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  • Houseless People Create a movie about Homelessness...

    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: Premiere of the Movie in the SF Bay Area: 12noon Sunday, November 9th The Roxie Theatre 3117 16th St San Francisco, Ca 6pm Saturday, December 6th The New Parkway Theatre 474 24th St, Oakland, Ca SEE THE TRAILER OF THE MOVIE 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.

  • Theft of Our Last Crumb

    The Federal Government's Attempt to Starve us and the Emergency Need for our Own Self-determined Solutions SNAP or no SNAP  These weren't life sustaining  plans  Only bits and pieces of a weallthhoarding trap  To make us feel like we had a life raft  An option to dying of hunger even tho we all pay their pinche tax Whats happening republiCRAPS - you don’t even need to hide behind the lies of neo-liberal crum snatch Lets go back  The new deal - brought in when we were starving on the streets cuz the wealthhoarders were starting to feel  a little scared cuz there are more of us poor than any of you billionaires  who kill and trash and endlessly steal -  And yet here we are again- not so many years later in the time of an orange tinted cartoon criminal man  And we po folks face racist, classist theft of our last crum yet again  Where do we go? They stole our tents, they created the lie of rent, they create false borders and guns to keep us on the run and now our WIC cheese our EBT crum and our homes - this evil sys is moving as fast as it can for the last trace of food stuck to the inside of my bones  They want us in terror , stripping our tiny shred of safety in their scarcity poverty   But snap or no SNAP - we have solutions, based in facts, that are real not based on more scarcity crack  Stay strong - walk closer together - grow any space into micro-farms, reach out to comeunity already lifting up solutions like charms  Poverty and krapitalism had Me and mama on the street - where we would still be - poltricks didnt save us ) we saved ourself with radical sharing and revolutionary ComeUnity….  “Mama we don’t have anymore money on the EBT card..” this sentence often spoke somewhere between the 20th and 30th of the month, depending if we spent too much on the luxury items like fresh veggies, fruit or meat, was always filled with dread cause there really was no answer or option  Everyday under the orange tinted criminal- wanna b king- there is another violent act being waged against poor people, houseless people, indigenous peoples, Black and Brown peoples and arguably just people, who don’t have access to billions of blood-stained dollars .  Now the violent republCRAPs have waged war on our most basic of crums - the tiny bit we receive from the poltricksters for food assistance aka EBT, food Stamps, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) The funny, not funny thing about this SNAP theft is the wealth-hoarders have begrudgingly “granted” those meager food crumbs off their feudal tables since the New Deal and its subsequent scarcity model was passed into law in the 1930’s. Created allegedly to support the amerikkklan people in poverty but on the real, created because there were more angry poor people than there were wealthoarding hoarders- just like there is today.  The New Deal and its “support” programs were also raced and classed and set up in a scarcity model. Originally only designated for “white, widows of war veterans,” falling in line with the hetero patriarchal, racist, classist hate of anyone else not in these categories, enhancing the criminalization, and pathologizing of peoples of color, indigenous peoples, unmarried women, single parents, disabled peoples, etc.  The scarcity model comes from the place of how little can we give people to keep them silent and alive, rather than how much do people need to thrive? This means we poor folks are constantly making unhealthy choices with our grocery shopping, like not buying too much , if any, organic fruit or vegetables, never considering grass-fed meat, much-less meat or chicken at all, hormone free milk or cheese and rarely if ever, dreaming of healthy cereals or less fat-filled foods. But these haters are also taking our food crumbs and our emergency food crumbs, aka Women, Infant and Childrens food program ( WIC). Cause with the orange criminal and his Good Ole Boys (GOP) it actually seems like they want us to die. But SNAP OR NO SNAP….   Bottom line is the scarcity model crumbs have never been enough to feed , clothe, house and truly support poor people. It was a deep struggle for my mama to survive on those crumbs and raise me right when she relied on the state for support and it was equally hard for me and my sun.  This scarcity also led and still leads to so many of us poor families being forced into underground economic strategies, which then often leads to our increased criminalization and incarceration. But hey the wealthhoarders make money on their private prisons and sick detention centers so that has always been a win win for them. THe pandemic called Poverty  Long before the so-called pandemic and the dire lack of food , medicine or support when it first hit all of our low-no income communities, POOR Magazine - a poor /houseless people led movement of art, media, education and solutions by us for us and everyone else, had instituted free healthy food giveaways, organic produce, that privileged, housed people donated to us, free diaper programs, hot meals and more that we poor folks constantly were distributing to our fellow impoverished bay area comeumity  In 2011 when conscious, housed wealth-hoarders who had attended  Peopleskool and formed the solidarity family at POOR Magazine, raised the money to purchase a small part of Mama Earth in occupied Huchiun so us poor and houseless peoples could build our own solution to homelessness we call HOMEFulness. It was ON!  We officially launched the sliding scale cafe/mercadito de cambio (little market of change ) the Po Mamas Panale (diaper) program and more - all aimed at redistributing everything we received from housed relatives and other revolutionary orgs, away to fellow poor folks.  In 2020 when COVID hit, we just gave more. We increased from just diapers to medicine, from just hot food to organic fruit, and veggies, from some groceries to entire bags of groceries, clothes, shoes, bugie, organic baked goods and more. And have kept this consistent every week thru today where we radically share all of  this with over 500 babies, youth, adults and elders every week at Homefulness Sliding Scale Cafe .  Yes, I’m Scared So yes as a formerly houseless, no-income, single parent EBT recipient myself, I’m scared for this coming Saturday, when they take these crucial crumbs away from me and my family and comeUnity, but SNAP or no SNAP, I have come to realize that politricks is nothing but a trick and is always pulling some Sheeeit.     And in this time of so much hate, lies and wealth-hoarding evil from Turtle Island to Palestine, we have to walk even closer together. We have to all practice these visions of radical redistribution and Comeunity reparations.  We are all connected and our shared humanity is all we have as humans. No politrickster or wealth-hoarder will “Save us”  And people who have , as my mama would put it, “Never missed a meal” need to participate in this moment with love not scarcity, radically sharing with those of us facing missed meals, empty refrigerators and scarcity fear, now more than ever. And they are already doing it.  Look at all the restaurants standing up with offers of free food and love - WahPepahs Kitchen, Monster Pho and Understory in Oakland to Tony Albas Pizza in San Jose to name a few. Look at the already here grassroots movements already doing this radical redistribution like The Self-Help Hunger Program, Wood Street Commons, Love and Justice in the Streets, the SLiding Scale Cafe/Market of Change/ Homies Empowerment, Deep Medicine Circle and so many more We can’t rely on a government that is already targeting us as the “The enemy inside” and hunting down 1st grade children, mamas and papas and elders to arrest and anyone that doesnt look like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.  Self-determination is liberation. Liberation is the medicine of love we need now. Not more reliance on government structures that sweep, incarcerate, murder, kidnap, profile and destroy every poor person they can.

