Living on Campaign Trail : Homeless Man Who Calls Fullerton ‘Home Base’ Wants to Represent the Community on Council

Not many candidates for City Council list a city-owned parking garage as their official residence. At the same time, not many homeless men run for public office.

But Rand (Kye) Robson, 30, candidate for Fullerton City Council, is not a what you might expect from a homeless man.

Robson makes it a point every day to shower, usually at Cal State Fullerton. He maintains a storage locker for the possessions he doesn’t keep in his car. He’s well-spoken and well-read. He even has a pager number and a post office box.

“You look at him and scratch your head, and you don’t think he looks typically homeless,” says Joel Rosen, a Fullerton city planner. “But just because he talks eloquently and keeps himself clean doesn’t mean he can’t be homeless.”

Robson’s home is a 1972 Chevrolet Impala. He sleeps in the back seat, where he also keeps many of his life’s possessions--some clothes, important papers, blankets and books.

Admittedly, he’s lived a checked life that has included minor arrests, frequent job changes and general wandering. He’s lived in a series of cars, parks, buses and garages since the early 1980s and mostly held down jobs as a security guard or a day laborer.

But when he turned 30 last year, Robson says he began taking stock of his life. He considered attending college but instead decided to run for City Council, hoping to leave his mark on the town where he has lived since 1982.

“I think I can represent the community on the council. I’ve had common, ordinary experiences,” Robson says. “Not all homeless are drunk and disturbing the peace. I consider myself an asset to the community.”

Robson appears to be the first homeless person to run for city council in Orange County, although not in Southern California (a Montebello homeless resident ran in 1985, finishing last in a field of six).

Robson acknowledges that his quest is an extreme long shot, but stresses that he’s taking his candidacy seriously. He denies being “the homeless candidate,” but many of his campaign issues touch on his own existence.

Like affordable housing.

Robson says Fullerton should push home ownership as opposed to rent subsidies for economically disadvantaged people. Moreover, he says that Fullerton is wasting too much time and money in lawsuits over housing issues that could go to solving housing problems instead.

Fullerton is one of the cities targeted by a Legal Aid lawsuit aimed at overturning a city ban on public camping--a case Robson helped with by finding people to give depositions.

Orange County homeless activists estimate that from 10,000 to 12,000 homeless people live in the county. The U.S. Census Bureau put the number at a little under 2,000 in 1990. Fullerton Police Chief Philip Goehring figures that there are about 70 homeless people in Fullerton.

Robson sees himself as belonging to what he calls the “working poor”--a strata of society that literally lives from paycheck to paycheck.

If he got an apartment, Robson claims, almost all his money would go to maintaining it.

“I’m too cheap to pay rent,” he explains. “I’m a single individual. By the time you subtract time at work, you’re paying an incredible hourly rate for an apartment.”

Especially when a good month working brings only about $1,000 after taxes, which would barely cover the average $778 monthly Orange County apartment rental. In 1991, he lived a good part of the year off unemployment checks that totaled no more than $113 a week.

If elected, Robson says he’ll give the job full-time attention and live off the approximately $720 monthly council members’ salary.

He’s lived on much less.

*

Robson spends his nights sleeping in his car, often parked in parking lots or garages. He likes his garages well-lighted for security reasons, because he says he’s a heavy sleeper.

“I once woke up to the sound of a hand coming though my window,” Robson says. “We both screamed bloody murder,” he adds.

Robson says that’s the only time someone has tried to attack him was when he was sleeping. Now he sleeps with a knife handy. Sometimes he keeps it in a conspicuous position, such as on the hump inside the car, other times hidden under a seat where, if he is roused by the police, it won’t be readily seen.

Unless he’s working, he wakes up about 10 a.m. He usually heads over to the gym locker rooms at Cal State Fullerton for a shower.

After a simple breakfast at a doughnut shop, Robson usually will go to the library, where he reads up on Fullerton city government politics. He also takes long walks, works on his car or, more recently, prepares campaign signs. He visits friends, as well.

For dinner, he’ll sometimes go to a food line at one of the local churches offering meals. Or he’ll buy a TV dinner and pop it in a microwave oven in the food court at Fullerton Junior College.

At night, after dinner, often he’ll park under a city light and read for several hours.

