The corporation for public broadcasting, the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. hammering [gulls cawing] Radio Alliance is drugs, its prostitution, loitering the list just goes on and on and on. Woman 3 00 in the morning, clinkclinkclinking down the street. It drives me crazy. Woman the cart is stolen. The cans are stolen. Metal is stolen. Its taken from construction sites. Radio is there another guy with a bike and a shopping cart in there right now . Man its a tragedy because they dont have a place to go to the toilet for those who are homeless. They dont have an income outside of the garbage. Man Alliance Metals is the hornets nest that feeds the hornets that sting the local people that live in this area. Man we are one of the busiest recycling centers in the state of california. How you doing . Hows business . Where else but america can you make 100 a day picking trash up off the streets . You know, its like the old days. When my greatgrandfather came to this country, they told him, theres money in the streets; theres gold to be made, and although its not literally true, figuratively, it is. I mean, you can get up, be dead broke, no education, no skills, get yourself a shopping cart, walk around the streets, and make 100. Recycler i piss everyone off because i pull more stuff to any recycling center than anyone can. I tie the exact same amount of weight to one side as the other. I put all glass in the middle, so it balances it out. Ive pulled, like, 800 pounds of glass, 50 pounds of cans, about 200 pounds of plastic, all at once. [exhales] i would say its a 15mile day because i have to hit every street that a dump truck would hit on a trucks route. The roads you go on, i have to be in the bike lane because a bike lane is flat usually, right, and so when theres road, you know, that goes like this, ive got all that weight on there, and if you pull on the wrong side, the whole thing is gonna flip over cause of the road. Every day, i got it all worked out what im gonna do, where im gonna go, and who im gonna avoid, because theres other recyclers who try to figure out my routes and stuff, so i gotta keep my routes secret, cause theres a whole lot of other recyclers trying to do the same thing. So people been kicking me out of the garbage. You can see up here, theres a camera. We have a camera on both sides for scrap metal because scrap metal is a hightheft item which costs the state and the public a lot of money. We photograph every piece of scrap that comes in. We service over 600 customers a day. Shes under a lot of stress. People are trying to cheat. People are screaming. People are switching barrels. I cant weigh your glass twice, though. Thats all right. No problem. Well throw this ticket away. No problem. You already weighed it . People are gonna try and get what they want. Theyre gonna argue the whole way, and then theyre gonna walk out with 50100 and come back again tomorrow happy. Man whats up, jay . Jason another day, another day. Another day, another day . You did good. You did good. You know it. Jason, voiceover once you live on the street like me, it aint gonna be my mom or my dad or. Anyone whos gonna help me out, really. Its not gonna be. The preacher, the church, anything. The streets gonna pay me. In one way or another, the streets gonna pay me. Im a local painter whos been painting in the streets of oakland for some 40 years. I do quite a bit of my painting out of the trunk of my car and take advantage of parking lots or the sidewalk. Well, naturally, i have to mention my best friend and my partner. She really does most all this herself. I provide her the transportation. If we do part, im gonna make sure she has a setup somewhere. Miss kay hes a very kindhearted man, and hes a good person. He worries about other people more than he worries about himself. I was roadieing for her band. I played drums. Shes a drummer. We met backstage. Man 1, 2, 3, 4 [music playing] miss kay in the eighties, i was the drummer of polkacide. There was 11 of us. Ha ha ha there were a lot of horns. We played up and down california for about two years straight. We had a clarinet, two trumpets, trombone, two saxophones oh, and two accordion players. Ha ha ha talk to you later. Byebye. Take care. Man everyone who recycles is just not a criminal or a crook or wrong. People have had some hardships in life. Some people were born into poverty. Some people were born with a half a chance to really make it out here. Im not a kind of person who is really fond of bylaws or programs or things like that. Ive been living, you know, like a mustang, so to say. Ive been out here, and im used to not having a lot of rules and regulations to abide by. When to get up, when to go to sleep thats like jail to me. I got to realize that in 16 years, ill be 70 years old. Fortunately, im still physically strong, you know, and mentally strong. I think recycling is good cause its