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At what level of danger does a citizen have to be in? ¿Hasta qué categoría de peligro tiene que estar un ciudadano? Para que la gente que está en la burocracia entienda la razón por la que no necesitamos más crímenes de porte de las autoridades. Desde hace mucho, mucho tiempo se han destruido poco a poco los derechos de las personas y el gobierno que es el que actualmente reclama ser el dueño de los derechos de los ciudadanos y decide quién recibe ayuda y quién no. Ha llegado tan lejos que los gobiernos deciden quién muere y nos matan por medio de los doctores y por medio legales y ha escalado tanto que actualmente las ideas falsa que nos enseñan y nos hacen creer para después controlar por ejemplo quien entra y quien sale del país y que paso con la libertad de expresión. Actualmente  no hay libertad ni de vivir en las calles porque te tratan como basura y supuestamente somos líderes de estar en las calles. Actualmente en el mundo hay millones de junte que está en las calles y ni eso tenemos derecho por esa las personas que dicen ser dueños derechos humanos. ¿Quiénes son? En realidad Ya ni la naturaleza es libre Está acosada por todos quimicos que le ponen para crear comida alterada solo para el dinero las fronteras falsas como todos lo que les dicen a nuestras nuevas generaciones Las autoridades si no les conviene o es algo para su beneficio o está de su lado no podrás ser libre ni antes ni después actualmente mueren cientos de personas y niños tratando de de expresar su inconformidad y tratar de salir y traer sus propias solucione sin tener que depender de ninguna autoridad o corporación que supuestamente nos protege. En manos de estas corporaciones estamos en más peligro de morir que de sobrevivir. Hace como veinte tantos años un grupo de personas desamparadas y discriminadas porque no tenían un lugar donde vivir fueron decididos de ser auto suficientes y ser independientes después de tanto esfuerzo y dedicación y crearon el ejemplo de casas libres de renta el cual se llama Homefulness. Eso es lo que queremos- no policía, no corporaciones, o gobiernos- queremos igualdad. At what level of danger does a citizen have to be in So that people in the bureaucracy understand that we do not need more crimes being committed by the authorities. For a long, long time the rights of the people have been gradually destroyed and the government that claims to be the owner of citizens’ rights decides who receives help and who does not. It has gotten to the point that the governments decide who dies and they kill us by means of doctors and legals means and it has escalated so much that the false ideas that they teach us and make us believe they use to then control, for example, who enters and who leaves the country and what happens with freedom of expression. Currently there is no freedom to live in the streets because they treat us like trash and supposedly we are leaders for being on the streets. Currently in the world there are millions of people who are in the streets and we don't even have the right to do that, because of the people who claim to be the owners of human rights. Who are they? In reality not even nature is free anymore It is beset by all the chemicals they put on it to create altered food just for money False borders like all those they tell our new generations If it does not suit the authorities or is something for their benefit or is on their side you can not be free not before nor after they kill hundreds of people and children trying to express their disagreement and try to get out and bring their own solutions without having to depend on any authority or corporation that supposedly protects us. In the hands of these corporations we are in more danger of dying than surviving. About twenty years ago a group of people who were helpless and discriminated against because they didn't have a place to live were determined to be self sufficient and be independent and after so much effort and dedication- created the example of rent-free houses called homefulness. That's what we want, not police, corporations or governments- we want equality.

