El Robo de Tierra Negra y La Falta de Vivienda Negra en el Mes de Historia Negra Black Land Theft and Black Homelessness in Black History Month Come out and support a family who lost their family home hear the youth and elder poverty skolaz At DeeColonize academy with their WeSearch report Where: 5542 Harvey Ave Oakland, CA When: 1:30 Tuesday , Feb 27th Sponsored by poormagazine El Robo de Tierra Negra y La Falta de Vivienda Negra en el Mes de Historia Negra Salga y apoye a una familia que perdió su hogar familiar, escuche a los jóvenes y ancianos que viven en la academia DeeColonize con su informe WeSearch Donde: 5542 Harvey Ave Oakland, CA Cuando: 1:30 Martes 27 de febrero Patrocinado por prensapobre

By Leroy F. Moore “Black ableism,” a concept that I have been writing about for years (Moore 2024). Black ableism is a form of discrimination and social prejudice specifically against Black people with disabilities, perpetrated by non-disabled Black individuals. I helped coin this concept, addressing the unique historical and cultural context of ableism within the Black community, tracing its roots to slavery and the subsequent internalization of negative perceptions of disability. Since the 1980s I have worked in both my disability and Black community. Most of my activism and cultural work has been aimed to change my communities based on my identity as a disabled Black man. My work has mostly opened avenues in the disability community, including non-profits by utilizing cultural events, research books/literature and disability studies. In the mid 1990s after feeling used and discriminated against by dominant disability nonprofits I founded Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization (DAMO) which was active for four years. DAMO was established for people of color with disabilities and the greater Black community.  Upon evaluation of DAMO I realized I have been running away from my Black community because of open wounds unknowingly inflicted by them through forms of Black ableism. As we know, terminology and the power of defining language are really important. Most often new terminology comes from the streets. Often academia adopts this language therefore giving legitimacy to the work of disabled folks without acknowledging their work. Most areas of disability have been taken from us, including the medical industry, and professionals/experts etc.  Until we take it back, redefine it, politicize it, and sometimes change it all together our work will continue to belong to others. Although the term Ableism has been defined by disability advocates from dominant culture, if you put Black in front of anything coming out of disability it must first be stripped down then reshaped in the experiences, histories and words from the Black disabled experience. By now, we must know that the Black disabled experience in America has different roots than our White disabled counterparts. Because of the need of Black disabled people to heal our wounds inflicted by our Black community, one by one or collectively, it is imperative that we tell our stories and define new terminology, definitions, art, music, political views, and provide education and resources for our Black community. Many Black disabled people have had these same thoughts. According to a Black disabled lawyer educator and organizer Talila Lewis’s working definition of ableism is: “A system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-Blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism. This systemic oppression leads to people and society determining people’s value based on their culture, age, language, appearance, religion, birth or living place, “health/wellness”, and/or their ability to satisfactorily re/produce, “excel” and “behave.” You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.” (2022) If we view this definition from the perspective of the Black experience reaching back from the capture and shipping of slaves to the teaching of disability and our bodies, almost everything we have done has helped shape Black ableism toward Black disabled people. Due to the lack of awareness of race and racism that continues to exist in the disability rights movement, it is not surprising that the Black community has not made steps to recognize their own ableism. I have defined Black ableism as: Discrimination and social prejudice against Black people with disabilities or who are perceived to have disabilities from Black non-disabled people as far back as slavery. For example, slave owners used disability as a reason to devalue a slave because of what he/she could contribute to the plantation. And as we, a new people emerged out of slavery and saw by the slave master’s example that disability meant devalued. Therefore slaves internalized disability was a sin, something that needs to be healed using the outdated Religious Model of Disability mixed with The Tragedy/Charity Model of disability that says the following: The idea that disability is essentially a test of faith or even salvation in nature. If the person does not experience the physical healing of their disability, he or she is regarded as having a lack of faith in God. Mix with depicting disabled people as victims of circumstance, deserving of pity. (Moore, 2024) Unchallenged Black ableism not only holds the Black community from advancing the project of justice for all its members, but it also makes the Black community hurtful and irrelevant for the Black disabled people and their families. Black Ableism can cause many deep-rooted problems in a Black disabled person. The problems are as broad as low self-esteem, to trying to reach the unreachable, also known as overcoming or hiding their disability, to most importantly, not having a community. Ableism, like racism, manifests from individual to institutional, where it corrupts Black institutions. Black ableism can only be eradicated by stripping what the Black community has been taught about disability through the lens of oppression and then rebuilding. This rebuilding process must be conducted by coordinated teams of Black disabled people and family members who have had a presence in both the disability and Black communities. Also, part of the formula includes individuals who have held on to their identity politics and have a disability vision and reality for the Back community. In other words individuals who have a deep rooted love of their community and are willing to risk exposing their pain to help the Black community have an understanding of disability from a race and culture perspective. This process will be a long term commitment to healing and detailing the historical significance of disability to present day issues, including Black ableism. For Black disabled people and our families the rebuilding will lead to a path of Black disabled empowerment and a commonality with our Black community. The Black community will be all the richer by embracing their disabled sisters and brothers from a historical, political, participatory and cultural way of life. As Krip-Hop Nation we use Hip-Hop to reclaim, educate, advocate and Krip a space so to connect to the above, I have Krip Public Enemy’s 1989 song, Fight The Power to Fight Black Ableism. Go To “Kripped” Track of Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power”

