Video Interview: Residents of Ontario's Tent City
conducted by Jim Washburn
Driving to the homeless tent city near the corner of Cucamonga Avenue and Jefferson Street in Ontario, California, any number of interview questions occur: "You guys have wi-fi?" "How do you ever find your teeth in this mud?" "Can I interest you in a trial subscription to the OC Post?"
Something about the place knocks the jocularity right out of you. Maybe it's seeing 200-plus people living in a community where the most stable structure is a porta-potty; where rain-beat tents are planted in mud, jury-rigged with tarps, cardboard, blankets, discarded advertising banners and whatever else might fend off the rain and cold; where people wake, live and attempt sleep in the 24-7 jet wash of Ontario Airport traffic lumbering directly overhead.
This ain't Woodstock. Some people have been here since June, and the numbers keep growing. Kudos to the City of Ontario for allowing the homeless a place and for providing some services, and to local church groups and others for helping out. There's some small advantage to the city: Allowing the homeless to camp on this undesirable property means they're not cluttering up the rest of the town. But there are over 7,000 homeless in San Bernardino County, up 43 percent from five years ago. Other Ingrown Empire burgs aren't stepping up to the plate, which means more homeless will keep drifting to Ontario's scant haven. And having a sodden slum on display to every single flight out of their busy airport isn't the best way of saying "Live, work and play in Ontario!" to the world.
Some in the tent city are the permanent homeless: the mentally ill who've been on the streets since the Reagan years, or those who've pledged fealty to King Cobra or Queen Crack. Some lost their roofs to job losses or medical crises. One we spoke with left her home when things turned sour there after her brother died in Iraq. Some in the tent city are only guilty, as the old Band song put it, of "the crime of having nowhere to go."
FourStory writer Jim Washburn and cameraman Gary Chan spoke with some of the residents on January 8, following a weekend of rain.
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