Dear Loving ComeUnity and Family, Our hearts are filled with grief beyond mere colonizer words, making it hard to focus on anything else but resistance for Palestine (which we all are doing Errryday).  But as poor/ houseless/indigenous peoples we realize it’s even more important than ever to continue fighting for Mama Earth’s decommodification, liberation, protection, and the end of Sweeps, evictions, removal, poLice terror and politricks – as well as to clearly see the terrifying connections that we as houseless folks on this occupied land have to our relatives from Gaza. Please support us if you can and keep being on the streets if you are. Liberation is not one thing, it’s everything all at once, all the time… Until Palestine is Free and so are we… POOR Magazine Family From Homefulness to Gaza – our statement We houseless/landless, criminalized, swept, incarcerated, No-income, Black/Brown/Indigenous & Disabled youth, adults and elders at Homefulness / POOR Magazine and DeeColonize Academy are together with ALL victims of Wars ON the POOR. From Occupied Palestine to Puerto Rico, from Kashmir to West Papua, from South Africa to Haiti to Hawai’i…From Tongva  to Huichin… We are together with indigenous Palestinian people who have been incarcerated on their own homelands since the Occupation of Israel. We also stand with ALL victims of wars all over Mama Earth from Kashmir to Haiti, from West Papua to the West Berkeley Shellmounds, caused by colonial terror, greed, extraction and settler colonial occupation, even the settlers themselves, as many of us, on this part of stolen and Occupied Turtle Island are from those CONfusing and terrifying gray areas. We are against all wars and hope and pray for peace but know, sadly, that peace is rarely had if there is more of Mama Earth or her resources to steal. We pray as well for the four-leggeds, winged ones, plant and tree relatives who also are destroyed, killed, and traumatized by these colonial wars. Leaving us all with less shade, less clean air, water, and life to breathe, drink, eat and survive another day.  And finally we pray for Mama Earth and Mama Ocean who us houseless and poor people live closest too and are impacted first and worst by, and without whom there would be no us…. Ometeotl, Ase, Semign Cacona Guari, A’hooooooo the POOR Magazine, Homefulness & DeeColonize Academy Family OUR 2023 SUMMARY 2023 has been a beautiful, painful, and herstoric year at POOR Magazine. In the midst of the year’s many traumas, we have continued doing what we always have: fighting to dismantle the lies of krapitalism and wealth-hoarding from the bottom up and responding to the needs of poverty skolaz across Pachamama. Here are some 2023 highlights: We moved our 15th resident into HOMEFULNESS #1 DEECOLONIZE ACADEMY is in our 10th year with graduates becoming teachers 12th year of SLIDING SCALE CAFÉ, a healthy food, groceries, diapers & media, support radical redistribution (mutual aid) for deep East Oakland every Thursday Continued in-person People Skool for East Oakland poverty skolaz with Theatre of the Poor and Po Peoples Radio workshop series Led a ceremony & press conference to propose Homefulness in occupied Yelamu (SF) Launched WeSearch (aka research) investigation into Caltrans Sweeps The Po Poets and Poverty Skola authors of Poor Press (www.poorpress.net) are finalizing their books, poems and anthologies to be released in February 2024 Began a movement/family collaboration with our fellow Houseless relatives at Wood Street Commons to help them Liberate Mama Earth and build their own forever homes More 2023 highlights: People Skool Decolonization/DegentriFUKation Seminar on Zoom We held TWO People Skool seminars for people with race, class, and/or formal education privilege. Next People Skool Seminar is January 20th & 21st, 2024. Crushing Wheelchairs was performed live on stage – movie coming in 2024 Produced and staged 3 sold out productions of the original show, Crushing Wheelchairs, with an all Houseless cast —honoring ancestors of homelessness, poLice terror and sweeps. It premiered in February in SF and Oakland, and was also performed in Vallejo. The Crushing Wheelchairs narrative film will be released in 2024. Stay connected to learn more! Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources UnTours Across Turtle Island POOR Magazine went on the Road for an UnTour to occupied Tongva and Chumash territory aka Beverly Hills. We walked thru wealth-hoarder neighborhoods on stolen indigenous land to share the medicine of radical redistribution and comeunity reparations. We also did UnTours in Chief Siaal (so-called Seattle) for a Homefulness in Duwamish territory. Homefulness #2 in Deep East Huichin (Oakland) to permanently house our relatives This year Wood Street faced an unlawful eviction and brutal demolition of a beautiful community that was built by houseless people to house themselves. Poor Magazine and Wood Street Commons herstorically broke ground on Homefulness #2 this year and will continue building next year. Check out new Poverty Skola-led radio shows & podcasts Graduated 8 new Houseless/no-income writers, reporters and radio producers & facilitated the launching of four new poverty skola-led podcasts/radio broadcasts: We r All Connected, The Peoples Botánica, Dr. Sweets Critique, & In the Spirit of Nat Turner. Listen to PNNKEXU 96.1FM every Tuesday & Thursday for multi- generational radio programming.

