The PoLice Murder of a Houseless, Indigenous Man in a "Sweep"

 Contact:

Tiny gray-garcia/muteado silencio, POOR Magazine/Homefulness,510-435-7500 

Press Statement by POOR Magazine, Self-Help Hunger Program, Krip Hop Nation, Wood Street Commons, OAARPR , Sweeps Defense & OaklandRevealed

On the murder of Jose Angel Castillo, an indigenous houseless man murdered by Oakland Police Dept in a “Sweep”  

Story by PoorNewsNetwork here 

NOTE: POOR Magazine is co-sponsoring a Rally and Protest with Oakland  Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression today Friday, August 14th at 5pm at Oscar Grant Plaza 

As a collective of movements led by houseless, formerly houseless/indigenous people we are horrified by the escalating violence against our houseless communities on this stolen land which because of anti-poor/anti-homeless sentiment  is encouraged, incubated and subsidized by the settler governments of Oakland and San Francisco. 

The murder  of Jose Angel Castillo in the execution of a sweep by Oakland PoLice Dept is just another frightening example of this escalation and the increase of  sweeps across the Bay Area and the increasing harassment of houseless residents by multiple agencies of the State against people with nowhere to exist. 

As political figures in this City ponder “solutons” homelessness that are never rooted in poor and homeless peoples scholarship and knowledge,  more and more houseless people are dying because of eviction, gentrification and homelessness.

These sweeps and their aftermath of leaving gravely disabled elders and families without anywhere to go is just another example of the intentional erasure of working class and poor residents of Oakland

We at POOR Magazine, Wood Street Commons, Krip Hop Nation and Self-Help Hunger Program, demand, as we have since 2024, in honor of Jose’s life, an immediate moratorium to sweeps in Oakland until hoarded so-called “surplus” city  land for houseless communities is made available for “sanctuary” communities, organized and co-governed by the houseless residents like we do at HOMEfulness. 

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