Story Archives 2009

by Staff Writer

Black HEart by The Black Kripple aka Leroy Moore

I’m the Black Kripple

Going through politicians’ wallets

To balance the budget

by Staff Writer

I am the welfareQUEEN
By Tiny aka The welfareQUEEN

I am the welfareQUEEN

Marginalized, criminalized, a bum at best

Your bitch

Got to beg you for money
have no right to privacy family secrets,
Underground work- Tell you all kind of personal stories bout struggle, survival, unbelieveble hurt I am used by you and you are used by the sys

I take your disrespect, act like I agree with it
Internalize your hate and hegemony and believe in it

Love you like I am you feel your disgust-

I am the welfareQUEEN
I am human, I am beautiful , I am a mama, I am
an artist, a philospher, caregiver, an advocate, I
navigate a complex welfaresystem and the non
profit industrial complex by any means necessary
i exist in a scarcity model that destroys people for asking for help-
I beg for child care, food stamps, housing subsidies and I do it good

by Staff Writer

Queer Boi and his HIStory with Biological Males

By Queer Boi (WSR)

The first one

Bought me Suszy QÕs, cherry cokes, and let me pick the Fantasy Five on Fridays.

He would wake up at 4AM five days a week to go shine-up new cars so I wouldnÕt have too

He carried me asleep in his arms, up the stairs to our two-bedroom apartment

His actions spoke his affection

Especially on nights when he would blast Vicente Fernandez while drinking his Budweiser

Doors slamming, Vases flying, his screaming, my mothers crying

ÒIÕm not enough,Ó was the feeling my seven year-old lips sobbed onto my pillow

The second one

Made me lunches and fruit punch Kool-Aid during our summers at home alone

Beat the S-H-I-T out of any boys who made fun of me

And let me be Laserbeak to his Soundwave on our Cybertron

Unlike the one before him, whom we both called father, he let his words speak to his affections

ÒI would rather you be a criminal than turn out to be gayÓ

ÒIÕm not enoughÓ was the thought that crept into my head as I fled home

The third one

Made me feel like I belonged

Raza, Gay, English major who spoke Spanish w/ a gringo accent, and was estranged from family

One night, he rode in on white clouds that I inhaled when we kissed and enraptured my mind with the false strength and security I always wanted.

His actions spoke of his intentions

In the morning, he took my social, credit card, and the man I though I was

He stole my security and left in its place an empty stained pipe

ÒIÕm not enoughÓ

The current one

Caused the scar on my legs and arms and the loss of this front tooth

Looks to drown out insecurity and loneliness with Bacardi, fast men, and pretty shoes

My actions speak my affections

Now it is my father and brother who cry when I drink

Now they tell me I am enough

by Staff Writer

Livin on Concrete

By. V.L. Hain aka Superbabymama

When yu walkin thru the downtown, and lookin in around, yu see the down of humanity, who was once somebodys baby, layin down on the concrete, street, on the ground

And do ya dare to care, and say what you want to say, step on and stare-

by Staff Writer

This call is open to all artists familiar with the experience of disability, especially artists from queer communities and/or communities of color. Submissions can include all types of artistic expression – performance art, video, spoken word, dance, storytelling, song, visual media, and words on page – whose core expresses sexuality, power, healing, embodiment and activism.

We define disability broadly to include physical impairments, sensory minorities, emotional disabilities, cognitive challenges, chronic/severe illness, and others whose bodies do not conform to our culture(s)’ idea of “normal” or “functional.”

Sins Invalid began in 2006 as a performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color, queer and gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized. In 2007-2008, Sins Invalid grew to include an annual show, community-based performance workshops, political education workshops, and our growing presence online at www.sinsinvalid.org.

Submissions will be looked at for all Sins Invalid projects, including performances, workshops, online blog, and possible printed media and/or visual art shows.

Please submit a CD or DVD of your work (those submitting written work for publication can email or send a hard copy), along with a short personal statement about why you are interested in working with Sins Invalid, and how your work relates to issues of sexuality and disability.

Sins Invalid Submissions
c/o 1370 University Ave. #316
Berkeley, CA 94702

Please include a self-addressed stamped envelope if you want your work returned to you. We will contact you to confirm receipt of your work. If you do not have examples of your work on CD/DVD, please contact us for alternate formats.

