Paul Boden

Lewis: [00:00:01] Do you like doing interviews?

Boden: [00:00:03] No.

Lewis: Never?

Boden: [00:00:05] Not on a personal level. I’m good at work interviews.

Lewis: Yeah. I find with these oral history interviews, because…We all know each other, so once we get past the wires and forget about them—is like a nice conversation, and some of it’s been really deep, really nice.

Boden: Cool.

Lewis: So, here we go.

Boden: All right.

Lewis: [00:00:36] All right. So, this is an interview with Paul Boden for the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project. And it is December,

Boden: Fourth.

Lewis: Thank you—2018, and we’re here in—right down the hall from the WRAP [Western Regional Advocacy Project] office. Hey, Paul.

Boden: Hey.

Lewis: How are you?

Boden: Good.

Lewis: [00:01:02] All right. So, we’re going to kick this interview off with some questions about who you are, where you’re from, and what in your life has, like, brought you to do this work?

Boden: Okay. As a little kid, it was a very typical, suburban Long Island experience. I was born in fifty-nine, in Great Neck. Then, as a little kid, we moved to Port Washington and that’s where I lived until my mom died. So, then, when I was about fifteen or just turned sixteen, I think, my mom had a cerebral hemorrhage, while she was at work. She worked in the VISTA programs—The War on Poverty—in the sixties. She ran a non-profit. It had a full…Credit union, a food coop…did that fucking summer in the city shit with the church as a really little kid. One of the things that always stuck with me about that was the church shit… We did at a swimming pool in Harlem...Came back the next year and it was destroyed and one of my mom’s coworkers was, like, “Well, hell, yeah. They don’t need a fucking swimming pool. That was the church’s idea. It wasn’t what the neighborhood asked for.” And, so, that’s always stuck with me. My mom would repeat it all the time: “You don’t do shit for people that they didn’t ask for to begin with. Then it’s about you, it’s not about them, and it’s going to get treated like shit.” Which it should. And, so, that just always stuck with me.

Boden [00:02:49] But, you know when she died, we all got kicked out. We found my father a couple of weeks later. We didn’t know where he was. Found him, he came in, moved in with his girlfriend, and kicked us all out. So, like, it was… Actually, in my case, I got shipped to a boarding school. I came home and he had moved, and the house was empty, and I had no idea where he’d moved to. So, I took that as a hint—and just started bouncing from couches to couches, but this was back in the day, too. This was in the ‘70s, and I ended up on First and Sixteenth, you know, in a one-hundred-fifty dollar a month piece of shit, “up above the pizza place”… But you had those kind of opportunities that didn’t exist later.

Lewis: Yep.

Boden: [00:03:42] And started getting into the… So, there was amazing squats going on in Avenue A, B, C, down around there. So, I always had that shit in my head. and I met this woman from Denmark—ended up a year, two years later over there—and went to Amsterdam and stayed in squats, did squatting in Copenhagen. So, that’s the way, I figured the shit’s empty, fucking take it. Like, that was my mindset about stuff, and this was before the “homeless programs”, per se, so, you know.

Lewis: And people were doing that.

Boden: [00:04:13] Yeah, and it was just… Like to me, it just fucking made sense and I ended up coming here to San Francisco in January of eighty-three, and it was so fucking passive; the amount of shit poor people would fucking swallow. I went to food stamps I remember, and it was like a Friday and Monday was a holiday—that kind of shit. And my stamps weren’t there, and I said to the worker, “You’re a fucking asshole,” because the worker was, like, “Well, come back later.” It’s like, “You’re closed on Monday.” “Yes, well, come back Tuesday, then.” And I was like, “Well, fuck you.” All of a sudden, the next thing I knew, the security guards were grabbing me and throwing me out of the food stamp office and my friends were cracking the fuck up. They were like, “You entitled little white boy. Of course, they’ll kick your ass out. You fuck…  you know, we just got into it—and—you know, saw this long-ass line at Hospitality House with families… I even have a picture of it still, with families and seniors and young kids, and it was just this long-ass fucking line, and I got at the end of it and waited my turn and then said to the guy at the desk—who was a volunteer—this wasn’t paid shit. This was literally like January, February of '83.

[00:05:33] And I was like, “What are you guys doing? What’s this all about?” And it was about homelessness. And I was like, “Well, but there’s fucking buildings…” Like, so, I just started volunteering there. They were all volunteers. But I just started working there—was doing some construction—but the boss let me take off when I had to do shit with these guys. And I just really locked into, like… “Why the fuck get out of bed if you’ve got nothing to do?” That’s kind of what was in my head. It was like, there’s got to be a reason why you get up in the morning. [Laughs] Like, it’s to do something and to just not have anything you’re committed to or passionate about or connected to, just seemed like a waste of fucking time. And I’ve never—every single day since then, this is what I do. This is why I get up. Sometimes I get paid, sometimes I don’t. It’s just the luck of the draw. Knock on wood, I’ve been getting paid for three years now, and that’s like a record. That’s the longest I’ve gone with a paycheck. But it’s like I’ve never had a fucking job, and I think that it’s really so rare that people are able to say that. But, I don’t have a resume. I’ve never had a job. I don’t need that shit. I got what I’m committed to, and I get to do it every fucking day. And that’s a privilege, it’s not a fucking job, and that’s just always stuck with me.

Boden: [00:07:11] And there’s people like that, you know? Like, there’s so many institutions that claim to be this or that, or poor people shit or, you know, homeless people shit, and it’s a fucking job! People treat it like a job, and they talk about it like a job, and they have retirement benefits, and you know, all of this shit is, like, [imitates a deeper voice] “Well, this is what I do for my job. I’m at work.” Like, why the fuck do poverty like that? Why should poverty be other people’s career opportunities? Like, it makes no fucking sense. Of course, you’re going to perpetuate it, you know? How can you not perpetuate it? But then, you see the LA CANs [Los Angeles Community Action Network] and you see the Picture the Homeless and you see the San Francisco Coalition and you see Sisters of the Road. You know, these guys would love it, to able to shut their shit down or convert it to a community space like LA CAN’s doing, you know? They would love nothing more than to be able to do that and you know, I’m working for the day that, you know, I can get a job, [laughs] but that’s not, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime fucking soon.

Lewis: [00:08:29] No. Tell us about the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness. I know you’re one of the founders. When did that happen and how did it happen? Like, what’s that story?

Boden: It was a progression of institutionalizing the system. And so, first it was for crash pads. Hospitality House was a community center—had been since the fucking sixties. All of a sudden in the early eighties, when they would close at night, they realized their community had nowhere to go, whereas in the past they had always just gone home. Well, now with no home, they had nowhere to go. So, we started crashing at Hospitality House. Like, that was the mindset. And you didn’t ask people’s names. You didn’t fucking need their social security numbers. You didn’t assume shit was wrong with them. [Laughter] There was something going on in the water that wasn’t right! It wasn’t these guys are… Suddenly now they’re dysfunctional and they’re choosing to be homeless. It was what the fuck is going on that people have nowhere to go? And then the mayor’s office forms a taskforce, and they start funding it, and then, in ’87, the McKinney Act passes. And you could tell by that point—this shit’s not going right. We’re doing everything but restoring the funding for affordable housing and we’re creating another fucking welfare system, on top of the poverty programs from the War on Poverty. And you could just smell it.

[00:10:13] It just was… And I think partially from seeing my mom’s shit, and seeing, you know, that she created an alternative high school, and I got kicked out of it, you know? [Laughs] Like, I deserved it. But still, it was like… Seeing that, and growing up with that, and then seeing what was happening with the homeless system it was like, “No, we need motherfuckers that aren’t dependent on the system, that aren’t funded by the system. That the—you know—like, at $10,500 a year, that was my salary after nine months of working for free. They hired me and that was the salary they paid me. And I still have the file cabinet I got in September of ‘83. And it was everybody that was at Hospitality House as it started becoming a shelter, was from the fucking neighborhood—was from the—sleeping there, and today, my friend that is the ED at Hospitality House. Him and I used to be on the front lines there.

Lewis: Excellent.

Boden: [00:11:24] We had both stayed there at different times, but we knew each other going back to them days. And they’re the only fucking big homeless program that I can think of where somebody that slept there is now the ED of it, of a multimillion dollar a year non-profit service provider, and that shouldn’t be true.

Lewis: Nope.

Boden: Joe isn’t that unique. He isn’t that special. He’s just a motherfucker, and a smart motherfucker but so were a lot of us. [Laughs]

Lewis: Hard workers.

Boden: You know? There is nothing special about him, and yet he’s the only one that went from a floor to—because we slept on the—it was a crash pad, so, from sleeping on the floor to running the organization.

Lewis: Yep.

Boden: [00:12:07] And so, we formed the coalition specifically with… We need an organization that is about the front-line staff, where the poor people actually were and the homeless people themselves—that bridges that divide and that creates campaigns and creates shit off of those experiences. It was from seeing there was a welfare coalition and there was a homeless coalition and there was a service provider’s coalition and there was the mayor’s taskforce. And, like, the voices of the actual poor people themselves was getting lost, and the homeless shit was becoming a separate…

Lewis: Oh, yeah.

Boden: Another tier of poverty.

Lewis: Separate funding,

Boden: with, you know, “and it’s so complex.” It’s not fucking complex.

Lewis: [laughs] God. Hate that.

Boden: [00:13:00] [Homelessness] It wasn’t created in a complex way and it’s not going to be ended in a complex way. You build motherfucking housing, people ain’t homeless anymore. Period. That’s all there is to it. Everything else about us as poor people is fucking the same as all the other poor people!

Lewis: It can be handled.

Boden: And it’s the same—and it’s just as unique—as all the other poor people. But the issue is poverty, not the uniqueness or the sameness of people that are poor.

Boden: [00:13:30] And people that are homeless are just poor people without a house. That’s the only fucking difference. [Smiles] So that was, like always, and that’s, I think, been a guiding thing behind WRAP. You know, it’s like, this shit needs to be put in the proper context. And if you’re going to address the shit in a proper context, you’re going to talk about neo-liberalism, you’re going to talk about racism, and you’re going to talk about classism. And you’re going to talk about the human right to housing, to healthcare, and to education, because people that are well-housed, healthy, and educated can find a fucking job. Or they can do like me, and find not a job, and make that your fucking life. Like, they don’t need to be rehabilitated for that shit to take place.

Lewis: That’s right.

Boden: [00:14:19] And so, it’s how do we move the fucking debate to a context where we’re actually addressing the fucking issues. It’s not by forming another fucking coalition, you know? Like, we should have the coalition to end coalitions [laughter] if we’re going to have another fucking coalition. [Smiles]

Lewis: Well, when I hear that’s started up, I’m going to look—I’m going to say, “Oh, I know who’s kicking that off. [Smiles]

Boden: Oh, fuck yeah! [Laughter] No, we’ve even got a flyer for it! [Smiles]

Boden: [00:14:52] So, [laughter] you know… And there’s the beauty and… Like, my work is like, so fucking easy. I’m repping organizations like LA CAN, and Right to Survive and Sisters of the Road and Homeless Coalition. Like I get to rep these fucking people, out at these community forums and shit. And I do the little PowerPoint, and I bring the posters, and I bring the fact sheets, and the outreach forms, you know? I bring all that shit because it’s a legitimate, accountable collection of we. And nobody can come to a fucking WRAP meeting and say, “I think this, and nah nah nah nah nah… It’s like, if you ain’t doing the outreach in the community forums, if you’re not coming to our meetings prepped to rep what the fuck your community’s talking about, you’re not coming to the fucking meeting. Period. And it sucks—like, we’ve kicked out more groups than we’ve brought in. But it’s fine. I don’t care if we get down to four fucking groups. So long as those four groups are fucking accountable, we can start collectivizing our experiences.

Lewis: Yeah, it’s hard to… What do you think is behind that lack of intentionality to make sure that whatever we do, that we’re accountable?

Boden: [00:16:16] I mean, I’ve been told that the way I frame this response is really inappropriate. But I think we got too many motherfucking leaders. [Laughter] And I think poor people, the last thing they need is another fucking leader, self-identified or anointed by others. There are so many fucking leaders of poor and homeless people that aren’t recognized as leaders by poor and homeless people. It seems that the more full of shit they are the more money they get from the foundations. And it seems that the thing of, “Who’s going to come up with the new criteria, or program or whatever—tiny homes or whatever the fuck it is—who’s going to come up with the next idea that’s actually going to solve the shit when the idea is so blatantly fucking simple: look at what caused it

Lewis: Exactly.

