2001

pstrongReport from the Mid-Market PAC Meetings, a project of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency:/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/449/photo_2_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Fiona Gow/PNN staff/p pMeetings by those interested in the massive recharacterization of thebr / Mid-Market Street have been going on for some time now. Considering thebr / number of people who make that area their home as well as the number ofbr / small businesses that will surely be kicked out the moment wealthybr / developers come in, it seemed only logical that these meetings would be abr / volatile place. I was assigned to cover the Mid-Market PAC meeting on Mondaybr / afternoon, in large part because Joe, a columnist atbr / POOR, had been one of the only representatives of the low-income community present at the meetings for the last several months./p pThe agenda alone was really all I needed to look at to know how thebr / meeting would proceed. The two main items on it were presentations bybr / Nordstrom's and AGI Capital, both of which want to create hundreds of newbr / parking spaces for shoppers to put their cars while they spend money in thebr / area. The Nordstrom's rep sold the idea of parking on the grounds that itbr / would reduce valet parking and since people would be parking their cars somebr / distance from the stores, there would be more pedestrian traffic and hencebr / more shopping./p pDee Gray, co-editor of POOR Magazine, asked the rep if he'd consulted thebr / people who actually live in the Mid-Market area to see what development theybr / would like to see. He admitted that no residents had been directlybr / consulted, but that there had been meetings with other coalitions similar tobr / the one meeting that afternoon. Looking at who was at this meeting, thosebr / were not very inspiring words./p p Dee asked if affordable housing wasn't the most necessary development,br / to which the representative responded that the findings of numerous studiesbr / would guide him in the right direction. Nordstrom's, as longtime investor inbr / San Francisco, would do what was best for the city. He said that thebr / community wasn't being ignored. A grocery store was being considered forbr / placement on the first floor and possibly some housing on the top floor./p pThe second presenter from AGI Capital wasn't much more enlightened. Thebr / focus of the discourse was on how pleasant the walk down Stevenson Alleybr / could be for the people who parked their cars at the new structure onbr / Mission Street. In addition to parking, this structure would be a multi-usebr / one, meaning there would be offices, businesses and some housing, butbr / probably not low-income housing./p p Both presenters said they would see what's most lucrative and what isbr / best for the city. No one is asking them to be benevolent, but when they saybr / they are considering what is best for the city, they should really clarifybr / whose city they are talking about. And when they say the studies show thatbr / parking would be best, we need to ask what criteria is being used in thosebr / studies. If developers and business people are the only attendees at thesebr / meetings, surely the interests of low-income people already living in thebr / area will be ignored and displacement will be inevitable. According to otherbr / attendees at the meeting, this was the first time that any acknowledgmentbr / had been made of the fact that a huge number of low-income people live inbr / the mid-Market area. Surely those people deserve to be heard more thanbr / anyone since, it is their lives that will be most affected by megabr / developers brazenly moving in./p p Joe needs more company at these meetings. If you are interested inbr / attending the next Mid-Market PAC Meeting, please call POOR Magazine at 863-6306./p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/469/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Dee Gray/p pb p3rd Letter To Mid-Market PAC From Dee Gray at POOR Magazine/p pRe: Update on Joseph Bolden's possible return to the Mid Market PAC/p/b/p pDear Ms. Diamond and Mid Market PAC Members, September 11, 2001 /p pDee Gray, Joseph Bolden and the staff at Poor Magazine are currently discussing Joseph Bolden's possible return to the Mid Market PAC. There are certain conditions, however that must be arranged. Because Joseph Bolden is poor and living in an SRO in the Mid Market area, his life is sometimes too overwhelming. Therefore, he cannot always attend the Mid Market PAC meetings, and should not be terminated as a result./p pA possibility would be for a participant in our bMedia Studies Program/b to attend occasionally in his stead. We are in the process of developing this and then proposing it to the Mid- Market PAC group./p pI wonder if they have the kind of empathy needed to understand this situation regarding Joe Bolden. If not, I wonder why they are attempting to change the conditions of the lives of those living in the Mid Market area./p pThank-you,br / br /Dee Graybr / br /Co-editor, `POOR Magazine andbr / The New Journalism/Media Studies Program/p pb2nd Letter to the Mid- Market PAC for the Mid-Market Redevelopment Project/b/p pRe: A response letter from Dee Gray/p pDear Carolyn Diamond, br /August 28, 2001/p pIt is interesting to note that although Joseph Bolden missed the time stated in your letter you did not feel it necessary to terminate his position in Mid-Market PAC until the day he brought some of his colleagues from Poor Magazine to your meeting./p pOne of his colleagues questioned a developer at the meeting to attempt to find out if that developer had ever bothered to ask the people that now sleep and hang out on 6th Street, close to the space he wants to develop into a parking lot and office space for Nordstrom's, what kinds of development they would like to see. The developer answered that his company had not done surveys but others had. At this time police sweeps are done routinely in that area to get rid of the so called "bad people" who hang out there./p pAffordable housing was mentioned at the meeting, but this term is utterly meaningless. For example, HUD defines affordable housing as housing costing up to $200,000. Low-income housing is the kind of development most needed in that area./p pHowever, in many cases people that hang out, rant and rave, use shopping carts for their possessions, loiter, yell at people or don't yell at people, sit quietly, sleep, and eat in this area don't necessarily want to live in any housing. So where will they go when the businessmen, parking lots, and affordable housing take over? Why can't San Francisco, like other cities, have a place for them? Why does SF have to clean up and cutesify every area in town?/p pThese were the issues voiced and implied at the last meeting Joseph Bolden attended. What an odd coincidence it was that within a day or two you sent Joseph Bolden his termination letter, which was of course read aloud to all of his colleagues at Poor Magazine./p pWe, the colleagues of Joseph Bolden, do not accept this termination.We believe it is your way of halting our influence, through Joseph, on your committee decisions about what development is allowed in the area under discussion. Incidentally, Joseph is the only person on your committee who is currently experiencing living in a Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel./p pRather than being terminated, Joseph Bolden should become chairman of your committee. Joseph was one of the those folks on Market Street that you want to be rid of. Now, through many struggles, he is housed on Market Street in a room and works full time at Poor Magazine. He is a POVERTY HERO and yet you demean him as though he was one of those people in "The Mess on Market Street" to whom you are trying to give a one-way ticket to Palookaville./p pRespectfully, /p p br /Dee Graybr / br /Co-Editor of POOR Magazine/p p br /Joseph Boldenbr / br /and Staff at Poor Magazine/p pb1st Letter- A letter of termination from the Mid-Market PAC for Joseph Bolden, PNN "inside the mess" beat reporter/b /p pFrom: Mid-Market PACbr / br /870 Market Streetbr / br /San Francisco, CA 94102/p pAugust 21, 2001/p pDear Joe:/p pThe by-laws of the Project Area Committee for the Mid-Market Redevelopment Project, as amended on May 10, 2001, state that any member of the PAC absent from (4) meetings within one calendar year shall result in the termination from the Mid Market PAC./p pOur records show that you have not attended 6 PAC meetings this calendar year. Therefore, you are considered terminated from the Project Area Committee for the Mid-Market Redevelopment Project./p pWe thank you for your participation and hope that you will continue to have an interest in the PAC's work./p pIf you have questions please do not hesitate to contact me./p pSincerely,/p pCarolyn Diamondbr / br /Mid Market PAC Staff/p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/435/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Tiger Walsh /p pabsencebr / br /what you search to fillbr / br /with every pill poppedbr / br /praying not to feelbr / br /tearing of rocks and razorsbr / br /gutting dreams from the bottombr / br /of your belly where the visionarybr / br /the prophetbr / br /the healerbr / br /the hopebr / br /the creator in you used to livebr / br /now where the thunder of hideousness rumblesbr / br /persistant like beatingsbr / br /from police employers strangers familybr / br /convincing youbr / br /to be the monster we see on TVbr / br /ricki lake sally jesse jerry springerbr / br /you know the fucked up contortionsbr / br /they force your reality intobr / br /justifying your grotesque punishment/p pthis is for the queensbr / br / the fairiesbr / br / the high maintenance femmesbr / br / the stone butchesbr / br / the 24/7 transsexualsbr / br / the gender benders/p p i pay homage to my predecessorsbr / br / it is becuz of youbr / br /that i can flaunt my desirebr / br / for lipstick and silicone dicks lips sticking to clitsbr / br / this shit is not sickbr / br / you taught me to carry pridebr / br / in my panties proud of heavy pantingsbr / br /the way our queers hearts love is nothing lessbr / br /than spiritual perfection endless complicationsbr / br /of beautiful never settle for lessbr / br /than freedombr / br /your herstory is built on stone wallsbr / br /you beat back the prison cells of gender withbr / br /martini glasses bar stools andbr / br /high heels/p pnow 32 years laterbr / br / i benefit from your strugglebr / br /we all dobr / br /queer youth coming out youngerbr / br /and younger expanding the bounderies of genderbr / br /normalities further and further but the strugglebr / br /continues cuz the billy clubs don’t stopbr / br /searching for mini skirts with dicksbr / br /gender police pricks still criminalizing your identitybr / br /our families still unforgivingbr / br /not realizing they got blessed/p pso i kneel and pray that you reclaim the sunshinebr / br /in your smile the tree trunk curvebr / br /of your spine you are divinebr / br /and always have been indigenous women humblybr / br /approach you asking for a blessing cuz they knowbr / br /you are closer to godbr / br /occupying the promise land between male and femalebr / br /your resistance the roots of rebellionbr / br /unearthing the atrocious truth of this capitalist systembr / br /so breathe full belliedbr / br /melt the rocks for the goddess in you to lead usbr / br /forward in this fight towards freedombr / br /towards justice towards lifebr / br /open lungs expand heartsbr / br /breathe us towards lifebr / br /in this fight for our livesbr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongA PNN insider journey through San Francisco's shelters, social service agencies, andbr / government bureaucracies.br / /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/450/photo_2_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Michael Lea Morgan, PNN shelter beat reporter./p pbSeries #1: Perspectives from the street/b /p pAs one of the shelter beat reporters for PNN I will be documenting my experiences on the street and in the shelters, with support services, as well as the day-to-day hassles of homeless and/or low-income life. /p pI became homeless, ironically, when some homeless people burned my house down in Los Banos. After working in the National Guard Armory shelter in San Jose, then moving to SF and volunteering at the Coalition on Homelessness, I began to devise ways I thought the homeless issue could be better dealt with. So I will not only be presenting eye-witness accounts of homeless people’s experiences, but will be suggesting possible reasons why the system is set up the way it is as well as solutions which could be initiated./p pI am a pretty strong person, but my experiences with the system of homeless service providers still affects me because of the nature of being homeless. But what about someone experiencing emotional pain, fear (behind losing a family, a house, etc) and anxiety (at being completely broke and homeless for the 1st time)? It is essential that the services being provided for people be as compassionate as they can be, due to the nature of the situation. In a rape crisis center, for example, you must have staff who are sensitive to the issues involved. But in the homeless services arena you have staff members who are obviously unsuited for their jobs. Even though homelessness is a crisis situation…../p pb pIt was raining OutSide/p/b/p p.. /pp It was raining and we were outside the Episcopal Sanctuary Shelter (EPS), waiting for the beds to be given out. They were supposed to read the numbers at 7:45 pm, but they were late, so we all stood out in the rain and waited. (When you stay at the Sanctuary, you are expected have it together to be out by 8 am or you get written up- why aren’t the people working inside the shelter required to get it together to read the numbers at the designated time? Although this incident happened months ago, they read the numbers at 8:20 last night also [3/19/01], so this is an on-going situation). When the woman finally came out, at 8:15, she was wasting time laughing and bullshitting and the crowd began to say things like, "Read the numbers. It's cold out here.” The woman responded by saying that if we kept up that racket she would give out the beds to whomever she wanted, and would cut out the trouble-makers. /p pNo one was being a trouble-maker. We were expressing a legitimate concern, one which I certainly shared./p pWhat adds to the frustration one feels when the staff acts like this is the fact that the Town Hall Meetings (held monthly at the Sanctuary purportedly for the purpose of allowing residents to report cases of staff misconduct as well as suggestions for improving services) are nothing but a smoke screen, seemingly just a set-up to let residents THINK they have been heard—to let off people's steam and deflate the potential for people to really go off and take constructive action. /p pAt one Town Hall Meeting I suggested that they at least have an awning for when it rains, so that people don't have to stand in the rain to get their numbers read (especially if they are going to read the numbers late, right?). They said that they did not have the money for that. I also suggested that they move the cold drink machine from its current location because people have to walk right in front of the TV to get to it. It could be placed at the back of the room. Lynn Armstrong, the director, said that the machine also produces a lot of heat and should be re-located outside of the room altogether. /p pTown Hall Meetings are an insult to my intelligence, and a waste of my time. If they are simply not going to take any of my suggestions seriously, then what is the purpose of the meeting? It gives people a sense of being disempowered because our input is, for the most part, disregarded when the shelter does not feel like implementing the suggestion. /p pIn 1996, when I first came to The City, I was at a Town Hall Meeting and they had someone there who took "minutes.” When I returned to the shelter in 1999, they had discontinued this practice, with the result that what they type up as having been said at the Town Hall meeting can be whatever they feel like typing up. I have come out of Town Hall meetings and later looked at the "minutes" posted several days later, noticing that half the stuff I brought up was not on the sheet. I guess they don't really want the whole shelter to be aware of what is being suggested by the residents./p pMy big question is: where is the homeless-run shelter in town? There are homeless-run groups, like POOR Magazine and the Day Labor Program, Food-not-Bombs, and Homes-Not-Jails. They all challenge the system in their own ways and not only offer valid critiques, but do real service. The shelters and funded homeless service providers are, for the most part, made up of non-homeless people. How are the homeless shut out of the system to such a total extent, when many of them are fully capable of running any agency or shelter in this town? What has happened there? Obviously no one at DHS, the Mayor’s Office on Homelessness, Hospitality House, Saint Anthony’s, Glide, etc. has deemed it possible to train homeless people to run their own shelters. But the homeless ARE capable of it. So, the conclusions I draw are:/p p1) Possibly the idea of training homeless people to take one’s job seems self-defeating.br /br / 2) No, it couldn’t be that. Okay, the non-homeless liberals who actually administrate don’t understand the homeless (and their capabilities).br /br / 3) No, that’s still not it (because if #1 and/or #2 are true, we have a problem on our hands, like what to do about it./p pSo, on to my great solution. (One time a smart-ass activist loudly and publicly said “So here’s Michael, the man with all the answers.” We are rude to one another because of . . . ?) What we need is for homeless people to begin getting together as kindred spirits to meet and brainstorm, to learn to relate to one another, to study design and implementation, and go out and design and implement as a specific group or collective of related groups. The existing structure is there and much of it is taking along just fine; this is an addition, a new kid on the block, not really a completely novel approach because collectives have been around forever, but something new at this time, in this place where I find myself. /p pAll responses, pro and con, are welcome; please contact me at: a href="mailto:ravencrow@eudoramail.com"ravencrow@eudoramail.com/a, or (415)430-2168, x9335./p pI Note from the editor: James Tracy from The Coalition on Homelessness has launched The Right to a Roof Project which is working on trying to get funding for a long-term housing project that is designed and run by homeless and formerly homeless Bay Area residents. As well, POOR Magazine ran a congregate house for very low and no income homeless single parents and their children with on-site literary and visual art workshops and community dinners. After one year they were unable to attain funding to continue operating and are still seeking support. /i/p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong I discovered that citizens were sold homes that were not repaired as required by Title 7 USCS C.F.R. 1955.116. I was one of those citizens./strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/475/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Judith M. Hansel /p pI never expected that I would have to seek protection from another country when I purchased a home in Wisconsin that had been in a USDA housing program. But I discovered that citizens were sold homes that were not repaired as required by Title 7 USCS C.F.R. 1955.116. I was one of those citizens./p pThe first three reports in this series explained how I was defrauded by the US government; how I tried to remedy the fraud by making it public; and how I was jailed and threatened with involuntary commitment to the Winnebago Mental Institution when I refused to shut up. /p pI arrived at the Rainy River, Ontario border crossing at 10 AM on June 12, 1993. On June l4 I filed a claim for Convention Refugee status at the Canada Immigration Center in Thunder Bay. In order to gain refugee status, a person’s subjective fear must be based on objective events. I was fearful of involuntary commitment and my fear was based on my multiple arrests and violations of my U.S. Constitutional rights as well as my human rights. I had the documents that proved that these events had happened to me./p pThe Immigration Officers took my claim seriously and told me that I was eligible for a Convention Refugee hearing. That hearing took place four months later on October 6. I gave binders to the Immigration Refugee Board members that contained my documents. At the conclusion of the hearing, the Board members told me that they would mail their decision to me./p pI received the IRB’s decision in late November. It denied me Convention Refugee status. The decision was a lie that confused my statements, ignored facts and stated events out of sequence. I appealed this decision to the Federal Court-Trial Division in Ottawa. The Canadian Justice Department did not reply within the time limit imposed by law./p pIn March 1994 the Enforcement Division of the Ministry of Immigration tried to deport me in violation of Canadian law. I was able to convince the Prime Minister’s office and the Minister of Immigration that it would be a documented miscarriage of justice if they deported me. My deportation was put on hold./p pIn June 1994 the Minister of Justice finally responded to my Appeal by requesting from the Court an extension of time. A retroactive extension of time was granted./p pAs this point I decided to leave Thunder Bay. Many non-official incidents happened to me in Thunder Bay, all of which are recounted in my book./p pI spent July and part of August in Sudbury and late August until October in Toronto. In December I moved to Niagara Falls, Ontario. I received the denial of my appeal in February and on June 9 was arrested. (It should be noted that in Canada an appellant needs to request permission to file an appeal. That request was denied which meant the Court never addressed the issues). I was deported without a hearing (which is required by the Immigration Act) on June 12, 1995, two years to the day from when I had first arrived. On June 13 I returned to Canada using another person’s Canadian ID. I traveled to Sudbury and, late in July, rode a Greyhound bus to Calgary. Since I had all the evidence necessary to prove that I was a Convention Refugee, I had no intention of just giving up. I left Calgary on October 3l and arrived in Lethbridge, where I continued to live under my Canadian identity./p pIn January 1996 I was arrested again. At my arraignment I refused to sign a Recognizance that stated that I had arrived in Canada on January 4. A RCMP officer committed perjury when he swore that I returned on January 4, when he knew I could prove that I had returned on June 13, 1995. The prison psychologist threatened to send me to the Psych Ward at Foot Hills Hospital if I did not sign the Recognizance. I signed the perjured document in order to stay out of a mental ward./p pI was deported on January 17 and arrived in San Francisco late on January 18. I rented hotel rooms until March 29 when I traveled to Sacramento for two weeks and then spent a few days in Seattle. I submitted an affidavit to the Alberta Court in Lethbridge that outlined my Convention Refugee case and the dates of my arrivals in Canada. My trial was set for April 22 and I planned to defend myself./p pI crossed the border into British Columbia on April 17, 1996, exactly 90 days after my deportation. I was unable to attend my trial in Lethbridge due to insufficient funds and the fear that Lethbridge authorities might return me to Wisconsin. I lived in Vancouver and a few towns on Vancouver Island until September 13, when I was arrested again. /p pAt a hearing with the Senior Immigration Officer in Victoria, I relayed my story to her. She said that I was eligible for a second Convention Refugee hearing. After several weeks with frustrating contacts with the Vancouver Canadian Immigration Center, I requested a change of venue to Ottawa. I arrived in Ottawa on February 27 for my March 20 Convention Refugee hearing. In addition to my evidence from the earlier hearing, I added the violations of my human rights that occurred while I lived in San Francisco./p pIn June I received the denial of Convention Refugee status and immediately filed a Request for Leave and for Judicial Review. Again the Attorney General did not respond within the legal time limit, moved for an extension of time, and received it from the Court. On September 25 the Registrar of the Court told me that my Request was denied./p pI packed up two days later and went to Sudbury where I was arrested on January 5, and deported again on January 17, 1998./p pI spent a week with my sons and their families in Maryland. Brian, the youngest, was in a chronic care hospital with a neurological-genetic defect that was terminal. When I visited him he told me to “go for it” when I told him about my latest deportation and my indecision about returning to Canada. That weekend, Pope John Paul II was in Cuba where he told the people to “work for human rights.” It seemed that I needed to go back to Canada if only to carry on a lost cause for human rights./p pSince I had not received the written decision from the Federal Court-Trial Division, I returned to Niagara Falls, Ontario on January 27, 1998. In February I received the Court’s decision that my Request for Leave was “dismissed.” There is no provision in Canadian law for “dismissing” a Request for Leave and for Judicial Review; a Request is either granted or denied./p pFeeling on firmer ground and knowing that all decisions made in my case violated the Immigration Act of Canada, Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the 195l UN Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, I returned to Sudbury on May 1./p pOn November 13 I was arrested and on November 25 I was deported. An Immigration Adjudication officer threatened me with a criminal charge if I returned to Canada again./p pThis report is just the bare bones of my five and one-half years in Canada. I need to add four important facts:/p p-I have sent reports to the UN on at least a bi-monthly basis since 1994. I have received no response.br /br / -From 1989 to 1994, forty-five US citizens claimed Convention Refugee status in Canada. None was granted. What happened to these people?br /br / -The US has not signed the 1951 UN Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees.br /br / -The US has not signed the May 1976 UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights. br / /p pSince November 25, 1998, I refuse to be repatriated by: /p pRefusing to register to vote and refusing to votebr /br / Refusing to participate in the Censusbr /br / Refusing to file IRS forms (since 1992)br /br / Refusing to have a permanent addressbr //p pMy book, iEscape from America, An Expose of International Treachery/i, goes into greater detail than these reports. /p pGandhi said, “Non-cooperation with evil is a duty.” The only thing I can do now is refuse to cooperate./p pIn my final report I will provide readers with a personal look at homelessness in San Francisco.