WE MAKE THE FUTURE
I learned a new use of the word “abatement” at a Community Council Zoom meeting Monday night. In this case, it means when the police arrive to “clean up” encampments of otherwise unsheltered folks. It’s happening in my neighborhood today, the Wednesday after that Zoom meeting.
Maybe you’ll recognize the murals. “WE MAKE THE FUTURE” is painted on the wall of an empty building on the 400 W side of the Fleet Block, a wall that faces the Volunteers of America Youth Resource Center. Another tattoo-like mural on this wall features a hummingbird surrounded by the words, “Be brave Be kind.” Our police brutality murals, as I’ve read them referenced in Utah Black Lives Matter newsletters, wrap the opposite walls of the Fleet Block, facing 700 S and 300 W. There, encampments also hug mainly the portion of the block where the murals reside.
I’m not sure when I first noticed “WE MAKE THE FUTURE.” I’ve lived in this neighborhood for ten years. We have many noteworthy murals. I assumed this mural was commissioned or even painted by the Youth Resource Center workers and clients sometime after it opened in 2016. I feel the message as spiritually aspirational; even as I run by, I feel the call the mural issues:
I matter. I am here to create the world I want to see.
Last May, after a couple of months of pandemic restrictions, I noticed one hammock strung between the power poles on either side of “THE”. I’ve often seen young people gathered around the outskirts of the youth center, usually within a block or so of the front door. Occasionally there was a tent, but this hammock struck me as new. Already at that time, it was obvious the pandemic would be especially difficult for the many homeless people in our city. In all our American cities. People had been handing out face masks; I’d seen many recipients wearing their masks. I took a photo of “WE MAKE THE FUTURE;” though, by the time I got there, the hammock was gone. I sent the image as a postcard to folks I know. I wrote,
May we live to protect each other in our hammocks, on our journeys.
May we live to see, each day that dawns, the light that fills the world.
Many of my friends responded that they’d put the postcard up. On refrigerators, on cork-board spaces behind a work desk.
This mural speaks to us.
When we heard people online speak of the upcoming “abatement,” my husband and I looked at each other. He’s an architect. For him, abatement has to do with the reduction of hazardous materials. Other friends offer that noise abatement, asbestos abatement, and tax abatement are all familiar, but “I’ve never heard abatement being used with reference to humans; disturbing language to me.” This was my and my husband’s reaction too.
What do we do? I sat on this knowledge of abatement. I thought of things I could do which all felt useless. I did nothing. Until this morning, at about 8 am, when I did something very common for me. I went on a short run. Uncommonly, I brought my phone. I thought at least I could take a photo and share the comparison. This future some folks have made for themselves in a difficult time. This future we have also contributed to through our action or inaction. This story is not unique to my neighborhood.
Arriving at 400 W and 900 S, across from the VoA Youth Resource Center, I turned the corner and met a surprise. Toilets! Two portable toilets, an outdoor heater, and a speaker playing music sat in an open area surrounded by a chain-link fence. A bike propped on the fence may have belonged to the man who first said hello. He works for the event company the city contracted to provide these amenities. The city warned his company about today. Signs were posted which explained the plan in Spanish: AVISO es ilegal acampar en un área no aprobada para acampar. The sign gives the date and time after which material items left in the area will be considered “abandonados y se desechados.” The sign is posted “Por orden del Salt Lake County Health Department.”
I don’t know the word “abatement” in Spanish. I doubt it’s a word that even in English officers who arrive at 12:30 pm or earlier today will use with individuals when they look directly at each human and say it’s time to leave. The people I spoke to this morning already knew they had to leave. When I asked what might help, one man said a truck. If I had a truck, I could help move his things somewhere else. Abatement is an easier word to use when you’re talking about what will happen to someone or something Other. Someone you are not going to talk to personally. A dehumanizing word.
I feel for the officers who will talk to homeless people today. The city sends its officers to enforce the sign posted by the county’s health department. When I spoke to the man whose company the city also hired to provide toilets for this community across the street from a resource center offering services for homeless and at-risk youth ages 15–22 along the Wasatch Front, we were confused. These people aren’t causing trouble, he told me. Mostly, they just need help. They’ve made a community here, this man said. “The way people can make America great again is by caring about other people besides themselves,” he told me. I know his name. We shook hands before I ran off. He granted his permission for me to take photographs as long as he wasn’t in them, so I’m holding his name for myself as well. He’s originally from Oakland. He came to Utah when he was 16. He and I are the same age now, in our mid-forties. I’ve only been here about fifteen years. He stays, he said, because Utah has great hospitals. His kid has cerebral palsy. Utah is a great place for families, he said. He cannot get behind the Utah Jazz, but he is sure Donovan Mitchell will take them to the championships one day. When that day happens, we agreed, I’ll tell him I heard it first from him. Come find me, he said. With no irony, only love, he let me know he’ll be waiting for me, next to the portable toilets. I do hope we’ll make that future.
