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  • Día de los Muertos en la Diaspora/Day of the Dead in the Diaspora Tues. Nov. 1st at 5pm

    Prayer from all four corners of MamaEarth for ancestors of poverty, homelessness, false borders, poLice terror & colonization. Oracion desde los cuatro rincones de MamaTierra por los antepasados de la pobreza, la falta de vivienda, las fronteras falsas, el terror policia, y la colonizacion. Art, food, face painting, danza and prayer from Maya to Africa. Arte, comida, pintura facial, danza y oracion de Maya a Africa. Tues. Nov 1st at 5pm/Martes, 1 de Nov@ 5pm Homefulness 8032 BlackArthur (Mac Arthur) in Deep East Huichin (Oakland)

  • Prescribed Addiction-Adicción Prescrita

    (Spanish/Espanol) Una de las estadísticas que nunca se puede encontrar un número exacto es todas las personas que usan drogas por receta médica. Porque Estados Unidos receta drogas sin que el paciente dé su consentimiento? La mayoría de estos son pacientes latinos y afroamericanos los cuales nunca les dicen nada para cuestionar al doctor. Los doctores muchas veces si no siempre tratan de atinarle al malestar del individuo con medicina. Medicina para el dolor crónico, para la depresión y por si fuera poco todavía nos señalan cómo drogadictos crónicos, ellos son los que provocan la maldita adicción. y así como nos atacan encima de todo esto estados unidos son los que producen más drogas . Legales e Ilegales, Debajo de la mesa y no se diga que son corruptos porque les duele que les digan que son corruptos hasta el alma pero lo son. Igual que otros países que los apoyan y por eso Estados Unidos, está en la mira de todo lo que supuestamente ha hecho sin dar explicaciones.pero cómo todos sabemos no todo es perfecto y eventualmente saldrá ala luz. después viene la oscuridad y eso es cuando se tienen que preocupar, porque cuando se oscurece ya no se ve el camino y es cuando te puedes perder o peor ser olvidado. (English/Ingles) One of the statistics that you can never find an exact number is all the people who use prescription drugs. Why does the United States prescribe drugs without the patient's consent? Most of these are Latinos and Afro-Americans patients, who never say anything to question the doctor. Doctors often if not always try to target the individual's discomfort with medicine. They give us medicine for everything, for chronic pain and for depression. and as if that were not enough they still call us drug addicts,when they are the ones who cause the damn addiction. While they attack us and on top of all this, the United States are the ones that produce the most drugs. Legal and Illegal, Under the table and do not say that they are corrupt because it hurts them to the soul to be told that they are corrupt but they are. The US is corrupt and they don't have to be accountable to anyone. But as we all know, not everything is perfect and it will eventually come to light. Then comes the darkness and that is when they have to worry, because when it gets dark you can no longer see the road and that is when you can get lost or worse be forgotten.

  • Parque de la gente es Madre Tierra, People's Park is Mother Earth

    (Espanol/Spanish)English below ¿Qué es en realidad ser un policía? Alguien sabe la definición? La razón que yo me hago esta pregunta es porque cuando yo estuve en la escuela regular, si se puede decir así, me dijeron que un policía es la persona que está de lado de lo que hoy llamamos justicia. Actualmente es separación de bienes porque justicia no hay, lo qué hay es las diferencias de culturas y diferencias de colores. Estas personas que compran las tierras, ponen la madre tierra en una posición política aunque nuestra madre tierra nos da la comida y el aire para vivir. Sin ella no tendríamos la estúpida policía y cómo todas las personas que gritan para que el parque de la gente en Berkeley no desaparezca porque no necesitan más y más unidades para esta universidad las cuales un bajo porcentaje se gradúa. Por el otro lado las mismas personas quieren cerrar otras escuelas para la gentes de la comunidad que somos nosotros los que aquí vivimos y esta se debe de parar porque solo para hacer más apartamentos para estudiantes que vienen de otros lado y posiblemente ellos tiene un parque en su propia casa por eso no les importa este parque que tiene historia muy importante para nuestra comunidad. Esos recuerdo nunca será removido de ese pequeña parte de nuestra madre tierra (English/Ingles) What is it really like to be a policeman? Does anyone know the definition? The reason I ask myself this question is because when I was in regular school, if you can put it that way, they told me that a police officer is the person who is on the side of what we now call justice. Currently it is separation of goods because there is no justice, what there is is the differences of cultures and differences of colors. These people who buy the land, put mother earth in a political position even though our mother earth gives us food and air to live. Without her we wouldn't have the stupid police and how all the people screaming for the people's park in Berkeley not to disappear because they don't need more and more units for this university in which a low percentage graduate. On the other hand, the same people want to close other schools for the people of the community, when we are the ones who live here. This should be stopped because its only to make more apartments for students who come from other places and possibly have a park in their own house, that's why they don't care about this park, which has a very important history for our community. Those memories will never be removed from that small part of our mother earth.