So honored to welcome our 16th Houseless Warrior mama, sister, revolutionary to HOME-fulness -while holding prayer for all of our family struggling on these stolen Ohlone /Lisjan streets. Please support this homeless people's solution to homelessness, because hoarding & extracting & buying & selling MamaEarth is not the answer for any of us anymore. #RadicalRedistribution for #MamaEarthLiberation #Homefulness: a homeless people's solution to homelessness-rent-free forever homes so all of us can be housed. We are working on Homefulness2 but can't do it without your support! Venmo: Poor-magazine PayPal: poormag@gmail.com

By Julia Wright Photo: @eye.on.palestine For the surviving family of murdered Palestinian poet and teacher, Refaat Alameer In tribute to his poem: " If I Must Die ..." For all the poets, writers, doctors and civic leaders tracked, tortured and killed by the IDF For resisting the genocide of their people For all their families, students and followers For all the children of Palestine who are losing their mentors hunched and weary a child who just became an ancestor in Gaza paces the concrete arteries of the belly of the beast throughout our cities he carries what seems like a corpse perhaps his sibling shrouded in a white cloth have you seen him ? stumbling under the weight of the strange bundle he stops at each house, each opulent venue, unravels the sheet and exposes the broken bones of the words of the killed Palestinian poets who were his teachers has he knocked at your door ? he is asking not for alms or tears but that a space a place be given so the warm voices of the living might bring the poems back to life each time there is silence or a no vacancy sign the child whose body still remains unfound under the Gaza rubble trudges on in the shadow of the closed buildings that scrape a bomb-less sky - he does not rest till he reaches a park where he lays his burden down and the other joyful children who still have a life interrupt their games to flock around and give the ghost some water and unwrapping the unwanted parcel they release a galaxy of Palestinian kites to the american sky and together the children play and their mingled laughter flies high in me

By Robbie Powelson A community of about 56 people living in tents at Camp Integrity in San Rafael have won a federal restraining blocking implementation of a new anti-camping ordinance that was passed by the City Council last August. Camp Integrity will continue exist for the indefinite future – months or years – pending conclusion of the lawsuit. San Rafael PD patrolling Camp Integrity. Photo by Robbie Powelson The result underscores the need for vehement litigation that seeks restraining order against City ordinances and policies – and not just individual evictions. Because we sued a new ordinance passed by the City Council, SMC § 19.50 (rather than the planned eviction itself) we have obtained a durable injunction that may last for a very long time. The original lawsuit was that obtained an initial temporary restraining order was filed without an attorney. 13 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit. Much of the evidence of the lawsuit came from handwritten declarations and letters. Even though the complaint was rough and full of typos, we obtained the injunction. Soon after, we joined up with California Homeless Union who entered into the legal fray with us to obtain the final preliminary injunction. The premise of the lawsuit which obtained was communities of people looking out for one another – i.e. “encampments” provide an immense health and safety benefit to the people living in there. Our declarations primarily focused on how women in the camp were protected from gendered violence such as stalking, domestic violence, and human trafficking. We wrote how numerous people had been saved from drug overdose because peers can administer Narcan. We talked about how camps provision food, water, and clothes. We also talked how we had set up two mobile bathrooms. All of these were necessities of survival that would broken up by the City’s legislation in SMC § 19.50 et seq. SMC § 19.50 essentially was to force all unhoused people set up small, 10x10 camps across the city that would have to be spaced from all proximal campsites by 200 feet (two thirds of a football field). It also didn’t say where people could camp – leading people to guess what properties they could camp and what properties camping on would lead them to be arrested. Judge Chen basically agreed with us. The court entered in a restraining order against the City prohibiting it from breaking up Camp Integrity. The Judge Chen ordered the City to disclose what properties could be camped on – taking out much of the venom of the ordinance. After exhaustive briefing, Chen entered an injunction that increased the number of campsites, reduced the space between campsites, and ordered the City not to evict anyone with a disability who requested a disability accommodation until they could go through the interactive process under the Americans with Disability Act. The result is that people living Camp Integrity will remain on the Mahon Creek Path, and will remain here until the lawsuit ends. The only caveat is that instead of the camp being on one block of the Mahon Creek Path, campers will have to be more evenly distributed across the general area. This means the mobile bathrooms we have been paying for will become more inaccessible because people may have to walk further. The Porta Potties are also far overused, because we only have two for dozens of people when a porta potty is only supposed to serve 10 people for a 40 hour work week. We need 10 porta potties and a handwashing station on the path, at a minimum. But this would cost several thousand dollar. We are barely scraping by paying $610.30 every month for two porta potties, not to mention incidentals. If you have donations or leads on how we can continue mobile bathrooms at Camp Integrity, or money to donate – please reach out. You can donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/encampment-mutual-aid-porta-potties-for-our-camp and you can get in touch with us by email CampIntegritySanRafael@yahoo.com Thank you everyone for your continued support.

MAYOR: Jesse Arreguin, (510)981-7100 DISTRICT 1: Rashi Kesarwani, (510)981-7110 DISTRICT 2: Terry Taplin, (510)981-7120 DISTRICT 3: Ben Bartlett, (510)981-7130 DISTRICT 4: Kate Harrison, (510)981-7140 DISTRICT 5: Sophie Hahn, (510)981-7150 DISTRICT 6: Susan Wengraf, (510)981-7160 DISTRICT 7: Rigel Robinson, (510)981-7170 DISTRICT 8: Mark Humbert, (510)981-7180 mailxto.com/berk4pal for emails "Hello my name is ___ and I live in Berkeley, District __. I am calling to urge the Berkeley City Council to call a special meeting and pass a ceasefire resolution. Considering the deaths of over 20,000 Palestinians and counting, this request is urgent. If you fail to propose and pass a ceasefire resolution, you will lose my vote in the next election." Upcoming City Council Meetings: *passed Agenda & Rules meeting 12/4 *passed City Council 12/5 City Council 12/12 6pm (final meeting of the year)

by Dee Allen photo by @eye.on.palestine Oppressed people Take on oppressor roles. Take hostages, Take out selected buildings, civilians, Oppressors’ army, their whole Zionist stronghold, news reporters catch bullets— Rockets and rifles, Tools taken up for the terrible task Seventy-five years in the making— I.D.F. would call it Total war. Hamas would call it Total vengeance. The world calls it Unnecessary carnage. I call it The chickens coming home to roost As Brother Malcolm X himself did. Oppressors deal out hurt to the oppressed And it returns three-fold Resulting in dead On both sides. Laying off the rockets, laying down the rifles Would be a start, for a globe sickened from bloodlet, burials & death-tolls— ________________________________ W: 11.3.23 I.D.F.: Israeli Defence Forces. Hamas: Political and military organisation governing occupied Palestine, based in Gaza City, Sunni Muslim by faith. Established 1987, during the First Intifada [ “Stone Uprising” ] against Israel. Also called Islamic Resistance Movement.

