Story Archives 2012

November 20th, 2012

My name is General Dojon, and I was born and raised on Skid Row, got into my addiction on Skid Row, was arrested for bank robbery (feeding my serious addiction), and sentenced to 18 years in state prison. I entered state prison as a brain-dead Christian and leader of Denver Lanes Blood gang in South Central. I was sent to Corcoran SHU Program where I did five years in the hole. There I met George Jackson's comrade who had been in the hole since 1972. He re-educated me about who I am as a Black Hue-man, about God, and the principles of revolution. Basically I did the Malcolm X Transformation: came into prison a mis-educated gang member, and paroled as a member of the Black Guerilla Family in 2004.

After eleven years I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to fight for social justice. I came to LA because I had a complaint about the police and private security guards. I was told by Bilal Ali (a Black Panther), "We don't talk about it, we be about it." He gave me a camera and clipboard and said go get some evidence and come back. I went, got evidence of police and private security guards racial profiling and targeting low-income Blacks during
gentrification. I came back to LA CAN. Bilal, Pete White (the director of LA CAN) and I talked. We decided to create a community watch program to monitor LAPD and private security to ensure no biased policing was going on.

In 2006, LA Mayor Villaraigosa and Police Chief Bratton released a Safer Cities Initiative on Skid Row which brought 110 extra pigs to Skid Row, making it the most policed community in America. Their goal was to gentrify Skid Row. They had a six-month plan to wipe out poor
folks so that the yuppies can walk their $5000 french poodles down Main St. without seeing Ed the wino and Ted the pan-handler. For the last six years since then we've been at war fighting for the land, and LA CAN has led the charge.

I'm the point man on our community watch team. I was sitting in meetings with Mayor Villaraigosa, meeting with Chiefs Blatter and Beck. I've been to the LAPD Training Camps giving them information on how not to participate in racial profiling. I've been to LAPD 4K
trainings on policing people with mental disabilities. I've helped ACLU bring lawsuits against the city for violating rights of homeless people. I've worked with UCLA to document police brutality. I've been in may newspapers, books, and movies. I've been arrested for felony
and facing 25 years to life twice for doing this work. The United Nations has requested information about me because of a report they got saying the government is targeting me.

And the story goes on because I'm still fighting daily. As a three-striker my biggest fear is being struck out with 25 to life, before I can finish my mission. Can't stop, won't stop. All power to the people.

This story was written by General Dojon, a poverty skolar from the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), for the Voices of Poverty Resist series. This series was launched out of a fellowship that Lisa received from the Marguerite Casey Foundation for journalism focused on poverty. Because Lisa leads with her indigenous values of inter-dependence she has created this collective journalism process where all of our voices in poverty are speaking for ourselves.

November 20th, 2012

I was working at K-Mart Company, as a part-time employee with no health coverage, working four hours a day. My work schedule changed weekly. When I became ill, I could not take time off to go see a doctor even if I could afford the appointment. My weekly wage was minimum: $7/hour. Just enough to pay rent, buy food, and pay for transportation.

Then I lost my job. I went to downtown LA. I began to visit a free clinic doctor, because I would get headaches so bad that I could not get out my my bed. and every time I sit or stand up I would get sick and have to throw up. I told my neighbor my issues. He said I might have high blood pressure. I visited my doctor again to check it out. As always, I went through the process we all go through on doctors' visits: take temperature, check weight, and check blood pressure. The nurse records it. Then you see the doctor, they read your results. The
doctors, they ask me what brought me in today.

I said I think I have high blood pressure, the response is: yes.

This story was written by Deborah, a poverty skolar from the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), for the Voices of Poverty Resist series. This series was launched out of a fellowship that Lisa received from the Marguerite Casey Foundation for journalism focused on poverty. Because Lisa leads with her indigenous values of inter-dependence she has created this collective journalism process where all of our voices in poverty are speaking for ourselves.

November 20th, 2012

Homelessness
To be homeless is a state of mind and physical being to endure the greatest violation of all human rights. Sleeping on pavements, doorways and benches are all violations of city ordinances, yet this is all that is left to you and me. To be homeless is to be a pawn for greed, as corporations gentrify whole communities from the houses of our extended community, near and far. City politicians, police, and
businesses have all written a ticket to pursue and to grasp power off the backs of the poor and homeless: we, the Black and Brown. Everyone deserves a roof, a pot to pee in, and a bed to sleep in. The city and state's answer is incarceration: labor for the state in exchange for tenancy through tax dollars. By now, everyone knows that like anything
else homelessness is a business constructed for the rich.

