2011

June 2000

Dedicated to Trent Hayward...
You are...
A screaming memory reborn in a whispering connection.
So much strength
sheltered beneath your travelling eyes.
I have learned the intensity of loss,
and the propensity for madness
re-occurring.
So tonight I light another candle
the smoke from nag champa burns like a blazing fire
and another joins the ancient burial ground in my soul
where the sacred at rest never die.
I may never understand the earths claiming
of street prophets, and works of art.
I will never comprehend...
but I will place all my faith in your next journey...
and hope I see you around in the next life.
Take care sweet Trent

One can never get used to loss, I have learned this over and over again.
It only gets deeper, and harder every time. Sometimes I hope I will get colder... because each passing becomes a mourning for everyone I have lost.

We will all miss you...

The Metaphor Exercise is one of many creative writing exercises we use in the multi-lingual, multi-racial, multi-generational Revolutionary Journalism Class at PeopleSkool.

These are the beautiful pieces of prose and poetry that came from the 2^nd class of the 2011 winter session.

La Alfombra

By Julio Chavez

 La Alfombra Azul como el agua del oceano.

Y las paredes a; rededor.

Decoradas con imagines de heroes que seguramente

Los libros de historia no van a mejorar.

Pero que nostros no debemos y no tenemos olvidar.

En un futuro sercano. NUestras fotographias pueden

Colgar y contra la verdada y hacer la historia  con poder.

Shoes swathing-  By Michael

Shoes swathing across an aged petroleum carpet, insulating the office with painted incensed oil-spill. Landfill bound attaching it’s decay to yet another thirsty forest, from painted panels encasing writers to the county debris pile, choking the dirt itself from it’s seeds.

La Metafora De alfombra

By Ingrid DeLeon

Soy un techo como este cuarto

Pues asie siento pero si no tubiera

Pero si  yo no tubiera bacea me cairia

Y dejaria de ser un techo

Seria un piso donde todos caminaran sin berme

Pero tengo 4 bases que me sostienen y no me dejan caer

Como esas 4 paredes que sostienen este techo

Asi son mis simientos o mis bases que no me dejan caer

Estas bases son mis  4 hijos

Que son tan fuertes como un hierro

 Juntos somos fuertes como un roble y nadie no bensera

The Rug Became Water

By Libah Sheppard

    THE RUG BECAME WATER AND WALLS BECAME MOUNTAINS

    THE WATER FLOWED THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS, THE  AIR OF CITRUS FRUIT SURROUNDED MY NOSTRILS, AS THE CLOUDS RAINED OF COINS THAT FLOWED DOWN THE RIVER SURROUNDED BY MOUNTAINS, AND THEIR I STOOD AT THE OTHER END OF THE RIVER RECEIVING ALL THE BLESSINGS FLOWING INTO MY SOUL.

World with No Borders

        By Muteado

        World with no borders where I sit with my brothers and sisters,

        Blue sky surrounds us,

        Holding us

        In her hands

        Surrounded by Glyrophics

        Of who we are

        On top of green grass

The Room is like a Field

By Toby Kramer

`The room is like a field with papers and chairs growing out of it like shrubs and tufts of grass. The walls are huge trees and the ceiling is  the canopy of the forest. Books and boxes perch on the branches of the trees like forest animals in their burrows.

POOR Magazine poverty skolaz, Po Poets and welfareQUEEN's travel to Detroit for the Allied Media conference and US Social Forum and to xchange skolarship with Detroit families and folks!

Monday, June 7, 2010;

Allied Media Conference:

Saturday, June 19th

4-5:30

(Incite) Mamaz Truth-telling

Sunday, June 20th

10:00am

Challenging Media, Akkkademia and Research PeopleSkool workshop

11:50am

Makeshift Reclamation -

US Social Forum

Wed, 06/23/2010

10am

Childcare(Familycare & the left) (with POWER & child care collective)

Wayne County Community College: 340

3pm

Poets in poverty ReSist- welfareQUEENs and poetas POBREs perform

Amphitheater

TBA

welfareQUEENS @ World Court on Poverty

Friday, 6/25/2010

10am

Peoples Forum on Language Theft, Language Occupation, Linguistic Domination, Resistance & Reclamation

Description:

Throughout the history and herstory of oppression of indigenous peoples and peoples of color in poverty, the worlds of academia, research and media have successfully dominated, silenced and colonized indigenous voices, voices in poverty and voices of color, resulting in the loss of our native languages and an accepted and fixed notion of literacy and scholarship,i.e, who should be heard, who is a scholar and what is considered a valid form of data collection, media production and research. In this forum/workshop, the poverty, race, disability, youth, migrant and indigenous scholars of POOR Magazine's PeopleSkool will challenge the racist and classist concept of literacy, and how some languages have functioned as active tools of oppression and enabled the intentional exclusion, separation and silencing of voices in poverty, indigenous voices, youth voices, elder voices and voices of color to be heard, recognized, integrated and powered.

