This week, Eric Gudz, a candidate for Davis City Council, has been sleeping in the sleeping bag in the back of his car. His goal is to raise awareness for students forced to live this way out of necessity.
The Vanguard caught up with him around 10 pm on Thursday in a dark Davis neighborhood.
“The last couple of months, I was thinking about the state of our rental crisis. I was thinking a lot about our homelessness crisis that we have in Davis,” he explained. “I realized that there 
was a whole lot about the situation that I really didn’t understand fully because of that experience that I do not have.
“I decided it was time for me to take a step in those shoes and really see what those realities are like for folks that aren’t as privileged as us to be able to have a nice warm place to sleep and a roof over their head,” he said.
He said a lot of students sleep in their cars downtown. A recent survey by UC Davis found that around three percent of students who responded to a survey in Spring 2017 experienced some degree of home insecurity at a given point in time. The survey does not speak to the severity of that insecurity.
While that may not seem like a huge number on the surface, and is a good degree lower than surveys in Los Angeles, it could mean that at any one point in time, as many as 1200 students are experiencing housing insecurity at UC Davis.
Eric Gudz said that the first thing he noticed when he undertook this exercise was “just the sheer amount of energy that this takes.”
He explained that when you decide to sleep in your car on the streets there are a number of things you immediately start thinking about. “You immediately think about your location and you’re automatically thinking a lot more about your safety,” he said. “Is this a safe place for me to sleep?”
He said, “Is this a place where I’m going to get five, six, seven, or eight hours of uninterrupted sleep?”
Factors that he was looking at was the lighting. Too much light, like the first night he tried this, could mean trouble sleeping or staying asleep.
Another factor was traffic. The more activity happening, the harder it will be to sleep but also the more likely it is to put him in contact with other people.
“You have to think about a lot of these things,” he said. That alone, he said, “Adds a lot of extra stress. A lot of extra anxiety to one’s life. When you don’t have to consider a lot of those
things, you’re saving energy.”
“That was definitely a big thing that I picked up right away,” he said.
Another factor is the issue of restrooms. “Bathrooms are a big thing,” he said. “Obviously we have a couple of spots in the downtown where one can utilize the facilities. But there’s not a whole lot of folks that are going to sleep downtown because you have so much other stuff happening downtown.”
He said with all the things happening, if you have a car, “you’re probably more likely to sleep in a quieter low key neighborhood that’s not going to be that close to the restrooms. So you have to negotiate that tradeoff.
“It took a little bit of time to get used to that the first two nights,” he said.
Eric Gudz said that he has been able to get full nights of sleep.
“It depends on where I’m at,” he said. “The first night was really hard just because it wasn’t something I was used to as much. There were a lot of really big lights the first night, so I’d sleep maybe two or three hours and kind of wake up and roll over. That first night was a little rough. The second night I learned from that and stayed away from the lights.”
He said, “It’s not that easy to find a spot that doesn’t have traffic that goes through, doesn’t have lighting that you worry about.”
Another factor he said was Neighborhood Watches and the possibility that he might have someone call the police on him and have to deal with that while he tries to sleep.
“I could potentially be someone who has the police called on him,” he said.
This was his fourth night and he was anticipating sticking it out one more night, but he said he was getting worn down by the experience.
“The big message to the community is that in order for us to ultimately be able to address the underlying causes of these issues that we face,” he said, “we need to understand them from the ground and from the perspective of a lived experience.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
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Is this an article or a campaign submission?
Yes to both, it appears… just replace your word “or” with “and/or” and you appear to have pretty much nailed it….
I walked my rear end out there at 10 pm at night, it was not a campaign submission. It was also my idea to do the story.
Keith is it your position that the media should not cover anything that a candidate does? If a presidential candidate rolls out a policy initiative or delivers a speech, ignore it? A candidate here did something unusual to bring attention to an important issue (at least in my view), why would the media not cover it?
David
I do not so much see the preceding comments as a criticism of you as a questioning of motive. It is laudable for a candidate to try to better understand the circumstances of others whom their potential future votes may affect. It also probably doesn’t hurt one’s campaign when this type of coverage is provided.
I think Eric’s effort to raise awareness about people sleeping in cars is laudable. I lived in my car on more than one occassion while in Graduate School here at Davis and, as he has so recently found out, it’s not easy. Nor is it fun. Our society does not take the most tolerant view of people sleeping in their cars and there is always a feeling of being hunted. For those who have never been in that situation, it is difficult to convey the constant anxiety of being rousted out of your sleep and told to move on, or worse. It really takes the edge off of ‘a good night’s sleep.’
Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Larry.
Thanks Eric for raising the awareness of one of the lesser know crises in town. 1200 students who are housing insecure. Not enough people are paying attention.
You forgot: “The survey does not speak to the severity of that insecurity.”
This reminds me so much of Republican Gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari’s “Homeless in Fresno” stunt in 2014.
http://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/election/article19522869.html
I’m sure someone will now tell me how this is different.
As an experienced “urban camper”, here are a few tips:
• Have a large, wide-mouthed jar with a tight seal on hand, and be sure you mark it clearly so you don’t get it mixed up with your lemonade.
• Camp in plain sight. You are often most hidden in busy places because you are not expected.
• Make it look from the outside like there’s no one inside — i.e. don’t hang blankets in all the windows, just enough to hide you from people and block the sun waking you up, or a lamp at night.
• Dont’ get out of your car when you pull in to camp if there is anyone nearby, as you are more easily spotted.
• Have a story ready for the police. The truth usually works.
• Camp near an espresso shop and use their restroom in the morning in exchange for an espresso shot.
I have urban camped in numerous towns, including numerous times in Santa Cruz and Berkeley were it is illegal. I’ve only twice been rousted, and never detained. The cops in Berkeley even let me continue to sleep in front of the house that spotted me when I told them I just felt too tired to drive home after a concert and was being safe (the truth). Also, I have a very comfy vehicle — on purpose!
Of course, I do this to save on an unnecessary hotel room where I’d be asleep anyway but paying for it. Doing it involuntarily does suck. I camped at the Amtrak depot in my car in college with my S piled up in the back in between leases for a few days. Bad enough.
My advice was for those doing it for short-term political theater.
“Is this a safe place for me to sleep?”
Yes it is. It’s called anywhere in Davis.
???