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/437/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Leroy Moore/PoorNewsNetwork/p pOn July 26 the Bay Area and the rest of this country celebrates the eleventh birthday of the Americans with Disabilities Act, what disabled Americans call Independence Day. However, as a disabled man of color, Independence Day is still far away and I see no reason to celebrate! On July 26, 1990 President Bush turned to the four White activists with disabilities near him and proclaimed, “Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” Take another look at the picture and ask yourself who is missing from it. This picture doesn’t represent my disabled brothers and sisters./p pIn the middle of July, Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization (DAMO) got a call from a Washington, D.C. disabled organization that wanted DAMO to speak at their Disability Rights Rally in Berkeley, California. You know what I told them? I invited them to the first ever Latino Disability Awareness Day on July 26 at the Mission Council in San Francisco, where they could hear DAMO speak! You know what they said, they were “too busy”! /p pDisability Advocates of Minorities Organization celebrated, educated and organized with our Latino disabled brothers and sisters to put some color in the picture, and in the disability rights and disability culture movements. The whole week was a rainbow that brought color and energy into the San Francisco disability community. Stay tuned for a look back on the first Latino Disability Awareness Week by David Aldape. I’d like to share my Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) story through a poem. /p pbMy ADA Story/b/p pTime to educatebr / br /Always need to advocatebr / br /But there is no time to celebrate/p pWe’ve the highest unemployment ratebr / br /What is going to happen to our fatebr / br /Our leaders are not awake/p pThe independent living movement is fakebr / br /While we blow out the candles on the cakebr / br /For God sake speak the truth for the youth’s sake/p pWe’re segregated, incarcerated and discriminatedbr / br /In every statebr / br /Do you see a reason to celebrate/p pDon’t want to straybr / br /From the old waysbr / br /No wonder our youth can’t relate/p pThe eleventh anniversarybr / br /Let’s get down and dirtybr / br /I’ve got an ADA story/p pBeen unemployed for a centurybr / br /Buildings not accessible in my communitybr / br /Disabled brothers and sisters are in the penitentiary/p pThe realizationbr / br /Is nobody looks like mebr / br /In management position in your organizations/p pAnother year and another ADA celebrationbr / br /Here I am telling you the real situationbr / br /There you go playing down my contribution/p pThe movement needs an earthquakebr / br /We don’t deserve cakebr / br /It’s time to debate the story that created the ADA/p pb pBy Leroy F. Moore Jr.br / br /7\01br / /p/b/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongDrug Testing, Darrell Russell and The Probowl “parole-like” policy/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/452/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby TJ Johnston/p pTo the casual (and possibly avid) sports fan, Oakland Raider Darrell Russell’s four-game suspension due to the National Football League’s drug policy appears to be deserved. This was his second offense, meaning a loss of $112,000 per week for No. 96 as well as being benched. Already in the program, the two-time All-Pro is reported to have submitted to over 200 drug tests./p pHowever, Russell’s sidelining wasn’t the result of a dirty urinalysis test: there was none to speak of./p pSpeaking on Russell’s behalf, agent Leigh Steinberg stated the NFL called him to take another test when Russell wasn’t home; his lack of a prompt response was construed as a “failure to comply,” which is the equivalent of testing positive. This detail, “an administrative transgression” in Steinberg’s words, was buried or otherwise omitted in most reports./p pLeague policy on drug use is as follows: any player with a positive UA of illicit or legal drugs enters into a three-stage program./p pIn Stage One, he undergoes a psychiatric evaluation and enters into a mandatory treatment contract. A three-week check fine is charged for failing to cooperate./p pStage Two is a series of UA’s, up to ten a month during a two-year period. A first positive means loss of four weeks’ pay, plus a suspension if he’s been previously fined. A second positive results in a four to six week suspension./p pAny player in Stage Three who tests “dirty” or doesn’t test is scrutinized for three years and could take up to 10 UA’s a month. Failure results in a minimum of one year’s exile./p pThis is worth repeating: not testing, in the eyes of the NFL, means testing positive. And apparently, not returning their calls in a timely fashion constitutes same./p pWhen I asked Raiders spokesperson Craig Long for an analog outside the sports realm, he gave a “no comment,” citing league policy. Not surprising given that the NFL is notoriously tight-lipped about disciplining players on drug issues. Russell intimated marijuana use for the previous action taken against him: he claimed to have tested on “second hand smoke.”/p pTeammate Charles Woodson, himself charged with a DUI, pithily likened policy enforcement to “being out on parole.” However one feels about athletes and their off-field peccadilloes, there might be “substance” to Woodson’s assessment./p pIs it just like parole? “Pretty close,” according to Naneen Karrasker, coordinator of the Criminal Justice Consortium. Karrasker describes a typical parole scenario in California: a parolee is assigned to a parole officer for a two-year period, meeting weekly or monthly./p pIn most cases, the parolee must remain in the “county of commitment” where he/she was originally sentenced. Under a PO’s supervision, a parolee might be subjected to UA’s. On a second or third positive, he/she would be sent back to prison and face an extended parole upon release. At the PO’s discretion, the parolee might enter treatment (however limited those options might be)./p pMost PO’s, Karrasker adds, are former prison guards. In the last 20 years, PO’s have carried sidearms. “They changed from being helpers to police.” She also cites that a major difference between Russell and a typical parolee would be the degree of stigmatization and disorientation upon release./p pA parolee could be in violation for associating with a known felon. Russell, on the other hand, could hang with Baltimore Raven Ray Lewis without a black mark against him./p pWe’ve all heard the joke, “You can’t spell FELON without NFL.” But even felons are entitled their day in court. Presumption of innocence until proof of guilt is a cornerstone of due process. Due process is also the grease that keeps workplace justice running. By sanctioning Russell for failing a drug test sans sample, the NFL showed they got that principle ass-backward. The appropriate time would have been when they found something in the cup Russell filled. I assume even a UA done by a parole agent is conducted on this presumption. /p pFor all the privilege afforded him, Russell is still entitled a chance to answer the NFL’s charges, as anyone else in peril of losing their livelihood when brought on a substance claim./p pDue process appears to be absent in Russell’s case. Wouldn’t taking 200 UA’s already cut Russell some slack? I guess not. Is returning the Pee Police’s call a little late just cause for a mandatory leave of absence? Judging on play review, it is. Somebody missed that call. /p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong Crisis dialogues from grassroots community based organizations, community leaders, conscious adults and youth, artists and folk on the crisis of September 11, 2001.br / /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/476/photo_2_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby PNN Staff/p pEditor’s Note: The mainstream media promotes WAR through its standard, yellow journalism process—calling for WAR before BUSH even called for it, promoting the amorphous notion of WAR on a vaguely defined “enemy”. With this column we hope to honor the lives lost and to promote understanding and empathy for all people in an attempt to deconstruct the notion of PEACE in the 21st Century. We hope to accomplish this through the sharing of ideas, information and action from a broad range of grassroots organizations, artists and citizens. To participate in the community dialogue, submit your words, opinions and ideas via email to a href="mailto:poormag@sirius.com"poormag@sirius.com/a./p p We are also updating our bCalendar for Conscious Citizens/b daily to include all peace rallys, actions and events related to the Crisis. To submit information for publication please email or fax information to POOR at least one week before the event./p pFinally, the writers and artists of POOR Magazine, as very poor adults and youth, are always fighting our own personal, family, and community based battles just to stay alive and housed, attain healthcare, food, and basic services—one of our ways of surviving these assaults is to heal, grieve, and resist through the creation of words and images, poetry, and art as well as journalism, so we will be publishing a series of poetry, entitled Peace NOT War!! available on the Po' Poets Project page. To submit poetry or art for publication, please email us your words and/or images to:tiny@poormagazine.orgbr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong Women at statewide Community Dialogues Demand that Mothers’ Work Count in Welfare Reform/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/438/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Ruth Todasco/p pAt community dialogues on IWelfare "Reform" Reauthorization and Valuing Caring Work/iheld across the country in July, a new grassroots women’s welfare movement announced itself. Women spoke out demanding “Mothering is real work, we want real wages!” and “We want the choice to raise our own children” and spoke against the ravages of welfare “reform”. Welfare mothers, grandmothers, other caregivers, former recipients, women not on welfare and even a few welfare workers were in fight-back mode, expressing excitement and relief that welfare “reform” was finally being challenged on the basis that Imothers are already working/i. A wide variety of women—young and old, mainly but not only of color, many who are disabled or whose children are disabled, lesbian and immigrant —opposed being forced to either leave their children for any low-wage work or be dependent on a man. /p pThe community dialogues held in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco were called for by the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network—a multi-racial, grassroots network campaigning for the work of raising children and other caring work to be recognized as work, and for the quantity of work that mothers do and its economic value to be reflected in mothers’ right to welfare and other benefits. An all-volunteer activist network that began in LA in 1997—where it succeeded in getting LA County to spend $74 million for an after-school program to meet the childcare needs of mothers forced out to work – EMWM has grown into a national network./p pThe dialogues focused on the 1996 law that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with a ”work first” program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), and destroyed welfare as a right and entitlement. “Hundreds of thousands of mothers have been forced to leave children as young as six weeks for 20-32 hours of work each week, almost always at low wages with few benefits,” according to Margaret Prescod of EMWM in LA, who is also with International Black Women for Wages for Housework. “As the majority of women now on welfare are Black and Latina, welfare ‘reform’ is a racist attack and promotes a racist tradition,“ said Prescod. Asian and Latina women at the dialogues underscored how immigrants are denied benefits. /p pWhile politicians brag of success by pointing to lower welfare rolls, more money is spent on welfare reform than on welfare. But now it goes to profit-making companies administering programs instead of to women raising children. Many women have simply dropped off the economic radar and are homeless, or living with relatives or friends, or have been driven to crimes of poverty to survive. For those who have found paid work, the average post-welfare wage is $6.75/hour and their health is destroyed by overwork and lack of benefits, according to one participant. The 60-month lifetime limit on benefits will leave mothers and children with nothing when their clock stops, which for those who were on welfare in 1996 will happen very soon. /p pCongress has until September 30, 2002 to review TANF. EMWM and supporters are using this opportunity to press for fundamental changes. Congressional hearings once again are excluding testimony on the caring work of mothers. The dialogues heard heartrending stories from over 100 mothers who were angry and frustrated at being ignored, which highlights the urgency to take action against overwork, exhaustion and poverty. The many tears that were shed didn’t hide the women’s determination to be heard, and to confront politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, as well as non-profit groups that refuse to challenge them. /p p “We are tired of those so-called ‘advocates’ who are supposed to represent us, instead of selling us down the river, because basically they agree with the government that mothers need to go out and get a ‘real’ job,” said Pat Albright, a former welfare recipient and single mother of EMWM in Philadelphia. The dialogues distinguished themselves from other forums on welfare by having mothers speaking for themselves about how they have been affected. EMWM will submit women’s testimony “reform” to Congress./p pWomen said they were treated like they had committed a crime during home visits by welfare workers. A Latina mother related the shock of being wrongfully terminated with little notice. A Black grandmother lost payment for the care of four grandchildren but is fighting on. Older women said that after a lifetime of caring for children, they are now counted on to take care of grandchildren and great-grandchildren so that their daughters can take on waged employment. One mother said she had to risk leaving her children at home alone, because she could not afford childcare and had no grandmother to help. Teenage mothers spoke about being put down and deprived of resources. Lesbian mothers spoke about being forced to name the father and sue him for child support —and the welfare department keeps most of the money. A woman from Wages Due Lesbians and a woman who works in a domestic violence shelter both said welfare reform is pushing marriage and financial dependence on men as the solution for women's poverty, putting women at risk of violence. /p pRousing victories were also shared about winning benefits wrongfully denied./p pA childcare worker saw children becoming more attached to her than to their own mothers. "There's more to being a mother than paying the bills and saying, ‘I got a check today,’" she said. Welfare ”reform” treats caregivers like “interchangeable parts”, with no recognition of the unique relationship between each caregiver and each child, beginning with mothers themselves, said a woman from WinVisible, women with visible and invisible disabilities. Mothers of children with disabilities or serious illnesses are made to work 30 hours outside the home, although they are supposed to be exempt under the law. A former breast-feeding advocate now on welfare spoke of the pain of separation from infants and how welfare reform flies in the face of the American Pediatrics Association recommendation for one year minimum of breastfeeding. /p pA Black mother described her degrading treatment at the welfare office, adding that the race of the workers didn’t matter: they all treated welfare moms badly. A welfare worker revealed that many workers deny information to recipients and say they don’t want to be near “them”. A Black woman called the government ”baby snatchers”, paying agencies to take children away. She lost her child by asking too many questions./p pFormer prisoners said they were denied welfare for a felony drug conviction and imprisoned mothers risked permanently losing their children. “Prisons