Detroit Community-wide:

4) WeSearch Camp @POOR - poor people led media and research outside the USSF and in street corners and neighborhoods across Detroit - please invite us to your community or struggle for a truth Voice

5) Homefulness POOR Magazine knowledge xchange posse- poor people led/indigneous people led sweat -equity co-housing project to give landless indigenous families access to permanent housing, arts and multi-generational education, localized food production, micro-business and equity not based on how much is our pockets- read the Manifesto for Change to understand the whole project- Please suggest/invite us to communities in detroit we should see /speak with

The Coalition on Homelessness and four kick- ass local bands linked claws on a Saturday night in August at the Hotel Utah in a joint effort to buy shopping carts for homeless folks.

If you have never had the pleasure of seeing the sun gleaming off the black, chitinoid armor of a Free Kart rolling down past the tourists in U.N. Plaza, you have not yet truly lived. If you can for a moment imagine a cross between the Stealth bomber, an angry dung-beetle and the Batmobile, you'd be getting close.

The "FREE KARTS" program was originally conceived and birthed in April of this year as an art/activist collaboration between POOR magazine and the C.O.H.

Willy, an artist out of Oakland affiliated with POOR magazine was in large part responsible for the savage, heart wrenching beauty of the flagship five carts given out at the April 27th press conference at City Hall. A large part of the predatory beauty was due to him spot welding two steel fins to the frame of the Kart itself.

The original concept was to supply our homeless friends, brothers and sisters who use carts for either their property or for doing recycling work "street-legal," privately owned carts that the cops can't legally touch.

All of this was and is in response to Supervisor Amos Brown's "Cart Anti-Removal Program," a proposal as silly and uninspired as its name would suggest. The real impetus behind this is to continue terrorizing homeless people through the confiscation of their personal property, via making local supermarkets responsible for their carts under the threat of imposed fines. This would result in even more instances of freelance cart Gestapos being paid on a cart-by-cart basis to physically threaten and harass our poorest citizens.

In case you don't already know, Amos (shit, not again!) Brown has tried on more than one occasion to treat people like they were bi-pedal cattle by herding them up, branding them with stigma and nasty misinformation, and corralling 'em up to stockyards with names like Mission Rock and 850 Bryant.

If you've never heard this self affirming "man of god" (yes, he's a reverend!) bleat out his hate sermons before, he comes off sounding crazy and not just a little bit scary. Amos spits hate with the authoritarian delivery of a righteous preacher, and we are not talking about a great man like Dr. King here by a long shot, folks.

After telling loads homeless folks that they could probably get in for free and to park their carts in a diagonal fashion on the sidewalk outside of the Utah, and that hey, if you show up I'll buy you a beer, The door guy said to me, "As long as you're 21 and not hygienically offensive, you're in!" I thought that was pretty cool of him, since he was backing up my big mouth.

The bands were really good. Slow Poisoners were a kind of space-rock-psych outfit that I thought were as hilarious as they were talented. I especially dug the guitar/keyboardist's chops. M. Headphone were great as well, I felt myself floating away a coupla times with them but maybe that was in part due to a large quantity of cheap beer. Heavy Pebble, with Erika their stellar presence on the bass and vox started to make me more than a little homesick in that they reminded me a lot of the circa '86 Pixies.

I cannot say enough about not only how cool these guys all were in their respective musical soups, but also individually in talking to them. In my experience playing in a bunch of bands back east, it's more of a you-gotta-pay-to-play-kinda deal, you do pretty good when you can get some beers after the show and maybe tip the sound guy something decent, so to have these guys donating not only the door but t-shirt and CD cash to keep the concept and acquisition of Free Karts alive through their sweat was really freakin' cool. Kinda like finding a diamond in a turd. After all was said and done, KA$H FOR KART$ raised roughly $700.

Keep your eyes trained on the streets. Free Karts are comin'!

Harpo Corleone

--

Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco 468 Turk St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
vox: (415) 346.3740
Fax: (415) 775.5639
coh@sfo.com
http://www.sfo.com/~coh

It happened under their noses, noses of different angles and dispositions; noses shaped and molded by uncalloused fingers leaving imprints of corporate logos, collegiate acronyms and other indentations.  One such nose belonged to my supervisor, the blonde, who took more than her share of oxygen whenever close by.  I would hyperventilate, overriding my breathing’s natural cadence, gasping for something I couldn’t see.  She would breathe—inflating herself with the vigor of a fitness instructor and lung capacity of a bullfrog—training me on policies and procedures she’d written—reviewing each item (100 in all)—breathe in…breathe out.  Our training “get-togethers” would sometimes last more than 2 hours.  I’d look at the round-faced clock on the wall.  It said, “You should have been out of here a half hour ago”. 

The blonde would eventually leave me to breathe on my own.  I’d sneak to the bathroom and look at my nose. I’d look at the bridge, the cartilage that sloped in a downward angle.  I wanted to find the Filipino or African parts of my nose, the parts that took in air and blew them out—on toilet paper, handkerchiefs and, occasionally, into an imaginary indigenous nose flute that was, in reality, my snoring--on those nights I was able to sleep. 