  • Vida Natural o Artificial? Natural or Artificial Living?

    Espanol/Spanish La vida entre el sueño americano y nuestros ancestros y la madre tierra son dos muy diferentes estilos de vida. la vida artificial y la vida natural. Con el paso de los años muchísimas cosas, que sin la madre tierra no estarían, constantemente pasan como la fabricación de medicinas artificiales. En el sueño americano que supuestamente se encuentra en este país, el 70 por ciento de los ocupantes de este país está bajo la influencia de medicina artificial. Por ese lado el gobierno los controla y nos hacen creer que nos están salvando pero por el otro lado, Millones de personas están muriendo por medio de estos medicamentos falsos. Con todo ese dinero hacen otras cosas como el alcohol y armas. creando armamentos para matar a los más humildes y los cuales le dieron la sabiduría de cómo usar la madre tierra para sanar no para matar. pero con todo esto siguen destruyendo los Árboles y explotando la naturaleza. ni con todo el dinero ni con todo el ejército que tengan se podrán salvar de la furia total de la madre tierra que hay dice un dicho ni debajo de la tierra te podrás ocultar. English/Ingles Life between the American dream and our ancestors and mother earth are two very different lifestyles. artificial life and natural life. Over the years, many things that would not exist without Mother Earth constantly happen, such as the manufacture of artificial medicines. In the American dream that is supposed to be found in this country, 70 percent of the occupants of this country are under the influence of artificial medicine. On that side the government controls them and they make us believe that they are saving us but on the other side, Millions of people are dying through these fake drugs. With all that money they make other things like alcohol and weapons. creating weapons to kill the most humble and which gave him the wisdom of how to use mother earth to heal not to kill. but with all this they continue destroying the trees and exploiting nature. not with all the money nor with all the army they have can they be saved from the total fury of mother earth that there is, says a saying, not even under the earth can you hide.

  • From Wood Street to Where do we go?

