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Aetna Street in Van Nuys with fire looming (foto by AetnaStreetSolidarity on IG) Its a fire everyday when you live outside Houseless peoples are living the everyday emergency of homelessness and Climate Terrorism. by tiny , daughter of Dee, mama of tiburcio    The flames of intense heat dehydrate  The water from floods drown our outside spaces The Cold seeps into our torn clothes  Way down deep to our tired bones The tornado winds  The sun beats in  The smoke will choke  But none so hard as the  Cop Cars The park rangers and the DPW pickUp  Yards  Who take it all  No matter who you call Who predate and tow and take  Everything we have in our humble streetscape  Until we can’t breathe or see  Or live or even be  Its called a sweep  And it happens every day to houseless me This isnt climate change  This is a poltricksters game  For us impacted first and worst  So close to mama earth  So for all of u housed relatives too suffering the terrifying Hurricanes and fire moves  I ask u to recognize the pain  The absolute terror of losing all you have to your name  And for this moment you might be able to see The violence of living homelessly  Of daily and violent sweeps  On all of these stolen land Turtle Island and Palestine streets    “The roof (umbrella) blew off my home and the tarp blew away like a sail…” said Ruth Roofless, a houseless resident of Tovaangar (LA) “They took our last tarp and all of our blankets. I have frostbite in my hands now and i can’t go to work,” said Sidney,a houseless resident, recycler and RoofLESS radio reporter in Yelamu (San Francisco) who had just sufferred a sweep of all of his warm clothes and sleeping bag.  Across the US the people impacted first and worst by climate change or what Dine brother Klee Benally called Climate Terrorism, are houseless people, living, hiding, surviving on Mama Earth while unhoused.  Right now Los Angeles fires  have consumed  miles and miles of the county, have displaced at least 200,000 people and destroyed more than 12,000 homes and businesses including entire residential neighborhoods and so far 16 fatalities.  The Veterans Affairs Medical Center “relocated” already houseless, disabled veteran residents from its community-living facility on the north campus to homelessness again.  Aetna street houseless comeUnity is facing a threat of evacuation from their humble outside area in Van Nuys that they have already been violently removed and evicted from multiple times.   On September 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene swept over Western North Carolina, bringing record levels of rainfall. Rainfall totals reached 12 to 16 inches (305-406mm) in some areas, leading to what is now referred to as one of the most severe floods in the state’s recent history. Entire streets where houseless elders would sit or stand in that state were flooded and the few homeless shelters spaces were closed. Houseless peoples were pushed into more unsafe homelessness.  What is rarely, if ever, mentioned when these increasingly common disasters occur, is the impact on houseless residents of these areas.  This is not strange. Houseless peoples are never mentioned or discussed except in some vague amorphous way as though we are all a monolith called the “homeless people” with no face or name or identity except our lack of secure housing.  Whether it’s fires or floods, hurricanes or tornadoes, we ae dangerlousky impacted by these severe weather changes. As I often repeated in the Covid pandemic, and some of our California wildfire emergencies, “How do we shelter in place when we don’t have a place?”   From the air we can’t breathe to the heat or water we can’t escape from, our lean-to’s, tarps, tents and/or cardboard motels are destroyed, blown-off, lost or crushed in torrential rains. Our lungs get no rest from smoke or soot. We have no windows to close, no air conditioners or purifiers to turn on or outlets to plug them into and rarely any covered areas or trees to shade under to get cool in extreme and dangerous heat.  And when there are violent hurricanes like in Western North Carloina or never ending fires like the reality of LA right now and much of California these days, where can we, who are already evacuated, removed, swept and evicted people, go? A question articulated by comrades at Where Do We Go to the City of Berkeley, who like so many of these US towns have mandated its own non-fire related emergency of sweeps against its houseless residents.   How do you evacuate when you have already been evacuated? RV home to houseless Oakland resident being towed to nowhere by City of Oakland (foto credit: Love and Justice in the streets) Because the other terrorism we face is the terroism of criminalization. Since June of last year after the Grants Pass versus Johnson  Supreme Court ruling, every city in the US has waged an un-ending and deadly war on houseless peoples bodies.  No matter where we sit, stand, walk or god forbid, try to sleep, we are forcibly evacuated, removed, swept or evicted from,  only we have nowhere to go.    In Callifornia Governor Newsom has threatened cities to remove and sweep or lose their state funding. Local Mayors of San Francisco, Oakland, Fresno, Sacramento, Berkeley and Los Angeles to name a few, have implemented their own endless attacks on houseless peoples bodies as well as new laws on top of the old laws that crimianlize our existence, and the result is houseless peoples don’t dare to rest for fear of removal. From everywhere.   “The city of Oakland is towing houseless peoples RV’s in Estuary Park, they are not giving them any referrals to safe parking places, even though they have nowhere else to go,” Oakland_revealed reported out from a highway in East Oakland this week. Across the City of Oakland every single day under the guise of “encampment management” hundreds of houseless Oakland residents are subjected to violent sweeps with subsequent arrests if they don’t comply, resulting in the loss of most if not all of their belongings, no matter how important or necessary they are. In San Francisco, you can’t even sit down or put up a tent without facing forced removal, meaning that when the rain and cold comes you have no protection.  Evacuation to Where? “I almost died in a fire (2018) and I have lasting breathing issues and can’t run for my life like I was able to then, I know the evacuation warnings are for people with phones and power and cars who can stay in hotels…they’re not for we the unhoused (who they then arrest under curfew orders)” concluded Ruth RoofLess  In this terrifying and dangerous time poor and houseless peoples have proposed actual solutions. Solutions rooted in right relationship with Mama Earth, Solutions created by the people impacted first and worst by climate terrorism and the violent criminalization of our bodies. Solutions that actually house and heal, not harm and hurt.  Solutions like Homefulness and Wood Street Commons On December 17th, several houseless peoples -led movements across California launched a state-wide sanctuary movement to respond to violence of sweeping peoples like we are trash  For five days we held sweeps free sanctuary spaces in all of the impacted cities to lift up these actual solutions.  Homefulness  is poverty scholarship informed, rent-free forever healing housing. But it is also informed by ancient teachings and spiritual traditions of 1st Nations people. It is not rooted in more extraction like buildings made of wood and concrete, deep and violent cutting down of Mama Trees that we need to provide us all with urgently needed shade and coolness.  Homefulness Projects launch with community gardens where there used to be asphalt. The planting of Ancestor forests where there used to be parking lots. Sliding Scale Cafes with free food and diapers and produce for the whole community for free and Humetkas (Ohlone concept of Emergency preparedness) to provide water and emergency support to the whole neighborhood when, not if, emergencies like the LA and Oakland Hills fires happen .  Solar and wind power so we don’t CONtinue to steal from and poison Mama Earth and babies in the Congo just to have energy.  Fire and Water and MamaEarth solutions based on Indigenous peoples ancient teachings (which should have been followed in Tovaangar and must be implemented across turtle island.) In addition HOMEfulness and Wood Street commons models include Liberation education for houseless youth and adults so we can all learn how to take care of mama Earth with humility and love for the next seven generations of fires and climate terrorism caused disasters that so many of us are complict in enabling.  And finally Homefulness is actively working to take parcels of MamaEarth off the extractive real estate speculative market by working with conscious lawyers at Sustainable economies law center to create a liberation easement that ensures that land will only be used for rent-free forever housing and gardens and radical sharing  and therefore humbly saving more mamatrees and safe spaces for all of us humans to benefit from.  Emergency Vs Emergency - How do you respond to an emergency when there is already an emergency? Solutions like Homefulness are the answer with or without the compounded emergency of fires or Tornadoes, because its an emergency every day when you are houseless,. Everyday we have no home, no roof, no medicine, no toilets, no beds or safe places to sleep. Everyday we have the emergency of PTSD from our trauma filled lives that is only compounded and made worse by just trying to stay alive everyday outside in the ongoing emergency called homelessness Everyday we are scared for our lives and subject to cold so intense we almost die. Everyday we find ourselves outside, roofless without a dry blanket or a warm plate of food or a heater to stand next to or a swamp cooler to cool down next to.  Everyday mutual aid warriors like Wood Street Commons, POOR Magazine, Aetna Street Solidarity, Punks With Lunch and JtownAction, Love and Justice in the Streets and so many more show up with love, resources, tents, sleeping bags, food and justice to radically share to houseless relatives. Oftentimes these beautiful love-workers (as we call them at POOR Magazine) are replacing what is procedurally stolen from houseless peoples daily. It is a bizarre whackamole and yet without this support people would die at greater rates than they already do. It’s up to 6 people dying on the streets in LA everyday from the fire called homelessness.  In the end we must stop “responding” to emergencies as though they just started. We are living an emergency everyday when we live outside. And the answer to the emergency is to change the mind-set to liberation and love  I am humbly asking resourced , housed residents of Turtle Island who are or have suffered the great loss of these Climate terrorism fueled  disasters  to consider them as a moment of great transformation, to embody  what I'm calling radical empathy where you overstand that you  will be able to rebuild and recoup, there is a motel room or a family member to stay with or an insurance claim to rebuild or even a decision to relocate,  but imagine you had no such support and the same “disaster” was happening to you on a daily basis. From this overstanding reimagine the solution  you could be a part of implementing with radically redistributed resources to support your  fellow humans all the time not just in an “emergency”  Respond now with MamaFesting, supporting, building and implementing actual love-centered solutions that have answers to climate Terrorism and answers to the spirtual terrorism and physical abuse of sweeping humans like we are trash.  Scarcity is killing us, not fires, not hurricanes, not mama earth.  The love and liberation of Homefulness and Wood Street community are solutions for now and later and forever. Not just now.  Thanks to Ry and Ruth Roofless from Tovaangar and Oakland Revealed for contributions to this story  To learn more about Homefulness and Poor and houseless peoples solutions to homelessness thru radical Redistribution come to PeopleSkool Degentrification /Decolonization two-day Seminar on zoom which happens twice a year- the next session is Jan 25/26 for more information go to www.poormagazine.org/ education . To redistribute now to Homefulness in Huchiun ( Oakland, SF or LA ) go to poormagazine.org/donate   to support Wood Street Commons project go to www.woodstreetcommons.org

