Story Archives 2001

pstrongTHE CALIFORNIA ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS BUS TOUR CALIFORNIA MAY 29- MAY 31, 2001/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/339/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Food First/p pTo help build the national movement for economic human rights in the United States, Food First is organizing the 2001 Economic Human Rights Bus Tour in California to be held from May 29 to 31. This follow-up to our successful 1999 Georgia Bus Tour is drawing public attention to growing poverty and hunger in this country, and the powerful grassroots campaigns that are addressing these injustices. We are pleased to be endorsed by the fifty-four member Congressional Progressive Caucus and more than two hundred organizations from across the country./p pRepresentative John Conyers called Food First’s 1999 tour "the most important thing I’ve done this year." With this in mind, the 2001 tour is again bringing congressional representatives, state legislators, local officials, and the national media on the bus. They're hearing first-hand testimonies and policy recommendations, emphasizing the need for bolder initiatives and a greater community role in policy making. /p pThe tour highlights campaigns for justice in California and is expanding the call for economic human rights to a national level. Stops include a kickoff event at the St. Mary’s Center in Oakland, a downtown Oakland walking tour hosted by Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (BOSS) of low income housing that is slated for destruction and business development, and the Day Labor Program in San Francisco. On our third day we'll visit the fields of the Central Coast to witness the fight by the United Farm Workers, Lideres Campesinas, and others for fundamental economic human rights to safe working conditions and access to basic health care. /p pAssaults on our country’s working poor continue to accelerate, and the California Economic Human Rights Bus Tour is a timely and dynamic opportunity to strengthen our networks in support of justice. Join with us in demanding economic human rights in the United States. /p pFor further information on the California Bus Tour and the national movement for Economic Human Rights, please visit our website at a href="http://www.foodfirst.org" title="www.foodfirst.org"www.foodfirst.org/a and contact us at a href="mailto:humanrights@foodfirst.org"humanrights@foodfirst.org/a or call (510) 654-4400 x235. /p pItinerary for Economic Human Rights Bus Tour in California May 29th - 31st, 2001br / (current as of May 25th , 2001)/p pTuesday May 29th - Oakland/p pnoon Kickoff at St. Mary’s Center and lunch – 635 22nd Street/p p1:00 pm Housing Crisis walking tour with Building Opportunities for Selfbr / Sufficiency/p p2:45 pm Public Hearing, St. Mary’s Center/p p5:30 pm First Congregational Church – UCC, Public event – 27th br / Harrison Streets/p pWednesday May 30th - San Francisco/p p9:30 am Day Labor Program – Franklin Square Park – 17th Hampshire, The Mission/p p11:30 am St. Anthony's Foundation and lunch – 121 Golden Gate Ave, Downtown/p p2:30 pm Heron’s Head Park /Bayview Hunter’s Point – Pier 98, East endbr / of Cargo Way/p p5:00 pm Community Bridges Beacon at Everett School - 450 Church St, Thebr / Mission/p pThursday May 31st - Salinas / Watsonville /p p7:30 am Board bus at Downtown Berkeley BART 10:30 am UFW field visit -Davenportbr / Noon UFW site visit, lunch – La Manzana Center -Watsonvillebr / 2:00 pm Teamsters 890 Meeting Hall - Salinasbr / with Lideres Campesinas, The Citizenship Project, The Center for Community Advocacybr / 4:15 pm AMO Organics’ Dorrance Ranch - Hollisterbr / 4:45 pm Return to Bay Areabr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongBlack population in SF drops 23% since 1990/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Kaponda/p pSan Francisco - It seems like a century has passed since then-President George Bush Sr. watched the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants play in the World Series. It seems even longer since the term “people friendly” was used in connection with the housing and job market. But it’s been only a decade since that 1990 World Series, and in those 10 years, according to newly released census figures, San Francisco has suffered a net loss of nearly 20,000 African Americans. /p pWhile U.S. Census 2000 data suggest that America is a wealthy nation with a robust economy, reporting that the total population of every state in America has increased since 1990, the Black population in San Francisco has declined by 23 percent./p pFrom a high of 88,343 in 1970, San Francisco’s Black population dropped 4 percent to 84,857 in 1980, another 10 percent to 76,343 in 1990, and now 23 percent to 58,791 in 2000. Census experts had projected that the number of African Americans in San Francisco would rise to 79,095 over the past decade, assuming normal rates of births and deaths and migration in and out of the City./p pThis disappearance of one-fourth of San Francisco’s Black citizens in a single decade is no doubt a result of persistent economic discrimination and unaffordable housing. Blacks are locked out of jobs and business opportunities in both boom times and bust, while housing prices were pushed sky high by the once hot high-tech industry. More statistics on how and why the exodus is occurring, however, won’t be available for about six months, until census housing and income statistics are released in the fall. /p pThe epicenter of this earthshaking phenomenon is Silicon Valley. The impact of unbridled development that began there has radiated throughout nearby counties and communities, leaving in its wake displaced working-class families and cultural devastation.br / In 1990, the African American population in San Mateo County was 34,018, before the drastic impact of the out-of-control housing market. According to the data from Census 2000, however, 23,778 Blacks reside in San Mateo County today, a decrease of one third.br / In Santa Clara County, home to 52,860 African Americans in 1990, the