are a big business, you can bet there is a plan in place to fill them. Nobody in my neighborhood has planes bringing in drugs from overseas,” one mom said. Women of color, mostly mothers, are the fastest-growing prison population, growth fueled by welfare reform./p pYoung people described the pain of watching their mothers struggle. A Black woman spoke in tears of trying to feed her family on $20 a week, and said she would do anything to make sure there is food on the table. A nurse spoke about the price your children pay because you don’t have the time, energy or patience to meet their needs, or your own. The New York Times reported on July 31 that welfare reform has had a consistently negative impact on adolescent children, in all studies that have been done./p pMen, including young Latino, Black and Asian men, helped with the event and spoke out in support of caring work being valued —women’s and their own. A national labor organizer said welfare reform has brought down everyone’s wages, especially women’s. Some participants said that while money is taken from women and children, billions are being spent for the military including “Star Wars” and military intervention in countries of the Global South to protect US-based multinationals./p pThe grassroots movement to value caring work is continuing to gain momentum. Pressed by the International Women Count Network, the UN agreed in 1995 that governments should measure and value unwaged work in national economic accounts. The Wall Street Journal reported that a mother’s “multi-tasking” is worth $500,000 a year. In many countries women get a “family allowance”. But the US —the world’s richest country—has no allowance or paid maternity leave. Women’s unwaged caring work is valued at $11 trillion worldwide, according to the UN. /p pNext steps by EMWM include “teach-ins” in the fall, as well as plans to be part of the 3rd Global Women’s Strike on March 8, 2002 whose first demand is “Payment for all caring work”. /p pBy Ruth Todasco/p pPlease contact: Every Mother Is a Working Mother Network:br / br /Los Angeles: PO Box 86681, LA, CA 90086 323-292-7405 phone faxbr / br /San Francisco: PO Box 14512 SF, CA 94114 415-626-4114 phone faxbr / br /Philadelphia: PO Box 11795 Philadelphia, PA 19101 215-848-1120 phone; 215-848-1130 faxbr / br /Email: West Coast a href="mailto:70742.3012@compuserve.com"70742.3012@compuserve.com/abr / br /Email: East Coast a href="mailto:72144.1055@compuserve.com"72144.1055@compuserve.com/abr / br /Global Women’s Strike Webpage: a href="http://womenstrike8m.server101.com" title="http://womenstrike8m.server101.com"http://womenstrike8m.server101.com/abr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong pbLow Levels of Radiationbr / in metals to be reused inbr / domestic products./b/p pbOxymoron, Darwin Awardbr / Winning Logic In Action./b/p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joe. B./p pHi. Joe, No time, to explainbr / why this is not a column, but what's here... is Abr / br /potentialy Deadly Serious Matter for all. /p pReader Beware, and spread the word./p p Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:48:45 -0700br / br /To: a href="mailto:ampb@california.com"ampb@california.com/abr / Subject: radioactive metals? /p pDear Readers,br / I would like to alert you to something that affects us all verybr / seriously. br /bThe U.S. Department of Energy is planning on taking scrapbr / metals contaminated with "low level" radiation and recycling them into thebr / commercial metal stream. This metal would then be incorporated intobr / everyday household and personal metal products./b For more information onbr / this, go to the following website: /p p b http://www.em.doe.gov/smpeis/index.html/b /p p For your own health and the health of future generations, please take thebr / time to email the D.O.E. and tell them to stop this dangerous plan. bTherebr / is no such thing as a "safe dose" of radiation.br / /b If this radioactive metalbr / gets thrown onto the scrap pile, the consequences will be very serious! /p p Please pass this message on to anyone who cares about health andbr / environmental issues.br / bThe deadline for comments is September 10./b Feelbr / free to use the sample letter below or use your own words. The emailbr / address is:br / /p p a href="mailto:Metals.Disposition.PEIS@em.doe.gov"Metals.Disposition.PEIS@em.doe.gov/a /p pbr /b The fax number is (301) 903-9770 /b/p p Kenneth Picha, Jr.br / br / Office of Technicalbr / br /Program Integrationbr / EM-22, /p p Attn: Metals Disposition PEISbr / br /Office of Environmental Managementbr / US Dept. of Energybr / 1000 Independence Ave. SWbr / Washington, DC 20585-0113 /p p Dear Mr. Picha,br / I am writing you to express my concern over the DOE plans to recyclebr / br / metal contaminated with low level radiation into the commercial metalbr / stream. /pp This material should not even be transported. br /The idea of mixingbr / it in with all the other scrap metal is horrible. /p pThe radioactivity wouldbr / just spread and contaminate the whole world. /ppThis plan should be verybr / carefully reconsidered and all citizens should be given a reasonable lengthbr / of time to comment on it. /ppbAs it is, the comment period ends on Septemberbr / 10 and hardly anyone has even heard of the plan outside of DOE./b /ppThebr / consequences of your actions could possibly poison every person on thebr / planet, so please use your authority and power to do the right thing. /ppIbr / think at the very least the scope of the Environmental Impact Statementbr / should include all volumetric and surface contaminated metals and allbr / materials from DOE facilities. /ppThe health effects of exposure to thisbr / material should be studied for a long time before any hasty action isbr / taken. /p p br / Sincerely, /p p Paul Griffin /p p from the Association of Micro-Power Broadcastersbr / PMB 22br / br /2018 Shattuck Ave. /p p Berkeley, CA 94704br / br /(510) 848-1455 /p pa href="mailto:ampb@california.com"ampb@california.com/a /p p If you feel you have received this email by mistake, or would like to bebr / br /off the list, simply reply with the word "remove" in the subject area. Webr / don't mean to be a bother! /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong pbInnocent Children Threatened,br / Deadly Shootings, Hero's, Heroien'sbr / in Washington./b/p pbTwo Hatemonger's drapedbr / in America's Flag Fan Flamesbr / Of Hatred./bbr /bbr / Have A Nice Day./b/p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joe. B./p pOn Monday, Sept. 17, 2001 America supposedly United States isn't./p pAs I look at tv's talking heads, listen to voices up and down AM, FM dial and the abc websites. /p pIts good to know there are some level and thoughtfull persons thinking what the word b"WAR"/b really means./p pWe've heard of hero's, heroine's of Flight '93 crashing in Pennsylvania thwarting suicidal terrorists, giving their own lives in the process sobr / lives in Washington were saved./p pFiremen, police die as the second unstable tower fell burying men trying to rescue and save lives trapped inside, individual heroism from the most unlikely people all over New York./p pBut a darkling shade is also showing itself as America is shown how destructable and mortal its citizens are./p pA few hours after Tuesday, September, 11th. Highjack suicide bombing of the World Trade Center, a smoldering fury begins as a phone call from an angry man threaten's the Islamic Institute of New York. /p p45 children in the school saying b"He was going to paint the streets with our children's blood."[Instructors of the school said.]/b /p pThe school is closed because of continued threats./p pA mosque in Denton, Texas, was firebombed, in Oklahoma City's own home grown American Terrorist Timothy McVeigh, a white racist was at first not thought as Arabs were first blamed may have helped cool some hot heads. /p pBut too late for Mr. Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 49-year old Sikh, an Indian Immigrant killed by Mr. Frank Silva Roque, 42, in a drive by shooting outside the gas station he operated. /ppMr. Roque's motivation, hate./p pThis nutcase drives 10 miles to a second gas station firing several shots through a window at a Lebanese-American clerk, then into a home of a family of Afghani decent. /p pHe's was arrested on a $1,000,000 bond. /p pWhat I worry about is this concentrated hate, rage, drowning out cool, level, clear thinking, minds like (D) Represenative Barbara Lee's lone vote against Last Friday's Authorization of force resolution./p pDeath threats in the thousands are emailed to her but supportive calls came to her also./p pAlong with the brave souls of Flight '93, fire and police personnel, Ms. Barbara Lee's name should also be added to the roster. /ppHer independant, true opinion should not garner death threats./p pWhile Fundamentalist Minister's Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell's hate filled dialogue about Gay, Lesbian, Anti Abortion tirade as fuel to anyone with the slightest homo/xenophobic streak into a full blazing molten fire./p pThen he, [J. Falwell] apologize after spewing filth on the 700 Club reads like an 'X File's b[APOLOGY AS POLICY SHOW].br / /b/p pIf Mr. P. Robertson did the same it only means they said what they meant and on international televison has already spread their airborne poison to minds susceptible to their brand of angry, smite 'em all justice.br /b/b/p pI wonder if was just a cynical way of beefing up ratings, both men could've sat privately in each others homes debating the issue as normal adults would - BUT NOOOOO, they spewed their bloody rag view across our airwaves, which is their right but morally... minds dim all over America unlike The Honorable, bRev. Amos Brown, Cecil Williams, and Mayor Willie Brown's/bbr / br /b call to decency, fairness, and standing up to bigotry is the very Essence of Spiritual Enlightened Humanity./b/p pCall me a moth b let me seek the luminous glow of hard trueth/b than easy retoric of two televised leader leading many into bleak, blank, darkening hues of ignorant dunce headed sheets of fear and hatred./p pWe know Allah, or all the thousand names of the Lord this is an aspect but not the only aspect of the holy eternal one. /p pI tend to think b'ole 'G, JC/b is a forgiving deity with a sense of irony and humor if not we'd all be dead, our souls forever burning./p pOur Father gave us free will to chose or own lives and lifestyles the, evil and good is in the eyes of the beholder and not those using the pulpit as a fearfull, psychotic call to arms of angels and devils with them being the former./p pFolks, we cannot let the knuckle dragging hatemonger's among us pull us backward. /p pIf we are American's united then these evil fractions must be isolated from freedom lover's everywhere. bCOME ON, WE'RE BETTER THAN THIS! Yes, a red-white-and blue flag with stars is taped from my window, I'd also where a ring and armlet the same colors because pI am essentially an American but that doesn't mean I'll blindly do a "Desert Shield/Storm lock step dance but will think of why, how, this happened and ways that it won't ever again if that's ever possible. /p pCould it be it's time for America as young as She/He is to grow the fuck up and deal with other countries large, small, or emerging with equality and humanity? /ppTell me your views people, I'd like to know. Bye./p pbr /Please donate what you can to Poor Magazinebr / br /C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th. br /St. Street,br / br /San Francisco, CA. 94103 br /USA /p pbr /For Joe only my snail mail:br / br /PO. Box 1230# 645br / br /Market St. San br /br / br /Francisco, CA. 94102br / br /Email to:askjoe@poormagazine.org /p p/p/b/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongInternational Hotel 24th Eviction Commemoration Celebration/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/439/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby PNN staff/p pThis past Saturday, August 4th, marked 24 years since the infamous International Hotel eviction. On August 4th 1977, the SFPD with horses and billy clubs brutally broke through a human barricade of tenants’ rights activists. Residents of the hotel, mostly poor and elderly Filipino and Chinese, were evicted from their home, the “I-Hotel” at Kearny and Jackson. The hotel also served as a community center, housing progressive service and arts organizations as well as 75 to 100 tenants. Some had lived there for over 40 years until being forced out by police defending corporate interests. It was not the first time the residents had fought to preserve their home. The I-Hotel had witnessed a long history of struggle./p p In the 1920s Filipino men, immigrating to the United States in search of work, found themselves barred from owning land or businesses. Forced into menial, low-paying labor and seasonal farm work, they stayed in rooming houses where they found a sense of community as well as affordable lodgings. The I-Hotel, once a hotel for wealthy visitors to San Francisco, housed Filipino workers for $50 a month, in the center of what was known as “Manilatown.”/p pThe 1960s found Manilatown’s neighborhood community squeezed down into one block, as the Financial District of San Francisco expanded, tearing down low-rent hotels and building high-rises and parking lots. The I-Hotel was bought in 1968 by the Milton Meyer Company. Plans were underway to build a parking garage on the lot, and tenants received eviction notices. /p pOrganizing against their eminent displacement, tenants and the United Filipino Association picketed and protested. An agreement between the two factions granted the tenants the right to stay, but one day later a fire ravaged one wing of the hotel. Three residents were killed, and the suspect fire was never fully investigated as arson. The building was condemned, and tenants once again faced eviction./p pUnder pressure from the city, the building’s management agreed to lease the I-Hotel to the residents, provided they completed all repairs and brought the building up to code within a year. The Asian American community rallied as residents, activists and students from all around the Bay Area contributed time and labor to save the I-Hotel for its tenants. The youth involved in the project found themselves in the company of wonderful storytellers and teachers. The wisdom, integrity and survival tales of these elderly immigrants inspired the successful restoration./p pThe tenants faced eviction again when the building was sold to the Four Seas Investment Corporation in 1973. The foreign corporation fought the tenants in court, and won. Tenants and activists again rallied, ion 1976 urging the city to buy the I-Hotel and preserve the affordable housing for the elderly. But Sheriff Richard Hongisto was ordered to carry out the conviction despite community protest./p pAs documented in Curtis Choy’s film The Fall of the I-Hotel, August 4th, 1977 was a night of powerful activism and barbaric police brutality. A diverse population of protestors formed a human barricade six-persons deep in an attempt to protect the I-Hotel and the elderly residents within. Police stormed with violence and aggression through the wall of activists chanting “No Evictions, We Won’t Move!”