I haven’t even scratched the surface of the issues in play at the homeless protest in front of city hall—that has Matt Davis written all over it—but it’s hard to ignore the fact that it’s quickly becoming a campaign issue. The protest came up during today’s housing forum with the mayoral candidates. And Jim Middaugh put out a statement with his views on the protest and the underlying issues. Meanwhile, another candidate spent the night sleeping in front of city hall.

There was no press release or fanfare, however. Matt got wind of it, and I called up Jeff Bissonnette to ask where he’d slept last night.

“On 4th Avenue,” he said, a bit surprised that I was asking.

Turns out Bissonnette happened to have a brown bag lunch campaign session at a law firm downtown yesterday. He hadn’t been downtown since the protest began a few days earlier, so he stopped by city hall to see what was going on.

“I talked to several of the folks down here, but I only had about half an hour. So I asked, can I come back later and talk to some more folks? They said sure, come back whenever.” Bissonnette participated in the League of Women Voters’ forum last night, stopped in at another event, then headed back to city hall to talk to the protesters.

“Someone said, ‘so, are you going to stay?’ I said I guess I could, but I didn’t really come prepared to stay,” Bissonnette says. The homeless protesters “fixed me up”—putting together a camp set with cardboard, a sleeping pad, a sleeping bag, and a blanket. “It was basically like being invited over to someone’s house. Everyone checked in on me and made sure I was good. I hung around, chatted to a bunch of people. At 12:30 we turned in.” Bissonnette slept propped up against one of the concrete pillars lining the sidewalk outside of city hall.

In talking to the protesters, Bissonnette has some striking observations—and ideas on solutions (which include electing him—an idea we concur with—so he can get into city hall and really be effective in addressing this issue). Check them out after the cut.

"The interesting thing for me, and this is completely from an organizing perspective," he says, is that he wanted to know "What brought this on? They said 'we're sick and tired of being swept.'"

"If you're going to tell us not to sit or be anywhere... here at least we can get some sleep," is what Bissonnette heard. "That all seemed pretty reasonable to me," he says.

"If i were on the city council and able to do something, what they're asking for is real solutions. That's precisely the thing they ought to be asking for and pushing for, and it's not something that is readily deliverable within a week or within a couple of days," he says. "I'm not quite sure how you handle that dynamic except through an ongoing [partnership]." Bissonnette thinks the path is to take care of the short term needs, while simultaneously working on the long term needs—but in an expedited fashion. If he were on the city council, "I'd be in dialogues with these folks to get a solution together. The immediate solution might be short term, but if they saw there was a long term solution,
and if they saw there was a long term solution, that would give most folks stability within a matter of a few months, that might move the discussion along."

On the short term solutions, Bissonnette thinks the city should be more accountable when confiscating property during sweeps. "People want to know where their stuff went. I heard some saying 'I had a pretty good tent, and I think it went to someone's backyard.'" Property receipts, and a way to tell people where their stuff is and how to get it back is one thing the city could do now.

Another thing that struck Bissonnette: "This morning, I could get home, take a shower, change clothes. In talking to these folks last night, they said I know how I look, I know how I look to other people. I don't want to be out here. I want to shower, I want to change clothes," he said. "Some people had said I had a change of clothes, but I don't have one anymore."

Bissonnette stopped by city hall again today, in business attire—"I've been struck with a massive sense of ironic juxtaposition when yesterday I had a brown bag thing with a law firm on an upper floor of a pretty high building downtown, then I came here and hung out, and today was sort of the same thing." He's also traded phone calls with the mayor's point person on the protest, to see if there's anything he can do.

In the meantime, I get the sense Bissonnette will be stopping by the protest again (even if he doesn't go out of his way to tell anyone about it). "I'm just able to be supportive and talk and hang out," he says, adding that one of the protesters told him "'You're the only person who's just come and hung out.'"