by HOMELESS PEOPLE'S NETWORK

NEW YORK (AP) _ A class action lawsuit has ended in victory for 198 formerly homeless people who won back wages of $816,000 from two powerful business improvement districts.

The plaintiffs won the money from the Grand Central Partnership and the 34th Street Partnership in 1998 but received no funds because of an appeal. A settlement this month cleared the way for the plaintiffs to receive the money at last.

Tommy Washington, who was to collect money owed him for more than 1,000 hours of work, told The New York Times, ``It has nothing to do with the money. It's the principle.'' He added, ``They were dragging this on, because they figured, addicts, people in and out of the prison system, sick people _ how many were going to be around to collect?''

Officials with the two business districts said in a statement Tuesday that they were ``gratified that this matter has been brought to an amicable resolution.''

The homeless people performed jobs like security and cleaning for the business districts for $1 an hour and promises of a path out of homelessness. They filed a class action lawsuit, and U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor ruled in 1998 that the business improvement districts had violated minimum wage laws, had used the cheap labor of so-called trainees to undercut competitors and had contributed the resulting profits to hefty executive salaries.

Corporate lawyers from Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton assisted advocates from the Coalition for the Homeless and the Urban Justice Center in the case.

``To be on the side of the angels and then end up getting what people deserve is very, very satisfying,'' said Jennifer Kroman, 30, an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb. ``Reaching the settlement was one of the most joyful moments of my career.''

The coalition was to distribute the money at a celebration Wednesday evening.

AP-ES-10-25-00 1102EDT
Received Id AP1002991754CA49 on Oct 26 2000 21:23

by Leroy Moore

Buried Voices

The next generation
Is being plucked off one by one
On the streets, in schools and in prison

Little ones snuggled
In small coffins
Buried voices have many stories

Voices from down under
Crying for their mothers and fathers
Had a lot to say but no one bother to listen

Buried voices speaking in harmony
Tossing and turning in the grave
They want their justice

Hunting the soulless
Young spirits creeping in the minds of the old and wary
Their hit list is endless

Years of abuse
Caught up in the system
And can't get loose

Black, young and disabled
Always been labeled
Home was not stable

Elders set in their ways
They want to lock us away
Can't teach old dogs new tricks

Christopher, Seth and Dion
Blacks disabled boys can't grow up to be Black disabled men
I'm one of the chosen few
Buried in mainstream news
Buried in the community
Can't breath, can't hear, can't see

Layer after layer
Ism after ism
Wrapped up like a mummy

Buried voices are singing in the cemetery
No rest for the restless
They are voicing their short and painful history

Buried voices rising with the sun
Young disabled corps walking the earth
Talking back and heading north

Now everybody is scared
Running in fear
Cause judgment day is here

Parents, teachers and politicians
Listen to the voices
They demand your attention

Buried voices
Are always with me
They are in my head guiding my pen

I write with the blood of disabled youth
I'm their agent
Writing and speaking their messages

And they told me to tell you
Many are still in pain
Bullets and fists falling down on them like pouring rain

Poems can't bring them back from the dead
Do you hear that, buried voices want me to speak the raw truth
This poem wants you to think with your heart first then your head

The truth hurts
But it also heals
We need to get real

But I feel the tension
Every time I mention the reason
Why I wrote Buried Voices

What the hell is going on? Can you answer me? First, it was disabled adults of color. Now, disabled youth of color are under attack in schools and on the streets. Do you hear that? Disabled youth are yelling and crying for help and attention. Are we going to go on like everything is o.k.? Well I'm here to tell you everything is not O.K. The next generation of disabled leaders won't be if we continue our silence on the street violence and abuse that has been a reality to many.

In November of this year I came across three cases in San Francisco mainstream newspapers dealing with street violence, rape and physical abuse of disabled youth. All three cases have similarities and differences. All three appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the victims were all disabled youth of color and all three victims were overpowered by more than one person or an elder.

The first case was the long-,awaited court case and verdict of a 1995 beating and stomping attack of Seth Woods, an African American, mentally disabled young adult. Seth Woods was attacked by five Samoan youths while walking home. After five years of waiting, the Woods family received their justice. On November 9th a San Francisco jury returned verdicts of second-degree murder, torture and sodomy.

The second case is recent and very heartbreaking. A twelve-year-old African American girl with learning disabilities was sexually assaulted at two different schools in Berkeley, CA. The first assault involved nine classmates and took place after school on October 25th. According to the news reports, a pack of nine boys allegedly dragged the girl to 11 different locations, sexually assaulting her for more than four hours. Then, on Nov. 8th, her second day at a new school in Berkeley, a 13-year-old lured the girl to a secluded area on the school campus and raped her.

I came across the most recent case when I confronted a headline at breakfast screaming "Police Probe, S.F. Boys Claim Teacher Threw a Yardstick at Him." At that moment I dropped my spoon in my oatmeal and screamed, "What in the hell?" The article said that a sixth-grade special education teacher threw a yardstick at a 9-year-old special education student. The stick hit the boy's face and caused scratches under his right eye and on his nose. Now the teacher is placed on leave, pending an investigation by the district.

The above cases are only recent cases, but this is not a new trend. In 1988 Tony G., a 13-year-old Samoan boy with Down Syndrome, was walking home with his favorite toy, a toy gun. A San Francisco police officer thought the gun was real, so he shot and killed him.

These cases are not only in California. The unbearable story of Marcus Hogg of Texas made me cry. In June of this year Hogg, an African American disabled teenager was approached by two white teens who proceeded to tie his hands behind his chair and his legs to the legs of the chair. Then the two teens placed a noose around his neck and joked about throwing the rope over the rail to hang him. Like my articles on the abuse and brutality toward disabled adults of color, the above issue has been hush-hush in the disabled communities and communities of color.

So what is the answer to the violence and brutality towards disabled, especially those of color? I have been hearing that disabled youth should not be mainstreamed with their non-disabled peers. Parents and people with disabilities fought for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and other special education laws that promote and support the rights of parents and disabled youth to receive a free appropriated education along side their non-disabled peers. We have been fighting too long to return to "separate but equal," to be locked away in institutions.

What we need in both public and private schools is formal collaborations with grassroots organizations that have the skills and experience to advocate and educate the student body and the administration.

Teachers, students, school administrators and principals can all benefit from hands-on workshops, awareness trainings and classes on disability rights, history, culture, self-esteem building, role play etc. from organizations like The Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute that are led by disability scholars who have experienced these situations first-hand.

The issue of a lack of hands-on training is a common factor across the board, from police to teachers, on how to deal with people, students and youth offenders with disabilities. We need to adopt a proactive stance towards educating and training our youth, teachers, police force, politicians and our community at large about people with disabilities and our issues. Right now we have walls between our schools and the community. We can't afford to lose one more disabled youth.

by by Megan Say

Discussion of the rent crisis in Boston, how it is affecting the artistic community. The Fort Point Cultural Coalition's battle against big city property owners and related issue affecting San Francisco's similar crisis.

Over the past year I have seen and heard very little discussion about the state of the arts on a grass root/community level. The arts and support of the arts has had no mention in the large demonstrations that have been taking place in Boston and around the Country. Among all of these world difficulties and concerns, it seems like we have forgotten about one of the most imprtant channels for unified voice and consciousness. What about the arts?

Yes, there is a powerful undergound scene happening and the puppetry and demonstration circus has been leaving a tremendous impact on the public's impression of what anarchy produces; but what happens affter the barricades are dismantled and there are no longer clusters of masquerading protesters? Where do we all go to regroup and discuss for the next battle? Over-priced and most often tiny rooms (I looked at a 8ft by 6ft room renting for $380) are becoming even more difficult to find and maintain. Rents are outrageous and continue to bewilder those of us who have no hope of purchasing living accomidations or even are able to say we have in our posessession enough money to pay for more than one month's rent and bills?

Recently, over the last year, the artists living in the Fort Point area of Spouth Boston have been dealt a heavy hand as twenty-five artists were displaced from a well-known squat in an old yarn mill on Stillings Street. Currently ther resides a parking lot, that is never fulll while people struggle to find affordable housing and a corner to call a studio to continue working on their self-expression. Some residents were even promised relocation only to be evicted again a short time later.

The entire Fort Point area is under seige as one of the oldest Boston land management companies is selling off the entire area for more parking lots, market rate condominiums and dot com offices. To combat this gross raping of a major cultural stronghold, the Fort Point Cultural Coalition has begun the slow process of creating more publicity for this home town catastrophy with a syposium discussion set on a lot at the Market Street and Midway Street site on October 22, 2000. A "coalition of non-profit organizations and individual artists that seeks to preserve, promote and expand this unique cutral commmunity [and seeks to] affirm the cultural, econmic and social contributions that their neighborhood makes to the city of Boston..."

The Boston Warf company owns 95% of the area and seemingly does not care what happens to the 500 residents and many cooperatives such as Mobius and the Revolving Museum who are at risk of being evicted over the next 4 years as leases run up and rents quadruple. Within a week of meeting with agents from the Boston Warf Comapny representatives from the FPCC and the FPAC (Fort Point Arts Community) were told four brick factory buildings near Market street and Midway Street were not for sale, 14 buildings in the area were bought by Beacon Capital Partners. This is just one step closer to what looks like a clean sweep of the artists to make way for a "tourist attraction for engineers" and an expansion of the financial district. In preparation to start buying some of the buildings, the FPCC was promised $50,000 for a feasibility study but was denied the ability to gain site control by Boston Warf.