I am a door attendant, or doorman, or—as some folks would say—concierge.  Prior to this I worked as a security guard for three years, employed by 2 different companies with nearly identical uniforms but different arm patches—one showing a raccoon, the other a bear.  The security company dispatched me to a newly built high-end apartment complex in the city’s Richmond District.  I sat and greeted high end people in my guard uniform.  In several days I observed that some ends were higher than others, for even in the high end world, ends come in varying degrees, like a good steak—low high end, high low end, medium high end, high high end, and no-end-in-sight high end.  I greet these souls with a “Good morning” or an occasional “Buenos dias” for flair, and other requisite pleasantries one must use when encountering people whose monetary worth, when compared to your own, puts you into the status of a dwarf.  All this takes place from the vantage point of my “New York style hotel front desk work station”.

The property management somehow liked me and, it so happened, had an available position for a door attendant.  I applied and got the job. I turned in my security guard jacket with the raccoon patch and told my father in Hawaii the good news via text message:  Hey dad, I got a house Negro job paying me 3 dollars an hour more than I was getting as a security guard.  Ten minutes later I got my father’s response via text message that seemed to have drifted across the pacific on a gentle Hawaiian breeze: You ain’t got no house Negro job…you got an uncle tom job…congratulations. I was given a new uniform--a pair of tan dockers, a baby blue long sleeve shirt, a blue jacket, tan shoes and a sweater vest.  The sweater vest bothered me, but i was happy it did'nt have an argyle design.  Sweater vests make you look paunchy and soft--giving the impression that you have basically surrendered your manhood, dignity and residual bits of revolutionary spirit.  I hate sweater vests.

As the front desk Uncle Tom, I am becoming acquainted with my duties, not the least of which is cleaning my work area.  As part of a long lineage of custodial artists (janitors)—namely my father and uncles—I am aware of the need for cleanliness.  I greet bottles of assorted cleaning products and grab a rag.  The place is spotless and I would assume, free of any virulent microbes that could invade this temple of the high end.  I spray and wipe constantly.  The countertops, windows, windowsills, doorknobs, marble walls—even the chandelier--all cry out “Please, no more…it hurts!”  But I ignore the pleas, the screams, scrubbing and buffing, getting it cleaner than clean—so clean that I begin to cry from the stinging in my eyes.  I prop and re-prop the pillows on the couches next to the fireplace, I neaten the stack of newspapers—of the proper variety—the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and SF Chronicle (One morning I placed copies of the Bayview and Street Sheet on the table which were promptly whisked away, by whom, I have no idea for I was too busy cleaning to notice) and I begin to think of Mr. Rogers and how he loved his (high end?) neighbor.  “Hey Uncle Tom” a voice calls out.  I look and all I see are pillows upon a couch devoid of people, a window without reflection and a variety of surfaces cleaned to extinction.  Then a whisper: “You are on sacred Ohlone land…this building was once a hospital where people endured many sufferings”.  I looked at the fire place and pillows and lobby area.  There was no one.  Then another whisper: “Take back your life”.  I stop scrubbing and go back to the front desk. 

One by one they pass me on their way out, the hedge funders, the marketing consultants, the CEO’s, the medical professionals—most, if not all, newly arrived to the city.  I open the door and they whisk by, leaving a bit of high end air for me.  I go to the kitchen area and make coffee, making sure the pots are gleaming and that the proper amount of sugar packets, creamer and wooden stirring sticks are displayed. 

The environment is a strange one, corporate and detached, yet in the pores of everyone within it. All is contrived and controlled; laughter and anger—the emotions that make us human—are only accepted in forms that are sanctioned by the corporation.  I look out the window.  I see the neighborhood I grew up in, the street where I delivered papers, the street where I was hit by a car while delivering papers, the street where grandma and grandpa could not rent an apartment because Grandpa was black and Grandma was white.  I see the street where my Filipino Grandparents walked on after being evicted from the Fillmore to make way for redevelopment.  I am jolted out of my dream when a resident drops their dry cleaning off at the desk.

While I’m opening doors and calling cabs and scheduling dry cleaning deliveries, there is this guy who works at the residence, the janitor, Marco.  We hadn’t exchanged a word for about a month into my employ yet I noticed him; something real, something familiar about him.  He pushed his mop bucket, its wheels rumbling across the cold floor—the sounds coming from some deep place that can only be felt.  He walked over that floor that had been scrubbed until blue and he told me he had worked at the residence for a few months; before that he had worked as a janitor at an Indian casino up north. One day he told me he was Filipino—on his mother’s side.  I was half Filipino too.  Slowly we began to talk like Filipinos, laugh like Filipinos, and our bellies grew with Filipino hunger.  Soon that sterile floor, that sterile environment seemed different.  The microbes that were banished returned and laughed along with us. 

Marco told me that he’d been to the Philippines and had met his mother’s relatives.  I told him that my grandparents had come to America in the 20’s and that I’d never visited the motherland.  He spoke in measured tones.  I sensed that this was a side of him that he had somehow been made to feel ashamed of.  But slowly I felt that shame die as he swept and mopped.  He spoke about his favorite Filipino foods.  I got hungry.  I told him I’d make pork adobo for our lunch one day in the week.  He mopped with more vigor. 