Black population has dropped to only 44,475, a decrease of 16 percent./p pOver 600 Blacks disappeared from Marin County, as the population dropped from 7,552 in 1990 to 6,946, a decline of 6 percent./p pEven in heavily Black Alameda County, the African American population decreased 6 percent, from 223,994 in 1990 to 211,124 in 2000, a loss of 12,870 people./p pU.S. Census 2000 will be used to realign congressional, state legislative and City supervisorial districts, taking into account population shifts since the last census in 1990, to assure equal representation in compliance with the “one person, one vote” principle of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Because of the legislative significance of the data, I asked Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, who represents District 10, the heart of Black San Francisco, what could be causing the flight of African Americans from this and other counties bordering the high-tech hub? /p p“I think it’s twofold: the lack of affordable housing and the lack of the kinds of jobs that allow you to afford the housing that is available. So, economically, we (African Americans) are not getting into the types of jobs that will allow us to make the money to afford the homes,” she said. /p p“They are not building affordable homes that relate to the same jobs that we have. We are in the service industries: bus drivers, cab drivers, hospital workers, social workers, and teachers. Historically, those industries do not make a lot of money. I think this is the reason why we are no longer here,” stated Supervisor Maxwell./p pAt the Board of Supervisors meeting Monday, April 3, Supervisor Chris Daly called for a hearing into the reasons for the decline in San Francisco’s African American population. Supervisor Maxwell said she would bring to the hearing “some solutions and answers and things that we can do and work on so we can eliminate this problem, forever. I think that marketing, showing people that you want them to be there by providing the kind of jobs that will allow them to be able to live where they can work, is a solution.” The Bay View will announce the date and time of the hearing as soon as it is set./p pThis may be the year that the Giants or the Oakland Athletics return to the World Series. And with the help of proposals Supervisor Maxwell and others bring to the hearing, it also may be the year that African Americans begin to return to San Francisco./p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong pbIntolerance, withbr / religious tinged dogmatismbr / is a volatile, deadly mixture./b /p pbIn the end persecutedbr / and persecutor lose lives theirbr / souls suffering longer thanbr / petty earthly mortal bickering./bbr / /p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Staff Writer/p pBeing a black Roman Catholic is difficult sometimes to believing in either abr / powerfully build wrathful old white haired-male as God or brown, yellow haired Caucasian with two younger sonsb{Blessed Trinity}/b/p pA former right hand Arch Angel created by God with too much pride and for the sin of showing that pride created by his master he’s condemned to his own private realm:Hades./p pSatan’s new role: tempting mankind. His reward, the priceless, eternal, human soul dammed to suffer forever in Satan’s domain for eternity./p pSometime now or in our near future during "The Rapture" people mortal and long dead including the ocean gives up its dead to rise to heaven./p pThe earth is filled with monster’s, war, disease’s, all manner of earthlybr / Dangers then the Mephistopheles reborn in human form returns using miracles to dazzle human’s and taking over the world as a false savior./p pI thought about this while reading a Washington Post item about what is happening in New Delhi. I’m an outsider but the labeling of Non-Muslim Afghans with distinctive yellow clothing as a way tellingb"True Believer’s/b from the rest sound like a next step in further persecution of Hindu population non-Talibanian’s./p pFirst blowing up two centuries-old Buddha carving using Islamic purity asbr / their reason. This will continue as fundamentalist gets more zealots./p pThe Dark one is given a thousand year reign before God and his/her soldier/ angels recapture Old Nick sealing him up forever in his own kingdom. /p pEarth is a paradise where no one dies, grows old, and no one is homeless because it is truly manifested on earth./p pThe millions that have left over the years from increasing oppression will be important because of their absence.bCAN YOU SPELL B R A I N D R A I N? I knew that you could. /b/p pThe best minds leave early, some of their children emigrate, professionals and working poor leave for better lives. /p pWomen will go if they break out the mental-religious dogma imposed on them and when force women not to work, think or be their best natural multi-faceted emotionally and brain balanced selves lets just say sleeping volcanoes, tornadoes, floods, and or earthquakes once unleashedbr / can never be fully under control ever again. /p pBetween this continuous religious inspired brain drain and dis-empower-br / ment of women in New Delhi in the 21st century there will be excuse thebr / hell to pay by the Taliban’s/p pAnd as for those destroyed statues they might be rubble but if scientist’sbr / and researcher’s of all faiths learn how to move atoms on the molecularbr / level the old rubble stays but new stones take its place./p pAs the molecules reform also etched into the two new stone Buddha’s are how the stones were first made by which people, who and why they were destroyed and how by combining true faith and science. /p pTHE BUDDHA’S ARE BACK and with other elements thrown in these statues will never be destroyed again because nano machines keep them in perpetual self repair./p pThink about it:Taliban's utterly destroy rebuilt buddha's only for them to regenerate fully formed again./p pThat’s the ultimate revenge without taking one Taliban’s life, it will drive true fundamentalist zealots crazy./p pI must thank Ms. Pamela Constable of the Washington Post. /p pPlease