Elder 

By Amir Cornish

I met this elder, Chief Plentiwolf, who told me that he and his tribe got this land for free from this man who had a sun dance ceremony.

This tree I saw was tall and had a lot of flags on it. We couldn’t take pictures of it because we were too scared. This tree was probably older than me. 

It was really spiritual looking at this tree. It was really different from the rest of the trees. This tree was in the middle of that land.

TOUR #1

Poverty, Race, Disability, Youth, Elder Scholarship/ Empathy Exercise

By Matsu Momii

Person #1:  My name is Lee Black.  I began using 3 years ago after the death of my father, my rock, the glue that held every facet of my world together, held me together.  He was the one person I could count on, the person who taught me unconditional love, and taught me how to see the good in others.  When he suddenly left this life, I was so lost.  With drugs clouding my ability to process losing him, time has passed, and I became lost.  Now here I am, in Olympia at a homeless camp, in awe at what my life has become.  Although my situation is seemingly bad to someone viewing from the outside, I recently decided to give life another chance.  I mourn what once was, and always will, but some little voice inside me is telling me to “hang on, things will get better.”  I truly believe, thanks to my father’s teachings, that we are all where we are supposed to be right now, to do what we came here to do.  So that’s what I tell myself when I doubt.  I’m right where I’m supposed to be.  My life is different than it used to be, and soon, with positive thinking and trust in a greater good, my life will be different than this.  Hang in there everyone.  Love to all! -Lee Black, Olympia, WA

Person #2:  I thought it was all bad, but 5 years later it's some of the best experiences I’ve ever had.  I’ve been homeless now for ½ a decade, wasn’t sure what to expect, and as my hope for a normal life began to fade, a new family emerged who didn’t reject me. Although I’d still like to get off the street, if I have to sell my soul I’d rather beat feet.  My family out here are realer than those behind four walls who fear -Chase Arevalo 360 763 3564, chasearevalo14@gmail.com

Person #3:  It was in the fall of 2014 my life changed forever.  Up til then I had a 5 acre ranch.  I was a caseworker for WA State.  With a $2000/month mortgage and struggling to keep 6 children… while paying.  I have a settlement coming, will donate off a $30,000 student loan… With a marriage on the rocks already all it took to finalize the separation (?) was an assault from a client.  I continued to work… due to my financial responsibilities and the need that my 32 clients needed when I was on a 16 client... due to the State… my pay stopped due to my injury and they denied my claim.  In a matter of weeks, I went to living homeless from owning a ranch from having a family to living alone.  People yell things at me, regardless of the fact I’m 60 years old.  Regardless of 4 college degrees and 2 young (?(…. SAD. -Jesse Durazo

Person #4:  Death of family, loss of direction, lack of capacity, gaining experience, losing my bank card.  I have an addiction to help others succeed.  Contact me as a solution or become a stock option. -Life Shamarah Marie Warlucci, Save a Love Help a Life, 360 413 0577

Person #5:  Lack of self care is why I'm houselessness.  I dream to build a house.

Person #6:  I had to be in the hospital for an abscess for 2 ½ weeks.  I was healing on heroin and had the worst  come down of my life. 

Maybe take all the unoccupied homes and give them to homeless people-catywolfe@gmail.com

Person #7:  Family, ex-girlfriend & baby Devon Jr.  I was out here selling crack cocaine and was making very good money too.  Hailey was one of my workers and a very hard worker at that too.  I never once looked at her as an attractive girl or anything like that because business is business. But one day we smoked too much crack together and one thing led to another and we slept together and 9 months later we had Devon Jr.  Then soon after Devon was born she took all my drugs and left me for a midget named Tommy and left Devon Jr. with me and now here we are.

I am trying to survive and keep my son safe and alive but the legal way.  I’m looking for jobs everyday and hopefully I will get a job soon. -Devon

Person #8:  Getting out of prison after doing 8 years having nothing to come to.  No home, no nothing, only the clothes on my back. You have to do anything to stay alive, I (?) had to go back to doing things that got me back to prison.  I had to sell drugs, etc.  It's hard out here but we all for the most part are survivors. We will survive. -Pauley

Person #9:  I was watching my post… (?) a person came over from another camp to start strife. I ran them off with a sword pointed down. 15 minutes later I had a 36 pointed at me.  I turned ran and tripped as I was getting up. I was knocked in the face with steel toed boots. -David N Johns

Person #10:  Stress, triple whammy… mother had triple bypass, lost my job and a 5 year relationship ended.

Creating a community to help felons.

Person #11:  4 years in prison in Texas.  My father was in prison for 12 years.  My father got released from prison, and then the cartel killed him.  My father died on Christmas day.  Then I got hooked on heroin at the age of 22.  I lost my son at the age of 22.  Then I ended up homeless for the next 4 years. -Nicholas Lindo

Person #12:  I was wrongfully accused of domestic violence where I was stripped of my rights and my children and wife. I lost everything and never could get a job with a felony on my record.  After my prison sentence I came home to an empty place and it's been that way since.

Everyone having equal housing. -Elijah Yelden

Poor/houseless/indigenous folks share models of  landless peoples' self-determination, Po'Lice-free land liberation, revolutionary media, and art.

POOR Magazine is a poor and indigenous people-led art, culture, and liberation movement. Our multi-generational, multi-cultural houseless/indigneous people-led movement will be going on the road to share the urgent medicine of how to build self-determined land movements, take back land, and our own knowledge systems and cultures right here in occupied Turtle Island.

