Public Comment

Much of the East Bay Area adjacent to San Francisco is known for being relatively low in crime. With some exceptions, we aren't living in areas where we must fear for our lives. Yet even in "nice" areas, living in low-income apartments is often a challenge. 

I'm a man of sixty, and because of being disabled most of my life, I've been deprived of a vast segment of good living. Disabled people, unless they have inherited a huge sum, usually live in some level of poverty, and I am no exception. The nature of my disability isn't relevant to this manuscript. 

If I could work at conventional employment and earn a good living, it would follow that I could live in a house or a good condominium. But as a disabled person, I'm unable to live anywhere I want. 

Whether you're speaking of the places I've left, or the place I rent now, it requires sharing space with people. And sharing space entails that problems will arise. You can get all types of people, and some are easier to live alongside than others. 

From an earlier time, I could describe to you a previous apartment, where I lived with my wife--about twenty years ago. We were forced out because the other occupants of the building were criminals and we weren't criminals, and thus we weren't allowed. We were forced out through harassment, intimidation, and massive nuisance behavior. For purposes of this paper, I'm going to call that location "R Street."  

In low-income housing, you could be living in a drug infested, vermin infested building. Criminals do exist, and many of them live in low-income housing. It is probably small-minded and bigoted of me to brand a category of people "criminals." Yet the label sometimes fits. To clarify, I'm not calling poor people criminals; I am reluctant to use the label "criminals" itself, to describe people who commit crimes.  

Everyone has their strategies for survival. Some strategies work better than others. In the building at "R Street" one of the tenants apparently worked for the county. Yet on the side, at best guess, she was manufacturing methamphetamine and selling it to neighborhood kids. I definitely recall her asking her teenage daughter in a loud voice, "Do we need any cold medicine?" And I had not taken note of anyone being sick with a cold. And Sudafed is a key ingredient in methamphetamine. 

In a more recent building, an upstairs (now former) tenant had been released from jail, and the property owner was giving him a chance. The man did his workouts regularly on the front balcony with a hefty dumbbell. He often tried to use intimidation tactics on me and tried to use several other con man tactics. He finally backed off because I wasn’t going to take being treated that way. I have self-respect. 

Concerning criminals, you should realize they will often use intimidation as a weapon, in which your own fear of being assaulted works against you. If and when you don't fall for this, and when you give it right back to them, it gives them two choices. Some will come after you and some will back off. You don't necessarily know in advance which path they will choose. I've had some narrow, lucky breaks in which I was close to being attacked. In one instance, a man in the neighborhood was a bully, and I wasn't going for it. When I verbally snapped back at him, he started to come after me. Yet within moments, just as the thug had started to cross the street toward me, two police cruisers showed up as if out of nowhere. 

In another instance, a man was being sarcastic and was intending that I knuckle under. When I stood and didn't react, he became very baffled as though he didn't know how to interpret me. He was probably on the verge of knocking my block off. Within an instant, his buddy stopped him and said the hallway had a lot of surveillance cameras. 

Decades before the above-described incidents, when I was in my twenties, I had not yet taught myself the emotional control that helps me to this day. And this is what happened: 

A tough guy at the apartments where I lived, who may have been a drug dealer, decided to come after me. I was very intimidated and scared, but I accepted his challenge. 

In my thinking, if I'd tried to run away, I'd be a victim of "cat and mouse" for months to come. So, he put up his fists and then so did I. I was knocked down and I was hit several times in the face. I concluded he was trying to kill me, so I summoned my strength, grabbed him by the waist and threw him off me. That's my best memory. Whether that's accurate, I could never tell you for certain, because memory distorts. 

In the years following that incident, I began to seek methods of not being afraid. I was never inclined to take a self-defense class or carry a weapon, not even pepper spray. I still do get scared and off balance in some situations. But this is not to the extent that I lose my smarts. 

In the past twenty years, I have learned to avoid being the victim of male violence, not by being the strongest, but by being cleverer than the other guy. Sometimes I've been good at bluffing.  

These are the kinds of situations you must live in, if you rent a low-income apartment. And as a result, I have developed thick skin. 

Jack Bragen writes often for The Street Spirit News, The San Francisco Street Sheet, and, of course the Berkeley Daily Planet. His work has also appeared in San Jose Mercury, Bewildering Stories and Mindfulness Bell. He lives in Martinez, California.