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(From Left Tracey Mixon and Tyler Kyser with Coalition on Homelessness) My name is A. Faye I am a Lady of the Shelters. I am a student and teacher of Life In Indoor shelter living and Outdoor cardboard shelter living I have met Hundreds of People Most with Tragic Stories. Jailhouse, Sickness . . . Mental and Physical I am all alone Yet not alone! Sheltered in the Wings of Heaven!!!! Faye Hicks Po Poet Laureate of POOR Magazine from Poverty Scholarship TextBook- poor people-led theory, art, words and tears across Mama Earth “We got to do an investigative piece on that Care Not Cash shit, since they made it law now i can’t get a shelter bed at all” It was a cold day in San Francisco in 2004 when A. Faye Hicks, the Po Poet laureate of POOR Magazine, houseless, disabled elder walked into our ComeUnity Newsroom with the story of scarcity hell for houseless residents of San Francisco under the new LIEgislation Care Not Cash. Care NOT Cash was Gavin Newsom as a mayor’s campaign strategy to get into office literally using the class hate people have for our houseless bodies. The LIEgislation said that us houseless people had to “pay” for our shelter bed. He won and it happened, our HellFare crum was stolen to pay for said “beds”, but the funny part was, there were no shelter beds, so Yea, this horrible time flooded back to me as i learned more about the carceral state cloaked in soft neo-liberal codes that Newsom the governor is calling Care Court. “Care Court is a terrifying lie,” Johnny Z, a houseless street skola and POOR MAgazine ROOFLESS radio reporter in occupied Yelamu (SF) who is studying this LIEGislation carefully as he does all things, Johnny Z does not have a PhD from some eugenicist named institution, but like me has a Phd in Poverty with a major in struggle. “It gives the power the state to decide who s crazy and who is not,”Johnny concluded The Community Assistance Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court is yet another anti-social work ( as i affectionately call it) lie built to incarcerate, treat, sweep and ultimately remove houseless bodies from the street. And oddly enough it also reaches even to housed people. CARE Court targets unhoused people throughout the state, but can apply to housed people as well. Though promoted as applying to people with severe mental health conditions, (Don’t) CARE courts are extremely arbitrary depending on the person adjudicating or even deciding whether someone is mentally “fit or unfit” . The LIEgislation specifically reads Adults diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum or “other psychotic disorder” whom a judge finds lacking in judgment or likely to relapse could fall under its jurisdiction, according to the bill “Newsom is running for president,” James Burch, a warrior truth-teller with Anti-PoLice Terror Project, who along with Paul Boden from Western Regional Advocacy Program spoke on PoPeoplesRadio about this terrifying LieGislation. “This bill takes up all the air, all the money will go into the court system, and nothing to housing or treatment, “ Paul Boden un-packed what we he re-labeled SCare Court mess along with James Burch on Po Peoples Radio “Newsom has put out a clear threat of vendetta against any legislator that doesnt pass CARE Court, your billsl won’t pass, and you will get nothing done if you dont vote for this…” said Burch at a CARE court teach-in organized by Coaltion on Homelessness and Anti-PoLice Terror Project on Thursday. He continued, “ and sadly they have all capitulated, with the exception of one, Ash Khanna, proving they are all full of you know what,” James concluded. CARE Court will disproportionately impact BILPOC and LGBTQ communities with disabiities across California and pour millions into a new coercive civil court system….From a letter to Newsom on WRAPHome.org website from Disability Rights California (They don’t) Care Court Full of lies - that simply put Incarcerates all of us poor Settlers been pimping care since before they stole this land From care not cash to shelter plus care Poverty pimps use care so much yu’d think they actually care… (excerpt from They DON’t CARE poem by tiny aka povertyskola From Care not Cash to Shelter Plus Care to Continuum of Care to (they Don’t) CARE courts as i say in my poem, you’d think they actually CARE, but a krapitalist system by design doesnt have space for actual care. Actual care takes time, resources, love, hamster wheel stoppage, and interdependence. We live in a hyper-individualized society, mandating no time, no sharing, no caring, and constant separating/individuating. We call 911 for a well-check, to take care of our elders, our children, our trauma. We own MamaEarth and raise rent and evict people and then sweep, tow and incarcerate when they end up outside. We believe in the lies of private property and cult of individual success. Where is the room for care. Then once we have evicted, removed, foreclosed and legislated love out of our communities, families and selves, now we dont’ want to “see” the failures of that highly flawed system. And it all comes down to what i call the Cult of Rehabilitation - the idea that everyone must be well and must be “fixed” Krapitalism is a hurting system that has left humans in its wake. Evictions, closure of poor people elder homes, CONservatorship, and foreclosures, not to mention low wage theft, gentriFUKation and a global pandemic thrown in for good measure, it is amazing that more of us aren’t walking around like my Aunti Carol, who after losing her home and her womb, had what wite - science called a Psychotic Break and was known as the, “the Screaming Woman” She was “forced” into almost everywhere the state could force her into,from Camarillo State Hospital to John George in Oakland and this was on top of her womb being forcibly sterilized, like so many houseless, poor and disabled women of California in the 1970’s. Later when me and my mama were arrested for living houselessly on the street, they tried to place my mama in a 5150 hold for being “distraught” that her