legitimate, and it could pay good. Id like to do it on a bigger scale or a higher level. Man this whole family has always been brought up in the church. Theres a scripture in proverbs says, train up a child in the way he should go, and it will never depart from him. We were trained, and we were taught and trained to walk this walk of faith. Even though we went off track in this walk, the walk never left us. As a matter of fact, landon was ordained. He was working in the ministry 100 . What happened . Im gonna admit that, you know, it wasnt like, ok, well, society did this to me, and, you know, it was other peoples fault. It was definitely my fault that i ended up in the position that i am today. Man right about the time we turned 18 or so was really when the crack cocaine epidemic hit our community, and it hit us like a ton of bricks. It caused our loved ones throughout the community to steal, people that never stole before, and they were stealing from their own families, you know . It was easy access. Take your family television, you know . Take your mothers jewelry. We struggled with him until finally one day, you know, we agreed, my mother and i, were just gonna wash our hands of this guy. Were gonna let him go. It was very hard for my mother. [barking] man i think i have a tolerance for a lot of things. I mean, this is not the prettiest neighborhood. I mean, i dont mind a little bit of scruffiness, and i dont mind a little bit of edginess, but, you know, there are some things that i really dont like. I dont like the drug use, and i dont like the, you know, people urinating and defecating in public. One of the things thats wrong with Alliance Metals is the fact that jay still will take shoppingcart business. Woman we get complaints about the possibility of his receiving stolen goods. Were seeing more and more metal being taken from public facilities and even private homes. Man one of my customers, observing jays impact on the neighborhood, he likened him to a modernday plantation owner. Its not very nice, its not very flattering, but if you think about it, its pretty accurate. Here youvgot a rich white guy, comes into a neighborhood, and hes got a whole bunch of black people that poor black people that he provides a subsistence, but thats it, and hes making a ridiculous profit off of their labors. [talking indistinctly] jay im not a saint. Im a businessman, and we do make a profit here. I built this business from nothing. I put 16 years of my life into it. Its a business that im proud of. Its an industry that i can feel good about. Its socially responsible. Its environmentally sound. Its sustainable. Nancy the attitude of the owner of the recycling center is that he is helping the poorest of the poor, and i question that. I dont think hes helping them. If heif he really wanted to help them, he would let them have a job, a real job, not be a contractor that he makes a lot of money off of the stuff that they bring, and they make a little bit, just enough money to get the crack around the corner. Bill not to say that all of Alliance Metals customers are doing drugs, but there are a group, and he is financing, you know, a local drug economy here. Jay the people whove moved here want these people to simply no longer exist in their neighborhood. Well, this has been their neighborhood for a hundred years. This is the neighborhood where the poor, the unemployed this is where they end up. This is west oakland. I got there, and he didnt look right, and i told him, i said, come on, landers. If you can get out of here, i said, ill drag you out of here, man. Youre my best friend. Come on. Landon she stayed with me and had somebody go call 911, and they ran some xrays, and they found out that i had a lacerated spleen and i had internal bleeding. There was two other gurneys in there, and i look to the side, and i see one of my cousins, and he said, my brother reuben has a place out in vallejo. Im gonna tell him to come find you. Reuben im the director of a program for men who are wanting to make changes in their lives from drugs and alcohol. I really believe that this program can really work for those who choose to come. Nothing grows from a seed unless it dies first, you know . So, ive been through my valleys of weeping. Ive been out here for a while, and i want to get back to some type of normalcy in my life. How you doing, cousin . Whats up, cuz . Its so good to see you, man. Im glad you made it down here. You ready to make this move now . Yeah. I just got to get a little cleaned up and do a thing, and id be glad to. Did you bring me a. Yeah, yeah. A few things . Thats good, thats good. Here you go. Reuben i told landon if he wanted to get himself together, that i have a bed waiting for him, so im here to pick him up. A lot of the Family Members havent seen landon in years, and he hasnt seen his brother in 15 years. When youre out here and into drugs like this, you dont want your Family