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Por/By Teo Las comunidades hispanoablantes se unen a levantar la voz al mundo en general en el superbol. Lo miramos, lo sentimos en la manera que nosotros celebramos el Cone Malo / Bad Bunny. Pero uno dia antes, anunciaran precencia de ICE (que yo entiendo es la policia judicial Federal) para "amar y respetar y proteger" a todos los que se encuentren en nuestros pueblos y ciudades. Puedo hacer una lista de todas las personas que atemorisan, que en esta tiempo es todo el mundo, pero las personas emigrantes mucho mas. Algunos no tenemos suerte y nos deportan de USA. La migra siempre ha trabajado en USA. Es el govierno que tiene el poder pero en los ultimos anos lo ha privado y crece su gente una dos tres y muchas veces mas. Puedo hacer una lista y es muy exstensiva, como violan todos nuestros derechos como seres humanos que somos todos, pero en general son violentas y abusan su poder y les maltratan en las detenciones privados que rentan para detener seres humanos. No les ofrecen sus derechos menos sus medicinas y tambien le golpean a la gente cuando tienen la oportunidad. Yo entiendo su sistema de crapicho del #47 que los apolla en la casa principal del poder. En este tiempo, nos detesta a la gente inmigrante! Spanish-speaking communities join in raising their voices to be heard by the world at the Superbowl. We see and feel it in the way we celebrate el Cone Malo, Bad Bunny. But the day before, they announced increased presence of ICE, which I understand to be the federal and judicial police that supposedly "loves and respects and protects" everyone they encounter in our towns and cities. I could list out the people who are afraid right now-- I mean, the whole world is afraid right now. But immigrants are much more afraid. Some of us are unlucky and get deported from the US. La migra has always worked in the US. It's the government that's in charge of it, but recently private corporations have multiplied la migra by one, two, three, and many times more. I could make an extensive list of the ways they violate our rights as human beings, but in general they violently abuse their power and mistreat people in the private detention centers they rent to detain human beings.   They don't offer them rights besides some medicines and they beat people whenever they have the chance. I know that the 47th crap-tain supports them from the Whitehouse. In this era, they detest us immigrants!

To the DHS, I am a 7 year old and I am a student of Deecolonize Academy. Please stop making ICE do bad stuff to people and killing people and putting kids in cages. From, Akika Dear Liam's Dad, I'm 9 years old and go to school at Deecolonize Academy. My school and I watched the video and I'm sorry for what is happening to you and your son. If you need anything, ask us. And we hope you become OK. My school and I pray for your health. From, Donovan Dear Liam, I'm so sorry that you're going through this. I hope you get home safe, and soon, to see your mom and classmates. I hope you're safe. From, EstrellaTo the DHS,I am a 12 year old student of Deecolonize Academy. You are trapping other kids. What did they do? Some other kids are probably younger than me. You shouldn't be treating them like this. They also have loved ones just like you !!! So stop acting like this and let them free. To the DHS, I am a 10 year old student of Deecolonize Academy. The video of the kids was terrible. I hope you let the kids go. To the DHS, I am a 13 year old student of Deecolonize Academy. You're abusing these children and you're trapping them in borders. Let them free. They have their rights and let them reunite with their parents. To the DHS, I am a student in Oakland, California. ICE is very sick and are massive fascists. DHS should not believe in fake borders that are lines of segregation. I think ICE should have used their resources to help "immigrants" get into America instead of trying to kick them out. ICE is violent and abusive. From, Nija To the DHS, I am a 13 year old student of Deecolonize Academy. I believe that what you are doing to kids is wrong. You shouldn't be separating them from their parents because they are "illegal". This is abuse. The 5 year old Liam you put in a cage has depression and can't eat a lot. What you are doing is killing people like Keith Porter and Renee Good. Stop killing people and abusing children for crossing these false borders. Children have rights and you have no right to be holding them. From, Simbha Dear Liam, I am a 13 year old student of Deecolonize Academy. I'm so sorry you are going through this. No one, especially at your age, should go through this. I hope you get back to your dad and your depression stops. When I was your age, I had police take me away from from my mom one day, so I know how you feel. Thanks, Simbha Dear Liam/Liam's Dad, I'm Knaji. A 9 year old. I'm so, so, so sorry for what's happening to you. I hope Liam gets better and you, too. Love, Knaji To the DHS, I'm Knaji. I'm 9 years old and I'm a student at a school in Oakland. I'm not okay with what you're doing. It's not fair for the kids. They're not doing anything wrong. They're just innocent little children. You have no reason to do this. From, The person who doesn't like the government (haha)