Sharing the medicine of Homefulness- a homeless peoples solution to homelessness- and offering readings and workshops from our newest books "How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever"/"Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth", as well as leading a Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour through wealth-hoarding neighborhoods, museums of Anthro-Wrongology, and Academia to share the urgent medicine of Radical Redistribution and ComeUnity Reparations. And finally, we will be meeting/sharing and teaching poor and houseless people-led media production with fellow unhoused comeUnity in that territory so they can launch their own media hubs like POOR Magazine's street-based media projects.

We are inviting all organizations to co-sponsor, host us for a book reading, performance, or workshop, or walk with us in the Stolen Land Tour. Below are links of Stolen Land Tours we have done before and information about our books and work.

Tiburcio Garcia

Lisa Garcia

Revolutionary Journalism

27 July, 2021

Deecolonized Un-Tour: “O My Father” 

“O my Father, thou that dwellest In the high and glorious place: When shall I regain thy presence, And again behold thy face?” 

-Eliza R. Snow

As a young, light skinned formerly houseless poverty skola and journalist with Poor Magazine, this place was a new sight. Not this town, with it’s empty sidewalks and quiet 1950's houses that felt like they had eyes focused on your back. What was a new sight for me was the poem and plaque that made a point to honor the poem of a woman who’s class and social status was low, which led to many deeming her as useless, yet showing that she created a work of art that was immortalized as among The Most Beloved of Mormon Hymns.

 I believe the message behind this if any is that no matter what status or position you are in you have the potential to create something beautiful. Now here is my question. Does that apply to the Ute, Dine, Paiute, Goshute, and Shoshone people who were forcibly removed from their land in order to allow for Salt Lake City to become the home of the Salt Lake Temple, the Headquarters of the Morman Faith?

It doesn’t. It never has, because the voices, stories, art and songs of native people all over Stolen Turtle Island have never mattered, and the only thing that remains in the stolen and hoarded spaces and places are these bronze plaques, honoring the colonizers who created works of at such as “O My Father”, on land that was never theirs. That is the purpose of this Western Turtle Island Un-Tour, where me along with my family from Poor Magazine and Deecolonize Academy are doing we-search (that’s poor people led re-search) on the colonization and genocide that has happened in Utah and Colorado.

For 12,000 years before settlers moved into Utah, there were people living there. The Native people of Utah, which were many, as Utah is a big area, stewarded the land long before colonizers claimed it as there’s. Most of that changed, however, when the Mormons “settled” into Utah in 1847, beginning in Salt Lake Valley, and then moving up and down Utah, effectively cutting off Ute trade routes and displacing them from their land. The Black Hawk and Walker War were the Ute people raiding their own land that was stolen from them by the Mormons, for the sole purpose of avoiding starvation. 

Knowing this, I think back to the Capitol Hill Neighborhood we visited that featured the oxidized copper plaque of Eliza R. Snow and many other women and prominent Mormon figures. I didn’t see a plaque showing the absolute forced removal of the indigenous people of Utah by the Mormons. When I read that plaque honoring Eliza for her poem, I wondered how much art created by native people was destroyed, how many voices were permanently silenced. I can’t help but feel sick looking at the bright flowers and freshly cut grass, blue skies and calm, well paved streets, knowing that all of it was built on lies and death.

Press Contacts: Muteado Silencio /Tiny (510-435-7500  

Landless/houseless, Indigenous Black, Brown and Disabled People Lead an "unTour" thru wealth-hoarding neighborhoods and sacred indigenous sites in Denver aka Stolen Ute, Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne Territory 

When: 12pm Thursday, July 29th

Where: Tour launched with Multi-Nationed Prayer  & Speakers at Confluence Park (1500 16th street, Denver, Colorado)

"When they take our land, our tents and our belongings, we have nowhere to go,... " said Israel M., formerly houseless, indigenous co-builder of Homefulness.

"As colonial cities and towns ‘open Back Up’ we indigenous, houseless and poor folks know that means, increased sweeps of houseless bodies, increased evictions of poor families and elders, increased desecration of indigenous peoples lands and sacred sites increased poverty and poLice Terror of Black and Brown and working class people," said Tiny, formerly houseless co-founder of POOR Magazine.

POOR Magazine is a poor and indigenous people-led art, culture, and liberation movement. Our multi-generational, multi-cultural houseless/indigenous people-led movement will be going on the road to connect the dots between our shared oppressions and struggles, share the urgent medicine of how to build self-determined land movements, take back land, healing, and our own knowledge systems and cultures right here in occupied Turtle Island.

This leg of a summer long Un-Tour is in occupied Southern Ute, Mountain Ute, Arapahoe and Northern Cheyenne Territory, aka Denver - the site of high-speed gentrification, homelessness,  poLice abuse, murder and terror as well as a silenced bloody history of colonial genocide.

As we all grapple with Mama Earth burning, flooding and all of us trying to survive, these Un-Tours connect the dots between eviction, homelessness, colonization, desecration, poLice terror, Devil-oper Land grabs, mining and other extractive industries,  desecration of Mama Earth, and the removal, incarceration, police terror of Black, Brown, indigenous, disabled and poor people. 

In so-called Denver we will launch the tour with prayer from all four corners and ancestors of this land with 1st Nations warriors like Lynn Eagle Feather whose sun Paul Castaway was murdered by Denver PoLice as well as liberators from Denver Homeless Outloud, members of Western Regional Advocacy Project, who are on the front-lines of resistance efforts for unhoused Denver residents.