The smell of adobo filled the break room that following Friday, breaking through with a spirit of community, breaking whatever was designed to break us; permeating the walls and sterilized floors, swirling and rising through every inch of that former hospital until the spirits rose and came to life, sharing their stories, songs, tears, fire; the pork and vinegar and chili peppers spread like fire on our lips as we spoke of our families, sharing brown people words and brown people thoughts—the rice sticking to our fingers and corners of our mouths like memories that refuse to die.

I just got my first probationary job performance review.  As usual, I got average/below average scores in all categories except for attendance and punctuality.  I sat while my supervisor spoke with corporate sanctioned words and sanctioned emotions.  You have to be more of a team player and orient yourself with more high-end businesses in the neighborhood to recommend to our residents, she said.  As she spoke, I heard nothing.  I took a deep breath and smelled the fragrance of my community—of the adobo that Marco and I shared—that was now in the floors and walls and ceiling and could not be scrubbed off or erased. 

My supervisor finished my review, signing and dating the review under her eyes.  But she had no idea that while she was doing that, Marco and I had taken back our lives, its sweet fragrance undetected under her nose.

Friday, October 23, 2009;

Ingles sigue

I’m not currently homeless, but with the fickle stoner landlady that my partner and I have, that could change at any moment. We don’t want to be homeless again. If we lose our place here, we can’t afford another one here in Austin.

I’ve been homeless on and off since 1992, when I left home because my mom just refused to get along with me. At first I lived off my savings, but when that ended, I started crashing with friends and occasionally sleeping with guys to have a place to stay for the night. I smoked pot and dropped acid, so I don’t really remember much from 1992 to 1995. .

At the drop of a hat, if I ended up with some money from a little job, friends, or church, I’d decide to go off to Austin, Nashville, Dallas, or some other town. I’d work there for a while, but never could save enough to find a place. .

I met a guy with a lot of privilege and we dated all summer. I guess he liked having a little street girl to fool around with for a while, until his rich psychiatrist daddy freaked out after I got pregnant (I found out later that Daddy-O paid for my abortion.) Then my boyfriend literally dropped me off in front of a teen homeless shelter. Two months of depression and drug use ensued. .

I met a British space physicist and had a semester-long affair with him, once again ending up pregnant. This time, I was not going to terminate my pregnancy. I was able to find a supportive midwife who moved me to North Texas, where I gave birth to Maya in 1996.

I returned to college in 1997,but it only lasted a year. My parents and I had reconciled by that point, so I ended up moving in with them in El Paso. I was able to find a good job as a telephone operator, but once again, depression reared its ugly head, and I got fired. .

My parents told the State that I was not fit to care for my daughter because of my mental illness, so they took her from me, promising me that they would give her back when I was more stable. Then the State charged me with child endangerment because some anonymous asshole reported that I had left my child alone and didn’t feed her. I got probation, but pissed it away after my mom told me not to see my daughter. I ran off to Houston in 1999 after CPS refused to assist me in obtaining mental health services. .

I got pregnant again the next year after a fling with an eighteen year old. I went off to San Francisco, but returned to Austin after six weeks. I moved in with some friends from the LGBT community, and gave birth to Ethan in 2001. .

I had odd jobs and help from friends, and that’s how I survived with Ethan then. We traveled around the country, but the grass was not greener on the other side. We always returned to Houston. .

In 2004, we were living in a mentally ill group home in Houston when I met Todd, a fellow resident. We quickly fell in love and got our own place, but that didn’t last long, because I was so afraid of CPS and the State coming to get me. I left for Austin that summer, and Todd followed me a few months later. .

I became pregnant and we moved to Albuquerque, where we stayed until Zen was born in early 2005. We returned to Austin, where we stayed at the Salvation Army for six months until we qualified for a housing program. We moved into our own apartment in a nice area and Ethan began school. Almost immediately after moving, I once again got pregnant with Serenity, born in 2006. We spent that year moving from one apartment’s “$99 move in special” to another. .

Todd got a part-time job in 2007 and we moved into a house. Unfortunately, he became physically disabled in addition to his mental illness, so we lost the house. We spent most of 2007 going around the country trying to find him better health care for his neurological disorder, caused by the negligence of his psychiatrist. .

In September of 2007, we moved back to Austin and briefly stayed in the Catholic Worker house. Unfortunately, the woman there didn’t like Todd and threw him out, so the kids and I left the next day. Unbeknownst to us, she called CPS on us. .

We got help from the School District to move into an cramped apartment in a bad area of town. To help pay the rent, I started stripping, but fell back into drug abuse, so I just wasn’t able to take care of the kids like I should have. Todd was basically bedridden at that point. CPS came, but they saw nothing wrong, so they closed the case. .