/p pEmptied of its residents, the I-Hotel was demolished by the end of the year. However, activists refused to let the issue rest. A committee known as the Kearny Street Housing Corporation kept watch over the site, vigilantly blocking any development ventures that did not include affordable housing. /p pIn 1994, the Kearny Street Housing Corporation teamed up with St. Mary’s Catholic Center, another Chinatown community institution. They convinced the Four Seas Corporation to finally give up the land. With funds from HUD and the city of San Francisco, plans for affordable housing on the site are now underway./p pAs well as the 104 unit International Hotel Senior Housing, an elementary school, chapel, gym and parking garage will be built on the site of the former I-Hotel. The Manilatown Community Center will also be housed here, in honor of the communities who have struggled to continue to survive here./p pOn August 4th,, 2001, members of the community gathered to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the eviction, and to celebrate the future for the site. Activists, poets, musicians and traditional dancers spoke and performed in honor of the residents of the I-Hotel and those who have continued the struggle for social justice and human rights. /p piFor more information on their struggle or to get their excellent book of words, art, and history, contact The Manila Town Heritage Foundation at a href="http://www.manilatown.org" title="www.manilatown.org"www.manilatown.org/a/i/p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong pbThis is no column butbr / one of many small memorials./b /p pbAn Earthly Starbr / Falls Upwards To Heaven./b /p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joe. B/p pA Cessna 402 plane crashed after take offbr /br / killing 8 persons.br / br /Monday, Aug. 27, 2001, on Tv then radio I hear it again.br / born Aaliyah, Haughton, on January 16, 1979 in Brooklyn, New York.br / br /A beautiful, talented, intelligent young woman Aaliyah, in Swahili meansbr / br /Highest, Most Exalted One.br / br /A unique, soul returns to Allah. /p pHer family moved to Detroit when she was five years old.br / br /After singing in her church as a youngster, she began performing br /at the age of 11 with Gladys Knight, whose ex-husband Barry Hankerson, was her uncle, in Las Vegas. /p pAt 15 her first Album goes platium. /p pbr /Ms. Aaliyah achieved more than most at such a young age though shebr /didn’t have much time to enjoy yetbr / she did reflect on her life’s journey. /p pI believe souls such br /as her do return, it seems her work was just br /beginning maybe she went because br /she had learned, done so much.br / br /For her and all the lost lives in the air crash. /ppQuick Journey Home but please return if thebr / Eternal wills all of you tobr / return.br / br /Life again for other lessons there is no time to learn.b Aaliyah may have been anbr / old soul full of wisdom./bbr / She has already had an indelible impact on br /her generation and some coming after./p pThe other passengers killed in the crash were Scott Gallin, 41; Keith Wallace, 49, of Los Angeles; Douglas Kratz, 28, a representative for Virgin Records and Eric Foreman, 29, bothbr / of Hollywood, California; Gina Smith, 29, of New Jersey; and Christopher Maldonado, 32, of New York. The pilot, identified only as L. Marael,br / was also killed, and Anthony Dodd, 34, of Los Angeles, died in the hospital on Sunday. /p pYoung, Gifted, And Black, a multi-talented singer/actress, and dancer./p p Taken by faulty engines or too much equipment.br / br /our world is a little dimmer now./p pAgain Unique, yes at the young age of 22 heading toward superstardom. /p pI believe she made it...br / br /Death claimed her but not before she made her mark the world./p pFor Ms. A. Haughton’s familily, friends, fans may her life be anbr / example of excellence, and a positive guiding beacon to all./p pSome information came from ABCNews./p pJoe. B.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongDo Californians Really Want Nuclear Power and the Recall of Governor Gray Davis?...Or Do Field Polls Tell Californians what they should want?/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/442/photo_2_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Alison VanDeursen, Dee Gray and class at POOR New Journalism/ Media Studies Program/p pIn our journalism and media studies class, we read an article titled "Nuclear power's California Comeback," published May 23, 2001 in the San Francisco Chronicle. Carla Marinucci reports that, according to a Field Poll, the California public opinion has shifted from "No Nukes" to "Go, Nukes!" in the face of the Energy Crisis./p pThe results of the survey made the Chronicle happy. It gave them a good headline. It made Dick Cheney happy. He supports nuclear power. It made executives and stockholders in the nuclear energy business happy. It made me very unhappy, and suspicious./p pNow, I am a Californian, and so are most of my friends, and I don't know any one of us who supports nuclear power. I wondered about this bField Poll/b, which I've always assumed to be a poll taken out in the field, so to speak. I wondered who actually took this poll, and found that it was conducted by the Field Institute- ah!/p pOur class contacted journalists at the Chronicle, including Marinucci. They told us that they trust the results of the Field Poll "bwithout any questions/b," though they claimed not to know much about this source or how it was run. I've been taught to investigate the credibility of sources, so I looked up the Field Institute on the internet. I discovered the that Field Institute is a part of the Field Research Corporation, founded in 1945 by Mervin Field. /p pNot long ago I worked at a market research company, so I know a bit about what goes on in these places. We had a staff of telephone interviewers who would call people from a database and screen them for participation in focus groups. We might be hired by a beer company, or a car company, or a political campaign or a pharmaceutical company. Once we hosted a focus group about sardines. It could be anything. /p pThe client would hire us to find people of a certain demographic- say, San Francisco residents with AIDS who use marijuana, or business executives who will buy a new luxury car in the next 6 months, or housewives who buy a particular brand of cookie. We would find people who matched and then these folks were invited to a focus group, where they might sit and, led by a professional moderator, discuss Kleenex for two hours. They'd receive $50 to $400 bucks in compensation for their time and opinions. The company would then use this information to influence effective advertising campaigns. /p pSometimes the callers get stressed, or lazy, or they haven't met the quota of qualifying participants yet. And then they might prompt their respondents to answer the questions "correctly." This happens to my roommate all the time, who has a sort of part-time job attending focus groups. Say, X-Brand Beer wants men aged 25-40 who drink their product 5 times a week. The screener asks, "What brands of beer do you drink?" My roommate says, "Oh, A, B and C." The screener has been instructed to then say, "Thank you, but you do not qualify," and go on to the next call. But she might go off-script and say, "Well, what about X-Brand?" And my roommate knows that if he wants to make $75 for talking about beer labels, he'd best say, "Oh, yeah, I drink that all the time... I've got some in my fridge right now..."/p pThe Field Research Corporation conducts such studies as these. But the Field Institute has a different focus. It is described as a "non-partisan, independent organization devoted to the study of California public opinion and behavior on social, political and economic issues." The Field Institute, under the direction of Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field, conducts the Field Poll. /p pSo corporate business hire the Field Research Corporation to conduct surveys. Who hires the Field Institute? In one sense, supposedly no one. When I spoke to DiCamillo, he assured me that he and Mervin Field, solely, determine the subjects of study and design the questionnaires. /p pHowever, the Field Poll, though "non-partisan and independent," identifies itself as a "bmedia-sponsored/b public opinion news service." Funding for the Institute comes from the subscriptions from media sources, including the San Francisco Chronicle. DiCamillo told me that he and Field read five newspapers a day, and from this they make judgements as to what sort of polls might interest their subscribers. As he put it, as researchers they try to "bmake news/b." These questionnaires are designed to not only assess public opinion but to bcreate headlines/b./p pAnd so I wonder how the questions about nuclear power were phrased to the telephone respondents. I wonder if they were designed to show a change of opinion, because this is more news-worthy than the same-old, same-old. /p pI'm imagining a question, say, "What are your top three issues concerning government policy?" Someone might answer, "Uh, gun control, and reduced military spending, and welfare reform." And then a headline could read, "Environmental Issues Not a Priority." Had the question read, "Is the environment a top priority for our government to address?" a majority might have responded to the prompt and said, "Oh, yes." Then the headline would read, "Environment a Top Priority for California Citizens." Do you see what I'm getting at?/p pDid DiCamillo and Field design a survey that asked, "Do you support nuclear power?" Or, "Do you support clean, efficient sources of energy such as nuclear power as an alternative to electricity, in the face of our current energy crisis?" Or, "Despite nuclear disasters of the past, do you support nuclear power plants in California?" /p pMy colleague called Mark DiCamillo, posing as a journalist for a Russian-American newspaper. He asked if the Field Institute would conduct a survey concerning the opinions of Californians toward Russian immigrants. DiCamillo told him that sometimes ba group of media sponsors will get together to request that a particular poll be taken/b, but that the Field Institute does not conduct polls for single organizations- unless that organization has "that kind of money." The energy poll, for example, cost about $100,000 to conduct, he told my colleague. /p pThis is contradictory to what DiCamillo told me. He stated that the media subscribers are privy to the results of the polls, bbut do not in any way/b- individually or as a group- bmake direct requests for polls/b. He assured me that they do not pay for specific polls. And yet he seemed to be asking my colleague to make an offer- though $100,000 is clearly a bit out of reach for the imaginary budget of "Glasnost."/p pOutside of my budget as well is a subscription to the Field Poll. One can gain on-line access to the results of its polls for $200. This is for an individual subscription, of course- not the type of sponsorship that major news media organizations contribute. Of course, you can read the results of the poll in the Chronicle for 25 cents- or for free if you find a paper on the bus. But then you're reading spin on a spin. Makes me dizzy./p pWhen people read the headline "Nuclear power's California Comeback," do they buy it? The Chronicle bought it- literally. Who else? Whether technically contracted or not, it appears that the Field Poll is most definitely for hire- and that the "opinions" of Californians may be not only purchased, but customized to order. /p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongPt 2. You Have No Choice!/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/450/photo_2_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Michael Lea Morgan, PNN shelter beat reporter./p pThe Personal Assisted Employment Services (Single Adult welfare) claims to provide access to the tools of society to homeless and/or low-income people. But my Employment Specialist screamed at me the other day and said, “You have no choice. You have no choice,” when I told her I was going to seek a second opinion in regards to an action she proposed that I take. So, we always improve upon a system. /p pThe homeless have to have a group that controls its own improvements as much as possible . We must simply create it out of an idea. Get a meeting place. Meet. See what happens. I propose we meet at the Main Library (since many of us live there anyway). Or, we could meet at several places, like Martin de Porris or POOR Magazine. I’ve already brainstormed with many divergent groups of homeless people . In Palo Alto, in Berkeley, and in Redwood City. And, of course, good old activist capital of the world, SF of A!!!! /p pMany great activists all over the world have brain-stormed, done projects, written papers, changed their environment and we can draw on all of these. Then, we take our vast array of information and experiences and figure out some reasonable approaches to gaining access to funding, buildings, and equipment to start some of our own projects. My goal is to start shelters, homeless support agencies, businesses, farms, and collectives, down the road, when history is ready (“history” may have been “ready” for a long time through)./p pFor now, we can meet and brainstorm, learn to relate to one another, study design and implementation, and go out and design and implement as a specific group or collective of related groups. The existing structure is there and much of it is just fine; this is an addition, a new kid on t block, not really a completely new approach because collectives have been around forever, but something new at this time, in this place when I find myself. This, however, is not an SF issue; it is a global issue. So, think globally/act locally. Organize./p pOur idea, according to Kleppner's Advertising Procedure, is in the “pioneering” stage. The pioneering stage of an idea or product is when “ . . . the need for such product is not recognized and must be established or in which the need has been established but the success of a commodity in filling those requirements has to be established. /p pFeedback: Ideas don't flow in one direction. A person comes up with a new idea and spits it out into the world. Ideas come up and change our perception of the world, so we see more, resulting in our ideas changing, resulting in our creating a different world, seeing more, learning from the new world, changing our ideas, and so on. /p pBut, it requires a person's willingness to break through to new perceptions, to act on them, and to continue the eternal process of birth, growth, decay, and rejuvenation. When a person or group refuses to see new perceptions, that stage of the process becomes interesting. It is at this stage that someone or some group has to become the voice of the new, the one who decides to break with the rules, regulations and laws established by the old guard. Who has the right of passage? Who decides what is right? Who decides upon whom rights are showered?