William Cody Waldron’s birthday came and went two Mondays ago, on Sept. 23. If he is alive, he is now 71 years old and, quite likely, drunk. But chances are he is not alive. Chances are, he is mystery corpse “John Cooper-Gulch-Swamp Doe,” found burned beyond recognition on March 14 in a swampy homeless camp […]
Homeless
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Update: Arkley Draws Big Crowd to Talk about Homelessness
Update: All charges against Elise Gerhart have been dismissed and her arrest record expunged based on a Nov. 4 order from Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Marilyn Miles that deemed Gerhart factually innocent in the case. Update: Arrest records posted this morning by the Lost Coast Outpost show that the Eureka Police Department did in […]
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Danny Ray’s Last Days
Back on Jan. 5, when I wandered into the marsh near the Bayshore Mall to interview some homeless campers, most everyone was still talking about the big flood that blew out some of their camps one early Saturday morning a couple months before. A water pipe had bust somewhere nearby — crash and roar and […]
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New Direction
It was a bad day for John Shelter. The slightly stocky, mustachioed 53-year-old was trying hard not to cry. Despite the usual determined glare in his hazel eyes and occasional bursts of infectious guffaw, Shelter almost did cry when a man inside the North Coast Resource Center shuffled slowly by. The man was heading to […]
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Last Day
Friday not long past 1 p.m. things were hoppin’ at the North Coast Resource Center in Arcata. Outside, a gang of gulls and ravens hopped up and down, screeching and scrapping for bread chunked at them by a man on the sidewalk. Another guy waved an empty plastic bottle at a big spotted dog, who […]
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Peace Talks in Garberville
Back in July in sunkissed Garberville, residents/merchants and loafers/homeless engaged in a particularly wet battle in the war over Veterans’ Grove, a little park on the town’s north end where hordes of wanderers and folks down on their luck apparently have set up semi-permanent camp. According to reports on SoHum reporter Kym Kemp’s blog, “Redheaded […]
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EPD Hires Homeless Liaison
Most likely both cops and homeless folks — and local businesses — will be heaving great sighs of relief as a new addition to the Eureka Police Department adjusts to her duties. EPD Chief Garr Nielsen hired Pamlyn Millsap on March 17 to serve as the department’s homeless liaison, the EPD announced in a news […]
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Eureka’s Plein-air Hoarder
He trashes our marshes and can’t stand to live among people. He steals shopping carts by the dozens, ties them together and circles them two-abreast like wagons about his mucky plein-air fortress. Drags home every sort of busted big-item implement — computer monitors, lawn mowers, microwave ovens — and all the lowly goods in between, […]
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Family on the Corner
Around noon on Oct. 19, a Tuesday, she sat on the curb near the corner holding her cardboard sign so that people in the cars could read it before heading into the Costco gas station. She was young, fair-skinned, with a little bit of makeup and long, wavy, blonde-highlighted hair. She wore flipflops, black capris […]
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On the night of Jan. 27…
1,497 adults and 416 children were homeless in Humboldt County. At least 520 of those homeless adults and at least 86 of the children were unsheltered — they slept in cars, or outside. And the rest? They “spent the night in a shelter, transitional housing unit, motel, clean and sober house, or with friends and […]