Deadline for entries: Received by April 25, 2009.

Please feel free to email any questions to info@sinsinvalid.org or call (510) 689-7198.

by Staff Writer

The Trouble with Poverty

After Billy Collins’ “The Trouble with Poetry”

By the Bronx Bomber aka Oscar Bermeo

The trouble with poverty, I realized

as I walked from Orchard Beach one night—

icy Bronx gravel under my sandals,

a show of skyscraper lights in the sky—

the trouble with poverty is

that it encourages the promotion of more poverty,

more cousins crowding a one bedroom apartment,

more babies making babies

hopping out of their mothers into the jobforce.

And how will it ever end?

Unless the end of the month arrives

and we have compared what little we have

to what we have been promised,

and there is nothing left to do

but quietly close our overdrawn checkbooks

and sit with our hands folded over our stomachs.

Poverty fills me with joy

and I rise like a plastic bag in the wind.

Poverty fills me with sorrow

and I sink like a refrigerator in a landfill.

But mostly poverty fills me

with the urge to write about poverty,

to sit in the dark and wait for Con Edison

to appear at the tip of my stove.

And along with that, the longing to steal,

to break into the poverty of others

with privilege and a badge.

And what a trifling crew we are,

identity thieves, white collar criminals,

I thought to myself

as a sharp hunger swirled in my poetry

and I, an American poet, view the City

as if through a window

which is an image I stole directly

from Billy Collins—

to be perfectly white for a moment—

the visiting poet of the Bronx

whose book of troublesome poetry

nips and retreats from the corners

of my mind as I stop and enjoy

the streets of my borough.

by Teresa Molina/Voces de inmigrantes en resistencia

Scroll Down for English

Yo soy Teresa. Reportera de Voces de Inmigrantes en Resistencia en POOR Magazine. Yo soy Mujer inmigrante activista y madre de cinco hijos. Yo pienso que la guerra en Iraq es pura basura. Cualquiera persona puede ver que el ejercito de los Estados Unidos nunca lograra lo que quieren. Sangre se derama por todos lados en Iraq y a los pueblos pobres, los dejara mas pobre. Es tiempo de ponerle un alto por que yo como persona que vive en los Estados Unidos y madre de un hijo que me lo quieren quitar para entrenarlo a matar a personas pobres, estoy cansada de vivir en tiempo de guerra.

Estaba revisando el correo, y veo que hay una aplicacion de los Marines para mi hijo. “12 Semanas”… es lo que dice en el remitente, “Listo para ver lo que 12 semanas puede traer?” Sin abrir la carta ya puedo ver que va ser una mentira despues de mentira. Abro la carta y hay una foto de un joven y debajo de su cara dice, “Quien seras en 12 semanas?” Es un librito que detalla claramente lo que pasara en el entrenamiento de los Marines cada semana.

“Entrenamiento de Armas- Semana 1”
“Tecnicas de Combate-Semana 2”
“Sobrevivir en el Agua- Semana 4”
“Preparando para Combate-Semana 9”
”Honor, Corage, y Compromiso- Semana 10”

Mirando ese volante me asuste. Me asuste por que en el pasado yo recibi esa propaganda para mis hijos mayores y por mi ignorancia y las mentiras que nos dicen, yo empuje a mis hijos mayores a envolucrarse en esa maquina de muerte que es el ejercito. Despues que me involucre en mi comunidad y conoci a personas con informacion que no nos dicen en los medios de comuncaciones grandes de este pais, realize que yo estaba equivocada. Yo pensaba que ver a si mis hijos en ese uniforme de militar tan bonito, me entraria orgullo y seria feliz sabiendo que mis hijos son gente de provecho, sirviendo su pais, en una guerra justa. Pero e>>n realidad, no es una guerra justa, y no sabia que los estaba empujanda a una muerte segura.

