I feel like its so close- but i don’t know
Hypokkkrazy ( as i call it ) is real….
Unhoused, poverty skolaz living in vehicles and on the streets in the stolen Ohlone/Lisjan land colonizers call Berkeley face constant harassment (like they do pretty much everywhere) -but in Berkeley,its not so much from one entity, poltrickster or community, but from all of them and mostly from "Nimbyism" (Not in my backyard), fueled by the omnipresent, anti-poor people hate that exists everywhere in colonized Turtle Island.
This deep anti-poor people hate has been in this stolen land since the colonizers stole it and called the theft a “discovery”. With their greed, thieving, genocidal, racist, wite-supremacy, they also brought criminalization of poor, houseless and disabled peoples and a whole litany of laws and language meant to incarcerate every poor person they got.
Sadly, this is nothing new and it is the fight we poverty /disability skolaz are versed in fighting everyday, but the deeply hurtful part is this hate is really no different in a town that claims progressive overstanding of struggles from here to Palestine? And in fact, oddly enough, Berkeley is no different than many of the towns supporting, enabling or legislating anti-poor people laws, and in some ways, Berkeley is more rigid, more closed to change and meaner than even the not so “politicized” or “woke” regions of Turtle Island
The reality is unhoused folks are everyone, we are all colors, cultures, spirits and so much more. We don’t live with Any privilege, but what we lack most of all is the privilege of privacy. Imagine if someone took the roof off of your home or apartment or dorm room. Your life and belongings and momentoes exposed and now no longer seen as belongings- but as a varying pile of trash to be “swept” and “cleaned up” more hygienic metaphors about us Po folks.
So i’m writing this story with love and respect- trying to lead with abundance, hope and open-ness. I am certain, so certain, i can feel it in my bones, that someone, somewhere in Berkeley , Richmond, Oakland, the greater Bay Area (or anywhere in Turtle Island for that matter), who has access to inherited land or resources, Blood-stained or love-stained dollars is open to liberating this land to unhoused, vehicularily housed poverty skolaz so they can manifest their own Homefulness. (Homefulness is a homeless peoples solution to homelessness, created, launched and currently being built completely by homeless and formerly homeless youth, adults and elders in deep East Oakland)
“I lost my home, when i lost my job,” said Kim, one of the power-FULL poverty skolaz who has been taking part in POOR Magazine’s street-writing/poverty journalism workshops which we have been doing for the last two months on a street corner in West Berkeley near their parked RV’s and cars.
The RV dwellers, were humbly, carefully, cleanly dwelling at Berkeley Marina for many weeks, until the City of Berkeley decided they were an eyesore and interfered with Berkeley’s tourist economy. Installing weird, unnecessary barriers and no parking signs to criminalize a small and beautiful community of unhoused folks that had come together at the Marina parking lot.
Unleashing a series of tickets, tow trucks, tickets, poLice cars and threats, the City of Berkeley refused to budge no matter how many times the all ages, all nations and cultures RV dwelling poverty skolaz like the amazing Kim, Amber, Phil and Yesica to name a few in tandem with revolutionary lawyers like Osha Neuman, met with the city.
Finally, for survival they were scattered to a series of street-corners , where they have encountered a recent litany of parking ticket threats.
Which brings me back to this articles goal of leading with abundance and love. To a feeling in my gut that i am three degrees of separation away from someone, anyone who wants to talk/walk/ practice the true principles and values of Berkeley by offering some liberated land ( or resources to “buy/liberate” land) in Berkeley, Richmond or Oakland for these humble poverty skolaz ( and several other Oakland based poverty skolaz we are working with also) to either park their RVs and cars or build/create homes in the vision of what we are calling Homefulness2.
Homefulness #1 which is far from finished and struggling to be built with no government or “charity industrial dollars” but with permission and spiritual giudance from 1st Nations Ohlone/Lisjan leaders, is funded entirely by redistribution of hoarded, inherited resources taught/shared to folks with resources in a project we call PeopleSkool, by poverty/indigenous skolaz at POOR Magazine- on a different way to live in our tortured Mama Earth, and has nothing to do with the continued buying, selling and profiting off of Mama Earth..
To share this model with fellow poverty skolaz & wealth hoarders/land-stealers across Mama Earth we launched the Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tours and have shared this template with fellow poverty skolaz from CalifAztlan to Connecticut and are releasing a book that has this medicine in it called Poverty Scholarship - which we are releasing, teaching on, sharing and touring in 2019
So all of that said, the offer of abundance and belief that these abundant resources exist in someone’s heart who is reading this and if you are tentatively reading this wondering in your heart if you are ready to truly walk, live and liberate Mama Earth..please call or email this poverty skola…so we can actually work on an actionable solution created by us, the impacted poor and unhoused folks, that is rooted in love, Mama Earth’s thrival, decolonization and self-determination.
To contact Tiny or any of the poverty skola leaders at POOR Magazine to redistribute land or resources, book a teaching of PeopleSkool at your organization, school or community, join the next Peopleskool Decolonization/DegentriFUKation seminar or Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour email: poormag@gmail.com To get a copy of the upcoming book Poverty Scholarship- go to www.poorpress.net