In each UnTour we share poor people-led solutions of Radical Redistribution, Homefulness, Land Back movements and ComeUnity Reparations informed by POOR Press books How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever and Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth, with houseless and poor communities and communities with different forms of race, class and/or education privilege with the goal of supporting local resistance movements and helping poor and indigenous people launch their own solutions like Homefulness.

Smoke from fires across the Western States to the midwest blanket the skies.  Sweeps and invaders concrete the land to cover up history of slaughter  and murder. Gentrifuckers completely program the same blueprint from King St, SF to 16th St mall in Denver. Houseless cannot be eliminated, said Momii Palapaz , family elder from POOR Magazine's Elephant Council (one of the models we teach and live into at Homefulness and share in the How TO Not Call PoLice Ever handbook.)  

We are inviting all organizations to co-sponsor, walk with us, speak and/or learn more about this important new/old way to walk on Mama Earth in this time of so much pain.

Links to some of our Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tours

Stolen Land/Hoarded Resurces Tour thru Akkkadeia- May 2021 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=489FkHJQWxs&t=91s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5NFtYpE64s&t=6s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb-N1FCWAdY&t=57s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0j6baUl1g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxHj4zzCmWk

Links to books:

How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever 

Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth

Po' People's Survival Guide thru COVID-19 and the Virus of Poverty 

Children's books:

When Mama and Me Lived Outside

The Hard Worker (Trabajador Fuerte)

Krip Hop Nation Graphic Novel 

Decolonewz - Newspaper led by youth in poverty for everyone ( available in paper form only) 

Workshops: 

See this link

Po' Peoples Radio Broadcasts:

See this link

More info on Homefulness:

See this link and www.poormagazine.org/homefulness 

Articles on this from the SF Bay View and POOR Magazine:

Stealing our Last Acre and One Remaining Mule

Selling our Homes to Private Investors

Public Housing Privatization

The Privatization

From Privatization to Reparations

Section 8 and Public Housing at Risk

Tiburcio Garcia

Lisa Garcia

Revolutionary Journalism

29 June 2021

Deecolonized Un-Tour: Kolorado Sweeps

“Things are a lot different on the streets since I’ve been out there,” said Benjamin, looking around at everyone in the circle. On this day, after doing our Revolutionary Journalist Workshop where we give a stipend to houseless people for writing their stories, we met with Therese and Benjamin from Denver Homeless Outloud, and interviewed them about the situation with houselessness and sweeps that were going on out here. Listening to him, I realized that our situation out in the Bay Area isn’t so different from theirs. In the Bay Area, we at Poor Magazine protest and fight against constant sweeps that happen in San Francisco and Oakland. These sweeps are unrelenting, happening so often that most of the time houseless folks being sweeps don’t even have a day's break before they are forcibly moved to another area.

Denver Homeless Outloud is currently pursuing a lawsuit that they opened six years ago in an act to prevent the constant sweeps that happen out here. It seems houseless people are treated similarly no matter what part of colonized Turtle Island we are on. The lawsuit began after Denver Homeless Outloud built Tiny Houses on private property that was abandoned for ten years, with a response from the mayor that was a bit overzealous. Seventy police officers showed up to stop the construction of the Tiny Houses, along with a SWAT team, and thus began a redoubled effort by the mayor to sweep the Denver Houseless population. 

“So we filed the lawsuit, and rather than being about people’s right to exist in space the way the lawsuit is set up is about people’s property. Apparently your property has more rights than you do,” (insert name) said, sighing and looking down. After three years, the lawsuit was settled out of court, with the settlement being signed by the Denver houseless community and the City of Denver, which the City of Denver promptly broke. The settlement included warning from the city about when and where they were going to seize property to try to give the houseless community some warning before a sweep, yet the city went ahead and continued to sweep without warning regardless.

“There was a very high level of camping ban enforcement from 2016 to around 2019, when our lawsuit settlement went in place” said Therese, member of Denver Homeless Outloud, and a formerly houseless mother. She continued by talking about the things that have happened in the last couple of years to prevent houseless people from being on the streets. Public Rideaway Strips, the line of dirt or grass that goes between the sidewalk and the street are places that houseless people set up their tents because rideaway strips are not private property. After being swept and kicked out of every other place in Denver, the only place houseless people can camp are the public rideaway strips, and the city had put up orange and green fences on the strips to prevent that from happening.

Just like in the Bay Area, it is clear Denver puts in no effort to assist getting people off of the streets, and instead puts all their effort into making life even worse for houseless people, treating them like animals that need to be herded. It sickens me because this is the norm. Houseless and poor people have always been seen as less than human, because most houseless and poor people are people of color who have been oppressed by a system that is designed to keep them down.

Tiburcio Garcia

Lisa Garcia

Revolutionary Journalism

28 July 2021

Deecolonized Un-Tour: Chief Plentiwolf

“Spirituality, ceremony is our core, our center,” said Chief Plentywolf, an indigenous elder who just finished the annual Sundance ceremony, which is a ceremony where native people gather for prayer and sacrifice of sweat and pain. We came days after to talk to Chief Plentywolf at the invitation of Cynthia, one of our solidarity family. The solidarity family are people with race and class privilege who we teach why they need to give reparations. After a hearty lunch with Chief Plentywolf, Cynthia, her husband Tom and all of us multi-generational, multi-racial poverty skolas who came on this tour, we went out to the site of the Sundance Ceremony.  