Jose Gutierrez, 22, de Los Angeles, fue entre los primeros en morir en este guerra. Los papas de Jose murieron cuando el tenia 14 anos. Hizo el viaje de mas de 2,000 millas, saltando de tren en tren solo para llegar a ser detenido por la migra, y encarcelado en la Carcel Juvenil de Los Angeles. Este joven emigro a este pais por necesidad, una necesidad que pudo ser ayudada por el imperio de los Estados Unidos si no fuera una imperio global tan egoista que solo quiere quemar los recursos naturales de todo el mundo. Jose Gutierrez murio el 21 de Marzo, de 2003, nunca sabiendo la verdad de que el pais por el que el se sacrifico, nunca ayudo a su paiz de Guatemala a progresar, por lo menos al punto de tener comida para los pobres, tratamiento medico para los enfermos, y seguridad para sus padres que murieron cuando el solo tenia 14 anos.

Yo no quiero que sigan enganando mas jovenes. Yo no quiero que los Marines les llene la mente de mentiras a mis ninos. Yo no quiero que mi hijo sea el proximo Jose Gutierrez, que muera para un paiz que no lo quiere, y lo consideran un criminal illegal solo por hacer el ezfuerzo de sobrevivir al venir a este paiz.

Esto es prueba de las mentiras perpetradas en las familias pobres de color. Me enteré que una de las formas en que el gobierno federal recibe los nombres de nuestros hijos es a través de la legislación, No Child Left Behind-No Nino Dejado Atras. Mi editor, “Tiny” Lisa GrayGarcia de POOR Magazine llama esta legislación "No Child Left Alive- No Nino Dejado Atras- a causa de esta parte de la legislación y su impacto en las familias de color que viven en la pobreza.

Asi que, la respuesta a la pregunta que nos hacen los Marines, “Que seras en 12 semanas?”… Seras otra statistica de muerte en una guerra injusta.

Engles Sigue I am Teresa. I am a mother of 5 children . I am a Migrant and poverty scholar and reportera for Prensa POBRE and I believe that the war in Iraq is destroying this country. Blood is shed everywhere in Iraq, and poor communities are left further in poverty while the rich get richer.

I was checking the mail last week, and I see an application from the Marines with my son’s name on it. “12 Weeks”… is what it said on the cover, “Ready to see what 12 weeks can bring?” Without even opening the letter I could already tell that it is going to be one lie after another. I open up the envelope and there is a picture of a young man and under his face it says, “Who will you be in 12 weeks?” It’s a little pamphlet sent by the Marines that clearly details what will happen in the Marine boot camp each week.

“Week 1- Weapons Training”
“Week 2- Combat Techniques”
“Week 4- Surviving in Water”
“Week 9- Preparing for Combat”
“Week 10- Honor, Courage, Commitment”

Staring at this pamphlet I got scared. I was afraid because in the past I would receive this propaganda and give it to my older sons out of my ignorance and the lies that they fed me. I encouraged my older sons to become involved in that death machine that is the US military. After becoming involved in my community and meeting people that provided me information that was withheld from me by the major corporate media outlets, I realized that I was wrong. I thought that seeing my sons in that Marines uniform would make me happy and proud knowing that my sons were being all that they can be, serving their country, in a war with a just cause. But in reality, this isn’t a just war, and I didn’t know that I was pushing my sons into a coffin.

Jose Gutierrez, 22, from Los Angeles, was among the first to die in Iraq. Jose’s parents died when he was only 14 years old. He made the trip from Guatemala traveling more than 2,000 miles, jumping from train to train just to get to the US and be detained by ICE, and locked up in the Los Angeles Juvenile Detention Center. This brave young soul migrated to this country because of necessity, a fate that would’ve been different had the empire of the United States not been such a greedy, selfish global empire that doesn’t help any developing countries unless there are natural resources to be burned. Jose Gutierrez died March 21, 2003, never knowing the truth about the country he died for… The US never helped Guatemala progress, at least to the point of having sufficient food for the poor, adequate health care for the sick, and security for his parents that died when he was only 14 years old.

To further prove the lies perpetrated on poor families of color, I found out that one of the ways the federal government gets the names of our children is through the legislation, No Child Left Behind. My editor, Tiny GrayGarcia at POOR/PNN calls this No Child Left Alive-due to this part of the legislation and its impact on families of color living in poverty.

