‘No different than the stars in the sky’: Life in writing with Erin Spencer

There’s an unhoused man in West Berkeley writing mankind’s new constitution, which he’s aptly titled the Articles of Survival. The handwritten document, which is currently about eight pages long, has been rewritten numerous times in a stack of notebooks, on collected scraps of cardboard, and scrawled onto tarps and pallets that wall the author’s home. The document may experience a constant flux of revisions, but the first article always remains the same: Do no harm.

Erin Spencer, the author of the street treatise, stands six feet tall with the build of an ex-Marine. His pit bull, Bastet, can always be found at this side. He’s a long-time resident of the Eighth and Harrison encampment in industrial West Berkeley, where he has spent years building and maintaining “The Hovel,” a sprawling, multi-room camp known for “catching the runaways” who have sought refuge at the decade-old encampment.

We first met Spencer at The Hovel three years ago, a place he maintains for his community “to be safe, to be away from cops, to be out of sight—and to not have to pay a dime.” 

Dozens of people have passed through The Hovel over the years. Some stay a couple nights. Others—like Priest, Popcorn, and Little Bit—haved called The Hovel home for a long time.

The City of Berkeley has been working to shut down encampments along Eighth and Harrison streets—including The Hovel—for years, citing health and safety hazards such as drug use, food and human waste, and rodent droppings.

But the unsheltered population far exceeds available shelter beds in Berkeley, and encampment sweeps often leave unhoused residents in a more precarious position. Forced to depart from their tents and dwellings, most of their property is discarded into the mouth of a city dump truck, which often includes vital possessions like IDs, service documentation, medications, and invaluable keepsakes.

Last month, on June 4, the City of Berkeley conducted one of these sweeps at Eighth and Harrison without posting the required 72-hour notice. Arriving at 6AM with over a dozen Berkeley police officers, Berkeley officials ordered residents to pack what they could and vacate their homes within 20 minutes. Those who continued packing past the 20-minute window were subject to forced dispersal and use of less-lethal weapons. Although a judge stopped the sweep in an emergency hearing later that afternoon, stating the operation violated residents’ right to due process, city workers had already dismantled most of the tents and structures that line the intersection. No shelter offers were made to residents of the encampment, displacing roughly three dozen people.

Spencer, who had installed wheels on a number of pallets in preparation for this type of eviction, was able to remove some of his property from the sweep zone, but ultimately the city destroyed The Hovel. A disabled Marine Corps veteran, he has been swept from Berkeley encampments dozens of times, and has grown accustomed to losing his shelter in the process. 

He has protested the city’s approach to sweeps in various ways over the years: speaking during public comment at city council meetings, signing onto various lawsuits, and practicing civil disobedience inside his shelter during encampment evictions. 

He also engages in protest by writing large, bold messages on the exterior walls of his Harrison Street home, a practice that is intended to communicate with passersby who often drive through the encampment with their windows closed.

In a way, Spencer’s very existence on the streets of Berkeley is a form of protest. He continues to advocate for his right to exist even if it’s a life lived outdoors, and he continues to facilitate a space for his community to confidently do the same. 

We recently sat down with Erin Spencer and asked him to write down some of the lessons that he has learned over the years—from growing up in East Texas, serving in the Marine Corps, and finding his way as an unhoused person on the streets in Berkeley. We asked him what it means to be a decent and honest person, which is a core tenet of his drafted Articles of Survival. Below is an abridged version of those conversations, including some of Spencer’s writing, gifted to us in his own hand.

What in life do you love the most?

My puppy dog.

I love that there are people around me that can meet me at my eyes.

I like that I have found an extraordinarily challenging aspect of life that I can try to make a positive impact on. 

Turns out my capacity to be happy is directly tied to my ability to help the people around me lift themselves up.

What do your hope for?

Family, or a close approximation thereof.

Someone, but not somebody. We’re not supposed to go through the cycle alone.

What are you scared of?

My own bad opinion of myself.

The thought that I would fail somebody that I’d given a promise to.

You don’t know where integrity is until you’ve broken it.

What do you want to teach the world?

By your actions, you demonstrate how you desire the world should treat you.

What’s your relationship to the military?

My father was a Vietnam veteran. I have two older brothers. One went to West Point, the military academy for the army, and graduated in the top 10 percent of his class. My next older brother, Sean, he enlisted and rose in the ranks to master sergeant. Then I enlisted in Marine Corps, because everybody in my family was in the army.

Tell us about the Articles of Survival

I’ve been working on these eight pages forever now, eight pages which—upon reading—if you can’t agree that this is how humanity should try to act and try to be, then I don’t want to share a species with you anymore.

The Articles state there are things you cannot do because of the damage it causes, things that people don’t come back from. I’ve seen a lot of people wandering around here, a wreck of the person they once were, because the damage is so bad. They’re stuck in loops they can’t get out of. Complex trauma is a brutal, brutal cycle—a phenomenon wherein, because of the abuse and traumas you suffered, you go out and perform the same activities that got you there.

That’s why the first line is always the same: Do no harm.

What do you think you’re meant to do in this world?

When I was young, like six or seven, I’m told that I said I was gonna conquer the world. I’m actually in line for the British throne, sort of. So maybe there’s a genetic factor involved there.

Then I came across this idea: Before you try to conquer the world, you should probably try to conquer yourself. So as soon as I manage that, I’ll get started on the world. Seems to be a lifelong process, that first one, though.

I don’t think I’ve ever really considered myself homeless. I’ve never really considered myself homeless. This is my home—this is my planet, too. I was born here. I have a right to be here because of that, same as everybody else. No different from the stars in the sky and the fish in the sea. I have a right to be here.