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The Homefulness Project

Homefulness: A Poor & Indigenous people–led solution to homelessness. A sweat equity, permanent co-housing, education, arts, micro-business and social change project for landless/houseless and formerly houseless families and individuals.

POOR Magazine family in front of the Homefulness mural

A Poor People–Led Solution to
Homelessness in Occupied Turtle Island

The Homefulness Solution

We are calling for a public and private collaboration, to

identify, purchase and convert one of thousands of

vacant office buildings from both Downtown San Francisco and Downtown Los Angeles into the Homefulness Project. Older buildings can be simpler and substantially cheaper to convert into apartment buildings.

  1.  Identify potential empty lots and buildings in downtown San Francisco:

    •  Empty lots which can be rematriated (soil healed for growing food)

    • Empty buildings, warehouses or multi-unit home

    • Existing buildings like office buildings, vacant motels, or vacant apartment buildings

    • Mixed-use, residential, orcommercial zoning

    • Combination or mixture of all of above

  2. Build support among policymakers, legislators, real estate developers, and San Francisco resident

  3. Negotiate a private/public partnership that results in the purchase of Homelessness #4, SanFrancisco’s first poor people–led solution to the housing crisis.

The Homefulness Project

The Homelessness Crisis

More than 75,000 individuals in Los Angeles and 20,000 individuals in San Francisco experienced

homelessness in 2023, most of whom are

Black, Indigenous/Latino and LGBTQ people, who

are consistently underfunded in their communities,

underemployed and underpaid, and over-policed and incarcerated. Job loss and evictions are the most common reasons for homelessness locally.

The streets are increasingly unsafe for houseless people, who are already 16 times more likely to die of a sudden death due to the harshness of their living conditions.Violent vigilantism against unhoused people is increasing. This violence is often aided and abetted by local police, who continuously illegally dismantle encampments and threaten residents with arrest.

The Homefulness Project is a permanent,rent-free, healing model of co-housing,education, arts, micro-business, on-site PovertyScholarship–informed peer support, and socialchange for landless, houseless, and formerlyhouseless families and individuals

There is a House in East Huchiun...

by Tiny Gray-Garcia

from The Sidewalk Motel: Poems from a Poverty Skola​

 

There is a house in East Huchiun

They Call it Homefulness

And its been the dream of many a poor girl

And God I know im one

 

My mama was disabled

Tortured as a child

My father was a rich wite man

Who left us all to die

 

Now the only thing a poor mama needs

Are hands to hold her dreams

But mama and me were all alone

So instead we lived on the street

​

mama and me were broken

Barely made it out alive

but no matter what

She refused to believe in the

settler colonial lies

​

Sometimes the pain is too hard

Mama said I can’t go on

But walk this change

On this Ohlone land

And Build us all a home

​

Well there is a house in East Huchiun

They call it Homefulness

And its been the hope of many a poor girl & boy

And GOD I know we are them

 

Well there is a house in East Huchiun

They call HOMEFULNESS

And its been the dream of many a poor boy & girl

And god I know we are them...

Building Homefulness has been a labor of love by our poverty skola construction crew with the support of our radical redistributors and revolutionary architects and designers in a struggle against kkkrapitalist bureauKRAZY every step of the way over many years.

The Homefulness Project

Homefulness: A Poor & Indigenous people–led solution to homelessness. A sweat equity, permanent co-housing, education, arts, micro-business and social change project for landless/houseless and formerly houseless families and individuals. Homefulness is what poor, houseless, indigenous, evicted, disabled, false-border-terrorized peoples from all four corners of Mama Earth, now residing on stolen and occupied Turtle Island, have dreamed, loved, and fought for. After lifetimes of being displaced, evicted, incarcerated, swept, criminalized and traumatized, our family is actually “buying” land and building permanent homes, food justice, art and healing comeUnity for ourselves and the world. We operate in the tradition of and in solidarity with landless people's movements across the globe.​

 

The land we call Homefulness in East Huchiun (Oakland) now provides housing for families, space for Deecolonize Academy, PeopleSkool, Community Newsroom, Sliding Scale Cafe, the Uncle Al & Mama Dee Living Library, Revolutionary Radio on PNN–KEXU, and all of POOR Magazine's indigenous community arts & media programming.T

 

he vision of Homefulness is a blueprint for unselling and physically and spiritually liberating Mama Earth by permanently removing land from the speculative "real estate" market. It is meant to be replicated all across occupied Turtle Island and Mama Earth.

Homefulness #4

San Francisco

FUNDRAISING

POOR Magazine is being called in by this so-called San Francisco, occupied Ramaytush Ohlone territory of Turtle Island to share the medicine and the template of Homefulness.

​

Please contribute here and contact us to learn how you can support

​

Supporters

San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston

Coalition on Homelessness

Western Regional Advocacy Project

Race and Equity Planning Coalition

​

Homefulness #5

Los Angeles

FUNDRAISING

POOR Magazine is being called in by this so-called Los Angeles, occupied Tongva territory of Turtle Island to share the medicine and the template of Homefulness.

​

Please contribute here and contact us to learn how you can support

​

Supporters

Reclaiming Our Homes
Aetna Street Solidarity
UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy
Krip Hop Nation

Homefulness the World

Houseless and formerly houseless youth and elder poverty skolaz at POOR Magazine will come to your encampment, university, church, or town and share the medicine (template) of Homefulness—a homeless, landless, self-determined movement/solution to homelessness

Homefulness the World

Homefulness #3

Bellingham, Washington

FUNDRAISING

POOR Magazine is being called in by this so-called Bellingham, Washington, occupied Nooksack and Lummi territory of Turtle Island to share the medicine and the template of Homefulness, a Homeless Peoples solution to homelessness

DegentriFUKation Site (Homefulness #2)

Oakland

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This site was targeted for a luxury condo complex, that thanks to POOR Magazine poverty skolaz, elders, and solidary family, was removed from speculative real Esnake market for the site of a future Homefulness. Check it out 

Homefulness #1

MacArthur Avenue, Oakland

COMPLETE!

Opened in 2020 after a decade
of fundraising and construction. Now houses
20 elders, youth, and families, and provides
community services including a school,
community newsroom and radio station,
library, and Sliding Scale Cafe

Homefulness the World
HH_Cover.jpg

The Homefulness Handbook: How to Build a Homeless & Landless People's Solution to Homelessness is available from POOR Press

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