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- Robbery by the State
City of Oakland still blocks a homeless peoples solution to homelessness we call Homefulness By Tiburcio Garcia- /Youth poverty skola reporter for POORMagazine/co-builder and resident of Homefulness 40,000 dollars is enough to buy a car. 40,000 dollars could feed my family for 10 years. I have never seen that much money in my life, yet the only way I can move from a couch to an actual bedroom, along with my Homefulness family, many of whom are in far worse living situations than I, is to fork over 40,000 dollars to the City of Oakland’s Building Dept. What I don’t understand is why after listening to our pleas of leniency, and after many years and many thousands of dollars we have paid, that the City of Oakland is holding us by our sneakers upside down and shaking us to see what falls out of our pockets. I am 18 years old, and since I was 10 we have been fighting the city to get Homefulness, a homeless peoples solution for homelessness, or houselessness as we call it, officially launched. They have not given one concession, one inch of ground that we didn’t fight tooth and nail for. All of the rings of fire that we jumped through these years have burned us and hardened our hearts, attempting to crush our hopes. However, as it becomes obvious to the City of Oakland and the world that despite all of the insurmountable obstacles that have been put in front of us, we are nearing the finish line, the rings of fire that we have gotten used to have turned into walls of fire, taunting us with one option. Walk through, and get burned in the process. “[In 2019] before the holidays, [the City of Oakland] shut down the Homefulness building process all together, saying we ‘took too long’ to build, and assessed an ‘impact fee’ which is supposedly to support low-income housing projects, as well as told us we had to start all over again,” those are the words of my mom, Tiny aka Lisa Gray Garcia, talking about the City’s reason why we have to pay these 40,000 dollars. The twisted thing about them using this excuse to keep us from housing the houseless community is this money will supposedly go to people who create low-income housing, housing that makes it easier for houseless people to be housed. Ok, that sounds good, so the impact fee of 40,000 dollars we pay to the city will go back to us right? Oh and also all the impact fees of all the corporations who have been gentrifuking East Oakland will go to us also right? If the City of Oakland operated the way they said they did, if they lived up to the image that they display in public, any and all impact fees would be going to Homefulness and other non-profit organizations that create templates for housing houseless people, templates that don’t hurt anyone and even benefit the previous owners of the land of the new Homefulnesses, but that isn’t the case. The City of Oakland is fleecing us for more than we have, they are closing down much-needed already underfunded public schools, and building an 850 million dollar A’s stadium that is completely unnecessary seeing as we already have an A’s stadium that connects to the Coliseum BART Station. Actions speak louder than words, and those actions tell us volumes. The City of Oakland is charging us 40,000 dollars for an impact fee that we can’t pay, because we are late to a project they keep delaying, but we aren’t stopping. We aren’t fighting for some mighty cause or trying to prove a point. We are houseless people trying to house ourselves and other houseless people and we won't give up until, like my mom says, we Homefulness the world. Postscript In June 2022 we are moving in the mamahouses with or without the city’s permission—we hope u join us in a prayer circle for Houseless mamas being homeful -email poormag@gmail.com for dates
- Po' Poets Workshop on Luumi Nation Territory
From the old City By Bee From the old city called the “new flower” Addis Abeba False borders, false citizenships, false documentation Pleads for asylum to the countries that caused such instability, Cause a stress so real as I fill out government forms for my first-gen mama, Cause a disconnect in community I have continued to know And now it is something that is more familiar than the family I no longer know Where am I now? I see modernized displacement all around me Sweeps, incarceration, police surveillance against me and my loved ones destroyed communities we are rebuilding I sit on the court hearings of my loved ones as well as my own, And I see hundreds more poor folks brought in from the jails, Shamed by judges for “bad decisions,” Attacked by prosecutors Fines added Bail doubled Sentences lengthened Charges added Labeled an “inmate #” and “case #” They want you to feel dehumanized and ashamed “Beth vs. the State of Washington” They make it clear this is a war–one waged against the poor By a nation-state empowered by its false borders and protection of the elite And it’s even clearer to me That they are the public safety hazard. I belong to Earth By Dawson I belong to earth And earth belongs to me However I’ve been deprived my right to belong on earth By segregation And poverty And left me no choice besides being homeless This is from every Borderline alive and dead By Kaiyah This is from every borderline Both alive and dead I welcome you inside my borderline head The disease most stigmatized and most ignored by doctors “Come and look at the person who was created by monsters!” I’ve been called “crazy,” “toxic,” and “emotionally extreme” But that’s because, my dear, I have BPD I only think in black and white Only feel joy, rage, or horror Because I was so young when I got sick I’ve never really seen the world in color I only know how to shut myself down and think out of order Which gave me the diagnosis “borderline personality disorder” I go bad and when I’m full of rage Like an inferno in my soul and body Within its cage, I destroy everything around me And when everyone who fled wakes up and see the damage cause by my borderline head I want you to understand that the evil is not me I am full of love, kindness, joy, and empathy with people I am alive but when I am alone I escape to my bed To escape from pain in my borderline head So give me the strength to survive tonight because I am closer and closer to losing this fight I am tired of the crying and feelings of dread The chaos that’s happening in my borderline head This piece is about an artist who discovered abstract art within bipolar treatment. I suffer from grandiose delusions so I’m very grand. By Kk How to Pollock a masterpiece? Jackson, question, ordinary positions changes– that’s a given– On a drawing, of course, Ordinary