Member to see you, you know. You always trying to stay away from him because you feel ashamed, you feel guilty, embarrassed, you know . Its just a humiliating situation. Landon getting off of the streets, the concrete. Tired of bushes, makeshift homes. [engine starts] so, i got this map here. What lot are we on . Lot 104, grave 7. I was wondering whats taking him so long, you know, and i tried to call the hospital. They didnt answer the phone. Well. He had liver failure and kidney failure. And then the next day, he went to sleep, and he never woke up. [sobs] there you are. Man her mom had had a daughter and then could have no more children, and her father really, really, really wanted a son. Hayoks father had a mistress. The mistress had hayok. Girl. Uhoh. But when hayok was about 3 or 4, the kays emigrated to japan. Hayok was supposed to be behind with her birth mother, and her birth mother was so angry with the colonel that she took the little girl to the airport, and there is this scene right out of a movie where the two families are standing around on the tarmac, and the birth mothers going, you take her, and her mom, being really pissed at the birth mother and the father, not thinking about the child, going, no, you take her. Pingpong ball, with, like, a 3 or 4yearold kid, and finally, the colonel said, ok, were taking her. If theres not a clearer example of being unwanted, i dont know what is. Woman me and jason met on a methadone clinic. We would talk every morning. I thought he was cool because he listened to what i had to say. And most people didnt. Right on. Ill be right down there. Heather i used to work on the street. I was 19 or 20 when i first started working the street. I didnt want to do it, but i thought i had no choice. When we started going out, i quit working. I didnt work, not one more time. You didnt get this block, did you . I didnt get it. Lets get this in, and then were done. Leave the last one going that way, you know . Well loop around. Landon august 1st. That was the day i left from over there in oakland, from my shanty, to come here. I learned that i wasnt loving myself out there or anyone else, particularly. You know, i had common courtesy, but i was destroying myself out there, you know. Here is a person who wants to better himself again, you know. There was a person who didnt, you know, care whether he lived or died, and it wasnt a garden of eden, you know. It was a babylon, more or less. It was rough. Reuben whatever your goals are and whatever plans youre making for that goal, its gonna require some commitment. Its gonna require some perseverance , you know. Its gonna require you to develop the principles of patience, because everything aint gonna fall in your lap like you want it to. Sin is always present with me. No matter what whatever sin come with and try to shift me, im still not going back to the crack house because im gonna do something thats gonna keep my motivation level up high. Landon my plans are to stay sober, to stay healthy, to be godfearing, to one day find me a wife before i get too old, you know . Im 54 now, ok . Hurry up. Ha ha my whole purpose was for me to get myself in order so i could help other people. Woman we thank you for this day that. I believe i was called to do that, but i would have never been able to do that from there. Jason i was in the hospital for lymphedema. So, my lymph system is. Up, which is a result from endocarditis, hivpositive or hep c or whatever. Its really hard to just keep going. Uh ooh yeah, i caught it. Ha ha ah jason normally, every sunday, i come out to my Fathers House so i can see my son. Thats real important to me cause my kid is one of the reasons why i try to live a normal life the only reason, you know . Fruity pebbles id like him to live with me, but right now, hes got a good opportunity, living with my dad, to graduate from school and go to college and make something of himself. Man jason is getting so he cant pull the carts like he used to. His legs are really bad. But when hes feeling good, he can go out and get cans and stuff, so something that makes him still feel proud of himself that he can bring in a little bit of money. Woman this is my favorite. He loved the beach. Those were good times. Eric jason was a very sweet kid, and he was always liked, and hed always say thank you and stuff like that when he was real young. Woman thats when jason achieved his black belt. That was a very big event for him. Eric and then, when he was 13, he used speed. At first, i didnt notice any of the drug use. It just all of a sudden became apparent. We put him in rehab. Speed is the worst drug ive ever seen. Its a jekyll and hyde kind of drug. We didnt hear about it until he was older, and it generally came out when he was in a rage, usually under some kind of substance. Neither one of them wanted to say anything about it. I think something did happen, though. Margie if you confronted