  • UnSelling at the Recorders Office in Huchiun

    For Immediate release: contact tiny 510-435-7500, Mute  Mama Earth is NOT for Sale!  Houseless/Poor, Black, Brown, Disabled ComeUnity in collaboration with 1st Nations Peoples of this land create a HERstoric document to decommodify a small part of Mama Earth in Huchiun (Oakland) and Record it  What: Legally UnSelling Mama Earth Ceremony Part 2   When: 1:30pm Thursday, Oct 23rd  Where: Recorders Office 1106 Madison St  I overstand and agree that We are stewards of the land- we, the landless, houseless, indigenous, poor peoples who launched Homefulness & our children & childrens children and generations beyond-  who thanks to Homefulness are now Homeful-  DO NOT OWN MAMA EARTH. None of us who live here own the land, and never will .  Excerpt from the Liberation Easement and Peoples Agreement of Homefulness On October 23rd  with legal support from Sustainable Economies Law Center, POOR Magazine/Homefulness and Sogorea Te Land Trust will hold an all nations prayer ceremony to celebrate the creation of a new legal document within the settler colonial government of the US that solidifies the decommodification and holds the land of Homefulness in permanent protection from real estate speculation, eviction and gentrification. “Me and my disabled mama were evicted 22 times, most of these evictions were for non-payment of rent. As a no-income, disabled, woman of color my mama had no money for rent. We ended up on the street for the rest of my youth.  279 people (on record ) became houseless after the end of the eviction moratorium in Oakland and thousands more across the country. People talk about “the homeless problem” all the time, but they never talk about the krapitalist problem of buying and selling mama earth. If Mama Earth was taken off the commodities market tomorrow, we could end homelessness.This is the articulation of that dream,” said tiny gray-garcia, co-founder of POOR Magazine and Homefulness.   Houseless/landless Black/Brown, indigenous, disabled peoples who have faced chronic homelessness, poverty, evctions, displacement,racism, criminalization border terrorism, gentrification and violent sweeps have built a solution to homelessness they call Homefulness. Before they began the creation of this solution, they asked for permission, protocol, spiritual guidance  from 1st Nations peoples of this stolen land. In the case of Oakland that is the Ohlone/Lisjan Nation.  “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. As poor and houseless people on stolen land they clearly understand the settler lie of ownership of Mama Earth and the ongoing speculative markets’ impact on their lives, families and communities, as first Nations/indigenous peoples from all four corners have lived, taught  and practiced since the beginning of their creation stories.  “This is the most creative, unusual, and moving legal document I have seen,” said Sustainable Economies Law Center attorney Janelle Orsi. “The words of the Homefulness residents brought members of our legal team to tears.”  POOR Magazine, which holds title to the Homefulness land, will be granting a “Liberation Easement” to the Sogorea Te' Land Trust. This is a form of conservation easement under California law. The easement preserves the land as a hub of poor people-led organizing, a site of Indigenous cultural revitalization, and permanent collective stewardship of the land, protecting it from returning to the speculative market.  “For years, the leaders at POOR Magazine have been asking us how to legally ‘unsell’ land, to ensure that it is never again treated as a commodity for sale. Our legal system makes it hard to liberate land from the speculative market. The Liberation Easement is our effort to use the legal system’s tools to permanently ‘unsell’ the land,” said Janelle Orsi. Veryl Pow, staff attorney at the Law Center adds, “The liberation easement extends the abolitionist practice of ‘non-reformist reforms’ from the carceral context to the liberation of land. We can strategically and selectively use so-called ‘property law’ mechanisms to construct a world where Pachamama is unowned in practice, and people can live together and begin to heal from the unending violence of colonialism and capitalism.” Testimonies from houseless, now Homeful residents of Homefulness  To watch the ceremony Live, follow @poormagazine on IG