Del Seymour’s journey from living on the Streets to Fighting Homelessness in San Francisco Momii Palapaz, PNN poverty scholar I really like this book. It’s funny, heart aching, an easy read and full of gratitude. And full of stories. Stories of his experiences formulating into an idea and a plan made Del Seymour the Mayor of the Tenderloin.  He had many jobs and professions, such as electrician, carpenter, public speaker, organizer, teacher, lecturer, Vietnam vet medic, plumber and fireman.  He was also a pimp, drug addict and at different times in his life, houseless. Code Tenderloin, Mr Seymour says, is like saying “Code 911” or Code Blue”.  The immediacy of life and death service was initiated in a project called “job interviews”.  Del gives confidence unlike what I had going to seek a job.  He calls it a business meeting.  Here’s a chapter quote from p.58. “ Let me say this first: This is the only day we use the word ‘interview’.  From here, we call it a business meeting.  We feel you are equal to that guy you’re going to talk to.  You’re trying to see if your resume will fit his job needs.  It’s an across-the-board business meeting, that’s all.” I was never taught that perspective going to a job interview.  I always went with the attitude of, i need a job.  I need money.   It was hit or miss.  When Del Seymour talks about job seeking and preparation, he plans each and every step based on his knowledge of the community.  Since he was living and working in the Tenderloin, he knew exactly what to expect from his neighbors on the streets of the Tenderloin SF. Roofless Radio reporter with Frankie and tiny, Poor News Network and South of Market and Tenderloin SF Before Code Tenderloin, Del Seymour made lots of money, even invented an alarm system for cars. His design was then stolen by a major car manufacturer.  (Evidence is in an installment of an SF Chronicle Herb Caen column) His “hustle” or entrepeneur working nature has kept his perseverance in the face of addiction and homelessness.  With so many professions, Del made a lot of money.  The one thing that didn’t seem so important to him was that he made a lot of money.  He could take it or leave it.  He proved that despite the drug dealing, pimping and addictions, he was not only a survivor but a leader for the most dehumanized and neglected. When Del, who is from Chicago, IL, was living in the bay area, he had many creative ways to get business.  He calls it a “hustle”.  “I had my own plumbing company called Shitman Plumbing.  People always laughed…It was Shitman Plumbing.  Once I tell you my company name, when your pipe busts in the middle of the night: ‘a plumber, a plumber.  Shitman’.  This was a marketing ploy.   You could only do it in San Francisco.” In 1960’s Tenderloin, there were Newman’s boxing gym, Sam’s Hofbrau, movie theatres, the Downtown bowling alley and the SRO’s housing families of poor, Black and Brown working class, elders, immigrants, and the off Market Street entertainment trades.   Many Saturdays, my friends and I would get on the bus and go to Downtown Bowl on Jones and Eddy.  Right around the corner was Del’s and many other drug dealer’s offices on the street.  Even younger, my family ate at the Polo’s Restaurant on Mason and Turk.   Around the corner was Original Joe’s on Taylor between Turk and Eddy. It then became Piano Fight, and also housed the Code Tenderloin.   Down the street on the Turk corner of Taylor was La Bamba Restaurant.  Reading “The Mayor of Tenderloin” brought memories of days when the Tenderloin community, although poor and a drug destination, my parents never worried.  It was safe enough.  Homelessness had yet to be an issue.  It was an era of working people, poor people, thousands who lived and worked in SF.  You didn’t hear about people commuting to work. One thing I realized reading Del Seymour was my own addiction to cocaine and liquor.  I was and am still housed.  I was never homeless, so the thought of having a drug addiction AND being houseless would send me further into a deep hole.  I had already hit bottom as a housed person.  My jobs went to drugs, liquor and paying the rent.  Saving money in the credit union went to $0.  But I was still housed.  I did this for 20 years.   I had to leave SF and move to Oakland.  But to do this while unhoused?  And have a job? In the depths of addiction, I was lucky to not get fired from a 5 and 10 cent store, FW Woolworth, a few blocks from ground zero; the Tenderloin.   “I served in the Vietnam War,” said Del Seymour, “served the streets of South Central LA as a firefighter paramedic. I saw a lot of stuff.  You know what my nightmares are about?  Being homeless in the Tenderloin. I think I’m homeless again...I wake up in a sweat, running out of the room.  How can this happen?  I’m homeless again. That surpasses all that trauma, is being homeless.” Del Seymour taught me about resilience.  It was the one thing that kept me from continuing on that dark bottomless path.   At a meet, greet and hear him talk, I had that opportunity.  Along with the author, Alison Owings, and Reverend Harry Williams, Tiny, co-founder with Mama Dee of POOR MAGAZINE, confirmed the scam of homelessness.   The houseless movement to homefulness is deep and wide. The  daunting work over the past years has come to bear fruit everyday.  The houseless community found me as I was looking for them.  Now it’s we. If you have a home please consider redistributing whatever you can so houseless peoples can build/house ourselves1) $1.00 to 1 million  To build rent-free forever homes for houseless families, & elders   www.poormagazine.org/homefulness  -currently housing 21 houseless youth adults and elders in Deep East Huchiun (Oakland)

By Momii Palapaz, PNN Poverty Scholar Across Turtle Island, hurricanes, tornados, fires are relentlessly displacing thousands.  Over 200,000 in North Carolina are houseless due to the Helene Hurricane in late September 2024. Thousands are waiting for RV’s, temporary housing, tiny homes and are self sheltering since local temporary shelters are full. Private and community groups are scrambling to make up for lack of government resources and financial support. “We are still digging through the rubble and trying to find a way out,” said Kenyon Lake, Asheville resident and founder of My Daddy Taught Me That.  Mr. Lake and his organization immediately responded to their neighbors with van services, food and clothes.  Left to their own local resources, Black and Brown communities are experiencing catastrophic trauma and devastation. Toxic waste dump sites, oil pipeline installations, poisoned wells, hog farming production produced more waste and health misery.  Current environmental disasters bring to light the centuries of racial discrimination, displacement and stolen land of “freed” slaves. After the hurricane, a car is halfway underwater. First responders are surveying the scene in a small motorboat. People watch from a porch as opaque brown water floods in beneath them. October's hurricane Helene is shocking. The tv camera shows bodies floating by in the rushing river, once a street.  Dogs, furniture, vehicles and an abundance of household appliances gush along, crashing and settling down in heaps of garbage.  The latest death toll is over 227 of the people  in North Carolina who died. The  city of Asheville, North Carolina, was literally closed down due to the hurricane rains and flooding.  Mud and wildlife debris, coming from the thousands of acres of timbered trees, rolls down the balding forest, settling on homes, highways, paralyzing the whole infrastructure. In a town northeast of Asheville, is Princeville, founded by freed slaves.  Racism put the community there.  Whites were not interested in the property and soon it was found that flooding was common in that area.  As hurricanes throughout the years impacted Princeville with floods, resident and descendant, Resita Cox, questioned  that and made a film from all her research.  “It’s not just a film; this is my life. My folks are in Eastern North Carolina,” she said. “We are taking on the burden ourselves. We are teaching our young people in North Carolina ourselves about environmental racism and Black history through documentary filmmaking.”  Asheville, in North Carolina is the home of the Biltmore mansion.  It is also the native land of Shiloh, where Cherokee natives lived for centuries.  The trail of tears took place here.  It is named for the violent, forced removal of Indigenous Cherokee by the US government and the stealing of over 108,000 acres of land.  In the late 1880’s, over 125,000 acres was purchased by the Vanderbilt family.  Freed African slaves who lived on this land were also forcibly removed when George Vanderbilt fell in love with the vast forest.  He bought over 600 parcels of land from the Black community called “Old Shiloh.  About 6,000 freed slaves, their churches and cemeteries were displaced and moved to an area called “new Shiloh”.  Clear cutting  in Asheville lost 6.4% of its tree canopy from 2008 to 2018, which is equivalent to 891 acres of trees.  Over 200,000 acres of forests are logged every year. The removal of acres of trees amounts to 60,000 in a year.   Katrina returns. Google searching for the effects of Hurricane Helene on the Black and Brown neighborhoods of Asheville, I come across a writer named Parisa fitz Henley in the September 30, 2024 issue of “Word in Black.”  Her opinion starts out,  “Katrina.  A word I’ve hesitated to say aloud because of its weight, it’s gravity. A word that’s been quietly repeating in my mind. Not a name anymore. A symbol. People standing on rooftops, frantically waving at helicopters, begging for power for medical devices, for water, for food. Begging to be seen. It’s become synonymous with neglect of the most vulnerable people, neglect of places with poor infrastructure and few resources. Now, ( after Hurricane Helene ),  I’m seeing that kind of neglect play out in real time.” Hurricane Helene and all the decades of environmental disasters have compounded the already intolerable conditions. All contributed to the loss of life and degraded land value.   History shows the population of Black and Brown, indigenous communities has reaped the worst of Amerikkkan environmental racism. Colette, a lifelong friend, moved to Charlotte, NC, 6 years ago.   She said, “ I work at the local grocery ‘Food Lion’, and the shelves were empty with people supporting the victims in the mountains.  Nobody seemed to care about color.  There are plenty (of) white people in Asheville, you know ‘hippies’ so to speak.  They wear tee shirts that say ‘Mountain Strong’.  Everyone down here in Charlotte had no clue of the devastation in the mountains.  I had no idea it was so bad?  I don’t know if that’s due to racism?  From my view, everyone was helping the Mountain community!  It still is amazing to me how many lives were lost, but people keep it moving”.   Despite the onslaught of racism, and economic losses, we come together.  Anyone facing a threat to their housing, immediately finds solutions.  We can no longer wait for the government.