This hard ball dealing is what artists in San Francisco are also stricken with. Massive protests have already begun to gain national recoginition in the underground sceene as hundreds of artists,long-standing performance groups, galleries, muscians, clubs and co-ops of all flavors have no place to live or continue their arts. Instead are a plethera of .coms and their employees.

Joan Holden, the San Francisco Mime Troupe's playwright since 1967 was on the panel discussing the epidemic and toting warnings to be on the look out for more of this cultural cleansing as the battle in SF is leaving many scars in building rights. After finally being granted zoning laws that stated live/work loft spaces had to only house for artists working and living in their spaces it provided only to be an open window for land owners to get money granted from the city for cheap renovations for supposedly new artist spaces while they continue to rent at the quadrupled market prices to dot com's and their employees and silicone valley spin-offs.

Currently arts organinzations in the bay area are trying to instate propsition L to reorganize the loft laws and fix the invasion of "creative multi-media companies." Over the October 21/22 weekend the SF Mime Troupe performed their newest creation "City for Sale&" at the Strand Theater in Dorchester. The hillarious performance was a documentary about the artists' forced exodous from the industrial areas by greedy building owners and a slack government whose hands are so deep in the pockets of the city contractors it is rendered almost powerless to help.

Other representative on the panel discussion were Joan Leyton an affordable housing advocate from Veda Urban and Director of City Life, Jane Deutsch, Board President and a founding member of the FPAC, Ted Landsmark (moderator), President, Boston Architectural Center, and Cheryl Forte, A Fort Point business owner and founding member of FPAC and FPCC. All members of the panel pleaded to create better awareness of this problem as for 25 years they have lived and nursed the Fort Point area into a thriving community by keeping the area safe and in tact only to have gained the title of "caretaker community" by the developers and contracters who can't wait to see them leave.

Solutions presented by the audience after discussion included proposing percent funds from the MFA on all their donations to protect and subsidize struggling artists; creating new identities that will appeal to the suburbanites that treck into the city once a year to partake in the open-studios weekends; look towards cities such as SoHo, Providence, RI, and New Orleans as models for growth; and making sure while new developers come to the area they make a percentage of their remodeled buildings for arts and non-profit organizations as the new property owners of the "we were here first/should of been ours" buildings, Beacon Caital Partners have been graciously discussing.

Panelists suggested that an more humble attitude is in order as all smaller arts cooperatives should immediately begin a movement to gain publicity in their locality to emphasize to town council and local government orangizations the importance of a thriving arts communtiy, so that when talking to landlords the backing of the town is present and dropping exclusive personas to create wider acceptance of supportive public.

In summary, the symposium should pose as a warning to all artists to banish the shy introspective, univolved demenor that prevents us from dealing with these issues until they have escalated out of control.

"...and then they came for me and there was noone left to speak."

ADD YOUR COMMENTS http://boston.indymedia.org/comment.php3?top_id=1315

by Ken Moshesh, Anna Morrow

CIRCLE DANCE

…SO NOW,

THEY RENAME US,

TO

MEMBERS OF THE LODGING TRIBE,

AND

REMOVE US FROM THE LAND

FOR HAVING TO SLEEP

THERE…Ken Moshesh

I have been homeless in and around the Berkeley area for the past 7 years. I have managed to be a productive, albeit homeless, citizen despite the condescending and negligent attitudes of the society surrounding me. For the most part I have been able to conduct my life without incident, relative to my seemingly provocative status as a homeless person, until the past 2 months. Something happened recently and I find myself fighting for my life; drowning in the prejudice and discrimination of our society's laws and attitudes towards homelessness. I can think of several reasons for why this may be occurring.

It may be because of my political activities in the Bay Area during the 60's and 70's. It may be a consequence of my writings and media activities on behalf of homeless folks. It could be the numerous discussions about UC Berkeley homeless policies (or non-policies) which I conducted on the campus beneath the Juniper tree. Maybe it was my recent attempt to have the book I wrote and the 3 videos I produced considered for curriculum material in relevant UC courses. Maybe it was that one of my films was submitted to a recent Film contest.

Probably it is the summation of all of these individual truths. In any event, I was about to find out that my life's work and rights as a human being were under siege. And there would be much more injustice, profiling and harassment by the Berkley police and the university police, to follow. And that ultimately, would lead to the forsaking of my beliefs that positive solutions and human rights were being championed by the supposedly progressive thinkers of the University officials themselves.

It began on September 27, 2000 when one of the University Police Officers was giving me a citation, “for lodging on campus”. He very loudly insisted that I must have a criminal record if I was “lodging on campus”. I publicly rebuked his inaccurate assumptions. The officer was noticably embarrassed when his radio communications yielded my record: an undergraduate, graduate and teaching career at UC Berkeley; not the criminal record which he had assumed.

The next incident occurred on October 27th at approximately 7:30 in the morning. I had gathered up my belongings and was heading across campus towards the stairs enjoying the fresh air. Suddenly the light clean air left by the recently ended rain was polluted with an ominous whisper: “Hurry! Hurry! He's coming down. I don't want him to hear my voice.”

Looking in the direction of her informant, a Univeristy of California PD Officer hurried up the stairs towards me. “Oh, it's you”, she muttered. She ordered me to drop my gear and produce my ID. She told me to turn around and handcuffed me. She confiscated my bags, and then said, "YOU PEOPLE SHOULD SLEEP OUTSIDE THE CHURCH, NOT HERE." I told her that was not an option because of security guards there. We walked in silence to the police car.

We waited until one of her cohorts pulled up and she informed me that I have a warrant on my record. I’ve been expecting this because 2 weeks earlier I was told by Berkeley Traffic personnel that they could not find any computer information verifying any citations. They gave me an official letter indicating this absence and told me to SHOW THIS LETTER TO POLICE PERSONNEL should I have any need to before coming back at the end of the month to secure a court date. I would need a court date to deal with two previous lodging citations. In order to clear up this warrant business I asked to show the official letter to the officer. I got no response.

Instead I was whisked off to Berkeley City Jail. I was jailed so quickly, no one read me my rights, declared me under arrest, or formally charged me. I wouldn’t receive formal charges UNTIL THE FOURTH DAY OF my INCARCERATION...CLANK, CLANK, CLANK, CLANK.

I was told to take out my shoelaces if I wanted to keep my shoes with me and the drawstrings from my jacket to keep that (they wouldn't come out). During the electronic fingerprinting the UCPD officer commented on my layered clothing and told me that my sleeping bag was too big to fit in the milk crates where they store our property. She told me it would be held at the university police station. She then took my other bag which contained my self-published book and said it would go to the station as well, even though it would easily fit into a milk crate.

I recall some of my experiences in jail:

FRIDAY - I'm dubbed AFD483. SLOW HOURS AFTER 7:30 A.M. YIELD: A BAG LUNCH AND A SWANSON DINNER, A CALL TO A DISTANT RELATIVE. I am denied access to and not allowed to take my Berkeley Free Dental Clinic prescribed abcess medicine because, "It's improperly labeled".

SATURDAY- 24 hours pass in stony silence punctuated by occassional prison guard 'etiquette'.

SUNDAY- A jailor erroneously tells me that I am charged with tresspassing and have a warrant. Bail is set at $3500. I won't be allowed to make any phone calls. Nothing is presented to me in writing.

MONDAY- We leave Berkeley's City Jail for Processing at Santa Rita, the Alameda County Jail. I am finally allowed consultation with the public defender where I am informed of the following:
The official charges are 2 counts of Lodging (647J), not Trespassing, and I have no warrant outsatnding. I recieve this in writing, though it is lacking the ussual court date. That afternoon we return to Berkeley for court. We are taken to the holding cell, chained together 13 strong, where proceedings are put over until Tuesday morning.

Back at Santa Rita we are crammed into an overcrowded holding cell, like rush hour BART passengers marooned in a sealed off tunnel, waiting for proccessing. The proccessing takes all night long. There are TB shots and a medical interview. WHAT IS YOUR SEXUAL ORIENTATION? DO YOU HAVE ANY ENEMIES IN HERE? HOW DOES THE PHONE WORK? WHAT ARE YOU IN FOR? SLEEPING OUTSIDE ? DAMMN!!... Until it’s time to board the morning bus back to court in Berkeley, without chains this time. We line up to go to the various city jails. A near-skirmish breaks out reminding us all of the danger of our surroundings.

TUESDAY - The Judge's decision comes down on 10/31/00. I plead guilty to two lodging citations. Negotiations through the public defender results in the following conditions:

Probation for 24 months

Credit for 5 days served in jail

A 1OO dollar fine payable in a year

Be of good conduct

Report any change of address

Stay away form all UC buildings and the UC campus. ('unless on lawful business' was crossed out during negotiations)

Retrieve property from campus at UC Berkeley with civil standby only.

The next day at my official homeless address, I am given two envelopes containing the same warrant(#165844). They are dated the 26th and 27th of October. The 27th was the day of my so-called arrest.

When I call the UCPD to inquire about my property I am told by the arresting officer that I will be fingerprinted, booked and probably released if I come in for my property because they are not sure if the warrant is still in effect.

So I decide to go to the Berkeley courthouse first to obtain a copy of the Official Clerk's Docket and Minutes. I am told that the warrant has been taken care of as customary, by the court proceedings of the 31st.