  • ICE

    Por/By Teo Vamos a comunicar todos los residentes en general. Humedos, secos, no papeles. Con papeles, Capitalistas. Pobres. Democatras. No democratas. Nos estamos enfrentando al mustro de ice que lo alimenta el racismo por que se estan brincando lo balioso que  toda persona en USA tiene sus derechos, pero el mustro del ICE lo apoya. El capitalista #47 tiene los polisias express de ICE por muchas grandes ciudades de nuestro pais. El policia interno de los estados unidos esta contra todas nuestra comunidades. Arresta a todo tipo de personas. No respetan los derechos que todo ciudadano de las comunidades que es libertad de expresion de su libertad. Su objetivo es causar teror. Todos los dias algunos noticieros comunican las injusticias de ICE.   We're going to communicate with all residents in general. Wet, dry, undocumented. With documents, Capitalists. Poor. Democrats. Not Democrats. We are facing the ICE monster that is fueled by racism because they are ignoring the important thing that every person in the US has their rights, but the ICE monster supports them. Capitalist #47 has ICE express police in many large cities across our country. The United States' internal police are against all our communities. They arrest all kinds of people. They don't respect the rights of every citizen in these communities, which is freedom of expression and freedom of expression. Their goal is to cause terror. Every day, some news programs report on the injustices of ICE.

  • KopWatch: ALWAYS FILM THE POLICE

    "ALWAYS FILM THE POLICE"   AFTP                                                                                                "No", yelled Poverty scholar Gera in this episode of Kop watch Aztlan when being told to, "back up", by the Po-lice in the middle of them violating rights, questioning passengers for identification during a basic traffic stop. Chicano gang task force is holding authorities accountable by not only recording them live on the spot but also by making them show transparency asking them for name and badge numbers. Kop watch Aztlan is calling these officers out for violating rights while holding his ground as we all should when documenting Tyranny by this corrupt Government. "RESISTANCE THEN DISTANCE"

  • REDADAS DE HIELO -SECUESTRO EN VERDE // ICE RAIDS - KIDNAPPING IN GREEN

    Por Alvaro Kepokamaztli Tellez/ By Alvaro Kepokamaztli Tellez       San Francisco, Oakland y alrededores. Trabajadores asistieron al Nuevo Sol Day labor and Domestic Worker Center en el distrito de la Mission, para participar en la reunión semanal donde se reúnen usualmente 40 trabajadores. La baja asistencia  es un reflejo del miedo que se ha apoderado de la comunidad desde que el ICE ha intensificado los arrestos bajo la actual administración. La realidad no estamos asustados, estamos aterrorizados y es que la realidad de todo este infierno no solo en la Bahía sino en todo el país nos mantiene más alerta. Antes nos teníamos que cuidar de las camionetas verdes o azules de ICE pero hoy no sabemos de quien cuidarnos? Ya que ahora andan en carros, SUV, vidrios obscuros, algunos con placas de otro estado o sin placas, también el mayor problema son los llamados CAZARRECOMPENSAS que andan con las caras cubiertas y literalmente andan secuestrando a nuestra gente incluyendo niños y adultos. Esto del sueño americano se ha convertido en una pesadilla: Por ahora estamos en resistencia, hay que caminar con precaución, estar vigilantes cuando andamos en la calle, ver a nuestros alrededores, tratar de reconocer carros sospechosos y por desgracia evitar lugares donde hay actividades de ICE donde nuestra gente compra sus alimentos o herramientas de trabajo y tambien lo mas importante saber nuestros derechos si llegamos a tener contacto con ICE, como mantenerse callado, tener numeros de telefono de abogados de imigracion o agencias comunitarias y sobre todo tener un plan con la familia! TLAZOKAMATI EL KEPOKAMAZTLI San Francisco, Oakland and surrounding areas. Workers attended the Nuevo Sol Day Labor and Domestic Worker Center in the Mission District to participate in the weekly meeting where 40 workers usually gather.  Low attendance is a reflection of the fear that has gripped the community since ICE has intensified arrests under the current administration. The reality is that we are not scared, we are terrified and that is that the reality of all this hell not only in the Bay but throughout the country keeps us more alert.  Before we had to be cautious of the ICE green or blue pickups but today we do not know who to be cautious of? Since now they are in cars, SUVs, dark glasses, some with plates of another state or without plates, also the biggest problem are the so-called BOUNTY HUNTERS that walk with their faces covered and literally kidnap our people including children and adults. This American dream thing has become a nightmare: For now we are in resistance, we have to walk with caution, be vigilant when we walk in the street, see our surroundings, try to recognize suspicious cars and unfortunately avoid places where there are ICE activities where our people buy their food or work tools and it is also important to know our rights if we come into contact with ICE, such as keeping quiet, having phone numbers of immigration lawyers or community agencies and especially having a plan with the family!  TLAZOKAMATI EL KEPOKAMAZTLI