Living in the streets, I know that resources don't exist because 52% of our budget goes to those who incarcerate and violate us to no end. I know that missions do not house, and transitional housing means a temporary stay and a return to the streets. Because of who I am there is no employment, and they humiliate us in their justifiable way of
issuing us $221.00 per month for 6 months: "a solution to all our problems." Because of city, county, and state we now have insurmountable health issues. We have no nutrients, clothing, and in other cases no care for the children. Through homelessness we now have become soldiers on the war on poverty.

Service procedures, mentors, stats and so-called self-help programs do not at any time challenge the prevalence of homelessness. I am homeless, so I can say how to provide for those who currently find no alternative but to sleep in our parks and streets.

Increasing inequality is a driving force for homelessness. In
California the disconnected seek and need aide. Deteriorating incomes coupled with rapidly rising rent forces low income families into the streets!

Question: What do people of color have? Do we have more opportunities for housing, education, employment, finance, scholarship, or even respect from what you say your programs offer? Your programs do not give us hope but only despair. One of your peers just one week ago said that the poor can handle themselves because they will always have
a safety net! Is this what you think of me? You who represent the state, the nation, are blowing smoke because the structure that you and this nation planted never intended us to survive in the first place.

Years ago a life in the struggle was the draft and a ticket to
Vietnam. Now I come to realize from where we sit or stand, that was just a futuristic preface of things to come as we live lives of homelessness right now. So in conclusion, our so-called city writes our ticket, but we choose or destiny. Which is it? Homes not jails—or "not," to say the least! Stand up and fight! And city and greed get back!

The Vietnam War and Civil Rights
I was an orphaned Negro baby boy.

I was at SNCC. We went to Alabama, we were being shot by police.

All we were trying to ensure is that every Black man and woman were allowed to vote. One year I worked with Alan Clayton Powell. I was with King in Detroit – all the injustice and pain and killing. Police picking up Blacks who were 18. When I got sick it was due to first encounter with Po’Lice. They put me in a choke hold – at the time I didn’t know my rights so I let it go. Later on I got lick cause of the trauma to my nervous system due to the choke-hold. My recourse of suing was gone. An operation put me back. I ended up homeless, doing more drugs. When I got arrested last time they threatened me. Two years in prison VA. If you don’t know your civil rights this is what happened.

1967-73 we were in Vietnam. I came out with a fresh new attitude about racism in the military – they watch you get slaughtered. In a padded room in Hanoi shooting up Black folks with drugs to see how much we could take. _____ started this – You go and do 5 years in prison, addicted to opium. $700 a day. Let you out. Took you 11 years to get back to yourself – couldn’t go outside, couldn’t see people, couldn’t be in a group of people, got no money or support.

I was a radio man. I’m 62 years old and I’m homeless. I’ve been homeless for 42 years. I've been surviving on social security and underground economic strategies.

I have been through 4½-5 generations.I have learned one thing – everybody’s unity, especially people of color unity is the key. Power is in numbers. To everything we have unity all around.

This story was written by Joseph, a poverty skolar from the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), for the Voices of Poverty Resist series. This series was launched out of a fellowship that Lisa received from the Marguerite Casey Foundation for journalism focused on poverty. Because Lisa leads with her indigenous values of inter-dependence she has created this collective journalism process where all of our voices in poverty are speaking for ourselves.

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Mi vida fue triste, porque no tube Mama. A los 9 meses, al paso de tiempo me dejaron con mis tíos y unos de ellos me violo. Y tome deciciones no fue buenas. Y mas facil para mi juntarme con un muchaho.

Fue Tipo político 12 años empecé a salir con el 16 tuve mi niña. Empezaba a trabajar y lo deje a mi pareja por ser drogadicto. Ya tenia 3 hijas.

Empeze a salir con otro muchacho que tuvimos otro hijo pero desgraciadamento el fallecio en un accidente.  

Tuve como 6 meses, y me vine a los Estados Unidos. Batallamos para cruzar y pero al fin lo logramos, de ahí empezó mi nueva vida tristeza, soledad, pobreza. Porque yo venía embarazada de dos meses de una niña y no tenía trabajo. Yo me hice la promesa 1 año me iba a traer a mis hijos, tuve la suerte de que gente me ayudara a traer a mis hijos.