people is a given, Crayola helps show the true colors What’s a fake color? Pollock shamble? Question Painting the industry? Question Pollock would like electric cars painted like pennies In shambles I tell you! Jackson asked me “What’s a nonrenewable resource?” I tell him, “A tale of more than two cities” Trying to also swallow keys The industry I tell you! Extra, extra! Get your newspapers! Forever Being Judged By Phonixx Some might ask about what it is like to be homeless. To be homeless and living on the streets is something most have never experienced and some have never seen. Forever being judged, humiliated, photographed, and recorded! For what the pleasure of having us exploited, made to look like animals in the jungle, wild and untamed. “No human decency or morals” so they say. We are humans too, we have feelings just like you. There is no reason to fear us. Maybe instead of being violent towards us, you should have some compassion and not judge for once. So the next time you see us walking down the street, on the corner at a red light, laying on the sidewalk, show a random act of kindness and say “hi”or just smile and wave. You never know, it just might make their day. Being homeless isn’t easy. It’s the hardest journey I've ever been on in my life. But I’m thankful for this learning experience and this life lesson. Because I now know what it is like to have nowhere to go, wonder where or when your next meal will be, how you’re gonna stay dry and warm, when the rain, wind, storms, snow, and freezing temperatures hit. Thankfully, I ended up meeting the most amazing group of volunteers and campers at a protest on the City Hall Lawn for housing for the homeless. They are the most caring, compassionate, dedicated, hard-working, give-you-the-shirt-off-their-back types. They continue to show up for us day in and day out. Rain or shine, even in the snow and through every bad storm we endured. Making sure we had all the necessities and then some, to continue surviving the winter together. -- PHONIXX
- All the beautiful places settlers steal.. To make their vacation homes real…
All the beautiful places settlers steal.. To make their vacation homes real… Sharp blue skies Water lapping at rocks powder clouds stars up so high in side a moonlit carpet sky Thick moss blanketing mamatrees Aint never seen trees like these.. Sails waving in with soft brushes of ocean breeze Clear creeks massage manicured feet four-legged relatives Carrying ancestors messages Houses for one with yards for none on top of sacred sites with stolen daughters and Suns Mama Earth’s water squeezed from mama’s tit lifted and CONsumed Extracted for oil, gas with deadly drill bits All the beautiful spaces that settlers steal Let’s b real After they’ve destroyed all they have Search for new spaces Leaving roads and towns In rubble after they disCOVER something new to steal and Tear down (This poemCast from a poverty skola Goes out to all the 1st nations relatives cut and ripped From all over Mama Earth )- but today focusing on the settler town they call Bellingham, Ferndale, Lyndon “Ometeotl … the copal rose slowly from the backyard of a settler home in so-called Bellingham. My brother,Muteado Silencio, danzante, word-warrior, co-builder/co-founder of Homefulness and youth poverty skolaz/co-suns, Tibu, Amir and Akil and Israel Munoz, all residents of Homefulness, elder Elephant council co-leader Momii Palapaz and myself, tiny, were opening with prayer for Mama Earth and ancestors of this territory as we launched the Land Liberation fundraiser for Homefulness to come to Bellingham. Bellingham, a “beucolic” town like so many other settler towns in occupied Turtle Island washed and erased of its histories of 1st nations genocide, removal, murder and terror. Now occupied, stolen and settled, Lummi, Nooksack, Samish and Semiahmoo territory filled with rich wite people, and billed by the Tourist extractive industry as one of the “ best places to play” “best place to retire” for it’s beautiful landscapes and multiple waterways and close proximity to rich peoples sports industries like “skiiing” snowboarding, hiking, etc Louis Washington, 11, “half-breed” indian, runaway from “school” Solis Allen, 10, half-breed” indian, runaway from school (From 1905 Northwest Sheriffs “Records of Arrest”) What is barely, if ever spoken about in tour guides and chambers of krapitalist commerce is the violent and brutal genocide known as boarding schools that existed all across Klanada and the United Snakes- many of them in Bellingham and surrounding counties. And all the fake treaties, massive colonial terror of women and children, the subsequent land theft, and the enslavement and torture of children like Louis and Solis and so many more who would try to run away from the dangerous abusive “schools” filled with pedophiles and predators known as Missionaries, charged with “killing the indian and saving the man” For five consecutive generations, from roughly 1880–1980, native children across the US were taken from their families and sent to residential schools. More unspoken Herstory In addition to the brutality of boarding schools was the violence against all peoples of color trying to live and work, muchless survive in this town. In 1907 a mob of 500 wite settlers beating, terrorizing and kidnapping of over 200 South Asian workers to “scare” them out of town which in addition to the ongoing and brutal attacks on Chinese, Japanese migrants, fueled the codification of a multitude of anti-asian lie-gislations. The implicit and explicit approval and enabling of slavery by following the Dred Scott decision that said descendents of slaves could not be citizens of the United Snakes. It is into this racist stolen herstory that we humble poor, houseless, Black/Brown, disabled and indigenous peoples from POOR Magazine/Homefulness walk into. Moving in prayer to ancestors and Mama Earth always and lifting up voices of houseless, disabled poor people always intentionally silenced and sharing the medicine of Radical Redistribution, ComeUnity Reparations and Homefulness with fellow poor and houseless youth and elders so they can build their own self-determined solutions to homelessness. “PoLice have moved us multiple times,” said Autumn, one of the powerFULL roofLESS radio reporters and houseless survivors of a campaign to sweep and harass every houseless person out of Bellingham, one of the many reasons we were invited up to to so-called Bellingham, with its bloody racist herstory to help poverty skolaz up here launch a Homefulness “Hi my name is Polly, I am from the Lummi Nation” In 2021 we were first invited up and we did a WeSearch investigation (poor people-led research) our terrifying