Por Alvaro Kepokamaztli Tellez/ By Alvaro Kepokamaztli Tellez Feliz año nuevo Gregoriano!!! Sin consumir, con mejor salud física y mental!! Después de dos meses de mi recaída y recuperación me tocó vivir uno de mis mejores momentos de mi vida!! ¡Pasar la Navidad y Año nuevo con mis hijas y nietas! Estas son las consecuencias de no consumir, tener mejores tiempos, pensamientos, disfrutar a mi familia con mejor tiempo y calidad. Estoy esperando el año nuevo en México con la misma intención de seguir con mi recuperación y seguir agradecido con la vida. Espero ser una motivación para otra gente y yo seguir aprendiendo de otra gente y seguir adelante! Yo se que no puedo hacer esto solo, es importante mantenerme en mis grupos de recuperación N/A ya que ellos entienden mi enfermedad y tienen los cuartos abiertos las 24 horas y lo más importante para mi es seguir con mi tradición y expresar mi rezo por medio de la Xitontekiza [Danza] Mi mensaje es apoyarse en un poder superior a uno y tener esa fuerza mental y espiritual. A mi me esta ayudando!! Tlazocamati a Homefulness y Poormagazine por su apoyo a mi y mi familia!!  Happy Gregorian New Year!!! No drinking, with better physical and mental health!! Two months after my relapse and recovery I got to live one of the best moments of my life!! Spend Christmas and New Year with my daughters and granddaughters! These are the results of not drinking, having better times, thoughts, enjoying my family with better time and quality of time. I am waiting for the new year in Mexico with the same intention of continuing with my recovery and continuing to be grateful for life. I hope to be a motivation for other people and to keep learning from other people and keep going! I know I can't do this alone, it is important to stay in my N/A recovery groups since they understand my illness and have the rooms open 24 hours and the most important thing for me is to continue with my tradition and express my prayer through Xitontekiza [Dance] My message is to lean on a power greater than yourself and have that mental and spiritual strength.  It's helping me!! Tlazocamati to Homefulness and Poormagazine for their support of me and my family!!

By Juju Angeles A NICU nurse in Richmond Virginia was recently arrested for allegedly breaking and fracturing the bones of seven NICU babies. All of the babies were African American and because of the incident, Henrico Doctors’ Hospital closed their NICU department until further notice. According to research from George Mason University, when babies are cared by White doctors, Black babies are more likely to die in comparison to being cared by Black doctors. With the recent incident with the Virginia nurse, we can see that racism exists even with the most educated in society and the fatal consequence of hate that stems from the color of someone’s skin. From the Tuskegee experiments, Henrietta Lacks, and Marion Sims, there is a long history of medical racism that costs Black people their lives up until this day. Not even our babies are safe. This is why I am a revolutionary birth worker and believe in birthing outside of the system and the care of traditional midwifery care. The one on one, tailored care for pregnant people is crucial to the overall health of pregnant folks and babies. But, then what happens if a baby needs the care of the NICU? We do not have these kinds of resources within our communities. We would have to transfer care and risk the death of our Black babies. These are the realities that Black and Indigenous people live with every day--the inherent distrust of the Medical Industrial Complex is grounded in the legacy of the delusion of White supremacy every single day.

Hundreds of houseless/formerly houseless residents of Occupied Huchiun and Yelamu rise up with our own solutions and create sweeps-free sanctuaries across California and Seattle By tiny aka povertyskola, daughter of Dee, mama of Tiburcio  When your roof is the sky and your light bulb is the moon ….It's the police flashlights who steal your room - excerpt from "when the roof is your sky" by tiny  “The Park is closed, you have 15 minutes to remove your belongings and vacate the premises or you will be arrested… Actually now you have 14 minutes ,” This statement was made by one of the over 54 heavily armed San Francisco PoLice officers, DPW workers, and Park Rangers who arrived at 2am on the 3rd night of the Sweeps-Free Sanctuary Comeunity at Yelamu SF city hall and announced to over 35 peacefully sleeping houseless comeUnity members that if we didn’t vacate the “park” within 15 minutes we would be arrested. “Get away from me,” said one houseless, neoro-divergent relative to an army of kkkops who loomed over the entrace to her tent. A terrifying, triggering sweep ensued with advancing armies, causing terror and trauma in all of our houseless hearts. That said, these brutal acts of war ON the poor are nothing that we don’t face EVERY single day in all of these settler towns perpetrating the lie of public, so as brutal as it was we were all prepared,and ready and thanks to the housed solidarity relatives who were with us from the beginning of this powerful move, no-one lost their belongings, no-one was arrested and no-one was physcially harmed. “I don’t know where I’m going now, I hope to find a doorway i can hide in,” Theresa, a disabled elder who had packed all of her belongings in a granny cart that was provided by radical redistributors (aka mutual aid workers) at the ComeUnity, shakily walked down Polk Street at 2:30am leaving the violent scene. Before she left she turned to me and added, “But we made a difference, they heard us, we were seen, and I’m so thankful for these last three days and nights because it reminded me something else is possible. Please don’t stop fighting for sanctuary,” she concluded and gave me a hug. In San Francisco At the end of this brutal night everyone was removed to nowhere in the dark, cold night, like we always are, including gravely disabled residents who were lied to about shelter beds being available and none were. Before the violent state sponsored destruction the sweeps-free sanctuary at SF Shitty Hall, which was NOT a protest encampment, but rather a lateral move by already houseless people who are in prayerful defiance of the ongoing War ON the poor, was, like all of our self-determined poor/houseless peoples led comeUnities, was absolutely beautiful. The houseless residents received healthy, daily meals, clean and warm clothes, medicine, support, writing workshops, planning circles and inspiration that something else besides endless violence, removal and terror was possible. Mutual aid groups from all across the Bay supported this beautiful, prayerful, poor and houseless peoples led sanctuary. Day One: On Tuesday, December 17th in response to increasingly violent and relentless sweeps of houseless residents of California, houseless and formerly houseless sweeps survivors along with housed allies and spiritual leaders launched several “sweeps-free sanctuary comeUnities” at City Halls and other public land sites in Yelamu (San Francisco), Huchiun (Oakland), Yocut (Fresno), Tovaangar (Los Angeles) and Sogorea Te (Vallejo) and Chief Sia’hl (Seattle). Us Houseless/formerly houseless organizers from POOR Magazine and Wood Street Commons planned this five day action for many reasons, not the least of which is we are dying on the streets from these violent policies of daily and sometimes hourly sweeps of houseless humans like we are trash, implemented with more brutal force since Grants Pass vs Johnson ruling came down.Up to six people a day are dying in Tovaangar (LA) and the number is similar in the Bay. Conversely, there are thousands of vacant and hoarded buildings across Turtle Island that could be transformed into actual healing housing solutions. Solutions like Homefulness , which already exists in Oakland and houses 22 houseless family in rent-free, healing, forever housing (and is in process to come to LA, SF and Seattle, not to mention a second site in Oakland.) Solutions like what Wood Street Commons has spent months designing with renown architect Mike Pyatok which would include housing, healing and education for houseless residents of West Oakland. Third, we as pan indigenous, Black/Brown/disabled and poor wite houseless settlers cannot talk about homelessness, housing and land without talking about the fact that we exist on Turtle Island on stolen indigenous land. That there already is a powerful LandBack and Black Land return movement happening now across the US which we absolutely stand with and support, and that Homefulness doesnt get mamaFested without permission and protocol and spiritual guidance from 1st Nations relatives in the territories that it exists on, with prayer and spirit from all four corners of Mama Earth. And finally, we did this to challenge and resist the settler lie of public space. Not only is Turtle Island stolen indigenous land, especially the so-called “Parks” which were another tool of genocide and removal of 1st Peoples, but because the so-called public land is clearly not for all of the public, aka the poor and houseless public. US public land is loaded with an inherent race, class and ableist bias. If you look “homeless” or act “homeless” or some other vague arbitrary category, and dare to sit down, rest, sleep on even convene, you are subject to removal and incarceration. Huchiun (Oakland) “You can’t stay here,” On Day One In Huchiun, the Oakland City Manager threatened our Sanctuary with immediate removal which was peacefully set up on supposedly public land He absentmindedly and dismissively cited “illegal lodging” and other arcane codes that criminalize sleeping while houseless in the so-called public. 