/p pThe Constitution of the Unites States and the Bill of Rights are documents very few Americans have studied let alone read. Yet they are supposed to be the basis for America's entire point-of-view—the rules by which Americans are supposed to live and manage their country. Yet who is reading them, studying them, teaching them? /p pIn high school I was not asked to read them; we read Great Expectations, perhaps a few quotes from The Dec and The Bill, a few quotes from Lincoln, a sparse history of the lives of our founding fathers, etc.... And, certainly, no information about the meanings of the array of symbols found on our money./p pIf the very ideas upon which our country are based are not even remotely understood or studied by U.S. citizens, that there is no democracy. It means that the ideas upon which this country were founded are not the ideas upon which our everyday citizen acts everyday. The implications of this are staggering./p pBack to Ideas and Words: Understanding a process—specifically the process whereby an idea is described in words which become more tangible (not more real, more tangible). This is like the mutation of life: ideas become biological, chemical, spiritual and physical. What people witness forms their picture of what the world is like. If a picture comes back which doesn’t seem right, we question whether our world is as it should be./p pIdeas are not physical but they are actual. “In the beginning was the word” says one best seller and from just that word came animals, planets, and everything else. So it is with ideas. Words and ideas go hand-in-hand. We observe and report because from the Word all things come: can you hear an idea in a Hendrix riff? Can you see the social form of an idea in Woodstock, Apple Corporation, the spreading of the Internet, in homeless coalitions, and personal growth movements? When all these areas are synthesized, utilized, and democratized will have greater access to equity./p pAll responses, pro and con, are welcome; please contact me at: a href="mailto:ravencrow@eudoramail.com"ravencrow@eudoramail.com/a,br / or (415)430-2168, x9335.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongHomes Not Jails Occupyingbr / Vacant City Property /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/440/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Ted Gullickson/p p While thousands of people are forced to live on the streets and while over a hundred families are turned away from shelters every night, there are dozens of city owned buildings which are vacant and have been declared "surplus" by the city's Real Estate Department. Each of these buildings could be renovated cheaply via sweat equity and turned into permanent affordable housing./p pPeople who are homeless have occupied one such building today: the old High School of Commerce at 170 Fell Street (corner of Fell and Franklin). The occupiers will hold a press conference at the site today, Sunday, August 12, at Noon to demand that the city make the property available to the squatters so that they can renovate it and live there. The squatters also call for legislation to require that ALL surplus city property be made available immediately for housing./p pThe Site/p p 170 Fell Street is the site of the old High School of Commerce and has been vacant for 11 years. The site is in need of renovation (and as a historic building can not be demolished)./p p Two civil grand juries in San Francisco have sharply criticized the school district (as well as other city agencies) for failing to adequately inventory and plan re-use of surplus property. Complaining that city agencies have ignored repeated requests to utilize surplus property, he grand jury said: "The (School) District still has no plans for disposition of its surplus real estate property. Meanwhile, the unused properties remain idle. Nearby residents complain of the eyesore and the City is deprived..." The grand jury recommended: "The District should immediately develop a formal plan to sell or lease all of its surplus real properties."/p pEarlier (1992), a similar study of surplus school properties was highly critical of how these properties were managed. The so-called "Simmons Report" (Surplus Property and the District Real Estate Portfolio -A Strategic Approach). That report said the city should dispose of certain properties (including the old High School of Commerce) which:/p p ".They had not been used for a number of years."/p p.In their present unused and hazardous condition they represent a potential liability to the School District./p pDemographic forecasts indicate that there will be no future demand for these facilities."/p p These critiques of vacant city property were issued after 170 Fell Street had already sat unused and vacant and deteriorating almost five years. Now, more than five years later the site still is empty and unused./p pMeanwhile, the city is critically short of affordable housing, to the point that every year well over a hundred people die while living on the streets./p pHomes Not Jails calls for the immediate transfer of this property to HNJ or a non-profit housing developer for renovation into affordable housing via the sweat equity labor of people who are homeless who could trade their skills and labor for affordable housing./p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongOne woman's journey through government fraud and homelessness /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/456/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Judith M. Hansel/p pThe United States federal government caused me to become homeless. I purchased, for cash, a 985 square foot house on two acres in Waushara County, Wisconsin. The previous owner had purchased the house from the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Title 7 USCS C.F.R. 1955.116 program./p pI returned to Wisconsin in 1988 when my sons were grown and my marriage over. My great-grandfather had received 250 acres from the government in the 19th Century. He passed the farm on to his son, my grandfather, who farmed the land and raised nine children, including my father. My father left the farm in 1917 to join the Navy and chose to live in Milwaukee instead of farming when he returned from the war./p pDuring my childhood and adolescence, I loved visiting the farm. I considered it, particularly after my father died, to be my real home. There was a 22-acre lake called Hansel Lake. The vegetables served at mealtime were always fresh from the garden. I enjoyed seeing the farm dog round up the cows at milking time, herding them into the barnyard. My Uncle Clarence taught me about raising pigs. If there was to be chicken for dinner, I watched one of my uncles pick a chicken up by its feet, lay it across a tree stump, and chop the chicken’s head off. The chicken would then get up and run around flapping its wings. My grandmother took the feathers off the bird and cleaned out its insides. I felt privileged./p pIn 1988, my mother had a stroke that she could not survive. I flew to Wisconsin from Maryland and visited her before she lost consciousness. A few days later, my brother, my sister, and I planned her funeral. In the interim, I took a one-day trip to visit relatives. My Aunt Emily still lived in the farmhouse. It was in the farm kitchen there that I decided to return to Wisconsin. /p pThree months later, after the Maryland house was sold and the profits divided, I arrived in Waushara County. One of my dreams was coming true. A two-bedroom house was advertised in the newspaper. I called a realtor, made an appointment, saw the house, and made a down payment of $600./p pI hired a lawyer to search the title to see if it was free and clear. His written opinion told me that there were restrictive covenants on the Quit Claim Deed. These restrictive covenants, placed by the United States Department of Agriculture, could not be removed until all the repairs listed on the restrictive covenants were made. The Farmers Home Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, had to ensure that the property was “decent, safe, and sanitary.”/p pI called the realtor and explained that I wanted my deposit returned and that I did not want to purchase the property. The seller’s realtor phoned me at the motel where I was staying. He told me that he could get the restrictive covenants removed. He suggested that I put my $23,900 into my attorney’s trust account and if the restrictive covenants were not removed, the money would not be released and the sale would not go through./p pI saw no reason not to trust the federal government or the Farmers Home Administration agent who was a federal employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I agreed to the plan./p pOn August 16, the papers were signed. I drove out to the house with Bernie, my mixed Saint Bernard. I couldn’t believe that I now owned a house in Waushara County. I felt very grateful and happy./p pA few days later, the seller’s realtor phoned me and told me that the restrictive covenants had been released by the U.S.D.A., but that it would take a week or two to get the paperwork processed./p pMy washing machine arrived and was installed two days later. I threw a load of wash into the machine and went back to watching TV. Later, when I used the bathroom, the water didn’t flush, but just kept rising. I immediately called the plumber who had inspected the septic system and who had submitted a certificate to the seller stating that the system was working.br / /pPThe plumber inspected the plumbing in the house and the septic system. He informed me that the system could not handle all the water from the washing machine. When I mentioned the report he said he never guaranteed the system. He told me that I should not use the washing machine since it flooded the system./p pMy attorney phoned me later that same day to tell me that the Release of Restrictive Covenants document had been received and that he was transferring my money to the seller’s account. When I mentioned the problem with the septic system, he told me that if I thought he had misrepresented something then I should hire another attorney and sue him.br / /pPThe TV antenna installer told me my roof was leaking in places. And, when I was gone for a weekend, the water pump in the well became unseated. I called another plumber and he informed me that I needed a new water pump. /p pAnd so my long nightmare began./p piThis is the first installment in a series Judith is writing on her long nightmare with government-backed fraud which lead to her current state of homelessness. She is also writing a book entitled Escape from America: An Expose of International Treachery, which will be completed by September 15 of this year.br / Email: a href="mailto:judy1hansel@hotmail.com"judy1hansel@hotmail.com/abr / /i/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongDoctor Leroy Reveals His Heart: Relationships and Disability /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/441/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Dr. Leroy, ha,ha,ha/p pI'm a man who grew up in a houseful of women , but when it comes to relationships I still can't understand them. In college my door stayed open for friends to talk, most of them were women. I should have charged them for all of the times I stopped and listened to their problems. Many of them talked about their boyfriends. Wow, what stories I had a chance to listen to! I don't know why I was the one chosen to listen to their relationship problems. Did they just feel comfortable with me or was I no threat to them because of my disability?/p pCheck this out! A couple friends that I liked more than friends can't get over my disability, but they continue to stay in an abusive relationships with jerks, and keep me around so they can do things like talk and go shopping which they can't do with their own boyfriends. Why do they put themselves in that situation?/p pWomen are very complex individuals when it comes to relationships. Although many of my friends wanted a relationship with a nice guy, they found themselves in my room crying on my shoulder about their boyfriends. Although I'm a straight man, some women think I am gay because I don't act like their boyfriends. /p pI like putting a woman to the test. The real person she is comes out when I like her and when I ask her out. I can see it in her eyes, the confusion. I can feel the instant tension when I let a woman know how I feel. It is like looking into a cracked mirror, you see different images, different reactions. Right then I've stripped them down to their bare skin and they are trying to hide their bodies like I can see their nakedness. Although I have the power to revel the true person, it hurts me to see their nakedness. After I've exposed her, things are never the same. From there I would receive three kinds of reactions: pity, shame or guilt. That is the part I hate! They are stuck in the moment and every time they see me they can't get over that moment./p pOn the other side of the story, men are not angels. After listening to my friends talk about their boyfriends and seeing my male friends with their girlfriends, I wonder how they even get a date. I might be old fashioned, but I can't understand how a man can really expect to have sex on the first, second or third date. But they do! From experiences I've had with my friends, it appears that they don't care how the woman feels or what is on her mind. What happened to getting to know one other? Some women say that men don't talk and I can say that yes, this is true. But when they meet a man like me then they don't know what they want./p pI'm not a relationship professional. Hell! I have only had two intimate relationships in my thirty-three years on this earth, but I'm a great listener and thinker. Relationships can be easier, if each person stops and really thinks about what it is they want and is honest with themselves. I think talking and listening are the main elements in making or breaking a relationship. /p pI also found that there is a give and take in a relationship, but that some people give so much that they try to change 100 percent for their mate. I see this element of relationships a lot in my friends—they changed drastically because their boyfriends tell them to. I witnessed my male friends disconnecting themselves from their female origin because they have a girlfriend. /p pIf you take what I'm saying about relationships and add the term “disabled”, then you're opening a whole new can of worms. As a disabled Black man, I've noticed that 80 percent of my women friends are White and I have never had a Black disabled or a Black non-disabled girlfriend. /p pA good friend talked about this subject and she had the same story. We are both Black and disabled and we noticed that most of our friends were White. She agreed that her close relationships were with White, non-disabled men. She could count on one hand all the boyfriends she had had and all of them were White. I wonder if Black women and men are frightened of getting involved with a person with a disability or do they lack experience being with individuals with disabilities?