  • Please Don’t Crush My Wheelchair…

    A new movie created and lived by houseless poets and cultural workers, with an all houseless cast, about homelessness, is released in the Bay Area  “ The only people who see me are people who hope i disappear.. ” tiny aka povertyskola… “He was just trying to sleep,” Shawn O’ Malley, one of the houseless leaders from the Vallejo Homeless Union spoke to POOR Magazine’s RoofLessRadio after the tragic death at a sweep of James Edward Oakley.  James is just one of the ancestors of the violent war ON the poor I wrote the new movie Crushing Wheelchairs  in honor of. “At 65 years old they evicted me from my home, my community,  where i provided a home and cooked for hundreds of houseless neighbors, where i, who was houseless myself for many years finally had a safe place to be…. To face eviction as an elder resulted in me wanting to take my own life. This was Reggies story who I “play” in the movie, this is my story…As tiny says, We aren’t Acting, we are living..”  said Auntie Frances Moore, one of the all houseless and formerly houseless cast members of Crushing Wheelchairs at a series of benefit screenings of the trailer at outdoor sites of violent sweeps and gentrification like East 12th St in East Oakland, the Tenderloin district of San Francisco and the Self-Help Hunger Program in North Oakland, locations where many houseless Black elders and families used to be housed before they were houseless. I wrote Crushing Wheelchairs  originally as a play that was staged in 2023 and presented across the Bay to acclaim and standing room only crowds, dedicated  to my houseless mama and me who survived many devastating sweeps of our belongings and comeUnities and hundreds of other houseless Black, Brown, indigenous, poor white and Disabled ancestors who have lost their lives to the violence of anti-poor people hate and sweeps.  After the Grants Pass versus Johnson ruling in 2024, which deemed our houseless bodies as no longer deserving of protection under the 8th Amendment of the US CONstitution, I knew this powerful medicine had to be turned into a movie that could travel as far and wide as possible. So with encouragement from a teacher/mentor Darrah Cloud at a residency I was in at Goddard College, i wrote my first screenplay, an adaptation of the play of the same name.. As soon as I finished the screenplay all of us houseless povertyskolaz at POOR Magazine launched a collaboration with Green Diamond Films, a  grassroots film production company, led by a sun of African-Portugese povertyskolaz Adrian Diamond and began shooting the movie. Filmed entirely on the streets of Deep East and North Oakland, the Tenderloin and Mission Districts of San Francisco, we began production on this no budget film that took a series of three insane weekends of non-stop dedicated work by all of us. “Noooooooo, don’t take my wheelchair, “ Reggie (played by Aunti Frances Moore) wails up into the sky facing the jaws of the looming bulldozer as it crashes down on her only mode of mobility and the tent she was sleeping in. Reggie’s character is based on a compilation of three ancestors of eviction, gentrification and homelessness, Iris Canada, who was evicted at 100 years old from her life-llong home in the Fillmore district of San Francisco  Papa Bear, a Black war veteran and panhandler who died on the streets of the Tenderloin after receiving 280 tickets for the sole act of sleeping outside and Kenneth X, a janitor who was illegally evicted from his North Oakland home of 11 years and made houseless, as well as Aunti Frances herself. We also deal with themes of domestic violence, gentrifUKation of our towns and barrios, racism, trauma, job loss, mental illness, institutionalization, criminalization, poLice Terror, ableism and classism, all aspects of this Krapitalist system that lead to our ending up on the street. And dying on the street. The title of the movie alone tells a huge aspect of the multiple acts of state terror called Sweeps, casually and commonly used against disabled, houseless people when we live on the street or in our vehicles without a physical address.Nothing and no-one is spared and we have no recourse to stop the State or retrieve our prescious belongings, cars or RV’s… or in many cases, our bodies.  “James had already moved from three other locations and had nowhere else to go when they ran over him with a backhoe,”  Shawn continued describing the violent death on Christmas eve of 2024 of James Edward Oakley,  Hundreds of disabled elders who make up the majority of houseless people  lose their lives to the violence of homelessness, from being run over by bulldozers like James Edward Oakley, Cornelius Taylor and Shannon Marie Bigley whose stories run through this movie as well as young people profiled and murdered for survival crimes like Banko Brown, who was murdered in a Walgreens store in San Francisco, and Steven Taylor murdered in a Walmart in San Leandro. In addition, disabled elders like Anjileen “Green Eyes” Swan from so-called  Los Angeles  who are already medically fragile and then get “swept” and lose their medicine and meager shelters often die from the physical and mental trauma. Elders like JT who died after losing everything in the East 12th St Sweep in Oakland a few months back. And then straight up anti-poor people hate, like another ancestors we honor, Luis Temaj, burned alive for sleeping outside in San Francisco’s Mission District. “Luis was my friend,he helped me all the time because i was pregnant when i was homeless, he was a very sweet man, he did nothing wrong, his only crime was being homeless..” Stephanie Grant, a single parent of five children was houseless and pregnant in 2016 when she witnessed the murder by police of her friend and fellow houseless neighbor, Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat, one of the many ancestors of homelessness we tell the story of and honor in Crushing Wheelchairs. From our baby pictures to our ancestors ashes, from our wheelchairs and walkers to our insullin, Nothing is sacred when you are outside. Our bodies and belongings struggle with what i call the violence of exposure. We are not protected, like housed people, by the privilege of privacy.  “They came into our community (the Compound)  with guns and flash grenades!... we were just trying to sleep,” Gelly, one of the currently houseless leaders of Aetna Street Solidarity in Occupied Tovaangar (LA) spoke on a panel we held after a series of benefit screenings of the trailer of Crushing Wheelchairs at Tia Chuchas Bookstore , MidnightBooks and All Power Books .  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 so-called San Francisco (Yelamu), the mayor has deemed our presence a blight; and passed a ban of all houseless peoples living in their RV’s and in so-called Los Angeles (Tovaangar and Tatavian lands)  where, on average, six unhoused people die everyday, our outside comeUnities (encampments) are being destroyed, evicted, and disappeared. and in Huchiun (Oakland) like all of these cities there are multiple anti-poor people laws on the books that make living without a home a crime, but then on top of all of those, in September city council member Ken Houston proposed yet another anti-poor people law called the Encampment Abatement Policy which among other things deems houseless peoples bodies criminal just for being outside in so-called Oakland and if passed would lead to the death of more of us houseless residents. After a mass show of support from housed allies, his measure was tabled. For now.  “We were a home to over 75 people, they split us up because we were a threat to what they( the city)  was trying to do,” Paisley, another currently houseless leader of Aetna Street solidarity spoke about the violent sweep of the Compund Comeunity in so-called LA This movie lifts up the stories of what we were before we were transformed into an objectified, criminalized “thing” aka The homeless people… and were, just like many of you reading this story, housed and in struggle to stay housed. We are no different. We just can’t hide our trauma behind a roof and a door. This movie also highlights solutions. Because we have them. ComeUnity Reparations, radical redistribution by housed people working in tandem with houseless people, Homefulness and Wood Street Commons. Solutions created by us for us that work because they are based on our own lived experience. Our Poverty Scholarship as we call it at POOR Magazine. Paisely and Gelly, along with Carla, Adrian, Will and many more are just some of the houseless povertyskolaz we have the blessing of working with in the Aetna Street/ POOR Magazine LA family working to build HomefulnessTovaangar. We are also currently working on trying to bring Homefulness to Yelamu, (San Francisco)  “Myself and my daughters were houseless for over a year and it was really bad for our mental and physical health, so along with an organization called Reclaiming Our Homes we took abandoned homes because we learned that we can’t rely on the legal system, it has never worked for us, it was never meant to,” , said Martha Escudero at the Benefit Trailer Screening at All Power Books in Tovaangar (LA).  This movie is also art and and spirit and includes poetry from powerful Poverty skola poets like Luis Rodriguez, Ayodele Nzinga, Tongo Eisen-martin, Devorah Major and me, PovertySkola and Dee Allen, Muteado Silencio and Frances Moore to name a few from the houseless poets of the Po Poets Project of POOR Magazine. As well as prayer from 1st Nations and indigenous prayer-bringers and land stewards Corrina Gould, Lyn Eagle Feather, Tony Gonzalez and Jose Cuellar and Street Preachers Harry Louis Williams and Brother Mink.  This movie is an emergency. This movie is medicine. For all of us, houseless and housed residents of occupied Turtle Island, because sweeping humans to nowhere is not an “answer” to homelessness, it's a death sentence.    Our Bay Area premeires of the movie are coming up - please join us.. November 9th at 12:30pm at the Roxie and December 6th at 6pm at the New Parkway in Oakland with an LA date at Vidiots coming soon.. Tickets are sliding scale starting at free for houseless povertyskolaz  and will be available at the Roxie or by emailing us poormag@gmail.com  - or going to www.poormagazine.org  -We got NO Hollywood love on this movie so please help us spread this urgent medicine far and wide and contact us for a screening in your town or comeUnity.

