Co-editors Note: Papa Bear Transitioned to his Spirit Journey on or around March 10th- POOR Magazine will be holding a humble homegoing ceremony for him on the street corner where he lived and worked at Geary & Van Ness on Tuesday, March 25th @ 7:30pm - bring a flower or a prayer to share. Papa Bear, a survivor of the US Military Industrial Complex and the poor people hate law called Sit-Lie, shared his monthly reports of living and working as a panhandler in the racist classist streets of Amerikkka every month at POOR Magazine's Peoples Newsroom we call Community Newsroom- here is his last report, translated by PNN Poverty skola Leontyne Smith-
As people know, Papa Bear comes to newsroom every month with a report straight from the streets of Frisco, as tired as he is from pan-handling all day and getting harrassed by the police. He said recently the police have expidited their patrols to three to five minutes. They are taking photos of the dope dealers and beating them up.
Even though he talked about the usual stuff that goes on in the Tenderloin he brought up the problems with power washing. A lot of people are dying because of what the Department of Public Works put in their washing chemicals. Some people think this is happening on purpose to demean the homeless and make them know the are supposed to be inferior.
I read on Google the only harm that happens to the homeless is self-inflicted, and they should just die without food and shelter. This month at Newsroom the news about how homeless folks in the room are getting treated is absurd. At shelters they make you sign in at five oclock in the morning and you are never gauranteed a bed. They are ususally infected with bed bugs which are really hard to get rid of and usually you get bites all over your body instantly.
Other people in the room talked about how the staff are worse than the clients, and they do not care. Being that i have been working with Poor Magazine, a lot of people were homeless and/or living in low income housing, which in itself costs way too much now.
At the end of Papa Bear's update, he talked about getting another warrant which is number nineteen now and he is aiming for twenty. Police have broken his ribs for sleeping on the streets and now they are even closing parks just to give homeless people a hard time. Golden Gate Park closes one hour before midnight, and that is making trouble with people enjoying the earth and people who need to sleep there too. Parks are nature and that is something that brings peace and contentment of mind. I used to love writing in my journal in the cuts of the trees in Golden Gate Park when i was a teenager. That was my escape from everybody and everything. It was like hiding out in a little forrest where nobody could find me. Something about breathing in the trees, flowers and the beautiful plants.
I am not homeless and I am seriously mad as hell because nature is a safe-haven for some people. Papa Bear has been homeless for a long time after serving his country for half his life and what does he get? Racism and warrants, wow.