I don’t want my son to be the next Jose Gutierrez, to die for a country that doesn’t care about him, and considers him an illegal criminal just for making any effort possible to survive, even if it means migrating to the mouth of the beast (US).

So, the answer to the question made by the Marines, “Who will you be in 12 Weeks?”… You will be another statistic of death in an unjust war.

by Bruce Allison/PNN

As the crew at POOR Magazine are settling into our new digs, our scholars and techscholars were busy working to get the computers and office ready. This means that the elder, disabled, and poverty scholars have a space to do their work. This elder, disabled scholar has been keeping up my City Hall beat for PNN by attending three meetings a day to figure out the budget.

During one of my recent trips, I attended the Negative Decorations rally, where groups like SEIU 1021, Huckleberry House, The Coalition on the Homelessness, St. James Infirmary, Planning for Elders, and others were present, forming to create a 3,000 foot picket circle surrounding the south-side of San Francisco city hall, a line extending from Grove St. to the east and McAllistor to the west. With voices in unison, we cried, "No Justice, No Peace!" We then marched up the steps of City Hall, heading towards the supervisor's chambers chanting, "No Justice, No Peace!" We marched into the chambers and sat down, waiting until our item was called. They were voting on other things that day, like San Francisco General Hospital receiving a new backup genorator due to it going out every other month. In case of an earthquake the lack of this would be a hardship for the community. They had already spent the money retroactively without the supervisors permission. Due to the age of the genorator, the supervisors voted unanimously to do this.

Then our item came up, the Negative Decorations. A Negative Decoration is to take away the dead-wood that the mayor has kept in his budget, such as choeffers for fire capitains at a set salary of $100,000 annually, a minister that is managing nothing with a salary of $200,000 per year, or the cost of hosing the houseless at $100,000 for four people, along with countless others that total in 90 million dollars. The order by the President of the Board of Supervisors, David Chiu. Chiu said, "All people willing to speak, line up at the center aisle"

Me and three others lined up, including Bruce, the Director of Huckleberry House, and his allies. They talked about the budget, and how it will close a 40- year program for runaway youth. Then Bruce Allison, Elder Scholar, stood up and and projected his article written about the hosing of the houseless, and how the negative decorations would give back $100,000 under this program and be able to save the SRO Collaboratives.

After 300 people spoke in favor of the Negative Decoration, only 3 people spoke against it, one was Rob Black, the Chairman of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, claiming the city needs this business. Black was followed by a religious gentleman claiming that the prostitutes and lazy people should be cut off, pointing to senior homeless people, people with mental and emotional problems, women who have no alternative to feed their family other than prostitute, and people who are using illigal medicine to solve their problems. He was asked to leave after he had finished speaking, and I'm sure is still rambling on today. The final person to speak, the only republican left in San Francisco, said "this will raise taxes and businesses will close if you do this". This was after four hours of people speaking in favor of Negative Decorations.

When it was time for the Board of Supervisors to speak, Sean Elsbernd, through the monkey-wrench in the event by sending it back to the committee, delaying it by one month. The next day, I entered the Human Services Commission meeting to talk about a cut of one hundred people and agencies who assist in helping the homeless. This, along with comments from groups like Tenderloin Health, argued that they would no longer be able to serve the community. Tenderloin Health has 100 seats for people, wheras groups like Glide that receive the same amount of money only have 40. Due to these closures of shelters elderly and disabled homeless people will in the end cost more money because they will go the City General with aches and pains, as well as reports of loitering will increase because they will have nowhere to go.

A few days later, this pover scholar went to a private meeting with the Director of Adult Services, Anne Hinton, who used creative techniques, such as combining food services in the richer area to save meals in the poorer neighborhoods of the city. Due to federal law, all seniors in a group meal-site have to pay the same ($1.50), even though lots of them live in affluent areas. Hinton said, "I got bad news", She explained that she has to cancel the Share of Cost program that the city pays, allowing benefits for the homeless. I left the meeting.

