2021

From Left: Aunti Frances Moore, Muh Queena, QueennandiXSheba, Laure McElroy, Corrina Gould and Leroy Moore (sitting) on the Stolen Land /Hoarded Resources Tour Thru Occupied Lenape Territory (NYC) 

(Click here for the Podcast of this piece )

When People Say

Happy Mamas day 

it jus never felt ok

When so many mamas & babies sit behind false borders and steel bars, 

sleeping in tents and cars, 

Dreaming of their lost babies shot by PoLice fire

No equity , No Money,

Not time to love or spit bars

Hold their babies in their arms

Dream Dreams or Gaze at stars 

Our Communities and support and life lost to gentriFUKED streets

Our ideas and dreams so often Silenced so we can barely speak

Happy Mamas Day…

How can it really be - 

anything more than Amerikkklan Hypocrisy

How bout Equity, Healing-Care Not HellthCare

How bout Housing, De-carceration and the end of PoLice Terror of our Suns and Daughters and the War on the POOR 

Happy Mamaz Day

How can it be

Until all of our Mamas & Mama Earth Can b free 

Otherwise isn’t Happy Mamas Day just more krapitalist HypKRAZY?

30 day notice to pay a $700 rent increase or quit… the white paper with oversized violent black font fluttered in the morning breeze. We three houseless, disabled mamas  sat huddled at a long wooden table in the huge kitchen at MamaHouse#3 located in San Francisco’s dangerously gentrifying Mission District - where the word gentriFUKation originated from my mouth, born out of my anger and sorrow for the violent plight of so many poor folks dealing with displacement. The bright morning sun streaming through beautiful long windows warmed our terrorized faces. 

“I knew it, this place was too nice for us, it was just a matter of time” Laure McElroy, my longtime sisStar, disabled , houseless mama warrior, fellow Po’ poet and founding member of POOR Magazine ’s welfareQUEEN’s project with me and other poor mamas, crumpled up the notice and then un-crumpled it. The pace of her voice sped up like it always did when she got triggered by fear of homelessness. 

“700 dollars ??” Sandra Sandoval, long-time Mission district resident, organizer and the 3rd fierce mama who struggled with homelessness with her infant sun before she moved into MamaHouse with me and Laure, shook her head at the notice.

Mamahouse was a dream launched when me and my mama were struggling on and off with homelessness in San Francisco due to ongoing gentrification. It was a poor mama-led solution to homelessness, poverty, child care, and isolation, all real problems that plague poor single parents in the US and beyond. 

MamaHouse was more achievable than Homefulness, because it only involved code-switching into middle-class wite-ness, and CONvincing racist, classist scam-lords to rent to three poor, disabled, houseless women and our children. This was never easy and meant a lot of back-story massaging and wite-voice implementing.

The MamaHouse dream was everything we knew it would be. We all supported each other with child care, shared resources, and love, which helped to solve one of the poverty scholarship informed lessons taught by me and my mama since the inception of POOR Magazine, isolation kills and it plagues poor single parents in the US- struggling with the multiple and compounding traumas of loss of relationships, family, resources and community. 

Laure used to say, “ You were right interdependence is truth, I won’t make alone tiny, I just won’t” In September of 2010 all of us mamas were scattered to the wind b that eviction from MamaHouse, sitting outside our beautiful ex-home on Florida street. Houseless with all of children and our belongings in hefty bags on the sidewalk.

“I miss MamaHouse so much, I can’t wait for Homefulness to be done,” Laure whispered to me a year after the eviction when she was struggling to get some stable housing. She passed away in BlackAugust 2018, a victim of the compound trauma of houselessness, poverty, isolation and depression.She never recovered from that eviction.Most of us don’t.

By 2010’s struggle with Mamahouse#3 it had been 14 years since me and my mama slept on park benches , bus benches and in back seats of cars dreaming, visioning , planning, working, albeit in vain, for a poor people-led model of housing and support  and healing for poor and houseless, disabled, indigenous, black and Brown and poor wite families and elders that we called Homefulness. The only thing we always never had was equity, credit, money, or family to make a beautiful idea into a reality

And it wasn’t for lack of trying. We had applied for HUD grants, private grants, bank loans, begged and pitched investors, tried  credit schemes and credit improvement plans. In the end we had nothing but a dream. A dream we knew was the answer, but could never be attained by poor women with no credit or assets.

“Where is my Mothers Day card? Mama asked me on one Mothers day when we were struggling with yet another eviction notice in yet another apartment in gentriFUKing Bay Area, this time, the fear was worse, I was pregnant with my soon to be born sun . 

“Mothers Day is a CONsumer lie,” I replied angrily, “ How can we celebrate when things are so bad for us so many poor mamas?,”

Her response was quick and hard - the back of her hand on my 30 year old , thought I was grown  head, “Thats just an excuse to not get me a card, “ she snapped, “in our poverty-stricken lives things will be bad and good and hard and not so hard, but no matter what, you celebrate who gave you life,” she stared ahead. Her eyes hard and dark with fury.  

My mama passed in 2006 and of course, as always, she was right. She had pushed me to never think inside the krapitalist box us poor people were dealt. No matter how hard it was. And for that and so much more I owed every breath of my being to her and had no business tripping off that damn card.

I prayed and cried for mama and in my grief and while at the altar, I realized, so clearly, and im sure with her whispers from the other side, that POOR Magazine needed to move a different way to realize the dream of Homefulness. That like Mama used to say, its not peoples fault they believe the fuked up lies they were taught about wealth-hoarding and land-stealing, that we needed to teach them another way to live, to give wealth-hoarders and descendants of wealth-hoarders a chance to transform. But in the end it is up to us poor folks to lift up, to own, to create our Her-Stories and His-stories, to follow our indigenous life-ways and ancestors teachings, this is our liberation. 

After intense prayer and dreaming with all of my ancestors from 2006-2008 while struggling with POOR Magazine’s organizational poverty and homelessness, in 2009 we expanded our already existent PeopleSkool to include a comprehensive curriculum series on the lies of krapitalist wealth-hoarding and land-stealing and how to transform the extractive “helping” industry into radical redistribution and a new concept I developed called ComeUnity Reparations. 

Peopleskool is a school run by poor peoples who learned our knowledge in the street and by surviving incarceration, ableism, homelessness, false borders, loss, eviction, violence, abuse and so much more. We share/teach this knowledge with fellow poor peoples ( poverty skolaz we call ourselves), about our connectedness, shared struggles, ways to express and heal using media, theatre,poetry, and art and that first and foremost  our own story-making and struggle is the basis of our liberation and with our stories and truth and poverty scholarship we can teach folks with race and class privilege how to work along-side us in solidarity, to lift up poor peoples led solutions to our own problems, rather than perpetuate more about us without us extraction and “savoring and profiteering.

After the 1st herstoric session of our new seminar on ComeUnity Reparations, several of the privileged graduates of PeopleSkool launched the Solidarity family and began to raise resources and credit and access points that enabled us poor and houseless people to “buy” a small part of MamaEarth so we could spiritually and legally UnSell her and begin the long process of actually manifesting, building Homefulness 

Laure and my mama always said they were certain many of us would be killed by poverty and gentriFUKation violence before Homefulness would be realized. My Mama and Laure were gone along with Aunty Gerry Ambrose, long-time POOR Magazine family who just passed in February of 2021, another victim of violent displacement. All poor, houseless, disabled mamas of color, who barely held on through the depression, isolation and pain in our collective minds when we try to raise children alone in a society that never makes equity accessible so poor folks can manifest our solutions.

It would be 11 more years before Homefulness would be realized

In 2021 Homefulness #1 on BlackArthur in Deep East Huchin (Oakland) houses 6 formerly houseless, very low-income families and elders, a liberation school which is poised to graduate 4 formerly houseless young men of color, a radio station, a library, and a grassroots publishing movement called POOR Press.