March 2008 was when the shit hit the fan. Our apartment complex was sick of fixing our windows broken by the neighbors playing soccer, so they threatened to evict us. The next day, I received a call at work from CPS saying they were removing my children because of neglect. My house was a total pigsty because I was too depressed to care, and the police were called. They discovered my warrant for probation violation, arrested me, and sent me back to El Paso. They sent Todd to the mental hospital. .

After I was sentenced in El Paso, I was arrested for child endangerment again in Austin, and was transported back. The whole time I was incarcerated, I only got one visit from friends. I ended up serving my sentences concurrently, and was released from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in December of last year. .

Todd and I went to court and had our parental rights terminated and so our children went to foster care, then adoption. It is still very hard on us ten months later. .

I finally was able to access mental health services and chemical dependency treatment, and now I am receiving Supplemental Security Income as well as Todd’s. Unfortunately, it is hard to locate affordable housing in Austin nowadays, so we rent an RV month to month. We don’t know when our college student landlady is going to flake out on us and want us to move. I don’t know what is going to happen then, but I am a survivor, so I know I’ll make it through.

Trent

Bent to that
demon wind
blowing from within
and without.

Without a home
curled tight to the needle,
cops slide you in to the
bag like you weren’t.

Man,
you were a great voice whose
words we so badly needed
to hear:
Here;
haven’t got enough
words
to cover this hole in my gut.
Feel it rotting too,
one step behind you
buddy man.
I don’t want us to go there
all of us
together alone
narcotizing
the pain-joy
of fear-success.

Was it the shadow of Doug’s
rescue?
Celebrity charge to the front page
and outside
the paper
lying on the cement
you’re dead.

Trent man,
why you went out that way
curled round the needle
on the street--no back
flat on it and hurting
medicated in to no-land;
other land;
over.

Blue land, blurry blue of better wombs
I can’t dare to cross it
I’m burnin blurry here.

I remember the way you transcribed that interview getting it down word by word word for word but

I don’t know the sound of the tape that was running inside you at the brink of extinct:

link to who we really are.

Margot says you wouldn’t have died like that in Cuba no homeless heroin-heros bunked down on concrete.

I remember the way you packed that pack every night: loading a tome from the library--was it Whitman?--after a day of pecking words on our whizbangnew G4 speedsters while you sleep out.

Fucking city without.
Demon wind without
10,000 out
every night out
staying warm with blankets,

booze, needles, and shared stories.

Trent
you told us story: Your grandad in hiz crazy
cave with the carvings how can you be gone?
You can’t be gone.
You are still here inside me
making me look at my demons
that could kill me slowly
or quickly.

+++++++++++++

Trent Hayward aka Harpo Corleone.
Died on the Street: June 3?2?, 2000

The title explains it all.  When this poverty skolah was 13, I was hanging out at the Cliff House in San Francisco.  I loved the two steam-powered motorcycles mounted above the doors of the Sutro Baths. 

A shady man came up to me.  "Wouldja like $25 kid?"  Twenty-five dollars in the 60's is like $250 today.  "What do I have to do sir?" I asked.  "There will be a fire here later," he said, "all ya gotta do is hide somewhere and throw rocks at the firemen." 

I said no.  He went looking for another kid.  I went down to Playland at the beach to have a snack at The Hothouse, a Mexican restaurant.  As I was chomping on my tamale, I heard alarm bells and saw smoke.  I walked in that direction, thinking it was the Cliff House at first. I saw kids throwing rocks at firefighters from hiding places, including Seal Rocks. 

Cliff House and the Sutro Baths were built in the late 1800's.  Adolph Sutro, a millionaire, built them, along with Playland and a private railroad built along the cliffs going to the Presidio.  Sutro was also the first Jewish Mayor of San Francisco for a few years.  The Cliff House is like a cat, it has had seven lives so far, being refurbished for new generations of people to enjoy.   

His idea of an amusement park most likely inspired Walt Disney.  The Cliff House was a hotel then.  Tourists arrived on Sutro's train.  His mansion was surrounded by Playland.  The 1906 earthquake destroyed the mansion, which was abandoned.   

A suspended cable tram went back and forth between Seal Rocks and the Cliff House.  There used to be a penny arcade in the basement of the Cliff House (it has been moved), generations of children played with games 50 or 60 years older than them.  Older people visited the basement too, remembering when they were kids.  Thornton Kimes has been in that basement too. 

Inside Sutro Baths were the original costumes of "General Tom Thumb", a little-person performer for P.T. Barnum's Barnum & Bailey Circus.  Annie Oakley's supposed rifle was there too.  The baths were turned into an ice skating rink in the 1950's because people were afraid they would catch Polio from the pools. 

After the fire there was a proposal to build a five-story co-op housing (box) where the baths had been.  Because the Sutro Baths were registered as a landmark area, the project couldn't go forward.  The Federal Government turned it into a national park.   

What is left of the Sutro Baths is like dinosaur bones, like Roman ruins found near Hadrian's Wall.  Thornton Kimes and many others have walked in the ruins that look like a rat's maze.  This poverty skolah has a lump in his throat thinking about what used to be--Playland, the Baths, a place gentrifiers burned and failed to turn into money.   

