Evicted, Swept and Kicked…. cuz Settler Towns like these don’t give a shit ..
UnTour Thru the Occupied Pacific Northwest to MamaFest Homefulness
By tiny aka povertyskola
“We don’t lack the willpower, intelligence, love or heart, we just lack the money,” Tent City 3 resident Joe Molloy’s clarity was beautiful medicine for all of us over-swept, never heard houseless relatives struggling with the degrading demeaning lies constantly being generated and perpetrated about houseless people.
Us Houseless/formerly houseless povertyskolaz ( as we call ourselves) from POOR Magazine were getting an inspiring tour thru Tent City 3, launched by the homeless women-led movements known as SHARE & WHEEL. Joe’s tour was preceeded up by an equally inspiring tour thru Tent City 4 the day before after our poetry workshop and skills share with SHARE & WHEEL povertyskolaz.
We were in Chief Siah’l (aka Seattle) on our 3rd UnTour thru the Pacific Northwest to share and teach with tent cities povertyskolaz , and University students on a “solution” to homelessness that we houseless peoples have built and are currently housed in, Homefulness, like the Tent Cities is in fact a homeless peoples, rent-free, healing housing solution that currently houses 23 houseless families, youth and elders in occupied Huchiun (Oakland) and there are a group of housed and houseless residents who are working hard to bring it or Mamafest it in the Pacific Northwest.
“Sometimes we get so cold out here that we end up doing things we know aren’t safe like light fires in our tents… just to stay alive…” said Keinard Gaines, a talented artist and excellent father who is currently houseless in so-called Tacoma, after a nightmare with a non-profiteer, and Anti-social worker who unhoused him after offering him housing.
Our humble Untour took place in the indigenous lands of the Duwamish, Squaxin, Nisqually, Pullyup and many more nations that colonial genocide has erased.
And to be clear I always use the indigenous names for all of the regions of Turtle Island (aka US) that us houseless people are trying to sit, stand, sleep and live, because as far as i’m concerned you can’t overstand or speak about the violence that rains down on our heads as houseless people, without overstanding the history of genocide of the 1st peoples of this land who were violently removed to build the colonial project known as the US.
The same racist, classist, settler anti-poor people lies ( i mean, laws) that incarcerated, murdered, removed and destroyed hundreds of thousands of thriving nations of people living on Turtle Island through a campaign of erasure, hate and violence, are the exact same “laws” that cause us houseless Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled and poor wite peoples of all nations, to be swept, killed, and removed, all and both in the name of “cleanliness” devil-opment, expansion, renewal, improvement,business and most of all krapitalism .
Additionally, to add another disturbing aspect, over 60% of the houseless peoples who participated in our RoofLessRadio WeSearch project in the Pacific Northwest are themselves indigenous to the lands they are “houseless” on. This fact rarely or never gets named by mainstream or even progressive media.
This is why in addition to workshops and skill shares and love - The 2025 UnTour included the release of KlanMarks, Plakkks and ManuMeants - an UnTour Book Across Occupied Turtle Island- a powerful new POOR Press book which includes the unwashing of colonial genocidal history past and present as well as what i call Resistance Marks, examples of street altars, murals, and sites of remembering for Black, Brown and houseless relatives stolen by the current genocide of PoLice, racism and hate. Helping people overstand that the genocide and removal of 1st peoples and now houseless peoples all across occupied Turtle Island follows the same violent template we are witnessing in Palestine right now.
“They don’t care if it’s snowing or 30 below, they pull up with their bulldozers and take everything and leave us out there in the elements,” another houseless povertyskola spoke to RoofLEssradio in so-called Tacoma after one of our street writing workshops at St Vincent De Paul’s community center. While we were in there, snow fell to the already freezing ground while houseless relatives figured out how they were going to survive through the night.
As i have spoken and taught many times, the word and concept of “sweeping” humans is one of many hygienic metaphors used to equate us houseless humans with trash, thereby de-linking us from our humanity solely because we don’t have access to the lie of rent. Once the general public no longer sees us as human like them, they can easily rationalize our being removed from so-called public spaces, i.e, we are no longer members of the public even when many of us used to live in homes in these in areas or lands for generations but due to eviction, crisis, violence, we are hiding and trying to survive outside. In addition, as i have often done, we need to examine the settler lie of public space itself.
Finally, this krapitalist society CONtinues to disrespect and silence our voices, our solutions, and our survival. They would like to kill us all like they just did with Cornelius Taylor in Atlanta and James Edward Oakley in Vallejo, but we have solutions and they work. Homefulness works, Tent city works, we just need to be listened to.
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