In 2020 after the January Decolonization/DEgentriFUKation Seminar at PeopleSkool, in the middle of a pandemic, another group of Solidarity family members raised enough money to “buy” another small part of MamaEarth to build a Homefulness #2  

I hold this work and these successes in a forever traumatized heart, crying for my mama, Mama Laure, , Mama Gerry Ambrose, Mama Iris Canada, a Black Grandmama evicted at 100 years old because of violent gentriFUKation and countless incarcerated mamas and indigenous/migrante mamas killed from the pain of carceral violence, abuse and the separation from their children and families. 

I know Mama was right and this is still no excuse to dismiss Mothers Day. But I still got to call out the HypoKrazy of the Happy Day wishes when so many of us mamas are in so much pain.

“If they tow my van I will die, I have nowhere else to go,” reported POOR Magazine RoofLESS radio reporter Charles M, 68, lifelong San Francisco resident. Charless is houseless, landless and disabled and lives in his van. San Francisco, like Oakland and so many other cities across the US, has increased its towing, “sweeping, Cleaning and removal project of houseless peoples, our sleeping, bags, belongings, tents, vans, RV’s and cars throughout the pandemic.  And as all of us who have struggled with homelessness know, once they take everything from us, we run an increased risk of death by exposure, polLice terror and illness.  

“They are increasing the tows of houseless peoples RV’s and Vans, said Sam Lew, an organizer, advocate and baadass with End Poverty Tows Coalition who spoke with Po Peoples Radio last week.

108 year old Kashmiri elder Zooni Begam facing colonial eviction 

From Frisco to Kashmir

“Where will I go?” Said Zooni Begam 108 years old, as she squatted on the ground outside her house which was located in the village of Zilsidora, Jabbad, hidden in the vast jungle of central Kashmir’s Budgam district. “I was born here. My parents also lived here. We have been living here for ages. How can the government make us homeless all of a sudden?” 

Huma Dar, a fierce Kashmiri warrior for truth introduced the story of Zooni to a panel entitled Degentrifying Academia sponsored by POOR Magazine, Indigenous Peoples Organizing for Change, Krip Hop Nation and the Ethnic Studies Library at UCBerkeley in April. The goals of the panel, lovingly moderated by Dr Fuifui Niumetolo,  was launched by myself and Leroy Moore before the pandemic to connect the land struggles of indigenous, houseless Black, Brown and Disabled peoples across Mama Earth so we could achieve collective land liberation from the colonial terror of evictions and removal that continues today.

 Huma added This is just the tip of the iceberg, and doesn’t even mention the genocidal ethnic cleansing of 1947-50 when up to a million Muslims (out of a total population of ~4 million at that time) were massacred or forcibly exiled out of the state by Indian Army and the army of the draconian Hindu colonizing ruler, Hari Singh. Nor do they mention the more than ~6700 mass & unmarked graves unearthed in Kashmir, which India refuses to do DNA testing on to return to their families.

Youth and Families in the Streets of San Francsco to show solidarity with Palestine

From Oakland to Palestine 

“There is no way I’m leaving this neighborhood unless I’m dead,” said a resident of Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, requesting anonymity for fear of retribution by Israeli authorities. “It’s been 65 years that I’ve lived in this neighborhood.” They concluded

Across Mama Earth  the colonial terror of removal, eviction, sweeps and gentrifUKation as I call it, is a common thread. Rooted in the original genocide called colonization which has terrorized indigenous peoples across mama earth for centuries, continues today from West Papua to West Huchuin ( Oakland)  pushing people and lives out, killing elders, abusing and traumatizing children and desecrating indigenous ancestors to make way for “commerce, more houses, different people and/or the lie of “cleanliness” code for land without oppressed people. But the root of it all is that ownership of Mama Earth has always been a settler colonial lie. And a bad one at that, Mama Earth is not infinite, you cant keep buying , selling destroying and demolishing her forever.  

Irisi Canada, 100 year old Black Elder resident of San Francisco Evicted from her home of over 40 years 

“I cant believe you are doing me like this Peter (Owens),” said Iris Canada, to the new “owner” of her home of over 40 years who evicted her. Iris was a 100 year old Black elder who died after recording that message, because as POOR Magazine and this poverty skola has said and barely survived, Eviction is elder and child abuse. Iris was one of the few remaining Black residents of  what us gentriFUKed peoples of San Francisco call the FilNoMore, aka Fillmore district, which in the 70’s was decimated by the moves of Urban Renewal, re-named by all who were victims of it- Negro Removal, led by head gentriFUKer aka devil-oper ( I like to re-name the colonial terms to express their true impact) Justin Herman, and continues to this day.

Since the well- documented “dot-com” boom of the 90’s working class, low-income, Black, Brown, poor white, disabled and indigenous residents of San Francisco and Oakland have suffered the ongoing terror and abuse of eviction. Countless fights led by organizers and advocates have ensued, land trusts have sometimes been brokered, enabling the elders to stay housed, but by and large it has resulted in the slow bleed of removal of working class and poor people from the Bay Area, which many times results in our permanent displacement and death.

Altar for Mario Gonzalez created-sponsored by the Oakland Brown Berets and Tele-Jaguar at a ceremony for him held at the location of his murder 

Luis Gongora Pat, a Mayan indigenous father and worker, evicted and then killed by poLice for being houseless in the gentriFUKED mission, Ron Likkers, an indigenous elder evicted and then died two weeks later, Gerry Ambrose, a domestic laborer, died from the violence/ trauma and poverty caused by eviction of her and her whole family from the home of 43 years in San Francisco. Desiree Quintero, a houseless woman killed from the violence of sweeps in Santa Cruz. Steven Taylor, a houseless resident of San Leandro murdered by poLice for having a mental health crisis in public and Mario Gonzalez, who made the mistake of “tweeking” and possibly being houseless in Klanameda. 

Once we are ancestors, we are also not seen and our sacred burial lands are continually desecrated as in the struggle for West Berkeley Shellmound, or our bodies and relatives are viewed as something to study and profit off of or just warehouse, displace and dispose. 

From Left: Corrina Gould, Leroy Moore, Tracey Bell Borden, Aunti Frances Moore and Tiny on the Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour thru Akkkademia - photo by Brooke Anderson

Anthro-Wrongology and Arkkkeology

“The ongoing occupation of our territories means that our ancestors and in turn, us, their living decendents have to continually resist erasure and being categorized as less than human. The disease of capitalism and private land ownership necessitates that we no longer exist in order for them to justify the destruction of our sacred sites, like the West Berkeley Shellmound and the hoarding of thousands of our ancestors at institutions like UC Berkeley.” said land liberator, warrior and prayer bringer of the Ohlone /Lisjan Nation and POOR Magazine Elephant Council leader and co-founder of Sogorea Te Land Trust.

POOR Magazine launched our 2021 Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tours into Akkkademia, on May 5th. We did this because Akkkademia (I re-named this more appropriately) plays a huge role in the perpetuation of land-stealing, resource hoarding and warehousing of indigenous, Black and Brown ancestors and culture, as witnessed by the warehousing of Ohlone /Lisjan ancestors at UC Berkeley and “storing’ of the bones of children of the MOVE Africa Family by Princeton University and University of Pennsylvania -one of the many reasons this poverty skola re-names these departments and perpetrators, Anthro-WrongOLOGY and Arkkkeaology 

“Entire blocks of communities in Philly were stolen by Temple University,” said Galen Tyler,  another powerfull poverty skola and truth -teller with the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign and #PoorPeoplesArmy out of Philadelphia presented at the DegentriFYing Academia panel, connecting the dots of gentriFUKation and land grabs for what I call the Dorm Industrial Complex, which is exactly whats threatening Peoples Park and 1921 Walnut street in Berkeley. 