Primero me dieron el apoyo y me pidieron que me moviera, y no duramos mucho ahi porque yo andaba recogiendo botes, y una ocasión el quería abusar de mi y yo le dije a su esposa y ella despues me dio dos dias para salirme. Yo me sali a rentar a un apartamento con ratas un espacio no habitable. Cual yo no me senti vivir con mis hijos. Al paso de tiempo conoci al que fue mi pareja, 17 años al cual me saco de ahi, y me llevo un hogar donde vivia en la sala y mis hijas el cuarto en el transcurso de esos anos pasaron tantas cosas. Mi hija la mas grande conoció un muchacho de los 12 anos, lo cual no me parece porque era mayor que ella. A los 20 tantos anos que estuvo con mi hija, yo estubo molestando a mis hijos, y pasamos por mucho trauma. Y que todavía seguimos padeciendo, apenas estamos uniendo entre todas. Dialogando y seguimos aquisufriendoo en la pobreza; mis hijos sufriendo por que todavia pocree 3 mas.

Por su padre que esta enfermo, solo hay comunicacion de teléfono. Por alcoholismo, la lucha con mis hijos que la escuela me los estaban echando de escuela. Y no saber como poder ayudarle y me sentía desolada. Gracias a Dios unos de mis hijos esta en Sheriff y juega futbol. Y Ahorita estoy luchando 17 por graffiti. Y estoy en luchando con el de 22 anos las drogas. Espere Dios me te la fuerza a seguir luchando.

My life has been a sad one, because my Mother passed when I was  9 months. I was left with my uncles and one of them raped me. And from than on i took decisions that weren’t the best.

When I was 12 years I started dating a boy who was 16. I eventually left him due to being a drug addict. We had three daughters.

I started dating another boy who had another child but sadly  he died in an accident.

After six months, I came to the United States. And struggled to cross the border but finally I made it, my new life began but filled with sadness, loneliness,  and poverty. Because I was pregnant two months of a child and had no job, I made a promise that after 1 year I was going to bring my children. I was lucky that people helped me bring my children.

First they gave me support and asked me to move, but I ended up coming here and picking up cans. A man and his wife took me in. But the man wanted to abuse me and I told his wife and she then gave me two days to get out. I went out to rent an apartment that was in no way habitable since it was infested with rats. I felt that I did not live with my children. At time passed i met a man who became my partner. At 17 years old he  took me out of there, and I got a home where I slept on the floor and my daughters slept on the room. My daughter grew up and met an older boy when she 12. The boy was 20 and he was with my daughter for many years. They are still together.
My children went through a lot of trauma. And we are still suffering, we are just trying to come together.

Their  father is sick, and there's only telephone communication. Their father suffers from alcoholism. The struggle with my children's school is the risk of being kicked out of school. And not knowing how to help I am devastated. Thank God one of my sons plays soccer to take up his time. And right now I'm fighting  my 17 for being a graffiti vandal. And I'm struggling with my 22 year old with drugs. God is giving me the strenght to keep on fighting.

This story was written by a poverty skolar from Community Asset Development Re-Defining Education (CADRE), for the Voices of Poverty Resist series. This series was launched out of a fellowship that Lisa received from the Marguerite Casey Foundation for journalism focused on poverty. Because Lisa leads with her indigenous values of inter-dependence she has created this collective journalism process where all of our voices in poverty are speaking for ourselves.

 

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Yo soy de Guatemala 37 años y mi historia es muy triste por contar. Porque es difícil porque fui abusada, abusada sexualmente por mi hermano. Yo y mis 3 hermanas chicas. Esto es difícil serlo, porque fueron amenazadas por que mataria a mi papa, si decíamos algo. Esto marco mi vida.

Solo con Dios a cambiado mi vida a poder cambiar y a seguir adelante. Recientemente me di cuenta el abuso de mis hermanos.

Yo me vine al norte de Guatemala, a México y emigre a los Estados Unidos. Para ya no ser abusada.  

Yo aprendí del abuso sexual de mis hermanas cuando mi hermana que vive, me llamó; y me exijo dejé a mis papas. Yo le dije que porque lo que me había pasado. Y es cuando ella me confesó llorando que ella también. Emigró para aca, para que ya no fuera abusada.  

A mi me abuso 3 veces, solamente me abusaba cuando el llegaba. Porque el vivía en el ejército de Guatemala. Esta historia quiere decir la por primera vez en papel para que muchos la lean. Porque un sufre más cuando uno calla uno, o se queda en silencio.

Yo tenia 6 años cuando esto comenzó, mi hermana mayor y yo era abusada. Por eso ella me empujo me fuera al norte.

Esta historia la cuente porque es mejor hablar. En hablando puedo arreglarar mi matrimonio.

Lo más difícil es de que mi mamá nunca nos creó. Todavia no nos cre. Ella siempre crió a los hombres. Siempre quiso más los barones. Siempre hizo al lado a las mujeres nos llama mentirosas.

Yo me siento liberada en hablando sobre esta historia. Porque a veces los uní a unos mas. Preguntaran porque tomará esa decisión de dejar su familia para escapar.