Boden: [00:17:11] and address the cause. And so, I think that it frustrates people looking for the Saul Alinsky shit of how to build power is to have successes, well, we’re not having successes. We can’t celebrate victories that don’t fucking exist. Or you start celebrating victories that are shallow, right? So, [imitates someone boasting]  “Welfare only got cut eight percent. We won!” Fuck you, [laughter] you know? So, it’s just been I think, a process, an evolutionary process of funding the organizing campaigns to address the issue of poverty, necessitate—if you’re going to get the big money from the fucking foundations and shit—claiming victories for shit that was not a victory and then I think you lose your base. And you know, when you don’t have a base, hold a press conference, [laughs] because you can get the media.

Lewis: Yep.

Boden: [00:18:07] But, I just think there’s a real, inherent danger in self-identified leadership and I think it fucks up organizing to an extent, that the members become separate from the leaders. And so, you know… And also, like, if the only people that you rep are the people that come to your meetings, you’re only going to be representing people that agree with you. So, you have to do the fucking street outreach, and if you’re not from the street, you’re not going to be comfortable in the street. And so, it’s the easiest way for somebody who’s still ass out to come in and actually get involved in an organizing campaign. It’s, “Here, do street outreach to other motherfuckers that are out there.”

Lewis: They’re already out there.

Boden: And they’re automatically working on the campaign! You don’t have to fucking train them, you don’t have to give them Robert’s Rules of Order, like they tried to do with me. That was a fucking… That didn’t pan out.

Lewis: Who tried to do that?

Boden: [00:19:04] People kept buying me Saul Alinsky’s fucking book, if they were from the left, or… I had five copies of that book. [Laughter] Never read it, because I just wouldn’t read, I was like, “If everybody keeps telling me I need to read this, then I don’t want to read it. And the people that were part of creating the coalition in the very first days wanted me to study Robert’s Rules of Order or some shit. They gave me a flyer. or, I don’t know, they… It was funny. I was, like, “Yes, well, that’s not going to fucking happen.” [Smiles]

Lewis: [Laughs] I still get confused in meetings about, when we need a resolution and when we need a—call the—I still am not sure what, “Call the question”, really means. [laughs] It’s—

Boden: I think it means let’s stop talking about it and have a fucking vote.

Lewis: [00:19:52] All right. Well, that would be a good one. I wanted to ask you… So, the coalition started, y’all started it in mid—

Boden: Eighty-seven.

Lewis: In eighty-seven. So, you’re thirty-some—thirty-five?

Boden: Yeah, yep. No!

Lewis: Thirty-eight?

Boden: Thirty, no, no, no. Eighty-seven—

Lewis: My math is bad.

Boden: It’s, like, thirty-two, thirty-three.

Lewis: Well, congratulations and yeah!

Boden: Yeah! No, it’s…

Lewis: I mean, you’re…

Boden: It’s—

Lewis: Here! Here!

Boden: fucking cool and…
.
Boden: [00:20:23] Jenny and, I mean—I’ve been gone for fourteen years… It’s still got the same principles, it’s still got the same goals, it’s still kicking fucking ass. It’s still doing the Street Sheet. Now they do it twice a month and the Street Sheet’s still fucking free to the vendors. [Smiles] Yeah, they fucking rock. And that’s the cool thing, like, to see the shit continue. It changes. It’s different than when I was there. Jenny does things very differently than I do. She actually probably knows what Robert’s Rules of Order are. [Smiles] Whether she uses them or not I don’t know, but she knows them. But it’s the same spirit. So, it’s still doing its shit.

Lewis: [00:21:17] When we met, it was I think, it was when I joined the board of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Boden: Uh-huh.

Lewis: So, it was in eighty-nine or ninety, something like that. And I remember coming out here, ’cause my mother lived out here. The first time I went to the office, I don’t know where that office was.

Boden: [00:21:40] It was in the Tenderloin, on Hyde Street.

Lewis: So, you were… I went in and it, the way I’m picturing in my mind anyway, there was like a—room maybe the size of this room, with chairs lined up around

Boden: And a couch. [Smiles]

Lewis: Yeah, and a bunch of people, you know, not… Sitting and talking. Like, it felt like a waiting room, but it was comfortable. And then somebody greeted me who—I can’t even picture them in my mind. But you were sitting in a little office off of that room and you were on the phone.

Boden: I usually was. [Smiles]

Lewis: [Laughs] And you kept… You just were getting one call after the other call, and we didn’t get to talk much. And you were just… I have this picture of you in my mind, being on a phone. What were those,

Boden: That was back in the day man!

Lewis: [00:22:35]What were those days like?

Boden: We didn’t have fucking internet, and nobody texted anybody. Like, if you needed to talk to somebody, you fucking called them. Like, [laughter] it’s so amazing to me how—yeah. But it was… I mean one, it was like, this incubator of fucking ideas. I really love starting new shit. So, I never backed away from, you know, it’s—if a couple of people were together and they’re like, “Hey! We have this idea!” “All right, fine, let’s fucking do it.” You know?

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: You know? Because what do you got to lose? You’re fucking ass out. Like—like the very worst thing that could happen to us is we end up right the fuck where we were when we started the shit. That’s the worst thing that could happen. So, I always push that that should make you really fucking fearless.

Lewis: Yep.

Boden: Because you’re never going to be worse off than when you started. You might be, you know, gain some shit, and then lose it, whatever. But you’re never going to be worse off than when you first started out, so you might as well just fucking try it.

Lewis: [00:23:44] Yeah, I always—people would always say to me, “Oh, Picture the Homeless does such bold actions.” And my first response was always, “Well, folks, what do they have to lose?”

Boden: Yeah, yeah.

Lewis: You know? These electeds don’t even like them. They don’t even want them in their office, let alone a group of folks from Picture the Homeless. No.

Boden: [00:24:07] Yeah. And it’s… When the organization starts worrying about what, you know like, when, I write a lot. So, people, are like, “Well, who’s your target audience?” It’s like, I don’t give a—it’s the motherfuckers that I need to worry about are the people that I hang out with. And that’s who I’m going to be talking to when I write the shit. And that’s always been the philosophy behind the Street Sheet. It’s always been… Like it was so cool doing this book, this _House Keys _book, and going back to all the old Street Sheets, and so that everything I talk about in the book is validated by articles that were written at the time,

Lewis: Nice.

Boden: by the coalition, for the Street Sheet, that validated what I was saying was happening in the first part of the book. That’s accountable, right? So, that’s what… And also like, with this oral history project, I mean, the Street Sheet serves as that. When everybody in the organization that’s connected to the organizing is writing pieces for the paper, that goes out through homeless people and mainly read by other homeless people—like, it gives you a real sense of what the fuck you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how you’re letting your community know what the fuck is going on.

Lewis: [00:25:34] So, that office, going back to those early days when people used telephones—so, you’re on the phone. [Laughter]

Boden: [laughs] And we smoked in the office.

Lewis: And smoked in the office. I remember smoking in the office on Turk, also.

Boden: Yeah well, any office. [Smiles]

Lewis: There was a room,

Boden: Any office, oh man, it was… Yeah, my office at Turk St., my office was the smoking room.

Lewis: [00:25:57]  So, the Hyde Street office and then y’all went to Turk Street?

Boden: Yeah. Yeah, it’s just been those two places.

Lewis: And…

Boden: [00:26:08] I mean, at one point, we were in like, five different offices. Family Rights and Dignity was down here at the Women’s Building,

Lewis: Yeah, okay.

Boden: on 18th Street.

Lewis: With Bianca?

Boden: [00:26:18] Yeah, [smiles] yeah, with Bianca, and Malika before her, who’s now in D.C., I think, but…. And then, we had a group here in this building, AYUDA, and then, we had on Golden Gate down in the basement and we had the Welfare Rights, which became POWER.

Lewis: I remember that.

Boden: [00:26:38] And then we had—our Civil Rights Project was down there, and then we had the other—so, we were spread out in four different really small offices, because we didn’t… And then, we found the place on Turk Street where we all came together.

Lewis: I remember AYUDA. We visited with them.

Boden: Yeah, it was here.

Lewis: In this building?

Boden: Upstairs, on the third floor.

Lewis: [00:27:03] So, when you… Who are the other founders of the coalition?

Boden: Oh, there was like an army. Yeah, no, there really was. I mean it wasn’t— you know like—there was that Welfare Rights Union, so even the people that were part of that were, like, “Yeah, we need to all be on the same page.” And that’s why the coalition had so many different projects, you know, because it was really created by five or six people that were working in different projects that wanted to see how we could bring this shit together.

Lewis: Since I’ve known you, which now, it’s been a while, right?

Boden: Uh-huh.[Smiles]

Lewis: Decades. [Laughter] You’ve always, to me been… I’ve always seen you as someone who’s very, very clear. And—where do you think—because a lot of people have gone through experiences similar to what you’ve gone through. So, where does your clarity come from?

Boden: [00:28:08] I mean, it’s going to sound corny, though—but like especially after my mom died and shit and I was bouncing around and my sisters couldn’t fucking, you know—I was really pretty messed up. Then like, a year and a half later, my really tight girlfriend got killed in a car accident. So, I just kind of got to like, “Fuck everybody. I ain’t fucking gettin’… You know”, and I became really fucking self-referential and feeling sorry for myself and getting really fucking high all the time. And I found that I got really good at bullshitting—at lying. And I could be really manipulative and tell you a sob story so that at the end of the conversation, you’re going to give me money. I’m not going to have to ask for it. And I just thought, “Wow, that fucking sucks.”

Boden: [00:28:59] So, I tried to see how long I could go without telling a lie. And I lasted like, five-and-a-half months. Try it sometime. It’s fucking hard. But I got really good at not feeling the need to bullshit. And so, I don’t bullshit, and I don’t have to remember what I told you. I don’t have to like worry about, “Well, who did I say what to, and who do I…” It’s like, I just fucking tell everybody the same shit and I just say what I think and what I believe and if you don’t like it, then you’re not going to want to hang around with me for very long because I will tell you what I think, you know? And I try to do it really respectfully but there’s a purpose to it, which is, you know, I don’t want to—I can tolerate a lot of shit. I don’t fucking like liars. And if I don’t like them, I don’t want to be—you know?

Boden: [00:29:56] So, people think it’s like, “Ah, you’re so consistent!” And it’s like, yeah, well I just say the same shit, you know? And I think when you’re repping a group like I’ve been doing now between the coalition and here, it’s like, as an ED of a fucking organization… It’s been thirty years? So, you’re representing an organization that you feel like has a lot of integrity. So, you better not be fucking lying, [laughter] you know? Because if I’m lying, people are going to say the coalition’s lying.

Boden: If I’m full of shit, people are going to say the coalition’s full of shit. So, there’s a real responsibility there to tell the fucking truth when you’re talking to the mayor. Don’t say, “Oh, I told the mayor this!” People will know when you’re bullshitting them. So, you just don’t bullshit them.

Boden: But it’s thirty years of fucking being an ED. What a drag.

Lewis: A job that you didn’t necessarily set out to have.

Boden: [00:31:02] No! [Laughter] No, no, no… But, you know, the cool thing about starting all these projects or being a part of starting all these projects is I’ve never had to apply for a job. [Laughter] It’s like, if I need some work, I can just go start another fucking project. [Laughter] Probably partially white privilege, too.

Lewis: [00:31:25] So, let’s talk about the project that you started after the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, when you left. What’s the project that you started and how did that happen?

Boden: That’s Western Regional Advocacy Project and it happened because me, you, John Donahue, Anita—primarily me and you—but those guys were part of it.

Lewis: And Pete joined—

Boden: And Pete.

Lewis: But he was, LA CAN was still part of,

Boden: The

Lewis: Community Action

Boden: L.A. Coalition.

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: I think, yeah, they—he was still part—yeah. Erlenbusch was already doing his shit and Pete worked with Erlenbusch.

Lewis: Yep.

Boden: [00:32:12] And so, we came up with what I thought, to this day—still think—that the National Coalition should fucking be doing. Like, it just made so much sense and I thought it was brilliant. And I thought it was a really good idea and the people that I spoke to out here about doing the shit, really thought it was a good idea. And so, when the board said no after our three-hour dog and pony, Pete and Monica and Jenny and… We were like, “So, fuck ‘em.”

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: Let’s just do it ourselves.

Lewis: So, what were we proposing? What was our dog and pony and who was it to?