Benny Wanda independence leader from West Papua 

From West Papua to West Huchuin (Oakland) 

“While our demonstrations were entirely peaceful, the Indonesian police were determined to use brute force to crush them. Such mass arrests and brutality are becoming increasingly common in West Papua and it is estimated that in the last two months, nearly 3,000 West Papuan people have been arrested by the Indonesian authorities.” There is gold to extract so the West Papuan indigenous peoples are seen merely as an obstacle stopping this violent extraction from Mama Earth, whether it means the death of the Kashmiri Forest Dwellers, West Papuan indigenous peoples or West Oakland RV dwellers.

West Oakland Sweeps of Houseless Peoples 

“CalTrans is backing out on agreements made with residents & moving forward with evictions during the current pandemic…. “ From EFAM ( Essential Food and Medicine) - a group that has helped to build a powerFUL clinic and other beautiful services with a houseless community in West Oakland, called Cob on Wood, who have faced the endless violence called sweeps due to the fact that the poltricksters don’t want to see houseless people, the nearby  “land-Lord” (Fred Crave) and Killtrans ( my name for that agency) wants to profit off the land that houseless people peacefully have parked their RV’s and cars for years. 

All across the bay and the United snakes these evictions, tows and sweeps ( equating humans with trash) have continued throughout a pandemic, causing people to die of exposure, not Covid. 

Its controversial to connect these dots, a lot of organizers who can “feel” and organize and throw down for Global struggles of indigenous peoples have no interest in seeing the connections to houseless, disabled elders struggles with sweeps, evictions and gentriFUKing. 

In addition, revolutionaries and even land liberators often call out for reparations and land-back for Black, Brown and indigenous peoples but cannot see the connections of houseless peoples or even the notion of Mama Earth itself not being a commodity. 

Formerly houseless/landless, youth, adults and elders from Homefulness 

I humbly propose in this story, as a formerly houseless daughter  of a disabled, indigenous trauma survivor,  and later houseless mama of my Sun, and co-founder , visionary of Homefulness, a houseless, landless peoples solution to homelessness, to not only expand and connect the dots of settler terrorism to include landless poor peoples who are being swept, evicted, towed and destroyed every day in every colonial city across Amerikkka and further that as land liberators working for true liberation, to please re-consider the narrative of land use itself.  My argument is that the goal of revolutionaries, should not be “Ownership” at all. 

#UnSellMamaEarth & #UnSettleMamaEarth 

Because no matter who does the “owning” the colonial lies ( I mean Laws) about MamaEarth’s use are a set up from the get-up to evict, remove and displace anyone every poor and indigenous person, over time. That as I have stated before, even the notion of land-trust is rooted in their removing platform. Land trusts come with an expiration date. Embedded with the eventual profiting off of and why we houseless, indigenous , disabled peoples at Homefulness, are working really hard to spirtually and legally UnSell Mama Earth and my newest goal and associated “hashtag” is to UnSettleMamaEarth- so please help us get that into the Hashtag lexicon. 

That the messiness of our connectedness is our liberation. That us houseless peoples from all four corners of Mama Earth have so much in common with houseless, landless 1st Nations Turtle Islanders,  West Papuans, Kashmiris, Palestinians and beyond and that what really needs to happen is we co-organize these fights against the Extraction terror of what CorpRape and politricksters have been doing for 528 years and before to all of us. Not some of us.

CPS- APS- all the Ssses’ 

That lead to our babies stolen, arrested & even death

Mamas , papas Don’t show yo real feelings 

Of sorrow or distress 

No mandated reporters here

Rooted in racist classist Krapitalist principles of fear 

The Lie of ghettoization 

And separation Nation - 

Each seizure of our babies is blood-stained dollaz for the 

Colonial Domination 

“I couldn’t breathe ,whispered fierce Black warrior mama Lyvesha Franklin through tears into the mic about the unspeakable pain of dealing with the endless number of false accusations from Child Separation Services (aka Child Protective Services )  Lyvesha was one of over 30 mamas and grandmamas, fathers and supporters gathered in front of Santa kkklara County InJustice Center on May 19th, from all four corners, Black, white, Asian, Raza, with this one shared nightmare of a court sanctioned system filled with so much corruption its almost hard to name. 

A powerFULL action for mamas and daddies and babies who have struggled with that Injustice kort system held intentionally on Malcolm X’s BornDay was organized by a new collaboration between California Families Rise and POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE’s CourtWatch project

“We must unite as parents, put aside our differences and rise up together,” Michelle Chan, told her families story of CPS abuse and encouraged us all to come together, because together we are strong. When mama and warrior for justice  Michelle approached POOR Magazine about forging a collaboration, although overwhelmed with all of the other struggles we hold as poor peoples, had no choice but to say yes. 

POOR Magazine’s CourtWatch Project was launched by my fierce ghetto fabulous, disabled  Afro-Boriken  poverty skola Mama Dee in 1998 as a response to the PTSD , severe trauma caused to families struggling with the CPS system. My mama and I had multiple  personal experiences with this trauma. Over and over again.

As an orphan,  my mama, a mixed race, unwanted child was called “a ward of the kkkort”, subject to the extractive racist, unsafe “foster care system. In that case her own, teen, domestic violence survivor mama “gave her up” to the system because of her guilt of having a child out of “wedlock” a half-breed, a “N.. child” as she was called by foster parents. My broken grandmother gave up her parental rights when she was “on the run” from a severely abusive husband who she thought she killed. 

My mama was trafficked in the Foster & juvenile dependency kkkort system, to over 35 foster homes, every single one physically and sexually abusing my mama, starving her and hating her, until she ended up in an orphanage, where they enslaved, berated, bullied and hid her into indentured servitude, hid her, as the orphanage was only funded  to “accept”  poor wite girls. 

Mama made it out of that somehow, like all of us poor folks do, by any means necessary. But not unscathed. Later in life when I was 11, she could no longer fight as she called it after she was laid off from her last job and ended up disabled and unable to work. We ended up on the street and 1 year later after a violent “sweep” of our belongings, I ended up in a group foster home after being taken from my mama, cuz she was seen as unfit cause we were houseless.

Fast forward another 10 years and my foster sister was taken from the home, because my mama told her not to wear make-up and the school said, she wasn’t being allowed to be a “teenager”. I cant describe to you the levels of all of this pain compounding on more pain, but I will tell you that it breaks the heart of the parents and guardians in ways that are almost unspeakable. 

“I had never laid a hand on my sun,I was a strict mama, but nothing out of the ordinary, they discriminated against me because I was strong and Black.” Lyvesha concluded. 

And she was right, there is a series of code words, they have to describe parents in distress. They shut down normal grief and the CPS and Juvenile Dependency Kort system is one of the most racist, classist and corrupt of any system. 

All of the different players, from the public pretenders “appointed to the parent” to the judge and anti-social workers ( as I call them) assigned to your case, all conspire together against the parent. Its mind-numbing. Its crazy-making because there is no way out. If you don’t jump through ALL of their hoops no matter how wrong, you most likely will not get your babies back. And it is the only court system that allows here-say into the case, and completely sanctions it. 

“Document everything and don’t give up,”  Robert Powell, a powerful advocate and attorney for parents and children for over 28 years, that has successfully brought lawsuits against the Juvenile injustice system. “You got to open the courts, there are over 20 states that have opened up the juvenile dependency courts, this has to happen in this state, because of the abuse of power.”  Powell went on to explain that the draconian system is a blatant example of abuse of judicial power.

“This is MalcolmX and Yuri Kochiyama’s birthday, we honor them today as they fought this racist system and still do,” Brother Buffalo, long-time POOR Magazine/Self-Help Hunger Program extended family and Fierce Black Panther Poverty Skola showed up, spoke up and stood up for the families along with Momi Palapaz, Jeremy Miller, Israel Munoz and Jonathan Gomez who spoke one of his beautiful poems on the mic. So many of us po mamas and daddies have had nightmares in this system, many of us have just given up.