    The brutal evictions of hundreds of already evicted people from the largest Houseless Community in Oakland and the journey to Safe Ground By tiny gray-garcia aka povertyskola "We want to make sure the housed neighbors here know we are being very conscious about all of us being safe, both us housed and unhoused residents of this land, said fierce povertyskola and resident leader of Wood Street Commons La Monte at a press conference on Indigenous Peoples Day and World Homeless Day. Thanks to the tireless work of unhoused povertyskolaz across the state from Oakland to Sacramento and the liberation moves of conscious legislator Caroll Fife the Wood Street Community moved many of their RV's and trailers onto a vacant CalTrans lot at 34th and Mandela streets in West Oakland on October 10, 2022 . from Left: Xochitl, John, LaMonte, Delphine and LeaJay speaking to Mia Bonte's aide- picture by Israel Munoz The Journey to Mandela “We have nowhere to go, we are asking you, begging you to stop these evictions, “ John Bowman Janosko, one of the houseless poverty skola resident leaders of Wood Street Commons stood alongside LaMonte, LeaJay, Tamara and advocates/supporters Xochitl, Delphine, Jas and more truth warrior residents, pleading to the poltrickster to actually listen and do something to stop this violent displacement of already displaced people at Wood Street Commons and Cob on Wood - one of the largest ComeUnities of houseless residents in the Bay Area. (I refuse to call it “an encampment” as this is more otherising language from poltricksters and krapitalist haters. Its a comeUnity, a neighborhood, a village of poor people who support and care for each other like all us poor folks do.) “Throughout this past week and over the past month, the California Highway Patrol and California Department of Transportation have been permanently evicting Wood Street encampment residents en masse at the request of Governor Gavin Newsom, destroying their tiny homes, vehicles and the community they have created together there over the past decade,” said formerly unhoused Oakland-based advocate Delphine Brody, who biked with Wood Street resident organizers and advocates to Sacramento On Oct 1st Wood Street residents traveled up by bike from Oakland (Lisjan land) to Nisenan/Maidu territory aka the sacramento State Krapitol, to visit with legislators (what i call LIEgislators) to raise funds for the Wood Street community, demand an end to the evictions of Wood Street residents, other unhoused Oaklanders,and unhoused warriors from the Sacramento Homeless Union and call on state officials to support the civil and human rights of unhoused people with access to permanent housing, water, electricity, trash removal, and other basic resources that allow them to live with dignity, safety and stability POOR Magazine /Homefulness formerly houseless and houseless povertyskolaz from Ohlone Lisjan land (Oakland) joined them. “All of these evictions cost so much money, millions of dollars in personnel. From PoLice to sheriffs to administrative personnel, why not give it to us to create our own solutions,” LaMonte, one of the resident leaders said, going on to say that the city of Oakland received over 6 million dollars for “homeless services” and spends most of that on sweeping homeless people. photo of hundreds of poor workers on the march to evict poor people at Wood Street - photo by Israel Munoz /PNN Our group of approximately 20 people in total walking from LIEgislator to another explained the impossible situation of evictions of hundreds of residents from where they have been living for the last several years to a series of LIEgislative aides who repeated half-heartedly multiple times, “well, there isn't much we can do,” It hurt my heart to hear John use the B word (Beg) to the LIEgislative aides who barely bothered to “take notes” for their bosses and yet thats where this krapitalist system has put us poor folk. Begging to not be displaced,removed,evicted, terrorized. Like Iris Canadá, Elaine Turner, Shannon Marie Bigley, Desiree Quintero, me and my mama and all of our POOR Magazine family, when we were on the street and so many more Houseless and barely housed elders and families evicted, swept and killed by this violent settler lie of private property. “We have built a thriving community there, with a free store for clothes, a save haven to rest if you are currently in crisis, food and supplies, this is what they are destroying, a community of homeless people helping ourselves,” John concluded “When you keep sweeping us we keep being homeless, the only thing that helped me out of homelessness is Homefulness, said Israel Munoz to the LIEgislators, one of the formerly houseless residents of Homefulness- a homeless peoples rent-free housing and healing solution to homelessness we poor and indigenous peoples have built in Deep East Huchuin On Sunday, October 2nd, 2022, Oakland and Sacramento unhoused organizers held a potluck and a press session at the reclaimed community space on a vacant city-owned lot at Arden Way and Colfax Streetmin Sacramento The importance of the location they chose was to highlight the ongoing politricks of The City of Sacramento who, like most of the settler towns across Turtle Island would rather sweep people than house people, had spent $617,000 to fence and pave a lot designated for safe parking for houseless people. Instead, they moved approximately 150 unhoused residents in circles around the lot and ultimately, last April, forced them off the lot to fence it off and lock people out, displacing people throughout City The city of Sacramento spent millions of dollars to force people back onto the streets. At least 300 cops and 150 workers. POOR Magazine poverty skola reporters who are Houseless ourselves due in large part to the city of oakland charging us endless permits and delays for over 11 years, refusing to let us open our own solution to homelessness we call Homefulness, have been to Wood Street to report, support, build and vision with residents for the last several years but since the “mysterious” fires started happening, over the last two months which this povertyskola has her own theories about, CalTrans, has had the ammunition to tow, demolish, destroy and evict a thriving comeUnity, a neighborhood of people, who unlike most neighborhoods in most settler towns, actually got along and supported each other. “We had beautiful tiny homes built out here which were our homes until they put a notice on it and told us we had to move because they were going to demolish it,” said Kelly, one of many residents of tiny homes and RV’s who were forced to leave the Wood street community. The City has done nothing really for the residents, except enable more violent sweeps and removal. The city coughed up a total of 40 beds and even they werent easily attainable. The large non-profiteers are hit and miss with their support and requiring of so much red tape most people give up in the process or lose more of their belongings or vehicles in the process of supposedly “getting help” like Wood street resident and RoofLESS radio reporter Tony reported at the Revolutionary Journalism class at POOR Magazine. Thanks to the fierce moves of SisStar warrior Carroll Fife, who also helped cut through the endless red tape of settler politricks in Oakland so Homefulness could finally open last month, a proposal was created by Fife for the Wood Street residents relocation to the Oakland Army Base RESOLUTION DIRECTING THE CITY ADMINISTRATOR TO ALLOW ACCESS TO THE UNDESIGNATED EIGHT ACRES ON THE NORTH GATEWAY PARCEL LOCATED AT THE FORMER OAKLAND ARMY BASE TO SERVE UP TO 300 INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE BEEN DISPLACED DUE TO THE WOOD STREET ENCAMPMENT CLOSURE, AND DIRECTING THE CITY ADMINISTRATOR, IN COLLABORATION WITH STATE AND ALAMEDA COUNTY LEADERS, TO DEVELOP A PLAN TO STAND UP A MORE STABLE HOUSING INTERVENTION WITH SUPPORTIVE SERVICES ON EIGHT ACRES OF THE NORTH GATEWAY PARCEL TO SERVE UNHOUSED COMMUNITIES THROUGHOUT DISTRICT 3, WITH PRIORITY TO RESIDENTS FROM THE WOOD STREET AND MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WAY ENCAMPMENTS The City ended up watering this down to a mostly useless proposal that would not benefit the residents who are in immediate danger of being scattered to the wind. Because, like my mama Dee used to say, they wouldnt get the danger of homelessness, they aint never missed a meal, much-less a roof. “All the places people have been scattered to are also being swept, removed and threatened, where are we supposed to go?” said Wood street resident, Jas Colibri added to the aide. “While climate terrorism is raging across MamaEarth, it is time to actually try something different, like working with 1st Nations and houseless warriors like Sogorea Te Land Trust, Homefulness and Wood Street to unSell and UnSettle land instead of more buying and selling, re-devil-oping and stealing, can you tell Assemblymember Bonta that ?, I pleaded with one of the CONfused looking aides…“When you actually listen to poor and houseless people you find out we have our own solutions, when you support our ideas, we solve our own problems, like we are doing with homefulness. Join Wood Street ComeUnity and Homefulness ComeUnity and other leaders and indigenous prayer-bringers for the announcement of their collaboration to build Homefulness#2 at the site of Homefulness#2 at 7600 Black Arthur (MacArthur) Bl Deep East Huchuin (Oakland) on November 15th at 10am. To support the Wood street relatives follow them on Instagram @woodstreetcommons or @cobonWood .To read the Wood Street residents’ own words written by them at POOR Magazine’s revolutionary journalism class click here Reach tiny on twitter or IG @povertyskola or at her website at lisatinygraygarcia.com