Boden: [00:33:03] The proposal was… I mean, and so WRAP is a western regional office of, yeah… It’s just what it is. But if the other ones ever start up, we got a good network to build off of. And the whole idea was to be doing the cross-organizing, the intersectional organizing in the same time zones as the people you’re talking to and close enough that there can be face-to-face meetings. And people can go to each other’s places and doing that kind of—we did it with Chicago, we did it with Picture the Homeless—those kind of site visits and go hang out! Like, there’s nothing like hanging out with a group and seeing their neighborhood,

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: and seeing how they do their shit and seeing who’s there. And to do that on a regional basis nationwide, would be fucking powerful. I know the reason the board of directors didn’t go for it. The staff didn’t go for it, and we probably should’ve handled that part better. We probably shouldn’t have said, “Well, we lay off everybody and we put them the money into these regional offices.” Although that is what we thought needed to happen, [laughter] I could see why Duffield and them had some qualms with our idea. It still should have happened though. And… To you know, just have your conference calls so you’re in the right time zone, and just have your community… And what scared them so much was we also had it built in that those regional offices would appoint the board members,

Lewis: Yes!

Boden: to the national.

Lewis: Yep.

Boden: And so, they—the national—would be driven by the regional organizing, as it should be!

Lewis: And accountable.

Boden: And we would appoint who’s on the board, representing us. And that’s where the whole fucking board of directors was like… These self-identified leaders, most of whom are still fucking there to this day. And I love when I tell—you know, every time I tell the story of, “What’s WRAP?” What, how, where did WRAP come from, I tell this story—at public speaking gigs, on TV, wherever the fuck, because I’m going to tell the fucking truth. And the truth is there was a brilliant fucking idea with Chicago, New York, L.A., Atlanta, all onboard to do an organizing campaign around the issue of homelessness at a national level that still should happen today.

Lewis: We had, before we started interviewing, you know, we had a diagram. You know, we drew a picture of it, of the National Civil Rights,

Boden: Yes, I don’t have that.

Lewis: —Organizing Project. So, I’m going to look for it. If I have it then, if I have it, you have it.

Lewis: [00:35:58] I remember one of the other things that was very exciting for us at Picture the Homeless was that you had a methodology around civil rights. You had a lot of great, the coalition, at the time,

Boden: Yes.

Lewis: where you were, had amazing popular education pamphlets about due process, ”If the cops take your stuff and throw it away.” Stuff that we didn’t have.

Boden: [00:36:24] No, our Civil Rights Organizing Project, as we called it then, now I think it’s the Human Rights… But was one of the very first projects we did.

Lewis: Picture the Homeless, which is, you know, younger than the coalition… The first campaign that we had too, was civil rights. And so, one of the reasons why it made sense to me—and I remember talking about it this way—is that if you’re not working on civil rights, then what good are you to homeless folks? [Laughter] I mean, people need housing, but you just can’t _not _address that dignity question—and also the material harm that’s caused. So, not just the dignity but

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: losing your stuff. I think on that board, there weren’t tons of folks who were really committed to working on civil rights. And one reason, I think, is there’s no money, there’s no funding in that. And a lot of the groups on that board were advocacy and service groups.

Lewis: [00:37:36] And so, of the groups that works with WRAP, could you talk about what kind of groups they are and what they have to do to be members?

Boden: Yes. I mean it’s… Well, there’s Denver Homeless Out Loud, Los Angeles Community Action Network and the San Francisco Coalition are all kind of similar, in that they’re community based, street level organizers as well as have a street paper or whatever. But their core is the community outreach and the community forums that they host, and that’s their driving focus. Now, Sisters of the Road comes from that background, but they run a café and they do organizing, and they do advocacy work, but their main thrust is this awesome fucking café with really good food, on small tables run like a fucking café, you know? But it’s a dollar fifty for a meal or you volunteer for half an hour, you eat for free for a week,

Lewis: Nice.

Boden: type shit and it’s all cooked fresh every day. It’s really, literally a café but it’s affordable to the poorest people in the community.

Lewis: And where are they?

Boden: In Old Town, Portland, Oregon.

Boden: And they were one of the startup groups.

[INTERRUPTION: Paul speaks to Jonathan, a WRAP staffer who came into the room. “Hey! Is Candy back? Thank you. That’s really nice of you. You’re a nice fucking guy.” Lynn laughs, agreeing, “He’s a nice fucking guy.” Paul asks, “Did you want one?” Lynn laughs, “Not now.”]

Boden: And then, Streets Roots is a street paper, you know? But these were all groups that had heard about… And that’s why we ended up with three in Portland. I don’t know how the fuck that happened, but… That heard about this idea of creating this Western Regional campaign and said, “We want to be part of that.” And at that time, Real Change up in Seattle, was also a part of it. But… It was—you know, these guys said—and then, Right to Survive and DHOL came later. They didn’t exist at that time. They were, you know… In fact, DHOL came about when I was out there doing the “Without Housing” PowerPoint presentation, which I do all the fucking time. And I was going around—I was—some organization was, hired—paid WRAP to have me go around and do a series of community meetings and I met people from DHOL there—

Lewis: Denver Homeless Out Loud?

Boden: [00:40:19] Denver Homeless Out Loud and ended up working with them on creating that organization. So, obviously, they’re members because… [Smiles] And so, like all they have to do—in our guidelines, our structure shit, that you have to sign off on is you have to do accountable community organizing and you have to be pushing for addressing the race and class issues that created contemporary homelessness. Like, you have to have that understanding. You can’t just be doing homeless services. You can be an ally. We have two hundred and something organizations that are allies of WRAP. But the core members, like that’s who I’m accountable to. Those are the only ones that can tell me what to do. So, the level of accountability they have to bring to the table is really fucking high.

Lewis: [00:41:28] A couple years ago, we were together—we, like, thirty-six groups—were all together in Denver and we had tried… We were there to support—

Boden: Oh, God.[Laughter]

Lewis: Denver… At first, you’re looking at me

Boden: Yes.

Lewis: like, “What?!” And I thought to myself, wait a minute… Yeah, we were…

Boden: Yeah, we were. [Smiles]

Lewis: And so, that felt like it could possibly have been maybe a—a re-thinking this national NCROP [National Civil Rights Organizing Project] idea that we had had years ago and where the national coalition can play a role. I guess with Michael Stoops, you know, becoming ill—that was one of the things that

Boden: [00:42:12] No, that’s not why!

Lewis: What happened, then?

Boden: That’s not why it didn’t happen.

Lewis: Talk to me.

Boden: It’s their board of directors. The National Coalition isn’t going to change its stripes with the same leadership. It’s just not going to happen. That Denver meeting was just another exercise in… Is the energy there? Is the potential there? Fuck, yeah!

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: Are there really kickass groups out there trying to do this shit in an accountable way? Hell, yeah. Is that going to coalesce under this leadership, that controls the National Coalition for the Homeless? And the answer to that is no.

Lewis: [00:42:56] Do you see possibilities of expanding nationally?

Boden: Yeah, I think it’s eminently possible, but you know, I like to start new shit, so.

Lewis: Yeah!

Boden: But I think it’s absolutely doable. I think the idea that we had is still fucking doable. We just were not able to do it under the rubric of the National Coalition for the Homeless. And that’s unfortunate but… And then you look at it and there’s now fifteen different national homeless fucking groups.

Lewis: It’s disgusting.

Boden: [00:43:33] That we don’t need another one. [Laughs]

Lewis: No.

Boden: You know? And the fact that there are sixteen different national homeless groups tells you that there’s no revolution to end homelessness that’s happening at the national level.

Lewis: Nope.

Boden: There’s a lot of fighting over the crumbs, and self-identified experts that are at the trowel of the national whatever it is. That’s not all the National Coalition’s fault but it certainly needs to take a lion’s share of the responsibility for it.

Lewis: [00:44:14] So, you know, when I met the cofounders of Picture the Homeless, and they were organizing against police brutality in the shelter…

Boden: Also, wasn’t there some shit with somebody was attacking—or a homeless guy hit somebody with a brick…

Lewis: Well, that—

Boden: And then there was this whole fucking

Lewis: Catalyzed the

Boden: the whole fucking crackdown shit

Lewis: That catalyzed the police brutality, the crackdown.

Boden: And the media sensation around it, really. The cops really responded to—

Lewis: [00:44:44] Yeah, on November sixteenth, a man hit a woman in the head—Nicole Goodwin—in the head, in Midtown, and

Boden: and they sic’d the dogs.

Lewis: He ran off and people said he looked homeless.

Boden: Right.

Lewis: Because he was Black and disheveled somewhat, I guess. Giuliani was mayor, and the headlines were all, “Get these violent crazies off the street.” But months prior, leading up to that, there was already a campaign to further dehumanize homeless folks because Giuliani wanted to end the right to shelter and make folks have to work for their shelter beds just like welfare, like workfare and WEP [Welfare Education Program], as it’s called now. So, you know, using, you know, one person who appeared to be homeless, who ended up not even being homeless when they found him, as an excuse to send the warrant squad in and do sweeps everywhere, it was really just cover for something they were already doing, but not as intensely. And then, once you stigmatize homeless people about that, you can create all these other fucked up policies.

Boden: Right.

Lewis: [00:46:08] So, that got Lewis really… Very persistently going after Anthony to go with him to speak on the radio. And it was I guess, a month and a half after that, that I met them. I remember talking to them about, you know, you, the work in San Francisco, people like Jack Graham, people like Buddy. You know, down to earth folks. Lewis was an organizer prior to coming,

Boden: Where was Jack at? I forget where he was.

Lewis: Chicago.

Boden: Chicago.

Lewis: [00:46:56] But Anthony was kind of new to organizing and so, like you said, it’s hard to explain things to people without people seeing it. Lewis had been involved with the National Action Network, so he was taking Anthony over there and then we actually had created a homeless committee there because gentrification was really also starting to hit Harlem. So, we figured out a way for Anthony to come out, through the North America Street Newspaper Association.

Boden: Yes, for the conference.

Lewis: So, Michael Stoops got—he had asked Indio from Street News and Indio didn’t want to go. So then, he asked me if I knew anyone and I was like, “Oh, my God, you have to meet these two men, you know, and they have started a group.” So, Anthony went. And you let him sleep in the office, I think.

Boden: Mm-hmmm. Everyone else did. [Laughter] Why shouldn’t he?

Lewis: [00:47:56] So, talk about that! So, talk about that. What kind of office did you have that people slept in it? And two, what was the experience like meeting Anthony and hearing about Picture the Homeless?

Boden: Well, I’m from New York and so I always love when New Yorkers come around. And there’s just a different vibe than you get out here, you know. And so, for me, it’s like putting on an old sweater, you know? It’s like, “Oh! Fucking New Yorker, all right.” And also, like, he just was fucking funny. So, it was really easy. And he wasn’t—and this is something that you see with LA CAN. Like, when we were first—when we do our face-to-face meetings—everybody sleeps in the theater space next door, right over on the other side of the wall there. And the staff here were like, “Oh, shit, so you’re going to have forty homeless people or, you know, or poverty group motherfuckers sleeping on the…” And then, after twenty minutes, the guy Charles, that you’ve seen was, like, “Oh, shit, this is cool.” Like, you just get this energy from certain people that like, they’re not going to fuck you over.

Lewis: That’s right.

Boden: [00:49:12] And they’re not intimidated by you. They’re not nervous around you. And so, Anthony comes in and he’s hanging out and within five, ten minutes, he seemed absolutely fucking comfortable, which made everyone else comfortable around him. It just had that kind of click to it, you know? And it was just, like, “Shit, yeah, man, you can sleep here. I don’t give a fuck.” You know?

Boden: [00:49:35] And also—coming—I think because I came from a crash pad and I came from that squatting background and shit, like, to have an office empty at night and you’re a fucking homeless group? [Laughter] Like to me, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Like, you’re going to have this space that people could be using to sleep that are volunteering at your fucking place during the day. So, they’re good enough to be there to work for free during the day, but they’re not good enough to sleep there. Well, fuck you. Like, that was always my mindset.

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: [00:50:19] And so, the whole time I was there, there were motherfuckers sleeping there. Like, of course. I would get—feel bad if there _wasn’t _somebody sleeping there. And the only rule was they had to answer the phone like, if it rang, because it could be somebody’s last quarter. That was the only fucking rule. Now, were they always sober when they answered the phone? I’m not so sure... But you had to answer the phone if it rang.

Lewis: [00:50:48] I have a funny phone answering story. So, when we moved to One Sixteen [Street] a guy, Johnny DiFranco used to answer the phone, but sometimes he would be sleeping with his head on the desk. And one time, he picks up the phone and he was like, “You know, uh… Don’t call back here! I don’t feel like talking!” And slammed the phone down. We were all in one room, still. We only had one big office space. And people were like, “What the fuck, Johnny?” And he was like, “I don’t feel like talking on the phone!”

Boden: Yeah, then don’t fucking answer!

Lewis: So, it was like, a big, like, “Well, you can’t sit there, then!” But,

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: people worked it out. But it was… I’ll never forget. That was funny as hell.