  • War what is it really good for

    By Queennandi Shabazz Vietnam War before and after As far as man can remember, to do battle has been a destructive staple in the defined and redefined books of history.  Whether it was to uphold the hoarding of wealth, land and cultural power mankind has always made sure that the shedding of blood was on the agenda no matter how many lives were lost. The Vietnam war, the Nigerian civil war and the French wars of religion alone claimed the lives of up to at least 15-20 million people and those who survived were only subjected to a form of oppression that still to this day live in impoverished conditions under the razor blade-like boot heels of wicked dictators who would prefer to boast with a toast drinking the finest wines while feasting on Mama Nature’s (“exotic” forbidden foods) from billion dollar homes and boats…. While the rest of us are living in subhuman conditions slitting each other’s throats over a grain of Jasmine rice, salty potted meats and parasite infested water.  And rest assured if we have a president who is beastly greedy enough to take away any crumbs of hellthcare, moldy housing, deserved benefits and the food given to us thanks to the generosity of food pantries, WAR has been declared upon the people!  Cambodia is one of the most beautiful, morally and culturally humble countries I have ever been blessed to experience. If I was hungry, there was always a kind soul that looked upon it as being a sincere honor to sit and break bread with the family. Now our “Sistuh-neighbors” Thailand and Cambodia are at war and according to a correspondent from the non-profit organization “The Queen’s Consortium of Humanity” in Cambodia “Thailand is attacking the boarders of Cambodia for not just land but for precious and sacred artifacts. Kinda like how the white people did the original Black Egyptians!” The correspondent went on to say “Also the plague of drug trafficking has upgraded to horrific levels. It is starting to look like a worldwide agenda to break  our spirits with famine and supply us with the devil’s candy to self-medicate us into another “ zombieland” that even sister (Queennandi Shabazz) experienced in her neighborhood back in the states.” War is only good if man continues to be hell bent on destroying man- and Mama Earth. So a word to the people- stand strong in faith, as the devilish people of the world continue to declare war against us, the wicked has forgotten that GODD and MAMA NATURE has declared WAR also. And the devil is not going to win.