by Tiny Gray-Garcia aka Poverty Skola reprinted from NYU Review of Law & Social Change, vol 48. “Call us back when you get served, he said.” My 11-year-old self held the phone, not sure what to say. I was also not completely sure what “served” even meant exactly, but certain that the fast talking lawyer was wrong and should not be hanging up on me. “You trash better leave my property,” the landlord (or what I call a scamlord, slumlord, lord of the land) had screamed the day before outside our door. He had been threatening to call the cops on my mama and me. He told us we had to leave “immediately” while he was simultaneously shoving multiple pieces of paper under the door that stated we had to leave the apartment in 3 days, 48 hours or 30 days. In the end, it was a law student intern who had answered the phone at the only no cost law clinic that existed in our whole giant city. He had, as my mama aptly put it, never missed a meal. In other words, he had never felt the pain of hunger, the terror of poLice (police) harassment, the fear of homelessness and certainly not the voice of a screaming, violent scamlord through the keyhole. Twenty-Two Evictions Later Twenty-seven years later with 22 evictions and a childhood rife with homelessness, shelters, doorway cots, tents, sweeps, foster homes, poLice harassment and incarceration, not that much has changed. Scamlords still think they “own” Mama Earth, and she is still bought and traded on the commodities market for “income” and profit. Moreover, Black, Brown, and Indigenous poor women/men, children and disabled elders make up the majority of tenants facing eviction. Poor tenants rarely if ever get represented in landlord-tenant law cases in court or in any matters pertaining to their health and safety. Further, the Lords of the Land, as defined by Settler Colonial English Law, still win most if not all of the cases against us, the tenants. It was necessary for me to drop out of formal institutions of learning at 11 years old so I could enroll full time in the school of hard knocks where I graduated with a PhD in poverteeee (as one of my poems explains). Meaning, I had to learn how to file unlawful detainer responses, bankruptcy filings, car registrations, insurance claims, welfare forms and housing applications. All this while struggling with ongoing and increasing poverty and homelessness with my mama who was disabled and destroyed from her life in poverty. I joined an unseen workforce of thousands of poor children across Mama Earth that work with their families to survive, to help keep the family alive, interdependently, by any means necessary or die. I am honored that I, a good daughter in the Indigenous sense, was able to help keep my family alive. I am saddened that the formal U.S. schooling systems did not see my care for my mama as a valid reason to miss school, and instead criminalized my family for my repeated absences. In addition, my real-life, hands-on training in law, advocacy and survival weren’t seen as valid forms of education, which they most definitely were and what we later transformed into the theory, everyday practice (and textbook) we call Poverty Scholarship. While houseless, my mama and I alongside other povertyskolaz launched the poor/Indigenous people-led movement called POOR Magazine. For over 27 years, POOR Magazine has been concretizing the work we were doing to survive into homeless and poor people-led solutions like Homefulness, PeopleSkool, Deecolonize Academy, The Bank of ComeUnity Reparations, WeSearch and the Sliding Scale Cafe. There are literally hundreds of urgent teachings that this povertyskola would like to cover in this, the first part of a series on Poverty Scholarship and the Law. However, the first teaching must be that the decks are squarely, transparently, and almost arrogantly stacked against poor tenants. “No, you can’t do an appeal unless you deposit the $7,000 in back rent you owe the landlord, plus a deposit for 2 more months for the time the appeal process can take,” the judge proclaimed angrily to me. At the time, I was a budding jailhouse lawyer outside of jail without a degree presenting our case “pro per” to the Alameda County Court. My stomach sank, one of many times, knowing that whether we were living in unsafe, uninhabitable conditions or not, there was nothing I could do. Whether it was in a place where the roof leaked, the toilet was broken and never fixed or where black mold stretched across the walls into our permanently damaged lungs, there was nothing I could do. As a legal advocate once told me, the landlord is always right even if they are not. A Poverty Scholarship Informed Advocate Versus a Law School Trained Advocate It wasn’t so much that the guy was wrong when he said come back to me when you are served when I was only 11. It was the way he said it. The casual disregard for my terror, my mother and my growing anxiety, and the fact he really had no empathy for what we were dealing with or no training to even understand/overstand it. In addition, he was wrong. This povertyskola lawyer (or jailhouse lawyer outside of jail without a degree) has worked in the community “representing” poor tenants as part of POOR Magazine’s street legal clinic for over 15 years. I do this work along with my brothers and sisters, Vivi T, Leo Stegman, Charles Pitts, and Robbie Powellson to name a few of a huge unseen advocacy force of povertyskola survivors. We are not trained lawyers, we are poverty skolaz who know there are many steps that can be taken before you get to the eviction court. Merely telling someone to “wait til you get served” is actually negligent and dangerous. Scamlords can and will employ multiple tactics of shame, fear, intimidation, aggression and violence against tenants on the rocky and dangerous road to eviction court. It is not a one time paper process. The standard response to tenants in terror of eviction is