Boden: [00:51:37] And… But you know, the front desk was another place that, to us—when, you know, somebody came, they had to do community service hours, or Food Not Bombs member gets, you know… Or just people that wanted to plug in, but they couldn’t do the street outreach or didn’t want to do the street, like, answering the phones, automatically you get to know everybody. You get to see what the organization’s doing. So, it’s a great intro to getting connected to the organization and understanding what the organization’s doing.

Boden: [00:52:10] And my favorite story is when the fucking mayor called once, and this guy, became my friend, Mikey, was answering the phone. He was like, “Oh, you know, Paul’s not here right now.” “Well, give me his home number. I need to talk to him.” “No, we don’t give out his home number.” “Do you know who this is?” [Laughter] And Mikey goes, “Yeah. And he doesn’t really like you all that much anyway, [laughter] so give me your number and I’ll tell him to call you.” And fucking Agnos was so irate when I called him. And I was like, “Dude, they’re not going to give you my—they don’t care who the fuck you are.” I just thought that was so great [smiles] because if it had been somebody else, Mikey would have given him my fucking… It wasn’t like people weren’t allowed. But he just, the fact that it was the mayor, I mean, Mikey was like, “He was so arrogant about it. Like, he just expected us to give him your number.” I was like, “Nah. I love that shit.”

Lewis: [00:53:08] So, Anthony was out here, he was sleeping in the office. Do you remember anything else about that?

Boden: I mean, I don’t think that there was—I mean, well, the NASNA conference was fun, because we had wheat pasting all over the Mission District. And so, that was a good time to come to like, see us doing our shit, you know?

Lewis: [00:53:33] What were you wheat pasting?

Boden: I still… Some of them are still up in the office, there. But that’s where we came up with the one with the image of the guy with the machine gun and a shopping cart behind him. And it says, “There are fifteen thousand homeless people in San Francisco.”

Lewis: I love that one.

Boden: How many do you need to start a revolution?

Lewis: You wheat pasted those?

Boden: Oh, all over the fucking Mission District.

Lewis: [Laughs] I love that.

Boden: [00:53:53] Because the conference was at New College, which is on Valencia, a little further down than where we were the other day. And so, all around the Mission District, there were different wheat paste stuff going on, just to welcome the people for the conference. And gentrification was fucking massively kicking into the Mission District right around that time.

Lewis: Every time I come; it seems worse.

Boden: [00:54:24] Well, they won. Right? You know, like, we need to take over. We’ve already lost. Like, we’re not defending to keep at this point. We need to figure out a strategy to take the shit back. But clearly, the developers have the upper hand. And the Business Improvement Districts is just the manifestation of how they’re going to control us. They’re going to privatize the space. And they are going to run the space and dictate what happens in that space, that they’re going to be the decision makers.

Lewis: I saw a sign up today, “No street vending.”

Boden: Here?

Lewis: Uh-huh.

Boden: Cocksuckers. Where?

Lewis: In a window, right near the sign that says Bolarium Bookstore, but it’s not a Bolarium Bookstore. It’s like some kind of laundromat or some kind of store. I took a picture of the flyer.

Boden: But it was here in the Mission?

Lewis: Yeah!

Boden: Fuck!

Lewis: Right—just a couple blocks on this left side of the street, not the right side. And there were tons of guys selling stuff on the sidewalk, right in front—but they were organized, and you know, they weren’t all over the sidewalk.

Boden: Yeah, I was going to say, yeah.

Lewis: They had their blankets, and in a like, very neat setup.

Boden: So, just some store owner didn’t want them in front of his or her place.

Lewis: Mm-hmmm. But I took a picture of the flyer, because

Boden: [00:55:46] Because in other areas, in New York, and I talked to the Street Vendors Coalition guy a little bit. I think our artwork was a little too out there for them, but I could be wrong. I just haven’t heard back from them.

Lewis: New York thinks it’s bold sometimes.

Boden: [00:56:02] Well, you know, it’s funny with WRAPS artwork that, like—because this happened with Right to the City, it’s happened with other groups. We put our shit out and the initial response is, “Oh wow, that’s really cool.” And so, it’s like, “Oh, cool, you want it for the—it’s for the campaign? You want it? You want to use it?” “Ahhhhhh… It’s not really something we use.” You know?

Boden: That’s what I love about our artwork [laughs] it’s like—

Lewis: And it doesn’t look like anything else, anyone else’s.

Boden: Yeah. It’s pretty unique. I mean, we’re really well-known for it at this point.

Lewis: Yes, it’s important.

Boden: It’s a great messaging tool.

Boden: [00:56:40] But I just think that you know… The idea that, you know, we could do the wheat pasting and connect it to this conference and have that connected to Anthony coming out to talk about Picture the Homeless and shit, like, that’s where these meetings, these conferences really have their value, you know? The Street Newspaper Association is whatever the fuck it is. You know, I don’t know that they would have another fucking conference like that, that involved civil disobedience, it involved an action. You know, like I don’t know that that’s how they would do their shit these days. But it was clearly how we did shit then. You know, like that Denver thing. Like, we tried that in almost every face to face. This last one we didn’t because it was deliberate. It was like, “No, we need to get this shit done.” But we hardly ever do a face-to-face meeting without an action.

Lewis: Yes because it’s like, a waste of all that energy,

Boden: Like when we were in Denver

Lewis: to not have action.

Boden: [00:57:45] We—you know? Like, if you’re going to all come together, especially at a
national level

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: then fucking do something while you’re there. And if you have the actions that we’re lucky enough to be able to do, because Brass Liberation Orchestra is in town, and we work with amazing artists. So, we do street theatre, like somebody was just showing… In our last newsletter, we had a link to a video of our street theater shit around the Business Improvement District, you know, where you have routines and you do dance and you make costumes and you make it a fucking celebration, because you’re getting your ass kicked, so you might as well

Lewis: Might as well have fun.

Boden: have a good time, [laughter] you know? And who wants to go to a fucking demo to hear somebody talk about why you should be at the demo?! It’s like, I already know that shit, motherfucker.

Lewis: That’s why I’m here.

Boden: That’s why I’m here! [laughter] You know? So, I want to go to a party

Lewis: Yes.

Boden: and have fun.

Lewis: Exactly.

Boden: [00:58:41] And maybe I’ll bring my friends with me the next time you have an action, because the shit’s fun.

Lewis: And I get to know you better and, okay, I see you now, so…

Boden: You know, and you get to laugh and afterwards you go have a couple of beers, get high, talk about how much fun the shit was.

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: As opposed to how tedious the meeting was.

Lewis: And I’m looking forward to it again.

Boden: [Laughs] You know?

Lewis: Yes.

Boden: [00:59:04] I just think that’s the kind of energy that gets sucked out as you corporatize the experience of community organizing.

Boden: And I get really resentful of people like shoving Saul Alinsky down everyone’s throat. Not to point him out, but the fact that everybody knows who he is and his… And they know the methodology just by saying the person’s name, tells you that shit didn’t work! We got our asses kicked. The fucking War on Poverty was a travesty in the lives of poor people. It created a welfare situation. It created 501(c)(3)s. It created fucking foundations.

Lewis: It didn’t create justice.

Boden: That shit came out of the War on Poverty. They didn’t address poverty. They bought poverty and they industrialized it.

Lewis: And manage it.

Boden: [01:00:00] And they corporatized it and now they’re doing that with public housing, you know? They’re fucking selling mortgages to public housing units! The fuck you doing?! You know? That’s what the War on Poverty gave us. The lasting legacy was the benefit of the corporations that set up the foundations to fund poor people’s shit, or to fund art or a museum.

Lewis: Yes, they’re big tax write-offs.

Boden: [01:00:27] That’s who gained the most from the War on Poverty, not fucking poor people. And we shouldn’t… If we’re going to learn, then let’s learn that. And let’s not worry about what we’re doing next. Let’s make sure we’re not doing that. And that’s where, you know, and it drove a lot of my co-workers and shit crazy. But I when we were starting the coalition and really getting into the campaigns… I had no idea what I wanted to do, what I thought the coalition should do. I had a whole laundry list of things we weren’t going to do. And I just wanted to make sure that whatever we did wasn’t what was [laughs] currently being done or what was expected of us or what we were supposed to do, based on some fucking book. Like, whatever we do, let’s do something different. And I think that’s why street outreach became such an integral part of how the office functions, is “No, you need to be out there. You need to be in the shelters. You need to be, you know… “

Lewis: [01:01:43] So, when we—we came out again.

Boden: As a group.

Lewis: A group of us.

Boden: That’s one I remember more clearly.

Lewis: Yeah. Six of us came.

Lewis: [01:01:55] I know when Anthony came back from that week, he—

Boden: The first time?

Lewis: Yes, it really—I mean, it made a huge impression on him because of —the way the office was full of homeless folks, running it not there as clients.
_ _
Boden: Yeah. No, we didn’t have clients.

Lewis: And that whole vibe, that client vibe… Anthony, you know, grew up in foster care and was in and out of shelters, just his whole adult life almost. And so, to talk to somebody about, “Oh, yes, homeless people are running shit.” Or folks being able to see that for themselves, and get comfortable, and have conversations and have it not be a meeting about it but just be able to, like, absorb it.

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: It made a huge impression on him.

Boden: [01:02:53] Yeah like, I don’t even know that we had any meetings with him the first time. I mean because, like, that’s just…

Lewis: He was just there.

Boden: the conference, we were hosting a fucking NASNA conference so.

Lewis: But Anthony, like—that’s one thing I love about Anthony is that’s like, one of his styles of learning—is he’ll just, he’ll get in a place and immerse and

Boden: Yeah, I mean like, him and I

Lewis: check people out.

Boden: talked and shit. But I mean

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: we didn’t have a formal, like

Lewis: Training.

Boden: You know, yeah. No, I—oh no.

Lewis: No, no. He was just here, like, shadowing.

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: [01:03:20] And then, we came back, we started having—it might have been before we even had office space. When we started meeting in Judson Memorial Church, when we got office space there… So, when he came, it must have been 2000, maybe 2001. So then, a delegation of us came and Emily Givens was on it and,

Boden: Emily?

Lewis: Emily from Picture the Homeless, her last name is Givens.

Boden: Oh. Oh, okay.

Lewis: Remember her?

Boden: [01:03:55] Yeah. Yeah. [Laughter] I didn’t remember Givens. I was, like, who’s Givens?

Lewis: Yeah. That’s her last name.

Boden: Okay.

Lewis: So, Anthony, Emily, myself, a guy named Richie who just stayed out here—

Boden: Richie Cunningham. Yes, he did stay. [Smiles]

Lewis: He stayed. Another—

Boden: For a long time.

Lewis: Yeah. Another guy, who I don’t remember but who had gotten his whole week’s worth of methadone and took it all in the plane on the way out here. So then, [laughs] he was like, useless the whole trip. It was very hard for him.

Boden: You guys didn’t stay at the office, or did you? I forget.

Lewis: We stayed at a hostel.

Boden: Okay.

Lewis: So, there were six of us. The other person too, escapes me. But they didn’t stay involved. AND Emily and I were in one room, because the guys, we wanted to do three and three, but they were like, “No.” They were like, real uptight. So, we had a room all to ourselves.

Lewis: [01:04:51] And she was so…  on fire. Especially—well, about the vibe in the office, but about L.S. and the civil rights stuff.

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: And—

Boden: And Mara Raider.

Lewis: Yes.

Boden: And L.S. were running the civil rights program.

Lewis: Yep, and

Boden: Mara Raider is now at Hospitality House

Lewis: Oh, that’s great.

Boden: with my friend Joe, yeah.

Lewis: John Viola was there, and he came to the presentation the other day.

Boden: He was there at that point?

Lewis: He was there.

Boden: He was volunteering—he was still in school or something.

Lewis: Yeah. And I think that was

Boden: Because then he moved to New York and then he came back.

Lewis: [01:05:34] The way I remember it, is that he was there, and he was there at that time, and they were vacating outstanding warrants. There was like, amnesty.

Boden: Yes, we had a Citation Defense Program, a law student started it and then graduated—
took—passed the bar, became a lawyer, and then started to supervise it. So, we had like, generational connections with these guys that—would become a lawyer, could get loan forgiveness or loan break on their debt by working in community service work. So, they would staff the Citation Defense Program. We managed that for like, twelve years.

Lewis: Well, Emily was really impressed. She was street homeless at the time and we had started a clinic. But it was somebody from New York City Police Watch, which was affiliated with the Ella Baker Center out here. But he—actually, the homeless folks that were getting citations knew more about what to do than he did.

Boden: That’s a problem.