I'm from Guatemala 37 years and my story is very sad to tell. It's hard to tell because I was abused, abused sexually by my brother. Me and my 3 sisters. They were threatened that my brother would kill my dad if we said anything. This marked my life.

Only with God has my life changed to be able to change and move forward.

I left Guatemala to go north, to Mexico and emigrate to the United States. To no longer be abused. No more abuse.

I learned of the sexual abuse of my sister when my sister, called me once demand demanding why i left my parents. I told her what had happened. And she broke down crying telling me she was also abused. She immigrated here also, to no longer be abused.

I was abused 3 times. Because my brother lived in Guatemala's army he wasn’t home much.  want other to read this. Because one suffers more when one shuts down, or remains silent.

I was 6 when this began.

The hardest part is that my mom never believed ​​us, still hasn’t. She always preferred the boys over the girls. We as women were called liars by her.

I feel liberated in talking about this story. Because sometimes it brings us together.

This story was written by Sarbelia, a poverty skolar from Community Asset Development Re-Defining Education (CADRE), for the Voices of Poverty Resist series. This series was launched out of a fellowship that Lisa received from the Marguerite Casey Foundation for journalism focused on poverty. Because Lisa leads with her indigenous values of inter-dependence she has created this collective journalism process where all of our voices in poverty are speaking for ourselves.

 

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Mi Nombre es Teresa Villa
Soy madre soltera de 2 hijos pero me siento
muy frustrada cuando
mi hijo fue agarrado por la policia.

Empezaron
los problemas con mis 2 hijos.
La policia empezo a
molestarlos, el abuso
con la policia fue tanto
que ellos
decian que no
se iban a graduar pero
yo como mama siempre
estuve al pendiente.
Los enfrente  porque
ellos eran acosados
siempre, pero ellos
se gruaduaron.
pero la policia
del sur de los
angeles.Siempre los acosaban.

My name is Teresa Villa
I am a single mother
with 2 children but I feel
very frustrated when
my son was
caught. Started
problems with my 2 children
The Police
disturbed and abused
them
not wanting
them to get caught
like a mama I was always
on the lookout
because
they were harassed
but they were always looked for
but the police
in the south
abuses and causes
problems with the youth

This story was written by Teresa Villa, a poverty skolar from Community Asset Development Re-Defining Education (CADRE), for the Voices of Poverty Resist series. This series was launched out of a fellowship that Lisa received from the Marguerite Casey Foundation for journalism focused on poverty. Because Lisa leads with her indigenous values of inter-dependence she has created this collective journalism process where all of our voices in poverty are speaking for ourselves.

 

Julio Cesar Perez Reyes

El rojo, por lo que comenzo, amor pienso.
Red, to what I begin with, love I think.

Dulce, como su sabor de cuerpo.
Sweet, like the taste of their skin.

tu ecencia junto a mi cuerpo.
your scent next to me skin.

De pasion cuando contigo me encuentro.
Of passion when I find you.

Tu voz diciendo, te quiero.
Your voice saying, I love you.

Soy de Morelia, Michoacan Mexico
I am from Michoaca Mexico

No me gusta verme caido y menos a un amigo. Por eso demuestro carino y afeccion de luchar a cada tiempo.

I do not like to see me down especially a friend. That’s why I show love and affection to fight always.

Amor
Orgullo
Tristeza
Lucha
Meta

Love
Joy
Sadness
Fight
Goal

Amor, me inspiran en pose de tiempo
Orgullo, es el que me imponen por lucha de vida
Tristeza, por su susencia que a dejeda un hueco
Lucha, en la que por ustedes me encuentro
Meta, lograr por ellas mas por los que en lucha continuamos.

Love, what inspires me as time goes by
Joy, what gets in my way ro fight in life
Sadness, for the emptiness its left
Fight, what I do for you
Goal, achieve them in order to fight for them in life.

Juan Alberto

Verde en el decierto crucando fronteras
Green in the deserts of the border

Flores del campo
Flowers of the field

Olor a noche
Smell of the night

De locura aso destino donce quiera llegar
The crazy place i wanted to rach

De los grillos el sonido de los uventos
From the crickets sound.

Soy de Mexico, Michiocan
I am from Michoacan Mexico

Que areglen alos immigrantes de cada paiz y por ser Mexicano.
The legalize immigrants from very country and being Mexican.

1.La virgen maria ese la vase de todos los peregrinos Mexicanos.
1.The virgin Mary is the base for all the Mexican pilgrims.

2.Que pides, por nosotros y por todos los muertos que pedimos por ellos.
2.To ask for us and all the dead that we ask for them.