Letters Dedicated Luis Temaj/Cartas dedicadas a Luis Temaj Dear Marisol, I am Kai and I go to school at Deecolonize academy. I heard about your brother and I’m really sorry that happened to him. I hope you and your family are starting to recover from that. I’m praying for you and your family to get better. Love from Kai to you and your family. Querida Marisol: Soy Kai y voy a la escuela en Deecolonize academy. He oído hablar de su hermano y siento mucho que le haya pasado. Espero que usted y su familia estén empezando a recuperarse de eso. Estoy orando para que usted y su familia mejoren. Amor de Kai a usted y su familia. Dear Marisol, I am Avery. I go to school at Deecolonize Academy. I’m in 5th grade and I’m 11 years old. I heard about your brother Luis. I am sorry. I’m giving you blessings. Prayers, Avery Querida Marisol: Soy Avery. Voy a la escuela en Deecolonize Academy. Estoy en 5º grado y tengo 11 años. He oído hablar de tu hermano Luis. Lo siento. Te estoy dando bendiciones. Oraciones, Avery Dear Marisol, My name is Anniyah and I'm 10 years old. I go to school at Deecolonize Academy. I'm sorry about your brother. I will give my heart to you and you give your heart to your brother. Love, Anniyah Querida Marisol: Mi nombre es Anniyah y tengo 10 años. Voy a la escuela en Deecolonize Academy. Lo siento por tu hermano. Yo te daré mi corazón y tú le darás tu corazón a tu hermano. Con amor, Anniyah Dear Marisol, I am Shane. I am 8. I go to school. I am sorry for your loss. Shane Querida Marisol: Soy Shane. Tengo 8 años. Voy a la escuela. Lamento su pérdida. Shane Dear Marisol, I am Donovan. I am 7. I go to school. I am sorry that your brother died in a fire. I hope you feel ok. Love, Donovan Querida Marisol: Soy Donovan. Tengo 7 años. Voy a la escuela. Lamento que tu hermano haya muerto en un incendio. Espero que te sientas bien. Con amor, Donovan Ziair- I am Youth povertyskola reporter for POOR Magazine and student at Deecolonize Academy. Temaj was set on fire by someone while sleeping in his sleeping bag, on San Francisco 25th & Van Ness. Around 5am they say. His sister Marisol does not have vengeance in her heart for who's responsible but does want justice. “I don't wish them to suffer or anything bad to happen to them” said Marisol. “I don't want any other family to go through this”, said Marisol. I believe someone did this to Temaj because they saw him in the neighborhood and saw him as “trash.” To Marisol : I'm sorry that you had to experience losing a Close relative, I have also gone through losing a Close loved one, especially when your loved one was a kind hearted person, not bothering anybody. I wish you all the justice you and your family deserve. Soy reportero erudito de la pobreza juvenil de POOR y estudiante de la Academia Deecolonize. Temaj fue incendiado por alguien mientras dormía en su saco de dormir, en San Francisco en 25º y Van Ness. Alrededor de las 5 am dicen. Su hermana Marisol no tiene venganza en su corazón por quien es responsable pero quiere justicia. “No quiero que sufran ni que les pase nada malo”, dijo Marisol. “No quiero que otra familia pase por esto”, dijo Marisol. Creo que alguien le hizo esto a Temaj porque lo vieron en el barrio y lo vieron como “basura”. A Marisol : lamento que haya tenido que sentir la pérdida de un pariente cercano, también he pasado por perder a un ser querido cercano, especialmente cuando su ser querido era una persona de buen corazón, no molestando a nadie. Le deseo toda la justicia que usted y su familia merecen. Jay- I am Jay - youth poverty skola at Deecolonize Academy and Youth reporter at POOR Magazine - The Written Story on a homeless man that was brutally murdered For No Reason Luis T A houseless man, Luis Temaj, was set on fire by a person who lit up his sleeping bag on October 8th, 2021, around 5:00 in the morning. I just couldn’t imagine one of my close family members passing away in that tragic way. The disgusting 1st- degree murder is sickening. While I was writing this report, I realized it has to be talked about and noticed. Yes, Luis was a “homeless man” but, he was a PERSON just like the rest of us and he had a family that loved him and I bet his family is still grieving. I do send all of my condolences and I’m so sorry that happened to his family. Soy Jay - erudito de la pobreza juvenil en la Academia Deecolonize y reportero juvenil en la revista POOR - La historia escrita sobre un hombre sin hogar que fue brutalmente asesinado por ninguna razón Luis T Un hombre sin hogar, Luis Temaj, fue incendiado por una persona que prendió fuego a su saco de dormir el 8 de octubre de 2021, alrededor de las 5:00 de la mañana. Simplemente no podía imaginar que uno de mis familiares cercanos falleciera de esa manera trágica. El repugnante asesinato en primer grado es asqueroso. Mientras escribía este informe, me di cuenta de que tiene que ser hablado y notado. Sí, Luis era un “hombre sin hogar” pero, era una PERSONA como el resto de nosotros y tenía una familia que lo amaba y apuesto a que su familia todavía está de duelo. Les envío todas mis condolencias y siento mucho que le haya pasado a su familia. Nija- I am Nija- Youth povertyskola reporter at POOR Magazine and Student of Deecolonize Academy - Homeless man was set on fire and killed. Luis Temaj  was killed by stranger after having his sleeping bag set on fire by someone in San Francisco. Luis was a 43 year old and was sleeping outside on 25th street and south Van Ness in the mission district on the 8th of October 2021 when he woke up to his sleeping on fire at 5:00am and called the police for help. He later died because of the attack. He had been homeless for less than a year when he was burned alive. And now his sister is still seeking justice for him in 2024 over two years later. She said even with the 25,000$ reward it's not going to bring her brother back. She is left with sadness and anger not knowing who did this. This is a Message for the family. I'm sorry this happened to you. This is very sad. I hope things like this doesn't continue to happen to homeless people. Soy Nija- Reportero erudito de la pobreza juvenil en la Revista POOR y Estudiante de la Academia Deecolonize - Un hombre sin hogar fue incendiado y asesinado. Luis Temaj fue asesinado por un extraño después de que alguien en San Francisco le prendiera fuego a su saco de dormir. Luis tenía 43 años y dormía afuera en la calle 25 y en el sur de Van Ness en el distrito de la misión el 8 de octubre de 2021 cuando se despertó durmiendo en llamas a las 5:00 am y llamó a la policía para pedir ayuda. Más tarde murió a causa del ataque. Había estado sin hogar por menos de un año cuando lo quemaron vivo. Y ahora su hermana sigue buscando justicia para él en 2024, más de dos años después. Ella dijo que incluso con la recompensa de 25.000$ no va a traer a su hermano de vuelta. Ella se queda con tristeza y enojo sin saber quién hizo esto. Este es un mensaje para la familia. Lamento que esto te haya pasado. Esto es muy triste. Espero que cosas como esta no sigan sucediendo a las personas sin hogar. Amir- I am Youth Povertyskola Reporter with POOR Magazine - and a graduate of Deecolonize Academy  - Luis Temaj was a 40 year old homeless Guatemalan man just living on the streets of San Francisco on 25th & Van Ness when he was burnt alive with his own sleeping bag. He was accounting while lost his job and came to America to find another job but instead lost his job due to the pandemic that he became homeless on the streets being exposed due to danger out in the world. Luis was a humble loving person that people loved him but hearing this terrible thing we shouldn't be killing homeless people because they have no place to go and whoever set Luis on fire, they had no remorse. Luis Temaj had a family too, he was somebody. The person who set that man on fire should turn themselves into the police, what he did to Luis wasn't right, he was still human at the end of the day. Soy reportero de erudito de la pobreza juvenil con la revista POOR - y graduado de la Academia Deecolonize - Luis Temaj era un hombre guatamalteco sin hogar de 40 años quien solo estaba viviendo en las calles de San Francisco el 25 y Van Ness cuando fue quemado vivo con su propio saco de dormir. Estaba contabilizando mientras perdió su trabajo y vino a Estados Unidos para encontrar otro trabajo, pero en su lugar perdió su trabajo debido a la pandemia de que se quedó sin hogar en las calles siendo expuesto debido al peligro en el mundo. Luis era una persona humilde y amorosa que la gente le amaba pero al escuchar esta terrible cosa no deberíamos estar matando a personas sin hogar porque no tienen a dónde ir y quien incendiara a Luis, no tenía remordimientos. Luis Temaj también tenía una familia, era alguien. La persona que prendió fuego a ese hombre debía convertirse en la policía, lo que le hizo a Luis no estaba bien, al fin y al cabo, era un ser humano.