/p pLike I mentioned above, I have this worried magic of revealing the true person when it comes to having a relationship. From reading disabled , feminist authors, I learned that they have almost the same experience in establishing a relationship with a non-disabled man and some times with a disabled man. Although I learned a lot from disabled, feminist authors, I am still waiting for a Black, disabled, feminist author to shared some light from a Black, disabled woman point of view./p pOne friend told me that I should look for a person like myself! “You know DISABLED!” Wow, what a stupid comment. But I thought about it for a while and how it relates to other oppressions. Even today some Black women and men are upset when they see interracial couples. Many people feed into stereotypical views that you're better off with your own. Today we know that some times your “own kind” is more oppressive than the main oppressor. Some Black men have a hard time with the Black, feminist movement and the Black, gay movement. When Bell Hooks wrote Ain't I a Women, she received complaints from all varieties of women but she couldn't believe how resistant the Black community was about the book. /p pEvery group in society has a higher standard to measure up to. Many times these standards are stereotypical and oppressive. In relationships some people look to the dominant cultural as the ultimate goal. For example, if you are a Black, disabled, heterosexual man than the standard is a Black, non-disabled, heterosexual woman. Or if you break through the first layer of oppression, the real prize is a White, non-disabled, heterosexual woman. Being with your “own kind”, if you're not part of the dominant culture, smacks the dominant culture in the face and they don't understand it in some situations, especially if you're disabled./p pOne story that has been locked in my brain for years came from a disabled feminist. The author wrote about how a family of a young, disabled woman reacted to her many accomplishments. The disabled young lady got into college, graduated with honors, got into graduate school and landed a great job, but received no reaction from her family. However, when she brought her non-disabled boyfriend home, her family was overjoyed and celebrated by throwing her an all-night party. /p pOn the other side is the famous movie "Guess Who Is Coming to Dinner" with Sidney Poitier. The movie was based on an interracial couple. The Black, soon-to-be husband surprises his girlfriend's White parents. Her parents are shocked to see "what" her daughter brought home. Do you see the two examples I'm playing with and how people from the dominant culture react when they get into a relationship with the "Other?" /p pI tossed this concept around in my brain for a long time and I wrote a short story entitled At Dinner. The story follows the main theme of "Guess Who is Coming to Dinner" but the main obstacles in At Dinner are disablism and classism. A Black, non- disabled , wealthy woman brings her disabled, middle class, Black boyfriend home to announced their engagement to her parents. To make the story short the parents were shocked and talked their daughter out of the marriage because they couldn’t related to their daughter's boyfriend. Her parents also told her that she could have brought a White man into their house but not this inner city cripple. /p pThe media and literature are only one avenue that sheds light (negative or positive) on the concept of relationships with the "Other”. Let's go back to the early nineteenth and twentieth century and examine the laws this country wrote and enforced on who could and couldn’t marry. Black slaves couldn't get married by law and couldn't think about marrying a White person. Slaves had their own secret way to get married. With the birth of the eugenics movement, racial separation to improve the CHOSEN RACE was the law of the land. Whites were the chosen people who had the brains, physical stamina and beauty and everyone else was sub-human, with nothing to offer except their weakness. /p pAs we all know the eugenics movement’s first experiments were conducted on persons with disabilities, especially people with mental retardation. Although the two groups followed the same path in the eugenic movement, people with disabilities went beyond separation. What is sad is that even today a handful of states still have laws on their books prohibiting marriages of disabled people and interracial marriages. /p pSome disabled individuals are also discouraged from marriage because of the rules of the federal benefits they receive. In certain cases when two disabled persons get together and decide to marry and move in together their benefits are cut in half. /p pWhen I think about my high school years, I can pin point what was important to my peers—your looks and the opposite sex. As a Black, physically disabled student in a mainstream high school, I realized that my opportunities with the opposite sex were nil. I've noticed that girls were experimenting with makeup and sexy clothes. The boys went out of their way to look cool but I couldn't hide my walker, leg braces and the way I walked. Thank God times have changed since I was in high school. From my involvement with youths with disabilities, I've noticed that today’s disabled youth and young adults have girlfriends and boyfriends,but the peer pressure is still there. /p pThe concept of sex and relationships is always hard for parents to talk to their children about, but nowadays children know more than their parents do. I realized that many times parents with disabled children close their eyes and ears to sex and relationships. Finally, today women with disabilities are writing and talking about the public’s view on the concept of sexuality and disability in society and the family. However, there is very little out there from a viewpoint of men with disabilities on the subject of sex and relationship./p pNo wonder relationships are so complex and take a lifetime to perfect. With all the oppression from the dominate culture, internal oppression from the “Other” assumptions, history, laws, the social structure and the media's misrepresentation of the "Other", men and women are on opposite poles even when they are in relationships. There is no river between the sexes. If only people would stop, think, talk and listen to each others’ histories and lifestyles without judgment, this relationship thing would be a piece of cake. Yes, I’m still single, but hopeful./p pDr. Leroy, ha,ha,habr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong pbWhy do we Menbr / love sharp, pointy,br / objects ang multicolorbr / Mushroom explosions?/b/p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joe. B./p pThe Selected President with his mythical mandate hasbr / overspent the so called “People’s Money” in a $600“ or more “give back to working folks and family” thing. /pp$158 billion Surplus $157 from Social Security and by September 30 the $153 billion with a $9 billion deficit.br / b information from S.F. Chronicle Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2001./b/p pWhat is this high spending buy out of tons ofbr / br / low grade plutoniumbr / b['dirty, spent radiation]br / /b in the billions from Russia?/p p I heard the figure 16 thousand nuclear bombs can be made from such material.br / br /The Japanese has the same material and is able to turn ‘dirty’ Plutonium into resuable reactor fuelbr /if the President wants to help our ‘energy crisis’ wouldn't a breeder reactor turning ‘nuke garbage’ into electrical energy be the goal not extra bombs?/p pOr melting asteriods with the same spent fuel getting more valuable elements from smelting it./p pOn the other hands at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Bostonbr / Researchers say the secret of human longevity may be in our genesbr / a group of genes found in a single chrommsone./p pthere's more but back to our guy the the white house.br / br /Do 'ya think this should be one thosebr /thousand points of light to see by hmmm? /p pWhat is it with this guybr / br / He is President, the most powerfull human on the planet except the br /Heavenly Father/Mother./p pThis Church and State combined in White House is not working correctly./p pOur male penchant for brinkmanship is dangerous macho stupidity plain and simplebr /we’re short sighted, stuborn, and blind to some realities sometime./p p As a black male in Americabr /I’m aware of so many tripwires that can get me hurt, maimed, or killed that br /wouldn’t mean much to society at large, its still that way./p pIn this country Mother’s, girlfriends, wive’s, or even protective daughter’s sometime must hold br /back their men’s natural inclination to speak, and fight for their own and other’s dignity./p pA Catholic, Priest is seen as a none sexual being as are uns closer to Godbr / both are suppose to have a higher relationship./p pI understand the concept of nuns married to God br / but I could not see Priest as married to the trinitybr / br /maybe brother, son, friend, or ultimate father figure./p pBut in the Black Church a preacher especially males have a sexual allure to womenbr /I wonder if young Black men thought of being preachers with their own private haremsbr / 'um choir of willing women?/p pOh, the secrets if pews could speak about the power of the br /"laying of hands" to heal ladies in distress. /p pMyself as a regular black guy in this country of contradiction have always tried to keep a low profile because we are so visible only when it’s time to beat, hurt, frame, place us in jail we’re negatively seen but that’s changing slowly. /ppBlack women being locked up as much as men creates a dangerous situation of more broken families br /however people are rising from zero to become business moguls, writers, scientists, Tv, and movie stars./p pAll I want to do is live a long and varied life without lots of dramabr /have a good woman, some children, and eventually be a ‘grandpabr / in other words a very long regular, dull life./p pMost women want exciting, hansome, strong, tough guysbr / and yet there is a time when maturity awakens in men and women to just be themselves. /p pAs I’ve said before speed is not me but patience, endurance, and seeing the long view is what think I do bestbr /I just don’t have the time and energy to be part of every new breaking fashion be it hi tech, people, and politics is onlybr / for self protection when rights and choices are affected. /ppIf any readers think about this stuff you might have alternative anwers to give me./p pbrPlease donate what can to Poor Magazine orbr / br /C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th St. Street,br / br /San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA/brplease/p pbr /For Joe only my snail mail:br / br /PO Box 1230 #645br / br /Market St. San Francisco, CA 94102br / br /Email: a href="mailto:askjoe@poormagazine.org"askjoe@poormagazine.org/abr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongPOOR Magazine gives the Bay Area's needy a forum. Its "formerlybr / homeless" mother-daughter editors have also created a journalismbr / welfare-to-work program. /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/444/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby LA Times/p pHome Editionbr / br /Section: Southern California Livingbr / br /Page: E-1/p pSAN FRANCISCO—Dee Gray would probably want this story to start with the word "I". Dee thinks the best stories are told in the first person. Her daughter, Tiny, doesn't always agree.br / /pPThis is what it might look like, if Dee had her way:br / /pPI first heard from Lisa Gray-Garcia, also known as Tiny, in a long, long message on my voicemail machine about living poor in America's most expensive city. "A lot of us are affected by gentrification and poverty and how that translates to having to leave this area," she said, in a voice somewhere between nasal and squeaky. "Oftentimes, poor families arebr / the ones who are leaving."br / /pPOther mothers and daughters may wrangle over literary license, currentbr / events and how the media shape the news, but their ruminations don't oftenbr / make it into print. Dee's and Tiny's usually do. You can read them onlinebr / at Abr / href="http://www.poornewsnetwork.org/"http://www.poornewsnetwork.org/,br / a weekly news service with the motto: "All the news that doesn't fit."br / POr in the pages of POOR Magazine, where they write under headings likebr / "Editors' Statement by Dee and Tiny." You can catch them on the lastbr / Monday of every month on the Bay Area's KPFA radio, if you wake up reallybr / early.br / /pPOr, if you are on welfare in the San Francisco area and fortunate inbr / your misfortune, you can listen to them in person as part of their Newbr / Journalism/Media Studies Program. Many media and public-policy expertsbr / believe the program, which receives some funding from San Franciscobr / County, is the only journalism welfare-to-work effort operating today.br / /pPTiny and Dee—30 and "I'd rather not say," who describe themselves asbr / "formerly homeless, currently at risk"—have a few