In POOR Magazine’s liberation school Deecolonize Academy and Homefulness - a homeless, landless peoples movement for liberation for all poor, indigenous and houseless peoples, we never engage with the poLice and we arent Mandated reporters. This does not mean we look the other way from abuse, in fact what it means is we draw people closer and given them more support. Something my mama was doing in her job in a group home, which is shy a wite psychologist fired her. Family restoration isn’t lifted up or honored in this society, separation of ages and generations is, because there is more money to be made on our separate-ness.

“I never saw my grand-baby again,” A Grandmother clutched her little dog close to her chest as she held back tears and told her story with that system. “Never”

POOR Magazine and California Families Rise will be doing more work as California Families in Resistance. Stay tuned. Get involved by emailing poormag@gmail.com

Above image: Youth and family poverty skolaz/danzantes from Deecolonize Academy/POOR Magazine/Homefulness- Photos by Muteado SIlencio, Tiburcio Garcia-Gray, Amir Cornish, Israel Munoz, Ziair Hughes, Akil Carrillo, Kimo Umu

“Caltrans comes and just takes everything you have, “ Pomo Elder Priscilla Hunter was standing next to sacred Pomo rock - they called the Mama Rock - near the shore of a California coastal beach long ago stolen from the Pomo people by the weaponized paper known as contracts. She was speaking and teaching on the colonial removal of her relatives, her ancestors bones, hundreds of years ago and last week to all of us youth and adult poverty skolaz on the 1st stop of our Stolen land Hoarded Resources Un-Tour Across Occupied Pacific Northwest Turtle Island,

Priscilla’s words cut me in half. CalTrans, the same forces that perpetrate the violence called Sweeps on houseless peoples bodies like myself and my mama for the years we were houseless in Oakland, SF and Los Angeles. Caltrans the same State-owned entity that “accidentally” killed Shannon Marie Bigly when she was huddled under a cardboard box on the side of the 80 freeway near Fresno because her houseless body and so many thousands more was deemed an act of criminality. Connecting these oppression dots is the work of the Stolen Land/hoarded Resources Tours as well as to lift up and manifest poor and indigenous peoples self-determined solutions and leadership. 

Priscilla went on to describe the ongoing violent removal, theft, seizure, of trees, ancestors, land and lives of the Pomo nation by the state who works in collusion with giant corporate entities ( I have re-named them CorpRape) called the Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC) and the Humboldt Redwood Company (HRC). 

Above image from left: Muteado SIlencio, Amir Cornish, Ziair Hughes and Pomo Elder Priscilla Hunter

Humboldt Redwood Co. (HRC) and Mendocino Redwood Co. (MRC) came to their position as major forest owners in Northern California (400,000+ acres) via different trajectories: MRC owns  227,000 acres in Mendocino County purchased from the multi-national Louisiana-Pacific when they left Calif. after reaping millions, and HRC got what was Maxxam/Pacific Lumber’s ravished land in Humboldt County, minus small but precious protected groves of old growth redwoods surrounded by a sea of clearcuts.

Both of these evil desecrators are owned by San Francisco.-based Fishers, owners of retail giants the Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy, the Oakland A’s (majority share), as well as HRC and MRC both, positioning the billionaire family as owners of more coastal redwood forest than any other private owner. 

But before you sharpen your arrows in the wealth-hoarders direction alone, none of it would be possible without the deep, centuries old collusion of the lead colonizers in charge, aka the State of California operating under the CalTrans and Cal Fire.  

“They (Calfire) mark the redwoods, all of which are over 100 years old, with a black  circle when it is time to cut them, they decide “how old” the trees are based on their science of “coring,”  said Andy Wellspring, our docent Un-Tour guide/ ComeUnity reparator and alumni of PeopleSkool at POOR Magazine who had raised ComeUnity Reparations to enable us poverty skolaz to even have the privilege of traveling to this unspeakably beautiful stolen Pomo territory.

When I heard the terrifying words, coring, it felt like all the other ways that wite-science, akkkademia and CorpRape entities have always perpetrated violence on Mama Earth, Black, Brown and indigenous peoples, under the benign cover of multiple forms of studying, researching, digging, cleaning, warehousing, developing, building, discovering, buying, protecting, securing, selling and claiming to name a few. These multiple forms of sanctioned violence have meant the perpetration of 528 years of raping, dissecting, murdering, profiling,stealing, removing, gentrifying, dredging, extracting, desecrating and evicting.

In addition to private corpRape entities, institutions of so-called higher learning aka the departments of AnthroWrongology and Arkkkeaology as I have re-named them, have been perpetrating this same violence on indigenous peoples bodies, ancestors and land under the guise of “learning” and why I re-named it akkkademia. 

It is always about taking apart, figuring out, disconnecting, separating so theft, eviction, removal and desecration  of sacred burial grounds sacred land and ancestors can continue uninterrupted.

The screams of Mama Trees 

This mama, daughter of a houseless, disabled , colonized Afro-Boricua Mama, orphan, tortured, experimented on,  and un-protected and later disabled, held my mamas screams, tears, pain for years, have held countless co-mamaz, poverty skolaz from our POOR Magazine movement in that kind of colonial pain that cant be described, that is unspeakable and shreds your soul. 

It was these sounds, these tears that I heard on Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Un-tour thru Occupied Pacific Northwest Turtle Island Stop #1, when myself and Muteado Silencio, Israel Munoz and 5 youth povertyskolaz from Deecolonize Academy (who like me and Israel, are all formerly houseless) Black and brown and indigenous youth and uncles, walked into the old-growth redwood forest in Pomo territory aka so-called Ft Bragg, to witness, stand with listen to and support a MamaTree, who is one of over 50,000 acres of old growth redwood trees facing clear-cutting by these CorpRapeshuns, CalTrans and CalFire.]

It is our goal as poor and houseless, pan indigenous peoples who launched these tours in 2016 and are currently working so hard to build a self-determined, poor people led solution to homelessness we call Homefulness with spiritual guidance from 1st Nations Ohlone/Lisjan family in Huchuin, Oakland, to lift up indigenous land protectors, houseless poverty skolaz, ancestors and mama earth’s voices struggling with the ongoing, colonial terror, War On the Poor, War on Mama Earth and War on Black, Brown, Indigenous peoples, to intentionally connect these dots, to connect the washing of colonial removal, terror, desecration and eviction. From San Francisco to Sheik Jarrah, From Kashmir to Iris Canada, from West Oakland to West Papua, From Pomo territory to Palestine. 

There is no more time for the colonial model of death, destruction and desecration. Of clear-cutting and evicting, removing and sweeping. The lie of public land that has never belonged to the “public” 

“They took these lands and made them “public” and removed all of our families multiple times, away from our water-ways, our life-ways, our uncles didnt know any better, and now they are taking all of our trees and our ancestors bones, putting them into places like UC Berkeley” Priscilla continued.

For those of you who follow POOR Magazine’s Un-Tours, we went just held a herstoric tour at the department of AnthroWrongology at UC Berkeley and Peoples Park, because UC Berkeley, like so many of these akkkademic institutions hold Ohlone /Lisjan relatives of warrior, co-founder of Homefulness, Corrina Gould, while at the same time evicting houseless people from Peoples Park, elders and long-time tenants from 1921 Walnut street in Berkeley for more of their profit and greed. 

“Public land for public good,” said multiple times by Aunti Frances Moore, from the Self-Help Hunger Program and POOR Magazine/Homefulness, about the removal, eviction and poLice terrorizing of poor Black residents of North Oakland from the pocket park that they steward so poor Black elders, who have been evicted from homes in that neighborhood, can actually have a safe place to sit and think and rest. And yet they are criminalized and constantly harassed, because just like Priscilla pointed out , this public land isn’t “public” its just another way for the State to cut deals with huge devil-opers and land stealers like the Fisher family.