send donations to Poor Magazine C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th St.Street, San Francisco,CA.94103 USA/p pFor Joe only snail mail:br / PO Box 1230 #645 Market St. San Francisco,CA 94102br / Email:askjoe@poormagazine.br / orgbr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongThe Insiders' Instruction Manual/strong/p pPart two in a series of satirical policy explanations for government and private social service providers. /p p/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/348/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Donna L. Anderson/PNN Texas Correspondent/p piThe prevalence of hypocritical practices in social services leads PNN Texas correspondent Donna Anderson to conclude that there must be an interagency conspiracy to keep the poor poor. The scenarios and statements presented here are based on her actual experiences during 12 years in social services./i /ppPolicy Statement: Keep the Poor Poor/p pStrategy No.2 "Go Ahead, Waste my Day!"/p pThe second strategy in our domestic policy to keep the poor poor, though almost cliché, continues to be highly effective. It is even fun (in a sadistic sort of way) for the many state, local government and non-profit providers who assist in implementing this strategy. What's is it?....................................Keep them waiting. /p pThis strategy is completely unobjectionable, even with the general populous, as everyone knows that poor people have a great deal of time on their hands. Some poor people don't work and those who do have no money to do anything in their spare time. This abundance of spare time cannot be allowed to fester creativity, inspiration, initiative, education and especially not organization among the poor. /p pIn order to keep fertile spare time at a minimum in the life of the poor, we must employ practices that ensure they will always be in the process of managing their poverty. Here are three common practices that most any organization can begin to use with minimal staff training and reorganization. /p p1. Block scheduling. This is a technique used in many Medicaid-frequented healthcare providers, non-profits and state TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, formerly Welfare) agencies. Rather than assign specific times to each patient/client, the agency selects two times daily, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and schedules everyone to be seen at those times. Patients/clients arrive, sign in and are seen in order of their arrival. The first to arrive will be seen promptly, but most will have to wait to be seen, even up to several hours. The whole morning or afternoon can be consumed with one appointment in this manner. Exasperating waits tend to produce more apathetic patients/clients. Once they finally are called to be seen, they are so brow-beaten by hours of waiting with a sick child or several screaming and hungry children, that they are unlikely to ask thorough questions or demand anything they are entitled to that might require more time or effort./p p2. The Max. Instead of promptly assessing and acting on each client's needs, like a corporation that depends on its clients' repeat business might do, agencies working with the poor can set maximum time limits for assessment and determination. The state of Texas has a 30-day determination period for new TANF, Medicaid and Food Stamps applications. This means that an application for benefits must either be approved or denied within 30 days. However, it also means the case manager can take up to 30 days to make the determination. Even if the case manager can eyeball the application and determine that the applicant would not be eligible for services, she does not have to inform the applicant for a full 30 days. For example, many states have asset limits for Medicaid, Food Stamps and TANF applicants. An applicant may clearly state that she owns an automobile worth $4,000 ($2,000 over the asset limits). Though the case manager could inform the applicant that she will probably be turned down for benefits because her assets exceed the limit, the case manager can just hold off and let the applicant find this out via formal notification sent after the 30-day determination period. The case manager will have avoided a possible confrontation with a disgruntled applicant and will have succeeded in wasting the applicant's time with additional appointments and the ever-popular paper chase (see number 3 below). /ppThough time limits guarantee the agency some stall time, open-ended time lines can also work if crafted well. Take for instance the case of a TANF applicant in Georgia. In the first week after application she is required to attend a job readiness course. This course will repeat much the same information she has received in other futile "life skills" classes (the topic of an upcoming strategy). After a week of boring classes, she will have one more week to job search. If she does not find a job in that time, she must sit idle, waiting for her case manager to find her an appropriate work activity. With the literally hundreds of cases each case manager handles, the case manager is fully justified in neglecting the case indefinitely. This method deserves honorable mention for creating a win-win time waster. The client will likely begin to receive benefits, which will pacify her, and yet she makes no progress through the system. This is not a very effective way to keep welfare roles down, which tends to upset some of the more extreme (Nazi) legislators. But for the purposes of implementing the "Waste My Day" strategy, it is superb./p p3. The Paper Chase. Quite arbitrarily, agencies can require forms from clients to stall the delivery of services or the determination of benefits. Some popular forms that can be difficult to obtain include birth certificates and shot records for the client and all dependent children under 18, 3 months of bank statements, IRA statements, leases, credit card statements, past check stubs, old tax returns, social security cards, photo ID's and references from past employers, landlords, neighbors, elementary