findings confirmed the sick violence of settler genocide, over 60% of the houseless population getting swept, holding on by a thread , struggling with addiction, homelessness and poverty in so-called Bellingham and nearby towns were the first people of this land that were originally stolen from. “They are closing the only warming shelter in the snow,” formerly houseless poverty skola, resident of Bellingham, mother of two, POOR Magazine reporter and singer “Sin”shouted to me in one of our poverty skola writing workshops, “its so much violence… “I struggled with mental illness and drug addiction, i am now sober, writing poetry and getting things done,” said Kaiyah, a houseless youth poverty skola and newest member of the Po Poets Project who came to our first Po Poets workshop at a youth Drop-in Center in so-called Bellingham. All the beautiful places settlers steal… there is no compassion in Krapitalism.. In a place known by colonizers for “the best place to play”...In the powdery snow covered mountains near the Klanada border, as people drop thousands of dollars a day on a ski trip, how would there be space for compassion in krapitalism. On stolen land, built with stolen lives and stolen resources- how is there any room for the people who were removed so you could be there… . There has never been any room in the settler colonial terror myth called the American Dream” for any of us they stepped on to build it… Nation-wide, half of the children did not survive the experience, and many of those who did were left permanently scarred. The resulting alcoholism and suicide, and the transmission of trauma to their own children, has led to social disintegration with results that have been described as genocidal (Ward, 2008). The impacts of this inter-generational trauma, along with the broader impact of colonization, are ongoing…excerpt of Bellingham Racial History Time-line The resulting genocide of the residential (school) terror system, the endless and violent sweeps, structural wite supremacist violence, ongoing and violent gentriFUKation, displacement and eviction can’t begin to be repaired with mere apologies, corpRape housing devil-opments, about us without us politricks or settler lies. This is ancestral trauma. This is causation for addiction, incarceration, poverty and homelessness.This is murder. This is ongoing colonial terror. This can only begin to be healed with settler reparations, UnSold Mama Earth, LandBack, multiple and real commitments and truth commissions for generations of time.. All the beautiful places settlers steal…and all the people who had to die to make their vacation homes real… BuckUp Love Up - Group Up Family we have just begun UnSelling, praying, bringing, teaching, sharing, interdependence and loving Homefulness Bellingham into life. To see some of the powerFull Houseless youth and elder poets work from the Po Poets /RoofLESS radio Street Writing Workshop go to PoorNewsNetwork on Youtube To Listen to this and other PoemCasts from a povertyskola - find them on Spotify, itune or Iheart apps
- Broken Settler Shooter
Guns, WeaPONs SO much FUKING FUN How many can I kill- Are there still people Alive still- I mean monsters, I mean avatars I mean the aliens up in the stars I mean animals driving cars I mean TechNOLOGY I mean Streams I mean These Guns come to me in My dreams I mean no-one like me I mean I can buy gadgets and bullit- proof vests- I can show up online - always fine and right on time I mean I don’t have to write, or think, or pick up a dirty dish, Or learn how to do Ish I don’t have to speak I can just eat And sit and never do shit I mean I do do shit I write on waves And drive sports cars with babes, And live in Mansons Ad fort- night caves and if things get really boring And I just cant stand it anymore I can make a new avatar with a new story Cuz I have a purpose - I have a gun And I am gonna get better im gonna I learn how I can go out and kill everyone These guns come into my dreams Ive had a Nintendo since I was three Isn’t
- Buffalo Shooting
8 year old Londin Thomas was with her Parents at Tops shopping for a Birthday Surprise. They were buying grilling supplies, ingredients and cake mix. "We were buying some cake mix for my mama. She did not know. She was at the meat section so we could grill," Londin said. She was with her dad when the shots started. Lamont Thomas, Londin’s dad, grabbed her and ran to hide in a cooler. Shopping is a necessity in everyone's lives, I go almost every week. It's not a place where anyone should be worried about their lives. The shooter was a young self proclaimed white supremacist. His name is Payton Gendron, he is 18 years old and responsible for killing, 10 people: Roberta A. Drury, 32, Margus D. Morrison, 52, Andre Mackniel, 53, Aaron Salter, 55, Geraldine Talley, 62, Celestine Chaney, 65, Heyward Patterson, 67, Katherine Massey, 72, Pearl Young, 77, Ruth Whitfield, 86, Most of the victims were elders, who prolly couldn't run or take cover fast enough. One of the victims was the security guard of the store. Payton Gendron had planned this for a long time, He had customized weapons with extended clips and many attachments. He wanted guns that would stand out in his video he would stream with his go pro to twitch. He did stream for the first two minutes of the massacre, But why does this happen, why is someone my age killing 10 people, going out of his way to kill these people. Growing up in this society of no culture and just confusion. Culture here is violent, art is violent, games are violent, schools are violent, lifestyles are violent, Violence is the Culture. The idea of division, The idea of hating the unknown, the different, the misunderstandable.
- The Product of A Racist System
A man killed people. A mass murderer infiltrated a community, fueled by a system that hates the same people he does. A scared man with fear in his heart after watching Fox News day after day, wondering if he will be the victim of the same crime that his ancestors perpetrated on this country. Black lives will always matter, as long as this system encourages people like this man to do what he did then hides behind its money and power and says it would never condone these actions. We don’t need to talk about this man, because we know what he chose to be remembered as. We need to talk about Andre Mackniel, a loving father who was picking up a birthday cake for his three year olds son's surprise birthday party. We need to talk about Margus Morrison, a man who took care of his disabled mother. We need to talk about and keep talking about all of the people whose lives were taken from them by a man who had hate in his heart and access to things he shouldn’t have had.