care-giver, her daughter and the vehicle she was sleeping in was towed. The UC poLice “diagnosed” her mental fitness.? The concept of “mental fitness” has always been arbitrary and rooted in racist, classist, ableist notions of who is “FIT” to see, live, speak or be seen. Beginning with the Ugly Laws, (which myself and Leroy Moore have done alot of WeSearch on for POOR Magazine, in addition to a powerful book by Susan Schweik of the same name), which in the late 1800’s and for many years after legislated the ability to be poor and disabled in public. Coming out of this we had the evil Mental Hospital system, which were forcibly sterilizing, incarcerating, operating on and killing poor and disabled people ALL the time. And now we have the “sweeps” and the all the hundreds of gratuitous legislations that make it illegal to be sick, poor, disabled, addicted and houseless in public, to sleep in your own car and to sit on the street. How about instead of spending literally millions of dollars building up an already bulbuos carceral system budget, incarcerating, adjudicating, moving and harassing poor and houseless people, maybe they could try listening to us poor and houseless people’s self-determined solutions. Solutions like ComeUnity Reparations, PeopleSkool, Poverty Scholarship Theory and Homefulness, which is right here in Deep East Huchuin, where we hold constant trauma support healing groups, where we integrate poor and disabled peoples-led solutions to hoarding and cluttering, and substance abuse, and trauma and violence and where we actually don’t believe or practice the settler lie of rent or state violence. But i guess that seems like too much actual CARE... To Learn more about ComeUnity Reparations, Poverty Scholarship and Homefulness go to www.poormagazine.org/education to watch the Teach-in presentation by APTP's James Burch click here (They don’t) Care kkkort by tiny/@povertyskola- (listen to PoemCast on here) (They Don't) CARE kkkort Full of lies - that simply put Incarcerates all of us Poor Settlers been pimping care since before they stolen this land From care not cash to shelter plus care to CONtinuum of CARE Poverty pimps use care so much yu’d think they actually care Care not cash Took our welfare crum and promised a shelter bed and a bus pass Funny thing is there were no shelter beds jus like before the LIEgislation so we were lucky if we got a bus bench or park bench instead of more of more Time in the heat and rain getting drenched Cloaked in non-profiteer codes Meant to CONfuse the masses with the emperors new clothes People who wring their hands and proclaim I Just want to help, But in their hearts believe if u outside and broke - u shud be ashamed We a Joke So Back up Just Stop Helping us house-LESS would mean stopping the settler colonial lies of property ownership Helping would NOT mean making another Carceral System that causes more pain, poLice & poli- tricks How bout stopping eviction and mass incarceration for racist poverty crimes - how bout housing that is easy to access and not full of lotteries and wait lists, u lucky if u ever get it & I got mines How bout looking at your self thats complicit ? Could u sit with UncomfortableNESS ? That Krapitalist success models force us to be sick That wite Science diagnosis Big Pharma pills And Dirty Dollar Bills Got us seeing and believing that EVERYONE just needs to b WELL Maybe we redefine thrival That Doesnt include a pill for survival Doesnt include anything the system can make, take or break Only a recognition that we arent all gonna be sick the same way That Krapitalism is a fatal disease that big pharma has no pills to ease or make ok That Eviction is elder abuse and dangerous oppression That Settler Courts and CArceral states Take away our humanity whether they got names like Care they still built to break us, take us, and never liberate us THey Dont Care Court is a lie So u can look away from our broken lives On the streets in front of your eyes We here- Sick, Not sick- but most of all needing homes so we dont need to be Home-LESS-

Laure McElroy, povertyskola, co-founder of Homefulness in the play welfaREQUEENS- a POORMagazine production by tiny gray-garcia The Exceptional Hobo- The violence of Homeless exceptionalism in stolen land by tiny @povertyskola Click here to listen to the podcast of this story There are many things that I, a poverty scholar, can teach you but, in reality, no more or less than any of the poverty skolaz you see — or more likely don’t see — every day in your cleaned-up, cleaned-out, gentrified, and redeveloped cities, neighborhoods, streets, and parks. Houseless families, poor youth of color, migrant workers, panhandlers, sex workers; sitting, dwelling, camping, soliciting work, convening: I am them, they are me. (excerpt from Poverty Scholarship - poor people-led theory, art, words and tears across mama earth) “But you are different,...tiny “ these words of homeless exceptionalism were told to me conspiratorially by an elder with race, class and formal education privilege. That comment followed her original comment about how it didn't feel “strategic” to redistribute some of her billions of hoarded blood-stained dollars to houseless people trying to build our own solutions to homelessness. The fetishizing, exceptionalizing, othering and silencing of poor people happens in many ways and constantly. From akkkademia to non-profiteering to politricking. The root begins by othering us into things not humans. The Homeless Problem, The Illegals, the criminals, the drug addicts, the bums, those people, and then it gets even more coded; That's a Bad area, That’s a Dangerous neighborhood. Those people are dirty, messy, unsafe, scary, trash and on and on. When me and my mama spent our lives houseless on the streets of LA, Frisco, Oakland and Berkeley, sleeping in bus shelters, park benches, shelter beds and the back seats of cars if we were lucky enough to have one, we were consistently referred to by poLice, security guards, anti-social workers, media and passers-by as mere objects,things, a problem, a burden, a mess, and eyesore, equivalent