200 years ago, before colonization there wasn’t even a concept of homelessness,” said Talking chief/spokesperson of the confederated villages of Lisjan/Ohlone and co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust and Family Elders Council member of Homefulness “We have relocated to the parking lot of the Greyhound Bus station and are holding space “ said John Janosko, formerly houseless resident leader of Wood Street Commons. The Greyhound bus station is one of thousands of empty buildings in Oakland where many houseless peoples are already sleeping. This lot could be a perfect location for the Wood Street Community Housing Project. “Sweeps fracture communities, displace people and damage physical and mental health,” Western Regional Advocacy Project(WRAP) “We have solutions, they are houseless, indigenous people-led solutions called Homefulness and Wood Street ComeUnity, not sweeps,” said Muteado Silencio, formerly houseless co-founder of Homefulness and Sanctuary resident. In addition to the powerful comeUnities in the Bay, there were solidarity actions from settler towns like LA, Vallejo Seattle, Novato and Fresno, all of which not only have no real solutions led by poor and houseless people but have implemented new laws since Grant Pass vs Johnson that criminalize our houseless bodies even more. Tovaangar (LA) “Yesterday we gathered at the site of a former city-run shelter that has since been abandoned and locked up by barbed wire fences where a year ago, our community on Aetna Street was violently displaced. On these vacant, so-called “public” lands we rebuilt our sanctuary community on Aetna Street,” Aetna Street Solidarity from LA Occupied Duwamish land (Seattle) : We had 30-40 houseless warriors and housed allies on the steps of "Seattle" Shitty Hall. There was music, food, hot drinks, safer drug use kits, clothes, blankets, sleeping bags. We had speakers from Nickelsville, International League of Peoples Struggle, vehicle residents and WHEELs Women in Black held a moment of silence for our stolen relatives. Yocut lands aka so-called Fresno “ Yesterday we met at City Hall lawn. We had prayer then we had four speakers one regarding the housing elements and lack of units we had the attorney speak on the data of the arrest the criminalization and also the current trials that are in the courts due to the arrest for being unhoused. Day 4 & 5 Yelamu & Huchiun “Housekeys Not Handcuffs… Sanctuary Not Sweeps”... a powerful chant rose from a crowd of over 100 people who marched from a SF Shitty hall to the site of a privately owned location on MamaEarth, the Civic Center Inn, one of so many hoarded and unused locations across the Bay Area which could be transformed into the San Francisco location for Homefulness. It has in tact rooms and doors and windows and plumbing and electrical and only would need a minimal amount of work to bring it up to habitable shape. “Together we are Better…” Junebug Kealoha, formerly houseless community Health Worker, advocate, Poet and longtime POOR Magazine SF organizer and cultural worker spoke these powerful words as our group arrived at the Civic Center Inn on Friday. We houseless organizers (none of whom can risk arrest, due to our current states of poverty and at risk lives) had already decided we would prayerfully and peacefully enter the building while one of our solidarity family members from revolutionary legal group working with POOR Magazine to unSell and liberate more of Mama Earth for the Homefulness Projects, Sustainable Economies Law Center had reached out to the Hotel’s owners only to find out that they are asking the insanely large amount of 9 million dollars, but talked with the owners agent and asked permission for our peaceful and temporary entry, so we could pray and vision this solution. “I am a longtime San Francisco resident and i was evicted from my home, now i can barely get a nights sleep on these streets,” an elder named John spoke to me at the radical redistribution table outside the hotel, while we distributed healthy hot food, sleeping bags and tents to the surrounding houseless residents. “We are human , we are not trash…” said Lisa Wheeler,an indigenous houseless povertyskola with POOR Magazine Yelamu (San Francisco) from the balcony of the Civic Center Inn as we stood on this Ohlone land and prayed to Mamafest Homefulness here. “These sweeps are killing us, we are swept to nowhere everyday, people are so tired, we don’t know where to go,” said Marquis Ausby, formerly houseless organizer and advocate with POOR Magazine and the City Hope Community Center in San Francisco Huchiun /Oakland “We are here providing medicine, love and care, people are already here, this building would be the perfect location for Wood Street Community, we are already here.” concluded Monique French, one of the organizers with Wood Street Commons and POOR Magazine. “This is the just the beginning….” said Andrea Henson, lawyer and advocate as she spoke to us at the Greyhound Parking Lot for the final day. Andrea is with Where Do We Go who supported us all the way through with her words and presence. Other beautiful organizations that supported us included Self-Help Hunger Program, Punks with Lunch, The Poor Peoples Campaign, RVtv, Aetna Street Solidarity, We Are Not Invisible, Stop the Sweeps Seattle, League of Revolutionaries,Mixed Collective and Western Regional Advocacy Project. Solutions to homelessness   presented by houseless people Sanctuary Communities, Not Sweeps Land Back/Public Land for Public Good: Prevent Homelessness Defund Coercive “Care Courts” *More Homeless peoples solutions available at this link  Homefulness in Huchiun that currently houses 22 houseless families would not have been possible without the radically redistributed dollars of folks with race and class privilege who attended PeopleSkool. Wood Street Commons and Homefulness#2 Huchiun, SF and LA and Seattle will also not be possible without radically redistributed dollars or occupied land. To learn more about PeopleSkool which happens twice a year and the next session is on zoom on January 25/26 go to poormagazine.org/education . To support the efforts of all of us houseless people trying to buy and then UnSell Mama Earth so we can create our own homeless peoples solutions to homelessness from Huchiun to Tovaangar to Yelamu email poormag@gmail.com Huchiun (Oakland) Sanctuary at the Greyhound Bus Station Parking lot on san Pablo near West Grant remains intact and needs your help to stay open and support the comeUnity: Tents, Tarps, Sleeping bags,flashlights warm clothes or just stop by to say hello. Yelamu (SF) will begin POOR Magazine's street Newsrooms at the Civic Center Inn in January so stay tuned to @poormagazine

“You can’t sit here,”  “But it’s a park bench, they are sitting down.” i said pointing to a yuppie couple two benches away making out.   A Park Ranger with a gun and mace on his holster was towering over me and my mama in Golden Gate Park. We  had walked for hours deep into the recesses of the park to find a good hiding place, but somehow they found us. This was just one of countless times we were harassed for being houseless in “public”.  Throughout me and my mama’s life of homelessness we were always hiding - houseless families have always risked incarceration and separation if we are “seen” in the co-called public. But what was even more full of hypoKRAZY was the settler lie of public itself.  We were sitting in the daytime on a public bench surrounded by other people sitting on a public bench eating their lunches or brunches or resting or watching their children play. And yet me and my mixed race mama were always targeted and threatened and harassed. How were we different? Was it our old clothes, our skin, our hair? Our carefully rolled up sleeping bag, tucked near our feet or our telltale over-stuffed backpack and adjoining hefty bag with that days collection of recycled bottles and cans? The Roots of the Lie of Public The word Public comes from the Old French word public  (c. 1300) and directly from Latin publicus  "of the people; of the state; done for the state," also "common, general, of or belonging to the people at large; ordinary, vulgar," and as a noun, "a commonwealth; public property. As early as 1640 the Stealing fathers (Founding Fathers) were using the word  “public” to describe the “vulgar” regular people. To describe poor, disabled, houseless, migrant/indigenous, Black and Brown poor people.  Today the word public is used and abused as a lie, a cover for politricks, gentriFUKation, encroachment and displacement. It’s also a cover for an open form of class apartheid. Demanding implicit and explicit bias about who the “public” is and where they get to be versus the rest of us.  The concept and word “Public” is abused and co-opted  from the people to describe heavily raced, classed and ableized spaces on Mama Earth, allegedly “owned” by the state. The funny thing isn’t the “state”  supposed to also mean “the people” .  In actuality the  concept of the “state” began with feudal societies ruled over by Kings and gentry, which birthed the settler colonizers who stole Turtle Island, re-named it and committed genocide on the 1st Peoples of this land. The colonizers never intended public to mean the peoples land, or belonging to the public. Now hundreds of Gregorian years later we are functioning with the same set of lies and a new set of violence against the actual public. In every settler town on Turtle Island after the Grants Pass Versus Johnson ruling we houseless people struggle with the already existent class-based apartheid implemented in the so-called public with an extra literal kick of now claiming that houseless residents of any state or city are no longer protected under the 8th amendment of the CONstitution which effectively means we are not really seen as humans at all. The violent state sponsored sweeps continue to rain down on our heads, we aren’t allowed to sit anywhere, we aren’t allowed to rest or sleep and god forbid we sit in the same so-called “public” spaces as the “other” housed, wealthy and able public.     “They have been sweeping almost everyday,” Joe X who used to stay on 35th and 9th street near Fruitvale, told me yesterday morning as he was shivering in 35 degree cold while hastily moving his belongings  in one of a series of violent sweeps launched in Oakland after Grants Pass. “We had just left West Grand and MLk and now they are here. I really don’t know where to go,”  From Where Do We Go to Sweeps-Free Sanctuary ComeUnities? Two months back the advocates and warriors at Where Do We Go set up a resistance community for houseless relatives and refused  sweeps orders, given to them from the allegedly progressive city of Berkeley and instead launched three other communities (i don’t call them encampments, cuz thats a military industrial complex word and we are just trying to rest and be safe). Inspired by their warrior work, several of us houseless/formerly houseless residents of the so-called State of California who are currently being or have been violently swept for resting, sitting, standing or sleeping in the not -really public will be launching a series of Sweeps Free Sanctuary ComeUnities and other activities on “public land” on December 17th.  “Public land should be for the public, instead we face violent sweeps,” said La Monte Ford, Wood Street Commons Sweeps survivor. In addition to providing crucial resources for fellow houseless relatives in the cold, wet winter, in settler towns across this stolen land from so-called San Francisco to Oakland to LA and all the way up to Seattle our Sanctuaries will be presenting solutions to homelessness created by us houseless people. Solutions that are healing housing sanctuaries like Homefulness  and Wood Street Commons Community and Tent City 3 in Seattle. Tent City 3 in Chief Siah’l (Seattle)  “It took several years of fighting and not giving up, but now we have an agreement with the City to set up self-governed (that’s houseless peoples governing ourselves) tent cities in Seattle. Said Anitra, one of the formerly houseless co-founders of SHARE/WHEEL to Poor Peoples Radio  podcast. Up to 350 people each night find safety, shelter, dignity, and respect in our self-managed shelters and Tent Cities. After years of struggle, community education, and negotiation we established the first Tent City in a suburban area in May 2004. Overcoming initial intense public opposition, we negotiated with King County to define and establish land use standards for temporary homeless encampments. From Share/WHEEL’s website  Tent Cities arent a permanent solution. But they are an actual realization of public space for all of the public and a safe place to rest and to sleep and therefore should be implemented immediately in all of California ( and all across occupied Turtle Island)  where we are literally dying from these ongoing and violent sweeps to nowhere perpetrated in all these settler towns. “We set up Tent Cities on either public or private locations in Seattle,” concluded Anitra.  This anti-poor people in public violence manifest in endless sweeps that cause houseless elders and disabled communities to become sicker, more destabilized and more prone to serious illness.  In San Francisco Mayor Breed blocked the use of public funds for social housing projects like Homefulness which we proposed for SF. In Oakland, Mayor Tao decided to take the “clearning order” of Newsom a step further and is, as i write, systematically sweeping every single person outside all day everyday.  My mama used to wonder how to “not look homeless” it became an obsession of hers, and even when we got access, at least temporarily to a roof, she was always looking over her shoulder for the next kop to harass us for the sole act of sitting down in public  Over the years, more anti poor public hate has materialized across the United Snakkkes, from the sweeps, to the endless tows of peoples homes on wheels to violent architecture, spikes and bumps, and planters and concrete rocks wherever us poor public might need or wat to sit down or rest. All of these hateful measures sending a clear message that public space is NOT for ALL the public.  And until and unless we unSell and decommodify Mama Earth there will be more and more of us that can’t pay the lie of rent and need to sleep, stand, rest and sit in public while houseless.    Please join houseless /formerly houseless leaders at POOR Magazine and Wood Street Commons in Huchiun (Oakland) at 3pm and San Francisco at 11am on December 17th as we launch Sweeps-free Sanctuary come-unities on both sides of the occupied bay. For more information or to sign up to help- email poormag@gmail.com . For people outside of the Bay Area- join us at 9am at City Hall in Yocut Lands (Fresno) and 11am in Sogorea Te (Vallejo) at Aetna Street in Tovaangar (LA) at 6060 Van Nuys Bl at 12noon at City Hall in Chief Siah'l (Seattle)

the 22nd houseless resident is welcomed into Homefulness- rent-free forever Healing housing Dear Loving ComeUnity and Family, I can’t get warm  no matter how tight i clutch my hoodie to my ice-cold body  Sometimes I am so cold I burn myself.  As the daggers of winter cold  approaches my years of homelessness on the street scream into my bones.  I have a dry jacket and a roof and yet i still can’t get warm..tiny. From Grants Pass to Palestine, from Newsom’s Disappearing (Clearing) Orders and the genocide across Mama Earth to the Orange Colonial Monster, all of our radical self-determined movements are the answer to this violent sickness. With deep gratitude in our hearts for all of you radical redistributors, ComeUnity Reparators and love warriors, 22 houseless youth, babies, adults and disabled elders are permanently housed in rent-free, forever healing housing at Homefulness;   Deecolonize Academy  is a thriving school for low/no-income/houseless indigenous children; a Poor Peoples’ liberation radio station  broadcasts weekly; the Sliding Scale Cafe  shares free organic food, fruits, veggies, diapers and love with over 800 families every week; and Poor Magazine provides so many more street-based, poverty scholarship-informed programs rooted in radical interdependence and revolutionary love. Right now, we are asking for help to bring 14 homes to Homefulness #2 at 7600 BlackArthur in deep east Huchiun.  Thanks to you all badass reparators and donors, we were able to get the first two homes for Homefulness #2 with working water and sewage. All we need is the off-grid solar system to have houseless families move in. We also need help purchasing the remaining 12 recycled container homes, better known as ADU’s (the first one pictured above).  We are also actively working with houseless poverty skolaz and housed allies in the Pacific Northwest, Tovaangar (LA) and Yelamu (San Francisco) to bring/mamafest more of the medicine of Homefulness. To do that, we have launched a new effort with guidance from our first Nations Ohlone/Lisjan relatives called The Homeful Tax . Please help us put this out as far and wide as possible, and please help us with your love-stained dollars so we can finish Homefuness #2, and launch #3PNW , #4Yelamu(SF) & #5Tovaangar(LA) lifting up, liberating and unSelling more of occupied Turtle Island.  To redistribute to the Homeful Tax, visit linktr.ee/homefultax . To learn more about the practicable solution of Homefulness, radical redistribution and ComeUnity reparations , consider registering for the upcoming Decolonization/DegentriFUKation seminar of PeopleSkool. Your love-stained dollars fund Homefulness 1 and will mamafest  Homefulness 2’s solar energy system, Homefulness 3 in the Pacific Northwest, Homefulness 4 in occupied Yelamu (San Francisco), Homefulness 5 in occupied Tovaangar (LA), and sustain hundreds of houseless families with rent, food, utility bills and basic support.  Ometeotl, Ase, Semign Cacona Guari, A’hooooooo     Tiny and the POOR Magazine, Homefulness & DeeColonize Academy Family  2024 has been an incredibly challenging year, and we see that echoing in poor people’s resistance movements all across Mama Earth. In the midst of the year’s many traumas, we have continued fighting to dismantle the lies of krapitalism and wealth-hoarding from the bottom up and responding to the needs of poverty skolaz from Turtle Island to Palestine. Here are just a few  of the huge amount of love-work we did in 2024: We moved our 22nd resident into HOMEFULNESS #1 DEECOLONIZE ACADEMY is in our 11th year with 11 enrolled students and 3 of our graduates becoming teachers 13th year of SLIDING SCALE CAFÉ, a radical redistribution (mutual aid) of healthy food groceries, diapers & media, support for deep East Oakland every Thursday Continued in-person People Skool for East Oakland poverty skolaz with Theatre of the Poor and Po Peoples Radio workshop series The Po Poets and Poverty Skola authors of Poor Press ( www.poorpress.net ) released their books, poems and anthologies in February 2024. One new book to come in 2025! Listen to PNNKEXU 96.1FM every Tuesday & Thursday for multi- generational radio programming: We r All Connected, The Peoples Botánica, Dr. Sweets Critique, & In the Spirit of Nat Turner.  We had two annual People Skool Decolonization/DegentriFUKation Seminars on Zoom. Next People Skool Seminar is January 25th & 26th, 2025 , info at www.poormagazine.org/education .  Fighting against the war on our houseless bodies after the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision Led a national press conference to Decline to Accept Grants Pass and to charge Gavin Newsom with War (On the Poor) Crimes. Launched “Sweeping us to Nowhere” WeSearch (aka research) investigation into sweeps after Grants Pass, with RooflessRadio reports across Yelamu (SF), Tovaangar (LA), Huchiun (Oakland), so-called Sacramento. Launched “Black Land Theft & Black Homelessness in Black History Month” youth and elder poverty skola WeSearch Report. Mamafesting Homefulness #4 in Tovaangar (LA) to permanently house our relatives Began a movement/family collaboration with our fellow Houseless relatives at Aetna Street Solidarity to help them Liberate Mama Earth and build their own forever homes. This October, we had the first HERstoric Elephant Meeting with 22 houseless poverty skolaz in so-called LA to fully mamafest Homefulness #4 with the help of ancestors and an amazing solidarity family. Crushing Wheelchairs  movie is in production - coming in 2025 After selling out 3 productions of the original theater show, Crushing Wheelchairs , with an all Houseless cast – honoring ancestors of homelessness, poLice terror and sweeps – the Crushing Wheelchairs  narrative film is in editing and will be released in 2025. View the “ Behind The Scenes: CRUSHING WHEELCHAIRS ” on Youtube and stay connected to learn more! Homefulness #2 in Deep East Huichin (Oakland) construction underway The construction of Homefulness #2, a fully off-grid project and a collaboration between Poor Magazine and Wood Street Commons, has commenced. We acquired the first two fully equipped container homes for Homefulness 2 – water and sewer system and two Pachamama garden boxes launched with DeeColonize Academy students. Still working on raising money for off-grid solar power for this powerful liberation project.