- Pipeline
Where would I be without Homefulness? That’s a question I have been asking of myself lately and I have begun to realize that there are so many people who have that question answered for them already. People who have been failed by every system in their life. A redlined neighborhood that forces young people to grow up at a young age, a school that shuffles them along, not having enough of a budget to care much about where they end up, and finally, a judicial system that takes none of that into account. Especially because that very system is the one who put their ancestors into those neighborhoods, and who underfunded those schools, and finally, will be the one who will keep you in and out of their prisons for the rest of your life for crimes that it doesn’t care if you committed. It’s so formulaic and overtly planned that it has been likened to a pipeline, a stream of people rushed through and out into an ocean of nothing. However because of Deecolonize Academy, a school for young people that have been failed by this system and are currently struggling through poverty and houselessness,, this pipeline has sprung a leak, and through the cracks have emerged remarkable and brilliant young men filled with potential, helping others who have been beat down by this system. But, Deecolonize Academy is not the only program that interrupts this pipeline. The Young Adult Court or YAC, is a program supervised by Superior Judge Bruce Chan, and it helps youth from the age of 18-24 overcome these obstacles that have been placed in front of them by that system that he works within. “As I stand before you all today, I want to share with everyone this adventure, journey, our way of life, in a world with many uncertainties and obstacles, like mine of trying to survive the school to penitentiary system. Deecolonize Academy recognized the situation I was in, a brown youth of color surrounded by many distractions and traps.”, those were the words of Kimo, a youth scholar who graduated from Deecolonize Academy. Deecolonize Academy and the YAC are preventing those young men and women who would normally have no chance of extricating themselves, from traveling through this pipeline and ending up in a prison system that prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation. Most who are not fortunate enough to be helped by these organizations and others are shuttled to these massive, overfunded prisons. These prisons which up until now, have also held Death Row blocks and Protective Custody areas. That all changed with new implementations instituted by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other CA government officials that bring all of these inmates together, removing/ restructuring Death Row and Protective Custody blocks. “We are starting the process of closing Death Row to repurpose and transform the current housing units into something innovative and anchored in rehabilitation," California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Vicky Waters told The Associated Press. While it is amazing that they are finally closing Death Row, something that has been used to get rid of many political prisoners including journalist and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, as is common, there is more behind this decision than making prison a rehabilitative space. The United States prison system as a whole does not rehabilitate. It is a punitive system that puts you through hell to force you into submission. This is proven to not work, as more than 50% of prisoners released from prison or jail have been reincarcerated. Most of the time, US prisons are used as a punishment for people that the US wants silenced, like Huey P. Newton, the leader of the Black Panther party, Leonard Peltier, a leader of the American Indian Movement, and Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was one of the only journalists telling the truth about the Black Panther Party in the 1970’s. These people and many more were incarcerated for their resistance to this government, not the crimes that have been pinned on them. Prisons are given a massive budget. In fact, when compared to schools, CA prisons have more than a 53,000$ budget difference. However, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, that budget has been drained down to the point where they have been forced to release offenders who aren’t flight risks. Them mixing in all of these different cell blocks is not at all a rehabilitation issue, rather an issue of not having enough money to keep doing as they were. This doesn’t change anything. These people are still in prison, and most likely will be for the rest of their lives. Because prisons make money from people being in jail. They need the pipeline that funnels young adults from bad to worse situations, because that is the only way the government is able to keep these prisons open and make a profit. My issue lies in them making this change and claiming that they are turning prisons into something that wants people to leave prisons rather than stay in them for as long as possible which is where their true intentions lie. I am not in that pipeline because of Deecolonize Academy. My work here has helped others who are being funneled through, giving them a similar chance to what I have been given, a way through the crack in the pipe and a way out of that system.