For Immediate Release: Contact: tiny garcia or Muteado silencio (510) 435-7500 Broke, Black, Brown, Disabled Book UnTour: POOR Press Book Release 2024 Houseless, Black, Brown, Disabled, Indigenous Poet, Writer PovertySkolaz release 8 books of poetry, HERstory, liberation, disability justice and survival at venues in occupied Tongva and Lisjan/Ohone Lands Ohlone "Bay Area" Dates Confirmed: 6pm Sat, Feb 17th Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA 94110 4pm Sun, Feb 18th Black Repertory Theater Tongva (LA) Dates Confirmed: 7pm Fri Feb 9th Re/Arte Centro Literario 1pm Sat Feb 10th Street Writing Workshop for Housless Poverty Skolaz (@ Palm Tree Hotel) 4:30 pm Sat Feb 10th Echo Lake Park (at Lady of the Park Statue) 1pm Sun, Feb 11th Eastside Cafe: 5469 Huntington Dr N, Los Angeles, CA 90032 The notion of poverty scholarship was born in the calles, prisons, street corners, community centers, welfare offices, shelters, kitchen tables, assembly lines, tenements, favelas, projects, and ghettos—all the places people don’t look for educators, experts, leaders, researchers, lecturers, linguists, artists, creative thinkers, writers, and media producers......... excerpt from Poverty Scholarship - Poor People-led Theory, Art, Words and Tears Across Mama Earth In Black History Month (February) of 2024, a Press launched by poor and houseless poverty skolaz at POOR Magazine will be releasing 7 books! (see attached covers and below for bios of the authors and book descriptions) From the LandBack Turkey to Krip Hop Graphic Novel, Kai's Ancestral Shellmounds, Self-Help Hunger Program- the Original HERstory, Cuantas Veces Han Roto mi Corazon/the Many Times My heart was Broken, Flowers to the Dead, The Sidewalk Motel, Homefulness Handbook to Thee Poetz Promise, each of the books released in the POOR Press 2024 collection represents the lives and generations of homelessness, trauma, criminalization, migration, ableism, racism, colonization, and ultimately, resistance and resilience, of the povertyskola authors and HErstorians to the multiple struggles that poor, indigenous, disabled and houseless people in occupied Turtle Island face everyday. "Each one of these books are not only acts of literary resistance, but different forms of poverty scholarship/ curriculum and urgent medicine for a hurting Mama Earth struggling with hoarding, gentrification, eviction, ableism, racism, false colonial borders, homelessness, poverty and climate destruction," said tiny gray-garcia, formerly houseless, incarcerated povertyskola and co-founder of POOR Press/POOR Magazine/Homefulness POOR Magazine co-founders Mama Dee and Tiny, a houseless, indigenous mother and daughter who were deep in struggle with their own homelessness and poverty, launched a publishing arm of the poor and indigenous people-led movement known as POOR Magazine to create a beautiful and sacred space for poor and houseless voices to be not only heard, but seen. POOR Press, conceived in 1998, was just one of many innovative ways that POOR Magazine has been dedicated to lifting the voices, solutions, dreams of poor people and helps to re-frame the voices of struggle into voices of solution-based visionaries who are teachers in PeopleSkool- a poor/indigenous people-led seminar offered to people with race and class privilege. Poetry, art, prayer and liberation is how us povertyskolaz mamafested a homeless people’s healing, rent-free solution to homelessness we call Homefulness. With this 2024 book release we will be working with fellow povertyskolaz in occupied Tongva (LA) and Yelamu (SF) to launch more media, cultural work and Homefulness projects The POOR Press/Prensa POBRE Books and their Authors 2024: Self-Help Hunger Program- The Original Herstory By "Aunti" Frances Moore Aunti Frances Moore is a formerly houseless Black disabled activist, elder, Black Panther and community leader from North Oakland/South Berkeley. She was honored to work alongside with courageous geniuses of the revolutions as a member of the Black Panthers. She continues on with the legacy of the Black Panther party using food as an organizing tool to fight against gentrification and displacement. In her work, she has touched the lives of many community members, housed and houseless, through her Self-help Hunger Program. Frances is a brilliant actor and writer and has starred in Teatro de los Pobres productions since 2016. She is a founding member of Homefulness and the co-author of How to Not Call the PoLice ever and the Making of Aunti Volume 1 & 11 on poorpress.net The Self-Help Hunger Project- Original HERstory is a powerful poverty scholarship informed  community archive of a poor/Black elder led, self-determined, food justice movement in North Oakland, written by povertyskola and founder “Aunti” Frances Moore. The LandBack Turkey /El Pavo de devolucion de tierras, The Sidewalk Motel and the Homefulness Handbook By tiny gray-garcia aka povertyskola Tiny (aka Lisa Gray-Garcia) is a formerly unhoused, incarcerated poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist, lecturer, poet, visionary, teacher, single mama of Tiburcio, daughter of a houseless, disabled, indigenous mama Dee, and the co–founder of POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE/PoorNewsNetwork. She is also the author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America, co-editor of A Decolonizer’s Guide to A Humble Revolution, When Mama and Me Lived Outside, and Poverty Scholarship:Poor People Theory, Arts, Words and Tears Across Mama Earth. In 2011, she co-launched The Homefulness Project , the Bank of ComeUnity Reparations, and Deecolonize Academy.  In 2022, she narrated a short movie based on her children’s book When Mama and Me Lived Outside - one family’s journey thru homelessness which has subsequently won 22 awards across the country. In 2023, she began production on a feature length movie Crushing Wheelchairs based on her first adapted screenplay with an all houseless cast, set to be released in 2024. The LandBack Turkey/El Pavo de devolucion de tierras is a bilingual graphic novel/allegory/message/Herstory for children and adults co-written by tiny and all the animal teachers at Deecolonize Academy, focusing on Indigenous, Black/Brown and houseless people’s Land Liberation, LandBack self-determination. The story is told through the eyes of a magical giant, ancestor turkey. The Homefulness Handbook, is a How-to primer on homeless, landless people’s movement-building and The Sidewalk Motel is tiny's first poetry anthology and glossary (PoShunary) of her own incisive language (or "linguistic liberation," as she calls it). Krip Hop Graphic Novel By Leroy Moore Since the 1990s, Moore, a disabled povertyskola, has been a member of POOR Magazine, starting with the column “Illin-N-Chillin,” and then as a founding member of PeopleSkool, the Homefulness Project, and Deecolonize Academy. Leroy has launched and helped launch organizations including Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization, Sins Invalid, and Krip-Hop Nation. Currently, Leroy is a Ph.D. student in Anthropology at UCLA and a member of UCLA’s Hip-Hop Study Group. Krip Hop Graphic Novel is a beautiful graphic novel with illustrations by Ottis Smith depicting the power of self-determined poor, Black disabled Krip-Hop elders and youth convening, leading and manifesting solutions and grassroots community-based, real disability justice. The elders of Krip-Hop crown young Roxanne as the new leader of Krip-Hop Nation.  