Tree-sits and the so-called Climate Change movement

For as long as me and my xingon Mama Dee, have been conscious, I have been disturbed by the wite privilege that pervades the so-called climate change movement. So many of the “leaders” are mostly middle-class and trust-fund having wite people that seem to be intentionally disconnected from the centuries of love, care and stewardship of Mama Earth, our tree and plant relatives, four-leggeds and winged ones, that indigenous peoples have been doing, not as part of a “movement” but just as part of their life-ways of mama Earth care and stewardship. 

When we were invited in by Andy to come lay down prayers in the old-growth redwoods, we were so happy to see that sisSTAR priscilla Hunter and her xingon partner Polly were teaching, speaking and holding prayer and leadership, in addition at the coast Pomo sisStars Misty and Tina, were also holding up and lifting up the reclamation of a sacred rock back from the so-called State-run control and finally that our docent reparator, Andy and his partner Vicki were very clear whose leadership was being followed in this sacred tree fight. We were happy to see privileged wite people leveraging their race, class and physical body privilege holding down tree sits in those sacred trees, not something everyone can do and what a beautiful act of allyship to 1st peoples protectors. 

Photo of Youth and family poverty skolaz offerring Danza prayer for the Mama trees and Mama Earth and resistance to this CorpRape desecration 

Each Stolen Land Un-Tour presents a series of demands that lift up, support the movements in the occupied and stolen territory.  For Occupied Pomo Territory - these were the demands that we sent up with prayer smoke at the site of the Mama Tree Sit to MRC, HRC and the Logging Industrial Complex, CALfire and CAlTrans:  

-All 48,652 acres of this sacred forest be re-turned to their rightful stewards - the Pomo peoples of this land 

-THAT ALL LOGGING OF THESE SACRED TREES - BE STOPPED

-That in addition to all of their stolen land be re-matriated to original peoples - that the 1st peoples be surported in their own Cultural & Tribal Sovereignty and creation of Unified Ecosystem Restoration Climate Change Mitigation Environmentally Sustainable Economics 

-We also propose that wealth-hoarders and land -stealers who think they “own property” in this stolen Pomo territory return land to 1st peoples steward ship and /or redistribute stolen and hoarded wealth to Pomo peoples so they can “buy” back more of their stolen land and/or come to the next degentriFUKation/Decolonization two day seminar of PeopleSkool to help heal from the diseases of wealth-hoarding and land stealing and begin their journey to ComeUnity Reparations. 

-In addition that land be secured so that houseless peoples can create their own solutions to homelessness like Homefulness. As the violence called sweeps is alive and well in this stolen territory

“Mother Earth is bleeding and barely breathing as the Rain Forests are cut down from here to the Amazon and up north to Alaska. Climate change is wrecking great damage on our local community with forest fires raging all around us due to drought.  For the health of the forest and the critters within it, for the wellbeing of my people both spiritually and culturally, and for the fresh air and carbon sequestration that large redwoods provide, the coast  redwoods in Jackson Demonstration State Forest should be protected. They should be allowed to grow to become ancient trees, sustained in a family circle of madrone oak trees, pepperwood trees and manzanita and huckleberry bushes. Priscilla Hunter, tribal elder of Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians and Chairwoman of the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council consisting of ten local tribes who have purchased 3,900 acres on the Mendocino Lost Coast in order to preserve the forest there and save it from a third clear-cut. Excerpt from a powerfull statement by Pricilla Hunter. To read the whole article - click here  To sign a petition that Priscilla and other tribal members agree doesn’t go far enough can be found on this website 

To follow the powerFul Un-Tour on its way to so-called Oregon and Olympia click here or follow @poormagazine on IG and Twitter or PoorNewsNetwork on Facebook or Youtube

Image of Tree Warriors and POOR Magazine family from all four corners of Mama Earth standing together to Save these Mama Trees 

“I started shooting meth when I was 12,” said CJ from the DeShutes encampment in occupied Squaxin Territory aka so-called Olympia, Washington. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. He was one of over 37 RoofLEss radio reporters who reported out their multitude of reasons for now living in an encampment. All of them reported an endless, non-stop struggle with sweeping, cleaning, moving, hiding, evicting, belonging theft and arrest.

From Deshutes to Division street (SF), the racist, classist violence of “Cleaning” Sweeping, Clearing and Abating. Coded words signifying the removal of unhoused peoples of all cultures and genders and diasporas is constantly used as a way to remove us.

The notion of of our collective "dirtiness" as houseless poeple is rooted in the same colonial missionary lie of the so-called "savage" Rather than see the violent settler violence of racism, poLicing, private property, eviction, removal, exploitaiton and endless criminalization of poverty which fuels the silent destruction of people and communities, or even krapitalism itself, which was never meant to be a caring system, but rather a destroying system, that needs new markets of destroyed people and stolen land to create new "products" and new profits, the 21st century colonizer perpetrates the idea that we are dirty when we are outside,  

Our percieved, unquestionable dirtiness, is necessary to perpetuate the violent hygenic metaphors about unhoused peoples bodies and belongings, which then creates a simple rationalization for  sociaty as a whole to agree to our removal under this lie called "sweeps"

Those of you who might be thinking right now, well they are dirty, they always got stuff all round, and defecate/urinate outdoors, yes these are all facts. to which i always counter, what if someone came into your home, dorm room or apartment and took the roof off, what would they see? a perfectly clean house? what if someone said you no longer had access to your bathroom? where, ( as me and aunti Frances famously stated in 2014 when the City of Oakland seized the Self-Help Hunger Programs porta Pottie) Where would You Pee? ( or worse, shit?)

Our lives are under Your scrutiny when we are outside, we dont have the privilege of privacy rather we have the violence of exposure, so yea, just like all human anmials, some of us are messy, dirty, sick, we need a toilet, we have belongings and medicine and sometimes we use substances, just like you, the only difference, everyone sees us doing these things. Our lives are exposed.

Our lives and back-stories are messy, filled with violence and colonial-named bad choices, self-medicating substance use and service resistance. We are fraught with all the dual diagnoses one human can hold. And everyone gets to see all of this. All the time. 

RoofLEss radio street workshop at Deshutes Encampment

“They come in the night, without warning and take all of our stuff, Miguel H said in Spanish, one of the literally hundreds of RoofLESS Radio reporters from Oakland and San Francisco that have reported to POOR Magazine when we do RoofLESS radio radical redistribution of tents, sleeping bags, food and medicine, which we have done since POOR’ Magazine’s inception, but increased to four days/night a week throughout the pandemic, because the settler politricksters never stopped sweeping our houseless bodies, and in fact in many cases increased the sweeps, and in the case of SF Mayor London Breed, resisted using the FEMA money to rent motel rooms, while peoples shelters (tents) in place were being stolen from them, or in Oakland’s case where an “encampment ban” was added to the hundred of laws already in place to criminalize poor people for being poor, and houseless people for being houseless. 

And because we have no access to a stable roof we are constantly grouped and kettled and contained into a monolith, The Homeless People -oftentimes even separated from the word People, into a criminalized, de-humanized object, “The homeless problem” used as fodder for settler colonial politricksters and huge non-profiteers. But, just like housed people, we are a multi-verse,with different opinions, perspectives, PTSD’s and struggles.  

In addition to a disproportionate amount of Black and Brown peoples, many unhoused peoples are poor and wite, elder and disabled, evicted and barely holding on by a thread. We have been in and out of krapitalist service models of “care” and “support” so-called “service provision”

From Occupied Squaxin Territory to Huchuin (Oakland) and Willow Street in San Francisco, housed people, pumped with all these lies about our "dirtiness" then start to blur the lines of dirty into "dangerous" . Like the savage mythos, once you have made our "dirtiness" into other that human,  our lives into a "group" and our actions into words like "erratic" or "crazy" or "bums"- now we are easily percieved as dangerous.