- From Salt Lake City to San Francisco - From Ute to Huchuin- Sweeping, Killing & Resisting
“They have shelters here…” Her voice was soft, she was looking down at her hands. Her eyes darted from me to the cement sidewalk she was sleeping on.”They aren’t bad or anything, but their rules are so strict that…” she paused again to rub her legs, “its hard to be in them,” she whispered trailing off. Her name was Shiela and she was houseless and one of our newest RoofLEssRadio reporters from the streets of Occupied Western Turtle Island the colonizers called Salt Lake City, Utah. Home to the huge Mormon temple and all of their strange savior narratives and 21st century missions. We houseless and formerly houseless, indigenous youth and elders were there on our last day of what we called the Stolen Land /hoarded Resources UnTour across occupied Western Turtle Island. We provide protection for the new frontier of discovery. (from a “tagline” on the wall of the Mormon Temple) As we UnToured and unWashed so-called Salt Lake City - so named because of its huge lake of natural salt now “owned” and commodified by CorpRape entities, one of the many gifts of Turtle Island that lured the colonizers to steal and pillage this sacred land, we walked into the “HIStoric Mormon complex. There were multiple “tag-lines” like this one- romanticizing the violent lie of empty frontiers, protection and so-called discovery. Sculptures and images of the humble “pioneer” and the washed herstory of land theft already occupied, already inhabited everywhere. In all of these “*ManUMeants (my name for them) there was not even one mention of the the Paiute, Dine, Shoshone, Arapaho, Cheyanne and Ute peoples who were already there , thriving, living , creating, building, and existing before the Mormons, Presbyterians, Catholics, Lutherans and pretty much every colonizer arrived to “save” them. Stolen land/Hoarded Resources Untour praying at a “landMark” (not KlanMark) of Little Raven who was one of the elders/ancestors of that stolen territory, aka Denver) - photo by Momii Palapaz All of these pieces of colonial public relations were oddly back-dropped with a Munsters style temple that brought up horror movie daymares and signified a constant presence of colonial domination everywhere. KlanMarks, I call them which is the subject of a new POOR press anthology we are writing and living called KlanMarks and ManuUments - Unwashing Settler Colonial Lies across Mama Earth - An UnTour Guide. “Half of my family are Mormons, they believe that you aren’t “human” if you are melanated, because you have been “marked” by God.” Muteado Silencio, one of our POOR Magazine poverty ,indigenous skolaz, prayer-bringers and co-builders/co-founders of Homefulness has direct experience with the Mormons so it was especially strange to be there. He went on to explain that the missionary work of Mormons is all over the world and often includes “adopting” Brown children by Mormons to “save” them. In addition to WeSearching ( my name for our poor people-led research) for this new book - the points of these Untours are to connect the dots of colonial genocide, land and culture theft, homelessness, poLice terror and MamaEarth’s destruction and to share the medicine of Radical Redistribution, with wealth-hoarding inheritors and land-stealers so the LandBack and CultureBack movements of poor, indigenous and houseless peoples can connect to build their own movements like Homefulness and Sogorea Te Land Trust. Self-determined housing. Land and cultural reclamation solutions to our problems built by us , for us. “I’m scared to go in those places, its too much”, Roger, another RoofLessRadio contributor reported. The Salt Lake City shelter system was featured in a story by SF Chronicle writer Kevin Fagen as a “model” for San Francisco to follow in 2014. And yet this poverty skola witnessed the streets of this city in 2021 filled with unhoused people. Many of whom were hiding, dying of thirst and/or holding on by a thread, refusing to go into to these amazing “shelters” . The main issue that these RoofLess radio reporters called out were that these model shelters were filled with programs created by anti-social workers and case manglers, poltricksters and “executive directors” non-profiteers and “churches” people who had as my Mama Dee used to say, Never missed a meal, or even if they did miss a meal were bought and sold , pimped and played into a system of “non-profiteering which is focused on “helping” us without hearing us.Making money on our rehabilitation, caging, housing and fixing. Rarely if ever taking into account the system that led us to even be in that situation in the first place was the one they built. Conversely, we as poverty skolaz, ourselves traumatized and trying to heal houseless or formerly houseless root our Homefulness projects in healing, and constant LoveWork, knowing that merely "putting a roof on our trauma is just the beginning" that our lives are actually rife with all the other remnants of krapitalst poverty shame, racism, abuse, criminalization and violence. “Sweeps are scheduled in this town, literally three times a week and oftentimes more than that, we are working on every front to resist them, but they have increased now with the so-called opening back up, so what we are doing now is to figure out workarounds with people,” said Therese Howard, Denver Homeless Outloud. Youth and adult poverty skolaz, Amir, Tibu, Muteado, myself and elder Elephant council member Momii from POOR Magazine sat with Therese and Benjamin and other houseless and formerly houseless leaders /organizers with Denver Homeless Outloud. While they spoke we all reflected on the same violent sweeps happening in so-called Olympia, Washington, Oakland, San Francisco and Marin County. Sweeps we resist, fight, scream about and stand against everyday in the Bay. Sweeps, the hygienic metaphors like we are trash, arent a Bay Area thing or a California thing, or West Coast thing, they are a United Snakes thing, used as the tool to eradicate, get rid of and dispose of houseless people using many of the same early settler colonial laws that were used to incarcerate, silence and remove 1st Nations peoples from their own land. “The next thing is the brownshirts, the private security, that the mayor has even signed onto,” added Benjamin. As Benjamin spoke I was thinking from “Clean-teams to Cal-Trans, from Cob on Wood to Where do We Go Berkeley to the Poor Peoples Army in Philly, its the same thing here and everywhere. And as all of us houseless and poor people and our advocates say and have “proved” as though it had to be proven, Sweeps Kill. Denver Homeless Outloud are warriors who currently fighting a lawsuit along with comrades from the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) this killer violence against disabled, houseless elders and poor people is an epidemic and it is not just the poLice or the evil politricksters and CorpRape business interests. Its also the so-called progressive legislators like we have in Oakland who voted unanimously for a “camping ban” making it illegal to be anywhere in Oakland while Houseless. The Unhoused Bill of Rights SiStar shero Cori Bush, the first congresswoman who was a houseless mama before she was voted into office, is baadass and just released a bill of rights that would make it illegal to harass anyone who is sleeping outside. We know that WRAP tried to get that passed in California and it went down in a lengthy stupid poltrickster fight, so we wish her luck and love. And right as she was making a move to