Find out the surprises Roxanne has for Krip-Hop's elders inside of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, NY. Thee Poetz Promise To Be Dope By Bella Martrice Bella Martrice is a povertyskola, Artist, published poet, published journalist, published song writer, and guerilla activist with POOR Magazine and beyond. She was born and raised in the Historically Black Fillmore district of San Francisco. Her writing is impenitent, her passion enchanting. She is Thee Ghetto Poet. Her music is rhythm and poetry literally! She is a wordsmith, painting pictures with words; Beats are another one of her canvases. Thee Poetz Promise To Be Dope is a powerful collection of poverty, wordz and ghetto scholarship on life, racism, gentrification and survival. Each poem/Word/Rant screams off the page to the reader the struggle of a poor single mama of color, trying to survive in this broken, racist system. Kai's Ancestral Shellmounds By Angel Heart Angel Heart, Quechua-Puna, is an Activist, Author, Poverty Scholar and formerly houseless (now Homeful) Homefulness Resident. She is currently leading a project and radio show with POOR Magazine on 96.1 FM - PNN - KEXU - titled, "The People's Botanica." Angel Heart is an Intuitive-Empath with many years of knowledge & practice in Espiritismu & Brujeria. She is the creator of The People's Botanica - A spiritual wellness & supplies market. About Kai's Ancestral Shellmounds is the third in a series of children's books centered in the voice of a first Nations Ohlone/Lisjan child reflecting, HISstory-teling, and revealing the truth about the genocidal California mission system. Angel Heart was granted permission to launch and publish this series by Ohlone/Lisjan leader and spiritual leader of Homefulness Corrina Gould. Cuantas Veces Han Roto mi Corazon/the Many Times My heart was Broken by Ingrid DeLeon Ingrid is a formerly houseless, migrant, indigenous, povertyskola mama of four and grandmama of two, and refugee of domestic violence and false border terrorism from Guatemala. She is a member of the Po Poets Project of POOR Magazine since 2006 and a reportera with Voces de inmigrantes en resistencia with POOR Magazine and a teacher and povertyskola with PeopleSkool. Cuantas Veces Han Roto mi Corazon/the Many Times My heart was Broken is the third in a series of tragic and beautiful bilingual narratives on the struggle of survival of a houseless/poor, indigenous refugee mama forced to cross three false borders, fleeing domestic violence and poverty and trying to take care of her four children, mother and family in Guatemala. Flowers to the Dead By Lori Herrera Born in the chicano resistance of The Mission District of San Francisco (occupied Yelamu) and raised in the calles of Vallejo (occupied Karkin), Lori is a mixed brown Mama, Daughter, Grandmother, revolutionary writer, storyteller, artist, povertyskola with POOR Magazine and a love & liberation soulja, on a journey of decolonizing, remembering and connecting to roots. Flowers to the Dead is a collection of poems, prayers and offerings to the ancestors - a saga of grief and undying love. It's the first volume in a series of writings on death, loss and mourning, and will be the debut publication of Lori's body of work from her poetry archives.

By tiny, formerly houseless daughter of Dee, mama of Tiburcio aka @povertyskola Tiny tombs , I mean tiny homes Not a place to call our own Tiny tombs better describes the triggerr of those jail-like rooms The InsideNOTsafe is a public relations game by  politricksters to get us houseless peoples out the way From Huchiun to LA System Set up from the Get up so that we can fall deeper into our wounds Inside our minds which are struggling in a broken state All the time The Anti-social workers say No visitors, no locked doors, no cooking, no animals and no talking here-but never fear us houseless people aren’t actually real- these are low-key jails cuz us houseless humans aren’t supported to get well Holding on by shards of pain lost to deadly assumptions of what we could have been -we coulda made but never fear an  anti social worker is here - we have a number -we can wait- we allegedly have all the time to waste -we are on 1,200 housing waitlists from the feds, the county and the state This poemCast from a povertyskola goes out to all my fellow povertyskolaz who know the struggle inside our minds - of the isolation and the wait-times - of the inability to get basics even if we stand in all of their lines- Occupied Tongva (LA) “The death of  Anjileen “Green Eyes” Swan who passed away last week in her tent, is a stunning example of the cruelty and failure of LA’s housing system. Because she had been hospitalized she lost her room and was sent back to the streets gravely ill with a pacemaker. She died within a week. Mayor Bass’ InsideSafe and Imelda Padilla’s offices were well aware of her grave health condition, “ Aetna Street Solidarity. From violent sweeps of our houseless bodies as though we are trash and vicious towing of our homes (aka cars/RV’s)  which happens incessantly across occupied Turtle Island from SF to NYC under Mayoral administrations from London Breed (SF) to Jesse Areguin(Berkeley) to Erik Adams (NYC) to Karen Bass(LA to Sheng Tao(Oakland), using money for “homeless services” to pay the exorbitant costs of sweeps, to Tiny home villages, navigation centers, scarce and temporary shelter beds and jail -transformed motel rooms, which like in Green Eyes case evict each person after three days out of their rooms even if they are in the hospital, and/or forced housing referrals/forced treatment like Newsom passed into law, are not solutions because they are not informed by the people impacted by them, aka us, the houseless people or as we call ourselves at POOR Magazine; “povertyskolaz”. These “solutions” to homelessness created “about us without us” aka without the guidance, direction or leadership of us poor and houseless people or what we call Poverty Scholarship informed, are not only bound to fail, but bound to harm, often leading to our death. The tiny tombs (Tiny home) villages such as the ones in Oakland and Bellingham and projects like LA’s InsideSafe, which i re-named InsideNOTsafe are actually the opposite of safe or a village and in fact are dangerous for houseless people. These projects and solutions aren’t guided by spirit, love, healing, elders or poverty scholarship like Homefulness. Instead they are rooted in numbers, budgets and scarcity models without any regard for our mental or spiritual heatlh but simply working on a quota and numbers system about “how many houseless people they can “serve” rather than listen to what we actually need. They breed calculated, institutional words and codes like “service resistant” and “non-compliant” which are *anti-social worker code for those of us who can't abide by carceral non-solutions like these. Occupied Nooksak (Bellingham , Washington) “They told me I can’t cook, can’t have friends over, can't stand outside my room, cant smoke and can’t store my belongings, this is worse than jail,” Bobbi, an indigenous povertyskola from Pacific Northwest Turtle Island layed out the hell of trying to survive in the politrickster created tiny home village in occupied Lummi Nooksak territory aka Bellingham, Washington that she was “lucky” enough to get a referral to move to when she was on the street, suffering increased criminalization and endless violent sweeps in the middle of a freezing winter.. My Roofless Radio conversation with Bobbi was in 2021 and for the last 2 years i have been *WeSearching war (ON the poor) stories like Bobbi’s from all across Turtle Island who have struggled with these non-solutions to our poverty and homelessness. (*Wesearch is a word I created to describe poor people led research) The framework of Poverty Scholarship is a theory developed and coined by me and my Mama Dee when we struggled with homelessness, poverty, evictions and housing insecurity for most of my childhood and young adulthood in tandem and collaboration with fellow houseless povertyskola co-founders of POOR Magazine and became a textbook in 2019 entitled:  Poverty Scholarship Theory, Art, Words and Tears Across Mama Earth *Anti-Social worker is a word i created to describe the often harmful, not helpful aspects of the so-called “helpers” or care-takers who are mostly acting as agents of removal and the participants in the carceral state system for poor people. Occupied Huchiun (West Oakland) “Who are you?,” the security guard asked us thru three layers of chain link fencing material separating Oakland’s “cabin community” that was the only referral given to about 50  of the hundreds of victims of the violent Wood Street Evictions earlier this year. “No visitors are allowed.” and then he proceeded to re-lock up the third fence between us. After some wrangling by the head Anti-Social Worker in charge, the security guard reluctantly unlocked the gates.  While a grueling process of ID checks and calls to supervisors ensued I asked the member of Wood street Commons who we had walked over there with what they thought of the “Cabin Community” set up by the politrickster class of Oakland. “I don’t like it and probably won’t last here very long with the insane rules but that’s all they are offering me and I have nowhere else to go,” the sisterwarrior  who asked to remain anonymous shook her head from side to side and fell quiet. “The only reason this place is a little less evil  is because of all the meetings we had with them and the ideas we homeless people gave them, which they sort of listened to,” said John Janosko, houseless founding member of Wood Street Commons about the tiny home cabins,  “But they are still not welcoming or live able for a lot of our folks,” The euphemistically named “cabins” installed by the City of Oakland poltricksters and anti-social workers enlist an admixture of fear, claustrophobia and impending incarceration for every resident, a dangerous situation that has since led to the cyrcle of homelessness continuing for the Wood Street Commons eviction refugees. These carceral communities specifically created for houseless residents are rife with  violence, which makes sense as they are all rooted in historical hateful acts of legislative brutality, like the Ugly Laws, Pauper Laws, Settlement houses and Pauper prisons, sundown towns and Jim Crow to name a few.  