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By Charles Pitts Randy Shaw just published a new story mentioning people staying in shelters having a 14-day limit. Mr. Shaw complained that poor people are using drugs in the neighborhood. The rebuttal is: Temporary shelter of 14 days- one does not have adequate time to do much of anything such as transition from shelter to housing. At 14 days, the only thing one really has the time to do is apply for more shelter. At 14 days, that's just enough time for someone to get their ID if they immediately leave the shelter and go to the DMV. Getting an ID at that rate would also mean everything would have to go correctly and no errors be made. Mr. Randy Shawn’s suggestion of 14 days also goes in violation of city law which states a person has 90 days, and you can have it extended up to 180, as noted in the shelter grievance policy page 18. This policy has changed in face of the pandemic to stop the spread of disease such as coronavirus and possibly tuberculosis. The goal should be to help homeless people get an income stream and housing and escape extreme poverty. At 14 days, none of this can be achieved. The housing process could take up to 6 months. Getting IDs, bank statements, birth certificates, SSI cards, to get housing applications completed and addressed takes much more than 14 days. The logistics of it could take more than 180 days. At 14 days, it's not enough time for case management to connect with people in order to address any of their needs to escape extreme poverty or homelessness. Randy Shawn’s 14-day plan has not worked in the past and very likely will not work in the future. I'm sure 14 days goes against all best practice models. San Francisco needs to start working on viable plans and alternatives to help people get income streams and economically advance. San Francisco needs to create volunteer opportunities and more job fairs.   San Francisco is dealing with an aging population and disabled population where many people need medical assistance and outright In-Home Support Services to deal with physical and mental disabilities. Mister Shaw's primary argument about homeless people having housing with attached bathrooms instead of everything being down the hall. Half or the majority of the housing Mr Shaw has bathrooms and every other amenity down the hall. Very likely, people with ADA requirements and other issues need bathrooms and other cooking facilities in their unit. We need to have serious dialogue regarding the best housing model for poor people and we need four different types of housing models.  1 ) A shelter system where there's legitimate accountability for shelter staff and shelter where poor people have the authority to adjust policy and procedure regarding how they live.  2 ) Halfway houses where it's other than 200 people stacked up on top of each other. Something where five to 20 people live communally. 3 ) Housing where people have an attached bedroom and bathroom all together. 4 ) Independent housing where it is primarily a residence by itself such as a house.  The housing model of the single room occupancy only works because that's the only housing model that's available. The single room model needs to be totally eliminated and revamped. How society treats poor people needs to be redone. We need several philosophical and economic changes within our society.

and Demand of Land Back/Land Return and Reparations for Black/Indigenous Houseless Residents and Decriminalization of all “public space” on Turtle Island for temporary or life-long use by Houseless, Disabled, Poor residents and ComeUnities anywhere they may commune.   This Decline to Accept, Decriminalization and Reparations demand  is co-created by poor, houseless, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Disabled peoples from all four corners of occupied Turtle Island. The following are some of the Writers, Signers, and Survivors from poor /houseless/disabled, Indigenous people-led movements. To watch an emergency press conference featuring all of the groups, signers and commenters listed below please go to this link on POOR Magazine's Facebook page If you would like to add your name, your Comments and your organizations name please email poormag@gmail.com . For more background on the settler roots of this CONstitutional ruling see Grants Pass is NOT for Sale article by tiny gray-garcia here - The Signers/Commenters Who Collectively Decline to Accept Homefulness/POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork Poor Peoples Army Self-Help Hunger Program  Aetna Street Solidarity Reclaiming Our Homes  Wood Street Commons Krip Hop Nation Camp Resolution  Roofs Over Their Heads  Indian People Organizing for Change (IPOC)  Rooflesser  Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) Street WatchLA Peoples Park, Berkeley Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) The following document is a response to the violent ruling Friday, June 28, 2024, by the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned Grants Pass v. Johnson , a case that had barred multiple settler cities across stolen Turtle Island from citing and arresting people for the sole act of being homeless in public. The Supreme Court, packed with a majority of wealth-hoarding, land-owning, classist, racist, ableist settlers,  in a 6-3 decision, said fining and arresting homeless people does not violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. We Decline to Accept this Settler CONstitution Ruling. We, as houseless, Black, Brown, Indigenous peoples from all four corners of Mama Earth, who have suffered multiple forms of oppression in this krapitalist system, ranging from colonial genocide, false border terror, historic violent racial profiling, and over-poLicing of our neighborhoods and bodies, redlining, ComeUnity violence, sweeps, theft of belongings and lives, incarceration, eviction, banksters, foreclosures, theft of land and generational wealth, ableism, poverty, scarcity,  ancestral and current trauma, and multiple more forms of gender-based violence, child abuse, and predation and survive and reside by any means necessary in street-based Communities, our cars, RV’s and/or wherever we can lay our heads, if even for a minute, all across Turtle Island overstand and know that Turtle Island is stolen, occupied Indigenous land and must and should go back to Indigenous stewardship.  We believe that Mama Earth is NOT now, nor has ever been for sale.  We also believe and know that the “legal” document known as the US CONstitution and the peoples appointed to adjudicate and uphold said document  are not now , nor will ever “rule” in favor of poor and houseless people. They can’t.  The document known as the CONstitution was created by the original Land Stealers known and referred to as the “Founding Fathers”  and is a document that is now, and has always been there to protect the racist and classist settler lie of private property and the wealth-hoarding white people who originally stole this land and imported Black and Brown bodies to build it and who continue to hoard, pillage, extract and steal from Mama Earth and her precious waters, air, oceans, and land.  Which we, as houseless people, are directly opposed to by our very existence. Conversely, the entity known as the Supreme Court believes and upholds the full, unfettered rights of protection for the kraptialist system of buying, selling, extracting, trading, and profiting off of Mama Earth.  Read on for more comments by signers and/or add your own.  Some of the Signers /Commenters: POOR Magazine Houseless/Formerly Houseless Poverty skolaz individually   JuneBug Kealoha  I’m poor! I’m unhoused! I’m not trash! I’m not a criminal ! Sweeps on unhoused neighbors is a crime! Tiny aka @povertyskola:   We are criminalized in our bodies for being poor outside, for living without a roof, sleeping in our car, in doorways, in parks, on streets and in tents. What is never mentioned is we are in these doorways and cars because of a system of krapitalism that commodifies mama earth and profits off of our poverty and the incarceration of our bodies.   So-called Grants Pass, Oregon itself is stolen land, and should be returned to the Takelma, Shasta and Athbaskan relatives, who are the first peoples of that territory. And many of whom make up the houseless relatives in so-called Grants Pass. Just like they do in so-called Bellingham, Olympia, Seattle and much of the Pacific Northwest (and all of occupied Turtle Island) . Un-reparated, un-supported, original peoples, houseless on their own land.  