to “call us when you receive paperwork.” This paperwork is actually a terrifying document called an “Unlawful Detainer.” Contrary to these facile instructions, there are many things you can do to prevent that document from ever being served. These are things that are done when you have representation from a lawyer or advocate, such as a letter responding to false claims, harassment, threats and oftentimes illegal presumptions and accusations. Knowing that someone is not alone when being bullied is an extremely powerFULL deterrent to the papers ever being served in the first place. This also serves as support/empowerment for the terrified tenant. It is not safe, smart or strategic to misadvise people when they are facing impending homelessness as once we are “outside” it is almost impossible to get back “inside.” People are in trauma and terror when they have been threatened in their only place of safety. Giving them an ear, hearing the plausibility of their fight, and/or hearing every aspect of the case like habitability or abuse can offer up another series of responses, reactions and arguments that can delay the eviction or derail it completely. I have drafted and sent countless letters, texts and offers of negotiation. And when I do direct meetings or phone calls, it is necessary I employ my best “white voice” which includes self-trained paralegal vocabulary to respond to escalating landlords. These efforts have led to launching successful negotiations and settlements that completely took cases off courts’ calendars and are some of what I teach/share with fellow youth and adult povertyskolas in PeopleSkool for povertyskolaz and Deecolonize Academy Liberation School. Take the case of John C., a formerly houseless elder living in a Below Market Rate (BMR) housing complex for seniors (or elder ghetto as I would call it), who was being threatened by his scamlord for “hoarding.” After a letter and a series of follow-up calls and emails, we were able to link John C. up with community support workers who helped to clean and unhoard his unit. This supported a new commitment to the scamlord who took the eviction threat off the table. This is just one of countless Poverty Scholarship cases I have advocated for and won! “We don’t have lawyers to represent tenants,” the local legal aid society told me over the years when I have sought help for myself and other povertyskolaz. The position of poor tenants is one of complete vulnerability. We have no legal representation and the courts and scamlords know this. In most counties in California, we also have no rent protections or rent control. This means we can be evicted for the color of our hair or any other litany of reasons the scamlords use. Our rent can be raised at the drop of a hat. Our pets are criminalized, our choices are tracked, and our families surveilled. The act of eviction and a low-income tenant’s vulnerability to eviction result in so many people being houseless, why so many of us just see those stacked up decks and humbly walk away. Those decks are loaded up with all the anti-poor people shame this krapitalist (capitalist) system can dish out. Thus, we end up in the sidewalk motel as my mama used to call it. Eviction as Elder and Child Abuse “I will die if I have to leave my home,” said Iris Canada. Iris was a 100- year-old Black elder who was facing Ellis Act eviction from her home of 40 years in San Francisco. Due to high-speed gentrification violence, her longtime home was being flipped into a condominium. In 2014, after several years of our own povertyskola led WeSearch (my name for poor people-led research), we at POOR Magazine were able to make the correlation and prove that eviction is elder and child abuse. We presented the findings and cases of Elaine Turner, Iris Canada, Ron Likkers and so many more elders who die from the extreme trauma of losing a home as an elder. Despite our work, when we came back for the final meeting to work on the case law, we were met at San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon’s door by armed sheriffs who barred us from coming in. Thus, the work remains unfinished. In the case of child abuse, eviction causes extreme hardship and destabilization of a family. This is especially true for single parents when their home is lost, like my mama. Over 93% of the WeSearch families we worked with ended up homeless which impeded their child’s education, mental health and ability to thrive. Eviction = Homelessness As poltricksters (politicians) and advocates wring their hands about the rise in homelessness, it is rare that they ever connect the dots to eviction. Right now in the unincorporated part of Alameda County, over 60,000 tenants face imminent eviction with the end of the eviction moratorium. This is the beginning of a series of Poverty Scholarship-informed Law which includes Family Dependency Court, Criminal Court, Drug/Homeless Courts and (No) Quality of Life Violations, CONservatorship and “estate” Stolen land/Liberation of Mama Earth law, to name a few. The Ellis Act must be repealed. Rent control must be instituted across the state. Poverty Scholarship must inform Law, Medicine, Social Work, Counseling and Education at the university level. I would like to suggest a Reparations Fund or Scholarship for low/no- income law students to get paid a living wage to work in public interest law firms. They would be an asset to those firms wanting to support poor/houseless tenants, houseless individuals, children and families in struggle, and immigrants/Indigenous peoples. I invite institutions of Law and Medicine to send their students to PeopleSkool and invite this povertyskola in to teach, speak and present as an act of radical liberation. The courts can truly be transformed into places of negotiation, radical sharing, liberation and support instead of their current state of harming, destroying, incarcerating, abusing and killing.