school teachers or anyone, really. The point is not to gather information. Many state systems have databases that can pull up most of this information in a matter of minutes. The point is to buy the system time: time the client spends. /p pOne initiative that is threatening the viability of the paper chase is the push for a "single point of entry," a centralized location with database that state and local government and even non-profits could tap into to access client records. This would make it unnecessary for the client to provide fresh documentation for each benefit or service she seeks and could substantially cut down on the time wasted in applying for services. However, social workers are not renowned for their technical abilities (it is rumored that many actually produced their college term papers with typewriters!). Though a great deal has been spent on consultants to introduce this technology, it is not an immediate threat./p p4. Ya'll come back now. No matter what the business, always schedule frequent appointments for clients. Get them into the office as often as possible. Make note of their days off and working schedules, so meetings can be scheduled at the least convenient times. Be inflexible if they press for a more convenient time. And it goes without saying that appointments should be made during typical working hours. This will keep the poor from using their spare daylight hours to get skills training or look for a better job./p pWith these four techniques in conjunction with poor transit systems of many cities, inflexible day care policies, the difficulty of flex scheduling in hourly wage jobs and countless other inconveniences, we can ensure that obtaining necessary benefits, accessing essential community services and staying healthy will be problematic at least and at best, damn near impossible. /p pAn added benefit to the "Waste My Day" strategy is that it empowers the employees who implement it. It can be used to team-build among employees. Everyone has experienced the frustration of picking the longest line at the grocery store, waiting at doctors' offices and even sitting in traffic. These delays create tension that employees can channel into making the poor wait. There is no greater sense of satisfaction and retribution than being able to inflict personal suffering on to others. Employees can regain control they lose at the grocery store, the doctor's office and in traffic by manipulating the schedules of those who seek their help. /p pEmployees should be trained in some basic skills such as keeping an expressionless face while repeating the phrase, "Please be seated and someone will be with you in a few minutes," as many times as is necessary to make the insolent poor person go away. It is also important, however much glee it might give an employee to make someone wait unnecessarily, that they turn away from the poor person before beginning to smirk, as a matter of good customer service. This strategy is one the entire office can bond around. Use it to not only keep the poor poor, but to boost agency morale as well. /p pStay tuned for the next strategy, "Kiss My Assets!"br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongVehicularily housed residents stage an art-action-rally to demand civil rights and establish a Bill of Rights/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/349/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Kaponda/p pVladlen Pogorelov drifts off into the visions of twilight as the inscrutability of night cloaks his metallic motor residence. The continuous thumps on his window forces him to swerve back into the predictability of reality. Like a cub that looks into the eyes of a raging hyena, Vladlen Pogorelov sees the eyes of a police smoldering with anger as he stands with a stick, camouflaged by the night, next to his side. Vladlen knows that he will be ordered to move his 25-foot motor home to another location because it has suddenly become an object of scorn and frequent harassment by the San Francisco Police Department and the Department of Parking and Traffic./p pThe dire circumstances into which Vladlen Pogorelov has fallen brought him and many other vehicularly housed San Franciscans to the steps of City Hall on Wednesday, May 30th, to ask for relief from a law that unfairly classifies, punishes and renders them as criminals because they have a quilt and padding inside their legally owned vehicles. The volley of protests against human and civil rights violations at the event, dubbed, “They Towed My House Away,” by homeless advocates and civil rights attorneys has put the ball back into the court of the Board of Supervisors and George Smith of the Mayor’s Office on Homelessness./p pI asked Paul Boden, director of the The Coalition on Homelessness, who, along with POOR Magazine, coordinated the event, to explain how the San Francisco Police Department can arbitrarily cite vehicles and cause people to lose their housing by having their motor homes towed away, which has become, not unlike oxygen, a necessary condition for a reasonably healthy life?/p p “[The Municipal Police Codes that regulate parking] were designed to make sure that poor people can be legally chased out of communities -- just like its a code that the parks are closed, and a code that people cannot stand on the sidewalk. These are codes that government created in order to chase away and make disappear poverty in our community. We are not talking about people who choose to be out there [in their vehicles],” stated an enraged Boden with the sting of an agitated wasp./p pVladlen Pogorelov, a 31-year old staff writer for PNN who immigrated to the United States from Crimea, was evicted from his apartment in San Francisco during the latter part of last year. He bought a motor home in which he had hoped to eat and sleep as well as survive. Vladlen resided at China Basin, and, according to him, became the target of an aggressive harassment campaign that included citations, illegal tows and seizures of vehicles without due process./p pAdam Arms, an attorney with the Civil Rights Division of the Coalition on Homelessness, in response to my questions to him about statements brought by POOR Magazine, the Coalition on Homelessness and victims of vehicles which have been seized by city officials, stated that the ongoing policy of The City has been to “Criminalize people who sleep in their vehicle.”