Multiple ways that being poor, houseless or disabled in public, inability to afford food or rent would be just cause for arrest or incarceration. These “laws” or lies as I call them enabled the profiting off of poverty and roots of the non-profiteer and carceral system we still deal with today  . One terrifying example was under previous Oakland mayor Libby Shaaf we had the life-threatning insanity of the “tuff-shed” a poison leaking, flammable particle board box that literally was dangerous to sit in, much-less sleep in, and the fact that these could even be created and taken seriously, is an example of the way that our bodies are seen when we are not paying ground rent in a krapitalist system. These violent “solutions” created about us without us poor people,  are flawed on purpose because our houseless bodies aren not seen as human. “ I am hiding out just so I can get my wallet and important belongings,” another Sister, warrior, povertyskola resident leader  with Wood Street Commons Freeway texted to me while she was getting evicted from the cabin she and her partner were placed in after the violent Wood Street Commons evictions. “They have no understanding or accommodations for people like me and my partner, we tried to be here, and now we are being evicted back to the street , again. “ Freeway concluded breathless as she ran. Occupied Yelamu- (SF) "Luis Temaj would still be here but this society thinks its ok to sweep humans like we are trash, like my mama always says," said Youth Skola Tiburcio Garcia. They are sweeping people right now down the street while we are mourning Luis," he concluded. Tiburcio spoke from a powerful ceremony POOR Magazine held last week for Luis Temaj, a humble loving houseless Mayan Sun, Brother, and friend, who was set on fire while sleeping on the streets of San Francisco on Oct 8th of 2021. To this day his family has received no justice. Occupied Huchiun (Berkeley) “Your friend can’t come in,” “This is my mama,” ,” “I don’t care if she is G-O-D herself, she’s not coming in,  we have a no visitors in room policy. period,” In one of the many iterations of me and mama’s homelessness we lived in several, cockroach and bedbug infested, box-size SRO’s (Single Room Occupancy Hotels), in other words, poor people housing. i place quotation marks around lived because I’m not sure if living itself can be achieved in the jail-like conditions of most of these SRO’s were “placed” in to get us off the street. If it wasn’t the insane litany of “rules” we had to live under, it was the ongoing poLicing we were subject to just being there. “Who is in there,?” “My mama and me,like always.” “Well we need to come in to inspect,” The knocks and accusations were once or twice a week  and eventually the management decided we weren’t a “good fit” because of my mamas trauma fueled tendency to collect too many things ,aka hoarding /cluttering (which i call having/keeping) and evicted us back to the street. This was just one of the many eviction wars we survived and one of the many murders of the soul that led us to dream/vision Homefulness. Homefulness, unlike these other projects,  is a homeless peoples, self-determined, rent-free, healing, forever housing solution to homelessness, created with spiritual guidance and permission from 1st Nations peoples of these occupied lands and which has been built and is thriving in Deep East Oakland which just welcomed in its 16th resident a houseless, single mama, on December 1st. We also are clear that any poor and houseless peoples-led land liberation movement must have spiritual guidance and permission of the 1st Nations relatives of that occupied land. Homefulness would not have happened without the spiritual guidance prayer and permission of the Ohlone/Lisjan leaders of this part of Turtle Island and rooted in LandBack and Black Land Return frameworks and actions. This is the work myself and Land protector and Ohlone/Lisjan co-founder of Sogorea Te Land Trust, Corrina Gould, we call Decolonziing Homelessness. Our funding sources are different as well, we povertyskolaz teach housed folks with race, class and formal education privilege about the concept of Radical Redistribution and ComeUnity reparations in a poor people-led skool we call PeopleSkool . This is a solidarity economy in action. Self-determination means you are liberating your mind, actions and consciousness away from harmful extractive krapitalism. Other beautiful examples of solutions are Camp Resolution in Sacramento, a beautiful poor, houseless, disabled resident run space, Nicklesville, which is a poor and houseless revoluitonaries run tiny home village in Seattle, Camp Integrity, which is a newly launched safe camping site in Marin county and Wood Street Commons before the City of Oakland dismantled, destroyed and evicted everyone from it. Occupied Tongva (LA) “We lost one of our members, Mike Flo aka Michael Flores,” Carla, a warrior shero, povertyskola and co-founder of Aetna Street Solidarity in occupied Tongva, explained to me about the forced isolation of no visitor’s policy, no community convening demanded of houseless povertyskolaz placed in motel rooms in the InsideSafe project under so-called progressive mayor Karen Bass. “These aren’t places for healing, we are losing folks, so many folks,”  Carla continued. Inside Safe is a citywide, voluntary, proactive housing-led strategy to bring people inside from tents and encampments, and to prevent encampments from returning. It is one feature in a comprehensive strategy to confront the homelessness crisis. Quote from LA city Gov website. “The sweeps are constant and violent,  I can’t even stand in the places I used to hide  without police coming to get me, and then if i don’t take their referral i get arrested, they call me “service resistant ” said Johnny D, one of our RoofLess Radio-Tongva (LA) reporters spoke to the subliminal, not so subliminal threats stated in the LA gov website description of InsideNOTsafe, specifically the line; prevent encampments from returning, which is code for the implementation of metal barricades blocking off entire streets to anyone and/or violent architecture as we at povertyskolaz at POOR Magazine call it, i.e, weirdly large planters like San Francisco has placed everywhere houseless communities used to reside, or spikes, or removal of benches, making cities inaccessible to peoples with disabilies and elders, many of whom are also houseless, to sit, stand or live anywhere. Homefulness residents are all people called “service resistant” and non-compliant. We are people who have struggled with having/collecting, we are revolutionaries, we are, like all people outside All of us co-founders of Homefulness struggle with the multiple traumas from lives spent living outside, and lives spent living inside in a hurting krapitalist system. We know the violence of incarceration, racism, ableism, eviction, addiction.  And the violence of isolation and the struggles of recovery. We hold each other in accountability and its hard. We are constantly having to convene our internal restorative justice circles we call family elders, elephant councils and our HEAALZ groups to work toward healing and repair with ourselves and each other. We teach multi-media workshops and support micro-business enterprises and the communities we are in with whatever we are able to to give and distribute, to name a few of our many projects. But most of all we all know, equally importantly, that Homefulness doesnt just mean a room or a roof. It means interdependence, love and support. This povertyskola is currently working with fellow houseless povertyskola leaders and Dean Preston’s office from Yelamu (San Francisco) and Aetna Street Solidarity with support from students and comeUnity at the Luskin center at UCLA to mamafest a Homefulness, in Tongva (LA)  and Yelamu (SF) as well as Revolutionary lawyers from Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC)  -stay tuned for more info.