Lewis: And so, they were like, “We don’t need you to tell us what to do. We need somebody to fix this shit. Like, we don’t have money to pay the fines. We want to stop them from giving us the tickets, the citations, or arresting us.”

Boden: Right.

Lewis: And so

Boden: And what we discovered was if you had legal representation to fight the citation, nine times out of ten it got dismissed.

Lewis: Yep. Like everything else, right? So, Emily was really on fire with L.S. There was Cop Watch. Do you remember that trip?

Boden: Oh hell, yeah.

Lewis: So, do you have some,

Boden: Yeah!.

Lewis: PTH stories?

Boden: [01:07:25] When people ask me about, like, and because we also got to do that with Chicago… Like, I remember that trip mainly because I thought it was so fucking cool that… And also, remember, I knew the New York Coalition and I knew Mary really well and had tried to do the civil rights shit that we did at the San Francisco Coalition with staff of Mary’s at the New York Coalition, and they just would not fucking do it. The staff would’ve. Mary wouldn’t do it. And so, they would do lawsuits, but they wouldn’t do Citation Defense.

Lewis: Right.

Boden: That was beneath them. So—there was this real, for me, sense of wanting to see Picture the Homeless kick fucking ass and feeling like this is fucking cool. Because it’s still my hometown, you know?  So, I was really energized about the people that were talking, that came out to talk about doing it and this absolute belief system that they were going to do it. There was never a question in my mind that these guys weren’t going to do the shit.

That was the same experience I had when I first met Denver Homeless Out Loud folks. It was very clear there was a fucking plan afoot. They didn’t know exactly what the plan was but there was a plan to do this shit. And so, it was just exciting! It was like, you get to share your shit with somebody who’s actually going to do the shit, not just talk to you about what you do and why you do it but someone who’s going to be doing the same kind of shit that you’re talking about. And I think the more we… Like that’s why—you know, referring those Connecticut people—I think the more we can share… They’ll end up doing whatever the fuck they want. But to be able to actually talk to a group of people with the same belief systems—
Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: and talk about the freedom of, well, just start stirring some shit. Like, you’ll figure it out

Lewis: You’ll see where to go.

Boden: as you go.

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: [01:09:35] If you listen to people, you’ll figure it out. But just start doing something! Don’t just have meetings to talk about doing something. I keep joking, and especially after Occupy, there’s like—they used to meet in our space. So did Van Jones and those guys, like… But we’re old, Lynn.

Lewis: We are old. [Laughs]

Boden: [01:09:57] Swear to God. Oh, God. But I used to joke about, you know, we’re going to be in a meeting one day and the revolution’s going to happen and we’re going to fucking miss it because we’re in another God damn fucking meeting. [Smiles] So, I used to come into their meetings and be like, “Hey, you guys!” [Bangs on table] “We just had the revolution! You can stop meeting now!”

Lewis: [01:10:20] What… So you know, when we went back, one of the things that you talked to us about was structure, because that was something that we were really trying to figure out at Picture the Homeless.

Boden: Yes, I drive people nuts with that shit.

Lewis: Well, it’s where, you know, power—it’s not like there’s groups that there’s no leaders or there’s no… Like, if you’re not intentional with that, there’s going to be a structure either way.

Boden: Right.

Lewis: So, you might as well

Boden: Might as well create it.

Lewis: have the one you want.

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: And that fits with your mission, right?

Boden: [01:10:54] And also that—I believe really firmly that the people that put in the time and energy to start the shit have a right to say how the shit’s going to function. And then, the people that implement the shit need to adhere to that.

Lewis: Well, at Picture the Homeless, one of the, you know, the challenges was, I think, Lewis having left so early on. We started a lot of, I mean, quite a few homeless folks were coming really early on that were really strong and wanted… And were serious and wanted stuff to happen, like Emily or Jean. When we came back from San Francisco, that’s when we met Prince who was Jean’s cousin and he brought Jean in. And so, we had, we got some serious-ass people

Boden: Yes.

Lewis: in the door and it was, “Okay”, [laughs] “What are we doing and how are we going to do it?”

Lewis: [01:11:58] So, when we came back from that trip with Emily—that Emily was on, and Anthony and the other folks—on the napkin in the airplane, she started drawing a structure.

Boden: Hot shit. That’s fucking hysterical!

Lewis: Yes.

Boden: Because the coalition structure was on a napkin in a bar.

Lewis: [01:12:17] That’s how we also made up our—Anthony and I made up our website. So, she’s drawing on a napkin and she’s on fire. On fire! And prior to that, there had been a lot of resistance from her, from really most folks that were coming to the Wednesday night meetings, not wanting a structure, because people were opposed to having—to being exclusionary and not having, like separate… Separation was a word people used. Like, “We don’t want separation. We want to stay together.” Then, people were coming to the Wednesday night meetings wanting all these different things to happen. But everybody’s not going to work on everything. And so, that trip was very powerful, and she was one of, really, the most active people. To me, she had tremendous authority because she was street homeless, still. And Anthony, one thing I loved about Anthony, was his value—to never turn anyone away. That was really powerful, to really see folks learning from another group by being there and seeing how it works and making connections, as opposed to going to meetings about how to do stuff.

Boden: [01:13:49] And like, you probably couldn’t do this in New York, just because it gets so fucking cold, but that first office you came to in the small space, was somebody else’s building. And it had a gate out front that they used to lower over the doorway, at five o’clock when the agency closed.

Lewis: Oh, wow.

Boden: [01:14:12] And so, people always had to yell to us through the gate and we had to go out there and let them in.

Boden: [01:14:17] So, when we finally got our own space, I was really against closing the fucking door. Like, I just didn’t want the front door closed. I just felt like, “Why? What are we hiding from? Like, who are we trying to keep out?” And it just, it’s that thing about the space you’re creating is going to dictate so much about how people feel when they get there.

Lewis: That’s right.

Boden: [01:14:48] And if it’s too touchy-feely and shit, they’re going to feel uncomfortable. If it’s fucking brutally mean, they’re going to feel like, “Fuck you, I’m getting the fuck out of here.” But if it’s just welcoming, it makes all the difference in the world. And then, when people started having kids, it was amazing the impact that had on the space. Because now all of a sudden, aside from the dogs—we also always had people who—we had dogs living there as well as people. But, so aside from the dogs, we also now had these little kids running around. And that… The space just was fucking awesome. And people would check each other’s shit. They’d go, “Man, don’t be an asshole in front of the kid!” [Laughs] Like… The fuck…

Lewis: “Motherfucker, don’t be an asshole in front of the kid!” [Laughs]

Boden: [01:15:39] Oh hell yeah! We almost had Ruth’s kid trained to say, “Fuck you, Grandma”, when he was going to meet his grandma for the first time. And Ruth was like, “I swear to God, if he does it, I’ll come back here and kill every single fucking one of you.” And we would just be like, “Hey Max, say, ‘fuck you, Grandma!’”

Lewis: [01:15:59] So, I don’t know if it makes sense to ask the question this way but what are some of the, if you could identify the elements... Like, what is important to make a space welcoming when it’s a homeless space, welcoming to homeless people?

Boden: I don’t… I would say it’s the same elements that makes a space welcoming regardless of what your issue area is. So, I mean, I think it’s that… People are—in our world— people are coming from a very regimented fucking system, and oppressive system. And if they come to a place that has those same attributes, you’re just like every other motherfucker that’s out there. When they come to a place that isn’t asking you questions, I don’t need to know. That doesn’t ask you, “What’s wrong with you?” or “What do you need?” But that is just there. [Imitates casual conversation] “Hey, can I help you?” “No man, I just want to use the phone.” “All right, cool man.” That’s it. That’s all you need to know. Like, you don’t need to recruit them, you don’t need to bully them, you don’t need to control them. So long as they’re not fucking with anybody, leave them the fuck alone. And… You know, some of the people at the front desk were better at it than others but they all developed a personality. And the personality of who you first interact with when you come to a place, the personality of how the walls are set up and whether there’s artwork or not or—you know, like that kind of shit really connects to people. It just sticks in their head. And so, they see the world through the environment that you’ve created, that surrounds them. And it’s not always going to be perfect and shit, but that’s what makes it kind of cool, right? Yeah, or as fucked up as anybody else.

Lewis: It’s funny you mention all of that because, of all the homeless members of Picture the Homeless that were interviewed, everybody talked about the vibe of the space

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: when they first went there.

Boden: [01:18:30] But, I mean, think about, like… I think it’s a truism for all people. Like, I think that your environment dictates a lot about how you feel about where you are. Like, when people say to me, “What city do you like best?” I always first think of the people there, the ones I hang out with, the space I’m in. I don’t really think about the city anymore. And I think that we have to recognize that that’s an important facet of inviting people into the campaign, is where the campaign operates out of, and how they’re treated when they get there, you know? And it’s Skid Row, Tenderloin, it doesn’t matter. You can create the space that you want to have. And, you know, our thing was, you know, bathrooms and telephone. Again, we were pre-internet shit. But those were the two things that people had a really hard time just getting and being left alone. And so, those were two things that we provided, on a regular basis, you know, just you could just come in and use the fucking bathroom. Okay, fine. It’s a fucking toilet. [Laughs] Like, I don’t have to own it. But it was just that simplicity I think, that carried a lot of weight.

Lewis: [01:20:04] Were you… The time we came with Emily, we also kind of were part of the coalition and POWER, and I don’t remember the other groups, where we took over Gavin Newsome’s press conference.

Boden: Oh, did we do that? Okay.

Lewis: And Emily and Anthony were quoted in the paper because Gavin Newsome,

Boden: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Lewis: in Bayview—because he was talking about how Giuliani had cleaned up New York and

Boden: And they called him on it.

Lewis: But then, we all marched to City Hall because Gavin Newsome, he had that Care Not Cash plan, and you all were pushing for him to scrap the plan.

Boden: Right.

Lewis: And so, we marched from that.

Boden: Well actually, what we pushed but go ahead, it’s irrelevant.

Lewis: [01:20:54] So, well, you’ll correct me. That’s my memory of it. And we walked to City Hall. It seemed like over a hundred people. And Angelo, from the coalition, was in that meeting. And Gavin Newsome says, “Well, we don’t need the press here.” There was a bunch of press and a bunch of cops. And he goes, “We don’t need the press here.” And Angelo, who was with the coalition, working with the civil rights campaign says, “Well…”Oh, because Gavin Newsome says, “Oh, you know, we’re among friends and we don’t need the press here.” And Angelo says, “Well, if we’re among friends, we don’t need the police here.” [Laughter] And Picture the Homeless folks were so excited that somebody that they had met who was homeless shifted the whole dynamic, just by saying that.

Boden: Uh-huh. [Laughs]

Lewis: And it was like, such a common-sense thing to say.

Lewis: [01:21:57] And so, you know, what within WRAP, where you’re at now, I know you work with some folks that are really strong, local folks, that… How do you, how does WRAP support local groups so that folks are representing themselves and speaking for themselves?

Boden: [01:22:20] I mean honestly, I don’t know that I could say that WRAP does that. I mean, you know, granted—in the Without Housing materials that we create for the members, right? That shit better be fucking accurate. Because if people are going to get up there and rep the shit,
and when you come from the community, the first time you’re wrong, everything else you say is invalidated. “Oh, they don’t know what they’re talking about because they didn’t—this one thing was wrong in the information that they gave us.” So, there’s like a hardcore, vigilant documentation process on the fact sheets and shit that we create for the members.

Boden: [01:23:05] And then, there’s… Like we’ve become, like the sort of ALEC for our member groups in that we do a ton of research. But we turn all that over to the local members and then they do the local whatever they call it. Some call it leadership development; some call it whatever. But, you know they really do that amongst their members. And I go where I’m told and show up when I’m asked to do some of the background shit and be the old guy and—

Lewis: Elders are good.

Boden: you know?  [Laughter] And so, I do that as I’m asked to. And then, we also just like… They really value the artwork that we’re able to create. So, they’ll send us issues and we’ll get artists to fuck around with creating images for them and do flyers for them a lot. Jonathan is fucking good at it. [Smiles]

Lewis: Yeah, I love him.

Boden: And so, they’ll send him the information and he’ll create the flyers for them.

Boden: [01:24:15] So, like, it’s really just to—and we had said early on that… One of my problems with being part of statewide groups and being part of the fucking National Coalition and shit was, it always felt like I was having to do more shit on top of all the shit I was already doing—because the shit that I was doing as part of these statewide and national organizations wasn’t the same issues I was working on locally.