3. Las candelas que es una visilla para los vivos y los muertos y la luz.
3. The lanterns that is a way for the live and the dead and the light.

4.Que nos ilumina para el perdon de los pecados amen y todas esos chicos.
4.That light up for forgiveness and the sins amen and all the young people.

5.Y chicas que ya no estan con nosotros y que nunca compleron sus suenos pero en otra vida conocieron su sueno realidad de conoser a dios y para que ellas y ellos pidan por nosotros amen.
5. And the young people that are no longer with us and never were able to achieve their dreams but in another life they achieved thier dream in reality to meet god and for them to pray for us amen.
 

Susan Porve

En panada y trasporente de vende coral
Pastry and transparent coral

Amiel y allerva amarga.
Honey and bitterness

A pan recien horniado y masa podrida de los anos
Bread recently baked and more rotting dough.

Un toque de mama y papa
A touch from Mom and Dad

Un llanto de amis vesos
A sound from my kisses

Soy de Michoacan Mexico
I am from Michoacan Mexico

La union de jeneros y que no mas fronteras.
The union genres of and no more borders.

Emily Nino

Rosa
Pink

Salado
Salty

Suave
Soft

Ponta
Point
Soy de Hundaras
I am from Hunduras

Suenos

Por nacer con sexo opuesto
Being born of the opposite sex

Hemos derramado tanto llanto
We have cried very much

Por hacer nuestra transicion
From doing our transition

Nos hemos ganado demasiado odio
We have gained much hate

Y por tanto
And for a lot

Muchas hermanas se las
Many sisters have

a llevado la muerte al mas alla
been taken by death to the great beyound
 

Chessyca

S

Rasivle

Exensal

De amor
Of love

Tintiva

Soy de Mexico
I am from Mexico

Por todos corazon erido.
For all the injured hearts.

Maria dela luz es es la esencia que nos alimenta
Maria of the light is that feeds us

Con su pureza alas hermanos y hermanos
With her pureness for sisters and brothers

Des encarnados que se adelantaron
The ones that went ahead
 

Andren Manza

Negro
Black

Agrio/Acido
Sour/Acid

Canela
Cinimon

Suave
Soft

Agua/brisa del mar
Water/Ocean breeze

Soy de Michoacan Mexico
I am from Michoacan Mexico

Justicia Social
Social Justice

Altar tradiciones de nuestros antepasados
Altar traditions of our ancestors

Virgen Guadalupe madre que los proteje
Virgin Mary, mother who protects us

Nuestros Hermanos
Our brothers

Fotos que esenian del sufrimiento
Photos that show suffering

De este mundo
Off this world

Flores, aqua y luz
Flowers, water , and light

Para cruzar atras dimensiones
To cross dimensions

Adrian Escobain

Gris de la noche
Grey of the night

Amargo como mi soledad
Bitter like my solitude

Mi azudor pegajoso
My sweat

Las espinas del desierto y mi unica solucion de mi soledad era
The thorns of the desert and my only solution of my solitude

Del viento y los coyotes
Of the wind and coyotes

Soy de Mexico Chiapas
I am From Chiapas Mexico

Poder
Able to

Reencarnaciones de mi padre Guadalupe
Reincarnations of my  father Guadalupe

Tu cara mi tranquiliza tus colore
Your face calms your colors

Me llenan de alegría tu sombra
I am filled with joy from your shadow

Me proteje tu esencia me conecta
I’m protected by your essence connecting

con los muertos
With the death

Jovana Luna

Azul del cielo porla tarde
Blue from the  sky at the evening

Dulce de la miel
Sweet from the honey

A rosas del campo
Roses from the fields

Femenino y delicado rostro
Feminine and delicate face

De castañuelas sonando en el aire
The castañuelas playing in the air

Soy de Mexico el del estado Guanajuato
I am from Mexico in the state of Guanajuato

La libertad de mi pueblo
The liberty of my pueblo

1.En el color amarillo y morado del fondo del altar que da mucha pas y tranquilidad
1.In the color yellow and violet the bottom of the altar of much calm and tranquilidi

2.En el sentro la reina de Mexico jolla ermosa radiante luz y paz
2.In the center the queen of Mexico beatiful jewel radiant light and peace

3.A su alrededor Chicas que significan víctimas y seres de luz guardianes
3.Around  there are girls that signify victims and individuals of light protectors

4.Las velas luz para su camino a la eternidad
4.The candles to a light path to eternity

5.Y yo aqui admiradora y luchadora para que siga de pie su luz
5. And i am here admiring and fighting for the light
 