Prayer Ceremony wth houseless and formerly houseless Oakland residents to welcome in the first two houseless land stewards to HOMEfulness 2  What Prayer Ceremony, Land stewarding ceremony  When 10:00am Feb 17, 2026  Where 7600 MacArthur Bl Oakland (Huchiun)  “The shelter evicted me because i had stayed there longer than 28 days, I have nowhere to go” said Maria, houseless, disabled,indigenous Oakland resident, future land steward of HOMEfulness2 While rain covers the Bay Area, homelessness among families and elders continues to rise. Meanwhile, the  “solution” offered by local, state, and federal governments remains the same: violent erasure of houseless bodies from public space through violent police-led “sweeps” “Following the decade long struggle by us houseless Oakland residents to build and “mamafest’ HOMEfulness #1 in Deep East Huchiun , now housing 25 houseless youth, adults and elders in rent-free forever, healing housing , We are beginning the prayerful journey to UnSell, care-take and build HOMEfulness2, said tiny gray-garcia, co-founder and visionary of HOMEfulness In 2020, with donations from  Solidarity Family members, POOR Magazine’s houseless leaders were able to purchase a second small parcel of Mama Earth in Deep East Oakland. Which the City of Oakland had slated for 14 luxury condominiums.  “I got out with the clothes on my back,” said Monique M. , POOR Magazine RoofLESS Radio reporter  elder and sweeps survivor. She was describing a violent sweep where she lost her medicine, clothing, and the RV she was sleeping in. Monique—like the majority of houseless residents in San Francisco and Oakland—is a disabled elder who had nowhere to go after surviving that sweep. “In the time of my ancestors, there was no concept of homelessness,” said Corrina Gould , Tribal Chair of the Ohlone/Lisjan peoples. “ Homelessness came with the commodification of Mother Earth .” Before building Homefulness Huchiun #1 & 2 (Oakland), POOR Magazine sought permission from First Nations people of the land, recognizing that the United States is a settler-colonial project rooted in theft and genocide. Those First Nations relatives now serve on Homefulness elder and advisory councils. That same process of permission, prayer, and relationship is guiding Homefulness in Yelamu. Because POOR Magazine understands clearly that Mama Earth is not a commodity, they worked with revolutionary legal advocates at the Sustainable Economies Law Center to establish the first-ever Liberation Easement , permanently removing Homefulness#1 land from speculation and profit. HOMEfulness2  will also create a similar easement to permanently take this land off the speculative commodities market.  “Predatory real estate speculation is why this sacred land was even slated for luxury condominiums in a neighborhood struggling with poverty and the effects of systemlc racism, redlining and intentional blighting,” said tiny   HOMEfulness is an answer to the immediate emergency of homelessness. But it is also healing medicine —not only for houseless elders, families, and disabled people, but for all of us, housed and unhoused, who are in need of hope, repair, and home. Follow:  📣 @poormagazine

By Dejuan Cattrell /PNN povertyskola reporter Today’s problem that I’m going to be talking about that has an impact on me and others around the world is the President of the United States. Trump keeps tweeting on social media and feeding people lies about this stimulus grant that he's going to be giving people around the world, but there's nothing. There is nothing coming to me or the people but content stories on all social media apps.                                                     What is a stimulus check? A stimulus check is a government grant for you to be able to pay for rent, bills, groceries, and any other everyday responsibility that you have to pay for like riding the bus, BART, or train.  All I see on TikTok is content about ‘Trump this and Trump that’, but we've all been hearing these stories for a while. We all can use this stimulus money right about now. I know I need it to take care of me and my responsibilities: bills, rent, phone bill, everyday hygiene, shoes, clothes, and the number 1 thing we all need more than anything: food, fresh water, and a roof over our heads to protect us from any weather changes and stuff flying around outside. The president himself is promising all these, but he's really doing nothing but laughing at everything that's going on around the world and doing things the way he wants to do it, while we the people are suffering from his foolish kid like ways. That's pretty much the connection that I and the people have to this issue that’s feeling like it’s never going to be solved. My opinion on today's problems is that I think what needs to happen is the President himself should stand on business. He should send these stimulus checks he keeps speaking about all over TikTok and everywhere.