Fueled by all of these dehumanizing, classist, racist hate people resort to the solution they have all been taught,  calls to the poLice and then state agencies like CalTrans and Department of Public Works perpetrate these deadly sweeps.I say deadly holding Desirree Quintero killled by a falling branch in Santa Cruz after a sweep pushed her into a dangerous terrain and Shannon Marie Bigley, killed by bring run over by a DPW truck and so many more. 

“They make it illegal for your to sit, lean or even rest in Olympia,” said JX another powerfull RoofLESS radio reporter rom Occupied Squaxin territory telling his story of endless sweeps violence. “There is no housing, there is no services, but there is constant harassment from poLice and so-called residents,” JX concluded. 

Stolen land /Hoarded Resources UnTour Guides Across Occpued PAcific NorthWest Turtle Island

As houseless and poor folks and all of our economic justice advocates and organizers, we need to stop acting, naming and placing the blame solely on PoLice and policy, and face the sickkk fact that all kinds of housed and sadly even some of us unhoused people have accepted this colonial lie of dirty, messy, disorganized, and so-called failures.

“I went into rehab and then relapsed, and then went to prison and then came out and did rehab again and then went to prison,” CJ’ went onto explain a series of snares and relapses and treatment stints and more relapses. 

Non-profiteers and the therapy industrial complex- also needing our problems for their products asserts that our only problem is we don’t have access to treatment and “services” but oftentimes this explanation falls into what I call the Cult of Rehabilitation- always trying to “fix” us. Many of us have been in rehab and prisons, we have been studied and reported and saved and theorized and reSearched, incarcerated, criminalized and legislated against and yet like I have said multiple times, No matter how many times, you jail me , sweep me or study me, it doesn’t give me a home. Entire institutions like Stanford and UC Berkeley continue to conduct studies about our poverty, homelessness, racism and struggle. Yet there is never a conversation about self-determination. About “support” of what we are already doing- like the hashtag of an upcoming action- Support Not Sweeps.

Tiny ( wit Stevie K) inviting wealth-hoarders to radically redistribute their stolen and hoarded wealth so people without a roof can build their own solutions like Homefulness 

Non-profiteers continue to get huge grants to save us and CalTrans continues to Sweep us. But the reality is so many of us have made it clear we have our own solutions and many times those solutions are not perfect or complete, but they are what we are doing to stay alive and what we need is sovereignty and support to practice them. 

Talauna Reed, Warrior Shero from So-called Olympia 

“This is the Red Lion Motel where organizers rented rooms and occupied some to house unhoused folks in the middle of winter in a pandemic and then faced terrifying poLice violence of a brutal eviction with armed police officers which included the repeated tasing of the only Black houseless member of the group, that has left him disabled to this day and there is no accountability from the City or our mayor,” said Taluana Reed, a warrior Shero, powerful organizer and niece of Yvonne MacDonald who was killed and never properly investigated because she was a Black woman in Amerikkklan Instead officials pushed a false racist narrative and blamed Yvonne for her own death.

“I am running for office in this town to get some justice in this racist system.” Taluana explained to Black and Brown youth poverty skola reporters from Deecolonize Academy/POOR Magazine/Homefulness youth media mentorship who along with us adult poverty skolaz, all survivors of homelessness, poLice terror, sweeps, and gentriFUKation, are co-building Homefulness and were in so-called Olympia to bring the 2nd stop in a powerFULL Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Un-Tour thru Occupied Pacific Northwest Turtle Island. This Un-Tour made possible only thru the radically redistributed dollars of ComeUnity Reparators and the love -work of POOR family Lisa Ganser and Talauna Reed, Nomy Lam, Stevie Kampaus and Crystal Renee of So-called Olympia.

Homefulness is only made possible because we poor and indigenous poverty skolaz at POOR Magazine teach folks with race and class privilege about Radical Redistribution of their stolen and hoarded wealth and land in a seminar we do called PeopleSkool 

The point of our Un-Tours which we originally launched on MamaEarth day of 2016 is to unWash the Settler HIS-stories of Discovery, Racist lies of Safe, violent lies of rent and eviction and sweeps and removal and connect the dots of the settler-kkkolonial lies about so-called Private Property, PoLice Terror, CorpRape Extraction, Eviction, Removal, Criminalization and Desecration of MamaEarth, ancestors and all of us. 

Equating us with “the Jungle” is another colonial code for houseless, indigenous and poor people of color. The jungle-izing of humans has a long history of genocide of disabled and migrant/indigenous and African descendent peoples. Casually assigning  “savagery” or four-legged metaphors are on a contium with the missionary lies of our dangerousness and the urgent need of us to be "cleaned-up" cleared out and our removed completely. Of course this is all so extra evil when we poor and indigenous peoples know the real savages are the land stealers who stole Turtle Island. 

Its so disturbing to me how even so-called service providers in cities from so-called San Jose to so-called Olympia use these terms casually. Why we at POOR say no more about us without us media, art education and culture production. 

We also lift up poor and indigenous peoples solutions like Sogorea Te Land Trust, Homefulness, West Berkeley Shellmound, CobOnWood, Where Do we Go Berkeley, Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, Poor Peoples Army, Liveaboard Mariners, Camp Compassion,   Missing Murdered Indigenous Women #MMIW, and so many more poor and indigenous peoples unseen solutions and soverignty that have been being practiced for 528 years and before the multiple Wite Supermacist lies of Discovery, Akkkademia, Safety, Savioring, and Missioning caught so many of us in their lies . 

How our collective and ongoing struggles of homelessness, Sweeps, sacred site desecration, poverty, ableism, eviction, false border terror and poLice Terror are connected to Mama Earth and her earths peoples  being seen as a commodity to be bought and sold, profited off of and stolen from.

“We are on the street where the racist, classist mayor, who condones cover-ups , poLice terror and sweeps in this City lives, “ said Miguel, a revolutionary warrior for justice from so-called Olympia, who joined us on the powerFULL stolen land Un-tour as we humbly shared the medicine of radical redistribution, The Bank of ComeUnity Reparations and Homefulness with wealth-hoarders and land-stealers living in the occupied Squaxin with the offer of them attending the next degentriFUKation/Decolonization seminars of PeopleSKool.

“Get out of the street, poltrickster Selby of So-called Olympia shouted out to me and the other Un-Tour Prayer-bringers and guides after she almost ran over us with her car and then got out angrily and walked away from her car, leaving it in the middle of the road while poLice circled us on every block.

 “Here is information about PeopleSkool- its coming up in BlackAugust, I think you should register,” I shouted out to her, as she defiantly brushed past us 

Youth and family indigenous poverty skolaz on the 1st stop of this Stolen Land Tour, laying down prayers in the Danza Azteca tradition for Pomo relatives and ancestors to lift up their solutions and help stop the CorpRape extraction and removal of Old Growth Redwoods and ancestors bones 

The Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Un-Tour thru Occupied Squaxin Territory began as it often does with multi-nationed prayer from a sister prayer-bringer of Squaxin descent - Tamika Green,speaking/singing praying in Lushootseed, one of the first languages of Salish Tribes. Salish is the word for the so-called puget sound. There were also  powerful liberation words from sisStar warrior EarthFeather Soverign at a location I  call a “KlanMark” (my newest Tinyword- I like to mess wit the oppressors language) in this case it was a series of monolithic greco-roman structures called the Capitol- you know I re-named it The Krapitol.

“As we stand in front of this Colonial Cash register, lets be clear about the violence that is perpetrated by these people, “ said Greg Urquhart, an indigenous prayer-bringer and warrior medic with the South Sound Street Medics, talking about the so-called Washington Governor. Greg brought beautiful words and hand-drum medicine and ancestors songs of healing for us all.