get the eviction moratorium saved in amerikkklan, by sleeping on the Krapitol steps because Congress went on recess while people were facing mass homelessness, the City of Oakland went on recess too. Instead of voting on the emergency ordinance that would have let our homeless peoples solution to homelessness we call Homefulness open up the four multi-family townhouses that it has taken us poor and houseless people 11 years to build because it so costly and hard for poor people to build our own solutions, but now sit vacant, because Oakland City Council took a vacation instead of hearing this housing emergency that so many of us are dealing with. From Colonizers to PoLice “I called 911, I didnt think they would kill my Sun, he was having a mental health crisis,” Lynn Eagle Feather cried as she spoke, a fierce 1st Nations warrior and boarding school survivor taught and shared with us, the tragic story of the murder of her Sun Paul Castaway. Lynn Eagle Feather whose story was first told to Lisa Ganser POOR Magazine poverty skola, made the connections with the brutality her family shared from her own violent life in the racist boarding school system to her ancestors murder in the Makato Massacre of 38 Native American men ordered by the so-called good president Lincoln. She also, as an indigenous poor woman traumatized by the violence of krapitalism, was houseless in her own lands of origin for over three years and sees the ways all of these issues are deeply connected and how our healing lies in our connecting up our struggles. We held a ceremony at the site of the Sand Creek Massacre in So-called Colorado, just one of so many sites of genocide in stolen Turtle Island, that we planned as one of the UnTour stops to connect the dots of Washed unSeen colonial genocide in herstory to now- a ceremony that could never be felt or described with mere colonial words, but was unspeakably powerFULL. We had the blessing of Lynn Eagle Feather and another warrior Ruby Left Hand Bull, both Boarding School survivors launching us with an altar and prayer songs in their traditions as well as support and love from members of the “Denver Communists who support sisSTAR Lynn and do so much truth work in those lands. This poverty skola also laid down prayer for all the warrior mamaz who like Lynn and my own Mama Dee and myself, barely made it out alive of poverty, homelessness, trauma to even be here now fighting. Gated Communities that are NEVER swept “Im here to share the medicine of Radical Redistribution and ComeUnity Reparations with people who have more homes than they can actually live in, and more money than they can ever spend,” I stood at the entrance of a huge wrought iron automatic gate in the Cherry Hill Village area of Colorado. Houses ( if you could call them that) were larger than the eyes could even see. Miles of stolen Mama Earth with nothing on them, but private golf courses and driveways and stables and green manicured grass. There were only a few of these extreme wealth-hoarder mansions on every street off a road of the “gated” community of Cherry Hill, which wasn’t really gated, but they had their own poLice station, their own park, their own roads and their own signage. No amount of wealth-hoarding surprises me anymore as this is the 5th year of these painful tours across Turtle Island, where I share the concept of Radical Redistribution. We always get a police escort within seconds who usually realizes they cant arrest us even though they would like to, but this was up there next to Philadelphias Main Line Bel Air and Tiburon in so-called Marin. All colonial cities that just like Denver, practice this violence called Sweeps, from the evil destruction of poor peoples boats in Marin and then their peaceful encampments, to the arrests with weaponry of houseless people on Venice Beach last week to the violence of scheduled sweeps in Denver and People Cages ( open air cages created for houseless people) in St Petersburg, Florida and San Francisco under London Breed to the violence threatened against Cob on Wood right here in Oakland. These wealth-hoarders are never approached to share these resources they continue to hoard, as a matter of fact they are never even mentioned as a resource for support of people who have nothing. This is why we say its not a protest, its a sharing of a medicine to the disease of wealth-hoarding and land-stealing. Because we have all been lied to. Including wealth-hoarders. But the only way we poor and houseless people were bale to build homefulness is though this medicine of Radical Redistribution and ComeUnity Reparations and so we know that housed people and houseless people can actually collaborate and my new hashtag #WeCanKeepUsHoused is real. It just takes wealth-hoarders to listen to poverty skolaz and stop the lie of about us without us moves like Slat Lake City’s Model that no-one wants to be in. Denver is a huge example of violent gentriFUKation, there are brand-new condos and high rises springing up in every corner. There are multi-plexus and strip mall and huge CorpRape malls and poLice stations and hipster bars and just like San Francisco, in the devil-oper, starbux dream of “clean” there really is no place for poor people. its not shocking that removal of houseless people is constant and violent and organized. But lo and behold , just like every one of these colonial towns from Occupied Shinnecock Nation ( aka the so-called Hamptons) to occupied Tongva land aka LA, to San Francisco, there were neighborhoods hidden, places so gated you don’t even know they exist. No-one talks about them and they are never considered when discussing budget shortfalls and even so-called income inequality “The PoLice come around here at least twice a day, and then a private mall security, we have to move all the time, we can usually sit here for maybe an hour and then its arrest or harassment.” Said Billie from So-called Denver. The UnTour also included a visit to Amache, the site of a Japanese Concentration Camp, we were graciously give a tour by high school students in the area and the words and images were reminiscent of this plantation nation, full of colonial genocide, incarceration, arrest, death and removal. “My family were in a place like this called Tule Lake, “ said Momii Palapaz, an elder poverty skola who joined us on this UnTour and helped to steward us through this very difficult journey of tears and resistance. “We have our own ways of healing and living and honoring our culture and Mother Earth.,” said elder medicine and prayer carrier Chief Lee Plenty Wolf to us gathered at the location of this years Sundance ceremony in Boulder Colorado. He was explaining how we as indigenous peoples have our own ceremonies and traditions that need to be returned to so we can heal ourselves. This is why we do so much work on healing in all of our poor and indigenous people-led programs at POOR Magazine. It is complicated to actually MamaFest ( as I call it) a poor people led solution to poverty, its complicated to hold all that trauma which doesn’t end just because you get a shelter bed or a pill or a roof. These are the teachings we share and learn and live at Homefulness and we’ll be inviting people into the upcoming Decoloniation /DegentriFUKation Seminar at PeopleSkool on August 28/29th ( it will be on zoom and in person, for poverty skolaz and people with privileges) we are working with folks across Turtle Island to launch their own Homefulness - and maybe just maybe the City of Oakland can just let us houseless people how houseless people. Homefulness.