I was almost killed by Philippine troops upholding the global economic order on display at this week’s APEC Summit. By Brandon Lee reprinted from The Nation, Nov 15, 2023. Attendees make their way into Moscone South for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit held at Moscone Center in San Francisco, Tuesday, November 14, 2023. Today, I will come face to face with the forces who nearly killed me. In 2019, members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines attempted to assassinate me in response to my efforts to defend Indigenous Philippine lands from environmental and governmental degradation. Bullet fragments from the attack are still lodged in my body, and I am paralyzed from the chest down. But it was not only those specific soldiers who were responsible for my near-murder. It wasn’t even only the Philippine government. The global neoliberal economic model that prioritizes endless profiteering and exploitation over peace, equality, and environmental stewardship helped load the gun. Now, four years later, and back in my hometown of San Francisco, I am surrounded by the leading symbols of that global order—because my city has been chosen as the site of this year’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. For the first time in 12 years, the United States is hosting the APEC Heads of State meeting, a gathering of national leaders from 21 member economies—including Joe Biden, Xi Jinping, and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., all of whom have arrived in San Francisco—and the business executives of some of the largest multinational corporations in the world. San Francisco is requiring all police and security personnel to work overtime and the federal Secret Service is deploying its forces to secure the closed-door APEC meetings. Meanwhile, thousands of local residents and small businesses are bracing for street closures, sweeps of houseless people, invasive checkpoints, harassment by the police, and inaccessibility of neighborhood services. I grew up in San Francisco learning about the struggle most people face at some point to put food on the table and earn enough to pay the bills, even while across town a few people lived in Victorian mansions and worked for the big banks in the skyscrapers that made up the city’s iconic skyline. I know this from direct experience, having spent nine years living with the Igorot Indigenous peoples of the Philippines as they defended their land, rights, and lives in the resource-rich area known as the Cordillera region. I saw firsthand how neoliberal policies supported by APEC, such as the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, liberalized the mining industry, allowing foreign mining companies to reap 100 percent of the profits from the plundering of Indigenous people’s lands. The stark divide between rich and poor from my childhood has only gotten wider, throughout the world and in San Francisco itself, precisely due to the kinds of policies that APEC is discussing during its week of meetings. APEC protests. Signs read: Abusing People and the Earth for Corporations. Stop Corporate Attacks on Climate Justice. Photo by tiny gray-garcia. According to APEC, its members encompass 41 percent of the world population, 44 percent of world trade, and a whopping 51 percent of the entire world’s GDP, which underscores how critical the Asia Pacific region is to the global economy and to geopolitics. APEC is always a forum where the great powers compete to bring member countries into their sphere of influence, but playing out in the backdrop this year is intense global competition and strife. The US in particular has been aggressively pushing the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) in negotiations with 13 other countries (including India, which is not a member of APEC) in the run-up to the APEC Summit. A free-trade agreement repackaged in the post-pandemic language of “fostering resiliency” and “climate-smart sustainable production,” IPEF is the trade aspect of America’s desperate attempt to gain the upper hand in its competition with China. In line with its Indo-Pacific Strategy, the US backs up its trade agenda by deploying military forces, expanding overseas bases, and forging new military agreements with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and other countries in the Pacific to isolate and contain China. All of these maneuvers put APEC member economies—especially those in the first-island chain—right in harm’s way. Unbridled mining destroyed the environment and forcibly displaced Indigenous people who had been living there for generations. When the people protested against the foreign mining companies and the policies that enabled them, the state responded with violence. Indigenous communities were militarized, bombed, and strafed with artillery shelling. Individual Indigenous rights activists were threatened, harassed, surveilled, abducted, slapped with legal cases based on fabricated evidence, illegally arrested, and even extrajudicially killed. Because I protested alongside the Indigenous communities and as a journalist wrote about the daily attacks they faced, I was also threatened, politically