  • Stories from Wood Street on the violence of sweeps

    "We had nothing, we were wiped out." John Bowman Jonasko One of the worst crises that happened to me was when the first time CalTrans evicted me and street family from Mosswood park. They came at 8 am in the morning with at least 20 CalTrans workers dressed in orange and fluorescent green vests and garbage bags in hand. They said we had 5 minutes to get some of our personal belongings and then we had to get out of the way. They came through and munched through all our stuff within 30 minutes. Within the next hour all we had left was a few tents and a suitcase of clothes. We had nothing, we were wiped out. The worst thing about that was we knew nobody cared about our situation at that time. CalTrans packed up their equipment and workers and drove the fuck off. There were know referrals nor did they give any suggestions where to go! We were homeless—for the very first time I felt homeless. Tony Ray Allen My friend got murdered last month—by the time I got there, the fire it burned down, and then my trailer burned down 3 times and they gave us a room for 3 weeks but then kicked us out. I’m just trying to get another trailer. I can’t just dread on it, I just have to get up and start over again. I learned how to survive quickly after spending half my life in jail. I learned how to get my stuff back quickly and it keeps getting taken from me. Leejay I’ve had so many things that have fucked me up in my life, it’s way too much bullshit from the same thang we’ve all heard before, but one thing that I’ve been dealing with that I can’t really grasp the reason—and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get it answered—but when I realized my mother hates me because I’m black, I’m thinking maybe I fucked up things for her with my family because I wasn’t really accepted. She uses me as the “way you don’t wanna live when you grow up.” Or she never talked bad about my father that beat her numerous times but she uses “well you can go live with your mom” as a threat or a punishment to my children, and the fucked up thing is that she has tried to alienate me from my babies by feeding them hateful lies poison false memories making up stories of drugs & abuse & them being both abused by drugs to where my babies questioned me for truths, but I was able to spark their memories. Video Transcript: My name is Tony Ray Allen and my story is about Wood Street. They had an RV park over there and the reason we went up to the RV park is they said they would get all our RVs fixed, make sure that when we leave them there we’d be legit and they couldn’t take our RVs but went up there and access gives them seven things that we wanted so we gave them seven things we wanted but after two—a year and a half of this we never got any of it. The electricity stuff was messed up up here so we got a lot of guys were kind of trying to fix it to keep you going but one of the wires caught my vehicle on fire and they didn’t do anything about it, so I ended up getting another one in the same spot and that one a lady gets out of jail—I mean she didn’t get out of jail, her boyfriend got out of jail and didn’t wanna be with her anymore so she said she was going to burn something but then nobody believed it. She set hers on fire by the neighbor, killed his dog, and he had a heart attack in front of mine and another person burned up all of his and put us in a room for three weeks. After the third week they put us out and we didn’t have no say about getting another RV or no nothing and here I am, homeless.