Photo credit: Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash.com Hello. My name is Freeway. I am a founding member of the Oakland Homeless Union. I am reaching out to express my concerns for the apparent recent change in policy that the city has undergone in reference to the Encampment Management Policy. Over the last few weeks, I have witnessed an unsettling trend in the encampment closures- or sweeps, as they're often known. More and more commonly, these traumatic events are beginning to take place over the weekend.  The notice of these sweeps is also becoming more and more vague, as it has become more common to see these pink notices being posted in the cover of dark- a tactic that is both confusing and intimidating.  It has long since been a common narrative of the City and the departments that oversee sweeps to tout that their motivation for these events is the safety and well-being of the unhoused residents. If this were true, why then is it necessary to present in such a secretive and misleading manner? Additionally, the question of who is responsible for these postings continues to go unanswered. A friend and advisor, Andrea Henson, informed me recently that she had spoken with the Chief of Police for Oakland and the City Attorney of Oakland. The conversation was based around clarifying who was responsible for these postings. After multiple correspondences, it still remains unclear which department is at the control panel, so to speak.  Of course, neither DPW, nor the Police Department, would take responsibility, nor would either give a straightforward answer.  So I am writing to ask for clarification on this matter. If no one is able to answer this question clearly, my next step will be to submit a Public Records request; afterall, if neither Andrea Henson, nor myself, can effectively get a clear, concise, honest answer, we must not be communicating our request clearly enough and I should just look up the answers for myself. In addition to these questions, I would also like to know why the city is now making it the standard to not include all of the intended sites for closure on its website showcasing the weekly schedule? On more than one occasion recently, unhoused residents were forced to endure sudden, unexpected encampment closures, with little or no notice at all. I'm aware of at least one that took place during the atmospheric river we experienced a couple weeks ago. As we speak, the small, majorly disabled encampment at 5th and Embarcadero is in the process of being swept- in the middle of a rainstorm, and right before the Christmas holiday. As if these sweeps were not difficult enough, now these residents are being forced to endure them in a torrential downpour? And with almost zero notice?  This leads me to wonder: how does this fit into the Encampment Management Policy? Unless the policy has changed, these are all direct violations of the city's own policy on how to conduct these sweeps. And, if it has changed, it certainly was not with the inclusion of input by people with lived or living experience. I would strongly urge the city, if this is the case, to reconsider this change and bring everyone back to the drawing board, with those most directly effected present. I also have to point out, that not only do these policies not represent the needs and the demands of those directly impacted by them, but they are, in fact, directly in opposition to the very well being that they are supposed to be preserving. After all, I can't remember the last time I witnessed a city official, the Governor, or any person who was living inside, undergoing a move where 50-100 police were present, most or all of their belongings were destroyed or disposed of, and the amount of time the person was given to complete the move was less than 30 minutes- that's including how much notice they had of the move even happening. The city is at the precipice of some very major change. The voices of the oppressed have gone silenced far too long. To summarize the collective conscience in a quote from Desmond Tutu: "I am not interested in picking up the crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights."  We're hungry, we're tired, and we're fed up with being given scraps and being told that we should be grateful for leftovers that nobody else wants. We are your neighbors, and we are fellow human beings. We have solutions to these so called "problems" that are so commonly blamed on our existence, but in truth, have very little to do with us; homelessness is nothing more than another colonizer lie.  We are ready to work with you to solve these problems, but make no mistake- we will work just as hard against you, if that's the path that is chosen. The ball is in your court now.  You may contact via my email, freeway.the.writer23@gmail.com ; or you can reach me on my phone, (510) 260-9420. I look forward to your response. In humble service, Freeway

Yelamu (SF) comeUnity was removed by heavily armed multiple state agencies at 2am with menacing state violence - Huchiun remains intact at Greyhound Bus Station. “The Park is closed, you have 15 minutes to remove your belongings and vacate the premises or you will be arrested… Actually now you have 14 minutes ,” Heavily armed San Francisco PoLice department, DPW workers, and Park Rangers arrived at 2am on Friday, December 19th at the Yelamu (SF) Sweeps-Free Comeunity  and announced to over 35 peacefully sleeping houseless, formerly houseless and housed allies that if they didn’t vacate the “park” within 15 minutes “This terrifying experience is just another in an ongoing militarized and endless war on houseless peoples bodies across occupied Turtle Island. We have nowhere to go, we hide in doorways and bus shelters just to try to sleep, we die of cold exposure, we lose limbs and our minds just trying to stay alive outside and if we are seen, we are harassed, arrested and terrorized for the sole act of not having access to the lie of rent,” said one of the formerly houseless organizer/residents of the Sweeps-Free Sanctuary ComeUnity and co-founder of POOR Magazine and Homefulness. There were over 35 houseless residents of the sanctuary comeUnity who received healthy, daily meals, clean and warm clothes, medicine, support, writing workshops and inspiration that something else besides endless violence, removal and terror was possible.  Mutual aid groups from all across the Bay supported this beautiful, prayerful, poor and houseless peoples led sanctuary.  On Tuesday, December 17th in response to increasingly violent and relentless  sweeps of houseless residents of California, houseless and formerly houseless sweeps survivors  along with housed allies and spiritual leaders launched several “sweeps-free sanctuary comeUnities” at City Halls and other public land sites in Yelamu (San Francisco), Huchiun (Oakland), Yocut (Fresno), Tovaangar (Los Angeles) and Sogorea Te (Vallejo) and Chief Sia’hl (Seattle).  In both Huchiun and Yelamu (Oakland & San Francisco ) houseless warriors are committed to the beautiful healing sanctuary ComeUnities we have built ,  “In Huchiun we have relocated to the parking lot of the Greyhound Bus station and are holding space “ said John Janosko, formerly houseless resident leader of Wood street commons. Oakland Sanctuary remains. In San Francisco everyone was removed to nowhere in the dark, cold night, including gravely disabled residents who were triggerred by the violence.  We will gather at the City Hall Plaza park on occupied Ohlone land at 11am on Friday, Dec 20th as planned and march to a privately “owned” and hoarded site of MamaEarth in Yelamu, SF “Sweeps fracture communities, displace people and damage physical and mental health,” Western Regional Advocacy Project(WRAP)  “Stop the war on the Poor, sweeps are killing us,”  Junebug Kealoha, formerly houseless organizer with POOR Magazine and Homefulness. “We have solutions, they are houseless, indigenous people-led solutions called Homefulness and Wood Street ComeUnity, not sweeps,” said Muteado Silencio, formerly houseless co-founder of Homefulness and Sanctuary resident.  Updates from other locations who launched sweeps-free communities across so-called California:   From Tovaangar/Los Angeles: Yesterday we gathered at the site of a former city-run shelter that has since been abandoned and locked up by barbed wire fences where a year ago, our community on Aetna Street was violently displaced. On these vacant, so-called “public” lands we rebuilt our sanctuary community on Aetna Street with our announcement of the San Fernando Valley Homeless Union led and founded by warrior women who lived on Aetna Street. We are fighting for Aetna Street to once again be a sanctuary for houseless people in the San Fernando Valley where community can power free laundry, free showers and provide free clothing and hot meals to everyone in our community. That evening, we held a community dinner where 200 people came throughout the night to support local street vendors and receive free medical care powered by All Power Free Clinic to build the sanctuary we need to defend our communities from sweeps, raids, displacement and deportation. 6 unhoused people dying on the streets of LA every day. We are committed to the call of houseless action across CA to reverse the tide and stand with poor and houseless peoples fighting for land liberation everywhere. We are a landless peoples movement! We have the solutions. We are the solutions! Updates from occupied Duwamish land Seattle: our noon rally was beautiful and we had 30-40 houseless warriors and housed allies on the steps of "Seattle" Shitty Hall. There was music, food, hot drinks, safer drug use kits, clothes, blankets, sleeping bags. We had speakers from Nickelsville, International League of Peoples Struggle, vehicle residents and WHEELs Women in Black held a moment of silence for our stolen relatives.  