The next meeting I went to, a few days later, was at the Department of Public Health. Dr. Marshall H. Katz said to the Health Commissioners, "you guys don't mean anything, all you are is a soundboard to the mayor. He makes the decisions in this city. What testimony these people will say, that don't mean anything either". Public comment began. 30 million dollars is going to buy new furniture for a building that will not be constructed for the next ten years. While doing that, they will have to close the Adult Day Health Center in Laguna-Honda that covers the entire western part of San Francisco. It will cost the city more money in the long run with having to put the Adults in homes and nursing facilities. As this poverty scholar got up and mentioned, "you can take a few less of your La-z Boys and open up this Adult Day Health Center".

If you are interested in seeing these changes through, write or call Sean Elsberned, Carmen Chu, or Michela Alioto-Pierce, the Supervisors of the western part of the city. Or you can email me, bruce@poormagazine.org. I will get back to you.

by Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia/poverty scholar and daughter of Dee

"Don't look away, Jamal" From the shadows a tired and spirit-dead
adult lurked with a bowl of acid ready to burn into the eyes of an
unsuspecting orphan in the Mumbai of Slumdog Millionaire. "a Blind
child can make more money singing on the street," someone whispers
into the night sky. In a seamless filmic second Jamal and his older
brother Salim escape, tricking the omnipresent desperation,
destruction and violence of poverty that lurks at every turn
throughout their young lives. Throughout the whole movie, I
alternately cried and murmured my mama Dee's name, an orphan who like
she would say so many times, was like all orphan children across the
globe, unwanted, unseen, unloved and perhaps worst of all,
unprotected.

Iota by iota, I have lost my life, in faith,/ I've passed this night
dancing on coals,/ I blew away the sleep that was in my eyes,/ I
counted the stars till my finger burned.. lyrics from Jai Ho - one of the theme songs from Slumdog Millionaire

My mama, like Salim and Jamal and the small girl they befriend,
Latika, in the Oscar winning movie, Slumdog Millionaire, by Danny
Boyle was viewed as trash, a bother, or at best, something to profit
off of, by any adults who took the time to notice her, feed her or
shelter her. My mama was the illigimate, unwanted daughter of a
Boricua African immigrant and an Irish teenager. My mama was born in
Philadelphia.

"You should see that movie Tiny, homeless people here live in luxury
compared to those kids," a hairdresser acquaintance of mine said
referring to Slumdog Millionaire, making me cringe, Oh god no, I
thought, a movie that further creates the myth of "real" poverty
versus the experience of poor people in the US, who just need to get a
job and "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."

There are many different possible critiques of Slumdog Millionaire,
not the least of which is the increased fetishization of South Asian
peoples in poverty, with barely a U2 like, vague critique of poverty
and globalization. Playing to millions of people, who would rather
look to developing countries who have "real poverty" as it is easier,
cleaner, sexier, color-filled, simpler, rather than look in their own
backyard at the thousands of unseen, unheard , houseless and hungry
children and families in the US. Children like I was, at age 11, when
my poor abused mama was unable to silence the screams that lurked in
her head from her brutal childhood after the loss of her last job and
finally succumbed to those screams into complete disability, leaving
us in deep poverty and ongoing houselessness for the duration of my
childhood.

.... Taste it, taste it, this night is honey,/ Taste it, and keep it,/
It's the heart, the heart is the final limit..

One of PNN's former interns, himself born into wealth in
South Asia, and I discuss this movie constantly, his contention, it
presents a lie about modern day India, That a white man (Danny Boyle) colonized an art form already crafted (Bollywood) and made it from his lens. This is a very serious critique from POOR Magazine's perspective, we actively resist artistic and journalistic transubstantive errors made by default colonizers about cultures not their own. So this leaves me in conflict, because I also believe this movie depicts the reality
of struggling children in deep poverty, the desperation of survival by any means
necessary and the pimping of their poverty, by so-called "saviors" (a murderous "orphanage director" shown preying on the children) better than almost any movie i have ever seen. Then again, maybe I haven't seen enough South-Asian films.