  • Encampment Murdering Policies

    Council member Ken Houston proposes a life-endangering anti-houseless policy against Black, Brown, Disabled, Poor, and Elder Residents of Oakland  For Immediate release:   contact: tiny 510-435-7500,  Jo​hn Jan​osko/ (510) 712-7639 Wood Street Commons or  James Burch, Black Solutions Lab   What: Press Conference of houseless, formerly houseless sweeps survivors, housed allies, and advocates to demand NO to the murderous “EAT”  policy and lift up actual solutions to homelessness  When: 9 am Monday, Sept 15 Where: Oakland City Hall   “The City wants houseless people to die,” said John, a houseless resident of Sycamore Street, and lifelong resident of Oakland who lost his home due to foreclosure in 2008 when he became houseless. John went on to explain that Sycamore Street was a houseless comeUnity that was swept over seven times, only to be swept again and that in the last very violent sweep on July 28th,  one of their long-time comeUnity leaders, Charlotte, passed away. “We have nowhere to go, where are they sweeping us to? He concluded. Under Council member Ken Houston’s proposed policy,  Oakland police can arrest houseless people just for being houseless. The city’s existing policy says Oakland “will not cite or arrest any individual solely for camping, or otherwise for the status of being homeless,” but the proposal slashes that provision.  The daily violence of sweeping houseless humans like they are trash,  that longtime Oakland residents have already been facing since the Grants Pass Vs Johnson ruling by the Supreme Court in 202  has resulted in several deaths of houseless people, who lose their shelter and their support systems and end up back on the street.  Most of the houseless residents of Oakland are Black elders with chronic health conditions. Studies have shown that sweeps lead to higher rates of death, and sweeping this community without offering residents any of the accommodations provided in its grant proposal, it effectively set out to eliminate 80% of all Black residents from the project. This is according to the city's own data. This deeply violent policy by Houston, aptly named by the acronym EAT, as it will in fact EAT houseless people alive, will result in more deaths of houseless, Black, Disabled elders in Oakland  The only modicum of humanity that has existed up to now is that the City had to offer houseless residents some alternative shelter to stay in (which oftentimes they didn't even do), but under Houston’s plan , Oakland can shut down encampments regardless of whether the city has other shelters to offer residents.  In addition, the policy follows the lead of San Francisco and so many other cities' anti-houseless policies spurred on by the current federal administration  and promises to cite and tow the last vestige of home many people have on the street, their cars and RVs   Councilmember Houston’s proposed legislation exposes the city to further liability under state and constitutional law. In the past, expending funds on costly sweeps has led to costly court challenges - a situation that Oakland cannot currently afford.  The proposed legislation disproportionately targets Black and disabled Oakland residents, exposing the City to liability under the Fourteenth Amendment .  James Burch, Black Solutions Lab “These violent sweeps of elder, Black, Disabled lifelong Oakland residents by the City of Oakland are shameful. Literally thousands of dollars are spent removing, displacing, and poLicing us. To nowhere. We houseless peoples have solutions, why is this still happening?” said tiny gray-garcia, formerly houseless, co-founder of POOR Magazine and Homefulness.   Houseless/formerly houseless sweeps survivors, advocates, and allies will gather for a press conference on September 15th at 9 am preceding the hearing at Oakland City Hall to demand the City vote NO on this murderous proposal by Ken Houston and listen to houseless people about their own solutions.  Please follow: @poormagazine (Will Broadcast Press Conference LIVE on IG) @woodstreetcommons @oakland.homeless.union @oakland.revealed  @blacksolutionslab

  • Getting rid of homelessness

    My name is Amir Cornish from West Oakland. I'm 20 years old and a youth poverty skola reporting on the Executive Order that was made by President Donald Trump across the United States.  An Executive Order is a directive issued by the President of the United States that manages operations within the federal government, but this one basically gets rid of all homeless across the United States. This Executive Order aims to increase accountability and safety in American homelessness programs by ending support for “housing first” policies, in reducing homelessness and increasing public safety.  This Executive Order seeks to “[shift] homeless individuals into long term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment” to ensure safety and public order in America. The Trump administration says that by removing vagrant criminals from our streets and redirecting them towards the substance abuse program, they will ensure that Americans will feel safe in their own communities, and that the individuals suffering from addiction or mental health struggles are able to get help from these resources.  This is not going to solve the problems with the homeless in the United States or all around the Earth. But our President, Donald Trump, made this law to get rid of homelessness to make Washington look better and also to make crime go down. This Executive Order is nonsense because basically President Donald Trump thinks by making this law he will get rid of homelessness in D.C. Also, our President said that he has all these benefits for the homeless, but I highly doubt it is gonna be any help for homelessness.

  • In a Race for Who can Hate our Houseless Bodies First and Worst the code word is always Safe...

