Jimmy Cantrell, a homeless Occupier, sits behind his computer live-streaming Occupy Austin 24 hours a day. Photo by Nikita Stolyarov.

By Carson Lane
For Reporting Texas

AUSTIN — As the Occupy Austin protests at City Hall have continued to draw the homeless as well as demonstrators, the line between the two groups has become increasingly blurred.

“We still have some homeless people who are here for the free food, some that are here just so they won’t get woken up in the night while they’re sleeping,” said Breigh Schoen, a homeless Occupy Austin protester who serves food in the makeshift kitchen. “But then we also have people who are holding signs and working the welcome desk, people who are wanting to see a change.

“I’ll admit that the first days that I was here, I came because I found out that we could sleep here,” she said. “And then I started seeing that they were struggling in certain areas. I realized that the welcome desk didn’t have enough coffee, that the trash can had fallen over and nobody had picked it up, you know? And I just started wanting to help, and I wanted to change.”

While serving meals to other “occupiers,” Schoen said it can get stressful when she sees the people who have been working all day standing in the back of the line because those who had been lying on the stairs have jumped up for food.

“It does get frustrating to know that not everybody here has the same feelings as I do or the same views that the people at the welcome desk are trying to promote, but I mean, everybody is entitled to their own opinion,” said Schoen. “My views have changed, so I’m kind of hoping that’s what happens to everyone else.”

On the first row of steps at City Hall, Jimmy Cantrell, another homeless occupier, and his 8-year-old dog Maggie, used a laptop he bought with Social Security money and a donated webcam to live-stream the Occupy Austin protest 24 hours a day.

“It offends me that people are saying things like we’re just here mooching off of the Occupy donations, because I see that a lot of the people who are here every day helping out are actually homeless,” Cantrell said. “We’re here while the people who have jobs are at work and can’t be.”

Cantrell said it is difficult for many homeless to get work other than day labor when their address on job applications is the Salvation Army or the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless. Cantrell said he has been all over the country and that everywhere he goes, he notices new laws that make it harder to be poor.

“Homeless people are always getting knocked down. It’s on the news all the time, not just because we’re becoming a part of Occupy,” he said.

Occupy Austin protesters, some homeless, some not, sit on the south steps of City Hall. (Photo by Nikita Stolyarov.)

Ihor Gowda, an Occupier who has been a part of the protest since it began on Oct. 6, said the homeless involvement has been a mixed advantage.

“Certainly the homeless feel the bite of the bad economy harder than anyone else, and some of them have become quite involved and participate in helpful ways. So some of them certainly understand and support the cause,” said Gowda, who is not homeless. “Others are freeloading and taking advantage of the food we offer. We have been encouraging everyone to participate, but can’t really enforce that.”

He added that the participation of the homeless has been a mixed blessing for the protest’s image.

“In some ways [homeless participation has been] helpful because it visibly highlights the plight of the poorest Americans, but in other ways harmful because it contributes to some people’s perception of the movement as consisting of only hippies or homeless people,” he said. “But we have a very diverse makeup of participants, so we’re not really worried about that.”

A group of teachers from Austin Community College and the University of Texas has joined forces with Occupy Austin and created a weekly teach-in series to shed some light on the goals of Occupy. The teach-ins are intended to give people involved in Occupy, including homeless people who come to City Hall for free meals and protection from the police, a better understanding of what the people around them are working for. The teach-ins are held at least once a week, and anyone can join.

“We all sit down, and it’s lecture-style, but there’s more discussion,” said Cantrell. “It’s kind of like any class at ACC or UT. The teach-ins are informing people about things that have happened in the past and about the events leading up to all of this. It really helps for the people who didn’t come here initially for the cause.”

Roy Casagranda, an associate professor of government at Austin Community College who has led Occupy teach-ins, said in an email that in his limited interactions with homeless people at Occupy Austin, he has seen a group whose views are diverse, but who seemed interested in some Occupy issues.

“In general, I can say that the most well-received lectures and parts of my own were those that described how capitalism worked and demonstrated its flaws,” said Casagranda.

City of Austin Police Officer Paula Aguilar sat far from the Occupy camp, watching in case trouble arose.

“From working the streets, we recognize faces,” Aguilar said. “We know most of the homeless people, and we know who is here because they have nowhere else to go. But my opinion is that at least 25 percent of the homeless population at Occupy is here for the protest and to make sure that their voice is heard.”