From Yocut lands aka so-called Fresno: “ Yesterday we met at City Hall lawn. We had prayer then we had four speakers one regarding the housing elements and lack of units we had the attorney speak on the data of the arrest the criminalization and also the current trials that are in the courts due to the arrest for being unhoused. We had a previous unhoused individual speak about the difficulties of surviving the streets the stress and disrespect that they went through in the shelters and the length of time it took for them to get into permanent Supportive Housing. Of course I said My Words which were basically covering the county and City responsible for using the funding for more than just admin fees telling them about the dream camp safe camp that I had here in Fresno for a year and a half that had never had an issue or a problem and ask them to model another safe area just like that that's governed by us. I also spoke on the criminalization, the amount it costs us, how Mental Health is affected by homelessness I also spoke on the lifespan of people that are evicted and lifespan on individuals that are suffering homelessness and trying to survive. We then went over to March over to the county building which is about two blocks away from the city hall and when we got there we were met with a whole bunch of police LOL but we chanted, did our chants outside, then we went to go walk in they took our posters from us we still went upstairs where we were met by another group of officers and then we went inside the chambers where we met by another group of officers it was ridiculous to have that many amount of police merely for community members wanting to speak up at Board of Supervisors County meeting. We had a few interviews from media. I brought up where do we go and pour magazine and also with Street Commons of how we join forces with solidarity Liberation day. Of course I addressed my rights being violated at the County public building many of us spoke up about multiple issues with homelessness housing criminalization and fighting for more places like homefulness., “ said Dez Martinez formerly houseless founder of Homeless in Fresno and We are not invisible  In addition to providing crucial resources for fellow houseless relatives in the cold, wet winter, we will be presenting solutions to homelessness created by us houseless people. Solutions that are healing housing models like Homefulness and Wood Street Commons Community  As well as looking at the example of Tent city 3 - created by SHARE/WHEEL in Seattle, Washington - which could be replicated by cities and counties across the US  “Public land should be for the public, instead we face violent sweeps,” said La Monte Ford, Wood Street Commons Sweeps survivor. Following the Grants Pass Vs Johnson Supreme Court Ruling that deemed houseless residents of the US no longer protected by the 8th amendment of the constitution California Gov. Gavin Newsome enhanced his already violent "sweeps"  policy of houseless people by directing  state agencies to dismantle homeless encampments on state land. He also threatened cities across the state with drastic budget cuts if they didnt comply with his clearing orders.  Hundreds of houseless elders and disabled adults lives have become gravely endangered and have died in increasing numbers due to this state sponsored violence over the last several months.  "Sweeping my mama and me caused us to lose multiple shelters, tents and cars we slept in and eventually each other.  Sweeping, jailing and harassing us houseless people never gets us a home, or "solves" our homelessness, it just makes our homelessness more dangerous and more deadly, said Tiny gray-garcia, formerly houseless, incarcerated,  co-founder of POOR Magazine, a poor and houseless people-led movement  and Homefulness - a homeless peoples solution to homelessness that currently houses 22 formerly houseless youth, adults and elders. All the government  "Solutions" like Cabin Communities and shelters have failed to create the necessaary foundation unhoused people need to be able to rebuild our lives, said John Janasko, houseless resident leader at Wood Street Commons, a community of houseless people working to organize and support fellow houseless people.    “There is no social justice in criminalizing our unhoused community there is no solution in solving homelessness by incarceration,” Junebug Keaoloha,formerly houseless Community health workers and poverty skola with  POOR Magazine /San Francisco  “200 years ago, before colonization there wasn’t even a concept of homelessness,” said Talking chief/spokesperson of the confederated villages of Lisjan/Ohlone and co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust and Family Elders Council member of Homefulness. "We center the launching of these sweeps-free sanctuary comeUnities in liberation of occupied and stolen indigenous land because we cannot talk about homelessness without talking about indigenous and Black Land theft, return and reparations, the violent history of indigenous land theft and genocide of colonization, chattle slavery, false borders and mass incarceration of Black, Brown, Indigenous and Disabled houseless peoples have led to the collective trauma of so many of us on the street and then we are terrorized by hundreds of laws that criminalize our bodies for being poor, without a roof, sleeping in our car, in doorways, in parks, on streets and in tents on so-called public (read: stolen) land. " concluded tiny gray-garcia   “The city, the so-called service providers—they’re not offering anybody anything. They’re just leaving us destitute. What should we get instead? We should get treated like the human beings that we are. I should get treated like your brother or sister.” - Giselle “Gelly” Harrell, Aetna Street Solidarity, Aetna Street Solidarity is an intergenerational community of housed & unhoused people organizing in Van Nuys against the criminalization of the poor currenlty working with POOR Magazine to create their own Homefulness Project..   PNN RoofLessRadio street writing workshop with houseless residents of Huchiun. Homefulness -is  a homeless peoples solution to homelessness which  just welcomed their 22nd houseless family into rent-free forever housing is one of the models we are presenting at the Sweeps-Free Sanctury ComeUnities.We are currently working with houseless comeUnities in San Francisco, LA, Seattle to create their own Homefulness Projects and on a second site of Homefulness in Oakland  Wood Street Sanctuary Community -  is a collaboration with affordable housing architect Mike Pyatok over the last year to envision a community-led solution to homelessness which houses teachers, working class families and the unhoused and includes an academy, a jobs program, dental care, health care and mental health care on site. In addition to press conferences, free stores, art installations, prayer vigils and sanctuary communities, housed allies will be standing, working and speaking up with houseless leaders to show their support for actual solutions, not more violent sweeps.  See Testimonials from houseless and formerly Houseless residents of Wood Street Commons and Homefulness by clicking here   Solutions to homelessness presented by houseless people     1    Sanctuary Communities, Not Sweeps: Stop sweeps, tows, and criminalizing poverty. Redirect encampment management funding towards positive solutions like encampment upgrades, sweeps-free sanctuary communities, and permanent low to no-income housing.      2    Land Back/Public Land for Public Good: House hundreds of people in the vacant Hilton Hotel on Port of Oakland land, The Civic Center Inn in the tenderloin District of San Francisco and/or countless other vacant and hoarded lots and land across Oakland and San Francisco.. Unsell and return sacred sites, vacant land, buildings and homes to stewardship by 1st peoples of Turtle Island who suffered the brutal genocide of colonization. Use public and vacant land for poor people led solutions like rent-free forever healing housing like Homefulness ,  communities and the Wood Street Commons housing vision designed with architect Mike Pyatok and Share/Wheel in Seattle.      3    Prevent Homelessness: Strengthen renter’s rights and provide rent subsidies. Create a permanent moratorium on rental evictions and foreclosures for non-payment. Evictions and foreclosures are elder and child abuse* and cause homelessness. (Based on POOR Magazine poor & houseless people-led WeSearch study of 2014)     4    Defund Coercive “Care Courts:” reinvest in an accessible and non-carceral approach to mental health care and harm reduction rooted in a framework of interdependence, care, and love first. Stop 5150 holds, medical incarceration, and forced conservatorships through Gavin Newsom's care courts which threaten to circumvent due process and other constitutional protections. *More Homeless peoples solutions available at this link   Follow the work of this movement on IG  @BayHousingLiberation  @poormagazine @woodstreetcommons Or websites: poormagazine.org / woodstreetcommons.org

Houseless artists, housed allies and spiritual leaders faced all night harassment by poLice , City Administrators and Park Rangers and still remain in SF City Hall - and Oakland Greyhound Parking Lot  “You can’t stay here,” City Administrator of occupied Huchiun aka Oakland told us houseless, formerly houseless and housed allies gathered peacefully at Oakland CIty Hall at Day 1 of our  Bay Area launch of Sweeps Free Sanctuary Communities.  “You are violating Park Code - you can’t have tents here, you can’t sleep here,”  at approximately 11:50pm at SF City Hall site of Sweeps-Free Sanctuary ComeUnities 8 park rangers arrived with guns and mace on their holsters and told us we needed to leave - that our work, although important wasn’t legal in the park. “This is important work but you can’t stay in the park with these tents, you are welcome to move to the perimeter of the park,” he said pointing to the green bike lane that surrounded the city hall plaza in San Francisco. “You mean we can move to the bike lane- how is that safe? We as houseless people are never safe, we are constantly , violently swept and removed,  but we are safe here together in this sanctuary and if you force us to leave you will be making us Unsafe again,” said tiny gray-garcia, formerly houseless, sweeps survivor and co-founder of POOR Magazine and Homefulness. On Tuesday, December 17th in response to increasingly violent and relentless  sweeps of houseless residents of California, houseless and formerly houseless sweeps survivors  along with housed allies and spiritual leaders will launch “sweeps-free sanctuary comeUnities” at City Halls and other public land sites in Yelamu (San Francisco), Huchiun (Oakland), Yocut (Fresno), Tovaangar (Los Angeles) and Sogorea Te (Vallejo) and Chief Sia’hl (Seattle).  In both Huchiun and Yelamu (Oakland & San Francisco ) houseless warriors are committed to the beautiful healing sanctuary ComeUnities we have built ,  “In Huchiun we have relocated to the parking lot of the Greyhound Bus station and are holding space “ said John Janasko, formerly houseless resident leader of Wood street commons  In San Francisco we remain in the city hall plaza -pls support us  Updates from other locations who launched sweeps-free communities across so-called California: From Tovaangar/Los Angeles: Yesterday we gathered at the site of a former city-run shelter that has since been abandoned and locked up by barbed wire fences where a year ago, our community on Aetna Street was violently displaced. On these vacant, so-called “public” lands we rebuilt our sanctuary community on Aetna Street with our announcement of the San Fernando Valley Homeless Union led and founded by warrior women who lived on Aetna Street. We are fighting for Aetna Street to once again be a sanctuary for houseless people in the San Fernando Valley where community can power free laundry, free showers and provide free clothing and hot meals to everyone in our community. That evening, we held a community dinner where 200 people came throughout the night to support local street vendors and receive free medical care powered by All Power Free Clinic to build the sanctuary we need to defend our communities from sweeps, raids, displacement and deportation. 