    Oakland (and the whole state) turns up the violent hate against houseless communities. By tiny/formerly houseless, daughter of Dee, mama of Tiburcio “If we park it here they will probably call the poLice.. And we will lose our only home”  Me and my Sun were driving around San Francisco aimlessly. We had just lost our home to a violent eviction and although some friends said we could sleep on their couch we knew it wouldnt be long before we might need the car to sleep in again. But the car was a “hooptie” and had a broken taillight and expired registration and in San Francisco that has always meant a possible tow. In this case a tow of our only home. Now because of SF Mayor Lurie's RV Ban in SF and Ken Houston's anti-houseless proposal in Oakland- these violent and life-threatening tows, are guaranteed.  Inspired by the fascist statements about houseless comeUnities by the  current violent fiefDUM B who currently inhabits the white peoples house-a multitude of new anti-houseless LIEgislations have popped up across the US. These 21st century LIEgislations are adding to the already thick arsenal of anti-houseless laws that sweep our houseless bodies and tow or throw away our homes everyday all across this stolen land everyday. From Oakland to Fresno to San Bernadino From Oregon to San Francisco, all of the new LIEgislations, created by pseudo-progressive poltricksters are cloaked in 19th century settler codes like Exclusion zones and Buffer zones (Oregon and Washington) Encampment Abatement Plan and Inside Safe The RV Ban in San Francisco, and a state-wide bill in California  AB 630, which is a bill from LACity Mayor Bass that would increase the towing and destruction of RVs used as housing.  Above all these are acts of violence against our bodies. Locally in Occupied Huchiun (Oakland) the violence being proposed is a 2025 re-mix of the Encampment Management Plan - which amped up the violence of sweeps in October of 2020 and then became even more abusive and constant once the Supreme Court’s Grant Pass versus Johnson in 2024 ruling determined that houseless peoples had no protection under the 8th amendment of the constitution, enabling the politricksters to sweep and tow and destroy belongings with arrogance and threat of arrest, while millions of dollars are spent on multiple state PoLice and Sheriff agencies at every sweep. Which of course, if it needs to be said, could be redirected to an actual solution, housing. This ruling led to POOR Magazine, Wood Street Commons, Where Do We Go Berkeley, Homeless in Fresno, Aetna street solidarity and Stop the Sweeps Seattle to name a few,  to launch a state-wide land liberation move demanding hoarded and vacant so-called public and private land be given to houseless communities so we could build solutions like Homefulness and Wood Street Commons Academy.   In Oakland the new evil is being proposed by fake-friendly politrickster Ken Houston who is re-packaging the original  Encampment Management Plan of 2020 as the Encampment Abatement Team and yes the acronym is EAT(???) This one has all the hate of all of these other LIEgilsations rolled into one.  It promises to tow RV’s, not even give the requisite 72 hours notice to people who are about to be swept, arrest houseless people just "for being homeless" as the proposal reads and in general reek even more havoc on the most vulnerable, majority elder, disabled, Black and Brown Oakland residents   But what is even more disturbing to me is this evil, violent killing LIEgislation uses conscious language and research done by povertyskolaz and allies at Black Solutions Lab, Care 4 Community, POOR Magazine and Wood Street Commons to name a few.  Using terms like Equity Considerations and naming that Black populations are most impacted by homelessness while in the same breath planning to violently erase, arrest and disappear those same Black populations. And what’s the final kicker in terms of their poltrickster spin of this violence is their constant use of the word Safe. Like Newsom, the code word Safe is thrown around when talking about houseless peoples bodies and lives. Not our safety, of course, but the safety ( or perceived lack thereof) of the so-called public which never includes the unhoused public, but is always only referring to housed people who have to “see” our houseless bodies in their landscape and are bothered by our mere presence.  Which also makes no sense to me. You are housed. Be thankful for your connections and sanity and organizational privilege that enables you to stay and pay on the ongoing krapitalist hamster wheel so you can afford the lie of rent. We aren’t hurting you by the mere presence of our existence. Krapitalism caused homelessness and until and unless this system stops profiting off of mama Earth and our poverty as an industry, it will continue to perpetrate this violence on our lives whenever possible.  “When I was swept from Wood Street, I lost contact with my health provider. I was already struggling with health issues living outside, this put my health even more at risk,” said Leajay Harper,an organizer with Wood Street Commons who was formerly houseless on Wood Street and is now Homeful at Homefulness , a homeless peoples solution to homelessness that currently houses 25 youth, adults and elders in rent-free forever, healing housing in Deep East Oakland.  With the advent of this violence, we will die. It’s already happening. From the violent sweep of East 12th street we lost a Black elder, J.T, a leader, a caregiver of other houseless elders whose vehicle home and all of his belongings were towed away so he was left on the street with nothing. From the violent sweep at Sycamore Street we lost another houseless Black sister, Sycamore Charlotte, aka Charlotte Rene Anderson, a warrior leader of that comeUnity who lost everything in that violent sweep and as we always say, sweeps kill us all.  “I’m disabled and I lost all of my things including my walker and medicine,” said a disabled elder to one of the DPW workers throwing and bulldozing his belongings in front of him in Oakland. “I will never recover from this,” he looked down and shook his head.  Please activate to liberate.Please come to the Oakland City Council Hearing on Sept 10th at 11am for the first hearing and then on Monday, Sept 15th at 9am and speak up about this and/or please Contact the Oakland city Councilmembers and tell them to vote NO on the Encampment Abatement Policy. Contact POOR Magazine to get a copy of a draft letter to sign on at poormag@gmail.com . Come to the panel Politricks, Hate and Resistance- a panel by houseless/formerly houseless povertyskolaz on how to resist the violence of sweeping humans like they are trash benefit screening of the trailer Crushing Wheelchairs on Thursday, Sept 25th at East Side Arts Alliance at 2277 International Bl Oakland.