/p p “To tow their cars and misuse the laws have been the ongoing policy of The City. Also, they have targeted these people for harassment. It has been the ongoing policy. However, in the last six months, this policy has escalated,” stated Arms, as he held a copy of a Vehicularly Housed/Towed Person’s Bill of Rights, which he stated contained language which provides grounds for the city to relent in its ongoing policy to criminalize vehicularly housed residents./p pThe San Francisco Police Department and Department of Parking and Traffic are authorized by law to issue a citation, which is called “red-tag,” to any vehicle that, in their opinion, appears abandoned or broken down, or is not moving for an extensive amount of time. This law has been used to relegate vehicles that are not abandoned to obscure areas in remote tow garages, and leave the victims marooned in a swirl of desperation./p pI attempted to contact the director of the Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT), Fred Hamdun, to inquire about this aggressive policy which the City has adopted. I spoke with Diana Hammond, Public Affairs Director of DPT. I asked Hammond why has The City invested so much energy in going after the 300 to 500 motor homes in the entire city the owners of which have the misfortunate of doubling up their vehicles for transportation and residence? /p pAccording to Hammond, “The SFPD enforces the codes that regulate signs posted around San Francisco for illegally parked vehicles and not DPT. But, if a vehicle is abandoned, then under DPT 37(a), we can cite and tow that vehicle [within the limits of the city], stated Hammond in reference to vehicles that have been put out of mind and out of sight by their owners, like fallen trees in the forest./p pAs POOR Magazine featured the Po’ Poets, who conveyed the significance of the event at City Hall through their spoken words, on a day when the sun sprinkled its torrid rays liberally, I had an opportunity to interact with Vladlen Pogorelov. I asked Vladlen what reasons are given him by police for parking when, according to Dianna Hammond, citations are supposedly only given to vehicles that have been abandoned?/p p “Most times I find that I am red tagged immediately, not too long after I arrive, which constitutes a form of harassment, for me. They oftentimes justify this by stating that someone called to complain about a vehicle,” stated Vladlen./p pI asked Paul Boden about whether he felt that DPT is justified when it follows up on a complaint by a resident about a vehicle in the neighborhood?/p p “I have yet to find a record of the complaints that they keep talking about. The fact that these laws are on the book and that this enforcement is a priority makes it too goddamned easy for the cops or The City or anyone else to say, ‘Oh, well we got a complaint.’ Think about all the times people complaint -- they complain about the weather, but you don’t see them out there trying to change that,” concluded Boden in a passion kindled like the flare of a match./p pI went to Diana Hammond of DPT to ask if she could respond to charges by Paul Boden that he has yet to find a record of the complaints by citizens./p p “I will be happy to provide you with a record of complaints,” stated Hammond. “We record that information in a Complaint Log. Currently, the information is logged in by hand and includes driveway and sidewalk complaints against the over 454,000 regular vehicles. So, it will require extensive copying charges. We are, however, in the process of converting it over to automation,” concluded Hammond./p pMany people at the protest also indicated that “a complaint” was the reason they were given for citations issued by the SFPD. I was unable to contact anyone at SFPD to respond to the allegation of the complaints that Paul Boden suggested were phantom in nature, a device not unlike the throw-away gun that has been a part of the arsenal of corrupt cops to fritter away human and civil rights of poor people across America. /p pAs the protest drew to a conclusion, the crowd prepared to hand-deliver a copy of the Vehicularly Housed/Towed Person’s Bill of Rights to each member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors./p p “Vehicularly housed San Franciscans have the Constitution of the United States to protect them from harassment. The City, however, is not respecting those rights. This is the reason why we are taking the entire thing before the Board of Supervisors and ask them to implement the last three points right away and help people out. The last three points are:/p p 1) The City shall implement a formal fee waiver procedure for indigent lawful owners, possessors, or operators of vehicles whose vehicles are towed;/p p 2) The City shall create a centrally located body at which vehicularly housed people can address issues related to payment of fees and fines, vehicle tows and recovery, and property retrieval; and/p p 3) The City shall not prevent lawful vehicle owners, possessors, or operators from retrieving personal property contained within towed vehicles,” concluded Adam Arms of the Coalition of Homelessness, as he walked into the halls of the seat of government of San Francisco, where weak-minded lawmakers have traditionally earned a reputation of sucking up corporate hush dollars in smoke-filled rooms and repressing the rights of the most neediest of humanity./p pOn Monday, June 4th, representatives of POOR Magazine and the Coalition on Homelessness met with George Smith of the Mayor’s Office on Homeless. According to Lisa-Gray Garcia of POOR Magazine and Adam Arms of the Coalition on Homelessness, there was not even a smidgen of effort by George Smith to write a letter or do anything else of substance to commit government to sign on to providing a remedy to the