- Deecolonized Un-Tour: Chief Plentywolf
Tiburcio Garcia Lisa Garcia Revolutionary Journalism 28 July 2021 Deecolonized Un-Tour: Chief Plentiwolf “Spirituality, ceremony is our core, our center,” said Chief Plentywolf, an indigenous elder who just finished the annual Sundance ceremony, which is a ceremony where native people gather for prayer and sacrifice of sweat and pain. We came days after to talk to Chief Plentywolf at the invitation of Cynthia, one of our solidarity family. The solidarity family are people with race and class privilege who we teach why they need to give reparations. After a hearty lunch with Chief Plentywolf, Cynthia, her husband Tom and all of us multi-generational, multi-racial poverty skolas who came on this tour, we went out to the site of the Sundance Ceremony. It felt as if the land was welcoming us. One, solitary tree stood in the middle of a grassy field, covered with flags from many indigenous nations. We were told not to take pictures of that tree, and I had no objections. There was little to no wind, and the sun beat down on us, but we were surrounded with trees that wove together like a basket, the leaves from each individual tree coming together to form one continuous growth. We walked over to a small clearing next to a dirt road that slopes up and curves around a bend. In that meadow stood a Teepee, the fabric stretched taut over the supporting posts. “We pray every time we do something, or every time we prepare and even meetings and talks like this,” Chief Plentywolf continued, his eyes focusing on each one of us at a time, making me feel as if he was looking through me, looking at everything I could ever be. He talked about the difference between a massacre and a battle, saying that when the white settlers slaughtered women, children and elder indigenous people it went down in history as a battle, yet only when the indigenous people fought back and killed many white men was it called a massacre, and when that happened, the government was able to justify in the history books the genocide that they continued to do, with or without the native people fighting back. Chief Plentywolf ended it by talking about Sundance, and how the youth was actually coming back, and how he was excited for the future of Sundance and prayer as a whole. He talked about a16 year old who was the strongest young warrior he had ever seen, and thanked us for being youth and continuing to work and pray with our elders. We thanked Cynthia once more, and before leaving we visited the sweat lodge that is used in the Sundance Ceremony. I came away from the sacred place having learned so much in a short span of time. I would love to join the Sundance Ceremony sometime in the future, and I'm looking forward to being able to speak with Chief Plentiwolf again, to learn a small part of the vast amount of knowledge he has.
- Landless/houseless, Indigenous Black, Brown and Disabled People Lead Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources "
Press Contacts: Muteado Silencio /Tiny (510-435-7500 Landless/houseless, Indigenous Black, Brown and Disabled People Lead an "unTour" thru wealth-hoarding neighborhoods and sacred indigenous sites in Denver aka Stolen Ute, Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne Territory When: 12pm Thursday, July 29th Where: Tour launched with Multi-Nationed Prayer & Speakers at Confluence Park (1500 16th street, Denver, Colorado) "When they take our land, our tents and our belongings, we have nowhere to go,... " said Israel M., formerly houseless, indigenous co-builder of Homefulness. "As colonial cities and towns ‘open Back Up’ we indigenous, houseless and poor folks know that means, increased sweeps of houseless bodies, increased evictions of poor families and elders, increased desecration of indigenous peoples lands and sacred sites increased poverty and poLice Terror of Black and Brown and working class people," said Tiny, formerly houseless co-founder of POOR Magazine. POOR Magazine is a poor and indigenous people-led art, culture, and liberation movement. Our multi-generational, multi-cultural houseless/indigenous people-led movement will be going on the road to connect the dots between our shared oppressions and struggles, share the urgent medicine of how to build self-determined land movements, take back land, healing, and our own knowledge systems and cultures right here in occupied Turtle Island. This leg of a summer long Un-Tour is in occupied Southern Ute, Mountain Ute, Arapahoe and Northern Cheyenne Territory, aka Denver - the site of high-speed gentrification, homelessness, poLice abuse, murder and terror as well as a silenced bloody history of colonial genocide. As we all grapple with Mama Earth burning, flooding and all of us trying to survive, these Un-Tours connect the dots between eviction, homelessness, colonization, desecration, poLice terror, Devil-oper Land grabs, mining and other extractive industries, desecration of Mama Earth, and the removal, incarceration, police terror of Black, Brown, indigenous, disabled and poor people. In so-called Denver we will launch the tour with prayer from all four corners and ancestors of this land with 1st Nations warriors like Lynn Eagle Feather whose sun Paul Castaway was murdered by Denver PoLice as well as liberators from Denver Homeless Outloud, members of Western Regional Advocacy Project, who are on the front-lines of resistance efforts for unhoused Denver residents. In each UnTour we share poor people-led solutions of Radical Redistribution, Homefulness, Land Back movements and ComeUnity Reparations informed by POOR Press books How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever and Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth, with houseless and poor communities and communities with different forms of race, class and/or education privilege with the goal of supporting local resistance movements and helping poor and indigenous people launch their own solutions like Homefulness. Smoke from fires across the Western States to the midwest blanket the skies. Sweeps and invaders concrete the land to cover up history of slaughter and murder. Gentrifuckers completely program the same blueprint from King St, SF to 16th St mall in Denver. Houseless cannot be eliminated, said Momii Palapaz , family elder from POOR Magazine's Elephant Council (one of the models we teach and live into at Homefulness and share in the How TO Not Call PoLice Ever handbook.) We are inviting all organizations to co-sponsor, walk with us, speak and/or learn more about this important new/old way to walk on Mama Earth in this time of so much pain. Links to some of our Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tours