Secondly, I don’t recognize the Stealing Fathers’ and their lying lies aka the CONstitution, which has proven over and over again to be a “fluid” document that only protects the white, wealth-hoarding , land-stealing class that originally stole Turtle Island.  Tiny gray-garcia aka povertyskola  Wood Street Commons  All the government  "Solutions" like Cabin Communities and shelters have failed to create the necessary foundation unhoused people need to be able to rebuild our lives,” said John Janasko, houseless resident leader at Wood Street Commons Self-Help Hunger Program/POOR Magazine   There are so many atrocities of homelessness for all of us poor people one of them  i am most concerned about is for the babies - the lack of water, safe housing, healthy food, and abuse… We are constantly under attack as poor and houseless peoples. We are constantly under attack as Black people and Black families. This is an emergency.  RECLAIMING OUR HOMES  This is horrible sleep is a body’s survival need. If unhoused people are a concern then provide housing for them or truly affordable housing options. Rent is too high and wages are low there are too many people struggling that may be unhoused soon. Elders are the highest population growing as unhoused because they can’t pay rent with their pensions. Martha Escudero, houseless mama member of Reclaiming Our Homes  Aetna Street Solidarity: The Grants Pass decision will mean what it has always meant for poor people, houseless people living in every city and town in the United States: we do not belong in your world. Which means we are committed to building ours, where everyone has a home, everyone has a place to go, everyone has enough food to eat and a place to rest. We refuse every ruling that attacks life, including the Grants Pass decision to continue and accelerate the slow genocide of poor people, black people, queer and trans people, indigenous migrants, elders and disabled. We belong to us. Aetna Street Solidarity is committed to fighting for a world where everyone belongs. We were born out of resistance to LA Municipal code 41.18 which banned sitting, lying, sleeping on public sidewalks in Los Angeles including Aetna Street in Van Nuys. The Grants Pass decision is an extension of an ideology rooted in white supremacy and capitalism that brought us from the ugly laws to this moment in history, where 6 unhoused people die a day on the streets of LA. When LA passed an amended version of LAMC 41.18, we saw unprecedented loss of those living on the streets who died in the days and weeks following the passing of 41.18 coupled by state-sanctioned raids led by our city’s sanitation, police, and housing authority. All while city politicians declared “VICTORY!” over the bodies of our friends with your tax money. The only services that were offered were permanent fences, the threat of punishment, arrest, illegal search and seizure (sweeps) and nothing beyond a temporary shelter bed. This is the Wheel of (Mis)Fortune, created by Ron, an unhoused member of our community organization dedicated to saving life while living on the streets. These are the names of our friends who have died in a world that enforced our criminalization. We choose LIFE over DEATH. We reject the Grants Pass decision that rejects life. We choose life, which means we choose to resist any law that seeks to criminalize our existence as poor people living in the heart of Empire. Long live the struggle of poor people fighting for our common goal and cause— a life worth living. KRIP HOP NATION  "Man over Mama Earth. Is the Supreme Court going to pay my rent, or should we be knocking on your door, Move over we are moving in," said Leroy Moore, Formerly houseless, disabled povertyskola with POOR Magazine, Homefulness and Founder of Krip Hop Nation Peoples Park, Berkeley In response to the frighteningly inhumane us Supreme Court ruling on grant’s pass, with the generous offerings of @plantingjustice, an autonomous collective of community members have planted a food forest and extended the mural in the “Dwight Triangle” Chuck P Herrick Peace and Freedom Memorial park. We denounce scotus’ grant’s pass ruling as an act of colonization, setting a vile precedent for displacement, incarceration, human rights violations, and fascism. We vehemently reject and will continue to organize against all attempts at mass enslavement and land seizure. We will eat free fresh fruit in our future— peaches, apples, cherries, plums, figs, loquats, pears, pomegranates, gooseberries, and olives— available for all to share in a liberated Xučyun. Now, as our ancestors since time immemorial and forever into the future as our descendants, we will take refuge and delight in our right to sleep, outside, to camp, to live, to leisure, to love, to rest, luxuriate, to dream... to LIBERATE! By any means necessary. Land back is our demand; NO peace on stolen land! Fuck the fascist haters. From People’s Park to Palestine, our liberation is intertwined. May 1000 food forests bear fruit! End all settler occupations. End empire! Permanent ceasefire! Free Congo! Free Sudan! Free Palestine! Free People’s Park! Like a mycelial network, People’s Park survives attempts to colonize it by shifting tactics and expanding territory. Keeping our baby food forest alive and thriving WILL require that we take turns watering the triangle in shifts. There is NO running water at the park! We need You to haul water (by any means necessary…) to Dwight and Telegraph, to hand water the saplings and other plants growing in the ground AND in containers at Chuck P Herrick Peace and Freedom Memorial Park. StreetWatchLA The role of the courts has always come at the convenience of the ruling class, and it’s unsurprising that the same guys getting free vacations from billionaires and flying MAGA flags sided with total criminalization of homelessness, and we shouldn't be surprised that it was in total agreement with the liberal governors and mayors  Trump-appointed judges made the same cynical anti-homeless rhetoric used by disgraced racist LA councilperson Nury Martinez, claiming it is injustice for the housed  people when encampments occur more often in poor, working class, and Black and brown neighborhoods. As rents continue to rise, tenants lose their housing and then are banished from their own neighborhoods while a politician calls it social justice. One of our members who has cared for his community in the midst of brutal encampment evictions at the hands of LAPD, Sanitation, and Los Angeles City Council said, “i had a feeling Martin vs. Boise was going to be brought up again. The politicians didn’t like that the Ninth Circuit Court ruled against them, because their intentions are to change the laws to criminalize people for being homeless. What we really need to do, is to get in touch with all homeless people here in the state of California and push back as hard as we can against our government. Make them give us that housing that we need. Seems like our government doesn’t give a shit about people who are struggling in paying their rents and whatever other bills they have, like utilities, because it seems like they’re only after the money and nothing more!” Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) Our hearts break at this ruling, thinking of the increased violence against poor people that this decision will enable. However, we are not surprised. The U.S. legal system is doing what it was designed to do: protect private property at all costs and uphold the system of racial capitalism. When our communities, livelihoods, and very existence are deemed illegal and subject to violence, we respond: the U.S. is illegal, as it causes the most violence to all living beings. This violent white cishet property system imposed on Turtle Island has led to people in cages or inescapable conditions of death, stolen wealth hoarded, and ecosystems devastated. As lawyers, we know that private property and U.S. empire has had no greater source of legitimization than the Supreme Court. We firmly reject this ruling, and we reject the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. We support people building community, with each other, and with Mama Earth. If any Supreme Court Justices on the majority opinion are reading this, go to Poor Magazine’s People Skool  on August 24 and 25—it is powerful and necessary medicine that will help heal your generational wealth hoarder/capitalist trauma!