to a paper cup or plastic fork. Adjectives like dirty, messy, crazy and eyesore were commonly used, talking about us without us right while we were there sharing the same bus bench, park, street, or neighborhood. People like us, who are trying to live while houseless, are so completely dehumanized that we are actually not seen. Similarly, our multitude of reasons, problems, struggles, eccentricities, needs, thoughts, issues, medical and psychological health are silenced and suppressed ,because we are never considered the same as other humans. In this and other related forms of violent othering, society at large engages and enables our collective erasure, criminalization and death. "Strategy versus Survival' “Right now i’m staying by the river but they have been doing daily sweeps so not sure how long i’ll last here,” said one of the lead povertyskolaz in the Pacific Northwest Turtle Island, who were part of the core group to launch their own Homefulness project in that territory. We povertyskolaz, working closely with new solidarity family -(housed people with race and class privilege who graduate from the Decolonizaiton /DegentriFUkaiton seminar at PeopleSkool) immediately worked on getting them and others into motels for several weeks until we ran out of redistributed resources, which is when, in a roundabout way, we ended up in the aforementioned “strategic conversation” Once you turn people into a thing, they/we are now monochromatic, only capable of existing in one reality, a reality which has nothing to do with our humanity. It has to do with our housing, our circumstances, our struggle, our access to enough blood-stained dollars to pay the exorbitant krapitalist lie called rent. Our depression, our ability to hold down a job, our tolerance or lack thereof of more racist and classist profiling on a daily basis, our access to decent and actual healing-care not poor people hellth-care,and on and on into all the horrors of a life lived in isolation, homelessness, criminalization and poverty. But contrary to your judgemental gaze, houseless people are NOT a monolith, we are not one color or age or culture or speak one language. We are not all without a roof because of the same reasons. And just like you, the housed, we are from all different parts of life, with different interests, and talents, and life-styles and struggles. And just like you, the housed, our homelessness, just like your homefulness, doesn't define us as humans, But once you have taken the humanity from a people you never have to “actually” listen to them, you can create endless surveys and studies and decisions and laws and projects and media stories and research books about us without us. In addition from the perspective of the building, writing, creating and visioning of self-determined movements like Homefulness - which is in fact, led by us for us houseless peoples, with redistributed resources from wealth-hoarders and land stealers, it is absolutely necessary that our struggles with addiction, loss, depression, incarceration, violence and health not be of your concern. We are people who have suffered multiple forms of oppression and we are currently without a roof. What is important is that we become stabilized, with motel rooms, phones, apartments, or temporary shelter while we are visioning, creating, dreaming and living into the long-term work of creating our own solutions. In other words, before we can write our homes with a poem ( as i often say), and commit to a possible ten year-long struggle for self-determined land liberation, we need to have some stability, some normalcy. We need to become homeful. That does not mean we no longer “qualify” to speak as a houseless povertyskola, to work on the urgent work of liberating mamaEarth so more of our fellow in struggle peoples don’t have to deal with the krapitalist violence of homelessness and so more of MamaEarth is NEVER sold. But the slippery slope of homeless exceptionalism has people silencing our voices when we are in struggle and then fetishizing our poverty about us without us. And then viewing us no longer a “problem” once we are sort-of housed Our messages might not be all tied up in a politically conscious bow, said exactly right for a hashtag, our problems, trauma and decisions might not be the best or most “prudent” or strategic but that has NOTHING to do with our vision or commitment. Just like it doesnt with anyone, it just might not be apparent to your housed eyes This is why we Po folks at POOR Magazine launched the Bank of ComeUnity Reparations Po Mamaz Reparations Fund, The Homefulness Hotel Fund and Po Mamaz Hooptie Fund and more. These poverty scholarship informed ideas and solutions of radical and immediate resource redistribution are not rooted in how well a person filled out an application or what lottery number they pulled or how many proof of income forms they completed or how consistent they are with their treatment or how on time they are with their appointments, Or how sober they are. They are based on what they need to live. And even, what they need to thrive. Why can’t poor peoples of color who have never traveled travel. Why can’t poor people who are driving around in a hooptie that breaks down ALL the time, have a car that actually works, a bed thats actually comfortable, a computer that actually functions? Why can’t they have what everyone has access to? We have jumped through more hoops than an abused lion in a circus. How many times do we need to prove to you that we need access to basic human rights and life. In the end, from a poverty scholarship informed perspective, the “judgement” about who or what really is in more dire need is just more of those violent scarcity hoops, set up to support a few people and leave the rest to become fodder for a poLice state, false borders, gentriFUKed communities, violent sweeps, eviction and carceral system of kages. This is what we mean by poverty scholarship- (which is based on a textbook of the same name we poor peoples created) but it requires peoples with privilege who tend to veer toward savioring and soft-judging to