his brother about it, his brother was always very evasive about it, but he also indicates that something did definitely happen. Jason i wasnt raised in too normal of a setting. My dad liked to drink and stuff like that. J. J. , can you move out of the way of the tv . Hey, i know how to do it do you know how to do it . Here. You do it the same way you turn on the videogame. Ok. Go do that. Such a good boy. Eric i really love j. J. Im a much better person around him than i was when jason was being brought up. Jason hes kind of got a chance to prove that he can raise a kid, and its cool with me because i think hell be able to. I mean, im gonna be there, too, but im kind of not doing so good healthwise. J. J and another one. Ive really got to cope with the fact my lifes just a. Dream, because really, thats the only thing that makes me get through the day, is just hoping when i do go, which i know for a fact is gonna be a lot sooner than most, that ill still be in someones dream. Oh its gonna stick to me. As i think is evident, hayok would rather die than ask for help. Did she ever ask you for anything . Might have asked you for money or asked you for a beer. On up the hill, up the hill. But for any sort of substantial help, no. Its like its not there, or it may be, but it doesnt matter. Im gonna get a beer. I need some bubbles. Its like you only have yourself to depend on, and thats the way life is. Miss kay this will help. Ah. I think id better go to see a doctor. I hope i dont have cancer. I feel nauseous all the time, you know. [belches] to the toilet now. My whole family, they dont even want to talk to me, just because, you know, i give everything away. You know, thats their excuse. [slurring] im 50something years old. They still treat me like a little child. Now they dont want to see me. I should have been never born into this crap. Some days, thats how i get. Jason finally, i was able to get a fair hearing for social security. Now we got an apartment. Recycling now and having at least a monthly supplement covers most of our rent. Now we got running water, you know, and the, you know, we got. We gotman, everything that you need to take care of yourself. You know what i mean . Im able to bathe, and, you know, just being able to shave every day and brush my teeth is really cool. We got a toilet now. Without a toilet, life sucks, man. And its not a lot of food, but we got food. We cook all kind of stuff. I can barbecue better than she can. I think i probably make better spaghetti, but theshe makes better, um, stuff like breakfast stuff. I found this for my kid when i was recycling just the other day. I still got to clean it up a little bit. Ill give that to my kid so he can learn stuff. Now were kind of back to back to the basics. Man poor people are seen as powerless people. Poor people are seen as people who dont participate. Poor people tend to be seen as people that you can dismiss. Ok . They dont vote. Theyre not there. So if people dont have the capacity to push the levers of power, then we dont talk about them. Ok. Anybody else with a ticket . Ticket. Whos got a ticket . Ok. Hold on. I just got to do a headcount, and then well come back out. Give me a second. My name is jay anast, president of Alliance Metals. Ive been operating Alliance Metals for 16 years. We are a business that is still operating in this economy. If you continue with annual reviews and politicizing our businesses, we will continue to put on hold hiring, equipment orders, and normal business functions until the end of each and every hearing. I have three vendors waiting tomorrow to find out if we have a 30,000 equipment order going in or not, based on tonights decision. Thank you very much for your time. [applause] woman ok. I show a number of other speakers, and i wanted to seek the direction of the chair. Your name, sir . My name is jason witt, and ive been a recycler for about 15 years. I was in this neighborhood in west oakland that most people call dogtown. Im gonna tell you right now that recycling not only has saved my life. My girlfriend was working on the street as a prostitute. She no longer has to do that because of recycling. As far as im concerned, if you take away the recycle center, crime will rise again in oakland to worse than you can ever think. [applause] actuallyactually, the recycle center is probably one of the safest places in west oakland. Man yeah [applause] as a person who works very, very hard for my money every day, i dont want to go to jail. Im sick and tired of going to jail, and until i can get a job in oakland, until i can get a job, i think that you should allow me to at least recycle. All im doing is taking garbage. Im not touching cars. Im not touching cars, and im not selling drugs. [applause] i do this now. [applause] bill i came back around 3 00, and the place was surrounded with cops, and they were turning people away, and they didnt say whether it was for