By Momii Palapaz  Photo Credit: Momii Palapaz Thousands of students gathered at Delores Park in Yelamu/SF last week, protesting ICE. Responding to mass outreach from high school students in Minneapolis, thousands across Turtle Island shut down school and marched down the streets of their cities.   I thought of my mom when she was just 18 years old, ready but not allowed to attend graduation and get her diploma. It was 1942 and the Takagi family was ordered to report to a designated site. No other details were given. In the midst of round ups by the FBI and WRA (War Relocation Authority), Japanese Americans and their families were deemed a threat and imprisoned. Being farmers, they hauled mom and dad, aunts, uncles, grandpas, and 5 kids from Redwood City onto the truck destined to go east. “Go east” someone told them. They were one family of about 1,000 people who tried to get free of the concentration camp. They only made it to Marysville, CA. Not far enough. Mission, Balboa, Washington and numerous public school students were seen walking, getting off buses, and climbing the hillside of Delores Park. It was saturated with people, all ages, all ethnic backgrounds. But what was most impressive was the vitality of the movement and the serious attention they gave the speakers. “Fuck ICE” and chants of “ICE OUT OF EVERYWHERE” that roared through the neighborhood of false borders.

By Ananda My older brother was diagnosed with autism when he was five years old. I had a limited understanding of what that meant at the time, but I knew it put him in danger. My mom would talk to us about how to speak to police and what to do if she wasn’t there to protect us. I think back on that and how terrifying it must have been for her to have to imagine her children being violently misunderstood. I thought if we looked out for each other, made the right decisions, said the right thing, then we would be safe. Every time we moved to a new city, Mom would take my brother to the police station and introduce him, give them his picture, and say, “This is my son, he is _ years old, he is autistic, he is non-verbal. Do not shoot him.” Aliya Rahman decided to drive to her doctor’s appointment in Minneapolis the morning of January 13th, and was stopped and violently abducted by ICE agents. They broke her window, cut her out of her seatbelt, threw her to the ground, and stepped on her. She screamed for help, telling them she was autistic, had a brain injury, and needed assistance to walk, but she was laughed at and ignored. They took her to the Whipple detention center where she saw, “lines of Black and Brown people chained together.” I found out I was autistic at 25 years old and have learned a lot about my brother's and my disability through that process. The misconceptions that I had about my disability are held societally. Through educating myself, I have become more hopeful and accepting of myself – but much more fearful; fear that was echoed by Rahman as she told her story in a congressional hearing last week. “I felt immersed in a pattern,” she said, expressing that she thought about Jenoah Donald, an autistic black man murdered by police in 2021, and Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, murdered by ICE last year, as she was being detained and beaten. This was an extremely difficult story to read about. I'm struggling to process my emotions even as I write about it. Aliya Rahman’s story is the realization of my personal nightmare. At the Whipple detention center, Rahman was subjected to horrifying abuse. She was denied medical care for her injuries, which were so severe she eventually fell unconscious and had to be taken to a hospital. She was forced to walk without aid and was taunted by ICE officers for requiring a wheelchair. She witnessed the ICE officers referring to her and the other detainees as ‘bodies’. She was dehumanized and made to fear for her life and still suffers injuries from that day.  Mom didn’t prepare me for something like this. If she had said the right thing, would they have treated her like a human being?  If we look out for each other, will that spare us from border terror? Rahman was brave enough to speak up for those still in ICE custody at Whipple. In her opening statement to Congress, she said, “I am here today with a duty to the people who have not had the privilege of coming home, and I offer this data because these practices must end now.” Disabled or otherwise, documented or not, these labels are excuses to take away our humanity and force us to live in fear. Rahman chose to speak up for herself and for all of us who have experienced this fear.

ALWAYS FILM THE POLICE, AFTP In Hayward, 2 young men were pulled over because of "dark tints". Kop watch arrives, and officers end up cutting them a break in a hurry to leave the scene of the bystander with a camera. The officers were again in a hurry to leave the scene, but not after Kop watch gets them to show transparency by collecting name and badge numbers as you will see in this episode. This is another example of why it is so important to ALWAYS FILM THE POLICE in every event.