break-free from this belief that they have ANY knowledge that is useful about us without us, and to suspend that point of view completely. This is what Mama Dee and Wade Nobles teach on with the Transubstantive error- in Chapter 6 of Poverty Scholarship- which is rooted in Black Psychology, based on the idea that middle -class wite people and even middle class POC are making decisions about our housing, our children, our lives and how much of their resources they are willing to distribute depending on how much we prove to them that we are in fact, Ready or fit for resources. This means we are still on the street and by the river, we are still being swept and evicted and harassed and most of the time the wait kills us, like it did co-founders/co-teachers of Homefulness Laure McElroy and Kathy Galves . Follow tiny @povertyskola on twitter or IG or go to her website at lisatinygraygarcia.com- Get books and curriculum from all of the povertyskolaz at POOR Magazine at www.poorpress.net

Fri, Sep 30th 6-7pm Clara's Books 5018 Rainier Ave S so-called Seattle, WA PoPoets //povertySkolaz from RoofLessRadio POORMagazine PNW & Real Change & Freedom Socialist Party present their poetry/publications & solutions to homelessness Sat, Oct. 1st 1:30-4pm Seattle Social Justice Film Festival 1515 12th Ave so-called Seattle, WA Showing "When Mama & Me Lived Outside" Directed & Animated by Peter Menchini, Original Artwork by Asian Robles, Score by Lottie Johnson, and narration by Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia The Po Poets Project, a grassroots project of the houseless, poor and indigenous peoples led movement known as POOR Magazine, will be in Seattle Sept 30th-Oct 1st to attend the Social Justice Film Festival. When Mama and Me Lived Outside, an award-winning short film by Peter Menshini, will be shown at the festival. The film is based on the children’s book of the same name written by tiny gray-garcia and focuses on one family’s journey through homelessness. All of the Po Poets, formerly houseless, Black, Brown revolutionary poets, will be onsite reading from their books and promoting their publications. They will also be sharing the medicine of UnSElling Mama Earth and building poor and houseless peoples’ solutions to poverty and homelessness, what they call Homefulness. These land liberators, from all four corners of Mama Earth, will be offering readings and workshops from their newest books: How to Not Call the Po'Lice Ever and Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth. They will also be leading a Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour through colonized towns, colonial landmarks (KlanMarks, as tiny from POOR Magazine calls them), wealth-hoarding neighborhoods, threatened forests, sacred sites, museums of Anthro-Wrongology, academia as well as spaces of indigenous sovereignty to share the urgent medicine of Radical Redistribution, LandBack, and ComeUnity Reparations.

POOR Magazine believes that folks who have struggled through poverty, racism, and other forms of oppression and violence should be the folks to speak up and be heard on issues of violence, racism, poverty, disability, the criminal Un-justice system, etc. Below are the writings of Poor Magazine's BlackAugust PeopleSkool 2022 Poverty Skolaz in response to the prompt: Crisis is universal–we have all had it. Please briefly describe one of your worst crisis below–financial, family, self, health, etc. My crisis happened 6 years ago when my husband passed away. And a few years after that, I developed arthritis in both knees with no cartilage. So this makes my struggle real, but with the help of My Divine Creator, He helps me every day to make it. –Michelle Mack Moving back into the roofless world again by calling on my ancestors while I live it! –Broron Cloud I was in prison for 37 years. I suffered many medical conditions while in prison. I managed to survive that and make it back into society. I’m doing the right thing, holding down a job and getting off parole. I wound up breaking my neck at work. I can’t work because of my medical condition. –Chet Por mi vida he pasado crisis de comida, ropa porque mi mamá y mi papá no tienen nada. Pero gracias a Dios ahora que llegué a ese país ahora estoy ayudando a mi mama. Pero ahora estoy ayudando para comer a mi mamá porque ella sufrió conmigo. Y ahora por eso voy a seguir adelante con mis hijos, no quiero que mis hijos queden en la calle. Por eso necesitamos más ayuda. Gracias. In my life I’ve experienced crises of food and clothing because my mother and my father don’t have anything. But thank God since I came to this country I’m now helping my mother. But now I’m helping my mother to eat because she suffered with me. And now that’s why I’m going to keep going with my kids, I don’t want my kids to end up in the street. That’s why we need more help. Thank you. –Catalina Matias Matias –trying to find a place –it’s very difficult staying with a friend –very difficult –once I get things together It’s dangerous on the streets –Good there are programs like this to get food and help : ) –Emma Robinson Vengo de una familia humilde y pobre pero además he pasado muchas crisis. 1) de ellas ha sido el maltrato en el hogar 2) y ahora la mala salud y a esto sumo mi crisis económica. Me voy a enfocar en mi crisis económica por esto es lo que estoy pasando en este momento. Es complicado decirlo. Pero es la realidad. Ya son 6 meses que no trabajo y no porque yo no quiera si no porque no encuentro trabajo. Hace 6 meses que me caí y quebré mi pie y esa es la razón porque no estoy trabajando ahora mismo. Gracias a esta programa. I come from a humble and poor family, but I’ve also been through a lot of crises. The first of them has been abuse in my home, and now it’s bad health, and that added to my economic crisis. I’m going to focus on my economic crisis, that’s the reason for what I’m going through at this time. It’s hard to say it. But it’s the reality. I haven’t worked in 6 months, and not because I don’t want to, because I can’t find work. Six months ago I fell and broke my leg and that’s the reason