The official minutes confirm my recollection that the judge orally agreed to my being able to conduct lawful business on campus. That stipulation had been manually crossed out on the official court probation document that I recieved, leaving me totally banned from all activities at the university. The docket from the Berkeley courthouse does not mention anything about a warrant; it contains only 2 counts of lodging and a 2000 dollars bail.

There had been so many “interpretations” regarding my warrant situation that I was unclear about the final result. I decided not to retrieve my property from UCPD as they had threatened me with further incarceration.

The entire ordeal had left me so frustrated and exhausted. Still, I was determined not to give into the anger. Right when I’m thinking that things can’t get much lower I learn that I have received an award of excellence for my video "Endangering the Species"! The Berkeley Film Festival 2000 has chosen me to be the recipient of the award in the Ethnography category. This feels like high praise and just in time for my battered dignity.

Ironcially, my latest video, "Primal Urban Sprirt Pulsating" which I began at the Associated Students of the University of California Art Studio will now have to be completed somewhere else.
The people who have honored my work with an award of excellence have just banned me from stepping foot on University property!

Subsequent to my arrest I would be interviewed by a reporter fromn the Daily Californian for a story she would title “HOMELESS ARTIST ANGRY OVER ARREST (11/21/ 2OOO). Bill Cooper, UC Police Captain and spokesperson, responded saying, "Ken Moshesh, who is currently homeless, had incurred numerous citations that led them to ban him from campus."

I have recieved three citations over seven years for being homeless in this area. The last two and the "arrest" occured within a two month period. One could then assume that having three citations is grounds for banishment from campus.

Capt. Cooper continues: "Miranda Rights do not have to be read in all circumstances. He was arrested under warrant for lodging. Miranda Rights only have to be read if there is a question about the crime. But there was already enough evidence to establish the fact that he was lodging. People aren't supposed to sleep in building."

Not only was I not read any rights at all, I was never declared to be under arrest.
I was stopped walking down the Dwinelle Annex carrying two bags, not inside a building. I was not, as they have alleged, found lying in a sleeping bag.

Apparently walking down the stairs with two bags at 7:30
in the morning was not sufficient grounds for establishing my guilt. They had to say that I was "lying in a sleeping bag" and "in a building" to substantiate their lodging claim so they could rush me to jail.

Their embellishments also serve to protect society's rampant denial of the fact that too many Americans have to sleep outside of buildings; on concrete, wood and dirt in this land of plenty.

Article 25 of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights says: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself (herself) and his (her) family including food, clothing, housing and medical care..."

I carry on, still homeless,
but now I’m on probation, I’m banned from my place of work and I have a criminal record.

My life's work has been about helping to bring this country closer to it’s own Declaration of Human Rights by sharing the experience of homelessness and engaging others in positive solutions. Why, I’m wondering, has a university that prides itself as being a cradle for civilized discourse made it so unneccessarily dificult for me to share my work?

This university should not emulate the uninformed portion of society by attemptinmg to hide, disguise and incarcerate homelessness. The UC's elitist Not-In My-Backyard policies turns a public campus into private property at night.

What the university should do to validate itself as an institution of higher learning is rally to the forefront of the issue. It could marshall its vast public and private resources to help develop a humane, viable solution to homelessness consistent with their avowed politcal prinicples. They would, with their reputation and history, present a leadership role worthy of the new millenium.

12/12/0O

Also by Ken Moshesh:

Books
* Cobblestoning Quicksand Mazes

Videos
* Homeless to Hollywood
* Endangering the Species
* Primal Urban Spirit Pulsating

I HAD PLANNED TO USE THE EICHORN DECISION OF THE FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT COURT WHICH SAYS IN PART,”AN INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS NO REASONABLE ALTERNATIVE TO SLEEPING IN A PUBLIC PLACE IN SANTA ANA NEED NOT TRAVEL IN SEARCH OF STREETS AND OTHER PUBLIC PLACES WHERE HE CAN CATCH HIS 40 WINKS.”-THE NECESITY DEFENSE [‘EICHORN DECISION UPHOLDS SLEEP AS A HUMAN RIGHT,”MARCH 1999, STREET SPIRIT ] AT MY TRIAL.

I HAD STARTED EDITING THE MASTER FOR “PRIMAL URBAN SPIRIT PULSATING” AT THE ASUC ART STUDIO JUST A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE “ARREST’AND A WEEK AFTER OUR PRO-HOMELESS CONCERT ON THE AMANDALA SHOW BROADCAST ON THE UNIVERSITY RADIO STATION KALX ON THE 15TH OF OCTOBER 2000.

by J.R. Johnson and Tiny

Lola Mckay’s body lies at rest now after a long battle against eviction. On Sunday Oct. 29th, 2000, The protest crowd against evictions, of nearly 50 people, in a way presented a requiem to honor Ms. Mckay.

It all started in January of 1999. Not the beginning of someone’s life. But the slow, vicious journey to someone’s untimely death. The death of an elder in our community. A death by eviction.

In January of last year, 83 year old Lola McKay was served an Ellis act eviction from her home of 40 years by a real estate speculator associated with Vanguard Properties.

After a life frought with crisis and tragedy which left Lola with no living kin, she had only hoped to live the rest of her life in her own home. Now she faced eviction and homelessness. She decided to fight.

With legal representation from Raquel Fox at the Tenderloin Housing Committee and the organizing efforts of the Tenants Union, a rally was planned at the courthouse at 100 McAllister where her court hearing would take place. This would be the first and last time that Lola Mckay would appear in public. They lost in court , and rather than face a lengthy, strenous battle that she might not win Lola and her attorney accepted a settlement offer. Twelve more months in her home. Twelve more months to live...I think that’s how she saw it. In March of this year Lola Mckay died in her sleep...of natural causes they say....

The postscript of this story is the live eulogy to Lola - and the thousands of tenants like her who are being evicted from their residences ....

The sun was glistening on a carmel colored door in the middle of a four unit flat. 55 Alvarado street. This was Lola Mckays home. An open house was planned for today. Her unit would be sold for 1/2 a million dollars as a “new” and improved unit. In the middle of the carmel door was the only ray of hope for this reporter; OPEN HOUSE CANCELED

“What do we want? - to stop evictions..When do we want it? Now!!!” As I studied the small white cancellation notice scotch-taped to the glistening front door, protestors marched in front of the building in a rally organized by The San Franciso Tenants Union and Housing Rights Committee to protest the selling of Ms. Mckays unit as million dollar condo. They canceled the open house because of the protest. Some part of Lola’s misery would be vindicated.

“Twenty apartments per week are being sold empty- with no record of eviction on file” Ted Gullickson from the Tenants Union explained, “the Ellis Act has too many restrictions, so most landlords try to avoid actually filing them and send out notices to evict or inform the tenants about their plans to evict and then the tenants respond by leaving. We track all the vacant apartments sold each month and who is actually selling them, we will continue to protect these illegal sales...” He took a breath.. “Lola Mckay was a very healthy woman and she would have lived for several more years, this eviction killed her ..there’s no doubt about that.

by Chris Barrett

People are dying to make towels. 45 workers were killed last week in Narsingdi, Bangladesh in the latest catstrophe involving a garment factory. 10 children were among the dead in a fire sparked from an electrical short at the Sagar Chowdury Garment Factory in an Industrial Area near the capital of Dhaka. 900 workers were on duty making towels and the situation could have been far worse considering the state of the building. Obserevers claim that the collapsible gates of the building were locked, as they were routinely, and had to be broken down by local people and firefighters. (From a report by The Bagladesh Observer, Dhaka ,Sunday November 26,2000) No number of death has been attributed to stampede, but it is assumed that many were trampled trying to escape.

This latest and worst incident of the year comes scant months after workers rallied to protest dangerous conditions following a similar fire in August that killed 12. A one-day strike was carried out by the National Garment Workers Federation in Bangladesh on September 4th to demand better working conditions improved safety measures and compensation for the families of the dead.

Over 150 garment workers, mostly women and children, have died in fires in the last 10 years in the Dhaka region. Many of these fires take places in factories where workers live in the building that houses the factory and warehouse. The 12 that died in august had no means of escape. They were on the third floor and the only staircase was out was blocked off.

Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh. If you visit the government website you will find out that the city has a history as a "Centre for fine silk and muslin". It's current standing in the garment industry is as a new player. It's economic standing as a Least Developed Country means that it must produce garments at the cheapest possible prices in order to compete with other developing countries. It competes with such third wave Asian economies as Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Vietnam to undercut garment producing exports that face higher

MFA (The Multi Fibre Agreement is a set of quotas introduced by importing countries to protect their own garment industries and give them time to adapt to the racing pulse of globalisation) regulations in Indonesia and Thailand. The MFA tends to benefit retailers who search out new developing countries to exploit. Factories in Bangladesh have a competitive advantage only by being the cheapest.

Women are disproportionately represented in the garment labour forces in these LCD's. A recent research study conducted found that workers in a factory in Bangladesh earned half a percent of the sale price of Nike jackets they were sewing. The same study found that garment workers in Bangladesh could hope to earn about 3% of the hourly wage of garment workers in the U.S. The study was conducted by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development.

Factory conditions are deplorable in Bangladesh. The three tier factories that support living areas for workers are there to mandate longer hours. They increase exposure to toxic chemicals used in the factories. Most factories have one exit and no emergency exits. The exit was locked in the latest fire and the results were tragic.