ongoing policy by San Francisco of its harassment of innocent people. George Smith stated in closing that, “I will look into it.”br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongReViewSfortheRevOlutioN- a PNN review column for all your literary, visual and audio art needs/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/350/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby George Tirado/p pWhat can you say about a piece of work so volatile, that just reading the back cover of the book will make 80% of P.C. America cringe in their boots? "I own nigger . I purchased it with the blood of my fathers. I stole it from the mouths of my masters. I created it in the soul of my sons. It is mine. I am it's god......." This is only a taste of what there is to expect from bGrowing up Free in America/b by Bruce Jackson. /p pWhat Bruce Jackson has done is to take the pretty out of art, poetry and short prose, and instead of creating something nice for the reader, he has given us a loaded gun filled with bullets of reality./p pWhat makes Bruce Jackson's work important, especially now, is this war on poverty. This is a war in which there are no winners, and each person who is fighting to survive is not really living. The pain is real, the addiction is real , the violence is real , and the outcome is also very real. If you give into it you die, but sometimes it's easier to quit. "There is brutal silence in the night. Listen. They are screaming. Black is the fire in the city below the dark of the sky. Black is inhaling fire, exhaling smoke into base pipes hissing gripped liquid crack, burning until the hissing explodes...."/p pThis is a view of America from the eyes of a Black man, cold and angry. Here is a man who is not afraid to write about gentrification, racism, poverty, drug addiction and violence. Not only violence by police, but by his own race. This is a book in which the main character is not human, but a being driven to extinction by his own hand. What is the point of writing like this? It's the truth found in between the lines; he makes you work for it. This book is great in that it falls in line with other revolutionary writings such as uSolidad Brother/u by George Jackson, uOn a Mission/u by The Last Poets, and uAn Autobiography of Malcolm X/u . /ppThis book is for everyone. This book will open your eyes and challenge something inside of yourself: something called Freedom.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongOakland is under siege by developers seeking to make their riches by displacing downtown residents with the 10 K Plan. /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/351/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Lynda Carson/p pOakland Ca--Last week during the Oakland City Council meeting, the sparks were flying before the vote was cast 5 to 3 "for" on the agenda item "S-15.1/Residential Infill Development Project." The item sets in motion the process to continue with the downtown 10 k Plan./p pThere were no staff reports to provide any details, and City Staffers scrambled to answer the many questions that arose. It became crystal clear that Mayor Jerry Brown was trying to make an end run around C.E.Q.A.-California Environmental Quality Act- so as to proceed as quickly as possible with the 10 K Plan with as little opposition as possible. Mayor Jerry Brown's henchman Robert Bob, City Manager, overrode any and all misgivings and rushed it through, despite the lack of the staff report. Council Members Nadel, Brunner and Wan voted against the agenda item S-15.1, and were alarmed by the intent of Mayor Jerry Brown to narrow the scope of the Master Environmental Impact report for the whole of the 10 K Plan during the next five years. Council Members Spees, Reid, Mayne, Chang, and De la Fuente sided with the Mayor in this attack against democracy. /p pOakland, nearly 54 square miles, is under siege by developers seeking to make their riches by displacing downtown residents with new settlers brought in by the 10 K Plan. Like the founding developers of this nation who cared little for the native inhabitants who were displaced and died off as gentrification occured, Oakland's City Officials continue to pursue their efforts to make downtown Oakland a playground for the rich. As these efforts unfold it's plain to see that every step possible is being taken to steamroll over the rights of the environmentalists/citizens that seek E.I.R.'s before an individual project permit is granted. The strong Mayor Jerry Brown now operates as the strong dictator of Oakland, and presently seeks a third waiver from environmental laws that he feels are cramping his style./p pRumors are flying that the local chapter of the Sierra Club owes the Mayor a favor and plans to back him on this. Mayor Jerry Brown's intent is to narrow the scope of the Master Environmental Report needed during the next five years for the Central District of Oakland, where the heart of the infamous 10 K Plan proceeds. Mayor Brown has nothing but contempt for the California Environmental Quality Act known as C.E.Q.A., as he tries to do the two-step around it, bulldozing the poor into oblivion to make way for the rich./p pStill in the way of Mayor Brown's 10 K Plan is St. Mary's Center, and a contingent of 24 hotel buildings in the Central District that contain SRO's (single room occupancy hotels). A minimum of 1,811 units are in these SRO's , and the Mayor believes that the poor people in these hotels are of no value to the Oakland he envisions. In his obsession to arrange for a Final Solution to rid downtown Oakland of the poor, the Mayor had his city staff analyze the estimated value of all the SRO's of the Central District in order to figure out the cost of a massive relocation plan. The cost to take over these properties and relocate all the occupants of the hotels came to a whopping figure well over 100 million dollars, which may be why the plan is still on hold at this point. Despite this setback, strategies to implement the 10 K Plan still are unfolding very quickly. /p pNot only are the low-income renters at risk from