why I’m not working right now. Thank you to this program. –Juana Ayala Montano Lo que tengo un pesar, por que mi hermana se murió, que éramos las dos que nos regalaron a una tía y sufrimos mucho, juntas tenemos muchos recuerdos, yo todavía le hablo. Dios se la llevó. Mi hermana se llamaba Mariana. No le he podido superarlo todavía. A mi pues mis hijos son los que me ayudan con la renta y los biles, agua. Yo hago el esfuerzo para pagar el internet. Mi nietecita Corina Abigail Galindo me ayuda a pagar el internet. Yo la crié y es como mi hija. Desde que salió del cascaron yo la cuide como mi hija. No en cualquier parte me dan trabajo por la edad. Lo que a mi, no tengo acta de nacimiento original estoy batallando en el registro civil para viajar pero no puedo. No hago como arreglar eso solo tengo el ID. Lo perdio el registro civil. No puedo agarrar el pasaporte. Ni puedo ir a visitar a mi hermana en Los Angeles. What I have is a sadness, because my sister died. We were both given to an aunt and we suffered a lot, we have many memories together. I still talk to her. God took her away. My sister’s name was Mariana. I still haven’t been able to get over it. Well my kids are the ones who help me with the rent, bills, and water. I make an effort to pay for the internet. My little niece Corina Abigail Galindo helps me pay the internet. I raised her as my daughter. Ever since she left the nest, I took care of her as my daughter. They won’t give me work anywhere because of my age. I don’t have an original birth certificate. I’m struggling with the civil registry pero no puedo. I can’t resolve this, I only have an ID. The civil registry lost it. I can’t get a passport. I can’t even go visit my sister in Los Angeles. –Felipa Zacueta Mendoza A very frightening moment was when two IRS agents came to the door and threatened me with federal prosecution for my refusal to pay taxes for war. Though I knew that it’s very unusual to go to prison for war tax resistance, they occasionally try to make an example of someone. As a mother of two young children, the threat of a prison sentence was very scary for me. Would I be separated from my kids? –Anonymous I have a crisis even in learning or getting things done in a “timely manner.” But I am doing my best. : ) Crisis in learning Crisis in being (struggling with my size at times) Crisis in accepting and loving myself –Leila M One of my family's worst crises would have to be or start when I was 7 all the way up to 12 and now. When I was 7 my mom had a failing heart, she was diagnosed and taken to Stanford where they kept her for a long time of our lives, where we got to see her once a month, where she grew depressed and angry, where my dad wouldn’t work because of being with her, those times were sad. We feared that she wouldn’t make it and that the last minutes, days, and hours would be lonely and sad. She got better, she never recovered and she still goes every once in a while to the doctors for check ups but she’s been good lately and we all now care for each other. –Mario Manzano The worst crisis that me and my son went through was in 2017 when I lost my house and everything that was inside. Me and the landlord settled out of court and he paid me $1000. To make a long story short, me and my son was separated and was reconnected and had to stay in the Salvation Army–it took us a long time to get back on track. I called the BACS program and I really appreciate their help. I had to also fight the Housing Authority to get my Section 8 back. I got my Section 8 back but now I’m looking for my dream apartment or house: I thank God everyday–because I’m a 14 yr cancer survivor. –Monica Yo pienso que no nos tenemos que quedar callados, tenemos que hablar, que se escuche nuestra voz. La pior que he pasado es perder a mis padres y dos hermanos pero todo se supera. I think we shouldn’t stay quiet. We have to speak so our voice can be heard. The worst I have been through is losing my parents and two brothers but everything can be overcome. –Rosalida I fortunately have had an amazing life but of course we have all had a crisis. To describe one of my crises explains who I am inside. My family was once evicted from our home, we were couch hopping for around 4 months with a low income and no legal papers to own a house, we had nowhere to go. We picked ourselves back up and moved in with my mom’s brother and sister. Now we live in a house full of family. Still in struggle, but with some place to come home to. –Kevin Uriel Villanueva-Merino, 17 yrs old

POOR Magazine will be holding a blessing for the opening of MamaHouse #2 on Friday, September 16 from 8am-9am at 8032 BlackArthur (Mac Arthur) in Deep East Huichin (Oakland). MamaHouse #2 is part of Homefulness, a self-determined homeless peoples solution to homelessness.

Peoples Park in Berkeley is a park located just east of Telegraph Avenue, bounded by Haste and Bowditch streets and D-wight way, near the University of California, Berkeley. The Park was created during the radical political activism of the late 1960s. Mural of the fight for Peoples Park in the late 1960s in Berkeley, CA People Park has operated since the early 1970s as a public people park for the community, and People Park has been with us ever since. Now they want to destroy it to build a dorm. “They cut many more plants,’’ said one of the People Park defenders. I went with POOR Magazine to do a report on People Park, on behalf of the residents, because the park is getting destroyed. Once we got to People Park, there were big trees cut down and laying on the ground and the leaves, once floating over, were under my feet. “They took back on the arrangements,’’ the defender continued. There were big black gates to keep you from getting inside of People Park and from entering the park from the community. I remember the People Park from before this happened. It was so beautiful to look at and the trees wasn’t cut down, they was alive. The People Park didn't look the same as the last time that I visited, as we did a beautiful ceremony. Mural of Native elder & Nora, sweet angel of the street. Berkeley, CA.