     It felt as if the land was welcoming us. One, solitary tree stood in the middle of a grassy field, covered with flags from many indigenous nations. We were told not to take pictures of that tree, and I had no objections. There was little to no wind, and the sun beat down on us, but we were surrounded with trees that wove together like a basket, the leaves from each individual tree coming together to form one continuous growth. We walked over to a small clearing next to a dirt road that slopes up and curves around a bend. In that meadow stood a Teepee, the fabric stretched taut over the supporting posts.  

“We pray every time we do something, or every time we prepare and even meetings and talks like this,” Chief Plentywolf continued, his eyes focusing on each one of us at a time, making me feel as if he was looking through me, looking at everything I could ever be. He talked about the difference between a massacre and a battle, saying that when the white settlers slaughtered women, children and elder indigenous people it went down in history as a battle, yet only when the indigenous people fought back and killed many white men was it called a massacre, and when that happened, the government was able to justify in the history books the genocide that they continued to do, with or without the native people fighting back.

    Chief Plentywolf ended it by talking about Sundance, and how the youth was actually coming back, and how he was excited for the future of Sundance and prayer as a whole. He talked about a16 year old who was the strongest young warrior he had ever seen, and thanked us for being youth and continuing to work and pray with our elders. We thanked Cynthia once more, and before leaving we visited the sweat lodge that is used in the Sundance Ceremony. I came away from the sacred place having learned so much in a short span of time. I would love to join the Sundance Ceremony sometime in the future, and I'm looking forward to being able to speak with Chief Plentiwolf again, to learn a small part of the vast amount of knowledge he has.

About Victor Ochoa

By Ziair Hughes

Victor Ochoa is a proud Raza man and revolutionary artist/muralist. As a youth, Victor migrated from Tijuana to the U.S. Victor's mom was scared of deportation so she made sure Victor spoke English and not Spanish but that wasn't enough. In an interview, Victor described how some guys with big coats and gangster hats came to his door and told his parents they had only a couple days to leave the U.S. So after that, they went to Tijuana but Victor stayed with his grandmother while away from his parents. 

Victor was constantly on the move. He had moved in with his aunt so he could be closer to his parents but he had to work. So, he got a job at a silk screen shop “This is when i started to get into civil rights,” said Victor. 

This is when his form was shaped. He was becoming the great Ochoa. Victor was always supposed to be an artist, “I started early. I was doing (drawing) hats and fingers while other kids were doing stick figures,” said Victor. 

Victor Ochoa is also the soul of Chicano Park. He has a nice amount of murals in Chicano Park. Currently, Victor is working on a Chicano museum. 

Fortunately I got the chance to interview Mr. Ochoa with my school, Deecolonize Academy. He gave us a lot of knowledge on art and community.

Victor is also the founder of Centro Cultural De La Raza in Balboa Park. He also was one of the artists who did the mural for Balboa Park in 2015.

In conclusion, one thing I learned from Mr Ochoa is that art is different. It may not be drawing, but for me it's basketball. His art was destined and I feel like my art is too. 

The Story of the Tulsa Race Massacre 

By Ziair Hughes

Underwater Black Island in the U.S. is the story of the Tulsa massacre where a white mob burnt down a Black community to the ground. Other Black towns have been dismantled off the American map but not by burning them but rather, by keeping it a secret. Lake Lanier is a lake in Forsyth County, Georgia where people do ordinary things. Prior to that, there was a place called Oscarville, Georgia.

Oscarville was a strong mostly Black community with a school, homes, and a church until 1911. Then, two bad events went down. First, two Black teenagers were convicted and sentenced to death in one day. Then, a mob of KKK members terrorized and killed all the Black people in the surrounding area.

“People are getting more familiar with the Tulsa race massacre and Black Underwater but it needs to get more known so we can get the justice we deserve and earned for a long time,” said the news reporter. 

In conclusion: Black excellence is hated against and destroyed because of pride. The ones who start the movement get robbed from the movement when they are as smart as the white man is. He is not smart enough to come together and build an empire with us Black and Brown folks so we can create more money, wealth, and all kinds of fortune. 

 “We started it all and can never get any credit,” said the news reporter. 

Deecolonized Un-Tour: Chief Plentywolf

By Tiburcio Garcia

“Spirituality, ceremony is our core, our center,” said Chief Plentywolf, an Indigenous elder who just finished the annual Sundance ceremony. This is a ceremony where Native people gather for prayer and sacrifice of sweat and pain. We came days after to talk to Chief Plentywolf at the invitation of Cynthia, one of our solidarity family members. The solidarity family are people with race and class privilege who we teach why they need to give reparations. After a hearty lunch with Chief Plentywolf, Cynthia, her husband, Tom, and all of us multi-generational, multi-racial poverty skolas who came on this tour went out to the site of the Sundance Ceremony.

     It felt as if the land was welcoming us. One solitary tree stood in the middle of a grassy field covered with flags from many Indigenous nations. We were told not to take pictures of that tree and I had no objections. There was little to no wind and the sun beat down on us. But we were surrounded with trees that wove together like a basket, the leaves from each individual tree coming together to form one continuous growth. We walked over to a small clearing next to a dirt road that slopes up and curves around a bend. In that meadow stood a Teepee, the fabric stretched taut over the supporting posts.  

“We pray every time we do something, or every time we prepare and even meetings and talks like this,” Chief Plentywolf continued, his eyes focusing on each one of us at a time making me feel as if he was looking through me, looking at everything I could ever be. He talked about the difference between a massacre and a battle, saying that when the white settlers slaughtered women, children, and elder Indigenous people it went down in history as a battle. Yet, only when the Indigenous people fought back and killed many white men was it called a massacre. And when that happened, the government was able to justify in the history books the genocide that they continue to do, with or without the native people fighting back.