Por/By Teo Se supone que Estados Unidos es un país modelo, como muchos residentes de estas comunidades han comentado anteriormente, pero con camiones por todas partes en sus vecindarios, el tema que prevalece en estos tiempos es el terror. Cada día vemos más y más actos de terror inexplicables, con políticas mal concebidas que expresan racismo hacia todas las personas que vienen a Estados Unidos en busca de una vida mejor con más oportunidades, que supuestamente este país ofrece a todos los ciudadanos del mundo. En los últimos días, la delincuencia ha aumentado y, con gran vergüenza, presenciamos las injusticias contra nuestros conciudadanos de algunas partes del mundo, como Somalia. Residentes que nos visitan de África, de Filipinas, personas a las que el ICE no molestaba antes, pero ahora, los políticos, enfermos de capitalismo y otras cosas que no puedo explicar, están causando todo esto. Las injusticias que reportan los periódicos y las redes sociales, como en Minnesota, son una vergüenza para las comunidades de este gran país. The U.S. is supposed to be a model country, as many residents of these communities previously commented, with trucks everywhere in their neighborhoods, the topic is terror in these times we live in today. We are seeing more and more inexplicable terror every day, with ill-conceived policies that express racism towards all people who come to the U.S. to live a better life with more opportunities, which this country supposedly offers to all citizens of the world. In recent days, crime has increased, and with great shame, we witness the injustices against our fellow citizens from some parts of the world, like Somalia. Residents who visit us from Africa, the Philippines, people whom ICE previously didn't bother, but now, the politicians, sick with capitalism and other things I can't explain, are causing all this. The injustices that the newspapers and social media report, like in Minnesota, are a shame for the communities of this great country.

In attribution on Poor People’s Radio Podcast.  Conversation with Nikcole Whipple, Save California Salmon. Water protector, policy advocate, and member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, Nikcole Whipple, joined Poor People’s Radio to share about the Bay Delta, the threat of Voluntary Agreements, and how Save California Salmon is organizing to protect the Delta.  The Bay Delta is the largest estuary on the West Coast. The Feather, American, San Joaquin, and Sacramento Rivers all flow into the Delta, as well as the Trinity River which is diverted into the Delta. The Delta is vital for the migration of salmon, Indigenous connection to waterways, and the drinking supply for almost 27 million people. Every 10 years, the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan is supposed to be updated by the State Water Board. That hasn't happened in almost 30 years. Now, Governor Newsom is advocating for Voluntary Agreements (VAs). VAs are non-binding agreements that allow the water rights owners to make decisions about water flow with the State Water Board without clear oversight from the public. These agreements postpone updates to the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan and provide no accountability for failure to meet guidelines on flow, habitat, pollution, or water temperature- all of which are essential for clean water and the survival of salmon.  The agreements sideline the public and Tribes from decision making, instead prioritizing the “owners” of water rights who can negotiate deals behind closed doors. Nikcole Whipple who works with Save California Salmon, an organization committed to policy and community advocacy for Northern California salmon and fish dependent people, shares about the lack of accountability in Voluntary Agreements.  “Today we are  fighting against the voluntary agreements because there is a fast track of “you have a water right, you have water right, go ahead and talk amongst yourselves”. Forget all of the Federal and State laws and policies and guidance that have been written and put into the place. You go about yourselves as water right holders and decide and determine how much water you will allow or how much you will charge. That’s very dangerous not only for our fish populations in the rivers, but also for communities to have access to clean drinking water which is a huge problem,” Whipple said. Whipple comes from a family of advocates and fish dependent people on the Mendocino coast, and has been called to protect waterways. After getting an internship with Save California Salmon, one of Whipple’s first tasks was to attend a State Water Board meeting.  “I sat there with our staff attorney and our Executive Director for like 3 days straight listening to all of the bs about how making false habitats and making Delta tunnels were good for the environment and going to make things better for the Bay Delta and all of our river systems…In the meantime, I’m travelling in and out of the Bay Area and I'm looking at the water like that's not good. That can’t be good. Why are these politicians lying, why are these scientists lying about all of this when the water is so poor”. Instead of honoring ancestral protection of the waterways and working with Tribes to care for the Delta, the Voluntary Agreements and State Water Board push out many Tribal members from conversations and consultation. As Whipple shares, this legacy is directly tied to colonization.  “California really has a poor history on how water rights became. Colonizers were going in and taking Tribal peoples land, rights, and waters,” Whipple said.  In resistance and opposition to the Voluntary Agreements, Save Save California Salmon hosted public comment trainings and gathered people for a rally at the State Water Resources Control Board hearing (January 28-30). For folks wanting to get involved, they will continue to provide training and education for campaigns and continue the fight to protect salmon and community connection to a healthy Bay Delta. You can find Save California Salmon online at their website  or on social media .