A couple months ago, a 1,500 pound Walrus who got named Freya started roaming the Norwegian coast. She was found many times sunbathing in boats that were left crushed after her departure. Many people became fans of Freya. She would be sleeping on the coast and jet skis, crowds and security would form in seconds. People taking pictures, watching and many getting too close , messing and testing her. “They are too close, I think. And it is not just one boat, but a dozen boats,” Walrus expert Rune Aae says. On Tuesday, he watched TV broadcasts from the area and could observe that the walrus reacted with sudden movements when some boats came too close. “Everything indicated that she wanted to get away. But she couldn’t because she was trapped,” he says. Many people are calling her a “visitor”. A common name used by and for the wrong people. Even though walruses have not been in Norway for about 23 years they are natives to that land. Norway are next door neighbors to the arctic and it was common for walruses to be in that area. Freya is native to that land, she is indigenous. Walruses are endangered species, their population has been on decline since the beginning of the 20th century. After a couple months the Norwegian government announced that they were going to kill Freya, their reason being that people get too close. The stupid actions of others means she should die? 2 days after the announcement she was euthanized. This part of the story hit me hard. She was another indigenous being killed. Death and murder are the “solutions” to all problems the colonizers have. Freya was no different than our ancestors that had their hands cut off for playing drums. Or all the indigenous sisters that have been harassed and murdered in the trail of tears. This ain’t nothing new and it ain’t over. She never had caused any harm to anybody, she was gentle in her massive body. There are many videos of her floating, sleeping on boats, trying to climb onto boats. But let's not forget that the coast is their coast. It could have been a way to reclaim that coast. The people that she left mad were all the owners of $40,000 plus dollars worth of boats and yachts. After some research I discovered that in that same ocean near walrus territory the Norwegian government just offered a whole lotta oil and gas mining licenses. Which do cause lots of pollution and destruction of mother earth. And the displacement of these endangered relatives. We as humans tend to get stuck in an idea that we are the only important beings, people even believe that different color equals difference in “worth”. It's a radical idea to advocate for animal rights. People are so blind to our direct connection to the beings of this earth. We are beings of the earth just as much as a bear, just as much as an ant. Freya gave her life to bring the disrespect and ignorance to light. To remind the world one walrus can body many boats, we should walk humbly on this earth.

PeopleSkool a Poor People-led Education Project for MamaEarth, Ancestors and All of us- PeopleSKool is focused on teaching non-colonizing, community-based and community-led media, art and organizing with the goals of creating access for silenced voices, preserving and de-gentrifying rooted communities of color and re-framing the debate on poverty, homelessness, disability, migration, incarceration and race locally and globally. POOR Press poverty skola authors and teachers created all curricula and readings for PeopleSkool. This two-day seminar is geared to bring/teach the medicine of hoarded wealth/inherited blood-stained dollars redistribution, settler colonizer decolonization, the ongoing violence of the Charity Industrial Complex, The Real Esnakkke industry and the revolutionary liberation of Community Reparations to as many folks as possible because politrickster solutions are NOT solutions and we MUST spread POOR Magazine's poverty skola-led solutions in this time of so much mass distraction, unhoused, gentriFUKEd, criminalized, mass incarcerated, racism/wite supremacized miseducated, silenced and intentionally dismantled peoples- in the triple pandemics of COVID-19, Poverty, PoLice Terror and Colonization. This seminar is powerful for ALL people-doing work in law, medicine, social justice, history, art, media, ComeUnity, or akkkademia. Registration for Peoples with different forms of race, class. formal education privilege click here Registration for currently in struggle povertyskolaz click here- Gray Areas are Real - email poormag@gmail.com if u dont know where u belong - ​

43 years in solitary confinement. 43 years in isolation for protesting inhumane prison conditions of himself and fellow inmates. 23 hours a day in a cell since 1973 with just 15 - 45 minutes outside, each day. Finally released in 2016, Albert Woodfox, passed away August 8, 2022, a liberated man. As an avid reader of The SF BayView and California Prison Focus, I applaud the tenacious determination of both newspapers to educate folks like myself. We are kept in the dark on the truths of this system and the only way to find the truth is to read it from those who experienced it. Fighting the accusation of killing prison guard Brent Miller, Mr Woodfox, and two other inmates, Herman Wallace and Robert King, became known as the “Angola Three” and were immediately sent to solitary. In 2000, a civil suit filed by the Angola Three against the Louisiana Department of Corrections is still in the court. Prison officials denied its solitary confinement but “protective cell units” or “CCT a closed cell restricted.”. What’s the difference? Throughout his solitary confinement, Mr Woodfox has not wavered in his innocence. Even the widow of the murdered guard believed the 3 men were not guilty or involved. From his memoir, “Solitary”, Mr. Woodfox stated, “I thought it was sad that I had to come to prison to find out there were great African Americans in this country and in this world, and to find role models that I should have had available to me in school”. Ain’t that the truth? Albert Woodfox got politicized and found the readings of international revolutionaries fighting injustice. After meeting with Black Panther Party members in an East Coast prison, Mr. Woodfox was transferred to Angola (Louisiana State Pen) where he formed a Black Panther Party chapter. Recommended reading and viewing Videos: “Attica” “Burn Mother Fucker Burn” Reading: The SF Bay View California Prison Focus POOR News Network