Boden: [01:24:46] And so, WRAP only has the housing—which includes gentrification and displacement and all that—and the human, the civil rights, right? So, the Homeless Bill of Rights Campaign, which includes the BIDS and the criminalization and the Broken Windows and all of that shit. Like, those are the two issue areas that we yank on our members for direction or feedback or whatever. So, when they’re talking WRAP shit, it’s about one of those two issue areas. It rarely goes outside of that. So, it just stays relevant to the shit they’re doing every day.

Lewis: [01:25:30] What are the things that you see that tie, not just the WRAP groups, but the other groups like, East Coast groups or Chicago? Are there common threads that tie all these different groups together?

Boden: I mean, of the groups that I respect?

Lewis: [Laughs] Yes, among the groups that you think are,

Boden: [Laughs] Then,

Lewis: doing the shit they need to do.

Boden: I think the civil rights shit is a common thread of the groups that are doing organizing in a way where they’re not afraid to fight. I think that the two issue areas that we’ve identified amongst our members I think, wasn’t unique to the West Coast. That the displacement and gentrification and the housing shit and the civil rights shit are impacting all of our members, whether you’re a family, whether you’re a single adult, whether you’re youth, whether you’re disabled, whether you’re—whatever.

Boden: [01:26:32] Those two issues impact your shit. And the groups that like that I’ve gotten connected with have been really focused on one or two—one or both of those two issues as a core aspect of their organizing work. And you know, and I mean, it’s always struck me how—one of the things I’m very proud of with the coalition is I left and it’s still doing its shit. I sometimes see groups that start out with that really core, “Yes, we need to fight this shit and we need to be willing to be out in the streets.” And then ten, fifteen years later, they’re not, you know?

Lewis: What do you attribute that to?

Boden: [01:27:40] I think that… When you have staff, now you’re an organization [imitates authoritative voice] and you have staff, and you have clients. You start feeling that you have something to lose, and your fearlessness goes—your level of fearlessness goes way the fuck down. Because well, “If I do that…” And there also tends to be more of an “I” in the decision-making, than a “we” in the decision-making. “And if I do that, then I might lose this grant and have to lay everybody off.”

[01:28:17] And at one point in your existence, you’re like, “So who gives a fuck? So what? We weren’t getting paid yesterday. Who cares?” You know that like… But you kind of lose that when you’re talking about other people’s paychecks and shit, and I think it impacts your organizing. And I think that you start feeling a real necessity to have victories—because that’s where your funding comes from.

[01:28:50] And also, I think… People running organizations that are organizing bodies are also people. So, I think that the personality or the belief systems of the person in a position of leadership within the organization, no matter how often they say “we” or “the members” can have a really dramatic impact on the environment of the front space, or on the decision-making of setting priorities, or on the memo—or the media releases that go out. Like, they need to hold themselves accountable and be able to look in the mirror and say, “Did I do that, or did we do that?”

Lewis: [01:29:44] And so, I wanted to know if you had… One of the purposes of asking comrades who aren’t part of Picture the Homeless but are part of the Picture the Homeless story—is to ask for some reflection about, you know, your reflection on Picture the Homeless, or… Yeah, start there.

Boden: I mean, it was skewed by my affection for Anthony, to be honest. Because my sister lived close to the Judson Street office. So, I remember that office really well because I would just stop by there. And Anthony and I would go out, whatever, you know? So, it was skewed by that, but the thing was also, just the shit he was talking about in terms of what Picture the Homeless was getting involved in—was just fucking real. And so, you know… And I remember that up in Harlem—where was that—110th and something?

Lewis: 116 and

Boden: 116

Lewis: 116 between Third and Lex. [Lexington Avenue]

Boden: [01:31:14] Like, that place was a little overwhelming. Like not overwhelming in the sense… But like, because—wasn’t Community Voices Heard near there?

Lewis: They were across the hall.

Boden: And so, like, it just seemed like it was becoming a much bigger organization.

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: [01:31:35] And it, you know, like it was never like I didn’t think it was going to happen. But it was, like, “Oh shit, I guess it’s happened, and I hope it stays cool.” Because I don’t know why, I got a weird vibe with Community Voices Heard. I don’t know like, I don’t know, it just didn’t feel, like, as homeless-centric.

Lewis: Well, they were across the hall and,

Boden: Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis: it’s a different way to organize.

Boden: Yeah, I’m not saying it to diss on their shit. It just

Lewis: No, it’s a different.

Boden: I was, like, oh man, I hope these guys don’t do that. [Laughs] So…

Lewis: [01:32:14] It was a challenge. You know, I had worked there for a while because I needed a job and Picture the Homeless didn’t have any funding.

Boden: Right.

Lewis: And Anthony and Lewis were really wary about applying for money and turning into the system.

Boden: [01:32:34] Yes, like I remember telling you guys about Ben and Jerry’s, like early on, because there’s only one fucking foundation that will just do the shit straight up.

Lewis: It was hard to convince—later on—hard to convince foundations that funded organizing that homeless people were organizing.

Boden: It still is.

Lewis: Yes, so,

Boden: It still is.

Lewis: But I feel like we opened—we—opened up doors and convinced the people that do it… Many of them were convinced by us. Us. I’m pointing to you, too. And so, if these people are listening to this. But one thing that made a difference was the,

Boden: [01:33:20] But even lefty fucking groups.

Lewis: Oh no, you—

Boden: don’t think homeless people

Lewis: no, no

Boden: can organize. It’s like…

Lewis: No, they don’t!

Boden: [01:33:25] But then they’ll say, [imitates them] “But poor people”, and it’s like, motherfucker, what do you think homeless people are?

Lewis: [01:33:30] The worst is when—and I was at a meeting, speaking of Community Voices Heard—I was at a meeting and there were some groups, they were giving a talk about, “There’s more homelessness than ever, since the Great Depression.” Like, to scare people. And then, all their proposals—none of them would have gotten housing for any homeless people.

Lewis: [01:33:53] And so yeah, I was at CVH. That’s how I heard about the space. And we shared it with CHARAS, with a Puerto Rican political cultural group that was evicted from their school building. So, that’s why we started off with one office. But the more… That one office was three times as big as our office at Judson.

Boden: Right.

Lewis: [01:34:19] Every time we got more space, more homeless folks would come. And so, then we ended up taking over that whole office space on 116 and then…Yeah, we went from three staff, which was what we had for years—it took a couple years to get all the way up to eight staff. But it felt different on 116. And so, what were your memories when you came to 116? Do you have any in particular?

Boden: [01:34:48] No, I mean… It wasn’t— I mean, also because I didn’t spend a lot of time there. Like, it was, I would come there to meet you and then we would go somewhere. Or I came there to meet Anthony and we would go somewhere. So, I didn’t, like, get to hang out there like at Judson, more so, I did—just would come and hang out. But I think it was also just that—like, I was actually in the East Coast more often back in those days. Like now if I came, it would be like, “Oh!” You know? Like, the last time I came to 125th Street, you know, it was, like, checking out the little patio area and checking out people, you know? But I think I was just around more often, you know? Three, four times a year, I would get to see you guys. It was always like, thinking about and telling people about the shit that we were doing—the demos, the sleep outs that you guys would do.
 
Boden: [01:35:50] The building count shit I thought was fucking brilliant, you know? Like, nobody had any idea there were that many empty fucking buildings. But everyone has seen an empty building, you know? [Smiles] So, like as you guys would develop these campaigns, and I really liked the direct actions that you did, you know? I just thought they were creative, and they were fearless of the cops. And the cops would show up and none of the organizers would freak the fuck out.

Lewis: [01:36:29] It’s so fun to stand up to the same people that are beating you down. And I think for Picture the Homeless members, especially street homeless folks, but even most members, most homeless folks in New York are Black. And so, to be part of a group that’s standing up to the cops is

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: a big deal.

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: It’s a big deal.

Boden: [01:36:43] And there’s not enough of it. So, when it’s happening, when there’s groups that are doing it, they have to be allies with each other, you know what I mean? Like, it’s just—it’s got to spread. And when you have that kind of righteous shit happening, you want to see it spread because we’re not going to win the revolution if only one city… Like, it’s just—shit’s not going to change that way. It’s not going to change one city at a time. And, you know, and then, like the other day, Rob calls me on his cell phone, but he’s in a fucking meeting with Marcus and Nikita and they’re at the office, you know? Like, that kind of shit, to me, it just feels good.

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: [01:37:39] You know, it’s like these clowns are sitting around talking bullshit about something and they decide to call me and hassle me about wanting stickers, anti-BID stickers and shit. That’s the kind of shit that you want to just see keep spreading around.

Lewis: Yeah. He actually

Boden: And I think Rob tries to do that.

Lewis: Rob is good at that. Rob talks about—in an interview—I’ve done two with Rob, and they’ve both been really amazing. And he, one thing he talks about is all the relationships that he’s built since he’s come to Picture the Homeless. But the, Rob takes stuff and makes it—like, he takes ownership if it’s important to him. And so, he really loves his friendship with you, you know, the way he talks about it. It’s very important to him.

Boden: [01:38:29] Yes, and, you know, and it’s really, it’s about, it’s out of respect for the work, you know what I mean? Like, it’s—sometimes you hear about a group, or you meet somebody from a group, and you form assumptions about the group and then you find out that that’s not [laughs] how the shit works. And other times—and where I think the really deep friendships come in—is when exactly what you hoped was there is what’s there. And what they’re telling you is real. You know, and that was like my fear with the Chicago Coalition. Like, I just don’t know that they’re still—like, I don’t know that they would embrace the concept paper we did together, today. I just don’t know, like I...

Lewis: John Donahue was there.

Boden: Yes, he was there at the time we did the thing.

Lewis: Yes.

Boden: And then, Ed, and now there’s a different ED. But they might. I shouldn’t say that. Like, they very well might.

Lewis: [01:39:45] One of the things I wanted to go back to was—you were talking about how, you know, the act of creating a welcoming space really grew out of your experience when you were homeless of, like, crash pads but also your experience squatting and things, and during that time, those things were happening. People were squatting all over the world, right? I mean, they still are but there was, like a movement. And there was—times were more, I think—I don’t want to say radical, but different, and a lot more folks taking things into their own hands. And do you think that—I mean, I think that’s something that we share. And folks that are old, you know, came from that period. And now, things have gotten a lot more conservative. Do you think that—are you seeing among the other homeless organizing groups, the political orientation that people are bringing into groups, like is that something that you’re seeing?

Boden: [01:41:04] I… Like, if I hear one more organizer tell me, “Oh, but they just don’t come to the meetings.” I’m going to fucking kill them. And I don’t care whether they’re fucking homeless or not homeless. Like, I’m just so sick of that shit. Most people don’t go to fucking meetings. It’s not fun to go to a fucking meeting. So, do something about it. Don’t just complain about it, and then be really fucking cool to the people that do come. Like, if you’re going to complain about people not coming to your shit, then maybe you need to change your shit instead of wondering why they won’t change. And to me, it’s just fucking—understand they don’t work for you. You work for them. And make it so it’s something that they want to see happen—in your organizing and in your space. And as soon as you do that, maybe they’ll start coming to your shit.

Boden: [01:42:09] But until that happens, go to them and document what they say. Because street outreach, when it’s not documented, tends to be either somebody said something really outrageous that pissed you off and so you remember it, or you remember the shit that you agreed with. But if six people are telling you X and you come back from the street outreach and say it’s Y because two people said Y and you think it’s Y, that’s not fucking street outreach. That’s manipulation. And so, that’s why the documentation of the outreach is so fucking important. If you’re going to say, [imitates them] “People in my community say this.” Prove it. Like, who the fuck is “we”? I want to see who’s behind you that constitutes you saying the word we. And if I don’t see nothing there, then I don’t really care what you got to say.

Lewis: [01:43:10] One way that WRAP was really, really helpful to Picture the Homeless was when we were doing—after the Denver meeting and we all agreed to spend six months and do outreach and then analyze, you know, all the findings—folks were trying to force us to make a decision about a national campaign that weekend, remember it? So, we went back and used the outreach

Boden: You did.

Lewis: the surveys, yes, that

Boden: Nobody else did.

Lewis: [01:43:41] Well, we went and trained Charmel and Marcus and Al, and there was another gentleman that didn’t work out the whole time, but they were really excited to be doing outreach that was going to be part of a national—

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: and really invested, and even Marcus, before I came out here, so that was like, almost three years ago.

Boden: At least, right?

Lewis: [01:44:09] Marcus called me, and I said, “Yeah, I’m going to San Francisco.” But, he often says that “We can’t let that go, the work that we did with Paul.” Because again, people, we’re all very relational, so the people that we vibe with… That’s also kind of a way to—it makes us be accountable if we care about each other. And so it was, “This work is important but also Paul… We said we were going to do it.” And it was very helpful that the surveys that we sent, you all put them in a database, and we got like, a preliminary analysis of it.