This poverty skolah has more stories to tell about the San Francisco that used to be, before the current rush to gentrify finishes the rape that began so many years ago.

"Californians need to get real, " as the words shot out of  jerry Brown's mouth, my  body started to shake with fear from that real.  The "real" of a near empty  stomach, the "real" of  bitter cold cement and vinyl back seats of cars to sleep on when you have no home.  i had felt that real for so many years of childhood poverty, the kind of real our children will be feeling if Brown's proposed budget cuts to Medi-Cal, welfare and child care  are implemented.

The acts of budget genocide currently being proposed to the Cal-works and Medi-cal programs in California include reductions of 13% to the meager cash grants we barely receive now for working in-system,(there is no free money, us mamaz work for every penny we recieve) limiting the amount of medicine we and our children get per month and the worst genocide of all, cutting off our children entirely from cash grants within 48 months . These already stripped "aid" programs based on the myth of the budget cuts or as i call them, budget Crumbs, are crafted on the lie that there is plenty of money to fund illegal wars that kill, poison and traumatize children and adults across the globe, but never enough for poor families to survive, much-less thrive.

I wondered what was real that morning for Jerry Brown  as he departed his condominium without  fear he would come home to a rent increase, eviction papers  or a foreclosure notice, perhaps consuming a breakfast  purchased without worrying that the rising cost of food  would overdraw his bank account. And in the reality crafted by Jerry Brown, Schwarzenegger and so many other politricians before and after them. Us poor folks live in a scarcity model defined by people who have never had to go scarce.

As humans hearing about budget genocide we tend to go to an "I got mines" mentality, denying, accusing and blaming people for the need they have, pitting one need against another, ranking oppressions and/or feeling selfish about our "own" peoples needs. This process is all fueled and supported by mainstream media supported by corporations and corrupt politicians who would rather keep the business of hate and false scarcity going as long as it keeps us from focusing on the real "real"

The budget lies actually began hundreds of years ago with the theft of land and resources from indigenous peoples through paper trails, legislative theft, and adjudicated deceit, until we suddenly had nothing to even negotiate or trade with. In the 21st century reality working people honestly pay their taxes to support an amorphous system while being duped into this collective myth of budget scarcity. Paying into 3 trillion dollar defense budgets and corporate pay-offs, whether they agree with them or not and then being confused by a consistent declaration of deficit overrun.

Real budget justice models do exist in the US budgets created by community -wide participation such as the one created by multiple organizations in San Francisco known as The Peoples Budget- In Oakland led by Ella Baker Center and the city-wide budget organized by economic justice advocates in Chicago who collaborated with alderman who were also fed up with false government and established a truly people-led budget process that managed to evenly distribute tax resources to education, city services and social services for poor and working people and was actually used in city policy.

So as Gov Brown defines "real" as budget genocide which will have deadly consequences on our children and families let's follow the leads of our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin and Egypt and rise up to demand a different kind of  "real"  that feeds our children, employs our workers and fixes our roads, really!

To Listen to the voices of mothers and daddys in poverty speaking on the impact of these cuts click here to listen to PNN-Radio We-Search

To Watch the mamas and daddys on PNN-TV WeSearch click here

I haven't known you for very long, maybe a month. And I ve only met you twice. The first time was at newsroom. I remember being really proud of you for the work you were doing as a freelance writer. I saw you as a peer I guess because of your age and your homelessness. I guess I was feeling admiration really for you coming up out of poverty or struggling to succeed. I saw you as making headway and that made me feel hopeful. The weird thing is that after I met you the second time over at the Coalition On Homelessness, you had just gotten the job at the Guardian. You laughed and said " yeah, I'm their man on the street.... Literally" we both laughed. I 've been thinking about you alot since them, and especially during this last week. That s the really bizarre thing,. I've been watching and waitng, expecting to run into you.. So I ve been doing double takes at guys fitting your description, my age, weather beaten, back pack. Now Tiny tells me your dead. Well that just pisses me off!

It doesn't make much sense though since I hardly knew you. But none the less there it is. I'm really mad that you're not going to be around anymore. Ive been looking forward to getting to know you. The only resolve I have is that maybe you can hear me and know I still wnat to know you. I hope you'll come by and visit us over at POOR from time to time - give us some inspiration. I know that you were respected for your wrtiting and I can surely use all the help I can get. Please consider this a full fledge invitation. I didn't get to know you while you were down here on the earth plane. I hope that your spirit will feel free to infuse my thoughts and writings now that your over on the other side.

As I am remembering you I am hopeing that your spirt is traveling safely, now and always

Love, Anna Morrow
Poor News Network

POOR Magazine honors Al Robles, a poet and organizer who worked, taught and supported young and elder poets of color from all communities in the Bay Area and across the globe with the launching of The Al Robles Living Library Project and POOR Press Book Collection.