While the US government signs an executive order to literally disappear houseless comeUnities from cities across the Nation and California towns implement more violent sweeps and sweeps orders against houseless residents  - A powerful new movie is created by houseless/formerly houseless artists, cultural workers, poets and survivors that tells the stories of the people being disappeared. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:Contact Tiny or Muteado 510-435-7500 (Movie is in English and Spanish with English and Spanish Subtitles throughout) What: Premier Across So-called California: 6pm Saturday, February 21st Black Repertory Theatre Berkeley, Ca (Occupied Huchiun) Tuesday, April 7th in San Francisco, CA (more details to come) MORE DATES COMING SOON! SEE THE TRAILER OF THE MOVIE HERE "This film needs to be seen because far too much time is taken up talking about the homeless problem instead of talking with the unhoused communities. Too much time is taken up in judgments and assumptions about who these people are and how they find themselves on the streets and not enough time spent listening to what their stories really are. Here is an opportunity to see truths of the unhoused in all of their colors displayed by the people who live those realities."  devorah major, former poet laureate ( read her review here ) “That’s my Wheelchair...” Reggie, a disabled, Black elder screams at a bulldozer coming for her comeUnity and her wheelchair. Crushing Wheelchairs, with an original screenplay written by houseless poet and povertyskola tiny gray-garcia, adapted from her award winning  play of the same name focuses on the violence of homelessness, city and state sponsored sweeps, and poLice terror. The movie includes an all houseless/formerly houseless cast whose motto is: “We aren’t acting, we are living.” It was shot primarily in houseless communities (encampments) and on the streets in Oakland and San Francisco.  The story of Crushing Wheelchairs is written in a prayer, a dream, and a scream felt and barely survived by me, tiny gray-garcia aka povertyskola, my houseless, disabled mama, and all of my fellow poverty/disability skolaz & ancestors portrayed/lived in this movie/story. This is the art of our lives, our almost survival, and our death at the hands of laws that say our bodies and lives are criminal and that we are trash. The lead characters in this powerful movie feature tiny and her mother, who struggled with homelessness throughout her childhood and later were arrested for sleeping on the streets of Oakland; Aunti Frances Moore, a formerly houseless Black Panther in Oakland; Stephanie Grant, who was pregnant and homeless when she witnessed the murder of Luis Gongora Pat by poLice in 2016, for being houseless and indigenous in a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco Mission neighborhood. The ancestors of homelessness we also focus on include Steven Taylor, murdered by poLice in Walmart while houseless for having a mental health crisis; Papa Bear, a houseless veteran of three tours in Vietnam, who died on the streets of San Francisco after receiving 280 citations for being houseless on the street, iris Canada , a 100 year Black Elder evicted to homelessness from her longtime home in the Fillmore due to gentrification, Shannon Marie Bigley, Cornelius Taylor and James Edward Oakley, all run over by bulldozers in sweeps of their tents in California and Atlanta, Anjileen “Green Eyes” Swan, who died after being violently swept in Los Angeles and Luis Temaj, burned alive while asleep in his sleeping bag  and so many more.   We are living in a moment when the US President signed an executive order yesterday to disappear houseless peoples bodies and comeUnities off the streets by force, and in addition is cutting all of our housing and treatment resources all of which further enhanced already dangerous sweeps that were amped up last year’s Supreme Court ruling that stated living while houseless in the US is a crime (City of Grants Pass vs. Johnson, 2024) and that houseless people have no protection under the Constitution. And that this crime is punishable by arrest and incarceration. But how can you incarcerate someone for being poor, for being disabled, for not having enough money or credit to pay rent to attain shelter? How can we be punished for living outside without access to shelter, for being poor? In the state of California, the Governor has claimed that our bodies are equivalent to trash and is proposing yet another anti-houseless people bill. In the city and county of San Francisco, the mayor has deemed our presence a blight; and passed a ban of all houseless peoples living in their vans and in Los Angeles where, on average, six unhoused people die everyday, our outside comeUnities (encampments) are being destroyed, evicted, and disappeared. and in Huchiun (Oakland) Ken Houston is proposing a new level of hate and violence that will kill more of us houseless residents. Our Lives are now deemed unworthy of human rights, so I suppose in the eyes of the State we are not human, we are in fact trash. The panels in this last series of Trailer screenings will focus on these acts of violence and our active resistance to them. “Because we are not trash. This movie at this time is urgent medicine for