    Chief Plentywolf ended it by talking about Sundance, and how the youth were actually coming bac, and how he was excited for the future of Sundance and prayer as a whole. He talked about a 16 year old who was the strongest young warrior he had ever seen, and thanked us for being youth and continuing to work and pray with our elders. We thanked Cynthia once more. Before leaving, we visited the sweat lodge that is used in the Sundance Ceremony. I came away from the sacred place having learned so much in a short span of time. I would love to join the Sundance Ceremony sometime in the future. I'm looking forward to being able to speak with Chief Plentiwolf again, to learn a small part of the vast amount of knowledge he has.    

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

By Matsu Momii 

A beautiful day in the neighborhood. Radical redistribution of wealth. Thursday, July 29th, POOR unTOUR CONTINUES in Ute, Cherokee, Arapaho, and Cheyenne Native lands.  Sharing prayers and dansa with ceremony to Mother Earth. New Raven, the Owl, and Eagle honor the spirits of our ancestors, our families, the children lost to boarding schools across Klanada and Amerikkka, lost in detention centers, sold across the world, permanently disconnected, and tortured by colonizers. Local brothers and sisters joined the UNtour that went through everything from wealthy residential neighborhoods visiting an Assisted Living Apartment building ($7000 a month) to a real estate salesman in a mall who called SECURRRIIIITY!!! to folks who were way cool and supportive. Hearing the drums at Cherry Creek, local resident Rebecca was feeling low, but swelled with emotion.  She joined the tour, walking and talking with us and even bought a case of water for everyone on this 95 degree day.

Youth Poverty Skolaz paid tribute at Cherry Creek in Confluence Park, so called Colorado. Tibu and Amir remembered the children of tribes from Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne who played in this river. Children were stolen from this river and forced into boarding schools where thousands were killed and have been secretly buried. Dansa and prayers throughout the years, reaped discovery of their little loved ones, unearthing the centuries of murdered children.

The drums of Poor Magazine Prensa Pobre Danza Azteca called local residents of Denver to the ceremony for Stolen Indigenous Lands UnTour. Underneath the miles of concrete and high end housing is sacred and spiritual earth and waterways once inhabited by tribes of Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne. Practicing respect and trade, the area of Cherry Creek is still a place of sacred interaction, crossing all lives.

It was so hot, dry and farmland forever. How could anyone be forced to live here? The Amache Japanese Concentration Camp made me think of mom and dad, family at Tule Lake. It makes me cry returning to places of pain.

From the Start of the Trip

By Israel Westyn

From the start of the trip, it’s the second time going with Poor Magazine. And it's a good experience because I get to learn about the liberation of the people and myself.

And I am still learning how to be decolonized myself, because I am still colonized. In some ways, this is a process. This way, with Poor Magazine, you can learn about the truth, about people killed and abused. To this they call America. In reality it's the USA and they try so hard to hide it, to colonize the way they want it. I learn a lot more about different countries, like Japan, Philippines, the First Nations, Chief Plenty Wolf, and Lynn Eagle Feather. We’re still dealing with the colonized thing, and the police don’t want to admit it. That’s the reason we are still fighting it. To show the truth from the ancestors and the schools that don’t teach the real histories.

So that is the reason we continue to do these tours, in order to let our youth poverty skolaz continue to fight and be decolonized from the system. And stop selling Mother Earth.

Interview with Izzy Muñoz

By Matsu Momii

My name is Israel, formerly houseless in one of the many cities of the USA. I am a part of Homefulnness, which is a solution to homelessnes. We are going on a tour looking for different ways we can help Mother Earth and find out how we can get solutions for houseless people in different states. Laws in some states are more racist and that creates lots of houselessness.  

Salt Lake City is weird because I don’t see a lot of people. I come from the big city, Mexico City, with a lot of people. Then to come here, where I don’t see any people that are houseless.

Denver, I lived here before. When I was here, I was a bartender. Now there are a lot of people. It used to be a small city with a very tiny downtown, but it has grown bigger, expanded. You used to be able to walk from one side to another side of town easily. Now you cannot do that.  

When people come to the USA, it is a big lie that you can make a lot of money. They never tell you how you can do it. They don’t tell you that you have to work from the rooster to the cricket.    It is a saying that you work from morning to night. They don’t tell you you have to pay for every single thing. They don’t tell you you have to live on top of each other. So as time passes, you come into agreements, you come to be separate from your family. You know, it‘s hard to live with a family because your brother and his wife need privacy. When you move out and you don’t have enough to pay rent or bills, you end up on the street. 

I was houseless in SF because I did not have enough money to pay rent and bills. When families from different countries come to the USA, a lot of people ask, “Why did you come to America?” I say, “I came to the USA.” The USA is a country not a continent. Lots of people ask me why did you come to America? I didn’t come to America. America is a continent. The President asks, “Why do people come to America? My response is that even the President, who goes to night school, does not know that.

When I was houseless in San Francisco, one of many USA cities, it was very hard to stay on the streets because the police and the DPW, city departments of public works and transportation, come and clean the streets. Then, they take your stuff. Also, you constantly have to sleep in the daytime because it is very dangerous at night time. Not only for the people, but also for the police. They constantly move you around and harass you. You have to move back and forth every single day. 

How did I get out of the situation? I found Homefulness through a referral I met on the street. Then I went to Homefulness and I took classes. They teach many classes on how the government does people wrong and you learn things that public school doesn’t teach you.  Homefulness works to help more houseless people. They teach rights because a lot of people don’t know their rights. They don’t have the time to study because they are working a lot and when they become houseless, they don’t know what to say to the police. They don’t know their rights and the police take advantage of that.