The situation seems dire considering the need women have for these jobs. The families that these women support surely benefit with better medical care, education and housing accesible with money from outside the country. The women themselves don't see these benefits as they are offset by the health hazards, debilitating working conditions and imminent deaths promised in the factories. Local efforts by garment workers need to be supported through import country efforts to hold exporters and retailers accountable. Media attention is necessary as are efforts to publicize retailer histories of the clothing they sell. The Clean Clothes Campaign at www.cleanclothes.org is a good source of information on current issues

It is difficult to find mention of these fires in U.S. news sources. The New York Times had a three line mention the following day in their ghettoized world news section. Worker attempts to generate interest, like the August protest are ignored by the mainstream media, though they are the best hope for changing working conditions in the region. Sweatshop news from the U.S is also underreported. Articles on globalisation tend to have a top to bottom bias focusing largely on a monolithic US economy with its day to day health as primary focus. Stock Prices of retailers are highly reported. Labor issues in the United States are marginalized to a large degree and tend to find only local coverage, if that. Preventable tragedies among communities of women in Bangladesh are not newsworthy aspects of the world economy.

by Aaron Salter

The battle for a piece of San Francisco's budget began Saturday when
members of various social organizations met in the Mission as the People's
Budget Collaborative. The main concern the group discussed was the amount
of support they could expect from the new Board of Supervisorís, who help
determine how the cityís funds are distributed.

"We are identifying the needs," Riva Enteent, a member of the National
Lawyers Guild, said.

The Peopleís Budget Collaborative, in its fourth year, is an umbrella group
of over 40 community based organizations who are fighting for an acceptable
share of the cityís tax revenue and the elimination of waste from the
budget. Since the Collaborative has no actual money, their power comes from
their ability to convince politicians that certain issues should be funded.
Seniors, immigrants, homeless, and disabled are an example of the many
sectors of the population the Collaborative represents. Housing, health,
economic justice, and civil rights are the areaís the group highlighted for
this fiscal year.

The budget is important because a resolution can be passed, but if it does
not receive funding from the city the integrity of the bill is lost.
Rebecca Vikomerson explained that a few years ago the Homeless Family
Resolution was passed; the intention was to provide shelter to homeless
families. Since the passing of the resolution, a minimal amount of action
has taken place due to a lack of funding.

The San Francisco budget, $4.2 billion for the past fiscal year, is divided
into two categories; money that is received from taxes and funds that are
received from the state and federal government. The government payments
make up 70% of the budget and is dedicated for specific programs. This is
unwavering. The other 30% comes from taxes paid by individuals and
companies. This is what the cityís departments and programs are fighting
for. This year the money raised from taxes in the city is approximately
$1.2 billion. Public health programs receive about 20% of these funds. In
comparison, social services receive about 10%; yet approximately 40% is put
towards public protection such as the police and fire department.

The Collaborative feels that areaís such as public protection are
necessary, but are receiving to a double helping of the pie. The group used
the issue of police overtime as an example. They stated that a great
amount of money is being taken away from social programs to make unnecessary
payments to other departments. In addition they would also like to see
greater accountability as to how each city department manages their budget.

The corporate community is another target of the collaboration. Robert
Lehman, a member of San Franciscans for Tax Justice, explained that the city
is currently involved in a lawsuit with the Committee on Jobs; a group
representing the rights of corporations. If the city loses the lawsuit it
will be forced to pay approximately $100 million dollars to the
corporations. A move which could strip the city of its economic reserves.

The Collaborative is encouraging to city to expand its thinking to a future
that reaches beyond a single year. Their position is that money spent now
to help individuals will save the city money in the future.

"Our proposal is just the tip of the iceberg," Enteent said.

If you would like additional information about the Peopleís Budget

Collaborative contact Riva at (415)285-1055.

by Tiny

The tall shade trees swept down, almost touching the tops of cars and sides of houses, the street was short, lined with clapboard houses with an occasional apartment building looking out of place. I never liked this street when I lived here because I never felt like I belonged. From the first day my mother and I moved in, we were told by the landlord that he wanted to get more for this place - I nodded in agreement, like I understood, like I agreed, empathized in fact, about his plight as a short changed apartment owner, getting a bad lot in life - but as we spoke, I tried desperately to cover the terror in my eyes with a cheerful glaze of excitement at all he'd done for the place and how much I admired his efforts. I tried to keep my voice light and extract all possible traces of the screams and tears that proceeded that one Wednesday afternoon in July when we begged that apartment owner for a chance.

We had looked at over thirty places and found absolutely nothing, we had called apartment after apartment but if we did find something we were summarily rejected because of an eviction on our credit record for a previous place we had that had attempted to fight . No, he could not know how much we needed that place and who we really were….

Yesterday I was there again, two years on that street, on 36th street, near Telegraph in Oakland. My body shook with the lingering terror of that day and the days to follow - the second eviction, the second fight, the threats of violence from the landlord, the never ending danger. But it wasn't mine alone anymore….

"I lived in this apartment for 11 years, I was a good tenant “ Oakland resident Ron Curry was talking to me on the sidewalk outside of one of those bright white clapboard houses on 36th street, he continued, “ I raised three children as a single parent in that house, my son asked the realtor why they were evicting us, she said the landlord wanted to paint the place and raise the rent – they evicted all five families - and now when I look for an apartment, there are six people in line trying to get the same place- or I am turned down due to this eviction which appears on my record” As he spoke – members of JustCause Oakland stood near – holding signs about eviction and profit.

“People are being evicted from their houses for no reason at all- this is the only city in the Bay Area that allows tenants to be evicted for no reason” a spokesperson for Just Cause Oakland –was outlining the current situation for Oakland renters.

“What if you can’t find a place-will you give up and leave the Bay Area?” I nervously asked Mr. Curry, hoping the answer would be no

“I’m not giving up – I am going to fight- and I am not leaving the Bay Area”
I nodded, slivers of the last ten years of my life - eviction on top of Oakland eviction circled above the trees and through the wood panels and landed on that narrow messy street in the form of resistance- we could fight and we would. That’s why my mother and I are still alive – because we never stopped fighting – and we didn’t leave!

To get involved in the resistance against the eviction of low income people, communities of color and elders in Oakland call Just Cause at (510) 464-1011 or email them at: justcauseoaklnd@yahoo.com

by Joseph Bolden, staff writer,

My problem with this old then new news item titled: The Body Brokers
to me is so vast that even reading and down loading some of it was
a chore. I first hear of this stuff Saturday on KFSO1s Barabara
Simpson. As she in-terviews Mr. Mark Kathches of Orange County Register.
It began in No-vember of 1999 with interviews of people in diverse
medical fields, rela-tives of the deceased, documented laws and
loopholes to them - real inves-tigative reporting.

As Ms. Simpson said 3This is important.2 I did go on the web the
next day and saw those stories getting paranoid by the second. Please,
I urge everyone on the web whether you1ve read my columns or not,
if you can... down load every last bit of 3The Body Broker1s2 at
the Orange County Register.com . Look for yourselves.

Imagine if your spouse, brother, best friend, a parent, or any
beloved relatives dies suddenly or had a natural death usually they
are buried, cre-mated, or if they dicide to take one last chance
on science and techn-ololgy signs up for Cryonics, the after death
freeze choice where they might be back among the living while you
do the old, reincarnation through womb, or test tube birth. Others
may want to donate their bodies, organs to peo-ple, science or both
this is where trouble begins.

Some companies not all make millions of dollars off skin, heart
valves, veins, bones, and tendons. One cadaver can be worth $220,000.
Here are a few names of those companies some are non profit some
are for profit:University of Florida Tissue Bank a spinoff of a
private firm Regen-eration Technologies Inc. 1998 (dosen1t
it sound like a life giving, rejuve-nation, revitalization company?)
Osteotech Inc., Intermountain Tissue Center, a Salt Late City, a
non profit bank.

There are others all over California, New York, Chicago, where
every people die these places are they have to be where the bodies
are. Cadaver skin plumping the lips of fashion models $1,050. Ground
bones dentists use to treat patients 200,000 times a year and glossy
catalogs ad-vertise 650 products made from body parts. Do you know
a single dead body part (raw material) is worth tens of thou-sands
of dollars. Its stock is even traded on Wall Street. Folks this
looks like it is international!

Grieving families are not told their Œdonated1 gifts (loved
ones) fuels and industry predicted to hit 1billion within three
years.

Again, I say LOOK THIS UP, THEN DIG AROUND AND BEYOND OUR
COUNTRY THIS I S ALREADY QUIETLY GONE INTERNATIONAL.

The National Organ Transplant Act approved by Congress in 1984,
banned Profits from sale of Tissue. But no Tisssue Bank has been
prose-cuted. 3The law has never been tested in court2 Jeanne Mowe,
Executive Director of The American Association of Tissue Banks.
100 of millions of dollar selling products crafted from donated
human bodies even though its illegal to profit from parts.

Like space we1re back in it again supplying material for the
interna-tional space station. The Orange County Register1s story
is not just timely its a warning that the future is not through
with us even after death we be-come another valuable product.

Bye.

(back to top) 

by Tony Harris

A large coalition of housing advocacy groups organized a rally for affordable housing in downtown Boston today. The speakers called for more units of affordable housing, stabilized rents, and a moratorium on profit-motivated evictions.