“We are struggling with an ongoing threat of CalTans sweeps just for sleeping while houseless, I am an elder and disabled and this is exhausting, why don’t they just leave us alone,”  said a houseless resident of the Wood Street Collective, one of a powerful coalition of curbside communities that includes Where Do we Go Berkeley, Sea Breeze Encampment, Ashby Street  Encampment, Marin County Homeless Union/Liveaboard Mariners, Sacramento Homeless Union and Homefulness to name a few that are coming together to demand the end of this endless violence of criminalizing public land and houseless, roofless members of the “public” to ask for support like water and trash service, and to demand that  our own self-determined solutions to our problems like Cob On Wood and the Homefulness project, which is currently being blocked by the City of Oakland to finish 8 units of no rent housing for houseless families, built by houseless families, be allowed to thrive, open, live and be “approved”.

We poor, indigenous and houseless peoples aren't any dirtier than you and we don’t need to be cleaned or saved or swept or removed - we just need basic humane support serives so we can build our own.

Join us at two actions on Tuesday, June 22nd - at 2pm to demand Support Not Sweeps at CalTrans at 111 Broadway and then on the same day at 430pm at the Oakland City Hall to demand that Homefulness be Free to finish the 4 last homes us poor and houseless people have been building for the last 11 years even though the City of Oakland has done everything to stop us, charge us and block us and now 8 units of housing remain empty while houseless youth and families remain houseless.  

To read Stolen Trees, Stolen Land and Stolen Lives -Pt 1 of the Tour- click here To register or find out more about the next decolonization DegentriFUKation Seminar at Peopleskool go to www.racepovertymediajustice.org To watch a video from our last UnTour thru Akkkademia- click here To watch some of the powerFULL RoofLESS radio reports go to PoorNewsNetwork channel on Youtube 

Site of sand creek massacre in occupied Ute, Cheyanne, Arapaho territory where we laid down prayer with ruby left hand Bull and Lynn Eagle Feather (photo by Momii Palapaz of a placa by Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia) Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources UnTour thru Occupied Western Turtle Island POOR Magazine

“They have shelters here…” Her voice was soft, she was looking down at her hands. Her eyes darted from me to the cement sidewalk she was sleeping on.”They aren’t bad or anything, but their rules are so strict that…” she paused again to rub her legs, “its hard to be in them,” she whispered trailing off. Her name was Shiela and she was houseless and one of our newest  RoofLEssRadio reporters from the streets of Occupied Western Turtle Island the colonizers called Salt Lake City, Utah. Home to the huge Mormon temple and all of their strange savior narratives and 21st century missions. We houseless and formerly houseless, indigenous youth and elders were there on our last day of what we called the Stolen Land /hoarded Resources UnTour across occupied Western Turtle Island.

Mormon “temple” - photo taken by Momii Palapaz /POOR Magazine 

We provide protection for the new frontier of discovery. (from a “tagline” on the wall of the Mormon Temple)

As we UnToured and unWashed so-called Salt Lake City - so named because of its huge lake of natural salt now “owned” and commodified by CorpRape entities, one of the many gifts of Turtle Island that lured the colonizers to steal and pillage this sacred land, we walked into the “HIStoric Mormon complex.  There were multiple “tag-lines” like this one- romanticizing the violent lie of empty frontiers, protection and so-called discovery.  Sculptures and images of the humble “pioneer”  and the washed herstory of land theft already occupied, already inhabited everywhere.  In all of these “*ManUMeants (my name for them)  there was not even one mention  of the the Paiute, Dine, Shoshone, Arapaho, Cheyanne and Ute peoples who were already there , thriving, living , creating, building, and existing before the Mormons, Presbyterians, Catholics, Lutherans and pretty much every colonizer arrived to “save” them. 

Stolen land/Hoarded Resources Untour praying at a “landMark” (not KlanMark) of Little Raven who was one of the elders/ancestors of that stolen territory, aka Denver) - photo by Momii Palapaz 

All of these pieces of colonial public relations were oddly back-dropped with a Munsters style temple that brought up horror movie daymares and signified a constant presence of colonial domination everywhere. KlanMarks, I call them which is the subject of a new POOR press anthology we are writing and living called KlanMarks and ManuUments - Unwashing Settler Colonial Lies across Mama Earth - An UnTour Guide.

“Half of my family are Mormons, they believe that you aren’t “human” if you are melanated, because you have been “marked” by God.”  Muteado Silencio, one of our POOR Magazine poverty ,indigenous skolaz, prayer-bringers and co-builders/co-founders of Homefulness has direct experience with the Mormons so it was especially strange to be there. He went on to explain that the missionary work of Mormons is all over the world and often includes “adopting” Brown children by Mormons to “save” them.  

In addition to WeSearching ( my name for our poor people-led research) for this new book - the points of these Untours are to connect the dots of colonial genocide, land and culture theft, homelessness, poLice terror and MamaEarth’s destruction and to share the medicine of Radical Redistribution, with wealth-hoarding inheritors and land-stealers  so the LandBack and CultureBack movements of  poor, indigenous and houseless peoples can connect to build their own movements like Homefulness and Sogorea Te Land Trust. Self-determined housing. Land  and cultural reclamation solutions to our problems built by us , for us.

Roger in his normal sleeping space- he was asked permission by this povertyskola and wanted to take the picture with this quote “Cause I feel safer sleeping here than in one of the shelters here.”

“I’m scared to go in those places, its too much”, Roger, another RoofLessRadio contributor reported. The Salt Lake City shelter system was featured in a story by SF Chronicle writer Kevin Fagen as a “model” for San Francisco to follow in 2014. And yet this poverty skola witnessed the streets of this city in 2021 filled with unhoused people. Many of whom were hiding, dying of thirst and/or holding on by a thread, refusing to go into to these amazing “shelters” . The main issue that these RoofLess radio reporters called out were that these model shelters were filled with programs created by anti-social workers and case manglers, poltricksters and “executive directors” non-profiteers and “churches” people who had as my Mama Dee used to say, Never missed a meal, or even if they did miss a meal were bought and sold , pimped and played into a system of “non-profiteering which is focused on “helping” us without hearing us.Making money on our rehabilitation, caging, housing and fixing. Rarely if ever taking into account the system that led us to even be in that situation in the first place was the one they built. 

Conversely, we as poverty skolaz, ourselves traumatized and trying to heal houseless or formerly houseless root our Homefulness projects in healing, and constant LoveWork, knowing that merely "putting a roof on our trauma is just the beginning" that our lives are actually rife with all the other remnants of krapitalst poverty shame, racism,  abuse, criminalization and violence. 

“Sweeps are scheduled in this town, literally three times a week and oftentimes more than that, we are working on every front to resist them, but they have increased now with the so-called opening back up, so what we are doing now is to figure out workarounds with people,” said Therese Howard, Denver Homeless Outloud. Youth and adult poverty skolaz, Amir, Tibu, Muteado, myself and elder Elephant council member Momii from POOR Magazine sat with Therese and Benjamin and other houseless and formerly houseless leaders /organizers with Denver Homeless Outloud. While they spoke we all reflected on the same violent sweeps happening in so-called Olympia, Washington, Oakland, San Francisco and Marin County. Sweeps we resist, fight, scream about and stand against everyday in the Bay. Sweeps, the hygienic metaphors like we are trash, arent a Bay Area thing or a California thing, or West Coast thing,  they are a United Snakes thing, used as the tool to eradicate, get rid of and dispose of houseless people using many of the same early settler colonial laws that were used to incarcerate, silence and remove 1st Nations peoples from their own land. 

RoofLEssRadio Street-Writing Workshop in an encampment in so-called Denver- one of the reasons we do the UnTours- to share the template of Homefulness with fellow houseless folks and make sure their voices are told by them without filter- Support/collaboration with Denver Homeless Outloud 

“The next thing is the brownshirts, the private security, that the mayor has even signed onto,” added Benjamin. As Benjamin spoke I was thinking from “Clean-teams to Cal-Trans, from Cob on Wood to Where do We Go Berkeley to the Poor Peoples Army in Philly, its the same thing here and everywhere. And as all of us houseless and poor people and our advocates say and have “proved” as though it had to be proven, Sweeps Kill. Denver Homeless Outloud are warriors who currently fighting a lawsuit along with comrades from the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) this killer violence against disabled, houseless elders and poor people is an epidemic and it is not just the poLice or the evil politricksters and CorpRape business interests. Its also the so-called progressive legislators like we have in Oakland who voted unanimously for a “camping ban” making it illegal to be anywhere in Oakland while Houseless. 

