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STOP the Sweeps Seattle (Duwamish) visits Homefulness

PoorMagTeamL

Updated: Jul 21, 2024

LeaJay HARPER


Who: Stop the Sweeps Seattle WA

What : Have increased their sweeps defense for the unhoused.

Where: Downtown Seattle

Why: Because there was an “accelerated 200% increase from 2022-2023,” says Tai, one of the STS advocates. The average sweeps per day in 2022 was approximately 2.5 per day to now approximately 7.75 per day, sweeps defense advocates credit this because the city of Seattle have showed strong support for rulings like the recent Johnson vs. Grants Pass Oregon (where people can now be ticketed and arrested for camping in “public spaces”).


STOP THE SWEEPS

Momii palapaz

From the stolen lands of Coast Salish territory in the Pacific Northwest, Stop The Sweeps has experienced and witnessed escalating attacks and sweeps of houseless communities.  Made up of houseless people, members Kaitlin and Tai have been instituting a variety of ways to meet the ongoing displacement. Also known as Seattle, the extremely conservative powers in local government are encouraging and implementing blockades to stop the erection of tents and structures for shelter. It has been reported that RVs have been set on fire and cars are deliberately driving into tents. A man, white and 25 years old, was recently seen carrying an ax, looking to use it on a houseless person.


Stop the Sweeps visits Homefulness

by Angel Heart 


“Ultimately, we’d love to build a Homefulness in the Indigenous Southwest” stated Tai, Co-Founder of Stop the Sweeps located in Duwamish/Coast Salish, aka Seattle. Tai and Kateland of Stop the Sweeps both visited POOR Magazine/Homefulness on July 8, 2024. Tai shared that the percentage of sweeps in Seattle has increased 200% from 2022-2023; which was the equivalent of 2.5 sweeps per day. Stop the Sweeps has also noticed an increase of violence against houseless people; with no real action taking place from the city government. Not only was this information troubling, but it was also painful to hear that their city government has publicly stated support for Grant Pass. The City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, is a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that local government ordinances with civil and criminal penalties for camping on public land, does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment for homeless people. 


Stop the Sweeps believes in a world without state-sanctioned violence, and mobilizes to challenge state violence directed at our unhoused neighbors during sweeps; seeking to build a society where everyone works to meet each other’s basic needs through mutual aid, community care and radical solidarity. Both Homefulness, and Stop the Sweeps aim to address and support houseless persons and communities. “ 


“We are criminalized in our bodies for being poor outside, for living without a roof, sleeping in our car, in doorways, in parks, on streets and in tents. What is never mentioned is we are in these doorways and cars because of a system of krapitalism that commodifies mama earth and profits off of our poverty and the incarceration of our bodies. So-called Grants Pass, Oregon itself is stolen land, and should be returned to the Takelma, Shasta and Athbaskan relatives, who are the first peoples of that territory. And many of whom make up the houseless relatives in so-called Grants Pass. Just like they do in so-called Bellingham, Olympia, Seattle and much of the Pacific Northwest (and all of occupied Turtle Island). Un-reparated, un-supported, original peoples, houseless on their own land. Secondly, I don’t recognize the Stealing Fathers’ and their lying lies aka the CONstitution, which has proven over and over again to be a fluid document that only protects the white, wealth-hoarding, land-stealing class that originally stole Turtle Island,” states Tiny Gray-Garcia aka poverty skola, Co-Founder of POOR Magazine/Homefulness. Stop the Sweeps and Homefulness at POOR Magazine plan on collaborating in the near future; in hopes of building a Seattle Homefulness.

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