goals. They want tobr / change how the mainstream media portray poor and homeless people. Theybr / want to give voice to those who have long been silent, or at the verybr / least not been heard. They want to change how the government gets peoplebr / off of public assistance and into jobs. And they'd like to make the rent.br / /pPThey are as likely to march in a demonstration as cover it. Theybr / regularly lash out at the institutions that they feel harm poor people inbr / the name of helping; Child Protective Services is Dee's current favoritebr / target, although Pacific Gas Electric, the welfare system, thebr / California penal code, most police departments, and City Halls on bothbr / sides of the bay come under regular attack too.br / /pPTheir work—and articles by other PoorNewsNetwork reporters—appears inbr / other alternative publications and has graced the op-ed pages of thisbr / city's two mainstream newspapers. The star graduate of their first year inbr / welfare-to-work has a job writing regularly for the San Francisco Baybr / View, a small community paper covering the region's African Americanbr / population.br / /pPTheir brand of journalism favors advocacy over explanation. But ifbr / there is a place in the american media for the likes of conservativebr / commentator William Kristol and his iWeekly Standard/i, there's a place forbr / Tiny, Dee and POOR.br / /pPThe question, of course, is whether taxpayers should foot the bill forbr / teaching poor and homeless people to be writers, when most welfare-to-workbr / programs stress far more basic job skills. Not surprisingly, Tiny and Deebr / say yes. And San Francisco County agrees.br / /pPWith funding from the county Department of Human Services, whichbr / administers welfare benefits here, the Media Studies Program trained eightbr / people over the last year and will likely train another eight in the nextbr / fiscal year, says Amanda Feinstein, the agency's project director forbr / work-force development.br / /pP"They're tutoring and mentoring one person at a time," Feinstein says.br / "It's small. We expect it to be—small and intensive for the right type ofbr / person." /p pMother, Daughter Spiral Into Homelessnessbr / /pPBerkeley, 1993. Tiny spent three days in jail for driving without abr / license, having too many unpaid parking tickets, no registration for thebr / car in which she and Dee were living, and failure to appear on similarbr / earlier charges—what she now refers to as crimes of poverty.br / /pPShe was eventually sentenced to hundreds of hours of community service,br / which she worked off at a small nonprofit called Community Defense Inc.br / Osha Neumann, who runs the organization, asked her what she wanted to do.br / Survive. He asked her what she knew how to do. Write. Had there been abr / Media Studies Program at the time, Tiny would have been a perfectbr / candidate.br / /pP"She was struggling at that point to just keep it together and needingbr / every moment of her time to try and survive with her mom," Neumannbr / recalls. "I said, 'I tell you what. Why don't you do that writing as yourbr / community service for us?" We do advocacy for homeless people. She wrotebr / this article. I read it and realized that this is a really good writer."br / /pPA surprisingly good writer for a young woman who had dropped out ofbr / school in the sixth grade as she and her mother spiraled intobr / homelessness. Dee was a social worker who lost her job, became disabledbr / and then couldn't work. Their savings ran out in three to four months. Deebr / was an orphan who had been raised in a series of foster homes andbr / institutions. Tiny's father was long gone. They had no money and nobr / family.br / /pPThey were evicted 21 times in Los Angeles and Oakland, Dee says,br / recalling a time in which they had just enough money to get an apartmentbr / but never enough to pay the rent for long. Each time their welcome wouldbr / wear out, they would look for another temporary home. Lisa, too young tobr / have a bad credit rating, would do the hard part. "I would dress Lisa in abr / dress and gloves at 13, say she was 18 or 20, and she'd get us anbr / apartment," Dee says. "We'd stay as long as we could and save enough moneybr / to get another apartment. We moved up here, and it wasn't much better."br / /pPTiny's first article was about being poor, and it was published in anbr / East Bay alternative paper, an event that became a turning point. "Notbr / only was I heard as a writer and an artist," she says, "but I was heardbr / about this."br / /pPStanding in front of the magazine rack at Cody's Books in Berkeley onebr / day, she realized there were no publications that talked about the livesbr / of poor people—the kind of revelation that would happen only to a personbr / with little interest in advertising revenues.br / /pPSo, Tiny got together a small group of financially stressed people withbr / artistic or literary bents to meet each month and figure out "how to makebr / literary art out of our lives." With the help of a group of artistbr / friends, she raised some seed money and POOR was born. One Theme Per Issuebr / /pPVol. 1 of the intentionally glossy, almost-annual magazine came out inbr / 1996.br / /pPVol. 4 hit bookstores in April. Each edition explores a singlebr / theme—"Homefulness", "Hellthcare", "Work", "Mothers"—through art,br / fiction, poetry and first-person narrative. Each is an effort to define,br / and suggest solutions for, the obstacles facing poor people. The writersbr / are poor people. The artists are poor people. The experts are poor people.br / /pPLike the Web site, which is updated weekly, the magazine has a mix ofbr / harrowing accounts of life on the street and sad tales about the lengthsbr / to which men and women are pushed simply to "Survive." In these pages, thebr / word is often capitalized, a sacred verb, a statement.br / /pPThe journalism training program for welfare recipients evolved out ofbr / the "Work" issue and Tiny's own experiences on welfare in the years afterbr / the Clinton administration passed welfare reform legislation. It was 1998,br / and San Francisco had implemented its Personally Assisted Employmentbr / Specialist program to move men and women from welfare to work in partbr / through skills assessment and counseling.br / /pPTiny was told on several occasions that she would make a fabulousbr / receptionist. She had told various job counselors that she really wantedbr / to be a reporter or writer and that, although she lacked formal education,br / she would be interested in pursuing a college degree program. Thebr / response, she wrote in an article eventually published onbr / Poor-NewsNetwork, was that given her lack of education, earning a degreebr / would take too long.br / /pP"'And besides, is that really a practical career choice for someone inbr / your position?' I don't know ... was it?" she wrote. "My mother and I werebr / endlessly battling homelessness—we were deeply entrenched in thebr / so-called cycle of poverty ... one crisis snowballing into the next untilbr / you are never really able to fix any one problem, because you are justbr / catching the last one, barely."br / /pPWhile still receiving welfare herself and working on POOR Magazine,br / Tiny dreamed up her own welfare-to-work program, which eventually wasbr / funded by the San Francisco Department of Human Services. At its heart arebr / the mother-daughter team's strong beliefs about what is wrong with welfarebr / today.br / /pPIt is impossible, they say, for extremely poor people--especially thosebr / grappling with homelessness, substance abuse, mental illness—to learn anybr / really useful skill in the short time most government training programsbr / allow. That same government, they say, shoves poor people into any jobbr / that comes along just to get them off of welfare, whether there's a futurebr / in it or not.br / /pPTheir welfare-to-work program includes a lot of basics: reporting,br / writing, grammar, graphic arts, Internet design, desktop publishing. Andbr / some more advanced skills, such as investigative and advocacy journalismbr / with a focus on race and class.br / /pPAlong the way, they lecture daily on what they call "povertybr / scholarship"—the belief that poor people who have lived it are experts inbr / it. And they insist that their students write from their own experiences,br / acknowledge their own homelessness, banish their own shame.br / /pPFor Dee, this means using the word "I".br / /pP"Some write in the third person," she complains. "They don't have thebr / confidence to tell their story. They write about poor people as if theybr / weren't one of them. We want to hear their voice.... We teach first-personbr / narrative rather than poverty voyeurism—people from the outside writingbr / about being poor." 'Povery Voyeurism' by Mainstream Pressbr / /pPAlan Weil of the Urban Institute, a liberal Washington think tank,br / believes that the folks at POOR and the Media Studies Program are rightbr / about a lot of things, among them that most states emphasize moving peoplebr / from welfare to work as quickly as possible, "which means [take] the firstbr / job you can find."br / /pP"I think they're right in a different way, which is that our society'sbr / attention to the reality of life for poor people is very shallow," Weilbr / says. "If they can offer a more complete picture of that life, then theybr / are doing something that not really anyone else is doing."br / /pPMost publications put out by poor and homeless people—among them thebr / 40 members of the North American Street Newspaper Assn.—share a single,br / central goal: reframing the news, because their staff members believe thatbr / the mainstream media either patronize or ignore poor people.br / /pPTo Dee, it is "poverty voyeurism". Chance Martin, editor of iStreetbr / Sheet/i in San Francisco, argues that stories about poor and homeless peoplebr / in the traditional press tend to be formulaic, with the ones that actuallybr / talk to the homeless as "the most offensive".br / /pP"They serve to reinforce the personal deficit model," which says thatbr / poor people are broken and need to be fixed, argues Martin, who is on thebr / executive committee of the newspaper association.br / /pPGray, Gray-Garcia and Martin argue that such a model ignores thebr / complexities of lives lived in poverty. The mainstream media, they say,br / have a responsibility to report those lives fully—whether or not poorbr / people vote, shop or take vacations—and that everyone from employers andbr / teachers to legislators would benefit.br / /pPThe personal deficit model, they say, emphasizes the failures in poorbr / people's lives, instead of their tenacious coping. It ignores the factbr / that those living on the edge might be late for work because old carsbr / break down and buses are unreliable, not because of slovenliness. Thatbr / poor parents might not show up for parent-teacher conferences because theybr / have multiple minimum-wage jobs, not because they don't care.br / /pPWhat about the stories that don't talk to the poor but simply talkbr / about them? In a January report, the Harvard Family Research Projectbr / evaluated more than 2,000 articles on health care and welfare issues frombr / 29 electronic and print sources between 1999 and 2000.br / /pPThe most frequent welfare issues discussed included job training andbr / declining caseloads. The media's most common sources were researchers andbr / policymakers, the project reported, but current and former welfarebr / recipients were among the "sources rarely or not used".br / /pPShawn Fremstad, a senior policy analyst with the Center on Budget andbr / Policy Priorities in Washington, looks at the Harvard report as evidencebr / that the media need to improve their coverage of poverty. If POOR's Mediabr / Studies Program succeeds, he figures, it can be only a positive thing bothbr / for its students and American readers.br / /pP"The tricky part," he says, "is to what extent can this deliver inbr / terms of someone ending up in a job in the journalism field?" /p pManybr / Struggles for Program Participantsbr / /pPOn a purely philosophical level, the people in the program believe thatbr / any time a poor person speaks out in print, it is a small success in itsbr / own way. On a more practical level, the program is probably too young tobr / judge. It has been funded for only one full year, and its students facebr / many hurdles. Some are struggling with homelessness, some mental illness,br / some substance abuse and past incarceration. They have a lot to learnbr / about work and journalism.br / /pPIn this second year of their publicly funded effort, Dee and Tiny wantbr / taxpayers to shell out $8,600 to cover training costs for each futurebr / journalist in the program. And then they want those fledgling reporters,br / photographers and graphic artists to get paid $15 an hour, 40 hours abr / week, for a year as apprentices.br / /pPFeinstein didn't bite for the whole package; it is, after all, abr / Cadillac request from a government with a used-Hyundai budget. But Sanbr / Francisco funded them once and will likely fund them again at some level.br / Feinstein believes the Media Studies Program offers "just the start somebr / people may need."br / /pPBenny Joyner, 51, pen name Kaponda, was the star graduate of the Mediabr / Studies Program's maiden year. POOR taught this former legal secretary andbr / former prison inmate how to write a story, and he learned well.br / /pPFor various POOR publications, Joyner has written about California'sbr / "three strikes" law and covered a recent demonstration against lodgingbr / laws that forbid sleeping outside in public places.br / /pPAnd now he has job writing for the iSan Francisco Bay View/i, a smallbr / community paper focusing on the Bay Area's African American population. Hebr / has written about environmental justice, police issues and a local blackbr / micro-radio station. His biggest accomplishment? Probably the story, basedbr / on recent census data, about how San Francisco's black population hasbr / dropped 23% in the last decade. Joyner's story came out May 29. The Sanbr / Francisco Chronicle followed Joyner two weeks later.br / /pPJoyner is happy; his new boss is delighted.br / /pP"This is not fluff, not society news, not feel-good news," says Marybr / Ratcliff, editor of the iBay View/i. "This is real, important hard news, andbr / we're just thrilled.... We really need good news coverage. Benny is ourbr / lifeline." /p pBy: Maria L. LA Gangabr / br /TIMES STAFF WRITER/p p/p/abr/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p