Divina Kin

Por mi color canela
My cinnamon color

Por mi sabor latino
My latino flavor

Por mi olor a tierra mojada
My scent of wet dirt

Por mi toque femenino
My feminine touch

Por los murmullos en mi corazon
For the murmers in my heart

Soy de Acapulco
I am From Acapulco

Soy mujer
I’m a woman

Luces que iluminan el camino
Lights that light the path

Luces, veladoras y flores
Light, candles and flowers

adornan tan bello y poderoso altar
decorate the pretty and powerful altar

Fotografias, agua bendita
Photographs and holy water

y ángeles en lo que veo
and angels in what I see

en este alar que dice
In this altar that says

te amo, te amo y te amare por siempre
I love you, I love you and will love you always

Divina Kin
Divine Kin
 

November 26th, 2012

Last Wednesday on November 14, 2012, we were peacefully protesting Mexican Ex-President Vicente Fox, who was speaking at an event in Pasadena, California. Why were we protesting? We do not support a mass murderer who was Vice President of Coca Cola Company in Mexico that killed many indigenous people there. He is also a capitalist pig and the root cause of why the Mexican drug cartels are so much stronger today. We were showing resistance against this.

However, he is protected here by the Los Angeles Police Department, who planted many riot cops around the area of the courthouse and park near where he was speaking that night. Those cops were being commanded by LAPD Sargeant Bobby Crees of the Special Enforcement Services Division, who incited the riot so that they could outright violently ambush us.

As a houseless revolutionary with Occupy the Hood in L.A., I strongly feel that this assault on us was uncalled-for and provoked by outright hate and disdain from the LAPD, as they gave us evacuation orders. However, they did not specifically tell us that we had to back away from the Courthouse area of the public park where we were protesting.

After three hours of stand-off intimidation, with the LAPD standing in unison wearing full riot gear, all of a sudden out of nowhere they rushed us, knocking everyone and everything down, smashing our tents and personal belongings, stomping on top of everything that was lying on the ground with their heavy boots. Within a few seconds, I was barely able to save my friend, who was sleeping inside one of the tents, from being killed by having his head violently stomped on by a crazed cop in riot gear.

In the melee I was violently struck in the ribs by a baton. They just came at us….stomped on us….violently hit us….all of our civil rights violated. In L.A., we are allowed to sleep on the streets, unlike a lot of other cities….We, with the support of L.A. CAN, had fought for and won this right to sleep in public….it’s our right to be there, yet the LAPD broke the law.

The LAPD kept on attacking us. They punched my friend’s 12-year old daughter in the face! They also hit my friend in the face, knocking out his tooth! They continued assaulting us and knocked down a pregnant protester with a night stick to the ground. Many people were severely hurt, however the LAPD took absolutely no accountability for their assault upon us and the physical abuse they inflicted upon my friend’s daughter.

Because we are poor, we are being criminalized without due process. Because I have been homeless for the past five years on Skid Row and homeless for an additional ten years of my life, it doesn’t mean that the police have the right to harass us, assault and violate our civil rights. This is truly capitalism at its best while we are being treated at its worst, being illegally assaulted, charged and locked up. The mainstream media did everything they could to keep what happened out of the media. People need to know that LAPD physically assaults poor children.

This story was written by JoJo, a poverty skolar from the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), for the Voices of Poverty Resist series. This series was launched out of a fellowship that Lisa received from the Marguerite Casey Foundation for journalism focused on poverty. Because Lisa leads with her indigenous values of inter-dependence she has created this collective journalism process where all of our voices in poverty are speaking for ourselves.

(Editor's note: This article is reprinted from the November issue of the San Francisco Street Sheet, courtesy Bob Offer Westort.  Photo taken by Golden Gate X Press)

After more than a week of counting, the final vote was tallied a little before 7:30 p.m. on November 15: Measure S—a proposed law that would have made it a crime to sit on the sidewalk—had failed. The sitting prohibition lost by 4.6%—a greater margin than Barack Obama’s reelection.

The No on S victory is a notable upset both for the national trend of homeless criminalization laws and for development and commercial real estate interests in Berkeley. Since 1993, “sit/lie” laws—laws that make it a crime for people to sit or lie down on public sidewalks—have been spreading around the country, particularly intensely on the West Coast and in Florida. While the laws nominally apply universally, universal enforcement is never the actual intention: Sit/lie laws are a law plus a wink and a nudge. Everyone knows that the intent is that they be enforced exclusively to “shoo homeless people” out of public places, as the Downtown Berkeley Association’s John Caner put it.