By Momii Palapaz “It hit me that whatever we do impacts every other community confronting this issue, and vice versa. We’re fighting this environmental injustice in Guam, which is connected to environmental injustices experienced in all these different communities around the country—many of them communities of color and lower economic status. This is environmental racism,” said Monaeka Flores, a native of Guam, whose family has tended to their land for generations. “I was horrified to learn about the toxic chemicals that would likely be released from OB/OD including PFAS, which are linked to various cancers. And I was shocked that the Guam EPA said they didn’t know much about open burning and open detonation.” Inside Moscone Center, December 2023, the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference was underway, where corporate suits were schmoozing and partying with recruits. SF welcomed the visitors to discuss enterprising possibilities of capitalist expansion in Asia. Outside on the streets of the Embarcadero in SF, speakers rallied the crowd of thousands opposed to the collusion. During the 2023 months of October, November and December, millions around the world were already protesting the Israel government’s genocide of the Palestinian people. The meeting was a timely opportunity for the link to be made where annihilation of indigenous, poor, and displaced Palestinians make way for expansion. It makes way for creating further self-serving interests while desperation, homelessness, invasions of poor communities are enacted in the name of “blight” and eviction as the solution. I am outside converging among protesters on the block's long march to 5th and Mission. I am here, a Japanese American elder, to physically stand with the people around the world against imperialist expansion. My ancestors whisper to me and now as I get older, I’m finally listening. My curiosity has evolved to consciously seek more of my family history. The lack of conversation or total silence told me this is how we survive. Forget the past. Don’t bring up the past. Move on. I am on the streets in solidarity with the countries and islands affected by APEC. I feel the physical presence is important. I am here to walk with the communities of Pacific Islanders, the Moana Nui. As we talk the talk in the “woke” movement, there are organizers that, as well meaning as they are, disregard these communities. And much too often, and without invitation, non Moana Nui will talk for them. This goes unnoticed by the public as internal indifference toward participating indigenous communities particularly in the week of Anti APEC actions. “Like NAFTA, free trade for Canada, US, and Mexico and South America, APEC is for the countries that shore the Pacific Ocean. I’m here along with my relatives from Tonga, Samoa, Chamoro from Guam and Fiji,” said Loa Niumeitolu. “That’s what we call Moana Nui, our grandmother, our great grandmother…if we don’t have these stories, we are dead,” continued Loa, in an interview with tiny and Muteado on KEXU 96.1 fm. Why aren’t coalition leaders holding up the Moana Nui community? The most affected in the APEC expansion, indigenous brothers and sisters are forced off islands by the thousands. Climate terror will drown their land and people. The US military has conducted decades of environmental damage with toxic weapons. History has exposed the unlimited sexist depravity and racism of US power in all the places it fought Japan and China. To this day, neither the Japanese government and/or the US has responded to the relentless trafficking of women and children for sick sexual demands. I believe our own colonized thinking and conditioning is directly related to the system of imperialism we grew up and presently live in. Even the thought that I am an American is a surprise by both people of color and white. Within our own POC communities there is entitlement of nationalities. As woke as we think we are, there are numerous clues that show otherwise. We are all on stolen land. Ignoring the Moana Nui community and not inviting them to the table is supremacist thinking. The Moana Nui, representing the Pacific Islands and people for the anti APEC coalition, are collectively placed under the designated title as Asian Pacific Islanders. Moana Nui live on islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are categorically Pacific Islanders, not of Asian descent and cultural history. Those communities of small nations are getting smothered by the “American'' activists. Under the same platforms of colonization, we are under systems with Bored of Dissectors, and paper rules of order that all come from the established supremacist system we live under. The disregard of our indigenous ancestors and their descendants is glaringly clear.  We need to wake up and raise up our relatives.  We must welcome their leadership and knowledge, their history and story. They should be at the head of the table for international justice. Loa went on to say, “The biggest interest for (the) most profit. We’re standing in Chile looking at the Pacific Ocean, Mexico, China, standing looking at the Ocean. Take the Pacific Ocean, (it is) actually 1⁄2 the mass of the plant. All these countries…’What part do you want?’ And that’s a free trade agreement. They give the free legal rights to make decisions on what part of the ocean do you want. Let’s do it by mining, fishing, how much profits can you want from this fish, seaweed and mining. Indigenous people of their countries, Shoshone, aren’t called to the table. They are right near the ocean. Why (does) this mean so much…we are in the middle of that. Our island is in the middle of that. That is why it’s so important with all the communities around us…We’re in the height of the destruction…you can see the definition to reduce terrorists and other barriers of trade over time leading to the expansion of economic growth. Colonial papers, agreements, treaties never include the Indigenous. Indigenous people have needs and concerns for future generations.” Hundreds of islands from Hawaii west to Australia make up the area targeted for profit making development. Japan, Korea and the US and China, an under the table component, gather with other imperialist nations, carving up land, sea, air, space and underground. This list is not all the names of hundreds of islands in the Pacific experiencing climate decimation, the leveling of native living communities. For decades, the US military has made thousands houseless, forced to move to other countries.  For example, there are large communities of Moana Nui in Gardena, Hayward, Newark in California. On the island of Molokai and Oahu, Hawaii, Okinawans were forced to migrate at least 100 years ago. I looked on the map and some of the names of the islands are incorrectly spelled. Colonizers change names and spelling frequently. Papua New Guinea Solomon Island Vanuatu New Caledonia Tuvalu Fiji Tonga Norfolk Island Niu Wallis & Fauna Tokelau Samoa West AMerican Samoa Cook Islands French Polynesian Pitcairn Easter Islands Marshall Islands Palau Northern Mariannas Federal States of Micronesia Indonesia Malaysia, New Zealand and more. On the island of Guam, up against the 59 acres of the US military firing range, is the Guam National Wildlife Refuge. Thousands of years in the making, this is home to endangered species.  The fruit bat, geckos, insects and trees are being eliminated on 1,000 acres of a limestone forest.  Medicinal plants have healed a variety of illnesses from bronchitis to anxiety. 5,000 marines will be transferred to the island in 2025 from Okinawa, where for many years, the US military has been confronted by the community protesting its expansion and environmental damage. Julian Aguon an indigenous Chamorro activist and attorney in Guam, shared his disappointment at the loss of his people. “Such things are inevitably lost in translation,” he writes. “No military on earth is sensitive enough to perceive something as soft as the whisper of another worldview.” “Healer” in the Chamorro language is called Yo’amte, and his Auntie Frances Arriola Cabrera is one that writes about centuries of cultural and living traditions impacted by US imperialism. On the Marshall Island, “Everybody’s sick; they get sick and die young,” Jonithen Jackson told ABC News. “When the bomb is erupted, the white powder they come to the water…everybody realizes, oh, that’s the poison.” Poisons from radiation, bombing tests, destruction of the soil and vegetables all contributed to the forced migration of over 80,000 natives. Jackson moved from Enewetak Atoll in 1991, to Hawaii.  From then on, he was followed by over 300 Marshall Island family and citizens. They built their own homes plotted on Ocean View Estates on the southern part of the big island. With scattered patches of volcanic lava formations and rock, it was the most affordable place to live. Like back home on Marshall Island, Jackson wanted a place for his extended family and community to live near each other. The US government fund for those affected in Marshall Island sends him $82.00 every few months as compensation for his losses and eviction. Many Marshallese and Micronesians in Hawaii gravitate toward historically migrant communities. Many live in places like Waipahu or Kalihi, where public housing is more available. Listen to PNN RADIO archives “Po Peoples Radio” program and hear the full interview with Loa Niumeitolu.