  • InflaSHAM

    InflaSHAM -it’s a CorpRape scam -We all must OVERstand de-Krapitalism lesson plan Meant to cause us po folks hunger pangs Rigged to make AmonstraZon & besos even more bank Gas 6 dollaz po Mamaz can’t get drive our elders to doctors or pick up our suns and daughters Filled with a lot of poor people lies Like we just don’t work hard enough or pull up our bootstraps high While transportation costs rise so even if we get a job We cant afford the ride Now now vegan nazis yea we should bike and walk only But some poor /disabled workers still need their need their cars -homey we can’t all b witey rocketing to the moon & stars taking all our stolen money up to mars Fuk u and your CorpRape lies Tyson chicken price gouging chicken thighs Fuk us poor peoples wit not enuf to feed our families Fuk the elders let them get on the Reno bus and gamble We got profits to make More people to break And besides we rich people always win Any damn way So we talk about InflaSHAM - I wanna un-pack the krapitalist aspect of this scam ITs deep family- The wealth-hoarders rig the prices and make as much money as the “market” will allow Then we we cant keep our jobs, pay for child care or food to eat They make money on our crash and defeat You see family they make money every which a way- and sometimes the slactivists should be including blood-stained ekonmiks in their strategy planning days This PoemCast from a poverty skola goes out to all my fellow poverty skolaz tryna make it from one day to the other - trying to feed our babies when the Ekkkonomiks don’t make no sence- But its also a deep lesson for all of us- poverty skolaz and folks wit privilege and a safe place to rest- InFlaSham must be un-packed if we want to clearly overstand Krapitalist krap- Its not just the frog in the hot water accepting rising costs until they get boiled. Its the specifics about what these krapitalists do with what they call the Market- its realizing that to them we arent humans with feelings and struggles - we r a thing - that can b played with - how high can we charge them for chicken legs before they don’t buy no more chicken- how much can we rake in for our diapers before they stop buying diapers-( and earn for our parent company Monsanto) its calculated and evil and needs to be related to any kind of our poor people resistance. Since before recorded colonial time our mamaz , uncles and comeUnities have been pooling their monies to support each other - not a one-off kick—down - not oh u got a crisis- I got to show up in yo town- - but ongoing indigenous community interdependence - if anyone has a job- everyone eats, if people pool money they all eat - they all have businesses - In the 80’s a small group of women from the global south ( Bangladesh) started one of these circles - an akkkademik named Mohammad Yunis launched the Bank of Grameen. Which at its core was a beautiful progression of our interdependence - each of us survives and thrives if one of us does. Making small loans to people in poverty so they could create their own “micro-businesses” in “savings circles” with other micor-business peoples in poverty. At its core the root principles of the Bank of Grameen and Savings Circles resists krapitalism and subsequently the lie of the “free market” where the prices are gouged and fixed and our ability to survive inside of it relies on a wealth-hoarders decision to steal from us. But like most things in this world - Muhammad got a Nobel prize - got soul-ed out by the IMF - the World Bank - one of the Neo-liberal lies of global poverty and terrorism of poor and indigenous nations across Mama Earth- they brought the concept here and began the IDA loans at places like Bank of Apartheid - all of it is sad- and pimped and I know cuz me and mama tried to get help from it for our micro-business when we were still houseless and trying everything to be stable All of that said, for us revolutionaries to truly create self-determined movements in resistance to krapitalist terror, violence and hoarding - we also have to learn back, walk-back, Land-Back, and live back the indigenous economics of our ancestors-NO Black Brown and indigenous krapitalism isn’t the answer - but Lifting up all the micro-business owners in poverty, lifting up our fellow communities in poverty collectively so we can all not only survive but thrive- now thats an actual resistance to the wite- supremacist, evil that is Krapitalism- from street newspaper sellers, to artists, to shoe-shiners to (gardeners) jardinieres - we need to take back our street corners ,cuz like I always say- Change won’t come from a savior a pimp or an institution - change will only come from a poor people led revolution….. Resistance to greed is real- but family we won’t make it ALONE but we WILL make it together…. Stay tuned for our mercadito de cambios to bloom at Homefulness - into rent-free spaces of bartering and support and radical sharing - and next installation on Radical Interdependence led by and for poor people -