A large procession of puppets and chanting housing advocates marched through downtown Boston on its way to Government Center and the State House today. Rally organizers, such as the Boston Tenant coalition, the Cambridge Eviction Free Zone, Homes for Families, and the Fenway CDC, brought together a diverse group of activists which protested rent gouging and profit-based evictions. Their demands at City Hall included 10,000 units of affordable housing.

The Boston Tenant Coalition claims that nearly 700 thousand households in Massachusetts must forgo food or health care necessities in order to pay rents or mortgages. The median income earner in Boston cannot afford half of the advertised median rent.

The Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance encourages Boston residents to attend a city-wide meeting on November 15th. (St. Mark's Church, 1725 Dorchester Ave, 7pm. 822-9100)

Courtesy of HOMELESS PEOPLE'S NETWORK 9000+ articles by or via homeless & ex-homeless people Year 2000 posts INFO & to join/leave list - Tom Boland Nothing About Us Without Us - Democratize Public Policy

by Joseph Bolden, staff writer,

2000 is as important a year as 2001. In November of 2000 its time
to get out the vote. I didn1t see the MTV Awards on Thursday and
I1m hear-ing the usual adult (Oh Damn, I1m One) blab on its coverage,
inart-iculate guests, too much T Œn A on stage. Give Me A Break,
MTV was and is made to shock people and its done its job again splendidly
remember it was cre-ated expressly for shocking grown folks and
is a creative outlet for a younger generation - to angry, shocked,
adults single or with children Get Over It as for Rap/Hip Hop
Its Here and Won1t Go Away.

Deal With Reality. Rap and Hip Hop is INTERNATIONAL, GLOBAL,
PROBABLY INTERGALACTIC SPEEDING THROUGH SPACE.

If you can1t stand the message or music don1t listen. Rap been
disre-spected, Œdissed, banned, and people have been arrested for
selling it, the powers that be tried to overide market forces, that
didn1t work either so now what? If rap still pisses people off because
of messages they don1t want to hear then it too still does its job
as informing, warning inner city folk and those that care enough
to listen that we1re all are being are getting fucked over! If my
phrasing is raw this is as bad as it gets - darn it.

MTV folks, your turn to voice your opinion, views, likes, dislikes,
out-right hate too. Many adults believe you won1t go to the poll,
do your civic duty. 3Actually they don1t want you to vote so
prove Œem wrong show Œem your generation and ones coming behind
you that your Œgen knows the game.2

We will leap forward or stumble backward. Me, I want more political
parties like Life Extension Party, Immortalist Party, or L5-Spacer1s
Party. The L5 or Lagrange Point between earth and the moon and spacer
is for people who are willing to go into space to live on asteroids,
planitoids, or H.O.M.E.1s (High Orbital Mini Earths) yet another
future political party. How about independant asteroid mining for
fun and profit.

.

Had a good laugh, well this could be our future if a couple of
guys get elected and there are seats open for the Supreme Court.
Call all Grrrrls, Girls, Women, and Wimmin think of your choices.
Doc-tor1s being maimed, killed because of the abortion debate, embryo,
or stem cell research and medical benefits of cloning. (grow brainstem,
nervous system separate from bodies) then you have parts that cannot
be rejected and not another human being and no creepy moral dilema.

Think of homosexuals being beaten up, killed for sexual orientation
alone. There is no Gay/Lesbian/Transexual/agenda, the only agenda
is to stop killing for being slighly different from so called 3normal
heterosexual lifestyles. The Eternal made all of us without errors,
the only Biological Errors are in Peoplekind none of us are perfect,
genetically speaking hu-manity are full of flaws.

In Coeur D1Alene, Idaho a American Mother and child attacked and
beaten in 1998 by Aryan Nations guards outside the white supremacist
group1s North Idaho headquaters is awarded $6.3 million thusday.
Richard Butler says 3You can1t stop us, This is nothing.2 3We have
planted seeds.2 Butler1s chief of staff, Michael Teague said 3This
does not stop the message.2 (Mr. B. the message is dying, its been
heard too many times its old, ugly, filthy, untrue and twisted most
people know you are wrong - GET OVER IT., IS THAT REASON ENOUGH
TO VOTE!!

BYE.

by Dee

Well, well, well, imagine me, Lester the cat, writing about pigeons- whatever
I know about pigeons could go in a cook book, along with all of the other
tasty things that I¹ve eaten.

Hands tells me secretly, "Why don¹t we invite those pigeons over
for dinner sometime soon?"

"Good idea," I tell him.

The reason I¹m writing about pigeons is that this guy named Joe sent
me something that he wrote about pigeons taking over the world (not with
us cats around, someone should tell him). This Joe wrote to me and Hands:

"Pigeons and cats mostly run Planet Earth!" Human¹s destructive
capacities are their own traits. Let the humans believe that they¹re in
control, stumble on to discoveries that we drop in their minds. Their
hidden control continues: These are Birdview, Pigeon mind(s). Are
You Sure That What You Think Is You Or Are They P-Minds?"

And he also sent us some photos- I¹m including a few. Don¹t notice if
they¹re a little spotty: me and Hands had a little trouble with our spit
the day that we looked at them. We had a drooling problem for
some reason.

As soon as I finish this column, which is now, I think I¹ll send this
guy Joe a Hands-written invitation to dinner with me and Hands- for him
and for his pigeons. We¹ll talk Joe (humor him) into going out
and taking many more rolls of film of many more pigeons, lots and lots
of pigeons. We¹ll give him categories: most beautiful pigeon, most happiest
pigeon, and so on- whatever takes him the longest.

Meanwhile me and Hands will amuse ourselves, discussing with the pigeons
this plan for taking over the world, and how "Pigeons and cats mostly
run Planet Earth", and the Delicious Dinner we will make OF, for,
I mean, the pigeons that this Joe guy leaves with us.

by Joseph Bolden, staff writer,

Joe welcomes your letters, comments and advice 

write to him at: poormag@sirius.com 

Henry Pellum writes from Hollywood,Ca 

Dear Joe, 

I wish to know more about IPO's, how do I begin to invest in them, also
if you are so poor how come you know so much about Mutual Funds? 


Anyway, I work as a Rent-a-cop, its boring work, I gotta get out. At 35
my life seems set in this rut. Someday I'd like to be married, can you
help me? 

************************* 

ASK JOE responds; 

Dear Mr. H. Pellem, 

Thirty-five is young these days, just feed your body and mind the proper
nutrients, vitamins, minerals-trace minerals and exercise regularly, cut
down or out on smoking, drinking and be careful with sex partners. Please
get tested regularly too. All these precautions may help you live longer. 

I bought a Mutual Fund for $300 I was unable to place $25 each month
due too homeless and sleeping in shelters but the fund (Bless 'em) didn't
close my account.  Visiting their office one day, surprised me the
money had increased slightly. 

DON'T demean your job, so being a Security Guard bores you, read financial
magazines, Wall Street Journal, bone up on companies you'd like to own
stock in, or quiz your buddies. Save money, open a savings account, go
to free seminars or paying ones. THIS SAME BORING JOB CAN HELP YOU. 

I.P.O (Initial Public Offerings) is new to every one. 

One problem is if it's heard on radio, TV people buy the stock quick plus
if your thinking of Day Trading you must   have $50,000 to start,
it must be fun win/lose money not savings, pension money. You heard a
psychopath killing his whole family then goes to Day Trading building
to kill more people because of a $250,000 loss. Personally I believe he
was unhinged to begin without the money loss. 

Research Day Trading, go to a free seminar or pay. 

I've read 70% of Day Traders lose money. 

While E-Trade(Electronic Trading) is slower paced. You can begin with
a broker as your guide through trading on the internet. When you safely
learn how to navigate economically then find your stocks, research then
buy, sell or keep and the rest is up to you. Any you won't loose your
mind on each transaction on the web. 

Mr. Pellem, relax. People want your boring job don't be too quick to
trash it, set a time table, be frugal, use that job and your time wisely.
Good by, Mr. HP. 

by Kaponda

The violent collisions between the howling winds and leaves of the palm trees in front of the red-brick building had captured my attention as my editor and I walked to the front of the still in-development PAC-BELL Park. We had come out to the Park at China Basin to attend a press conference to protest the enormous amount of attention this ballpark is getting in contrast to the lack of attention given to victims of SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotel fires. Protecting her hair from the sort of droplets caused by the sudden burst of clouds overhead, Frances Pinnock began her attack on the administration of Mayor Willie Brown.

"There is this wonderful ballpark which is about to open on time with 1,800 construction workers working on it everyday. And there are at least seven or eight hotels in San Francisco that are having no work done on them. Our clients are still homeless. The hotels should be repaired. Our clients are demanding that the Mayor speak to the owners [of these hotels] and say [to them] that you can repair these hotels. We like the ballpark. But we want the City of San Francisco -- and we know you can do it because there is massive amounts of money here in the City -- to get these hotels repaired for your tenants and my clients."

Frances Pinnock represents 87 former tenants of the Hartland Hotel and 29 former tenants of the Thor Hotel. As a result of the owners' neglect to bring these hotels back on-line for occupancy, Frances has lodged two Complaints in the Superior Court of California. According to the Complaint filed by Ms. Pinnock, the owners of the Hartland Hotel have received "large settlements from the insurance company, but have as yet to apply for a building permit for the repairs and remodeling."