University of California Berkeley, a purportedly progressive institution of higher learning, has been engaged in a 54 year war against a tiny corner of land known as Peoples Park By tiny- daughter of Dee/Mama of tiburcio 2024 Hundreds of armed humans lined up in formation. Pacing back and forth, stomping on flower beds, wood chips, recently cut down mama tree stumps, basketball courts and vegetable gardens, throwing away tents and sleeping bags and belongings, cocking and re-cocking their weapons, adjusting their batons and tasers, looks of robotic ferocity flashing under their vinyl and acrylic face shields. ….Houseless peoples, artists, students, elders, gardeners, flower planters, ecologists, humbly stood in front of armed poLice. They marched, screamed and begged them not to destroy the trees, step on the flowers, throw away the tents, fire their weapons, violently tackle us to the ground and arrest us. 1969: Demonstrators running from tear gas deployed by police during a protest over People’s Park. (Bettmann / Getty Images Contributor) 1969 Hundreds of armed agents of the state lined up in formation. On tops of buildings, in the street, in the park, stomping, marching, shooting, swinging batons, lead and rubber bullets, tear gas, flash grenades, wearing face shields, riot gear. .....Hundreds of humans, students, elders, artists, gardeners, florists, scientists, anti-war organizers, soil cleaners, arborists, land protectors scream, march, demand to leave a small part of Mama Earth alone for public use. TODAY To stand on Dwight near Telegraph gazing up at the tiny part of Mama Earth smothered in dangerously weaponized poLice in January 2024  was to suddenly be thrust into treacherous war zone anywhere on occupied Mama Earth, and thrust out of the comfy pseudo-warmth of “college town” make believe  (bookstores, record stores, cafes, tattoo parlors, and weed dispensaries). In the middle of a cordoned off “public” street and far into the unseeable horizon, there were giant stacked shipping containers, countless poLice SUV’s from multiple poLice agencies, hundreds of poLice officers milling about staring down anyone who watched them. This scenario was almost identical on Haste from Telegraph. Again, barricaded off with metal gates, shipping containers, poLice cars, and cops-hundreds of them-standing around, looking menacingly in anyone’s direction and/or not even looking at all. In the bizarre scene’s backdrop is the mural of the 1969 battle between poLice and the people painted beautifully and frighteningly by the revolutionary lawyer and advocate for houseless folks like me, Osha Neuman, who broke this houseless povertyskola out of jail for the crime of living outside when I was a houseless child and young adult in Berkeley and Oakland. Free Free Palestine - Free Free Peoples Park Last night I was present for a march that connected the dots of the siege on Gaza and the siege on Peoples Park. This connection is not hard to see. Or feel. “They came at us with everything they had, guns, tear gas, throwing our belongings in the trash. Throwing us in the trash. They took tents, our medicine, the kitchen we all built to serve free healthy food to houseless community like me and destroyed the garden and so much else and told us we had three minutes or less to leave," said Rob, a long-time houseless RoofLessRadio reporter for PNN-KEXU, about the most recent attack on the park and its inhabitants, family, and land on Jan 4th, 2024. Violent History Repeating Itself There has been an over 50 years long struggle, which has included multiple forms of building, planting, growing, living, art-making, performance, music, and the creation of a thriving comeUnity of Peoples of all nations, generations, classes and cultures. A comeUnity that doesn't believe in the krapitalist lie of private property. Who, just like us at Homefulness, knows that Mama Earth is not now, nor never has been, for sale, no matter what the devil-opers and land occupiers say. People who are willing to peacefully fight for their small part of Mama Earth and all the beautiful Mama Trees they planted over the decades. “They cut down over 40 shade and life-giving trees,” said Aidan Hill, a fierce warrior for Mama Earth and co-leader at Peoples Park resistance, in an interview last year in January when UC Berkeley began another one of its most recent assaults. “The rest of them are all gone,” Rob said about the beautiful shade trees that the Peoples Park protectors were able to save from the deadly bulldozers last year in the same month when they launched this “affordable housing" lie. While he spoke, he motioned upward from his tent in the direction of the sky. “Their relentless bulldozers took the rest of the trees, now we mourn,” he shook his head and became quiet. Excerpts from a disturbing letter from the UC Berkeley Chancellor to staff and students…. Early this morning we began work to cordon off the People’s Park construction site. Over the next 3-4 days, surrounding streets will be closed to traffic while crews install a secure perimeter consisting of double-stacked shipping containers. The Project plans include new student housing with more than 1,100 beds and permanent supportive housing for very low income, and formerly unhoused people…. Our concern about, and commitment to the well-being of our unhoused neighbors are long-standing. It's hard to see anything now in the park, because the shadowy supervillain, UC Berkeley chancellor Carol Christ, decided to surround the park with not only all of the millions of publicly funded cops, working overtime 24 /7 on both streets, but also stacked the space with huge shipping containers, which is ironic for us at Homefulness as we are desperately trying to raise the money to buy shipping containers so we can build rent-free forever homes at Homefulness#2 and 3 and 4 & beyond for houseless families, youth and elders. We can barely afford to buy two of them while she wastes them to fence and blockade people, mostly houseless people, from a safe sleeping space with a free kitchen and loving community, so she can build so-called “affordable housing” which won't, like all housing called affordable these days, be actually affordable. But instead uses the language of "affordable" to quiet any overstandable concerns from the un-knowing public who are witnessing this next bizarre chapter in the 54 years war of Peoples Park. Among other mis-truths in the chancellor's letter, she states that UC Berkeley's concern and commitment is to the well-being of unhoused “neighbors.” If that was even remotely true, then why did they come in the middle of the night with guns and tasers and tear gas, removing anything or anyone who dared to be sleeping, living or existing in Peoples Park, most of whom were longtime houseless residents of the park like Rob and so many others? Every night the people gather, mourn, pray and/or march. We will not be intimidated and we will not give up. Taking over a street ourselves, sitting, standing, rolling, music making and ceremony creating on Telegraph avenue near the blockade. To support, follow @PeoplesParkBerkeley on IG or Text SAVETHEPARK (all caps) to 41372 to be on the alert for the next attack.