humanity itself, who through this art can realize that we as houseless people are just like housed people. We are workers, and artists, and poets and innovators, and survivors. We have solutions and backstories and HERstories and visions – this movie lifts up those urgent stories, those urgent solutions – this movie is Medicine for Mama Earth and all of us, “ concluded tiny gray-garcia. The movie was co-directed by Adrian Diamond, formerly houseless povertyskolaz, tiny gray-garcia, and Muteado Silencio  and produced by Green Diamond Projects and POOR Magazine. It includes renown poets Tongo Eisen - Martin, Ayodele Wordslangar Nzinga, Luis Rodriguez, Devorah Major and Po Poets; Dee Allen, Frances Moore, Leroy Moore, Muteado Silencio and tiny gray-garcia, as well as indigenous leaders and prayer-bringers Corrina Gould, Tony Gonzales, OG Rev, Harry Williams, and Brother Mink as well as formerly houseless leaders from Wood Street Commons and Homefulness.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:  tiny gray-garcia or Muteado Phone:  510-435-7500 Email: poormag@gmail.com Organization:  POOR Magazine / HOMEfulness Houseless People Create a Real Solution to Homelessness in San Francisco With prayer and permission from First Nations land protectors, indigenous, houseless, and formerly houseless families and elders reclaim a tiny triangle of Mama Earth in occupied Yelamu (San Francisco) to build a healing solution to homelessness. What Prayer Ceremony & Press Conference announcing HOMEfulness in Yelamu When 1:00 PM, January 24 Where 3990 Cesar Chavez Street, San Francisco, CA “We are dying just trying to be housed,” said Walter, a houseless RoofLESS Radio reporter for POOR Magazine and longtime San Francisco resident. As one of the coldest winters in the Bay Area and across the U.S. bears down, homelessness among families and elders continues to rise. Meanwhile, the primary “solution” offered by local, state, and federal governments remains the same: the erasure of houseless bodies from public space through violent police-led “sweeps” —a chilling, hygienic metaphor used to justify the physical removal of human beings from the environment. “When my mama and I were being police-harassed, swept, and arrested for trying to sleep in doorways, bus shelters, and the back seats of cars in San Francisco and Oakland, we dreamed of HOMEfulness,” said tiny gray-garcia , co-founder of POOR Magazine and visionary co-founder of Homefulness . “ Homefulness  is a dream born from a dire emergency. The emergency is homelessness.” After years of surviving poverty and homelessness, tiny and her mother Dee , a disabled artist, began articulating the vision of Homefulness. That vision’s first iteration emerged in 1996 with the launch of POOR Magazine, an intentionally glossy literary magazine co-created by houseless artists, poets, and journalists working out of community centers, shelter beds, and jail cells. The first issue—POOR Magazine: Homefulness—examined the root causes  of homelessness and uplifted solutions created by poor and houseless people themselves. Over time, the magazine became a movement: a poor-, houseless-, and Indigenous-led collective creating art, media, education, advocacy, and real-world solutions by and for poor and houseless people across the Bay Area. POOR Magazine launched a press, multiple books, curricula, theater and poetry workshops, a radio station, and an online magazine and video channel—while never letting go of the vision of Homefulness. In 2009, amid devastating budget cuts and renewed waves of homelessness within the movement itself, POOR Magazine shifted toward a radically different funding model rooted in interdependence, repair, and reparations. “We tried HUD grants. We approached housing developers and established nonprofits in San Francisco and Oakland,” said tiny. “No one believed houseless people could create our own solutions. So we had to do it ourselves.” This prayerful shift led to the creation of the Bank of ComeUnity Reparations , and Solidarity Family of POOR Magazine , composed of housed or class-privileged allies. “I come from generational wealth built through real estate here in the Bay Area, and I see how my family’s story is directly connected to the housing crisis we face today,” explains River , a Resource Generation  member who graduated from PeopleSkool and helped lead fundraising for Homefulness in Yelamu (San Francisco). “I also see how my own liberation depends on projects like Homefulness succeeding.” In 2011, with a donation from a Solidarity Family member, POOR Magazine’s houseless leaders were able to purchase a small piece of Mama Earth in Deep East Oakland. Today, in 2026, 25 houseless youth, adults, and elders live homeFULLY—rent-free forever—in healing housing at Homefulness Oakland.  “In the time of my ancestors, there was no concept of homelessness,” said Corrina Gould , Tribal Chair of the Ohlone/Lisjan peoples. “ Homelessness came with the commodification of Mother Earth .” Before building Homefulness Oakland, POOR Magazine sought permission from First Nations people of the land, recognizing that the United States is a settler-colonial project rooted in theft and genocide. Those First Nations relatives now serve on Homefulness elder and advisory councils. That same process of permission, prayer, and relationship is guiding Homefulness in Yelamu. There is now a small triangle-shaped lot in Yelamu that POOR Magazine can begin the process of spiritually and legally unSelling and building Homefulness—which will include the Homefulness healing center, educational space, sliding scale cafe/free market, and housing for over 30 houseless residents. Because POOR Magazine understands that Mama Earth is not a commodity, they worked with revolutionary legal advocates at the Sustainable Economies Law Center to establish the first-ever Liberation Easement , permanently removing Homefulness land from speculation and profit. A similar Liberation Easement is now being shaped in partnership with Ramaytush Ohlone leaders in so-called San Francisco. “At the beginning of time, our Ancestors came to know the Original Instructions from Creator. Among the most important is that we are to care for the earth and all things upon it—especially one another. It is time that we remember these covenants that have guided our blessed lives and communities for countless generations. Let us remember our commitments that allowed no hunger or homelessness in the bounty that surrounds us, let us turn to HOMEfulness in our hearts,” said Gregg Castro  (t'rowt'raahl Salinan / rumsen & ramaytush Ohlone), Culture Director, Association of Ramaytush Ohlone. “No one owns Mama Earth—she is not a profit-making commodity,” said tiny at a statewide action demanding “Sanctuaries, Not Sweeps”  held one year ago in response to escalating, deadly sweeps across California. “The dream of bringing Homefulness to Yelamu is at the heart of my work and organizing,” said Mohini Mookim , an attorney at the Sustainable Economies Law Center and Resource Generation member who partnered with POOR Magazine on this land liberation move. “I feel the immense wisdom and medicine that POOR Magazine has to offer to our housing justice movements.”  “I got out with the clothes on my back,” said Monique M. , POOR Magazine RoofLESS Radio reporter and sweeps survivor. She was describing a violent sweep where she lost her medicine, clothing, and the RV she was sleeping in. Monique—like the majority of houseless residents in San Francisco and Oakland—is a disabled elder who had nowhere to go after surviving that sweep. Since the 2024 Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson , houseless people have lost constitutional protections, leading cities across California to dramatically increase sweeps—each one more dangerous and deadly than the last. HOMEfulness is an answer to the immediate emergency of homelessness. But it is also healing medicine —not only for houseless elders, families, and disabled people, but for all of us, housed and unhoused, who are in need of hope, repair, and home. Please join us on January 24 at 1pm at 3390 Cesar Chavez St, San Francisco for a Prayer Ceremony & Press Conference announcing Homefulness in Yelamu. Follow:  📣 @poormagazine

This review was written by devorah major and originally published on her website. It can be read here . The unhoused, who are said to live on the margins of our society, are in front of our eyes every day we walk or drive down our streets if we look. Too many complain about the view, applaud people’s lives swept up and moved from one corner to another. But to not see the unhoused, is to be blind to a wealth of survival tactics, and a goldmine of individuals and families creating their own self-supporting communities. They do not see imagination, strength, love, cooperation, artistry, unity. And it is not as if these things are hidden, but one has to see these people not a category but as part of one’s family, the human family with all of its glories, fragilities and weaknesses. The film opens with Reggie, a disabled, Black elder screaming, “That’s my Wheelchair…” at a bulldozer coming for her “comeUnity” and her wheelchair. When I saw “Crushing Wheelchairs” last year at the end of the film many of the people in the film, the actors who played various roles that were or had been themselves homeless came up on the stage to answer questions or make statements. One of the women featured in the film spoke saying that when we see someone who is unhoused on the street offer a smile, that just a smile would make a significant difference. My thought was that it was something, but it really isn’t enough. “Because we are not trash, this movie at this time is urgent medicine for humanity itself, who through this art can realize that we as houseless people are just like housed people. We are workers, artists, poets and innovators, and survivors. We have solutions and backstories and HERstories and visions – this movie lifts up those urgent stories, those urgent solutions – this movie is Medicine for Mama Earth and all of us, “  tiny gray-garcia aka PovertySkola “Crushing Wheelchairs” it’s an honest unvarnished look at a worthy population that so many want to ignore or hide from insult or punish for the crime of being poor. There are no political speeches or banners in this film, but it is a clear indictment of capitalism and how it harms so many. After all, we live in a nation where homelessness has been declared a crime by the Supreme Court (City of Grants Pass vs. Johnson, 2024) It is critique of local governments that have ample time and money to call out the police to uproot homeless encampments but no time or money to sit down with these people and work out real viable solutions. The story of Crushing Wheelchairs is written in a prayer, a dream, and a scream felt and barely survived by me, tiny gray-garcia aka povertyskola, my houseless, disabled mama, and all of my fellow poverty/disability skolaz & ancestors portrayed/lived in this movie/story.  