the day or until further notice or anything like that. Man apparently, we ended up buying some pg e wire, and we shouldnt have bought it. It was stolen. They searched for the wire. About a halfhour, 45 minutes later, they found it. They talked to all the workers and asked questions. Nobody really knew anything. Right now, theyre still in there, talking to jay. I believe it might have been an honest mistake. I think that the city councilwoman from last night was upset with jay, and honestly, i think it was a setup. Nancy my job is to make sure that there is not illegal activity going on, and there is illegal activity going on there, so its not a personal vendetta. If he doesnt want police there, he should stop doing illegal stuff. It shows, amongst other things, that for 2 1 2 years, the Oakland Police and the City Administrators Office have been gathering material about Alliance Metals in an attempt to shut it down. So were working together with a team to defend jay, defend his license, but we were shocked. I dont know what else is there. I dont know if this is it. I dont know if its the tip of the iceberg. Yeah. Can you help me,. Like try some pot . Dude, is it . I think so. Yeah. Thank you. You need to let me come over here and help you throw some of this garbage away. Right. Heather. Heather. Yes . Can i get some water, mama . Please . All right. Hold on. Thank you. Mmhmm. Thank you. Jason, voiceover the first time i kicked heroin was, uh, right before i turned 13 or 14 years old. Yeah. But you did. You tied that off perfectly for me. And i kicked in a drug program in oakland. Aw,. I just totally. And, like, they tell you youll never be the same. Youll never be able to drink, like, at your graduation for school. Theres no way. So then you say,. School,. The graduation,. The world. You know what i mean . When youre a kid and you go into one of those, those things kind of set your life up. Youre a drug addict the rest of your life. Starting to feel a little better. [exhales] baby, im gonna pull you cause you dont look too good. Im gonna pull you up to the hospital, all right . Come on. Step. Now. Step up. Step up. Slide. Yeah, now. Stay smiling. You want a cigarette . Not like a clown. You want a cigarette . What im thankful for today is that right now, i can look back, and i can see all the errors and the mistakes that i made in life. I was told that ill push a shopping cart down the street, sleeping under a bridge or a freeway for the rest of my life. Lord, i got to trust in you. I want to come out of this addiction. I want a wife. I want to live a quiet and peaceable life. And it wasnt until this year that i obtained some of that. [chuckles] and im still waiting on the lord for the rest. Miss kay its crazy. It hasnt got any better. It hasnt got any worse, but it hasnt got any better. I want this madness to go away. [tapping] i do want it to go away. Its a real mess. I, uh, im sorry, but i dont know how, uh, how to. Figure it out, but i hope it goes away. Ii think its cause my daddys dead, freds dead. And i dont have a family and children. I think thats whats destroying me. What have i done to deserve this . Jason he put a. Threeday notice, pay or quit, just the other day, and my rents not even up. He basically wanted us to have no outside use. He wanted us to have all indoor use of the apartment, and that just does not fly, not when youre paying that much money in rent. So i had to use the inside of my apartment for everything that normally would be outside. Heathers kind of lost it, and a lot of things have happened, right . But ill stick by her. Landon i came out here to bring the little recycling i got, because im still doing that stuff. I got the companys truck over here, and the fourth of july is coming up tomorrow, wednesday, and i thought if a few people wanted to come out of here and go over there and enjoy a day at the park and eat some barbecue, theyre welcome to come. Hey, miss kay, how are you doing . Good. How are you . You know, ive been trying to get people to come out on the fourth and have some barbecue with me out there in vallejo. So ill probably come out here tomorrow and ride around. If anybody want to go back, they welcome to. Oh, ok. All right. Hey, landon. Yes, sir . Yeah, of course you can. Yeah. I understand. I understand. I understand. You know im pastor in a church now, huh . Yeah. Ok. So quit cursing at your pastor friend. Oh, oh ha ha no. Dont go all that straight. I cant bring certain spirits in the realm of other spirits that are living clean and sober or trying to do the right thing, and then you bring that element in, even whether theyre your friend or not, and they come and they bring the spirit of alcohol, the spirit of drugs, and the spirit of cursing things that we just dont do, and so you dont want to bring that influence into people whos trying to steer themselves away from that. Its time for a change, man. I come out of that