the 10 K Plan, but Alameda County Social Service Providers and the huge non-profit sector located downtown feel the pressure from the City's marketing strategies that attempt to sell off downtown Oakland to the highest bidders. City Officials rudely act as though they can run roughshod over the inhabitants of downtown Oakland, in their rush to show off the Central District to wealthy developers prospecting for gold. /p pThe 10 K Plan has estimates of 6,000 units of new housing over an area of 30 to 40 city blocks to make room for the 10 thousand new settlers Mayor Brown wants to bring into town. If you think the Palestinians are having problems with settlers in their homeland, just wait and see how Oaklanders shall feel about being pushed aroundbr / once things get really heated up./p pThere are seven contrived districts that make up the 10 K Plan Area, with the 6,000 new rental units split up among them. They include the Valdez District, Lower Lake Merritt District, San Pablo Gateway District, Old Oakland District,br / Lower Broadway District, Loft District, and the Lake Merritt Channel District.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongAn insider look at Welfare to "Work"/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/353/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Lisa Gray-Garcia/p pThe edges of the hard plastic chairs sliced deeply into my legs, the longer I sat in my workers’ office , the more pain I felt...physical pain that is, my emotional pain was more like an ache, a dull terrifying ache that accompanies hopelessness, and yet I tried to looked pleasant anyway, rarely even risking a sigh, worried that any minor indication of my humanity might annoy or distract him, causing him to react with some new and different punitive measure against me, something he had a habit of doing at random times if he had to look up from his paperwork too much. /p pIt was 1998 and I was trying to not be discouraged by the Personally Assisted Employment Specialist (PAES) Program options offered to me. The PAES Program was newly implemented in San Francisco due to the Welfare Reform bill signed by Clinton in 1996 - “you would be a great receptionist” I was told several times, while being handed a brochure on the possible programs I could get into. It seemed odd to me, even at that time, that I was offered information on the same training programs at the same agencies at three different appointments. /p pThe concept of me` being a “receptionist had been established at a series of “assessments” and yet in each one I felt more discouraged. I had told workers on several occasions that I wanted to be a “writer” a writer and a reporter- I had also told them that I lacked formal education but I would be interested in pursuing a college degree program - to this I was told - a degree with your lack of education will take too long, and besides, is that really a practical career choice for someone in your position./p pI don’t know.... was it?- my mother and I were endlessly battling homelessness - we were deeply entrenched in the so-called “cycle of poverty”... one crisis - snowballing into the next until you are never really able to fix any one problem, because you are just catching the last one, barely. There was no substance abuse- but there iwas/i disability , eviction, depression, isolation, confusion, incarceration and poverty, grinding endless poverty with noone to call and no where to go, that is, until there was writing - writing freed me - someone heard me and that “voice” allowed me to hope again - to dream again - to care about going on. Then there were plastic chairs and receptionist jobs and nothing all over again. /p pI didn’t mention the writing I had been doing with POOR Magazine to my worker because it paid no money and would have therefore been frowned on as more examples of why there was no viability to my “career” dreams, but quietly I forged ahead, barely moving in the plastic chair that was my life vowing to somehow change the situation for very low income people like me - to change the “career” options for welfare recipients like me./p pI began to work on the impossible- while still on welfare, still sitting in the plastic chairs - hard and not so hard - postponing the inevitable PAES training and still in silent fear of my workers assaults I began to formulate the POOR Magazine Welfare to Work job training program in journalism, media and multi-media through a Request for Proposal process at San Francisco Department Of Human Services/ Private Industry Council. /p pThe struggle to actually get this proposal seen as a “viable” career option was also felt on the other side of the chairs, from the inside of DHS - It took almost 12 months, but we prevailed, our support came from the organizing efforts of other community based organizations working for economic justice, who gave us the confidence organizationally and conceptionally, to forge ahead with our idea. These grassroots organizations also gave me the confidence personally, that I wasn’t stupid, bad or lazy just because I was on Welfare./p pAnd then the day came to meet with who we at POOR would later call “visionaries” two women who decided to “take a chance” on a new program that wasn’t like anything else - just because they thought it had merit- those two visionaries were; Amanda Feinstein and Joyce Crum, from DHS and PIC respectively./p pbDateline 2001, 33 Gough, San Francisco,/b The newly formed Workforce Investment Board (WIB) was convening to hear the decisions on the proposed Welfare to Work (WTW) programs for 2001-02 in San Francisco. The crowd was nervous, several people were hoping to speak on the decisions, a two minute per agency limit was announced. ../p p A permanent pit was lodged in my stomach, I had been here before - almost a year ago-in 1999 facing the PIC board of directors to fight for our (WTW)job training contract that we had proposed to PIC/DHS- fighting what seemed like an uphill battle - After the emotional testimony of several staff members and students at POOR questioning the fact that several larger organizations