Stolen Land/Hoarded Resurces Tour thru Akkkadeia- May 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=489FkHJQWxs&t=91s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5NFtYpE64s&t=6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb-N1FCWAdY&t=57s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0j6baUl1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxHj4zzCmWk Links to books: How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth Po' People's Survival Guide thru COVID-19 and the Virus of Poverty Children's books: When Mama and Me Lived Outside The Hard Worker (Trabajador Fuerte) Krip Hop Nation Graphic Novel Decolonewz - Newspaper led by youth in poverty for everyone ( available in paper form only) Workshops: See this link Po' Peoples Radio Broadcasts: See this link More info on Homefulness: See this link and www.poormagazine.org/homefulness Articles on this from the SF Bay View and POOR Magazine: Stealing our Last Acre and One Remaining Mule Selling our Homes to Private Investors Public Housing Privatization The Privatization From Privatization to Reparations Section 8 and Public Housing at Risk
- Deecolonized Un-Tour: "O my Father"
Tiburcio Garcia Lisa Garcia Revolutionary Journalism 27 July, 2021 Deecolonized Un-Tour: “O My Father” “O my Father, thou that dwellest In the high and glorious place: When shall I regain thy presence, And again behold thy face?” -Eliza R. Snow As a young, light skinned formerly houseless poverty skola and journalist with Poor Magazine, this place was a new sight. Not this town, with it’s empty sidewalks and quiet 1950's houses that felt like they had eyes focused on your back. What was a new sight for me was the poem and plaque that made a point to honor the poem of a woman who’s class and social status was low, which led to many deeming her as useless, yet showing that she created a work of art that was immortalized as among The Most Beloved of Mormon Hymns. I believe the message behind this if any is that no matter what status or position you are in you have the potential to create something beautiful. Now here is my question. Does that apply to the Ute, Dine, Paiute, Goshute, and Shoshone people who were forcibly removed from their land in order to allow for Salt Lake City to become the home of the Salt Lake Temple, the Headquarters of the Morman Faith? It doesn’t. It never has, because the voices, stories, art and songs of native people all over Stolen Turtle Island have never mattered, and the only thing that remains in the stolen and hoarded spaces and places are these bronze plaques, honoring the colonizers who created works of at such as “O My Father”, on land that was never theirs. That is the purpose of this Western Turtle Island Un-Tour, where me along with my family from Poor Magazine and Deecolonize Academy are doing we-search (that’s poor people led re-search) on the colonization and genocide that has happened in Utah and Colorado. For 12,000 years before settlers moved into Utah, there were people living there. The Native people of Utah, which were many, as Utah is a big area, stewarded the land long before colonizers claimed it as there’s. Most of that changed, however, when the Mormons “settled” into Utah in 1847, beginning in Salt Lake Valley, and then moving up and down Utah, effectively cutting off Ute trade routes and displacing them from their land. The Black Hawk and Walker War were the Ute people raiding their own land that was stolen from them by the Mormons, for the sole purpose of avoiding starvation. Knowing this, I think back to the Capitol Hill Neighborhood we visited that featured the oxidized copper plaque of Eliza R. Snow and many other women and prominent Mormon figures. I didn’t see a plaque showing the absolute forced removal of the indigenous people of Utah by the Mormons. When I read that plaque honoring Eliza for her poem, I wondered how much art created by native people was destroyed, how many voices were permanently silenced. I can’t help but feel sick looking at the bright flowers and freshly cut grass, blue skies and calm, well paved streets, knowing that all of it was built on lies and death.
- Poor, houseless, indigenous Peoples Come to So-called Colorado
Poor/houseless/indigenous folks share models of landless peoples' self-determination, Po'Lice-free land liberation, revolutionary media, and art. When: Tour #2 July 27-August 1st Where: So-called Colorado POOR Magazine is a poor and indigenous people-led art, culture, and liberation movement. Our multi-generational, multi-cultural houseless/indigneous people-led movement will be going on the road to share the urgent medicine of how to build self-determined land movements, take back land, and our own knowledge systems and cultures right here in occupied Turtle Island. Sharing the medicine of Homefulness- a homeless peoples solution to homelessness- and offering readings and workshops from our newest books "How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever"/"Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth", as well as leading a Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour through wealth-hoarding neighborhoods, museums of Anthro-Wrongology, and Academia to share the urgent medicine of Radical Redistribution and ComeUnity Reparations. And finally, we will be meeting/sharing and teaching poor and houseless people-led media production with fellow unhoused comeUnity in that territory so they can launch their own media hubs like POOR Magazine's street-based media projects. We are inviting all organizations to co-sponsor, host us for a book reading, performance, or workshop, or walk with us in the Stolen Land Tour. Below are links of Stolen Land Tours we have done before and information about our books and work. Links to some of our Stolen Land Tours which were launched on MamaEarth Day 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=489FkHJQWxs&t=91s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5NFtYpE64s&t=6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb-N1FCWAdY&t=57s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0j6baUl1g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxHj4zzCmWk Links to books: How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth Po' People's Survival Guide thru COVID-19 and the Virus of Poverty Children's books: When Mama and Me Lived Outside The Hard Worker (Trabajador Fuerte) Krip Hop Nation Graphic Novel Decolonewz - Newspaper led by youth in poverty for everyone ( available in paper form only) Workshops: See this link Po' Peoples Radio Broadcasts: See this link More info on Homefulness: See this link and www.poormagazine.org/homefulness