By Leroy F. Moore From public section eight housing in Berkeley to graduate housing at University of California at Los Angeles no matter where I go housing nightmares are reality. I thought I'd escaped my bad landlord that we had to sue because of a broken elevator in 2019. Although we won that case, the apartment complex continued to go down quickly with theft of our mail, the complete stop of maintenance of the property and what got me out was when it was taken over by bedbugs. At that same time, because of the bedbugs thus I was forced to sleep in the bathtub for temporary escape. I thought I was blessed by an offer from the graduate anthropology department at UCLA. After a month of living in a hotel and house sitting for friends to escape my bedbug section eight apartment, I received the official offer to be a graduate student at UCLA with housing included. I didn’t know at that time, but the housing nightmares hopped in my suitcase and popped out in LA as soon as we drove up on campus. Firstly my apartment was not ready, so my family and I had stay in a hotel, then a friend’s house. Finally after like three days, my apartment was ready. We drove up to find my UCLA graduate apartment was in a middle of a hill on a street that you couldn’t stop on. So my sister and my nieces and nephews had to carry my stuff up a hill. Kiss my family bye, first thing I did was call housing and complain. Their answer was to show me a dorm that my scooter didn’t even fit inside so I shut up and made a home in my UCLA graduate housing in the middle of the hill for almost four years. Now in 2024 it will be four years living in UCLA graduate housing in Westwood and in those four years I have had a toilet pipe exploded flooding my bedroom and living-room, UCLA housing workers using their own key to get in although I was at home and told them I didn’t need their help, hiding in the bathroom, to my refrigerator leaking for months, to the recent pipe bursting in the apartment above me sending water in my apartment at 2am on June 27, 2024 and had to wait until 10am for UCLA housing workers to show up. Through all of the above, I continue to pay my $1,530.00 monthly rent until this recent incident of pipe bursting sending buckets of water through the ceiling and walls and because of that I’m asking a month of free rent. However when I told a housing employee who came out with the workers to investigate that I wanted a month of free rent, she replied in a sharp voice, “withholding rent is not a good idea.” Today, on June 28th, 2024, UCLA workers have a big air purifier in my living-room and they finally replaced my refrigerator after a month complaining of it leaking on my kitchen floor. On June 27th when the UCLA housing workers were cleaning up the water, the chemicals that they were using was so bad that I had to go to a café to get rid of bleach taste from my mouth and to relieve my headache. As I follow what society’s equation for success i.e. a freaking highest degree, a Ph.D., still as an older graduate student I am faced with consistent housing nightmares that hunts me on a daily and at age 57 and I see no way escaping it even though I have worked in non-profits, started an international network called Krip-Hop Nation, been published in the New York Times, Bloomberg News and authored four books plus awarded an Emmy but all of my accomplishments can’t fight with the ongoing housing nightmare that I living right now as the noise from this big air purifier in my living-room becomes normal as I close my eyes to take a nap because in my sleep my housing nightmares are not in my dreams. Leroy F. Moore

By Leroy F. Moore As an activist in my middle fifties, one very important thing that have been so obvious to me over and over again and that is many people in power are intimidated to the people they suppose to work for and they have a lack of original thought thus continue to bring back pieces of policies that has a long history rejection from the people they supposed to work for. The recent Supreme Court ruling, Grant Pass vs. Johnson Ruling makes it illegal for houseless people sleeping outside. This ruling is nothing new for activists like me. There’s a long policies from our own governments, locally and federally from the 1867 when San Francisco’s wrote and enforce what has become known as the Ugly Law was the first American ordinance pertaining to preventing people with disabilities from appearing in public was passed in 1867 in San Francisco, California. This ordinance had to do with the broader topic of begging. According to SUSAN M. SCHWEIK’s 2009 book, The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public the San Francisco’s Ugly Laws came out through the notion and practice of charity from the church to large organizations and it also seeped into social work and other bureaucracies would give out permits to “qualified people” who will have a doctor’s say that disabled person only income is playing music on the streets so at that time between 1867 to 1974 a lot of disabled musicians had to go through these bureaucracies just to approve their way of making money. Under Mayor Willie Brown ( 1996-2004) in San Francisco in the height of gentrification and the dot com boom, I witnessed up close how city government made their own anti poverty policies an decisions on their commissions like the one that I was sworn in to be on aka the Mayor’s Commission on Disability. One vote caught me off guard because it was a proposal to remove all the benches from downtown San Francisco and I thought surely this proposal can’t pass because of the city strong access laws on top of the federal disability civil rights law, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act but it did and a week later the benches were gone! Under Mayor Gavin Newsom we saw constant anti poverty policies to programs like Care Not Cash to shelter redesign to force treatment to anti poverty art where you would see big rocks on sidewalks to spikes on bus shelter seats and so much more. It not only male mayors, today Mayor London Breed continues these policies from sweeps to attacking the work of the Coalition on Homelessness to what Newsom did when he was mayor and I quote from a SEPTEMBER 27, 2023 article in 48hills.org : “The latest Breed move: Announcing that she’s going to take the minimal cash people get from General Assistance if they don’t take drug tests or if they test positive (for what isn’t clear) and don’t go into a treatment program that won’t be available anyway.”. Now the US Supreme Court is regurgitating what city mayors Black, White women and men have been doing since the Ugly Laws of 1867! From mayors, legislators, governors and now Supreme Court judges are regurgitating the same old vomit! Leroy F. Moore