Reflections #3

Momii Palapaz

August 1, 2021

After riding hundreds of miles with 5 people in a packed car, I would do it again. It was most of all an experience of gratitude and awakening.  

I am impressed with the youth poverty skolaz, Amir and Tibu. These guys are tough and curious. They care and are fun.

As I get older, I don’t care when I get sad or mad and people are witnesses. This Amache experience, over the years, has taught me there is so much more to uncover. Many issues of Japanese Americans and our colonization are yet to be admitted.

The schedule and commitments every day kept us active and aware. Thank you Tiny, Muteado, Israel, Tibu and Amir. I am learning so much from you all, like looking at an issue from another angle, with deeper critical thinking. Thanks for accepting me into the POOR FAMILIA.

Poverty, Race, Disability, Youth, Elder Scholarship/Empathy Exercise

By Matsu Momii

Person #1: God is good all the time.

Person #2: My life on the streets has been hard.  I’ve been homeless now for almost 15 years.  The time has gone by so fast it seems.  But I’ve met a lot of awesome people that I love and call my family.

Person #3: Got caught stealing a vehicle and it changed my life.

Answer to question #2: To have brothers and (?) and everything I can do to...

Person #4: I was just released from prison.  I don’t know anyone out here in Denver.  I haven’t been able to even get my I.D. or a food card.  I got a case manager Monday but she was so bossy I couldn’t do my case management.  I have another case manager appointment this coming Wednesday.  I should be able to find housing, a food card and vouchers for my I.D. -Brent Johnson

Person #5:  Wake up and do the right thing for a (?).  

Person #6:  Being a man of God and putting people’s lives and family’s children before myself.  I thought it would be the way for all of us to become one family, all together in truth and understanding with everything this country was supposed to be.  Truth, liberty, respect, loyalty and understanding, love, and, with confidence that we all can stand equally with all no matter the differences. -Anthony Northeus, Ayers a.a.

Person #7:  In 2020 I stayed at Arkins down by the river and was there for about a year and we were stable.  Down there people were getting themselves together.  We were like a little community.  Then, they come to sweep.  Most people lost everything like their IDs, birth certificates, their homes, and priceless things that can’t be replaced.

Answer to question #2:  Well we need to come together and build tiny homes, some bigger than others.  Some for single people and some for families, including mom, dad, and child. We can make a garden to grow our own food with a school. We can have a play area. It will be like a little community.

Person #8:  I'm not quite sure what specific type of crisis I’m in or can just say general crisis.  So I left home (my husband and 3 daughters) to go to rehab for heroin.  While I was in 28 day residential treatment, I decided not to return home. I didn’t want to continue to expose my kids to all of what comes with my addiction (ex: being sick). But as a result, I eventually became homeless.  So being homeless and alone I was at a higher risk for trauma, right?  So I got into a guy’s car at Wam and he tricked me into getting into the back seat by saying we were going to pick someone up. He never did pick anyone up but he raped me repeatedly in alleys, in east Denver in alleys.  I thought I’d comply so I could escape with my life.

Answer to question #2:  I would probably --- report something somewhere or maybe ask someone to watch my kids. Or probably find a side hustle or try to participate in a survey or something?  Actually, now that I think about it, I have been in a similar situation and I sold things on ebay to suffice others.  I’m being rushed, so bye.

Person #9:  The day I received word of my mom dying and I was in prison. And -- allowed to go to the funeral.

Answer to question #2:  I would probably find the --- drug dealer and have him find me the drugs to sell only to pay for rent. -Jeromey Wood

Person #10:  I went to jail for possession of an illegal substance.  I hadn’t been in trouble for at least 10 years.  I did a 5 month stint for not completing probation before.  I went to jail.  I could skateboard and did everywhere.  I have a condition called degenerative hip dysplasia.  Well, when I got out of jail and got high as a kite I boarded back and forth from Aurora to Denver a few times.  When I came down I couldn’t skate any more.  Now I can barely walk and await total hip replacement. -Denver, CO

Person #11: My worst crisis experience was when I was a part of my first sweep.  It was when they shut down Lincoln Park on Colfax & Broadway. The night before, I was given some LSD.

By Tiburcio Garcia with Kimo Umu, Ziair Hughes, Amir Cornish, Akil Carrillo and all the Poor and houseless mamaz and grandmommas who brought them into this journey

(Editor's Note: All the authors are students, themselves victims of gentrification and eviction and displacement and homelessness,  at the liberation school known as Deecolonize Academy. They “learn” through books, and study, action and liberation the tru Her-Story of this stolen land- they all collaborated with their teachers, also poverty, indigenous skolaz to create the attached “FactSheet.”)

“RAD has been around for decades, and now it’s being enforced”, Leroy Moore, founder of Krip Hop  co-founder of Homefulness and writer for POORMAGAZINE said with frustration written on his face, squinting in the morning sun. It was a clear day, on the morning on April 20th, the day that POOR Magazine and all of us youth and family “poverty skolaz” at Deecolonize Academy & Homefulness demonstrated in front of City Hall to protest RAD and Hope VI, two bills that have been used by devil-opers (like my mamá Tiny calls them)  such as Mercy Housing, John Stewart Company and many more in the Bay Area recently to evict large amounts of families to make room for higher paying tenants. “Repeal it Biden.” 