stuff, and i never want to return to it, but the truth is, i love those people down there more than the people that ive become accustomed to now, because i can understand their plight, and i want to embrace them. I want to hug them. I. [exhales] its not easy. Mmm delicious. Uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah. I learned that a person like me, with my character and personality, i never get sick and tired of getting sick and tired. I just get sick and tired because i could always go worse because i could tolerate too much. Yeah. Is it a problem, do you think . Hmm . Do you think its a problem . Hmm. When you can tolerate a whole bunch of stuff, yeah, because youll never get past what youre willing to tolerate. You will never in life get past what youre willing to tolerate. I got to the point where i wasnt willing to tolerate it anymore. Yeah, me, too. Ill get there. I wouldnt be able to tolerate it. Thats where im at. Jay my favorite one to throw away city of oakland action against us. All this was the evidence they brought against us, plus 3,000 pages of documentation. We ended up with a very good settlement. The city ended up paying us 75,000 and gave us an ironclad contract that now gives us more rights and protections than any other recycler in oakland. This final battle clinched making the sale possible. Sirs, congratulations. Heres the keys to the shop. I think that weve done all that we can, and now its time for fresh blood to come in, new people wanting to make a mark for themselves. Ha ha ha woman i wasnt interested in a relationship with a man. My focus is on god. Thank you so much. Ok, everybody. Youre a sight. Yes, maam. Im off to see the wizard. And, um. Here we are. [organ playing] landon i appreciate life better. All the journeys of the past, i wouldnt change a thing, no matter how tragic it may have been, anything that would alter me being with my best friend, the person i love very much. Officiant . This man and this woman. Do you take this woman to be your wedded wife . I do. I pronounce that they are husband and wife in the name of our father and the son and of the holy ghost. Kiss your bride. Attendees amen. [applause] come on. Lets put your hands together. Galen at first, i didnt feel the need to have to be here, but today is like the first time ive seen him since my mother passed. My mother passed in 89. Well, you know, there was a company. It allows me to do the forgiveness that i probably should have done. Whats happening . I would like to honor my wife. Suzette goodwin. Id like to honor her. The best. [applause and cheering] and when i see her, i know that god loves me. To you, suzette, in the name of jesus. Salute. Jason almost. Man thats good. Ok. Very good. See how it kind of hangs . You dont want it hanging this way. You want it hanging under, where it lays against the thing. Thats it. Man we get different people that walk into here, and i was first was alerted by other people. They go, he has numchucks in his back pocket, and i had other students, do you want us to take care of him, take him out . Im like, no. He seems fine, you know . You know . I came up and talked to jason, and he was really respectful, really nice, and i said, whoa, i kind of like this guy, you know . Then one day, he just came up to me, and he said, im gonna start next month. And now come straight. No, thats sideways. Straight. Straight . To his head. To his head. Straight to my eyes. Ok . So now when you do it again, you go straight for my eyes. Instructor jason is moving forward with his life and listening to what were saying and knowing that hes in control of the way he wants to live his life. Hes in control of his reality, and i think hes starting to really understand that. What originally drew me here was, like. Like, uh, cause i was having a hard time with the heroin. Drugs and drug abuse and getting high. It was like an escape, and it was a way to get aggression out. But, like, this is, like, a way to get peace in. Nothing really has ever made me feel like this. Very nice, jason. Very good. Thank you. It might have already saved my life. These friends, i truly look up to. Hey and im choosing to be around people who i see actually are doing something with their lives, you know . This just feels like a family. Man hes our brother now. He is part of our family. He is our brother. Thats right. And weve got his back. [sniffling] remember that, jason. All these spiders, nobody home. Woman have you ever dated somebody who was on the spectrum before . Man gangs or football. Its a continuous struggle. Coach the past is gone the future lays out there at the 50 yard line make your own history lets go, baby connect with independent lens online at pbs. Org. You can also follow us on facebook and twitter. Watch videos and explore interactive features. Theres always more to every program on our website. 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