vilified as a terrorist, and given death threats, culminating in being riddled by a fusillade from members of the 54th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army in front of my home on August 6, 2019. More recently, under Marcos Jr., who was elected last year, a string of human rights violations have hammered the Cordillera Indigenous peoples: Phosphorus bombs were dropped in Kalinga province; three Indigenous rights activists were abducted; and four of my friends and colleagues in the Cordillera Peoples Alliance were tagged as terrorists for defending Indigenous people’s rights and land. Only the Philippine military and police apparatus trained by and supplied with arms from the US have the ability to systematically carry out these crimes on such a wide scale. The bullets that hit me were quite possibly funded by American taxpayers, as are the bombs that continue to be dropped all over the Philippines to silence the people protesting the policies that APEC is showcasing. The Indigenous people of the Philippines will be excluded from the APEC talks. APEC has never invited them nor any of the billions of ordinary people who bear the brunt of its free-trade deals: workers, women, migrants, and all sectors of society who comprise the 99 percent have never been given a seat in the APEC meetings, at the lavish dinners, or at the side meetings. Instead, the biggest US corporations, such as Amazon, GM, Chevron, and Boeing, are spending millions of dollars to back this November’s APEC meetings and thus get exclusive access to global leaders. These global leaders become the biggest customers of corporations like Boeing, which manufactures drones used in the bombing of Indigenous communities in the Philippines and in Israel’s war of genocide against Palestinians; and Chevron, which continues to seek expansion of natural gas production in the Philippines and with Israel in the Leviathan gas fields off the coast of occupied Palestine. The people of the Bay Area have not taken this lying down. Hundreds have formed the broad No to APEC Coalition comprised of grassroots organizations, and labor and climate advocates, and thousands have been protesting APEC all week. We will follow in the footsteps of a generation of people who have protested APEC since its inception. As San Francisco rolls out the red carpet for APEC and the 1 percent, I’ll be standing with the people again, ready to confront this institution that not only almost took my life but has contributed to the poverty, unemployment, and environmental destruction that have killed millions worldwide. Brandon Lee is an environmentalist and Indigenous rights activist based in San Francisco. He is a member of the San Francisco Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines and was a recipient of the Center for Environmental Concerns' Gawad Bayani ng Kalikasan (Environmental Hero Award) in 2020.

For Immediate Release: Contact: Jaz Colibri, tiny garcia (510) 435-7500 Palestine to Oakland - Free the land Houseless residents of Occupied East and West Huchiun (Oakland) demand an end to Colonial Occupation and Genocide and liberation of Mama Earth from Oakland to Palestine What: Press Conference and Council Meeting When: 5:30pm Tuesday, November 28th Where: Oakland City Hall steps Occupied Huchiun (Oakland) On November 28th, Houseless and formerly houseless resident leaders of Wood Street Commons and Homefulness, along with advocates and allies, will present our demand to liberate Mama Earth globally from Palestine to Sudan and right here in Huchiun so houseless peoples can be free of the ongoing violent sweeps, poLice terror and harassment that we face multiple times per day all across Oakland. "From the West Bank to West Oakland, after we are evicted, where do you think we go? After we are swept, where do you think we go...The same settler lies, I mean laws, remove poor/houseless/indigenous people from our homes, ComeUnities, streets, tents, and our bodies and belongings are seen as trash if we are in the way of their colonial land theft plan for profit all across Mama Earth," said tiny gray-garcia, formerly houseless/incarcerated Poet, co-founder of POOR Magazine, visionary of Homefulness and author of Criminal of Poverty:Growing up Homeless in America and many more. "Our visions are homeless people helping homeless people, that's what works, that's what was working at Wood Street Commons," said John Janosko, co-leader Wood Street Commons. Oakland by any means necessary should cut off our city's support of military aid to Israel and urge an end to Israel's apartheid state as well as urge full return of the land to the Palestinians. We pray that so-called Oakland by any means necessary will cease its complicity with America's ongoing genocide on BIPOC LGBTQ+ and the poor by ending encampment sweeps which treat our lives like trash, throwing what stability we build for each other into chaos which further isolates and displaces us in the midst of this ever growing housing crisis. In the midst of more and more people being evicted into the streets following the lifting of the eviction moratorium. The eviction moratorium must be reinstated and its protections extended to unhoused Oaklanders.... excerpts from the statement which will be read by houseless/formerly houseless residents of Wood Street Commons and Homefulness at the Oakland City Council meeting of Nov 28th To read the whole statement click here "The sweeps must stop, they are killing us, literally," Rick C , Houseless resident of East Oakland and RooflessRadio reporter for POOR Magazine Preceding the council meeting we will have a short press conference featuring houseless an formerly houseless poverty skola residents of Oakland. Story on this Subject: Houseless in Gaza