Youth Poverty Skolaz Amir and Tiburcio 

The Unhoused Bill of Rights 

SiStar shero Cori Bush, the first congresswoman who was a houseless mama before she was voted into office, is baadass and just released a bill of rights that would make it illegal to harass anyone who is sleeping outside. We know that WRAP tried to get that passed in California and it went down in a lengthy stupid poltrickster fight,  so we wish her luck and love. And right as she was making a move to get the eviction moratorium saved in amerikkklan, by sleeping on the Krapitol steps because Congress went on recess while people were facing mass homelessness, the City of Oakland went on recess too. Instead of voting on the emergency ordinance that would have let our homeless peoples solution to homelessness we call Homefulness open up the four multi-family  townhouses that it has taken us poor and houseless people 11 years to build because it so costly and hard for poor people to build our own solutions, but now sit vacant, because Oakland City Council took a vacation instead of hearing this housing emergency that so many of us are dealing with.

Warrior Shero Lynn Eagle Feather, mama of Paul Castaway- photo by Tiny

From Colonizers to PoLice

“I called 911, I didnt think they would kill my Sun, he was having a mental health crisis,” Lynn Eagle Feather cried as she spoke, a fierce 1st Nations warrior and boarding school survivor taught and shared with us, the tragic story of the murder of her Sun Paul Castaway. Lynn Eagle Feather whose story was first told to Lisa Ganser POOR Magazine poverty skola, made the connections with the brutality her family shared from her own violent life in the racist boarding school system to her ancestors murder in the Makato Massacre of 38 Native American men ordered by the so-called good president Lincoln. She also, as an indigenous poor woman traumatized by the violence of krapitalism, was houseless in her own lands of origin for over three years and sees the ways all of these issues are deeply connected and how our healing lies in our connecting up our struggles. 

We held a ceremony at the site of the Sand Creek Massacre in So-called Colorado, just one of so many sites of genocide in stolen Turtle Island,  that we planned as one of the UnTour stops to connect the dots of Washed unSeen colonial genocide in herstory to now- a ceremony  that could never be felt or described with mere colonial words, but was unspeakably powerFULL.  We had the blessing of Lynn Eagle Feather and another warrior Ruby Left Hand Bull, both Boarding School survivors launching us with an altar and prayer songs in their traditions as well as support and love from  members of the “Denver Communists who support sisSTAR Lynn and do so much truth work in those lands.  This poverty skola also laid down prayer for all the warrior mamaz who like Lynn and my own Mama Dee and myself, barely made it out alive of poverty, homelessness, trauma to even be here now fighting.  

Gated Communities that are NEVER swept 

“Im here to share the medicine of Radical Redistribution and ComeUnity Reparations with people who have more homes than they can actually live in, and more money than they can ever spend,” I stood at the entrance of a huge wrought iron automatic gate in the Cherry Hill Village area of Colorado. Houses ( if you could call them that) were larger than the eyes could even see. Miles of stolen Mama Earth with nothing on them, but private golf courses and driveways and stables and green manicured grass. There were only a few of these extreme wealth-hoarder mansions on every street off a road of the “gated” community of Cherry Hill, which wasn’t really gated, but they had their own poLice station, their own park, their own roads and their own signage. 

No amount of wealth-hoarding surprises me anymore as this is the 5th year of these painful tours across Turtle Island, where I share the concept of Radical Redistribution. We always get a police escort within seconds who usually realizes they cant arrest us even though they would like to, but this was up there next to Philadelphias Main Line Bel Air and Tiburon in so-called Marin. All colonial cities that just like Denver, practice this violence called Sweeps, from the evil destruction of poor peoples boats in Marin and then their peaceful encampments, to the arrests with weaponry of houseless people on Venice Beach last week to the violence of scheduled sweeps in Denver and People Cages ( open air cages created for houseless people) in St Petersburg, Florida and San Francisco under London Breed to the violence threatened against Cob on Wood right here in Oakland. These wealth-hoarders are never approached to share these resources they continue to hoard, as a matter of fact they are never even mentioned as a resource for support of people who have nothing. 

Formerly houseless Youth and adult poverty, indigenous skolaz from POOR Magazine/Homefulness on their Stolen Land/Hoarded Ressources UnTour in Occupied Arapaho, Cheyanne, Ute,territory aka Denver - photo by Momii Palapaz/POOR Magazine 

This is why we say its not a protest, its a sharing of a medicine to the disease of wealth-hoarding and land-stealing. Because we have all been lied to. Including wealth-hoarders. But the only way we poor and houseless people were bale to build homefulness is though this medicine of Radical Redistribution and ComeUnity Reparations and so we know that housed people and houseless people can actually collaborate and my new hashtag #WeCanKeepUsHoused is real. It just takes wealth-hoarders to listen to poverty skolaz and stop the lie of about us without us moves like Slat Lake City’s Model that no-one wants to be in.

Denver is a huge example of violent gentriFUKation, there are brand-new condos and high rises springing up in every corner. There are multi-plexus and strip mall and huge CorpRape malls and poLice stations and hipster bars and just like San Francisco, in the devil-oper, starbux dream of “clean”  there really is no place for poor people.  its not shocking that removal of houseless people is constant and violent and organized. But lo and behold , just like every one of these colonial towns from Occupied Shinnecock Nation ( aka the so-called Hamptons) to occupied Tongva land aka LA, to San Francisco, there were neighborhoods hidden, places so gated you don’t even know they exist. No-one talks about them and they are never considered when discussing budget shortfalls and even so-called income inequality 

Stolen Land UnTour “guides” Muteado Silencio and Tiny, sharing medicine of Radical Redistribution in an extremely exclusive elder ghetto (Condo for Elders)  that charges residents 10,000 a month - photo courtesy of the #DenverCommunists

“The PoLice come around here at least twice a day, and then a private mall security, we have to move all the time, we can usually sit here for maybe an hour and then its arrest or harassment.” Said Billie from So-called Denver.

The UnTour also included a visit to Amache, the site of a Japanese Concentration Camp, we were graciously give a tour by high school students in the area and the words and images were reminiscent of this plantation nation, full of colonial genocide, incarceration, arrest, death and removal. “My family were in a place like this called Tule Lake, “ said Momii Palapaz, an elder poverty skola who joined us on this UnTour and helped to steward us through this very difficult journey of tears and resistance. 

Chief Lee Plenty Wolf and Jaime- teaching on Indigenous healings ways to our youth and elder poverty skolaz- photo by Israel Munoz - POOR Magazine 

“We have our own ways of healing and living and honoring our culture and Mother Earth.,” said elder medicine and prayer carrier Chief Lee Plenty Wolf to us gathered at the location of this years Sundance ceremony in Boulder Colorado. He was explaining how we as indigenous peoples have our own ceremonies and traditions that need to be returned to so we can heal ourselves. This is why we do so much work on healing in all of our poor and indigenous people-led programs at POOR Magazine. It is complicated to actually MamaFest ( as I call it) a poor people led solution to poverty, its complicated to hold all that trauma which doesn’t end just because you get a shelter bed or a pill or a roof. 

These are the teachings we share and learn and live at Homefulness and we’ll be inviting people into the upcoming Decoloniation /DegentriFUKation Seminar at PeopleSkool on August 28/29th ( it will be on zoom and in person, for poverty skolaz and people with privileges) we are working with folks across Turtle Island to launch their own Homefulness - and maybe just maybe the City of Oakland can just let us houseless people how houseless people. Homefulness.