0 0 0 0 0 0 2B The Statement // Wednesday, September 22, 2010 Wednesday, September 22, 2010 // The Statement 7B the statement Magazine Editor- Trevor Calero Editor in Chief. Jacob Smilovitz Managing Editor: Matt Aaronson Deputy Editor: Jenna Skoller Designers: Sara Boboltz Corey DeFever Photo Editor: Jed Moch Copy Editors: Erin Flannery Danqing Tang Cover photo courtesy of ... Bryan Pickens, a prisoner involved in the Universityof ' Michigan's Prison Creative Arts Proiject. The painting istitied "Confiscated Goods." The Statement is The Michigan Daily's news magazine, distributed every Wednesday during the academic year. To contact The Statement e-mail calero@michi- gandaily.com ~ V WANT TO JOIN THE MICHIGAN DAILY? Come to our LAST mass meeting at 420 Maynard Street 7 P.M. THURSDAY, SEP- TEMBER 30 THEJUNKDRAWER random student interview by will grundler Hi, this is The Michigan Daily. I'm introducing a feature called Random Student Interview.Would youlike to partici- pate? I would love to. I've been asked to ask about current events. So, my first question is, who doyou thinkreallykilledKennedy? Who do I think really killed Kennedy? It's still very much up in the air. Do youthink it was the Russians? Um, I would say that it was probably Lee Harvey Oswald, but if it wasn't him, I would blame it on a vast right- wing conspiracy before I would blame it on the Russians. So, blame the Republicans is what you're saying? Yeah. So, I take it you're not a political sci- ence major? No. What's your major? I'm a philosophy major. Alright, on that note, do you think the Michigan Student Assembly should be dissolved or banned from campus or both? I would saythat with all the moneythat the University gets, the least they can do is let us spend some of it. Moving on, how many of the 18,000 Dailys printed each day do youthink are not used primarily to clean spills? I bet most of them get used to clean up spills after two or three people have read them. So what college do you think we could just do away with? Like the residential college, or maybe Engi- neering? You have a vendetta against engineer- ing, I see. An Engineering major killed my father.Whatlanguage did youtake? French. Ah, moi aussi. I got like a C in it. Je deteste dtudier le frangais. Does that mean youlike giraffes? Yes. So, I'm noticing that you're smok- ing. What do you think about this upcoming smoking ban, and what do you intend to do about it? I think it's funny. The sooner they start banningsmokingon campus, the soon- er all smokers will start pitching their cigarette butts all over campus and making it disgusting. Do you think physical aggression and actually taking a cigarette out of a person's mouth and burning it on their skin would work better? I think that over the course of the last several millennia, smokers have proved tobe a pretty resilient bunch. Like cockroaches. So, you know when you're walking down the Diag and you spot one of those annoying people handing out fliers, and then when they try to give you their flier, you snatch it from their hand, crum- pleitupandthrowitintheirface. I think that handing out fliers for a stu- dent group is a pretty discouraging task since nobody seems very interested and out of nobody, even fewer people seem like they'll read it. So, would you say as a philosophy major you get a bunch of girls all over you? I would say as a philosophy major, the response is evenly divided between three categories: people who don't care, people who think they already know what you're learning and people who find whatyou do repulsive becausethey assume you think you're smarter than everyone else. Hm, elitists. WhichI hardlydisagree with. '-.g Uh huh. What philosopher do you follow?Doyoufollow Jesus,ormore like Niche? Neither. I try to keep philosophy out of my everyday life because I've noticed the people who try to actually apply it to everyday situations find themselves, you know, somewhere between Jesus and Niche. Crazy orcrucified. Do you think we exist in any real sense? Or no? I think we definitely exist, like at least one of us. You? Well, I mean I'm more certain of that than Iam of anything else. Anything you'd like to add? Any philosophicalwordsyou'dlike tosay to the none philosophy majors? Like, just a motto? Yes, absolutely. "(Camp Take Notice) cen- tralizes this group of peo- pie that want to have a lit- tle bit better environment to live in." Mikey, left, leads a weekly camp meeting. Caleb Poirier, center, is sitting with a bag at urine tests. Prompted by the recent discovery at a used needle at Camp Take Notice, Poirier proposed that everyone anonymously single out suspected drug users among the campers. The residents vouted in favor of Poirier's plan, and two residents had to pro- vide urine samples. Both came out clean. The camp has a strict no drug policy. living in a tent community instead of a permanent shelter - lack of bathroom facilities, no electricity, no easy access to food or water and exposure to the elements, to name a few - there are other aspects of the camp that provide a certain amount of freedom to its resi- dents. A freedom