Newcomer Anthony Wesley Sets Sights on District 2

Anthony Wesley is a first-time candidate wading into Greensboro politics with his campaign for the District 2 seat on the Greensboro City Council. He’s registered as unaffiliated, and says he’s running to create sustainable employment, tackle the crisis of homelessness, improve access to quality education and vocational training, and bring farm-based foods to food deserts.

He’s a man of many hats, Wesley said in an interview this week—he runs the Streetlight Mentorship Program, a thrift store, and a farm.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Greensboro leans left, and most of the people on city council are Democrats, and most of the other candidates in this district’s race are Democrats, with the exception of one Republican, Jim Kee. You’re registered as unaffiliated. Why?

I see the good in both sides. Like Frankenstein was made up of the best pieces of everything. So we’ll take good pieces of this, good pieces of this, and we’ll put it together to make something that works for the people. And I think when you’re not affiliated, you don’t take on the bad values of both sides. You just say, “Okay, this is where I’m at.” I don’t believe in anything that doesn’t help the people. That’s why I wanted to not be affiliated until I know more, because on both sides right now, they’re going at each other, and they’re missing the point. The people are hurting because now you’re making them choose sides.

What would be your approach to addressing homelessness if elected?

First, you have to take them off the streets. That means you have to have a place for them to go. You need to have something of value in each hemisphere of the city to make sure that they have something where they can become people again, like indoor recreation. Because they’re getting uncivilized by sitting on the street, they’re going and selling certain things they’re not supposed to. They’re becoming inhumane to each other.

The Interactive Resource Center is probably the worst place I’ve seen in Greensboro. Simply because they’re not helping anybody. If you go there, which I go there twice a week to feed,
I sit there and I study it. I had to break up a fight the other day. You’re funding this. There should be more structure here. (Note: Each day, around 150 people experiencing homelessness are served by the IRC, a day shelter that offers a variety of services from showers, case management, laundry, mail pickup, and more.)

Why are you hiring anybody to come in here and clean or do anything? You have all of these people here. Show them how to do things, show them how to use this mop bucket, how to clean the showers. Show them how to do things there so they can clean up after themselves. They’re not teaching them anything. They just come there to get mail. They usually take a shower. If you’re going to reacclimate them into society, you have to demand something from them. If they fix it with their own hands, then they’ll respect it more. So the city should be more involved with who they’re giving their money to. 

I saw the problem when I was in D.C. 
And when I came back to Greensboro, I saw a lot of my friends that I went to school with were homeless. And I didn’t know anything about the homeless because I thought homelessness was simply not having a place to live. But it wasn’t that. It was mental health, it was drug addiction, it was criminal activity, it was fatherhood, things that they just were running from.

Homelessness touches everything. Because if you deal with the homeless, you deal with healthcare, education, housing. 

Recently, the city of Durham passed a resolution making Durham a “Fourth Amendment Workplace,” increasing protections for city workers against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and arrests. What’s your position on what the council’s role is related to ICE and deportation?

The foundation is there if you do it correctly and you’re not being dishonest. The violence and different things like that, that self-explanatory. You know, you’ve got to root that out. The people that are coming in and violating citizens’ rights, we can’t do that at all.

I would just break it down and ask everybody who has a company: If you were able to pay everybody a fair wage, would you still hire someone that wasn’t legal? And then how would you feel about ICE or the federal government coming in and doing what they’re doing?

But the main reason why people say that they do things that are against things, they say they just can’t afford to have people come out to their farm and do the work. They say the labor was just extremely costly to have people in the farm area and come out and do soy beans. It’s costly.

So if I’m paying you $20 an hour and I have people that can work for seven, hey, they’ll do that. But what if you have some subsidies that I could pay you? So the federal government, if they’re going to do this, they need to make sure everybody’s taken care of before they start this. Because you’re going in and unfortunately, you’re shaking the foundation of all of us. If I’m doing this and now all of a sudden I don’t have the labor, how am I going to survive?  Should I get punished for employing someone who I think is a good person, but they’re illegal?
Legally, it’s cut and dry. You’re illegal. That’s just what it is. But when people come for a better life, that’s really a moral thing. Like they came here, can we have some type of resolve? I just don’t think kicking them out, building a giant wall, and all this stuff where certain ones are not doing anything wrong, is good for the long run.