Houseless/Indigenous Peoples respond and refuse the Ban on Our Bodies and Lives “Pleeeeease don’t take my mind… please don’t take my mind, “ my aunty rochelle was screaming and crying at the cop while they motioned to the orange-vested men hurling her collection of dolls, her torn sleeping bag and her last tarp into the trash truck near us.  “We will arrest you Ma’am if you don’t leave now,” the cops were robotic, barely registering my Aunty’s  terror. Muchless her humanity. This was years ago in San Francisco when she was staying with me and mama in our broke-down hooptie, which we parked wherever they didnt arrest us or cite us for parking in public while houseless.  Aunty came up from LA where she was a legit doll collector, but like the fate of so many Black, Brown/Indigenous disabled women and men alone, she lost her home, which housed her little doll store in South LA,  through a violent paper trail of foreclosure and eviction and ended her up with nothing but 22 dolls, which she kept wrapped up in a series of old paper bags. Now she equated the loss of her dolls with the loss of her family. Her kin. Her people. Her mind.  Today, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Grants Pass v. Johnson , a case that had barred multiple settler cities across stolen Turtle Island,  from citing and arresting people for the sole act of being homeless in public. The Supreme Court, packed with wealth-hoarding, land-owning, classist, racist, ableist haters,  in a 6-3 decision, said fining and arresting homeless people does not violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Decolonizing Homelessness “200 years ago, before colonization there wasn’t even a concept of homelessness,” said Corrina Gould, Talking chief/spokesperson of the confederated villages of Lisjan/Ohlone and co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust and Family Elders Council member of Homefulness.    So-called Grants Pass, Oregon itself is stolen land, and should be returned to the Takelma, Shasta and Athbaskan relatives, who are the first peoples of that territory. And many of whom make up the houseless relatives in so-called Grants Pass. Just like they do in so-called Bellingham, Olympia, Seattle and much of the Pacific Northwest (and all of occupied Turtle Island) . Un-reparated, un-supported, original peoples, houseless on their own land.  Secondly, I don’t recognize the Stealing Fathers’ and their lying lies aka the CONstitution, which has proven over and over again to be a “fluid” document that only protects the white, wealth-hoarding , land-stealing class that originally stole Turtle Island.  “This (ruling) is horrible, sleep is a body’s survival need. If unhoused people are a concern then provide housing for them or truly affordable housing options. Rent is too high and wages are low there are too many people struggling that may be unhoused soon. Elders are the highest population growing as unhoused because they can’t pay rent with their pensions” said warrior shero Martha Escudero, houseless leader with Reclaiming Our Homes in occupied Tovaangar (LA)  Not having a home and being forced to sleep on the street is only a crime in this stolen land governed by krapitalism. a colonial system that criminalizes poverty and commodifies Mama Earth. The US CONstitution is a document that not only holds in place the theft of occupied turtle Island, but the theft of poor and houseless peoples bodies and belongings.  Now is the Time to Fight “Today, the Court stated that these ordinances that criminalize poverty are not "unusual" because they remain the "usual mode[s]" for punishment. Historically, the "usual modes of punishment" in this country have been slavery, lynchings, mob violence, jim crow, LGBTQ percecution, gender discrimination, the genocide of indigious communities, the shunning of the poor, disabled, those with mental illness. Now is the time that we stand up for those experiencing homelessness and those who are in desperate need of affordable housing. Today, we fight, " Andrea Henson, Lawyer with Where Do We Go? Under the 8th amendment Houseless peoples have already been terrorized by hundreds of laws, like the Sit-Lie Law and the Encampment Ban, 41:18, and Prop 1, and that’s just the current ones. These lies (laws) were all written on the backs of hundreds of years of settler colonial hate for poor people, that creates the criminalization of the so-called public space. As well as the racist, classist codes for the public. Its not illegal for people in a park who “don’t look houseless to sleep on the grass or for luxury RV’s to park in paid parking lots and paid "campgrounds" on more National (read: stolen land "Parks") across Turtle Island.  “The Grants Pass decision will mean what it has always meant for poor people, houseless people living in every city and town in the United States: we do not belong in in your world. Aetna Street Solidarity is committed to fighting for a world where everyone belongs. We were born out of resistance to LA Municipal code 41.18 which banned sitting, lying, sleeping on public sidewalks. The Grants Pass decision is an extension of an ideology rooted in white supremacy and capitalism that leads to 6 unhoused people dying a day on the streets of LA. When LA passed an amended version of LAMC 41.18, we saw unprecedented loss of people living on the streets coupled by state-sanctioned raids led by our city’s sanitation, police, and housing authority. The only services that were offered were permanent fences, the threat of arrest and nothing else beyond a temporary shelter bed.” said Aetna Street Solidarity. We are criminalized in our bodies for being poor outside, for living without a roof, sleeping in our car, in doorways, in parks, on streets and in tents. What is never mentioned is we are in these doorways and cars because of a system that commodifies mama earth and profits off of our poverty and the incarceration of our bodies.   “All the government  "Solutions" like Cabin Communities and shelters have failed to create the necessary foundation unhoused people need to be able to rebuild our lives,” said John Janasko, houseless resident leader at Wood street Commons   According to Paul Boden of Western Regional Advocacy Project “Criminalizing poverty and homelessness not only fails to address systemic causes of mass homelessness, it also exacerbates both the underlying structures of oppression that continue to plague our society, racism and classism”  "Man over Mama Earth. Is the Supreme Court going to pay my rent, or should we be knocking on your door, Move over we are moving in," said Leroy Moore, Formerly houseless, disabled povertyskola with POOR Magazine , Homefulness and Founder of Krip Hop Nation Homefulness - a homeless peoples solution to homelessness created by houseless peoples at POOR Magazine, just welcomed their 21st houseless family into rent-free forever housing stands together with fellow houseless peoples, advocates and allies Wood Street Commons, Reclaiming Our Homes, Krip Hop Nation, Self-Help Hunger Program, Camp Resolution and Aetna Street Solidarity we resist and refuse this recent legal decision on Grants Pass that will allow, enable, condone and promote the ongoing violent criminalization of our bodies and our lives and instead we demand reparations for the land theft, ableism, classism, border terrorism and violent poLice terror.   I took Aunty with me to make sure she wasn’t taken to the psych ward at General that day. But we were houseless too so there was really nowhere for her to be safe. After they took Aunty’s dolls she was never ok. She used to whisper and cry softly most days, checking every dumpster she could. One day without saying anything to anyone she wandered into I-80 Freeway, never to be seen again..     See Testimonials from formerly Houseless residents of Homefulness by clicking here

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE When: Monday, June 24, 2024 Rally: 7:00 AM Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building & United States Courthouse, 1301 Clay Street Oakland, CA 94612 RALLY FOR PRISONER’S HUMAN RIGHTS TRIAL OPENING ARGUMENTS Speakers/Agenda: Mexica (Aztec) ceremony Melissa Valdez, Silicon Valley De-Bug Pamela Solorio, impacted loved one Dolores Canalas, CFASC, Mandela CA Campaign Tiny Garcia, POOR Magazine NLG Bay Area More keynote speakers TBD… SPONSORS: National Lawyers Guild, POOR Magazine, California Families Against Solitary Confinement, Silicon Valley De-Bug Court: 8:00 AM Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building & United States Courthouse, 1301 Clay Street Oakland, CA 94612, Courtroom 1, 4th  Floor, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, (Please bring your ID) (In photo, Guillermo Solorio, George Franco, David Cervantes, James Perez) Rally For Prisoner’s Human Rights Trial Opening Arguments Rally to support Prisoner’s Human Rights organizers on their 1st day of trial during opening arguments, hunger strikers face federal sentencing for their leadership and participation in hunger strikes to end indefinite solitary confinement and an end of hostilities in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) 6/24 - OAKLAND, CA – In 2012, 30,000 people went on a historic hunger strike to end indefinite solitary confinement in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) based solely on gang allegations, not conduct, sentencing or due process. In 2015, hunger strikers agreed to a settlement (Ashker v. Governor of CA) that radically reformed the use of solitary confinement in the California prison system, and a historic end of hostilities of all racial groups in CDCR. CDCR designed solitary confinement units in the 1980’s in response to the 1970’s era of collective organizing in prison, stemming from author, Black liberation leader and political prisoner George Jackson. The CDCR hunger strikes were part of a statewide campaign that included a successful end of hostilities between all racial groups in CDCR, solidarity efforts to end solitary confinement in county jails i.e. Chavez v. County of Santa Clara and the greatest peace efforts in prison history. In addition, criminal justice reform legislation efforts by community organizations i.e. Prop 57, SB 81, SB 1437, AB 333 etc. has massively decreased the prison population and crime rates in communities across California. It is safe to say that California’s legislative prison reform efforts would not be possible without the sacrifices taken by the Prisoners Human RIghts Movement, their hunger strike, Ashker v. Governor of CA settlement and end of hostilities. “After years of family separation, I regained contact with my cousin George Franco, and because of the hunger strike, an opportunity to visit him became possible, until he was picked up by this federal case. George Franco has had his whole life taken from him. George has been incarcerated since the age of 22, in 1987. Raised by Spanish speaking parents who came to the United States for a better life as farmworkers. George was originally sentenced to 15 to life, and he has already served more than double his base term, 37 years in total. Most of his time, has been served in solitary confinement. George should have been paroled no later than 2002 but has been denied parole even though he has had continued family support and little to no behavioral issues. George deserves a second chance to be with family out here in the free world. My family will never give up trying to bring George home. Before passing, George’s mother never gave up hope that he would come back home. Despite challenges, George has remained strong, loving and caring.” - Melissa Valdez George Franco is one of the four PHRM representatives and we strongly believe that due their influence in ending indefinitely solitary confinement, implementing the end of hostilities, and major legislative prison reform efforts, both CDCR and the federal government is retaliating against these gentlemen in the form of a RICO indictment for the purpose of job security and inciting hostilities that may result in mass incarceration. Join us on Monday, June 24, 2024 at 7:00 AM, where we will begin with an Mexica (Aztec) ceremony, then move to families and community members ralling to support these gentlemen just before opening arguments of trial. We will have guest speakers followed by families and community members filling up courtroom 1, 4th  Floor, Ronald V. Dellums Federal Courthouse 1301 Clay Street Oakland, CA 94612 in support of their loved ones.

(photograph by Jaime Culebras) Juicy red heart beats under glass skin. Sneaky varicose veins pierce the frog’s defenses. Dripping teeth gnash and drool over a tasty morsel; the frog can’t run, so it hides. Green leaf protects fleshy insides. Does the frog hate its heart? I fool myself by throwing this jacket over my torso as a deterrent. I twist white supremacy to my advantage: I put on a disheveled costume and lumber out my door, but the predators are inside. My heart is juicy red. Black jacket protects soft curves. Does the frog hate its heart? Everyone on this bus has PTSD. They jump at the sight of circling MUNI sharks, so subtly it'd take a trained eye to clock. They sit with perfect posture in hostile chairs. I know there are 45 pairs of eyes watching the same door I am, so I relax and wait for my frogs to make a move first.