  • When I Was at the Swings by Boudia

    Facing the southeast corner of the park, with the KNOW letters visible in the background. Photo: Nacio Jan Brown When I was at the swings, I would swing until the dark covers the sky. When I went down the slide, it was a moment of fun. 11 years old, with my dad and my sister, one summer. Going up to Telegraph almost every day. My dad would support homeless folks, I met a few runaways there in the Streets. One of the runaways was a brother figure to me and stayed at our place plenty of times. We would stop at many stores of wonder. Annapurna, The Dark Entry, Rasputin’s, Amoeba. Rasputin’s had pinball machines; I was almost a pro at that point. The record stores had everything we wanted to watch with our eyes to entertain with. Then lastly, we come to the park, to play with the swings, our autistic bodies in bliss. That park was People’s Park. People and police skirmish during a protest against the closing of People's Park to build student housing in Berkeley, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. Jungho Kim/Special to SFGATE One day, the swings were gone. The slide was gone. It was history. I knew from that day point on, something was wrong, something was about to go down. Today, I saw the trees cut down, the garden ruined. People mourning and tearing down fences. People arguing and people coming together. Colonizers in Blue lined up as the soldiers for the University. Tuitions funding the destruction of our kin and our communities. When I was at the swings, I was in bliss, at peace. The swings are gone, and there was no peace. Capitalism took that bliss away from me. Colonialism took that bliss away from the peoples Imperialism is where the world burns.

  • Yea this skola going ..going back back to kkkollege.. kollege..

    (Sed To me and mamas favorite rapper soundz BiggieSmalls ) Yea this skola going going back back to kkkollege …kkkollege - Not cuz it’s. A dream or will make me or cuz I can teach ... We Po & Houseless folks got that on lock from our ancestors, our elders , our struggles our resistance We already teach /share /love and repair with our humble struggle knowledge of love Work and Radical care Naw it’s With original theory we call #PovertyScholarship It’s with the knowledge of our Mamaz and what sleeping and surviving wit nothing b teaching It’s with interdependence not rooted in more extraction, exploitation and MamaEarth /1st nations ancestors desecration So no this povertySkola don’t care bout your paper with kolonial letters on it But I do care bout infiltration To Liberation I care bout the stolen Resources , land and dreams they r hoarding I care bout Reparations free tuition and information to help us skolaz create our theatre into spaces and places we r shut off of -silenced in and out of and radical redistribution that must come from these institutions I infiltrated their bugie “journal” with the land back /free tuition for poor students proposal I already gave to the dean But No Matta what NONE of this would have happened without y’all kicking down yo love crums so this skola could pay the “ransom” Love, gratitude and respect mere words can’t express and best believe family once again I’ll b tearing Ish up … #infiltratetoLiberateandEducate #Semester2 #LowResidency #WillBBackinaWeek

  • The Poli-tricks of CARE..

    (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-

  • The Exceptional Hobo

    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

  • POOR at Seattle Social Justice Film Festival 9/30-10/1

    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.

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