going to have to deal with H.U.D., and I’m working on it. We’re going to get there, and we’re going to go down there, and we’re going to deal with the policy people. We want to talk to the people that write the policy… The people that write, “chronic homeless,” the people that write “rapid re-housing,” the people that write these failed programs. We need to talk to them, and say, “Hey, you’re keeping people homeless. You’re not giving them a way out.”

Lewis: [02:25:59] When they first came up with the chronic homeless stuff, we were at Judson

Williams: Mm-hmmm.

Lewis: and I remember Emily didn’t like the word,

Williams: right.

Lewis: Because “chronic” sounds like a disease.

Williams: Mm-hmm, something’s wrong.

Lewis: And that’s what she was saying, and she was saying that “When they say, ‘chronically homeless,’ it’s saying like we’re a disease, and we are not the problem.”

Williams: Right.

Lewis: And so, she didn’t even want to look at_—_like the policies. She didn’t want to look at any of it, because she didn’t like the language—

Williams: Right, right off, yes.

Lewis: —right off! And—

Williams: And even—

Lewis: And she was right.

Williams: [02:26:36] And they were challenging… It was being challenged by the National Coalition.

Lewis: Yep. And so, the reason they did it, and I remember talking to Michael Stoops, because_—you know, we didn’t like it—none of us liked it—_was that… And in this sense, he was right, but the solution is not this chronic homeless policy.

Lewis: [02:26:58] Was that the providers were not—they were dealing with the easiest folks

Williams: Right.

Lewis: to get housing. They were—what are they—cherry picking, or cream of the crop or whatever…

Williams: Yeah.

Lewis: And so, the people that had been homeless the longest, they weren’t dealing with them. They were scared of them. They didn’t have anything for them. And so, it was a way to force the providers to have to work with folks. But what they did was, they set up the same exact kind of systems, that the people don’t want in the first place. And then, they’re a revolving door…

Lewis: [02:27:45] So we had somebody who_—_one, would’ve been eligible because he’d been homeless for a couple years—I think it’s seven-hundred and some days, some bullshit, but he went into the hospital, had surgery, and then a friend let him stay with him.

Williams: And he found him ineli—and that’s—

Lewis: And that made him be ineligible.

Williams: —coordinated access.

Lewis: That made him be ineligible, because he had fucking heart surgery, and the friend said, “You don’t have to ride the train; you can come… “

Williams: “You can stay with me.”

Lewis: And that made him ineligible.

Williams: Yep!.

Lewis: And so, the providers still get away

Williams: Yes!

Lewis: with not dealing with the people where they’re at. The vouchers that came down, you know_—_they expire, and then there’s no new Section 8, or there’s no new anything else,

Williams: Wow.

Lewis: and then people become homeless again.

Williams: Yep.

Lewis: [02:28:48] One of the things we didn’t talk about today much, and then, I don't know if you can tomorrow morning? But we didn’t talk about why civil rights is important.

Williams: Oh. How early? What’s tomorrow, Thursday?

Lewis: Mm-hmm.

Williams: All right, so I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. But! Because you’re right around the corner, right?

Lewis: I could come to you, the church.
Williams: [02:29:13] Come to me. Yeah, because I’ll be at the church a lot tomorrow. Thursday is a big day, and I’m still trying to get the—I’ve got two offices that are freezing_—_like, and we’ve just got to get—I was supposed to work on that today, actually, but we have to work on getting those… We’ve got heat everywhere else except those two offices. It’s freezing, and that’s the volunteer office, and people are constantly using those, so...

Lewis: So, we’re going to close out, and then, you can listen to some of the other interviews if you want, and then I’ll_—_we can look at some of the—

Williams: Could you send them to me?
 
Lewis: Yeah!

Williams: Just send them to me, and then they’ll be in the computer: sexton@firstunitarian.net.

Lewis: All right, hold on—all right. Bye!

Williams: Bye.

[END OF INTERVIEW]