A Squatter's Story

Tracee Cipolletti - mother of three, homeless person, and squatter - wonders if anyone is really listening. Since moving "extralegally" into the city-owned house at 116 W. William, she and her housemates have received heavy media attention, including several newspaper stories and radio interviews. But she 's worried that the big issue is getting lost in the rush to tell her individual story.

"I like myself . If they want to write about me, fine," she says. "But there's a lot more to the story than Tracee Cipolletti and her three kids."

The official story, in brief: Cipolletti and fellow housemates Eugene and Yvette moved into the empty house April 5 after the Homeless Action Committee (HAC) asked them to be the first homeless families to take shelter there. The city has not attempted to evict them, but Mayor Jerry Jernigan and other officials have indicated in public statements that they will not accept long-term tenancy by homeless families in the house, which is slated to be moved or demolished to make way for the "Kline's Lot" parking structure.

Cipolletti is uncomfortable drawing the media spotlight because she feels the issue is politica!, not personal. "I'm not saying 'the house is mine, and you can't have it back,' " she says. "I'm saying 'Wake up Ann Arbor, there are parking structures on every other corner. The ones we already have aren't even full, and the government wants to build even more of them, while people are in the streets."

Cipolletti worries that once she finds permanent housing for herself and family, the story will disappear. But the number of homeless families in Ann Arbor is growing, as low-income housing continues to disappear. When she leaves 116 W. William, others will take her place. "City Hall is going to find out. They're out there, they're intelligent, and they're not afraid. Mothers with three kids - they're just going to line up."

Political action, not charity, is the way to address the homeless problem, says Cipolletti. " Anyone can drop off some cookies, or a gallon of milk for someone who needs it. But it takes more than that. It takes a phone call to city hall that says, 'House people not cars.' Maybe if half the people in Ann Arbor did that something would change."

There will be no quick improvement in the lot of the homeless. 'The number one reason for homelessness is the lack of housing that poor people can afford," said author Jonathan Kozol in Ann Arbor last month. But, added Kozol, a large part of the public persists in believing that homelessness is the fault of the homeless. For example, a controversial article in the March, 1990 issue of the neoliberal Washington Monthly asserts that almost all homeless people are either mentally ill, substance abusers or victims of an undefined "X-factor" that causes them to refuse to live conventional lives.

Tracee Cipolletti rejects such notions. "Some homeless people are for these reasons homeless, but it's such a small fraction it's ridiculous. " She maintains that "the system is set up for failure."

Simple arithmetic bears her out. A wage of five dollars an hour (about $600 a month after taxes) did not cover rent, Utilities, food, and transportation costs for her family of five, even with S175 in food stamps. Rent alone comes to a minimum of $500 a month. "The numbers never add up," says Cipolletti. "Your income never meets your outgoing. There's no room for a car accident, there's no room for shoes, at times there's no room for food on the table." Living this way - choosing between necessities - is a slippery slope, says Cipolletti, since a layoff, accident or medical emergency produces a "snowball effect" which leads to homelessness.

Cipolletti has been on and off public assistance, which she says penalizes those who work. "You make $5 an hour, you get a little bit of food stamps, then four months after you get off welfare you lose your Medicaid. How much better can you feel about yourself if your kid gets sick and there's nothing you can do about it?"

If the slide into homelessness can be brutally quick, the reverse journey has almost a miraculous effect. The house at 1 16 W. William - spacious, uncluttered and immaculately clean, with baby pictures and family portraits hanging in the upstairs living room - could be home to any Ann Arbor family. Tracee Cipolletti knows it's not her permanent home, but she's grateful to the Homeless Action Committee for helping her a find a way to get her family back together under one roof. The fact that she's there "extralegally" is not a moral burden; she believes such actions are justified by the current situation. Homeless people, like disenfranchised people everywhere, can't wait - they must take charge of their own destiny. "Black people had to do it in the 60s, and homeless people are going to have to do it in the 90s."