San Francisco passed such a law in 2010 through Proposition L. Aside a short period of such laws in the 1960s (the most notable cases being San Francisco and Los Angeles—the former of which was repealed after several successful constitutional challenges, the latter of which remains on the books but which has had enforcement curtailed as a result of the settlement of a constitutional challenge), the Patient X for these laws is Seattle, which passed the first of the current batch of sit/lie laws in 1993. Since then, nearly three dozen cities have passed such laws. What makes Berkeley different?

The lazy answer—and Bay Area print journalism has already shown characteristic interest in the lazy answer—is that Berkeley is simply perversely weird. But that explanation doesn’t cut the mustard: Berkeley and San Francisco are unique in the two-decade history of these laws in that they are the only two cities to have considered sit/lie laws at the ballot, and that both have done so twice. Berkeley, in fact, passed a sit/lie laws in 1994, only to have it repealed through a constitutional challenge. San Francisco rejected a nearly identical law the same year. One would be hard-pressed to argue that Berkeley has become less conservative than it was in 1994, or that San Francisco has become more conservative in the past two decades than Berkeley has.

The victory is even more surprising given the shape of the campaign to pass Measure S: Proponents spent roughly $120,000 on the campaign—more than was spent on any other campaign this year (including that for mayor), and likely more than has ever been spent on any other campaign in Berkeley history. (I have not checked all campaign records since Berkeley’s 1878 founding, but have yet to find any campaigns that spent much more than half as much money in the past decade.) 86% of this money came from corporations or limited liability companies.

For understanding why corporations would spend so much money on a law like this, San Francisco provides an instructive example—perhaps the only instructive example. In 2010, real estate and finance corporations provided roughly $412,000 in funding to pass this city’s Proposition L. The largest backer, Ron Conway, told business leaders that this was part of an effort to “take San Francisco back” from progressives. In conservative states, undocumented migrant workers and queer people are a convenient scapegoat for economic or social ills, and conservatives very effectively use popular prejudices against these people as a wedge issue to elect candidates whose values are otherwise more conservative than their constituencies’. In the Bay Area, we are fortunate that it is far more difficult to electorally target queers and undocumented people. (Queer people and migrant workers are definitely oppressed in San Francisco and Berkeley, and people in these communities can certainly think of examples of scapegoating, but I think it’s true that we have for the most part been spared the worst excesses of the rest of the country, and that these scapegoating efforts have rarely made it to the ballot.)

In the past fifteen years, conservatives have struck on an alternative scapegoat for San Francisco: Homeless people. In election after election, San Francisco voters have been asked to pass punitive measures against homeless people (often as part of a combined package that included some benefits, so as to ease consciences, sometimes with the argument that these punitive measures would actually help homeless people). In many cases—including 2010’s Proposition L—the law passed has been one that did not actually need voter approval: it could have been passed by the legislature. But other things do need voter approval. A wedge issue on the ballot which has helped to distinguish conservative candidates has had a noticeable effect on the composition of the Board of Supervisors, and arguably has been a determining factor in recent years for the mayoralty.

In Berkeley, similarly, conservatives have no chance if they are not supportive of the most basic rights for queer people or people without documentation. In the past two months, Berkeley has passed the nation’s first Bisexual Pride Day and has instructed the Berkeley Police Department to end its association with Secure Communities. So conservatives attempted to adopt the San Francisco model, using frustration with homelessness in the city as a wedge issue to affect rent control and development.

Berkeley’s City Council could have chosen to pass a sitting prohibition (over the objections of progressive City Councilmembers Max Anderson, Jesse Arreguín, and Kriss Worthington), but chose instead to place the matter on the ballot. The same funders who backed Measure S were also heavily involved in two other races as primary funders: A conservative Rent Stabilization Board slate that was involved with organizations such as the Berkeley Property Owners Association that have advocated for the end of rent control, and Measure T, a development giveaway for West Berkeley that was opposed by most residents of that neighborhood. Measure S provided a convenient wedge issue for the one, and obscured the other. As Berkeley formerly homeless activist Dan McMullan put it, “They bet that the people of Berkeley, in the privacy of the voting booth, would be mean enough to kick our poorest community members while they were down.” And they thought that the malice accompanying that kick would carry far enough to make more selfish, less reasonable decisions prevail on other electoral matters.

But outspending wasn’t the only tack that the corporate backers of Measure S took: The campaign to pass Measure S included a mailer that failed to mention what the law would actually do (make it a crime to sit on sidewalks), and claimed instead that the law would keep people out of jails, help them into services, and “provide hope for those on our streets who are hopeless. It comes down to saving lives.” In a desperate last-ditch move, proponents of Measure S hired homeless people (largely from Oakland, who were unfamiliar with the issue) to hold Obama signs and hand out misleading fake Democratic Party Voter Guides that endorsed the measure. The Democratic Party took no stance on Measure S. In fact, five out of the six endorsing Democratic clubs opposed the measure. (The sixth had on its board one of the leaders of the Yes on Measure S campaign.)

