Homeless and Jobless Tomorrow

Hundreds of Stable Workers living in their RV’s at Alameda County Fairgrounds and their families face homelessness and joblessness this Friday!

Soon to be Houseless families from Alameda County Fairgrounds with formerly houseless POOR Magazine Youth and Family advocates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 

Contact: tiny gray-garcia/muteado silencio, POOR Magazine/Homefulness,510-435-7500 

What: Emergency Press Conference  

When: 2pm Thursday, March 27

Where: Alameda County Fairgrounds - Gate 12 

“I have been working in these stables for over 30 years and then all of sudden I’m jobless and homeless,” said Nicolas Hernandez, who is one of hundreds of workers and RV park residents at Alameda County Fairgrounds facing immediate eviction and job termination due to the end of the “Horse racing industry in California” 

 “the California Authority of Racing Fairs confirmed Jan. 30 that it will end all Golden State Racing stabling and training operations in Northern California, including at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. That means that many of the staff, who lived in an RV park on the grounds, may have to vacate by March 25. Workers who stay on the site beyond that date could face fines due to wastewater runoff the state has deemed unsafe, according to the Bay Area News Group.”

Houseless and formerly houseless organizers from POOR  Magazine and Oakland Homeless Union are demanding housing resources be offered to the soon to be jobless and homeless workers

 “This is a significant population of families with children who will become unhoused if resource providers don’t step in quickly. These families moved from Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley—uprooting their children—to Pleasanton. We see this happen frequently: marginalized populations are moved into other cities, and the city of origin then uses the resulting lower numbers to claim success, rather than revealing the true nature of the reduction in their unhoused population. What is happening in Pleasanton is catastrophic in terms of displacement and the removal of a Latinx community—many of whom have dedicated over 25 years of service to California’s equine industry,”  said Andrea Henson, lawyer and advocate and founder of Where Do We Go , who is working with POOR Magazine to support the families.

The hundreds of residents of the park are very low-income, hard-working families with small children who live in Pleasanton and go to neighborhood schools and now suddenly because of the end of an industry face homelessness and joblessness.

“They have worked and lived there for decades, how about equity, how about reparations for their years of low-wage work in that billion dollar industry that is closing overnite with no account for the hundreds of workers that kept it alive . They deserve reparations not terminations, they deserve equity not  evictions”, said tiny gray-garcia, formerly houseless, advocate and co-founder of POOR magazine  

The press conference will feature residents of the RV park, advocates and formerly houseless members of Voces de inmigrantes en resistencia and Youth reporters from POOR Magazine, Deecolonize Academy, Where Do We go Berkeley and Oakland Homeless Union

For updates follow 

@poormagazine

@wheredowegoberkeley

@oaklandhomelessunion