“We’re here because we’ve been receiving Letters of Eviction, and they are offering nowhere to go, they are just taking our homes away”, Teresa Molina, a tenant and a resident of San Francisco who is currently fighting RAD and HOPE VI, said, talking about her fellow tenants in her apartments. The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), is a bill put in place by the Department of Public Housing that allows big housing companies to privatize their previously public housing, making it easier for them to remove the tenants who relied on Section 8 to pay their rent.

“I was born and raised in Filmo’”, Mama Queenandi XSheba, povertySkola, public housing tenant and writer with POORMAGAZINE said when she got up on the mic, gesturing rapidly. “...cuz even when me and my children’s lives were in danger,  the quote un-quote housing authority still didn’t look at us and that out Black Lives Mattered," she finished.

“Non-profiteers CONtinue to profit off of our poverty and problems while helping to create our problems,” my Mama Tiny, known as “PovertySkola”, a poet, teacher, visionary and co-founder of POORMAGAZINE, Homefulness and Deecolonize Academy where we are all students. She went onto explain that RAD and No Hope VI was launched under Obama and “housing advocacy” non-profits in San Francisco were some the authors of the RAD program which has effectively killed all the public housing across the “United Snakes” as she and other revolutionaries call it .”We are demanding equity and reparations for Black and Brown and indigenous Houseless residents of these no-longer public housing buildings so we can build our own solutions like we are with  Homefulness,” she said and then concluded, “E-RADification to Reparations.”

Tiny and Queennandi XsheBa at POOR Magazine wrote extensively about RAD in 2013 when they snuck it through. No-one but the BayView Newspaper and POOR MAgazine published these stories (links below) but they were powerful “Wesearch” as Mama Tiny calls it - (poor people-led Research) on these evil moves for our youth and family created “FactSHEET” on RAD that we did in Mama Tiny’s Deecolonize English Class (see attachment).

I had to agree withQueennandi and my Mama, and I felt for everyone at the mercy of RAD and HOPE VI, it’s predecessor, nearly being evicted and put on the streets, because me and my mother have been in that situation before. This was a powerful action, and I loved the words that were being spoken, that often go unheard, and the point they made.

“If we fight back we can resist this removal, like we have done in Westside,”  said Uncle Greg, a powerful organizer and member of this movement of POORMAGAZINE to help launch a tenants union amd resist the politricks( as my mama calls it ) of RAD. “you all inspire me, we have power," he concluded.

“We are poor people who resist with our voices,” said Mama Junebug, teacher, poet and povertySkola describing the powerful principles of POORMAGAZINE. “We can speak for ourselves and solve our own problems!”

Poor/houseless/indigenous youth, families, and elders share models of  landless peoples' self-determination, Po'Lice-free land liberation, revolutionary media, and art.

What: Poor/houseless/indigenous peoples "tour" so-called NorthWest Turtle Island with medicine/solutions of Homefulness, media, poetry, workshops, books, and "How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever"/"Poverty Scholarship" readings

When: June 4th-13th 

Where: Occupied Pomo, Yurok, Squaxin Island, Nisqually, Chehalis land aka  So-called Ft Bragg, Klamath River, Washington and more 

"When they take our land, our tents and our belongings, we have nowhere to go,... " 

-Israel M formerly houseless, indigenous co-builder of Homefulness, 

"As colonial cities and towns "open Back Up" we indigenous, houseless and poor folks know that means, increased sweeps of houseless bodies, increased evictions of poor families and elders, increased desecration of indigenous peoples lands and sacred sites increased poverty and poLice Terror of Black and Brown and working class people."  

-Tiny, formerly houseless co-founder of POOR Magazine

POOR Magazine is a poor and indigenous people-led art, culture, and liberation movement. Our multi-generational, multi-cultural houseless/indigneous people-led movement will be going on the road to connect the dots between our shared oppressions and struggles, share the urgent medicine of how to build self-determined land movements, take back land, and our own knowledge systems and cultures right here in occupied Turtle Island.

We will be going to so-called  Fort Bragg, aka Occupied Pomo Territory,  Occupied Yurok Territory  and finally occupied and stolen Squaxin territory. In all of these occupied lands we will be connecting the dots between eviction, colonization, desecration, poLice terror, Devil-oper Land grabs/speculation, gentriFUKation, Homelessness and Removal of Black, Brown, indigenous, disabled and poor people. 

As land liberators from all four corners of mama earth, we will be offering readings and workshops from our newest books How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever and Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth, as well as leading  Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour through these colonized towns , colonial landmarks ( KlanMarks, as Tiny from POOR Magazine calls them),  wealth-hoarding neighborhoods, museums of Anthro-Wrongology, and Academia to share the urgent medicine of Radical Redistribution and ComeUnity Reparations. 

Finally, we will be meeting/sharing and teaching with poor and houseless peoples in encampments the POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork models of poor people--led media production  in each town and area, so they can launch their own media hubs like POOR Magazine's street-based media projects.

We are inviting all organizations to co-sponsor, host us for a book reading, performance, or workshop, or walk with us in the Stolen Land Tour. Below are links of Stolen Land Tours we have done before and information about our books and work.