On February 12, 1999 at 11:00 a.m., the 150-room hotel at Geary and Larkin that had been born out of the 1906 earthquake by the Hartland brothers was ravaged by fire. The fire allegedly began in a lightwell filled with debris. It was not the first fire to occur in the lightwell at the Hartland Hotel. As a result, according to the Complaint, "Years of neglect and decrepit conditions created nightmarish living conditions for people with few housing alternatives, and ultimately led to the fire that displaced all the residents of the Hartland Hotel." One-hundred fifty tenants of the Hartland were displaced as a direct result of the fire.

"The question must be asked of the Mayor," continued Ms. Pinnock, "'Why is this ballpark able to be finished on time and there is no work being done on these hotels at all?'"

Richard Marquez had come to the press conference on behalf of Mission Agenda to state that during the last two years there have been seven major fires in as many SRO hotels. "Mission Agenda, therefore, created a coalition to compel the City to urge owners to compensate tenants fairly, and at the same time, to force them to rebuild the hotels." According to Richard, there were 150 tenants living at the Hartland at the time of the fire. There are 70 tenants scattered around the city who cannot be located.

David McGuire is one of the 150 tenants at the Hartland Hotel who were displaced. A former tenant of five years, he was forced to move out everything that he owned into a storage area. According to David, as he moved his personal belongings out of the Hartland Hotel, he sustained an injury because neither the Hartland, nor the City provided services to move victims out during emergencies. As a result of his injury, he needed crutches.

David McGuire is secretary of the Hartland Hotel Tenants Union. He is one of the plaintiffs in the Complaint against the Defendants, Hartland Hotel. His traumatic experience at the Hartland has catapulted David into full-time service, advocating for a state-of-emergency declared so that federal money can be made available to repair hotels. David state that "There are approximately 1,000 to 1,100 SRO's that are off the rental market due to owner negligence, and some of them have been off the rental market since 1988."

"We've been working on the residential hotel issue for about the past four to five years and have been trying to do something about the rash of hotels fires which have been totally out of control during the last three years," stated Chris Daly, Coordinator of the Mission Agenda, in response to the concerns of David McGuire. "The Mayor¼s office, to an extent, has talked about better emergency responses to these situations."

With tears in her eyes and uncertain of her future, Carmen came to the microphone to testify on concerning her experience. For 35 years Carmen, an elderly lady of 89 years old on a walker, was a tenant of the Hartland Hotel. She lost everything she owned as a result of the February 12, 1999, fire. Carmen was so distraught at the press conference that she could not go forward with her planned statement.

Ramona Herrera is a former tenant of Hartland Hotel and is now homeless. He states, "Its been a year, and I am still homeless. I would like to see them fix the Hartland. We are still on the streets. We are still going from hotel to hotel, and it is devastating."

The rain did not stop or shorten the press conference; there were many more people who stepped up to the plate to testify of their losses and anguish on that windswept day at Pac Bell Park. The final box score, according to the press release circulated by Mission Agenda, was Pac Bell Park, $320 million to construct a brand new building in record breaking time, and the SRO hotel fire victims, $0 for badly needed restoration and renovation of damaged buildings.

by Tom Jackman

(Reprinted from the Washington Post, courtesy of chris98@pacbell.net)
Saturday , September 2, 2000

An undercover Prince George's County detective followed a man from Maryland into the District and finally into Fairfax County, then shot the man to death early yesterday after the man rammed the detective's unmarked car with his Jeep Cherokee, authorities said.

Prince C. Jones, 25, of Hyattsville, a personal trainer at a Bally's Fitness Center there, was pronounced dead at Inova Fairfax Hospital.

Fairfax police said Jones and the detective, whose name they would not release, were in their vehicles when Jones was shot about 3 a.m. near Seven Corners, and police would not say whether Jones fired any shots. After he was shot, Jones drove about two-tenths of a mile toward the home of his fiancee, Candace Jackson, 22, and crashed into a parked car just steps from the house where Jackson was waiting for him.

Neither Fairfax nor Prince George's police would say what sparked the confrontation that led to the shooting, whether Jones was armed, why he was being followed or how many times he was shot. Fairfax police said the detective identified himself as a police officer, but they would not say how or at what point during the incident.

The police account was immediately questioned by Jackson and an attorney for Jones's family. They said they couldn't understand how the detective could have identified himself, and they described Jones as a hard worker who had never been in trouble. The attorney, Ted J. Williams, a longtime family friend, said the family would seek an independent FBI investigation.

In the past 13 months, Prince George's County police have shot 12 people, killing five of them, including Jones. Two other men have died of injuries in police custody. Most of the incidents are being investigated by the FBI, and the Justice Department is considering conducting a broader probe to determine whether there is a pattern of civil rights violations by county police.

In May, juries awarded $4.1 million and $647,000 to two people who were beaten or otherwise mistreated by county officers. County Executive Wayne K. Curry (D) has appointed a task force to take a broad look at police behavior. The group is to issue a report by Oct. 1.

The number of complaints alleging excessive force, harassment and the use of abusive language surged 53 percent last year, to 90, the highest number since 1994.

The detective involved in yesterday's shooting, a 26-year-old man with six years on the force, was placed on leave with pay and has not been charged, said Cpl. Tim Estes, a Prince George's police spokesman. Estes would not say whether the detective had violated any laws or policies pending an internal investigation. The Prince George's police weapons policy says, "Firearms may only be discharged . . . from or at moving vehicles when the occupants of the other vehicle are using or threatening deadly force by a means other than the vehicle."

Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. said he would await the police investigation before deciding whether to file charges. He said no officer had been charged in a police-related shooting in his 32 years as prosecutor in Fairfax.

The incident began in Hyattsville, where both the detective and his supervisor were conducting surveillance on Jones, Estes said. He said they began following Jones in the Chillum Park area. They followed him through the District and into Virginia without losing sight of him, Estes said. He would not say why Jones was being followed. The detective is assigned to a narcotics unit in the Hyattsville
station.

Estes said that Prince George's police routinely venture into other jurisdictions during investigations and that their policy is to notify the other jurisdiction only if an arrest, the serving of a search warrant or other overt action is to occur. They did not alert Fairfax or the District about this case, Estes said.

After the officers followed Jones into Fairfax County, Jones pulled onto Beechwood Lane, just off Route 50 near Seven Corners. The detective's supervisor became separated from the surveillance, but the detective continued, Estes said.

Rather than continue to the house where Jackson was staying, Jones apparently pulled into Spring Terrace. Estes said the detective did not make himself known to Jones and didn't initiate contact, but "apparently [Jones] made himself known to the officer."

Neither Fairfax nor Prince George's police would provide details of what happened next, other than to say that a confrontation occurred and that Jones rammed the driver's side of the unmarked police car. One neighbor, who asked that her name be withheld, said her husband heard 12 shots. Another neighbor said she was awakened by the sound of squealing tires, heard shots, then more
squealing tires.

Williams, the family attorney, said a Fairfax detective told him Jones apparently pulled into a driveway and turned off his lights. The unmarked police car went past, then turned around. As the police car approached again, Jones rammed it, Williams said.

Officer Jayne Woolf, a Fairfax police spokeswoman, said the detective "at one point did identify himself as a police officer." But she would not say whether either man got out of his vehicle.

"It does not make sense, that if someone was ramming your car, you have the wherewithal to identify yourself and shoot at the same time," Williams said. Williams said a doctor at Inova Fairfax told him that Jones had been shot nine times. Police would not say how many times Jones was hit.

Members of Jones's family said Jones did not own or ever use a gun. A family friend said she was told by a Fairfax police officer that Prince George's police had pursued a Jeep from Hyattsville, lost it, and picked up the wrong Jeep in Virginia. Prince George's police denied that account.

Jones, who attended Howard University and was working toward a degree in human development, worked as a trainer and sales representative at Bally's.

"He was of an awesome character," said Charles Greene, manager of the Wheaton gym. "He helped liven the place up. When people would come in he would greet them and say, 'Come on, let's work out, let's get started.' There wasn't anyone who didn't enjoy working with him."

Courtney Phelps, a friend since 1992, called Jones "the most clean-cut guy" who never had been in trouble.

Jones, whose mother is a radiologist, hoped to become a doctor after spending a stint in the Navy, said Jackson, his fiancee. She said he was a fitness fanatic who "would never take drugs. He prays all the time. He was not a violent person; all he wanted to do was do the right thing, and they stole that."

Jackson learned of the shooting after Jones's car crashed into the parked car outside her home and she heard the commotion that followed. She wandered outside to see what was happening, then saw Jones's black Jeep with Pennsylvania license plates. "At that point, I freaked out," Jackson said. She went with friends to Inova Fairfax.

"All he wanted to do was to see his daughter grow up," said Jackson, who has a 10-month-old daughter, Nina, by Jones. "They robbed him of that."

by Kaponda

Like a high-speed rail train, family and friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal moved quickly and precisely to claim their seats. A banner of "Congratulations," draped across the eaves of the balcony, expressed the attitudes of most of those sitting in the dim surroundings of Mission High School. The standing-room only crowd in the auditorium came to congratulate not only Professor Angela Davis, Geronimo Ji Jaga, Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter for their heroism in the face of adversity, but also to move the trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal from the political grasp of red tape to the people's court of humanity.

Armed to her teeth with the truth about the circumstances swirling about the controversial case of Mumia, I asked the minister of confrontation for the MOVE organization and disciple of John Africa, Pam Africa, what she expected to accomplish at this Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal? "People get on the move and stay on the move. This government is serious about killing each and every last one of us! People have to educate themselves and resist -- that is the key. You have to resist a government that is hell-bent on killing....If we are talking about freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal, then we have got to deal with these issues. How can you care for one and dam all the fuckin' rest?"