that, to some, is diffi- cult to attain at a shelter. Many campers say that merely hav- ing a space of their own, small as it may be, is a major source of liberation. It allows them to store their belongings somewhere they can access anytime they need to - a privilege lost to those staying in a shelter, who must choose between carrying their possessions around all day or puttingthemin a stor- age space at the shelterthat is only open for a short window of time each day. Danielle, a MISSION board member and a resident of the camp since April, emphasized the importance of easy- access storage when it comes to daily obligations like job interviews. She said that people staying at the Delonis Center who have job interviews have to carrytheir nice setof clothes with them all day, which makes them wrinkled and unprofessional-looking. "It's just much simpler here because you can ... come in just before your interview, get ready for it, go out, do your interview, come back, put your clothes away, change, and then go back out and finish your day," she said. Joseph - at 58 years old, one of the oldest residents at the camp - spent the maximum permitted stay of three months at the people at the Delonis Center prior to moving to CTN in June. Though he said the Delonis cen- ter helped him as much as they could, the campsite has attributes the shelter simply couldn't match, despite the dif- ficulty of everyday life at the camp. It's been two years since Joseph lost his job. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, he attended the University for part of his undergraduate education and later received a Master's Degree in English composition from Eastern Michigan University. He said he fell in love with Ann Arbor during his school- ing and decided to settle down and raise a family here. He taught for six years then had a long, successful career as a technical writer. What remains of Joseph's savings is in a 401(K) that he can't access until he's 59.5 years old, so like many at the camp, he's actively looking for work but hav- ing no luck. Joseph praised the camp for its open-door policy and strict but reason- able set of rules. He also emphasized the level of camaraderie and respect among the individuals at camp that he feels is missing at the shelter. Mikey also praised the camarade- rie and respect found at CTN, call- ing the camp members the "warmest, most welcoming group of people" he has ever met. "I didn't have a tent when I first came out here; they helped me find atent," he said. "If somebody comes out here with nothing but the clothes on their back, they'll at least put them up for the night in a tent and try to help them out." Schulmeister said that homeless individuals have always been at a dis- advantage when applying for jobs, and now thanks to the recession, that dis- advantage is even greater because there are more applications for every job opening. "You've got students and people with degrees and better work histories ahead of them now competing for low- er-paying jobs and lower-skilled jobs just because they are desperate to find a job," she said. Joseph said he thinks his age and experience are the biggest obstacles he faces on the job hunt. "The subtext when I look for jobs around here is basically either too old or too overqualified," he said. "And I understand the first part. They can't say that to you legally, but I can see it on their faces. It's a very young town demographically, it just makes sense. I get it." At the end of August, Joseph moved into an apartment. He was planning to move to Portland, Oregon if his housing situation hadn't improved before the winter. Now, he said, he'll be able to stay close to his daughters. Like Joseph, Danielle plans to leave the camp before the cold hits. A learn- ing disability makes it difficult for hey to find work, buthavingspent one term in the Marine Corps, she qualifies for Section 8 housing through the Veter- an's Association. Mikey will move to an apartment at the beginning of October. In September he began working toward an associate's degree in social work and human ser- vices at Washtenaw Community Col- lege. He plans to use financial aid ant' unemployment checks, which eventu- allycamethrough after agruelingcourt process, to pay rent on the apartment. However, not everyone at the camp has a foreseeable departure from CTN. Joseph estimated that about 50 percent of the residents, discouraged by the economy and/or various medi- cal conditions, have come to accept that they won't be "typical citizens working a job." As for the future of CTN as a whole, the camp will not be settled until it finds a piece of sanctioned land where it will be safe from the constant threat of eviction. This has been the camp's goal since the beginning, but it has proved to be no easy task. Until they do find a stable place to pitch their tents, the resi dents of CTN will have to live with the knowledge that the slightest provoca- tion, like a complaint from a neighbor, could force the authorities to invoke trespassing laws, and the camp would have to pick up and relocate yet again. 10 wi Lu ° 40