6 unhoused people dying on the streets of LA every day. We are committed to the call of houseless action across CA to reverse the tide and stand with poor and houseless peoples fighting for land liberation everywhere. We are a landless peoples movement! We have the solutions. We are the solutions! Updates from occupied Duwamish land Seattle: our noon rally was beautiful and we had 30-40 houseless warriors and housed allies on the steps of "Seattle" Shitty Hall. There was music, food, hot drinks, safer drug use kits, clothes, blankets, sleeping bags. We had speakers from Nickelsville, International League of Peoples Struggle, vehicle residents and WHEELs Women in Black held a moment of silence for our stolen relatives.  From Yocut lands aka so-called Fresno: “Yesterday we met at City Hall lawn. We had prayer then we had four speakers one regarding the housing elements and lack of units we had the attorney speak on the data of the arrest the criminalization and also the current trials that are in the courts due to the arrest for being unhoused. We had a previous unhoused individual speak about the difficulties of surviving the streets the stress and disrespect that they went through in the shelters and the length of time it took for them to get into permanent Supportive Housing. Of course I said My Words which were basically covering the county and City responsible for using the funding for more than just admin fees telling them about the dream camp safe camp that I had here in Fresno for a year and a half that had never had an issue or a problem and ask them to model another safe area just like that that's governed by us I also spoke on the criminalization the amount it cost us how Mental Health is affected by homelessness I also spoke on the lifespan of people that are evicted and lifespan on individuals that are suffering homelessness and trying to survive. We then went over to March over to the county building which is about two blocks away from the city hall and when we got there we were met with a whole bunch of police LOL but we chanted did our chance outside then we went to go walk in they took our posters from us we still went upstairs where we were met by another group of officers and then we went inside the chambers where we met by another group of officers it was ridiculous to have that many amount of police merely for community members wanting to speak up at Board of Supervisors County meeting. We had a few interviews from media. I brought up where do we go and pour magazine and also with Street Commons of how we join forces with solidarity Liberation day. Of course I addressed my rights being violated at the County public building many of us spoke up about multiple issues with homelessness housing criminalization and fighting for more places like homefulness," said Dez Martinez formerly houseless founder of Homeless in Fresno and We are not invisible  In addition to providing crucial resources for fellow houseless relatives in the cold, wet winter, we will be presenting solutions to homelessness created by us houseless people. Solutions that are healing housing models like Homefulness and Wood Street Commons Community  As well as looking at the example of Tent city 3 - created by SHARE/WHEEL in Seattle, Washington - which could be replicated by cities and counties across the US.  “Public land should be for the public, instead we face violent sweeps,” said La Monte Ford, Wood Street Commons Sweeps survivor. Following the Grants Pass Vs Johnson Supreme Court Ruling that deemed houseless residents of the US no longer protected by the 8th amendment of the constitution California Gov. Gavin Newsom enhanced his already violent "sweeps"  policy of houseless people by directing  state agencies to dismantle homeless encampments on state land. He also threatened cities across the state with drastic budget cuts if they didn't comply with his clearing orders.  Hundreds of houseless elders and disabled adults lives have become gravely endangered and have died in increasing numbers due to this state sponsored violence over the last several months.  "Sweeping my mama and me caused us to lose multiple shelters, tents and cars we slept in and eventually each other.  Sweeping, jailing and harassing us houseless people never gets us a home, or "solves" our homelessness, it just makes our homelessness more dangerous and more deadly, said Tiny gray-garcia, formerly houseless, incarcerated,  co-founder of POOR Magazine, a poor and houseless people-led movement  and Homefulness - a homeless peoples solution to homelessness that currently houses 22 formerly houseless youth, adults and elders. All the government  "Solutions" like Cabin Communities and shelters have failed to create the necessaary foundation unhoused people need to be able to rebuild our lives, said John Janasko, houseless resident leader at Wood Street Commons, a community of houseless people working to organize and support fellow houseless people.     “There is no social justice in criminalizing our unhoused community there is no solution in solving homelessness by incarceration,” Junebug Keaoloha, formerly houseless Community health workers and poverty skola with  POOR Magazine /San Francisco. “200 years ago, before colonization there wasn’t even a concept of homelessness,” said Talking chief/spokesperson of the confederated villages of Lisjan/Ohlone and co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust and Family Elders Council member of Homefulness. "We center the launching of these sweeps-free sanctuary comeUnities in liberation of occupied and stolen indigenous land because we cannot talk about homelessness without talking about indigenous and Black Land theft, return and reparations, the violent history of indigenous land theft and genocide of colonization, chattle slavery, false borders and mass incarceration of Black, Brown, Indigenous and Disabled houseless peoples have led to the collective trauma of so many of us on the street and then we are terrorized by hundreds of laws that criminalize our bodies for being poor, without a roof, sleeping in our car, in doorways, in parks, on streets and in tents on so-called public (read: stolen) land. " concluded tiny gray-garcia   “The city, the so-called service providers—they’re not offering anybody anything. They’re just leaving us destitute. What should we get instead? We should get treated like the human beings that we are. I should get treated like your brother or sister.” - Giselle “Gelly” Harrell, Aetna Street Solidarity, Aetna Street Solidarity is an intergenerational community of housed & unhoused people organizing in Van Nuys against the criminalization of the poor currenlty working with POOR Magazine to create their own Homefulness Project..   Homefulness -is  a homeless peoples solution to homelessness which  just welcomed their 22nd houseless family into rent-free forever housing is one of the models we are presenting at the Sweeps-Free Sanctury ComeUnities. We are currently working with houseless comeUnities in San Francisco, LA, Seattle to create their own Homefulness Projects and on a second site of Homefulness in Oakland  Wood Street Sanctuary Community -  is a collaboration with affordable housing architect Mike Pyatok over the last year to envision a community-led solution to homelessness which houses teachers, working class families and the unhoused and includes an academy, a jobs program, dental care, health care and mental health care on site. In addition to press conferences, free stores, art installations, prayer vigils and sanctuary communities, housed allies will be standing, working and speaking up with houseless leaders to show their support for actual solutions, not more violent sweeps.  See Testimonials from houseless and formerly Houseless residents of Wood Street Commons and Homefulness by clicking here   Solutions to homelessness   presented by houseless people     1    Sanctuary Communities, Not Sweeps: Stop sweeps, tows, and criminalizing poverty. Redirect encampment management funding towards positive solutions like encampment upgrades, sweeps-free sanctuary communities, and permanent low to no-income housing.      2    Land Back/Public Land for Public Good: House hundreds of people in the vacant Hilton Hotel on Port of Oakland land, The Civic Center Inn in the tenderloin District of San Francisco and/or countless other vacant and hoarded lots and land across Oakland and San Francisco.. Unsell and return sacred sites, vacant land, buildings and homes to stewardship by 1st peoples of Turtle Island who suffered the brutal genocide of colonization. Use public and vacant land for poor people led solutions like rent-free forever healing housing like Homefulness , communities and the Wood Street Commons housing vision designed with architect Mike Pyatok and Share/Wheel in Seattle.      3    Prevent Homelessness: Strengthen renter’s rights and provide rent subsidies. Create a permanent moratorium on rental evictions and foreclosures for non-payment. Evictions and foreclosures are elder and child abuse* and cause homelessness. (Based on POOR Magazine poor & houseless people-led WeSearch study of 2014)     4    Defund Coercive “Care Courts”: reinvest in an accessible and non-carceral approach to mental health care and harm reduction rooted in a framework of interdependence, care, and love first. Stop 5150 holds, medical incarceration, and forced conservatorships through Gavin Newsom's care courts which threaten to circumvent due process and other constitutional protections. *More Homeless peoples solutions available at this link  Follow the work of this movement on IG  @BayHousingLiberation  @poormagazine @woodstreetcommons Or websites: poormagazine.org / woodstreetcommons.org

By tiny aka povertyskola  Shipping containers placed to block access to People’s Park. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight via Berkeleyside Cement blocks and locks built on settler intentions  Locking up -  Blocking up  Poor bodies lives  Until they chauking us  Our Houseless bodies  r worth more to them locked up  So what is mine and what is yours  The question seeds a thousand wars  So how many homes can they shut up with lock and key  How many times will you incarcerate me  How many locks will they place on Mama Earths and ancestors sacred spaces   So we can’t even sit or stand while poor in any of the places Gates, walls, doors & fences How tall do u need to build  Before you bring out the guns and shoot to kill  gates, walls and fences  Formations meant To contain and maintain  Until you have crushed our hearts and our Mama Earth A thousand ways  But cant u see  No matter how high u build  No matter how many of us u buy to keep still  We come back  We rise up, tear down and clap back We scream, we will be heard  We will be seen  We will take down your gates From Peoples Park to the West Bank  Piece by piece in a thousand ways  We will sing -  We will pray  Mama Earth and all us poor mamas will prevail  From Palestine  To Turtle Island MamaEarth is NOT for sale