Donned in a black beret to which a solid piece of revolutionary material was fastened, Pam moved swiftly to tell the many young people in the auditorium, whom she cited as a primary reason why Mumia will prevail, and the other friends and family of Mumia Abu-Jamal that, "We are at War!"

Opened and declared armed hostile conflict has been used in the past to champion the liberty of many people and organizations. In 1934 two longshoremen were killed during a maritime strike. Their deaths provoked the entire city of San Francisco to anger; and, subsequently, the citizenry became sympathetic to the strikers and a general strike resulted. I spoke to Walter Johnson of the San Francisco Labor Council and asked him what role labor played in the mobilization to free Mumia?

"The San Francisco Labor Council is here to make sure everyone understands that we still support Mumia Abu-Jamal, and we are happy to say that we got a resolution passed by the California Labor Federation of the state of California which states that we support a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. I think justice has to prevail. If we are going to talk about the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and the right of an individual to have a fair trial, then we must be persistence and get the message across the country."

As a stream of light from a projector cast him in a panoramic view, Walter Johnson conveyed to the audience that he asked President Bill Clinton in a written letter, "what is more important, a human life or an inmate?" However, according to Walter Johnson, the president declined to respond.

Everyone who spoke alluded to the unusually large presence of adolescence and Leonard Weinglass, Mumia's chief legal counsel, used this demographic as a possible deciding factor in the eventual freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal. In fact, he stated that if this groundswell of support by our young people continue, then "I think Mumia will regain his liberty." I asked Leonard to talk to me about the status of Mumia's case?

"For the first time in 19 years," stated Mumia's attorney, "Mumia's case is before a federal judge in Philadelphia. We filed all our papers. We are waiting for the judge to contact us. We can go into court and argue Mumia's case for a new trial. It should happen before the end of the year."

"The court is the Federal District Court in Philadelphia, the lowest federal court. It is in the nature of an appeal. We have completed all of our case in the state courts. We have finished with our state appeals. Now we move over to the federal court and start anew."

I asked Weinglass about his thoughts concerning Mumia's eventual freedom?

It is going to be a long struggle. We are at the beginning point now which is a critical point in the federal courts. If this movement -- evidence of which you see tonight -- continues to build and develop, then I will become more optimistic. But the people have to be heard from. The public has to be heard from. People have to get engaged. If that happens, then I think the judge will be compelled to follow the law. If he follow the law, then Mumia will be a free man."

Leonard Weinglass told the young people and everyone else in attendance that Judge William Yohn, a judge appointed by then-President George Bush, will decide whether an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the mountain of facts in favor of Mumia, heretofore not included, will be admissible or whether the federal courts will review Mumia's case based on the Pennsylvania court record.

Much has been recorded about the case of the inmate on death row in the state of Pennsylvania, even Mumia himself has written books and has chronicled over 400 columns on his life. So when I talked with Michael Franti, who provided the spoken words of the evening, I did not expect him to offer very much when I asked him if he felt that justice would prevail in Mumia's case? However, as it turned out he may have offered the most compelling insight of the night.

"If I did not feel that justice would prevail, I would not be here. I feel that in the end the truth will come out and that Mumia will be set free!"

Franti told the young people and other friends and family of Mumia that he was told by Mumia not too long ago, that "the role of the artist today is to, "enrage, enlighten, and inspire."

Professor Angela Davis inspired the audience with words of resounding assurance. She spoke of the collective power of the people in the audience and how that power is underestimated. She also alluded to the recent Democratic and Republican debate in which the death penalty was not even an issue, although many people are being released from death row based on new DNA evidence and other factors.

Professor Davis brought the crowd to its feet when she stated that "there are more police in the United States than in any other police state in the world characterized as a fascist state or a dictatorship."

The keynote speaker and one of the real heroes of the evening, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter closed out the event with a series of anecdotes of his 20 years of wrongful imprisonment. He stated that he was convicted of triple murder and sentenced to a triple life sentence in 1966. According to Rubin Carter, "I am a survivor of solitary confinement and prison in the same way as someone who survived some of the most heinous crimes against humanity in the history of the world.

The legal defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal was bolstered by a $25,000 check donated to the Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal by Danny Glover on behalf of The Vanguard Public Foundation. Pam Africa received the check on behalf of the Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal amid a thunderous applause as traces of moisture trickled down her smooth, brown expression of conquest.

by Rhonda Parker

EUREKA -- An innocent man has been charged with slashing another man's throat during a brawl last week on Arcata Plaza, a defense attorney told Judge Marilyn Miles on Thursday.

Deputy Public Defender Roger Parshall said the man who really committed the stabbing has confessed repeatedly, but law enforcement has chosen to ignore him and pursue charges against Joseph Nurkiewicz. Parshall, arguing during a bail hearing Thursday afternoon, said the district attorney must at some point concede ''that in all likelihood they have charged the wrong man.''

''I don't think Mr. Parshall's going to get that concession,'' Deputy District Attorney Worth Dikeman responded. ''Mr. Nurkiewicz allegedly sneaked behind a person and tried to slit his throat. We think those kinds of people belong in jail.''

The 21-year-old Nurkiewicz is accused of stabbing 25-year-old Jed Vandenplas during the Aug. 25 fight between Plaza transients and those who resent them.Vandenplas was treated and released for his injuries.

Nurkiewicz supposedly is one of the transient crowd, although Parshall said Thursday he has lived in Arcata for three years.

Lolita Bijarro, Nurkiewicz's fiancee, said it was a friend of theirs who committed the stabbing. She said the man was trying to help Nurkiewicz, who was fighting off a half-dozen attackers.

''If (the man) did not do that, my old man would not be here right now,'' the 20-year-old Bijarro said outside the courtroom after the hearing. She said the actual stabber has made several statements to law enforcement.

Tension has been simmering for some time between some local residents and the crowd of transients who hang out on the Plaza. Police say the fracas last week started because of a fight a few days earlier between Bijarro and another woman.

Bijarro admits she ''had a conflict'' with a woman. But she said the problems were actually caused by a man who had been continually insulting ''the hippies,'' advising them to get jobs, take baths and get out of town.

She said she suggested to the man that he is upset because the hippies are happy and carefree.

''Are you jealous because people give me money for beer and you have to work for it?'' Bijarro said she asked the man.

During the fight in which Nurkiewicz allegedly stabbed Vandenplas, Nurkiewicz's friend Randolph Tolley reportedly bashed someone over the head with a heavy flashlight. That person also was not seriously hurt.

Both Nurkiewicz and Tolley are charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

Tolley's attorney William Cater told Judge Miles that Tolley, 33, has lived in the county about two months and works as a jeweler. He said Tolley may have used his flashlight to defend a friend who was being attacked.

Judge Miles, after listening to lawyers' comments, refused to release the men or reduce their $50,000 bail.

Parshall argued the actual stabber has confessed to law enforcement. And in the victim's statement, he said, ''includes transparent lies.''

''They've got the wrong guy,'' Parshall said outside the courtroom.

Dikeman said charges were filed against the man believed responsible. He said the issue should be sorted out during the preliminary hearing. It is set for later this month.

''The purpose of the preliminary hearing is to weed out unjustified charges,'' Dikeman said. ''If Mr. Parshall is correct, I'm sure the judge will agree with him. If he is incorrect, I suspect the defendant will be held to answer.''

by Tom Jackman and Jamie Stockwell

(Reprinted from the Washington Post, courtesy of chris98@pacbell.net)

The shots by a Prince George's police officer that struck and killed a Hyattsville man in Fairfax County last week entered the man's back at a 45-degree downward angle, which attorneys for Prince C. Jones's family said indicates that he was hit as he was driving away, down a hill.

The findings, from a private autopsy performed for the man's family, seem to contradict police statements that Cpl. Carlton B. Jones, an undercover narcotics detective, fired into the back of Prince Jones's Jeep as it rammed the unmarked police Mitsubishi Montero.

Ted J. Williams, a lawyer representing Prince Jones's family and a former D.C. homicide detective, questioned whether the officer was seated in his vehicle when the shots were fired. According to Williams, the autopsy found that Prince Jones was shot five times in the back and once in the forearm, also from the back.

But Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. said yesterday that "we have one independent witness who puts the police officer in the vehicle when he shoots. I don't think there's any question the officer was in the vehicle." Horan would not identify the witness.

Horan attributed the downward trajectory of the bullets to the detective's Montero being "slightly higher. He's above where the other guy [Prince Jones] is." He said the trajectory "all depends on where the guy [Prince Jones] sits."

Manufacturers' specifications show that the difference in the vehicles' heights is about four inches.

Williams said that if Prince Jones was backing up when he was shot, "some of the bullets would've hit him in the side."

"When you look at where the bullet wounds are, that to me is consistent with him moving away, looking ahead, not having his body in a contorted or twisted manner," Williams said.

Fairfax police, who are conducting a criminal investigation of the shooting, would not respond to Williams's theory. They have not released any results of the official autopsy.

The FBI is conducting a separate criminal investigation to determine whether Prince Jones's civil rights were violated, and there is also an internal investigation by Prince George's police. Carlton Jones, 32, who is on leave with pay, has been questioned by Fairfax police, but not by Prince George's officials.