Boden: Right.

Lewis: That was a very helpful tool for us. And also, that we could add on a couple things but not take away anything, so we’d have a good data set. And that kind of like, basic research protocol is super important. And I really see the value in groups in different communities saying, “We’re going to be doing the same kinds of outreach.”

Boden: [01:45:17] Yes it’s… I mean, it will have impact if you do it. And I told you at our last face-to-face meeting, all the members brought their different outreach materials, and it was a fucking blast. It was one of the best sessions we had, just going through the different ways and methodologies and the kinds of different flyers and, you know… And sometimes, it’s information gathering, sometimes it’s putting information out. But it’s a constant presence in the streets and in the shelters and in the programs and the communities that we’re a part of because it ends up really driving how you make a decision, that going out and talking to motherfuckers in the street that are going to be represented by that decision, you’re Picture the Homeless. You’re saying homeless people blah-blah-blah.

Lewis: Yes.

Boden: [01:46:14] Like, how many homeless people are going to look at what follows, [imitates voice] “Homeless people say”, and think, “Really? I never heard one homeless motherfucker say that.” [Smiles] So when you, like, you know, “Oh, we need a coordinated intake system.” I’ve never heard a homeless motherfucker say, “Well, we need is coordinated entry”, or “homeless management information”, right? So, these homeless groups are promoting shit that homeless people are looking around going, “Where the fuck did that come from?” And—

Lewis: And jobs are being created,

Boden: to not, like

Lewis: to do the things.

Boden: [01:46:50] Shitloads. And so, to make sure that the decision-making process for what the blah-blah-blah is and what the priorities are—you know, it has to have that involvement in it. And if it does, a homeless person might be like, “Yeah, that’s not what I think but I’ve heard other motherfuckers say it.” That’s fine. You’re not talking shit. It’s not going to be what every homeless person thinks because they’re not monolithic. But it’s going to be shit that homeless people have heard. That’s, to me, the key to being accountable. Because you’re not, they’re not all the same. These motherfuckers each have their own goddamn opinion and if you listen, they’ll tell you what that opinion is. And then, you find the most common one and you start focusing in on that shit, because it’s got the most common connection to what people have heard and what they’re thinking.

Lewis: [01:47:59] Willie, in his last interview I did with him, broke it down in a really beautiful way. He was saying that anybody could tell what the problems are: housing, whatever. But unless you talk to people that are homeless, you won’t know what the issues, what they think their issues are, because there’s a lot of problems. And he said, when they were in Chicago, they found out that people were really angry that you had to get in line in the shelters and they would give you five pieces of toilet paper—like, rationing toilet paper. So, of all the things that were problems, unless you talk to homeless folks, you wouldn’t even know that they were just outraged as hell about that five sheets of toilet paper and that that was a place to start.

Boden: That’s fucking gross.

Lewis: [Laughs] Right?

Boden: I’m sorry, but that’s really fucking gross, especially if you’ve been eating at the food pantry or the fucking free food place, you’re going to need more than five sheets of that toilet paper.

Lewis: So, you’re going to be really mad.

Boden: You’re going to be a mess.

Lewis: A mad mess.

Boden: [01:49:11] Yeah, and you know, like—I, you know it would be interesting to see if the Homeless Unions come back. It’ll be interesting. I’m having a hard time with the California one, but that’s fine.

Lewis: There’s a couple now out here. You mean, the Salinas one?

Boden: Uh, yeah well—

Lewis: I met Anthony. He was out… Willie brought him over to my house for dinner and then, yeah.

Boden: Lucky you.

Lewis: I was surprised when I asked him if he knew you, and he said no.

Boden: Yeah, he does.

Lewis: [01:49:50] And then I wondered, “How can you work in an area, and not know the other people that have been doing the work?” Because you pretty much just have to ask around. And so, one of the things that I think the coalition in San Francisco, Picture the Homeless, WRAP, LA CAN, you know, even, you know, Atlanta, even if it’s not exactly the same exact model, but you have to know what’s gone on before you

Boden: Right.

Lewis: to—before you can just go out there and do some… You can do that but you’re not building. And one of the things I’ve always been really—happy about is that Picture the Homeless and San Francisco and the WRAP groups, we were building. Not just… By helping each other, we’re building a movement.

Boden: [01:50:55] Mm-hmmm. Yeah, and I think, that’s where—and I hope the Homeless Unions grow and evolve into something. I think it was really cool when there was a really strong Union of the Homeless in Oakland.

Boden: [01:51:15] And so recently, Ella Baker Center and a couple other groups were like, “We want to do organizing around homeless shit because no one’s”

Lewis: Nice.

Boden: ”it’s not happening.” And Ella Baker, to their credit, we met with them, and it was like, “Then don’t be in a leadership position. Come in to support what people are doing. Don’t create another motherfucking thing.” Like, you know what I mean? Like, see what’s happening and then figure out a way to be a support system to it. That’s what the organizers need. And they took it really serious.
 
Boden: [01:51:48] We’ve been working with them and with—through Saint Mary Center— Janie, was one of our members and these encampment fucking groups and this East Oakland group and they’ve really started forming like, a network amongst themselves of mutual support and creating shit. And so, it’s been… Like, to me, that’s the kind of shit where you’re not creating shit on top of all the other shit that’s already there but you’re bringing shit to the table that’s connecting what the groups are doing.

Lewis: [01:52:30] What’s happening with the sweep on Thursday morning? It’s in Oakland, right?

Boden: I think it’s tomorrow morning.

Lewis: Tomorrow morning?

Boden: So, there’s, like you mentioned, coming in on the BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] train, like, there’s a lot of homeless motherfuckers in Oakland. [Laughs]

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: [01:52:44] There’s a lot of people sleeping rough, in Oakland.

Lewis: It’s like favelas, little houses, like, made out of cardboard, that have been there.

Boden: Yeah… No it’s fucking

Lewis: There’s a lot.

Boden: serious shit.

Boden: [01:52:56] And this one encampment of people, are like, there’s like six, there’s like, three or four little kids. Like, there’s a couple of families and they’ve been in this city-owned lot for a while. They were threatened with eviction. They went to court. Kickass organizer wrote a TRO [temporary restraining order] but, unfortunately, it got rejected Tuesday by the court. So, tomorrow is the end of the seventy-two-hour notice that they got—to leave. And they don’t plan on leaving.

Lewis: And it’s a city-owned lot?

Boden: [01:53:43] Yeah. It’s a city-owned lot.

Lewis: And it’s getting cold.

Boden: And there’s nowhere for these families to go. Like, with the Chronic Homeless Initiative and all that other crap that fucking HUD’s [Housing and Urban Development] been putting down, families are like, “Fuck that.” They’re not visible, so therefore they’re not an issue. They’re not important.

Lewis: What do you think’s going to happen tomorrow?

Boden: [01:54:10] I think they’re going to get evicted. I think that those that are willing to accept it will get a shelter bed—probably temporarily—just because it’s generated media attention and just because the judge is saying, “Well, you said you have a place for everyone to go.” So, they’re under some pressure to make sure that there’s a place for everyone to go. And I think if the cops actually show up with the public works department to actually facilitate the sweep, you know, I think there’s a chance that the ones, especially the people with the kids, might just take whatever it is that’s being offered. That’s been my experience in the past. But as I hear it, as of yesterday, because I haven’t had a chance to talk to anybody today, is they’re not planning to do that. They’re planning to stay.

Lewis: Well, I hope they get as much as they can out of whatever happens tomorrow because

Boden: Yeah, that’s

Lewis: something’s going to happen.

Boden: all you can fucking do. You know, I look… Because, and like—the court system is a fucking joke. And if we think that there’s a magical lawsuit out there somewhere that’s going to save us from oppression, we’re going to be really fucking old [laughs] before this shit gets any different.

Lewis: [01:55:46] So, what would your response be if somebody says, “Oh, let’s do another lawsuit.” What’s your, Mr. Paul Boden’s prescription?

Boden: [01:55:58] You know, I’m actually working with this disability rights group that was referred to me, because I do work in the legal system quite a bit. There’s people that actually think I’m a fucking lawyer. And I do a lot of expert witness testimony, sometimes paid, sometimes not. Like, I just did a murder trial not too long ago. And so, I understand the system. And I understand that even just delaying the shit, like what happened with this TRO request that got denied. It bought a week and a half. That’s better than nothing.

Boden: [01:56:41] So, it’s not like there’s absolutely no point in doing it but I think that it has to be part of an organizing campaign. I think that it, and that the organizing campaign needs to understand, whether this wins or not—just like what we’re doing with the Right to Rest Act. Like, we didn’t expect that shit to fucking pass right away. We know that. We’re not stupid.

Boden: [01:57:07] But we also understand that there’s a real value to having the hearings and bringing it back and having a_ _“What do we want? Here’s what we want. So, we have an answer to that question now. We know what we want. We want to decriminalize standing still, sitting down, laying down, sleeping, and eating. We want that decriminalized, period. So, it gives you what it is you want—you know. So, I think with the disability rights group, it’s like, “Well, let’s have some community meetings and let’s do some outreach and see what, you know, a negotiated settlement—fucking the disabled people that are trying to use this fucking system. Because to me, the lawsuit would be you’re putting mentally ill people into a congregant shelter environment as a housing program. That’s a violation of the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act].

Lewis: Jeez.

Boden: [01:58:05] Point blank. Like, there’s no way the ADA would condone that kind of living environment in a mental health program.

Lewis: And they make so much money off of those.

Boden: Yes, and you have to be mentally ill to get in and as soon as you behave as somebody might behave when they have a severe mental illness,

Lewis: You get kicked out.

Boden: you get kicked the fuck out.

Lewis: Yes. It’s like the substance abuse programs that kick you out when you have a relapse. [Laughs] Of course you’re going to have a relapse.

Boden: Yeah.

Lewis: Not “of course,” but it’s not impossible to imagine.

Lewis: [01:58:44] You know, when I came out here for the book fair, right, and also to do this interview and I was walking down the Mission around eight-thirty, eight, eight-thirty in the morning, and where you used to see a lot of people sleeping, people were packing up bedrolls. A lot of people. All ages of people. Then, during the course of the day, when the book fair was going on, you know, I’m in and out, I didn’t see anybody. Then, walking here from Market Street, I walked under that overpass Duboke?

Boden: Yeah, DuBose.

Lewis: DuBose. And there used to be a lot of people living there.

Boden: Yeah, and now there’s all those barricades.

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: There’s some metal barricades that the cops put up.

Lewis: So, what’s it been like these past couple years here in San Francisco?

Boden: [01:59:41] It’s been… I mean, like—the shit just keeps getting worse. So, the police presence keeps getting more intense. And the idea that, you know, they now have a separate command center to respond to homelessness that has public works, the police, are the two primary agencies, and then the homeless programs. Like, so—I think—and I’m seeing this in more and more places, like, that the local governments have gotten to a point where it’s, “I need to fucking make it disappear.”

Boden: [02:00:32] And the BIDs are pushing them out of—like, when I was homeless, we slept in Union Square. Now, you can’t get anywhere near that motherfucking place. So, it’s because the BID has twenty-four-seven security, and cameras all over the place. And if you’re sleeping, they’re going to see you and they’re going to send security out to get rid of you. And so, it’s pushing people out because it actually is an effective tool. Motherfuckers with guns and mace and tasers will actually move a homeless person.

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: They may be homeless but they ain’t fucking stupid.

Lewis: Well, what else are they going to do?

Boden: [02:01:13] You know? Yeah. So, what the city has embarked on is tents. That’s the issue. Tents, lean-tos, whatever, you know? Complaining about the bicycle racks because people are using them to drape plastic over to sleep under. So, it’s really become that the issue of homelessness is cosmetic. And so, these guys know, man. Pack your shit up when the lights are on and move it. And keep moving it. And then, they take it. And then you get more shit, and you pack it up and we move it. Then, they take it and then you get more shit. Then, you know, it’s this constant fucking cycle…

Boden: [02:02:08] And it’s universal at this point, I would say. That local governments have just gotten to a point where it’s like, ”We’re not going to get any more McKinney money. Like—and the pretense is becoming less important. Now it’s the fucking holidays, you would normally get a downtick in aggressive police enforcement and nasty fucking articles. I haven’t seen the fucking downtick.

Lewis: [02:02:37] A couple years ago in New York, there was actually a big Christmas tree celebration in the Bronx and the councilperson canceled it, saying that there were too many homeless people around and they would ruin it.

Boden: Yeah. Yeah. There was a time that would have caused, stirred some shit, you know? There was a time that that would have, people would have said, “Wow, that’s really fucked up.” But that time’s not now.