By People Skool Graduates The next People Skool Session will be held January 20th and 21st. To apply click here. "If you are feeling there's got to be a different way to go about things, there's got to be a way of existing in this world that does not feel so hopeless, then People Skool is for you. If you care about your neighbors, People Skool is for you. If you care about Mama Earth and ALL her residents, People Skool is for you. If you feel sick to your stomach seeing the harm and destruction and genocide happening around the world, People Skool is for you. If you are ready show up in the world armed with radical love, then People Skool is for you. People Skool helped me to bridge the disconnect I was feeling between the way society expects me to act and the way my body, mind and spirit needed me to act. By spending a few days on Zoom with some of the most powerful voices I have heard, my life was changed. I am able to show up for my community in a more loving and more informed way. I am able to meet my family with more abundance and gratitude. I am able to meet myself with more grace and understanding. We are all connected. We must take care of ourselves and each other- and People Skool is a major step in that direction." -Areya (People Skool graduate 2022 and current Admin member) "My relationships with my friends, family, and my relationship with money and the systems of harm that I exist in became so much clearer and better through People Skool. The opportunity to learn from some of the most incredible thinkers and activists alive today is once in a lifetime. Except that it's twice a year!" -Jay (People Skool graduate 2022)

From Treaties to Probate to Evictions Mama Earth's commodification CONtinues By tiny gray-garcia aka povertyskola, daughter of Dee , Mama of Tiburcio Paper knives cut poor peoples lives In half Causing our now-houseless bodies To crash into streets Covered in grief Never safe again to sleep Under roofs that require more paper knife  proof That paid for yo stay otherwise u outside in one day “We are a multi-generational Black family of six and have been living in my husband’s childhood home for the last ten years with my mother-in-law -taking care of her and helping her pay the mortgage… and now we are homeless,” Mama and eviction survivor Terri B tried to unpack the complicated journey of her family caught, destroyed and broken by what I call the paper knives on Po’ Peoples Radio last week. “Three days after my mother-in-law’s funeral, my sister-in-law began probate.” Terri explained the complicated, impossible process of settler lies (I mean, laws) that stole her family's home from her family. As her tearful words poured out, I was reminded of the Sloan family, the Williams family, The Ramirez family, Brokin Cloud and his Great Aunti, Kathy Galvez, Sam Drew and his Great Great Aunti, martial arts leader and owner of Casco Martial Arts Sifu Bill Owens and his wife and dozens more multi-generational Black, Brown and indigenous families that this jailhouse lawyer and fellow revolutionary advocates at POOR Magazine have advocated for to get back inside. All of them lost their family homes, businesses and lives to paper knives/ settler lies (laws) that have stolen poor and indigenous peoples' lands, homes and stability from them for generations. “She even hired the serial evictor David Bornstien to evict us,” Terri concluded. The story of Terri is long and winding and terrifying and like all the other families, intentionally complicated, requiring of high-priced lawyers and advocates to sift through all the lies (laws) which poor people never have resources for and rarely. if ever, taught about.  Consequently, after terrifying battles full of so much CONfusion, these families become houseless. Brokin Cloud ended up on the street for over 20 years, Kathy galves , already a disabled elder and following a protracted battle in the courts stacked against her as a poor Black elder woman, ended up walking the streets at night with her dog, dazed and traumatized by the loss of her home of over 40 years, becoming forever locked into the Unhoused Nation. We enacted our underground SRO railroad so she got her off the streets but there was no space for her belongings and she ended up losing all of her assets. Sam D, a houseless elder pushing a shopping cart, Isn't it “ironic” but we poor folks are systematically stolen away from anything we managed to work for/slave for/strive from treaties to grant deeds to foreclosures. How different are these pieces of paper stating you "own" mama earth from original treaties that stole Mama Earth from indigenous peoples. The impossible process to understand what was never meant to understand, to read words scrawled on pieces of paper that somehow meant you no longer had the right to live, breathe, pray or die in your lands of origin. That enabled the desecrating of the Great Mama Earth that gave your family, community and people all you needed to survive and thrive and perhaps the most violent, the desecration and destruction of your ancestors sacred burial grounds. “We were paying the mortgage, and we were current, but nothing mattered,” she managed to convince the sheriff to evict us,” Terri added. It must also be said that families become so blinded by greed for the blood-stained dollar, that they turn inward on their own family. This happens constantly because of the violent lies of so-called private property and as long as Mama Earth remains a commodity to be bought and sold for profit and paper dollars we can’t change that, but we can look systemically at the lies that privileged people with more legal access and paper access and markers of krapitalist success, automatically garner more support in the courts than poorer people with no money for lawyers and arbitrators, etc. These same paper knives turn into the daggers called unlawful detainers the multiple processes that enable the eviction of Black and Brown and poor people from their homes of decades, elders like 100 year old Iris Canada. POOR Magazine and other advocates were able to prove that their evictions were actual abuse under penal codes of elder abuse in the State of California. Stand with Mr. Lewis In the sea of so much sorrow was excited and honored to hear about the story of Mr. Lewis - an elder fighting eviction from his family home, supported by the beautiful revolutionaries at Moms4Housing and CRC (Community Ready Corp) which quelled another in a long list of eviction attempts made against Mr. Lewis. “Her stated goal is to put us out on the streets, her and attorney Bornstein claim we are squatters in our own home, a home we pay the mortgage of and have never “paid rent”., Terry concluded our very sad interview for Po Peoples Radio with this kind of tongue twisting impossibility. At this point Terry’s family is literally on the street. We are trying to raise money to get them into a motel. And an attorney to get them some rights in that completely unjust, arbitrary Probate court system where the well-funded parties always take legal precedence over any kind of so-called justice. The liberation lawyers at Sustainable Economies Law Center are also working to support them and we are planning a press conference soon. To support the family pls email poormag@gmail.comor if you can donate directly go thru Venmo: @poor-magazine and note it's for Terry B’s family. You can also come thru to hear them speak at Street Newsroom at Homefulnesson Thursday, Jan 11th at 1pm 8032 BlackArthur Bl (MacArthur) Deep East Oakland (Huchiun).

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.