Imagine the United States as it is today, with a rise in misogynistic role models that rule the right wing agenda, people who encourage violence and disrespect towards women to millions of young men my age. These people preach that being a real man is being an “Alpha Male”, someone who treats women like objects and focuses solely on a capitalistic rise to power fueled by fast food and steroids. Unfortunately, men like these aren’t the exception in many countries, but the norm. In a small state under Karachi along the west coast of India, these men who still believe women are second class citizens exist, and are in charge of the state government, and just recently they released 11 men who were serving a life prison sentence for a gang rape they committed against a Muslim woman Bilkis Bano. Along with being raped, her 3 year old daughter was thrown to the ground, killing her instantly. Bilkis was 5 months pregnant, and was one of the many muslim women who were brutally raped and murdered by the Hindu people of that area. Bilkis survived by playing dead while others around her were being hacked to pieces. This attack on March 3rd, 2022 was in retaliation to a anti-muslim attack on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims that saw 59 people killed after the train caught fire. The following retaliatory attacks by right-wing Hindu groups ended after 2,000+ Muslims in Gujarat were “hacked, shot and burned” according to Al Jazeera. Most of the women attacked were brutally raped then murdered. Narendra Modi, the current prime minister of India, was the state's chief minister at the time, and was actively working to suppress the voices of human rights organizers accusing him of not doing enough to stop the mass murder. Narendra has been shifting his country to a right wing agenda ever since his re-election in 2019. Narendra is also interestingly enough, a right-wing Hindu nationalist. In the 20 years since this massacre, Bilkis has fought tooth and nail for 17 years to get compensation of 5 million rupees (63,000USD) and the men were tried and sentenced to life in prison. “Today, it has become commonplace for Hindu supremacists to openly give calls for genocide and rape of Muslims – without any consequences.” Those are the words of the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) on the results of the trial. Those 11 men now walk free with full support of the prime minister and his cabinet. Men like Narendra, Donald Trump, and many others are the reasons why in this world, after everything that has been done for women's rights, women are continually assaulted and murdered, disrespected and treated like objects and this treatment is being supported by the government. In the so-called “land of the free” women's abortion rights have been taken, and with the actions that we have seen in the United States that parallel the freeing of these terrible men, who knows what will be in store next for women of the world?

Transcript: In Chinese there are two characters for the word crisis: danger and opportunity. A lot of people I know say because I left the comfortable existence in the suburban wilderness of New Jersey, I was more, I was in danger. I was more in danger living five years in a toxic relationship. That was way more dangerous to my soul than being out here. It was a cost of my psyche that was incredible and immeasurable. It's a challenge for me to be here on the other coast but I'm not alone. I have my ancestors walking with me, keeping me motivated to go onward and upward. It is an amazing opportunity to learn who the authentic me is because for five years I forgot. I'm living la vida pobre even with a job in the poverty industrial complex but it's all good because things are going to work out some way or somehow. I will never again forget who I am, a strong Indigenous woman. And from now on, I'm serving authentic me realness. I'll never shrink myself to make others comfortable ever again and money never bought me happiness. Freedom does. Transcript: During the Black Joy Parade that I was in, I was reaching out to the people and letting them know that in Oakland, we're still here. We are still here. And we will continue to be here. And it's become like a catchphrase so I kind of like put it in art form. What I want to share with you is my, what I'm very proud of: a little book of a, a children's story. But it's also for the inner child and everybody. And it's a story that's actually, I interpreted it but it's written in the book of nature. It's a story about meditation, visualization, imagination, and illumination. It's a story about Butter. And Butter was a worm. And he used to go around in his garden community and tell other worms that one day he was going to fly. And the other worms laughed at Butter and called him crazy behind his back because they had never seen a worm fly. But one day Butter disappeared for 40 days and 40 nights and all he thought about, all he dreamed about, all he schemed about was one day flying. And one day to his own amazement he began to notice a little bump coming out of the side of his body and it got longer and longer and he remembered what he had seen the birds do. So, he began to flap his newfound wings and he flapped them harder and harder until it happened. Butter was airborne! Wooo! And all the other worms were looking at their Butter, they're like, “Butter’s like a god world. He's like the king of king of worms!” And Butter was like, “Nah, man. I'm just Butter. Flying. Have faith, do as I do, and one day you'll be able to fly too.” And Butter, because he believes in himself and that he could do what nobody else thought he could do, became the first butterfly in the history of the world. Okay? So, I always believe the dreams that come to you, that's the seed that comes from the divine. Whatever it is, however crazy it may be. Work on it, move on it, believe in it, until something better comes. Or until fruition. Thank you so much. Transcript: Three two one cue smalls in, Smaller Baller out of East Stockton by way of Berkeley because this family home to me as well out here. I was doing my thing years ago out here, caught my first felony out here on the streets of Oakland not even on 98th and Brookfield, you know what i'm saying? So this is home