So does this movie about poor folks, poor children, do what almost all
depictions of poor people do and have done since Charles Dickens stories about
poor folks in the ghettos of New York in turn of the century
Amerikkka. Through Dickens' Eurocentric, middle-class lens, he only saw
them as living in "squalor" "being dirty", and living in
"over-crowded" conditions and needing to be at best "cleaned-up" and
worst, "saved". In one stroke of his fountain pen, he stripped them
of their beauty, their power, their heroism, their sprit, language and
culture, resulting in the literary theft of their inherent agency,
and forever setting the narrative tone for other-ness documentations
of communities in poverty as well as the ever-popular to this day,
hygienic metaphors about "cleaning up poor folks".

To insure that more poverty scholars whose voices are intentionally silenced on all issues must less movie critiques get a chance to review this movie and weigh in on the message, POOR Magazine sponsored a movie night for our youth and adult poverty scholars in residence and our students in the Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute that teaches folks living in poverty revolutionary media and organizing. We do a movie night, both corporate and non-corporate, several times a year as films are just another form of "media" to be read and critiqued by silenced communities. Almost across the board each of them were very impressed and overwhlemed with the movie and its message.

Our post-film discussion led me to conclude, this was a movie about what we at POOR Magazine call poverty
scholars and poverty scholarship, people whose scholarship is rooted
in their lived experience, rather than learned experience. Jamal's
brilliance, his knowledge, was rooted in lived experience. In a series
of flashbacks told to a police officer accusing him of "being a
slum-kid, not capable of that level of intelligence" was at once a
deft story-telling filmic trick but it also acted as a seamless way to
unfold not only Jamal's plight of love lost, his live-based knowledge
but also the undying hope of not only love but youth and humanity
itself.

Unlike Dickensian wrong-ness, Slumdog Millionaire was
truly a depiction of the power , sprit and strength of poor children
and families who continue to try, to work, to hope and to dream. In
fact it showed the subtleties of survival of underground economic
strategists, and ghetto scholars everywhere, who like my poor mama
managed to make it by any means necessary

No, I conclude, this is our movie , and the only problem is, other
folks, rich folks, who don't get the terror of endless struggle, the
unconditional and beautiful hope of very poor children, the work ethic
and desperation of poor workers, and poor families, shouldn't be
allowed to see it, Ever. No, we the very poor, need this movie to
remember who we are, the wealth of knowledge we hold, the deep
reality-based knowledge of Poverty Scholarship we all have, and to
remember that no matter how hard it gets, there is still hope, there
is still love and poetry and silliness, and beauty and above all, to
remember the connection between the struggle of people in poverty
across the globe.

.... Come, come my Life, under the canopy,/ Come under the blue
brocade sky!".. lyrics translated from one of the Oscar winning songs
in Slumdog Millionaire, Jai Ho, by A.R. Rahman

by Thornton Kimes/PNN

“The city! The city belongs to us!
We don’t need more budget cuts!”
--Dee Allen protest chant

The GA/PAES (San Francisco welfare) worker said, “We can talk to
everyone about you except the Unemployment people. That’s your
responsibility.” I felt like a tennis ball, bounced from a desk in
one building to one in another with a phone on it—and the Unemployment
voice on the other end of the line asked questions from I don’t know
how far away.

How did I get into this mess? Short answer: come close to that “You
can’t fire me, I quit!” knife-edged cliff, decide my last job lost
whatever charm was left even if HR wanted to do more than issue me a
pink slip. I resigned from Goodwill.

The long answer goes back to 1989, just before, during, and after the
earthquake in San Francisco—-though, in truth, it goes much farther
back. But TODAY is, among other things, my 4th time to be enrolled in
the city’s “Hellfare” fun-house hall of mirrors
more-than-3-ring-Catch-22 circus.

Today, we’re eyeballs deep in the economic crisis (Calgon, um, Obama
Take Me Awayyyyy...) that the high stakes capitalists of Wall Street
created and could no longer hide (sort of like those guys you see on
street corners playing that game with the pebble or the coin hidden
under one of three cups, the game that usually empties some of your
wallet—-THOSE guys are good at deception...).

The national and world economy is a ghost of itself, the California
economy was in trouble before the sub-prime mortgage filthy
mcnastiness raised its ugly head to the light of day-—and, yes,
yup-yup, San Francisco is in deep waters too.

The Board of Supervisors and the Mayor are faced with a $500
million-plus budget deficit, though it does seem like Gavin Newsom is
acting like a damsel in distress tied to the railroad tracks, wailing
about how there isn’t anything to be done but what must be done—-that
train is gonna shred some flesh from the bones no matter what!