by Leajay Harper From an unhoused person to the currently housed unfortunately. Life doesn't work out as we all had dreamed and most of us have developed the skill to look at the glass half full and keep striving for the best. Regardless of social economic status sometimes we're put in situations where we just have to learn how to cope. Living healthy and dignified is a simple task that doesn't take much effort as a human. Just because we're in a bad space in our life, doesn't mean we should have to lose identity as Oakland residents, educated individuals and pushed out of the place we have been since birth . We agree there are issues that need to be addressed, we recognize what the main concerns of our neighbors have in our community and most of the time are in agreement but as neighbors, we have to work together to make our community safe in unity. Together we must try to hold those stakeholders accountable because we have also as the unhoused been lied to and made political promises when we just wanted to implement new strategies so that nobody else was harmed, hurt and even more traumatized in this situation. We are proactive in taking initiative to try to address the problems ourselves. It was apparent to us that we need our community have our back. We know that placing us in healthy healing communities is the solution for us to progress in our transition . We are made a mockery for the very issues we are trying to correct. We're not askin for handouts, we're not askin to be victimized. What we're askin is to be included in our community. The community we've lived in for years and strive to continue to be a part of regardless if we are. House or unhoused? We're still people and most of all Together we have a powerful voice.

A solution lead by the unhoused is working in Oakland—but we can't get any traction in San Francisco. By tiny gray-garcia aka @povertyskola, daughter of Dee, Mama of Tiburcio Shared in 48hills >> Interested in people-led solutions? Register for next decolonization/degetrniFUKation seminar at PeopleSkool (on zoom in BlackAugust) by going to www.poormagazine.org/education “This mayor is blocking all affordable housing proposals at this point,” an aide to a San Francisco supervisor said to our small group of houseless/formerly houseless POOR Magazine poverty skolaz on a zoom call we organized last month. A big group of us poor people from San Francisco have been meeting, thinking, activating, praying and visioning since November of 2020 to bring the urgent medicine of Homefulness to Occupied Yelamu, now called San Francisco. The aide continued, “You should come to the upcoming Prop. I hearing next week, but I really can’t guarantee anything will come from those funds collected with this mayoral administration.” I was reminded of the brutal days of begging  San Francisco politicians and non-profiteers to listen, honor, respect or even consider poor people’s voices and solutions from me and my mama Dee, Leroy Moore, JuneBug, Queennandi, A.Faye Hicks, Vivi T, Muteado, Laure McElroy, Bruce Allison, Kathy Galves, Ingrid DeLeon,Teresa Molina, Joseph Bolden, Rommie, Charles, and so many more houseless/no-income reporters and members of POOR Magazine. We had proposed the landless, homeless people’s solution known as Homefulness to San Francisco in 1998, when my mama and I were still struggling to stay housed at all, when we were barely getting by on what we made from a micro-business on the street and when we were still getting citations for sleeping outside. “Sorry we don’t have any technical support for these HUD grants, but good luck,” a disinterested clerk in the San Francisco office of the US Housing and Urban Development, said to me without looking away from her computer as she pointed me to a frighteningly tall stack of grant applications that were for a HUD grant specifically for “innovative” housing for homeless people. I dove head-first into a 91-page grant application to HUD for the Homefulness project—rent-free, forever housing, on-site healing and recovery support, child care/education, arts and media training, a ComeUnity garden that truly belonged to the people, an all access radio station and a school project for houseless, no-income families and disabled elders in San Francisco. It was an extremely crazy, hard application. I had no help and I suffer from dyslexia and discalcula so Excel sheets are especially terrifying for me. But I was determined. I had once taught myself how to write one of the fated “Welfare to Work” grants in the evil welfare-deform years of 1998 under the neo-liberal President Bill Clinton. We proposed the first and only journalism program across Turtle Island for poor parents to the City and County of San Francisco while still receiving food stamps myself. So I figured if I could do that one I could do anything. “Prop. I has generated more than $300 million since taking effect, and although those funds were intended for affordable housing, the mayor has hijacked those funds for other purposes, most notably increases to police budgets.” In politics solutions are usually because of someone you know—or the rare situation of a person in power who actually listens to poor people about their own solutions. In that case it was only because of one such person, Joyce Crum who was one of the humans in charge of Department of Human Services (aka hellfare) who truly listened to us and believed in a vision, a solution, created by a poor, disabled houseless single mother and daughter, and gave us a chance. This little bit of support launched the movement known as POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE (which DHS later brutally unfunded because we refused to report on fellow poor single mamas for being late or absent for work, but it got us started nonetheless). Sadly, there was no such person at HUD, and we didn’t get the HUD grant. It was almost as if a joke was openly played on us. They “approved” our application for Homefulness—but because HUD provided no technical support or any support for their grants, I filled out the budget wrong and we were approved for a one year “grant”  of $12.00 a month. After this debacle, I knocked on endless doors,  just to hear different people say “no.” Until we poor folks just stopped asking. “You see there are two separate but related taxes,” another board aide told me. “The first, Prop. I from 2020, is a tax on the transfers of properties valued at $10 million or more.” “Prop. I has generated more than $300 million since taking effect, and although those funds were intended for affordable housing, the mayor has hijacked those funds for other purposes, most notably increases to police budgets.” He continued: “The second is Prop. M, the Empty Homes Tax, from 2022. For any residential home in a building with 3 or more units that is vacant for more than six months in a given year, the city is imposing a tax that increases by unit size and length of vacancy. This law took effect Jan 1, 2024 and will start to collect funds in the coming fiscal year. The proceeds will by law go half and half, one portion to rent subsidies for seniors, the other to acquiring vacant properties to convert to affordable housing.” He said: “I reached out to the Department of Real Estate about surplus public lands but got