The lead characters in this powerful movie feature tiny gray-garcia, who first created this work as a staged play and then re-framed it as a feature length film, and throughout her childhood with her mother struggled with homelessness, Aunti Frances Moore, a formerly houseless Black Panther in Oakland; Stephanie Grant, who was pregnant and homeless when she witnessed the murder of Luis Gongora Pat by police in 2016, for being houseless and indigenous in a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco Mission district neighborhood. This film through series of interconnected vignettes shows not just the struggles of the unhoused but also the way things such as gentrification affect them. When a young lesbian couple move into the house that they are so excited they have “finally” been able to buy, the couple is offended by all the neighbors who they must have walked past on their way to view the house when it was for sale. One of the more than comfortable new homeowners has a panic attack when she sees one of her homeless neighbors accosted. Her partner consoles her, but neither one of them addresses or tries to work with or even get to know these people who are indeed their neighbors. This is the art of our lives, our almost survival, and our death at the hands of laws that say our bodies and lives are criminal and that we are trash. tiny gray-garcia aka PovertySkola The film is narrated with thoughtful poems and a hypnotic music track drilling into your consciousness as you see real people with their real stories open and honest, difficult and uncomfortable. The movie was co-directed by Adrian Diamond, formerly houseless povertyskolaz, tiny gray-garcia, and Muteado Silencio  and produced by Green Diamond Projects and POOR Magazine. It includes important poet voices, including Tongo Eisen – Martin, Ayodele Wordslangar Nzinga, Luis Rodriguez, devorah major and Po Poets; Dee Allen, Frances Moore, Leroy Moore, Muteado Silencio and tiny gray-garcia. Also in the film are Indigenous leaders and prayer-bringers Corrina Gould, Tony Gonzales, OG Rev, Harry Williams, as well as Brother Mink and formerly houseless leaders from Wood Street Commons and Homefulness.  This is not a film made by politically correct people looking from the outside at a situation they have never experienced. It is a film written and directed and performed by the unhoused. It is a montage of real stories unmasked, unfiltered and always compelling. Some of the people are employed, but never with a living wage or with respectful compassionate employers. There are women who for a time endure abuse to have a roof for their children. There is one young adult ashamed of the family’s homelessness who works at a regular job, uses drugs, and in a fit of madness kills an unhoused person. These things happen. Though not a documentary, the film documents the hardships and struggles of multi-generational, multiethnic, multilingual, multi-talented people who find a way to survive in a city that alternately ignores and oppresses them. A society that at its best closes its eyes and far more often tyrannizes them, choosing incarceration of their bodies, (attempted) crippling of their spirits and destruction of their belongings as justifiable, indeed laudable. Despite ongoing sweeps where they lose the few things that make their difficult lives a bit more bearable, they work, they love, they create, they survive. If you are in the Los Angelos area you have an opportunity to see the film 7pm Wednesday, January 7th If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, you have an opportunity to see “Crushing Wheelchairs” 2220 Arts Archive 2220 Beverly Bl LA (Occupied Tovaangar) 6pm Saturday, February 21st Black Repertory Group 3201 Adeline Street, Berkeley, CA, USA Watch this trailer to geta taste of the magic it spins This film needs to be seen because far too much time is taken up talking about the homeless problem instead of talking with the unhoused communities. Too much time is taken up in judgments and assumptions about who these people are and how they find themselves on the streets and not enough time spent listening to what their stories really are. Here is an opportunity to see truths of the unhoused in all of their colors displayed by the people who live those realities. To learn more about how the unhoused are working together to educate each other, to, with true allies amass political power and not only survive, but work with a vision of flourishing, please visit the following sites: POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork(PNN)/Homefulness IG/Twitter/FB/TikTok: @povertyskola & @poormagazine  www.lisatinygraygarcia.com www.poormagazine.orgwww.poorpress.net   If you have specific strategies to suggest to increase home-fullness, or resources to share, or any comments please leave them below.