Links to some of our Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tours

Stolen Land/Hoarded Resurces Tour thru Akkkadeia- May 2021 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=489FkHJQWxs&t=91s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5NFtYpE64s&t=6s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb-N1FCWAdY&t=57s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0j6baUl1g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxHj4zzCmWk

Links to books:

How to Not Call Po'Lice Ever 

Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words, and Tears Across Mama Earth

Po' People's Survival Guide thru COVID-19 and the Virus of Poverty 

Children's books:

When Mama and Me Lived Outside

The Hard Worker (Trabajador Fuerte)

Krip Hop Nation Graphic Novel 

Decolonewz - Newspaper led by youth in poverty for everyone ( available in paper form only) 

Workshops: 

See this link

Po' Peoples Radio Broadcasts:

See this link

More info on Homefulness:

See this link and www.poormagazine.org/homefulness 

Articles on this from the SF Bay View and POOR Magazine:

Stealing our Last Acre and One Remaining Mule

Selling our Homes to Private Investors

Public Housing Privatization

The Privatization

From Privatization to Reparations

Section 8 and Public Housing at Risk

Support Not Sweeps and Free Homefulness 

By Tiburcio Garcia and Amir Cornish/Youth poverty Skola reporters for POOR Magazine (Editor's Note: Akil and Ziair are students at Deecolonize Academy- the poor and indigenous people -led liberation school on the sacred land we houseless poverty skolaz call Homefulness)  

The metallic crunching fills the air, the screeching sound of metal destroying metal pierces the skin harder than the whipping ocean breeze. Homes, belongings, memoires, being crushed like tin cans by the city of Marin County, the people that resided in them for generations being shuffled around while forced to watch everything they knew be destroyed. Preventing this from happening on a larger scale, preventing this from happening to thousands of other houseless and poor people was the reason behind Tuesdays #SupportNotSweeps action in front of CalTrans. 

“People living on their boats for hundreds of years are now in jeopardy as much as people living under freeways,” a houseless sailor yells, looking back at the corporate building that stands as a monument of terror. “The Harbormaster is smashing boats, the City Council and the Counsellors are agreeing to it and there's tons of money being made on the backs of the people. This man, along with many others who came out to speak out on their situations of being harassed by entities just like CalTrans, who don’t care if human lives are being put at risk because of their actions as long as they make profit.

We youth and family poverty skolaz at POOR Magazine re-ported and sup-ported on the Support Not Sweeps action through theatre and presence. The theatre acted out the very real violence so many of us at POOR Magazine have dealt with and still deal with - people being forcibly removed in the form of a Theater of the POOR, where some of us acted out a very familiar scene, houseless people in tents being harassed by cops and DPW officers, the DPW officers chanting louder and louder over the desperate cries of the people, “WE ARE JUST DOING OUR JOBS! WE ARE JUST DOING OUR JOBS!'' I hope that no matter how many times they say that they won't be able to sleep at night. 

When I was younger, me and my mother were houseless, evicted over and over again in the city of San Francisco. I was never on the streets, but we always knew from our friends and family the violence of the sweeps that happened then and continue to happen nearly a decade later. Then, Homefulness was born out of a dream from my grandmother's head, from years of teaching people with race and class privilege to give reparations. Now, we are being tied up by the City of Oakland, the same that sweeps so many houseless people, unable to complete a project that will take us and our families out of houselessness. We all went to Oakland City hall to demand Free Homefulness right after the Support Not Sweeps sit in at Caltrans

The struggle unhoused people are dealing with now is nothing new - what my mama Tiny calls, the Violence called Sweeps, or the Violence of exposure, swept like we as houseless people are trash.. But it is getting worse. From Liveaboard and poor boat residents to people sleeping in tents, people are constantly being “swept” and thrown away and demolished and displaced.  The sweeps and destruction is increasing in the so-called “opening back up” cities all across this state are increasing evictions of houseless peoples from their tents and lands when they have nowhere to go.

This #SupportNotSweeps action, near downtown Oakland, filled up nearly the entire block with houseless and poor people exclaiming their human rights and demanding justice. Boats being destroyed in front of their now houseless owners eyes, lifelong belongings being thrown in a dump truck by glass eyed workers, day and day it happens and it never stops. As long as there is money to be made this government will colonize and pillage and destroy to get it.

Stand with Liveaboard Mariners as they fight an eviction of their whole encampment where they have been forced to live after their boats were crushed in front of their eyes by the wealth-hoarder poltricksters of so-called Sausalito  Marin County - aka Occupied Miwok Territory on Tuesday, June 28th 7am-7pm, 300 Locust Street Sausalito, Cal   

By AudreyCandyCorn aka SistahSaveASoul 

Emotions don't let them get the best of you that's the Golden Rule I think it's A Catch 22 a f*****-up double-edged sword you're damned if you show emotions yet if one is emotionless you hit them with Your Best Shot firing away what is one to do what am I to do hell this is an answer that has not been answered that's the flaw in the twist of emotions and this is not a poem my thoughts just kind of flow out of me like this emotions they are feelings that can be turned into action once this energy has been tapped into or and shifted are they to be contained or are they to be released????? Character there's a fine thin line between the two emotions and character. What's the difference between those two...... The trade-off is in the truth.... or is it IN how one is viewed...... My Character is Genuine And Pure-Natured i Pride Myself On My Being Honest Which Has to do With TRUTH... CHARACTER and Truth Thin Line Between Those 2..... 

I am emotional the outward Outburst I display that appears to be negative energy is not to be put on my being's character it is my truth And YOURS TOO...this is an outrageous traumatizing situation

Traumatizing health hazardous and downright dangerous my emotions and my character and the truth of the deal is you got me f***** up it appears to be one way and it really is another it's an illusion due to the trans4mation of the transition in the tone of my voice and my body language which my spirit and soul do a little dance exuding a powerful energy out into the air changing the atmosphere Shifting the power captivating the authority to just be I don't need your permission your outlook and view of things are warped