by Bu tamim Al-Barghouti Photo From: @eye.on.palestine مررنا على دار الحبيب فردنا ***عن الدار قانون الأعادي وسورها فقلت لنفسي ربما هي نعمة *** فماذا ترى في القدس حين تزورها ترى كل ما لا تستطيع احتماله *** إذا ما بدت من جانب الدرب دورها وما كل نفس حين تلقى حبيبها تسر *** ولا كل الغياب يضيرها فإن سرها قبل الفراق لقاؤه *** فليس بمأمون عليها سرورها متى تبصر القدس العتيقة مرة **** فسوف تراها العين حيث تديرها في القدس، بائع خضرة من جورجيا برم بزوجته يفكر في قضاء إجازة أو في طلاء البيت في القدس، توراة وكهل جاء من منهاتن العليا يفقه فتية البولون في أحكامها في القدس شرطي من الأحباش يغلق شارعا في السوق، رشاش على مستوطن لم يبلغ العشرين، قبعة تحيي حائط المبكى وسياح من الإفرنج شقر لا يرون القدس إطلاقا تراهم يأخذون لبعضهم صورا مع امرأة تبيع الفجل في الساحات طول اليوم في القدس دب الجند منتعلين فوق الغيم في القدس صلينا على الأسفلت في القدس من في القدس إلا أنت ... وتلفت التاريخ لي متبسما أظننت حقا أن عينك سوف تخطئهم، وتبصر غيرهم ها هم أمامك، متن نص أنت حاشية عليه وهامش أحسبت أن زيارة ستزيح عن وجه المدينة يابني حجاب واقعها السميك لكي ترى فيها هواك في القدس كل فتى سواك وهي الغزالة في المدى، حكم الزمان ببينها ما زلت تركض خلفها مذ ودعتك بعينها فارفق بنفسك ساعة إني أراك وهنت في القدس من في القدس إلا أنت ... يا كاتب التاريخ مهلا، فالمدينة دهرها دهران دهر أجنبي مطمئن لا يغير خطوه وكأنه يمشي خلال النوم وهناك دهر، كامن متلثم يمشي بلا صوت حذار القوم ... والقدس تعرف نفسها، إسأل هناك الخلق يدللك الجميع فكل شيئ في المدينة ذو لسان، حين تسأله، يبين ... في القدس يزداد الهلال تقوسا مثل الجنين حدبا على أشباهه فوق القباب تطورت ما بينهم عبر السنين علاقة الأب بالبنين ... في القدس أبنية حجارتها اقتباسات من الإنجيل والقران في القدس تعريف الجمال مثمن الأضلاع أزرق، فوقه، يا دام عزك، قبة ذهبية، تبدو برأيي، مثل مراة محدبة ترى وجه السماء ملخصا فيها تدللها وتدنيها توزعها كأكياس المعونة في الحصار لمستحقيها إذا ما أمة من بعد خطبة جمعة مدت بأيديها وفي القدس السماء تفرقت في الناس تحمينا ونحميها ونحملها على أكتافنا حملا إذا جارت على أقمارها الأزمان In Jerusalem We passed by the home of the beloved but the enemy’s laws and wall turned us away I said to myself, “Maybe, that is a blessing” What will you see in Jerusalem when you visit? You will see all that you can’t stand when her houses become visible from all sides When meeting her beloved, not every soul rejoices Nor does every absence harm If they are delighted when meeting before departure such joy cannot remain kindled For once your eyes have seen Jerusalem You will only see her, wherever you look. In Jerusalem, a greengrocer from Georgia, annoyed with his wife, thinks of going on vacation or painting his house In Jerusalem, a middle-aged man from Upper Manhattan holds a Torah and teaches Polish boys its commandments In Jerusalem, an Ethiopian policeman seals off a street in the marketplace, A machine gun hangs from the shoulder of a teenage settler, A person wearing a yarmulke bows at the Wailing Wall, Blonde European tourists who don’t see Jerusalem at all beside a Palestinian woman selling radishes in public squares all day long In Jerusalem, there are walls of basil In Jerusalem, there are barricades of concrete In Jerusalem, the soldiers marched with heavy boots over the clouds In Jerusalem, we were forced to pray on the asphalt In Jerusalem, everyone is there but you. And History turned to me and smiled: “Have you really thought that you would overlook them and see others? Here they are in front of you; They are the text while you are the footnote and margin O son, have you thought that your visit would remove, from the city’s face, the thick veil of her present, so that you may see what you desire? In Jerusalem, everyone is there but you. Jerusalem is the wandering deer As fate sentenced it to departure You still chase her since she bid you farewell O son, calm down for a while, I see that you began to faint” In Jerusalem, everyone is there but you. O historian, wait, The city has two timelines: One foreign, serene, with steady steps as if it is walking asleep The other wears a mask and walks secretly with caution And Jerusalem knows herself, Ask the people there, everyone will guide you

This Sunday 12/3 POOR Magazine will have a table with revolutionary media throughout the entire 2023 Howard Zinn book fair from 10-6pm at CCSF Mission Center 1125 Valencia St SF AND will be presenting a panel discussion together with Sogorea Te Land Trust from 12:30-2pm: Decolonizing Homelessness-a resistance to settler theft, use and ownership of MamaEarth With tiny gray-garcia aka povertySkola/POOR magazine/Homefulness & Corrina Gould/ Sogorea Te Land Trust and Homefulness With Fellow poverty, indigenous skolaz from Homefulness More information at: https://www.zinnbookfair.org/