Millions of dollars in cuts have already been made to health care and
other services to very low-income and no-income, barely-housed and
homeless citizens of San Francisco, some of them so stunning in the
scope of what they do to everyone like me that I’m fer sure havin’
that deer in the SUV-blinding-halogen-headlights feeling.

I’ve spent time in the homeless shelter now called Next Door (Geary
and Polk Streets) twice, both times for about 6 months. Next Door and
its country cousin MSC (Multi-Service Center) South, at 5th and Bryant
Streets, are, as you read this, no longer providing 6-month-long case
management beds to stabilize the transition from homeless to housed
for men and women who are healthy, have jobs or want to work. If the
next round of proposed cuts happen, there will be no shelter in San
Francisco providing anything you could call a “stabilizing influence”
for anyone in need.

So much for the “10 Year Plan To End Homelessness”. Feh! to “Care Not
Cash”! Newsome and the Supes say the budget is effed and you and you
and you are too. They don’t have the will, unless many San
Franciscans pressure them to cut other things from the budget—items
like the Opera, Symphony, Ballet, that have deep-pocketed patrons well
capable of covering whatever the city can’t, plus the true
administrative fat--some of it bulging from Newsome’s administrative
waist.

I’ve been to two meetings of the Human Services Commission and given
short public comments. The second one was attended by Newsome, who
told the Commission he hates cutting social service safety net
budgets-—but ya gotta do what ya gotta do! Badda bing.

Newsom almost had a shoe thrown at him, but the man behind me trying
to take off the symbolic missile he was wearing was stopped by someone
else demanding that he “show
some respect”.I started wondering if I will regret not shoeing Gavin
Newsom myself, since the man who did it to Bush has considerable
popular support in Iraq.

I went to the March 2nd, 2009 Town Hall Meeting at the Unitarian
Universalist Church at 1187 Franklin Street, just a few blocks from my
SRO hotel, to find out what some Supes in attendance had to say. The
public was going to have its say too and I wanted to deliver some of
my increasing displeasure, fear, and well, regrets about shoes.

There’s an old saying: not enough room to swing a dead cat. Even the
welfare social workers are getting to know what that means. My PAES
case manager recently said her department had been “decimated”.

Decimation, an old word and a nasty punishment—-the Roman Empire used
it, executing 1 in 10 people, be they ordinary citizens, slaves or
soldiers, for mutinies, riots, and other uprisings. City Hall workers
and welfare social workers were hacked and slashed with pink slips
before the Town Hall meeting, and I have a new case manager. Probably
no need to guess what happened to the “old” one.

There were other people there to speak as well, members of the staffs
of organizations helping those of us most in need of assistance.
Colleen Rivecca of the St. Anthony Foundation gave an overview of the
city budget process. She would have had more fun with the “monopoly
money” version that was recently enacted for the education of
interested folks at the Coalition On Homelessness. There were
certainly more than enough people sitting in the pews who would have
volunteered to be chunks of the budget.

Several other people spoke eloquently about what is happening now and
what fresh disasters may be soon transpire; Cindy Gyomi of the Hyde
Street Clinic provided a truly mind-bending example of the
merry-go-round Catch-22’s a low-income mental health system user will
experience, ultimately ending up homeless if nothing is done to at
least hold the line.

Of all the speakers, Melvina Hill, Recreation Director of Kezar
Stadium, got the most enthusiastic, loudest applause. She is well
loved by everyone who uses the stadium, including Special Olympics
community members who later spoke in her defense: the San Francisco
recreation and parks system is also being decidmated, the department
losing half its staff by Summer 2009 due to decisions made February
27th. I wondered if all this frustration and pain might contribute to
the rise of a new local political star on the horizon listening to Ms.
Hill and her supporters.

As for me, the Unemployment folks said no. Not enough room to swing a
dead cat, unless we remember and enforce what the Mistress of
Ceremonies, Tiny (Lisa Gray-Garcia) of Poor Magazine asked the
audience repeatedly: “Who’s budget is it?”

The answer: “Our budget!”