were getting grants and several of the smaller ones were only getting a vendor status- we were granted a partial contract - but the battle was terrifying, and here we were again, fighting the same fight../p pThis time there was more confusion with process, several members of PIC staff were explaining the funding process to the WIB board, with a complicated warning about the possiblity of "conflict of interest" issues. We didn't know what to think, after all, this was supposed to be a new, more just situation- The workforce Investment Board - who knew what would happen? - all we did know is, once again, the smaller organizations and some of the innovative larger ones were getting no contracts, while several small organizations like POOR Magazine and Recovery Survival Network were granted mere vendor status. /p pThrough the ongoing dedication of all the journalists, writers, artists and poverty survivors, POOR’s bNew Journalism/Media Studies Program/b is still here, fighting for comprehension, recognition and understanding every step of the way. We continue to be optimistic because we know so clearly... that without hope - possibilities and a voice... biall/i/b people suffer...especially bipoor folks!!/i/b/p piPOOR Magazine created and proposed the bJobs Organized to Break Stereotypes (JOBS) in the Media Program/b which is specifically aimed at JOB creation for very poor people, who are the “so-called” harder to serve population, a population who all the studies show are unable to successfully transition off of welfare into permanent economic stability due to long-term welfare dependency, disability, substance abuse and/or homelessness./ibr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongbbr /THE WAKING NIGHTMAREbr / BEGAN WITH 5 words./b/strong/p pbbr /"JOSEPH, YOURbr / BROTHER'S GETTING MARRIED."/b/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joseph Bolden/p pPlease send donations to Poor Magazinebr / C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th St. Street,br / San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA/p pFor Joe only my snail mail:br / PO Box 1230 #645br / Market St. San Francisco, CA 94102br / Email: a href="mailto:askjoe@poormagazine.org"askjoe@poormagazine.org/abr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongbr /bTHE WAKING NIGHTMAREbr / BEGAN WITH SIX WORDS./b/strong/p pbr /bJOSEPH,br / YOUR BROTHER ISbr / GETTING MARRIED./b/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joe. B./p pThis column is dedicated to anyone born with a rotten sense of direction.br / br /Dreading long drives, walking, flying, or taking trains or otherbr / transportation to destinations unknown with vague approximationsbr / from others with perfect or near perfect powers of direction. /p pLike perfect pitch of musicians and singers some of us havebr / those gifts in abundance while most can only admire br /true talent when seen and heard./p pIt has taken me three weeks to get over my brother’s marriage not the marriage itself it’s the gearing up for br /this special event, going to it that was constantly giving me a queasy feeling./p pSuddenly there are new clothes to buy, taking time off from work, for a few days, money from br /the bank, maps to read, and how to spend less on food and gas./p pMy mother, brother,and I live in three separate areas of Californiabr / Fairfield, San Jose, and San Francisco. /p p lucky for me that years ago while emptying trash from my br /one room apartment there was a dirty portable icebox./p pYou know the kindbr / they are different colors, rubber lined for water proofing whenbr / filled with ice and keeps sandwiches, soda’s, water, beer orbr / whatever placed inside in ice cold until ready for use./p pI was glad to have something of value to contribute not br /having enough money to buy gifts for bride or broom on such short notice./p pbr /With my immediate family, the couple to be wed, their closebr / friends who are married, two relativesbr / of ours from of town came out too. /p pbr /My mother bought me a complete suit from head to toe and one my brother.br / br /The wedding is to take place in Las Vagas, Nevada. I will not name the Casino Hotel because immediately after the wedding there was a medical emergency and one of the rare times I am glad there were persons with cellular phones calling an ambulance for medical help.br / br /Even before that incident two weeks before I’m a nervous wreck worrying about gifts I cannot buy, If I have a gambler’s genes, or do I write about this and what to keep out./p pbr /All the questions swimming in my head as I rode a Richman bart train to the El Cerito Del Norte bart station./p pbr /My mother is at the station to drive me to Fairfield. /p pAll of my new clothes are in a clean, dry, aluminum lined portable icebox whose name will remainbr / unknown not wanting to give a free plug unless br /I’m paid a few dollars./p pbr /The aluminum is extra padding protecting br /both the icebox and new clothes within. /p pIn my mother’s home after carefully taking the clothes from the icebox, hanging them up br /carefully I placed the icebox in the bathroom's bathtub, took the foil out br /for reuse, before running water in it then closed br /the box letting it sit. /p pbr /This is the background before my trip to Las Vagas, Navada./p pI dislike doing a second part to this however if I didn’t no one br /will believe how people with a map can go sobr / wrong both ways to and from Las Vagas, Nevada. br /But it is a true story./p pPS I'd like to paid for voice over radio spots or, television or internet work.br / br /I'm not greedy scale is fine for me./p p I can learn on-the-job though cold readingbr. may take some practice./p pbr /Please send donations to br /Poor Magazinebr / br /C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9thbr / br /St. Street, br /San br /Francisco, CA. 94103 USA/p pFor Joe only my snail mail:br / br /PO Box 1230 #645br / br /Market St. San br /Francisco, CA 94102br / br /Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org/p/br./p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p