Lewis: [02:03:13] So, wrapping up, what’s the future of homeless organizing?

Boden: I would like to see some energy get behind creating that regional network that we talked about. I really still, to this day, and I think that WRAP has been able to set a track record to say, “Yeah, you see? It can work.” You know? And I think, you know, the fact that WRAP has like, a pretty. it’s pretty well-known,

Lewis: Yeah, and respected.

Boden: nationally—clearly tells you if you had four or five of those, all connected to each other, like, the shit, the process that we put together and the ideas that we floated and apparently made a diagram of,

Lewis: [Laughs] Structure!

Boden: are as valid today as they were the day that we made that proposal. And I would really like and hope to see something like that happen.

Lewis: [02:04:22] Yeah, me too. And, you know, a lot of our fight, I mean—local, it’s policing. But I don’t know if you remember or maybe I just thought this in my head, you know—why can’t we use the RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] statute, you know? Because they’re conspiring to deprive people of their civil rights, you know? All these mayors, conferences, they always have workshops, you know, about public space. And the BIDs, I mean, they’re like clones of each other. So, there have to be little BID conventions,

Boden: Oh no! They’re not little! They’re fucking massive.

Lewis: They teach each other, they share these practices.

Boden: [02:04:56] And I was told by a reporter friend that snuck into the one they just had in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the BID. That the report we did was like, number one agenda item, at a whole bunch of fucking breakout sessions,

Lewis: [Laughs] Excellent.

Boden: And that they were—he’s like, “I hope you got, like, a firm backing you up or something because these guys were definitely talking about you boys.” You know?

Boden: [02:05:22] I love it! Like, if you’re going to take on a fight, fight the big boys, you know? And the fact that these guys are freaking out about our little report? Wait until Washington does theirs and Colorado does theirs. Like, what we wanted—like we did with the vacancy report—we got five different law schools to do the same report about the criminalization issues in their states. I was trying to get fucking Vitale from NYU.

Lewis: Alex?

Boden: Yeah. He used to work at the coalition.

Lewis: Oh, he did?

Boden: Uh-huh.

Lewis: I think I forgot that.

Boden: Yeah, according to his first book, he started the civil rights workgroup at the homeless coalition—I didn’t know that!

Lewis: In New York?

Boden: And I was there, too. No, at San Francisco.

Lewis: Oh!

Boden: When he was getting his PhD, he was working at the San Francisco Coalition.

Lewis: I like his book.

Boden: Yeah, he’s an okay guy.

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: [02:06:02] But I want him to do some fucking research. He’s a fucking professor. It was funny when I was reading the forward in his book, because he sent it to me. And it said that he started the civil rights workgroup at the homeless coalition. And I was like, “Hey, Alex! Wait! [laughter] Wasn’t I there at that time? I didn’t know that!” And he’s like, “Well, the fucking publisher… Blah-blah-blah. Yeah, whatever.

Lewis: [02:06:45] I gave a testimony to the New York State Civil Rights Commission a year and a half ago, and he was on the panel. And so, I mentioned in my remarks—because a lot of it was about Broken Windows policing—and I said, “Well, Alex knows all this.” [Laughs] I mean, I didn’t mind testifying but, you know, they already know. Like, the information’s there.

Boden: Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis: So, do you have anything you want to add before we wrap up?

Boden: [02:07:24] No, I just think if they’re—I mean, I think that there are a thousand homeless coalitions: Picture the Homeless, LA CAN—there are a thousand of them out there, at various stages. And I think our responsibility to create a national vibe, a national energy that can give those groups some fucking way to connect, is fucking vital. But they’re there! I know they’re there.

Lewis: They have to be there.

Boden: Because we’re not anomalies.

Lewis: Right.

Boden: We’re just fucking lucky enough to have gotten some shit together.

Lewis: And some support.

Boden: [02:08:14] And stayed together long enough to actually go through that… Because that fucking—when you first start out man, the hard—the thing I push every fucking group on is, “Know what you’re going to do with the money before you get it. Because if you wait until after the money comes in to decide what the fuck you’re going to do with it, you’re going to have some serious motherfucking problems.

Lewis: Yes.

Boden: [02:08:38] So, settle all that shit when there is no money, when people will actually be thinking about where do we need to spend money as opposed to, “I need to pay rent.” Or “I need to get some food.” Or “I need to get a pack of cigarettes.” Like, if you wait until that time, that’s what the thought process is going to be for the people sitting around the table.

Lewis: Yep because they need it.

Boden: “ I need something. You got money. Let’s make a deal.” So, you know, just those kind of seemingly easy fucking things in hindsight, seeing how often they fuck shit up—is like, we need to be able to get that out.

Lewis: Yes.

Boden: [02:09:24] And give organizations, that are two people meeting in the back room of somebody’s fucking whatever… Like give them a place to say, “We’re ready to fight, you know? Help us out.”

Lewis: Yep. I was talking to another homeless group, and they wanted to have a session on power and privilege in the group. And it was mostly men, it was an interracial group, but most folks were Black. And most of the white folks were not homeless, so they were like allies, but it’s one group. And so, I started with, “Well, who’s in charge of the money?” And it was like, “Well, we don’t have any money.” But then, they have a little bit of money that people give them, donations that they use for refreshments and stuff. No salaries. They don’t have salaries. So, I said, “Well, who gets that money?” And it was the white guy—who’s been there from the beginning—so he’s not like an interloper white guy. He’s dedicated and committed—but he’s the white guy. And he was like… I said, “Well, do you want to be in charge of the money?” And he’s like, “No!” And then, one of the other members, who was Black, says, “Well, he has a bank account.” And so… All that stuff is true. But if we’re thinking about the future… So, what I asked them was, I said, “Well, you have to think about the future. If you decide to get money, if it’s attached to somebody’s bank account, they could get hit by a bus, [laughs] you know?” And then, not even to mention, everybody’s mad cool but there’s a racial dynamic that, if we don’t talk about it, it’s not—it doesn’t disappear. And so, it’s better to be clear and intentional. And there was a whole, it was a whole conversation about the bank account, because that’s work. You have to figure it out, then you have to do it.

Boden: Right.

Lewis: And so, it was, “Well, do we want to do this? Do we want to be a not-for-profit?”

Boden: [02:11:32] And I just think the earlier,

Lewis: Those are big questions.

Boden: once you’ve decided, “Okay, we’re going to form a group. How you make decisions is paramount. Because any group, if it’s really a group—individuals are going to come and go. And if the shit dies because somebody got hit by a fucking bus, you didn’t form shit. You didn’t organize anything. And you know, it’s one thing to say, “We can be fearless because we have nothing to lose as poor and homeless people.” It’s another thing to say, “Well, we can just do shit our way because once we’re dead, it’s over.” That’s not organizing.

Lewis: No.

Boden: [02:12:18] That’s masturbating. And so, it can’t just be about your own gratification, your own satisfaction. It’s got to be something that’s going to… That can withstand the coming and going of founders or individuals or directors or whatever. And how you’re going to interact with the one thing that homeless people have in common is they’re fucking poor. So, how you’re going to interact with money, and how you’re going to make decisions around money, you’ve got to make those decisions and set up that process and then stick to it.

Boden: [02:13:03] Like, I’m helping this guy out that’s doing kickass fucking research for us. But even to just help him out with a couple of dollars a week, I insisted on a written fucking MOU. Like, I just have it ingrained in my head because I had to do so much clean-up behind my friend Gregory, who was the first ED at the coalition. Cleaning up that shit was just fucking brutal. But we did it. Actually, snorted a lot of cocaine and stayed up for four days, but we did it! [Laughter] And, you know, they just had been—the board had been really sloppy. So, we changed the shit, we changed the system, we cleaned it up. Gregory went on sabbatical. [Laughter] He took a sabbatical. Still on it, thirty years later, but still around, at the same time. Actually, I ran into him not that long ago. Good guy. It was setup. Black man on SSI, they wanted him to be the ED… And they set him up for fucking failure. He failed, and it was going to be his fault. And that’s where I learned that lesson. It’s like, it’s not just I made this up on my own. It’s like, this is serious shit. I mean, two signatures on every fucking check, regardless of if it’s only five dollars.

Lewis: We had that, too.

Boden: It has two goddamn signatures, so if you’re going to rip us off, there’s going to be a couple of you.

Lewis: Yep.

Boden: [02:14:44] Like, just that kind of like, checks and balances shit. And then, the money comes in and it’s, like, you already know what you’re going to do with it, so—and by having the priorities not come from the money but come from the street outreach and the community meetings…­ Like, our board of directors at WRAP has no say about policy shit, legislative campaigns, organizing shit. They don’t have it, it’s not in their structure. The board of directors of WRAP has no fucking say. That shit’s all settled at the face-to-face meeting every year. But when it comes to holding me accountable, when it comes to the money shit, doing the tax reports, doing the IRS stuff, that’s where the board takes responsibility, you know? And you have a fire, you know, not even a firewall. You just separate the shit out.

Boden: [02:15:45] What we’re doing comes from the membership. How we’re going to fucking pay for it comes from the board... But they don’t dictate it.

Lewis: So, as an ending note, I don’t know if that was an ending note, but I want to thank you because even that thing with two check signatures, we might have learned that from you, you know?

Boden: You probably heard it, I’m sure. [Laughs] You guys were broke enough at that time. We probably talked about money.

Lewis: [02:16:21] Well, I think, you know, our first grant was five thousand and then, I think, that was from our second one. And the woman that came, the program officer—we were, of course, we’re still in Judson and there was like, people sitting on the floor and on the file cabinets. There was just people everywhere. And one guy, who’s deceased, Jeremiah—she says, “Well, you know, how do you… What do you say to people that are concerned about seeing homeless people laying in the street?” And he says, “Well, what I say is, “Bitch, when you’re walking down the sidewalk and I’m laying on a mattress”, which you used to see, “and I’m washing up in the fire hydrant, you’re walking through my bathroom. Could you go on the other side?” [Laughter] And I thought to myself, “Oh, well, there goes that money.” [Laughter] And just not to—we were stereotyping her because she was a small, petite, well-dressed white woman, like—professional, with blonde hair. And she burst out laughing and she says, “I love this, you know, because you’re being real. You’re not trying to impress me.”

Boden: Yes.

Lewis: “And I see, you know? I see the value in this.” And I said, “Well, we want to go see another group, you know, that’s already doing great work, so we don’t have to, you know, invent everything.” And she was cool. She was cool, and her name was Millie. She was great. So, we were able to come out.

Boden: No, we had [phonetic]

Lewis: And we learned a lot.

Boden: [02:18:04] We had a guy come in and he showed up early on purpose and sat in the front room, in the space you were talking about. He sat there and I came out to the front desk, and I was like, “Hey, so this guy might be, is supposed to be showing up from some fucking foundation. Let me know when he gets here.” And Amy looks at me and she’s like, [whispers] “He’s right there.” [Laughs] And I turn around and I’m like, “Oh, shit, sorry. I meant from this wonderful…”—[laughter] and the guy stands up and he’s like, “I’ve been hanging out here for like, twenty-five minutes.” And I was like, “Oh, well, you know, I didn’t know you were here.” And he’s like, “Clearly.” And we walk in the back room, and he said, “Just so you know, before we get started, you already got the fucking grant, [laughter] because that was amazing. Just hanging out, listening to how people, what people were doing out there and how they were talking to each other. Like, don’t even worry about it. Let’s just talk. You already got the fucking grant.” And then, there’s been other people that have shown up at our office and just been like, “Okay, I have to go.”

Lewis: Yeah.

Boden: It’s like, clearly this is not… You know?

Lewis: [02:19:17] Well, we did learn a lot from you, and I think that, you know, we all can learn from each other.

Boden: Yeah, fuck yeah.

Lewis: But the fact that you’ve been in it so long matters. And so, thanks for this time and all the other times.

Boden: [02:19:32] Well, cool. And I think that that’s the main gist of what we need to do to get this national shit thing is—and it’s corny but it really—if anybody thinks they have all the answers individually, they’re out of their fucking mind and they shouldn’t be allowed to be a part of this organizing campaign. If everyone doesn’t come to the table that, “I’m going to learn some shit from you and I’m going to teach you some shit, and that’s how we’re going to build a national organizing network.” That should be, I think, the number one criteria if we ever do another fucking Denver meeting. That and we leave the National Coalition the fuck out of it.

Lewis: Yes, yes.

Boden: I think we’ve learned that lesson.

Lewis: [Laughs] Alright. Well, on that note—

Boden: Alright!

Lewis: Thank you.

Boden: Cool.

[END OF INTERVIEW]