a very frustrating response that they basically have such a restrictive definition of what is ‘surplus’ that there is nothing available according to their count. But we know that’s bullshit. There is plenty of city-owned land.” “Navigation Centers aren’t a solution to homelessness, shelters aren’t a solution to homelessness, a sandwich isn’t a solution to homelessness, Homefulness is a solution to homelessness.” My sister truth warrior, formerly houseless, Longtime POOR Magazine member, Community Health Worker, povertyskola and the other daughter of Mama Dee, spoke at a powerful action POOR Magazine held in honor of houseless mothers on Mothers Day in collaboration with fellow warriors for truth Coalition on Homelessness and Western Regional Advocacy Project. “You see us houseless mamas and daughters sleeping in a tent… that’s cause we don’t have money for the rent,” I shouted out to our beautiful village of children, mamas, uncles and elders, houseless and formerly houseless, advocates and survivors, as we shared food and cold drinks and fruit outside a locked and closed Motel at Polk and Ellis. The Civic Center Inn, in the Tenderloin, is one of many empty, unused, hoarded, and locked up buildings across San Francisco. It was in beautiful condition, with doors and windows, locks, and amenities, just standing there, forlorn and unused, while the block that surrounded the motel was filled with tents with houseless people residing in them. San Francisco residents, not seen as “residents” because we are without access to a roof. San Francisco residents dying from heat exposure, cold exposure, and medically fragile bodies living outside. The Civic Center Inn is just one in a collection of literally hundreds of vacant buildings that could be transformed into housing all across the Bay. “As a houseless mother and grandmother, Homefulness allowed me to heals,” aid Angel Heart, resident of the rent-free, forever housing model of Homefulness we have built in Deep East Huchiun (Oakland) that now houses 21 houseless, now homeful, youth, adults and elders. “We are advocating that the city open this beautiful building to homeless people. We can support the project, there is no reason to keep this locked up,” said Pastor Paul of City Hope Church at the homeless mamas action May 7th. In November of 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, while houseless people in San Francisco were still being swept like we were trash by Breed, even in violation of federal requirements to let us shelter in our tents, POOR Magazine conducted one of our Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources UnTours of the Tenderloin and Hastings Law School, which made it clear through a law suit to the city that they demanded more violent sweeps of houseless residents in the middle of the pandemic. We offered to meet with Breed to propose Homefulness. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, after a trajectory of private police, endless citations and police harassment of houseless SF residents and her recent bloodletting of crucial non-profits and advocates and the blocking of Prop I funds, and more funding for the police, I concluded, yea, she probably does hate poor people. After a series of failed attempts, she said no to a meeting with us. Interested in people-led solutions? Register for next decolonization /degetrniFUKation seminar at PeopleSkool by going to www.poormagazine.org/education

By Daveion Lyons PoorNewsNetwork / Dads in Trauma - Stories for Fathers Day It was a hot Indian summer day in 1996 17th, of sept when my father dropped me off at school. He said, “Son have a good day,” and i gave him a kiss on the cheek. it was a good day, and then the bell rang for school to let out and as i sat on the steps watching kids get picked up by their parents I was still there just waiting. My father never came. He died that day of a massive heart attack and stroke. I was only 10 years old. Beautiful Memories CHOICES The first time i got to hold my daughter there was an instant connection. I love my children Note-these writings come from poverty journalism trauma writing workshops at #POORmagazine /Peopleskool

A PROUD HAITIAN PEOPLE CONTINUING THE REVOLUTION By Momii Palapaz Celebrating Haiti Flag Day all over the UnUnited States-photos from Haiti Action Committee “Don’t believe the nonsense that you are hearing today in the media, that Haiti is poor. It’s a lie. Our people, your brothers and sisters in Haiti have been one of the most robbed people in the Western hemisphere.” Haiti Action Committee Pierre LaBoisssiere told a rapt crowd of celebrants at the Eastside Arts Alliance 24th Annual Malcom X Day in Ohlone land aka Oakland. Trekking the square block-long park, POOR MAGAZINE POOR NEWS NETWORK rep along with supporters and sponsors, passed out leaflets to almost 2000 people before Pierre took the stage. We informed everyone about the grave dangers the Haitian people are facing. Over 200 years ago African slaves, kidnapped and shipped to Haiti said “hell no” and fought for their liberation and independence of the country. Since 1804, the French imperialists and now the unUS has done everything it can to sabotage and disrupt the centuries old movement for freedom. Over 360,000 Haitian people, mostly children, have been displaced by US imperialist violence. Pierre LaBoissiere, Jabari from the Haitian Action Committee with Rara Tou Limen dancers “The country is rich…in mineral resources, in cultural landscape, rich in bauxite, in oil, gold, uranium and… This is what they want. Those greedy imperialists, those greedy colonialists.  They are lying to you.”  Mr. Laboissier continued, “You hear a lot about the gangs in Haiti.  Those gangs are not gangs. They are death squads in the faith of colonialism. Death squads of occupation of Haiti. Since the coup d'etat against President Aristide in 2004, the death squads are there to prevent the people from resisting.” Jean-Bertrand Aristide, now living back in Haiti was violently forced out by the gangs of US, France, Canada and other imperialist powers in 1991. He returned to Haiti in 2011 and lives there. ONE STRUGGLE MANY FRONTS Those born and raised in the unUS, while much closer to Haiti in distance than Palestine, know less and less about the countries like Haiti that surround Turtle island. The US educational system has been lying and distorting information about the US government's true history in Haiti. The corporate media continues to praise US aid as a deterrent to “gangs” that have political and military support. Kenya has approved and sent thousands of military personnel and weapons to choke the Haitian people and displace millions in the process.   But Pierre of the Haiti Action Committee responded to and explained the disinformation and lies on this momentous occasion. Besides Oakland, Haiti Flag Day was also celebrated in cities across the unUS like Santa Rosa, Indiana, Los Angeles, Denver, Waterloo, Plano, Charlotte and Columbus. The Haitian people are never giving up. As Pierre pointed out to the resilience, (Haitians) “have been demanding to complete their revolution, to complete the dream of their foremothers and of their forefathers. Their dream was for the children of Haiti to stand and be and live in dignity to have schools to be able to eat, to want freedom to be able to go where they want to go and (turn) people in a nation into a powerful country. … We look at each other as Malcom says, as African people, as one people who those barbaric folks have taken, kidnapped and put into slavery. So that is what Haiti represents for our brothers and sisters all over……In that spirit I stand here, surrounded by our ancestors. We stand in their memory.  