(San Francisco). POOR Magazine honors the late Al Robles with a gift of love for his work as a housing activist, poet, teacher, mentor, and historian.  His bringing together of communities was a gift he shared with POOR Magazine, of which he was an active board member. This historic library launch will feature the POOR Press 2011 Book collection which features artists of color in poverty from across the globe and the movie “Manilatown is in The Heart—time Travel with Al Robles”, a film by Curtis Choy.

Al Robles love and spirit and vision continue to guide POOR Magazine’s values of eldership and interdependence--leaving a living legacy of care giving and revolutionary media that gives voice to communities traditionally and intentionally silenced in media and academia.  “My Uncle Al’s legacy is the I-Hotel” said nephew and POOR Magazine co-editor Tony Robles.  “He inspired a generation of activists to fight for the rights of elders to decent housing, bringing attention to the injustice and tragedy of the International Hotel and bringing communities together in the fight for social justice”. 

Robles was instrumental in the rebuilding of Kearny Street’s International Hotel, home of Filipino and Chinese elders who were issued eviction notices to make way for a parking lot.  The “I-Hotel” captured the attention of the world with images of elders holding signs and chanting, “We won’t go!”  Robles narrated the film that captured the fight and eventual eviction entitled, “The Fall of the I-Hotel”.

In addition to the POOR Press collection, the Al Robles living library will feature a collection of books gathered over the years by Al Robles, as well as writings, photos, audio interviews and poetry that will be presented and preserved digitally.  The library will be a community space open to all who want to read and write, relax and learn about the legacy of Al Robles, which is the legacy of sharing stories, sharing voices and community building.  The library offer events such as readings, film screenings, writing workshops and feature artists and performers from throughout the community.

"Jane Kim is a park's champion and an advocate."
Words expressed by Phil Ginsburg on behalf, and support of newly-elected S.F. District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim. Ginsburg is the General Manager of Recreation and Park Department for the City and County of San Francisco, CA.

A community forum panel took place at the Bessie Carmichael Elementary School, on February 16th, 2011 in San Francisco's South of Market District. (SoMa) Myself, and my fellow POOR comrade, Muteado Silencio attended this community meeting. As a community ourselves who live in her district, we needed to be here. Who's talking about us, who's talking with us, and for us as a community motivates our routine re-porting and sup-porting.

No voices would be taboo..............even when we're heard.

Insight was needed by us as to what S.F. Supervisor Jane Kim plans were going to be for her constituents.

After an estimated five block travel through chilly winds, we arrived just in time to hear the forum panelists address everyone in attendance. The community members were diverse, primarily of multiple Asian ethnicities (among others) and cultures. The meeting was held in the school's cafeteria.

Community organizers involved for tonight's meeting were the United Playaz and SOMCAN. The forum panelists were San Francisco departmental head employees here for a dialogue discussion.

They were from the Department of Public Health, Board of Education, the Recreation and Park Department, the San Francisco Police Department's Southern Station, the  Redevelopment Agency, and the Department of Public Works. Angelica Cabande, organizing director for SOMCAN facilitated the discussion dialogue.

Issues raised were pedestrian, public safety, accessibility for the Gene Friend Recreational Center, and plans for Victoria Manalo Draves Park. (across the street from the school)  The transparency that took place were primary concerns of complaints regarding the park, and ongoing unsavory activities occurring in it. The residents who lived in this area expressed their concerns of not being secure and safe.

A police sergeant on the panel pledged that his department would address their concerns.

Everyone was allowed to bring forth questions, concerns, and grievances to the panelists. However, everyone's answers were postponed until the meeting's end due to the "interest of time."

As I stood in line to speak to the panelists, I myself began to hear each speaker. Criticisms ranged from lack of traffic safety, neighborhood protection, and scarce beneficial resources became instantaneous to my ears. One speaker expressed his efforts to receive a small business license, but was unsuccessful. He seemed discouraged in displaying his words to them. His greatest fear was that he wouldn't be able to support himself unless he got his license.

In a two-sided circulated community flyer, I viewed a chronology of concerns. One paragraph indicated that the SoMa community "wasn't against advocating for adequate funding for the rec center and park." Another was how funds are never really allocated into the community, regardless. Also indicated in the flyer were allegations of discrimination against the United Playaz staff; and refusals to allow them partnerships into their programs.

Some students raised an awareness that somewhat shocked not only me, but some attendees regarding the school food distributed to them: Poorly prepared portions, limited, and unsatisfactory meals were given to them daily. Hydra Mendoza, the school board president quickly rose from her seat to assure everyone that the food "was much better than it was five years ago."

She also stated that the city was the process of pouring funds into the school district.

"Where is the city going to get these funds considering its continuous claims of alleged shortfalls and deficits for the schools?" I asked myself, while dining on slices of pizza and sliced portions of sandwich rolls provided at this meeting.

Moreover, if these accusations made from the youth speakers were indeed valid; how can the city and/or state expect for all children, especially in elementary to function and focus in their education without proper nourishment?

"I just have a couple of questions for Supervisor Jane Kim." I said to them while shifting my eyes towards Kim's direction meeting her's. "One of them is how do you feel about the Eastern Neighborhood's Plan to "re-zone" the Mission District? The other is, what are your thoughts regarding the opposition against this plan to remove the Red Stone Building, and replace it with a condominium?"