When low on money, Robson says can put together a meal at a grocery store for $2: a roll from the bread bin, a can of processed meat, a quart of milk and a banana.

Although there have been times when he couldn’t even afford that.

“I’ve gone three, four days without food,” he says. “After three days it doesn’t bother you.”

*

Robson was born in Macon, Ga. His father was in the Air Force; and by the time the youngster began elementary school in Palos Verdes, he’d also lived in Chicago and Santa Clara.

An argument with his parents after high school graduation in Maryland and he was sleeping in his car.

“The first time I ever slept in my car was in June of 1980,” Robson recalls. “I was just young enough to be dumb enough not to realize how precarious the situation was.”

Robson’s father, Clayton, now retired from the military and working in Washington, says he doesn’t know how or why his son chooses to live the way he does.

“We felt he ought to try it for a while and find out he doesn’t like it,” the senior Robson says. “He tried it and liked it.”

“I guess we accept his choice,” he continues. “He’s not antisocial in any sense; he’s not dangerous; he’s not dishonest; he’s not any of the things people presume people in that lifestyle choose to be. He just chooses not to have resources.”

Robson was clearly getting nothing accomplished in Maryland, living in his car. So at the beginning of 1982, his parents bought him a plane ticket to Los Angeles. The plan was for him to live with a brother in Fullerton.

But the brothers fought, and Robson was soon living in a semi-abandoned house near Cal State Fullerton with an assortment of alcoholics and drifters.

After a year or so, he left. He drifted around the country and married to a woman who had just joined the military. But she couldn’t deal with his lifestyle, he says, and the two broke up after a year.

About a year after the two split, he received a letter from a Louisiana lawyer claiming to represent Robson in a divorce action, he says.

Robson never responded. As a result, he is still unsure of his legal marital status, he says.

In 1989, he got a job working security at MainPlace/Santa Ana. He’d work all night, getting off at 7 a.m. He lived out of his car for a time, finally setting up house in a storage area in Orange. He’d shower in a nearby trailer park.

But he soon ran into trouble with the law, arrested for trespassing while trying to sleep in an industrial area of Orange. After making several court appearances, Robson pleaded guilty to the charge.

“I got tired of going to court,” he says.

Robson was subsequently arrested for trespassing three times. He managed to get all the charges dropped.

His most recent run-in with police came in April when he was detained after spending an hour cleaning out his car in a public garage.

Robson left his security guard job after about a year. He went north again, working various temporary jobs in San Jose and the Grass Valley area. He returned to Fullerton in 1991.

“Fullerton is the only place in my adult life I’ve thought of as a home base.”

*

Earlier this summer, Robson was down to his final few dollars. He’d been fired from a driving job in Anaheim; he says he didn’t want to pay for auto insurance, which the job required.

Unemployment was denied because it was deemed he’d voluntarily left the position rather than fulfill the requirements of buying the insurance.

“The unemployment check--it didn’t show. . . . I finally went down there. They said they were doing a determination. I said, ‘Thanks a lot for letting me know.’ ”

That experience, among others, filled Robson with a desire to make government bureaucracy more open to people such as himself.

In his campaign statement, Robson promises to “establish a system to make city government accessible, responsive and accountable to all citizens.”

“It’s very exciting that (Robson) feels he wants to make a difference and have a voice in representing not only homeless people but different segments of the community,” says Susan Oakson, director of the Orange County Homeless Issues Task Force.

Fullerton Mayor Don Bankhead--one of the 13 candidates running for the three City Council seats up for grabs--describes Robson’s quest for office as “an unusual situation,” adding “he’s certainly gotten a lot of publicity out of it.”

Yet for all of his publicity, Robson has only managed to raise $9 in campaign funds. With the crowded field that includes incumbents and other city officials, Robson knows his chances are slim. But he remains optimistic.

“I’m not counting on homeless people to vote for me,” he says jokingly of his natural constituency. “But Fullerton is not as conservative as it appears.”

*

If Robson doesn’t make it to the council, he says he’ll try to attend college, with an emphasis on taking classes in mechanics.

He says he can’t keep living in his car forever.

“I would like more than I’ve got,” Robson says. “I’ve seen enough of this--this lower end. I haven’t minded being working poor, but it’s a constant struggle. . . .

“It’s got to start now, or I won’t amount to a hill of beans. This is the best chance I’ve got.”