But big money failed. Measure S has been defeated. Measure T is trailing by less, but it, too, seems unlikely to pass. While the conservatives were able to get one member elected to the Rent Stabilization Board, the other three seats up for election have all gone to defenders of rent control and vocal opponents of both Measure S and T.

Why didn’t the San Francisco model work in Berkeley? I have been heavily involved in homeless community organizing in San Francisco for seven years, and worked against Measure S in Berkeley. I suspect that the answer is twofold.

The first is that the campaign against Measure S learned from San Francisco. We held numerous fun and engaging actions, much as happened in this city. But we didn’t depend exclusively on that kind of “earned media”: The media infrastructure of Berkeley is likely too weak for such tactics to have an adequate impact. We also engaged in traditional, grassroots campaigning, knocking on doors and talking with Berkeleyans about homelessness, about Measure S, and about real solutions for the city. Over the course of two months, we estimate that we were able to talk with about 10% of the Berkeley electorate. Money can buy print space, Web banners, and airtime. But it can’t buy personal convictions or face-to-face conversations. When those of us who believe in civil liberties, compassion, and pragmatic solutions to social problems talk with our neighbors, we win. The numerous volunteers—both homeless and housed—who created these brilliant events and who knocked on doors every single weekend and many week nights were able to defeat the tens of thousands of dollars sunk into this campaign by the East Bay’s largest developers. Many of these volunteers were from groups that have been involved in homeless people’s struggles in the long term—most notably the East Bay Community Law Center, the Homeless Action Center, Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency, and the POOR News Network. But dozens more were simply concerned community members who saw a social wrong, and knew that they could do something to right it.

The second is the shape of Berkeley progressivism. In San Francisco, the community was tremendously supportive. The Coalition on Homelessness, the Day Labor Program (then of La Raza Centro Legal, now part of Dolores Street Community Services), and HAVOQ/Pride at Work played a central role in the organizing against Prop L, but we also benefited from tremendous support from organized labor and housing advocates. However, there were also progressives who were shy of the issue: I recall a conversation with one candidate who told me that they opposed Proposition L, but couldn’t do so openly: “I have my constituency to think about. They’d eat me alive.” Another endorsing organization printed two versions of its endorsement guide: one that opposed Prop L for areas where they thought the proposal would be unpopular, and another that didn’t mention the issue. Progressive community support against Prop L was phenomenal, but not complete. Berkeley saw a more nearly total level of committed support from the progressive community. The candidates against whom Measure S was intended to be used as a wedge issue didn’t shy away from it: Rent Stabilization Board Commissioner Igor Tregub spoke vocally and passionately against Measure S; Commissioner Asa Dodsworth organized a rollicking Black-Tie Sit/Lie Chess Championship; Commissioner-Elect Alejandro Soto-Vigil knocked on doors and spoke about Measure S when he spoke about his own candidacy; Danfeng Koon, who organized both the progressive Rent Stabilization Board slate and the Kriss Worthington for Mayor campaigns instructed her volunteers to walk No on Measure S lit at the same time that they walked the literature for those two campaigns: Without that effort, No on S literature would have reached tens of thousands of fewer Berkeleyans than it did. City Councilmember Max Anderson, whose challenger was a supporter of Measure S, also didn’t shy away from the issue, and was perhaps the measure’s most eloquent opponent. Even candidates and campaigns who were not targets of the wedge issue campaigned hard against S: Every challenging mayoral candidate—most notably City Councilmember Kriss Worthington—spoke openly against Measure S. Mayoral candidate Jacquelyn McCormick, who differed from other progressives on several issues, also took a principled stand against S, and started a Community Campaign Center on University Avenue that allowed for an unprecedented level of coordination, beneficial to numerous grassroots campaigns.

There’s a lesson in this for San Francisco: Here, we have too often followed the lead of the nervous national Democratic Party leadership, and have backed away from controversial wedge issues. The grassroots core of San Francisco progressivism has been heartfelt and devoted to real, compassionate solutions to homelessness and the defense of poor people’s civil liberties, but too much of our political leadership has let electoral concerns outweigh our consciences. Ironically, as Berkeley has shown us, it is precisely that shyness of conviction that has kept us pinned to this recurring wedge issue. It is our fear that has allowed the San Francisco model to be effective. In San Francisco, the San Francisco model of homelessness as a wedge issue will end when there is a progressive consensus that it can no longer be allowed to work.