For what felt like to me was just a typical two-hour dry doctored dialogue, with the panelists bearing remain-to-be-seen promises. After the meeting adjourned, I approached Supervisor Kim for her to respond to my series questions I had asked earlier on. I was curious about Kim's thoughts about the Eastern Neighborhood's Plan to "rezone" the Mission District, and removing the Redstone Building.

She immediately introduced me to her staff members. It felt in this instance as if my questions would be unanswered. I extended an invitation for her to come to the next POOR Community Newsroom. Kim couldn't promise she'd attend. If she was unable to, one of her reps would be sent instead.

"I'm interested in attending some of those meetings." Kim said to me, referencing the meetings held by the Redstone Building tenants concerning the building's future.

"Roughly about five people have asked her (Kim) to come the meetings, but she hasn't shown up, nor has any of her representatives." My comrade, Elder Scholar Bruce Allison would later inform me. "One of them was a resident of Adair Alley. ( He's asked her to come to the meetings, due to the project's plan to build forty parking spaces in it. This would be an inconvenience for him to even leave out of his home."

(Panelists present at the forum included:The panelists part of the SoMa Townhall evening meeting forum: .Colleen Chawla, Director of Grants, and Special Projects for S.F. Department of Public Health. .Hydra Mendoza, President of the San Francisco School Board of Education. .Phil Ginsburg, General Manager of Recreation and Park Department. .Courtney Pash, of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. .Mohammed Nuru, of San Francisco Department of Public Works. .Unknown sergeant from the San Francisco Police Department)

Articles of opposition against the proposed development plan:

http://poormagazine.org/node/3373
http://poormagazine.org/node/3380
http://missionlocal.org/2011/01/opposition-builds-for-condo-complex-near-redstone-building/

June 2000

#1

It was a small tree in the corner of a piece of partial nature only allowed to be there because it was the landscaped frame for a PGE processing plant ,,proving that poor people like us are not important unless we are sponsored by a corporation....

#2.......

You came to me that night in a yellow plastic bag surrounded by yellow police tape ......

the kind of police tape you would have used to throw at a cop who harassed homeless people -

the kind of cop who would hand out quality of life infractions ,

the kind of quality of life infractions that would get you a warrant ,

the kind of warrant that would land you in court ..the kind of court that you would fight ...

..the kind of fight that would land you in jail ............the kind of jail that would manufacture the yellow

tape that you would BREAK OUT OF ..

.for,,,EVER and ever and ever ..................

The Thursday, February 10th, 2011 early morning show (6a.m. to 9a.m.) on KPOO 89.5 FM was interesting.  A Big L Libertarian was interviewed, and what I at first heard was a great rant about how what is/was going on in Egypt is/was terrible, Obama sounded good at first but why did he change course and try to slow things down?

Big L Libertarians, can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em.  Darn.  They sound just like Very Conservative Republicans--they ARE Very Conservative but don't identify as Republicans.  They hate "Big Government", they hate government period.  They think government should get out of the way of The People and the corporations and let both do what they do best--make money, make wealth. 

The Big L Libertarian said this sort of thing several times, that this is/was the solution to problems like dictators ruling Egypt or anywhere else.  Corporations will solve all of our problems?  Corporations like the ones that sliced oil-rich Nigeria into a Muslim half and a Christian half that are supposed to hate each other now while people who are just plain poor try to get some oil for their personal use and get killed in explosions and fires? 

Corporations like Lennar, which owns big chunks of San Francisco, have a sweetheart deal with the city government over "cleaning up" the Navy Yard and have some of the responsibility for the steadily shrinking Black population of the city?  The banks getting fatter with more foreclosed houses every day?

Those wonderful guys who do what they do best, make money, make wealth?  At the Feb 15th, 2011, Tuesday morning 10 a.m. Coffee Hour where I live, the Elk Hotel, one guy talking to another said something about how hard it is to get a job in San Francisco 

To quote Michael Jackson:  They Don't Care About Us.  They never have.  You can see it in the way that the shredded social safety net is being fiddled with so more cuts can be made and more people can suffer, or suffer worse than they already are.  Big L Libertarians, can't live with 'em, don't wanna hear what they have to say.

June 2000

Last night on Friday, a man was found dead on San Francisco’s hard streets. I saw him once in a staff meeting; the name he went by was Trent. He was part of Media Alliance and participated in Community Newsroom at POOR. He had addiction problems; I don’t know the drugs used: it’s a non-issue. But Homelessness is ultimately what killed him.

To be homeless, focusing your mind on more than immediate food, shelter, and clothing is difficult enough to many, for some nearly impossible.

Trent did it, turning a so called negative outcome into an asset, an expert on the vagaries of threadbare survival.

Someone or thing cut Trent’s thread... Who, why, when are questions we may never know, but someone does, SOMEONE DOES!

We can all rise, learn, and move on: Trent proved that. I hope he has found a resting place; no longer worried about anything except returning to learn a few more lessons.