once again. I lost my uncle on December 4th, 1993 when I was 8 years old. I just turned 37 on June 26. Amen. Hallelujah. Eric Ronald Reagan's in front of my own young eyes due to murder shots fired all I can say is - signs of violence. Make peace. I also have my phone number five one zero four three zero zero seven zero nine. Smaller Baller. I would sell my music out here, wise, give or sell food with children, substitutions for my life and keep everybody uplifted on that. Plus taking donations to help us all. We have a 501(c)(3) but due to corona we gonna skip that shit. 2781 Telegram is our United Root Center. That's founded by William and Fergie at the Black Eyed Peas. We established that due to the Ella Baker Center with Van Jones. I finished the court recipes column now you know and um we're just trying to open that up. But you guys are always welcome to always get music off our website. And uh family right here, right here this is family. So you know, I ain't been out here in about a month and a half but had to come show up and just greet everybody and my new word. I stay stankin’. Transcript: And how you became homeless or what’s your background? The story is not about homelessness, it’s about my story. I just thought it was a little significant with me in front of my dad. They called him Poncho and this is his tree. So it's just a little bio with a little spoken word twist to it. Okay, so… My mom’s Berkley and Berkley bounce. We moved to Chi town twice. Until the rich grew up with Black pride and then we moved back to Oakland Northside Kiloplast Tinted Rock Alcatraz Famous block Tackle football on cement I got fast With gangsters but it wasn't shit because if you couldn't come from the shoulders then you shut your lip. These rules for young fools to live by some still apply those were the days, mm and all those days weren't fly. But all I know was that they pass you with the blink of an eye. And all you could do is, laugh man y'all can’t lie, But in those days you did. You see no matter how ugly they wise words hugly and for no reason unconditionally love me. The light lace so I made an about face. Then I didn’t have to become a disgrace to my race. The price was priceless. This advice for life is these folks that I toast to keep close with. Whether I sit twisted with a sip in the fifth kick back and reminisce with this and feel the vibe. They go with those nine to five and think of the things in life that’s gone tight. It's gonna be alright. Transcript: Alright, what's your name? I’m Country, last of the Mohicans. Uh yes sir. Uh I came out here but they call me Cassius, you know what I'm saying? Aka, Toshun, you know what I'm saying? I came out here in 2005, man. I'm telling you, I was homeless and had nowhere to go, you know what I'm saying? I really came out here on faith. Real talk, you know what I'm saying? This is before all of that you know what I'm saying? Look, I was staying in Fremont everything bro. Like I was going through the motions. My ex, man, she was mistreating me, doing me dirty you know what I'm saying? I'm just giving you like the fast paced of it, but you know what I'm saying. But then after that, then I started migrating so I migrated all the way like to like San Leandro, Hayward, everything you know what I'm saying, all the way to the town. So, then when I got to the town it was a whole different flavor a whole different love, whole different everything, you know what I'm saying? Still homeless, still going back and forth, you know. Couchsurfing, everything you know what I'm saying? I even lived in South Hayward too but anyway you know what I'm saying, make a long story short. And all of that man you know what I'm saying through the grace of god man, I got my own place now you know what I'm saying, at age 44 man, you know what I'm saying? I even sold him pants though you know what I'm saying on Brookfield you know what I'm saying? I was in Brookfield selling pants and everything man I was doing everything just to keep my head above water man. Real talk. All I’m saying man is god, god is everything you know I'm saying? The greatest influence that pushed me through everything you know what I'm saying? It's about sipping on the drink, boy, everything you heard me, going through the motions man. On the streets, I'm talking about sleeping on the bench, I'm sleeping on the bench, we was in downtown plaza. I'm talking about sleeping, sleeping uh by the uh by the BART Station actually you know what I'm saying? Real talk, you know what I'm saying? Real life man, real real life situation. It just did, it just really made me a better person you know what I'm saying? Really made me humble and be a better person, man. God is great, man. God is great. It is what it is, man.

By Ziair hughes, Deecolonize academy student /POOR Magazine Youth poverty Skola In Canada a situation has flared back up, from the late 1800s to 1997 more than 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their families and put in Catholic churches and residential Schools and the people who ran the schools, which were scattered all across the US and Canada, would punish the children for speaking their native language, abuse them physically, mentally and sexually and they would even cut the childrens long hair. These residential schools are not unique to Canada; there were once over 400 across the United states. A lot of kids died and the people who ran the churches would find poles and pipes to build crosses for the graves they dug for the children or often just bury them secretly with no cross at all. Sadly most of these institutions sexually and physically violated the children. Patrick who was one survivor of the many victims said “Then the priest got me drunk and i didnt know what happened when i got up the next morning”, concluded patrick Through all this the pope issued an apology and took a picture with a war bonnet on, now the church and the pope think the issue is solved . At Deecolonize Academy, we study the true history of this land and we believe everybody deserves the truth. No sugar coding at all. To me the apology from the pope didn't seem sincere enough, to add on, you can't apologize for somebody else's trauma or somebody else's wrong doing, if anything the survivors should be granted money and the church should either be given to the survivors or be named after them.