The investigations come as Prince George's County officers have shot 12 people in the past 13 months--five of them fatally--and two other persons have died in police custody. At the same time, Justice Department officials say they are moving toward expanding the federal civil rights probe of the Prince George's canine unit to include the entire department.

Royce Holloway, spokesman for the Prince George's police, would not comment on the findings of the family's attorneys and deferred all calls to Fairfax County police. He said the department will not issue any statements until the investigation is complete.

Prince Jones, 25, a personal trainer at Bally's Total Fitness in Prince George's Plaza and a student at Howard University, was shot and killed about 3 a.m. last Friday. Carlton Jones and his supervisor followed Prince Jones's Jeep from Chillum, across the District and into the Seven Corners area of Fairfax County.

Prince George's Police Chief John S. Farrell said this week that the detectives were following the Jeep after receiving a tip that it could be connected to the theft of a police service weapon. Farrell said that the officers did not know who was driving the vehicle and were following it merely to find out where it was going.

He said that because officers did not plan to stop or confront the driver, they did not notify Fairfax officials that they had entered the county.

Farrell suggested that the detective may have feared for his life as his vehicle was being rammed, possibly justifying the use of deadly force. Prince George's police policy specifically prohibits shooting from one vehicle at another if the other vehicle is only ramming the police car.

Gregory D. Lattimer, another attorney for Prince Jones's family, said that if Prince Jones was driving in reverse into the Montero when the officer fired, there should be gunpowder residue on the glass particles blown into Jones's Jeep by the shots.

Williams theorized that Prince Jones, "in fear, not knowing who this person was, clearly seeing that it was not a police officer, may have backed into the person's vehicle in an effort to leave the area."

"Out of his own fear," Williams said, "he may very well have had some contact with the police vehicle, trying to get away in a very frightening moment."

Holloway, the Prince George's police spokesman, said that nothing restricts an officer from traveling across jurisdictions to conduct an investigation. Until the officer feels it is necessary to take action, he does not have to contact local authorities.

Area attorneys said that while the surveillance of Prince Jones was not unusual, the shooting--several jurisdictions away--was clearly rare.

"Absent the shooting, there was nothing unusual about the incident," said Robert C. Bonsib, a Washington defense lawyer.

Bonsib said that many questions surround the case and that the "whole point of a surveillance is to not be seen."

Said James Klimaski, a lawyer in the District who has represented several plaintiffs in alleged police misconduct cases: "I haven't seen anything like this other than what happens with a hot pursuit. You have officers who shoot suspects in their own jurisdiction, but to cross the county line and take action like that without notifying the local authorities, that's just very rare."

Earlier this week, attorneys for a Laurel man filed a $10 million lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt against Prince George's police and a dozen individual officers, alleging that undercover narcotics detectives followed him into Anne Arundel County, pulled him from his car and beat him.

Brian Romjue, 19, alleges in the lawsuit that he was stopped on Brock Bridge Road last September, forced into an unmarked vehicle and driven to an unknown location. He said that an officer grabbed him by the collar and hit his head, while another officer slammed his head into the passenger side window.

The officers named in the lawsuit are Sgt. Steven Piazzi, Sgt. Kevin Davis, Sgt. Joseph McCann, Capt. Buddy Robshaw and eight other unidentified men.

"This lawsuit is twofold: We are seeking the money because Brian needs long-term psychiatric care, and we hope that the Prince George's police take responsibility for these illegal actions committed by the officers," attorney Barbara R. Graham said yesterday.

A county attorney did not return a telephone request for comment.

Holloway said that an internal investigation into that incident is being conducted.

by Kaponda

I had already envisioned its sight before I opened the pale door held together by incongruent strips of wood. The stench of abandoned viscosity smothered my nose when I stepped into the small, forlorn room. I quickly mixed a milky abrasive the label of which claimed to be stronger than dirt -- into a liquid whose label portrayed a man whose head was shaven completely. The result was a product that could probably have annihilated the most hardened of scum. After three hours of scrubbing mucous and crud from the walls inside the room at the Jefferson Hotel, I felt the environment was safe for me to sleep.

Vulgar sounds on the other side of the door invaded my sleep like the teeth of a lion piercing the flesh of an African wildebeest. A loud thump on the door brought me to full alert as I moved quickly to the door. The person at the door held crack cocaine in his hand as he blurted out the price of his bag of death. I snapped back with threats that I was the master of this house and that I did not want to be disturbed. He replied on that April night in 1999, while five or six people sat in front of doorways smoking rocks in their crack pipes, that the Jefferson Hotel "belonged to the dope man" so I had no rights.

It has been over 11 years since that rude awakening at the Jefferson Hotel on Eddy Street had welcomed me to San Francisco. It was a hotel in which I had never thought I would have to sleep. There are many other hotels in San Francisco that operate like the Jefferson. They are like bordellos with organized drug dealers, prostitution and unsanitary living conditions. However, as of Wednesday, October 4, 2000, the Jefferson can no longer be classified as that kind of hotel.

The Jefferson is one of five (5) hotels in San Francisco whose residents have adopted a new attitude because the Board of Supervisors approved a proposal to launch a Master Leasing program which affects every part of the life of the tenants of the Jefferson. The program was spearheaded by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and the Coalition on Homelessness.

"This program at an extraordinarily low cost has brought conservatively 350 vacant units (and overall 800 units) onto the real estate market because the hotels that had been leased prior to this did not maximize the permanent residency," stated Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, to me in an interview as he discussed some of the strategy that was involved with the development the Master Leasing program.

Before both the dot.com boom and surge in the economy, hotels such as the Jefferson had charged rents which were tied to the income that a person received from General Assistance or other fixed income. Since 1997, however, all of the residential hotels in San Francisco had begun to charge unaffordable rents and the housing shortage had tightened. Hotels were no longer accepting referrals -- the prevailing system at that time -- due to the rent increases. Out of this dilemma was born the concept of a Master Leasing program.

"I think that there are aspects to what the Tenderloin Housing Clinic is doing that are beneficial for people to get into housing. I think it sets up a scary situation when the only way a poor person can get housing is through a social worker," Paul Boden of the Coalition on Homelessness advised me during a telephone interview.

Since both Paul Boden and Randy Shaw, two people who have advocated for social change for years in San Francisco, view this program as a constructive move toward affordable housing, it could probably be safe to assume that the program would have passed through without a hitch, right?. Not so!

The Master Lease program went through intense scrutiny as part of the budget hearings. There were many concerns by members of the community and community-based organizations which forced the Coalition on Homelessness to request Board of Supervisor President Tom Ammiano to place money in reserve that had been earmarked for a Master Lease program at the Hartland Hotel, the first Master Lease program to come on line. In addition, the Coalition on Homelessness subpoenaed all papers related to any shelter policies by any agency of City government under the Freedom of Information Act. These processes by the Coalition on Homelessness caused a cooperative meld of the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Coalition on Homelessness and the Tenderloin Housing Clinic.

After all the players in the attempt to find affordable housing for homeless and impoverished people had begun to interact, the Master Lease program began to take form. The Coalition on Homelessness submitted a detailed report that recommended the course of action for the program. I asked Jennifer Friedenbach of the Coalition on Homelessness about the position paper and what it included?

"The Coalition came up with recommendations around how access [to affordable rooms] should work for Master Leasing. We took the issue before the Board of Directors of the Coalition on Homelessness, the Substance Mental Health Work Group and other service providers who tried to get leasing." Jennifer continued to recount the developments of the process that brought respectability to five of more than 100 residential hotel buildings in San Francisco.

"During the time we were in negotiations with DHS, there were only one or two people getting referred from the Department of Human Services’ PAES program and/or shelters to hotel rooms. The process was slow. Rooms were vacant while people slept on the street. The Department of Human Services wanted to handpick people in shelter case management programs or employable in their PAES program. After the Coalition on Homelessness and the Tenderloin Housing Clinic negotiated the Master Lease program with the Department of Human Services as a solid unifying force, the Hartland, Jefferson Seneca, Mission and Vicente hotels were approved as sites for San Francisco’s Master Leasing program."

The approval for these hotels means that these buildings are no longer managed and/or operated by their owners. These buildings are managed and maintained by employees of City Housing, a nonprofit in San Francisco. However, any major repairs are the owners’ responsibility. Residents of these hotels pay their rents to City Housing, which uses it to pay the monthly lease to the private owners of the hotels.

I asked Kerry Abbott of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic who actually is eligible for the Master Lease program? "Originally, only people coming out of case management for 30 days in shelters and those on PAES were eligible. Now, people working with any community-based agency can be referred." Kerry stated that this system is much better than the earlier policy.

I asked Paul Boden why have only five buildings out of 100 signed onto the Master Lease program?

"I am glad that there have only been five buildings to sign on at this point," stated Paul with an expressionless tone. "The access is not broad enough to satisfy the Coalition on Homelessness. If you are not able to go to work, for example, you cannot access these hotels." It seems the policies around the Master Lease program are not yet satisfactory, according to Paul Boden. With a surge of renewed interested, he went on to state that, "If we use government money to lease a building, then there should be a long-term plan to own that building and any homeless person should have an equal shot to access the building. Furthermore, there should be made available, if government money is used, direct access to housing throughout for people with disabilities."

There have been much handwriting on the walls of the Jefferson since that day in 1999, when I was told that I had no rights in my room. Today, however, thanks to the masterplan of both the Coalition on Homelessness and Tenderloin Housing Clinic, if the walls could talk, they would say to me, "Welcome to your clean home, master!"