We are calling on you for solidarity.” Hundreds of Haiti Flag Day events across the unUS took place in honor of May 18th.  Recognizing and honoring the people of Haiti confirms all our conscious efforts to defeat US imperialism and all its gang members, whether here or outside false borders. All Power To The People of Haiti And Their Revolution HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE DEMANDS * Stop using U.S. tax dollars to fund the brutal Haitian police and affiliated death squads. • Stop the flow of weapons from U.S. to death squads in Haiti • No more foreign intervention - End the occupation. • Stop attacking and deporting Haitian refugees. • Sovereignty and self-determination for Haiti. For more information, contact the Haiti Action Committee:  POB 2040, Berkeley, CA  94702, action.haiti@gmail.com

Sent to UC President Michael Drake, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, and UC Board of Regents Chair Richard Leib on May 16th To President Drake, Chancellor Block and Richard Leib May 16, 2024 We sit, stand, huddle, and crouch outside your coffee shops, corner stores, bodegas, restaurants and markets. Sometimes we ask for change. Sometimes we hide under a tarp, jacket, cardboard box or plastic bag  to shield us from the wind, rain, cold, heat or the next sweep. You brush past us to get your morning coffee, your afternoon snacks, your pizza and your groceries. To go on with your day. To wipe our momentary tragic memory out of your mind, because, hey what can you do? It is our intentionally unheard voices,  untold stories, unseen acts of community negligence un-witnessed acts of daily, hourly  violence against thousands of us houseless people across the US that i bring into elite institutions of learning like UCLA medical school, Stanford law school, Columbia Urban planning, social work, art and education to name a few, Because it is our houseless, disabled, traumatized, health compromised, medically and legally fragile  broken  bodies that students from these institutions will be treating, serving, healing, doctoring, teaching, lawyering and social working. I bring our stories with humility and love because my work is not a calling out- its a calling in - I don’t expect anyone to do anything except hopefully open their eyes and empath  the casual acts of collective brutality perpetrated on poor people bodies all over the world I make the connections to the buying, selling and commodifying of Mama Earth because our bodies wouldnt be on the street but for the multiple lies of rent, profit,extraction and systemic racism. I make the connections to Palestine because, like the US, it was another indigenous territory with thriving communities and trees and homes and schools, when settlers came “ to settle the land” which has caused thousands of people to become “poor” and now with the current genocide of their lands and homes, Homeless. To open my presentations, like the one I did at the David Geffen School of Medicine I humbly invite people  to pray for Mama Earth, from Sudan to Haiti, From Kashmir to West Papua and from Palestine to Turtle Island to name a few of the sites of removal of indigenous peoples from their lands of origin, because this is how “poverty” and homelessness, displacement and incarceration happen and if we aren’t making the connections of the houseless mother in the US to the houseless mother in Rafah, and to multiple sites of local and global poverty, we are denying reality and how can we call ourselves educators? I never force anyone to do anything, nor do i demand, harass, intimidate or berate as the letter of May 15th by Virginia Foxx to Chancellor Block and President Drake stated. I never have done this and i never will because then i would be emulating the very violent forces that have rained down on my head since experiencing homelessness for most of my childhood and young adult hood leading to my eventual arrest for the act of sleeping while houseless and later in life when myself, my disabled  mother my 5 year old sun and three other houseless families with children were made homeless by a 700 rent increase due to violent gentrification Rather, i pray and teach, alongside several other Poverty skolaz, as we call ourselves, deriving from the theory of poverty scholarship- a theory my mother and myself created that contextualizes lived experiences of struggle through homelessness, poverty, ableism,incarceration ,racism immigration and police terror to name a few, as scholarship. It is a textbook i bring with me in these talks and undergirds our teaching at PeopleSkool - a poor/houseless indigenous people led liberation education school offered at POOR Magazine - a poor and houseless people led movement launched by me and my mama and other povertyskolaz. In addition to the visionary medical students who invited me in as part of their urgent teaching on structural racism and health equity into UCLA, there were also five fellow poverty, disabliity  skolaz who were in the room with me, presenting, speaking, sharing their life with the students as part of my presentation  and it always strikes me as odd that they are never mentioned and intentionally silenced and erased in the multiple slanderous articles and letters about our presentation. Perhaps because if they were included , their observations would disprove the ridiculous and libelist accusations of force and beration and demand that continues to be said about our talk. Finally, and extremely regretfully these lies and the subsequent doxxing and death threats made against my life ( and so many more hard-working truth-teller faculty and your own student body)  resulted in nothing but more destruction and pain. For safely of students and faculty my subsequent presentations had to be cancelled so the transformative and urgent medicine of radical sharing, community reparations and Homefulness, which is a solution that houses houseless families, children and elders in rent-free forever healing communities, that through multiple models works very hard to hold and heal people suffering from the multiple traumas caused by  lives of poverty, racism, incarceration and scarcity that so many of us we have barely survived. Urgent medicine of love, not hate, community care, not community negligence and protection of Mama earth herself, who as we all know is also suffering. Who and how do people who call themselves teachers, mentors, deans, chancellors, thinkers and visionaries not see the violent harm they are perpetrating on their own student body and believe somehow that that has anything to do with education In grief and prayer for Palestine and Mama Earth, Tiny gray-garcia, aka povertyskola Activist in residence, UCLA Co-founder and Visionary, Homefulness Formerly Houseless, Co-founder, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE, daughter of  Dee and mama of Tiburcio