  • Desplazamiento/Displacement

    Por Alvaro Kepokamaztli Tellez/ By Alvaro Kepokamaztli Tellez Mi nombre es Alvaro soy un sobreviviente de desplazamiento de hogar y llegar al punto de quedarme sin hogar y vivir en mi carro por casi 3 años. Despues de vivir “El sueño americano” se convirtió en una pesadilla e impotencia de no poder darle un hogar a mi pareja! Nos hace impotentes ante un sistema capitalista, esto me hizo investigar y leer sobre el desplazamiento que ha sobrevivido nuestra gente desde años atras hasta este tiempo! El desplazamiento de MexicoAmericanos o mudanza forzada de personas de origen Mexicana que vivían en Estados Unidos. No hay una fecha específica para el desplazamiento sino que es un proceso continuo que se ha dado a lo largo del tiempo. Algunos eventos y factores que contribuyeron al desplazamiento de MexicoAmericanos. “La guerra MexicoAmericana {1846-1848} y El Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo” “El Programa Bracero {1940-1964} “Cambios en las Politicas de Imigracion en Mexico {1980} “Discriminacion y Segregacion en Estados Unidos” En resumen el desplazamiento de MexicoAmericanos ha sido un proceso continuo a lo largo de la historia impulsados por factores Politicos, Económicos, y Sociales, así como la discriminacion y segregacion. Tambien me gustaria comentar por lo que la gente de Palestina esta pasando por este desplazamiento que ha llevado a un genocidio sobre civiles incuyendo mujeres y ninos. “Displacement” My name is Alvaro, I am a survivor of displacement. I reached the point of being homeless and living in my car for almost three years. After living “The American Dream,” it turned into a nightmare and the helplessness of not being able to provide a home for my partner! It makes us powerless against a capitalist system. This led me to research and read about the displacement our people have endured from years ago to this day! The displacement of Mexican Americans, or the forced relocation of people of Mexican origin who lived in the United States. There is no specific date for displacement; it is a continuous process that has occurred over time. Some events and factors that contributed to the displacement of Mexican Americans: “The Mexican-American War {1846-1848} and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo” “The Bracero Program {1940-1964} “Changes in Immigration Policies in Mexico {1980} “Discrimination and Segregation in the United States” In summary, the displacement of Mexican-Americans has been a continuous process throughout history driven by political, economic, and social factors, as well as discrimination and segregation. I would also like to comment on what the Palestinian people are going through due to this displacement, which has led to genocide against civilians, including women and children. “NAKBA DAY” Memoria de una catastrofe, dia que se conmemora el Nakba tambien conocida como la catastrofe de Palestina que comprendio la destruccion de la sociedad y patria palestina en 1948 y el desplazamiento permanente de la mayoria del pueblo palestino. “MOHAMED BADR” No vamos a emigrar de Gaza por dificiles que sean las circunstancias, no dejaremos la franja de Gaza aunque nos sigan matando y bombardeando y no contemos con medicinas, alimentos, bebida, ropa, ni refugios. Si creen que nos iremos se equivocan; Aunque desaparesca el mundo entero, aunque los peces abandonen el mar nosotros no vamos aemigrar!! -Palabras de ressistencia de un pueblo que solo quiere sobrevivir y mantener sus tierras sagradas! Noquiero comparar el desplazamiento en Palestina con el que estamos pasando en esta parte del mundo, es totalmente diferente pero sigue siendo lo mismo “DESPLAZAMIENTO” Espero unas mejores politicas para evitar este tipo de Genocidios en todas las partes del mundo donde los más debiles son los que sufren mas! Hoy estoy agradecido con mi familia de Homefulness y Poormagazine.org  por darnos la oportunidad de vivir dignamente y a escribir este tipo de Blog Revolcionario. “TLAZOCAMATI” "NAKBA DAY" Remembrance of a catastrophe, a day commemorating the Nakba, also known as the Palestinian catastrophe, which included the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948 and the permanent displacement of the majority of the Palestinian community. “MOHAMED BADR” We are not going to emigrate from Gaza, no matter how difficult the circumstances. We will not leave the Gaza Strip even if they continue to kill and bomb us and we have no medicine, food, drink, clothing, or shelter. If you think we will leave, you are mistaken; even if the entire world disappears, even if the fish abandon the sea, we will not emigrate!! -Words of resistance from a people who only want to survive and maintain their sacred lands! I don't want to compare the displacement in Palestine with what we are experiencing in this part of the world. It is totally different, but it is still the same: “displacement.” I hope for better politics to prevent this type of genocide in all parts of the world, where the weakest suffer the most! Today I am grateful to my Homefulness family and Poormagazine.org for giving us the opportunity to live with dignity and to write this kind of revolutionary blog. “TLAZOCAMATI”

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