Story Archives 2015

Homefulness is a poor people led, landless peoples/indigenous peoples revolution that has taken root in Oakland.  Homefulness can also be called humbleness.  It is a sweat-equity model of housing that honors the land that was stolen from our ancestors. By poor people defined sweat-equity we refer to a housing model that is not predicated upon one's wealth but upon one's art, music, poetry, practical skills and, of course, humility.  The idea of Homefulness was conceived by Lisa Gray-Garcia aka Tiny and her mother Dee; a mother and daughter who lived on the streets of Oakland, houseless and in their car; harassed by cops and eventually incarcerated for the sole act of being poor.  The reality of Homefulness was carried out by years of  multi-rationed work, sweat, art, education and organizing by POOR Magazine and its allies.

POOR Magazine asked permission and consultation from Ohlone 1st Nations peoples and ancestors as well as many other indigenous nations to bless the land in multiple ceremonies that included folks with deep roots in Blackarthur—a place where the history of African Descended elders, youth and families run deep. There was years of revolutionary community building circles including peoples from all four corners of Mama Earth and BlackArthur Neighbors convened to determine what Homefulness would look like—what it would be.  Meeting after meeting to determine the vision of a real poor poeple-led community garden, Street Newsroom (Our media making circle and healthy community feed held every Thursday on 82nd and MacArthur) and the home school at Homefulness called “Deecolonize Academy”.  We came correct to the community by asking permission of the ancestors and neighbors before working to make the vision a reality.

As history has shown us with poor people led revolutions and movements of the past, there are those who—either out of envy or jealousy, or other motives—will try to undermine a humble revolution.  Homefulness has garnered national attention as a template for housing and has roused the curiosity of revolutionaries in other countries. 

We opened our doors at Homefulness to a collaboration with a community member who we thought shared our humble vision.  This person moved into homefulness—into a large 1 bedroom unit with a bathroom, kitchen and large attic/loft.  She agreed to collaborate with POOR Magazine as a teacher in Deecolonize Academy.  What started as a good working relationship soon turned into a campaign—complete with bullying—to smear POOR Magazine and Homefulness through rumors and falsehoods spread on social media and by word of mouth.

Many vitriol-laced accusations launched by this person towards POOR went so far as to target our revolutionary donors, asserting that POOR does not do the true community work (While asserting that she, of course, does) and does not truly represent the community.  The ironic part about this attack on POOR Magazine is that this person has lived on the Homefulness property for 6 months without paying her share of utility/maintenance costs as per her residence agreement that she signed. Nor has she performed any of the sweat-equity duties that her residence was contingent upon (Taking out the refuse, helping with street newsroom, cleaning the land etc.)  She has lived, essentially, free at homefulness while at the same time attacking us.  We haven't received so much as a thank you or any showing of gratitude befitting an organization that has essentially provided a home to a family.  This lack of grace and tact is, quite frankly, baffling.  It begs the question:  if homefulness is such a bad place, then why do you stay?

The personal attacks against POOR Magazine co-founder Tiny ensued, increasing in regularity—including attacks on her character, history and background.  These attacks are childish and mean spirited—tinged with language that one might hear on “World Star Hip Hop”.  Other so-called revolutionaries/community people piled on, inserting themselves into the dispute although they never helped in the process of making Homefulness a reality.  They didn't break the concrete, push the wheelbarrow, dig the soil etc.  Yet, they joined the attack on Tiny and the integrity of POOR Magazine and Homefulness.  Much talk and gossip has taken place, proving that the tongue can be a devastating weapon, because it plants seeds meant—not to feed—but to destroy and cause turmoil.  Advocates and so-called community activists have ganged up on Homefulness.  This ganging up and bullying has turned into a frenzy of ridiculous proportions—a swarming of the overly politically correct who tend to be self-righteous and outright obnoxious, steeped in much theory but lacking when it comes to interpersonal and practical matters.  These folks get a little taste of consciousness and then move about as if they own the whole movement—alienating those, and, at worst, bullying those who move in a humble way if they don’t tow their line—in order to feed their lisping egos that require much feeding.  Ironically, many of these folks come to POOR Magazine, often times at the last minute, asking us to provide media coverage to their actions/events and otherwise.  What better way to silence a revolution. 

In spite of this person's refusal to leave Homefulness, and the fact that she has broken the extensive and revolutionary “People's Agreement” outlining the stipulations of her residence at Homefulness, we, as a poor people led organization, will continue to do the work that we do, that is, making media—Reporting and Supporting those in struggle, making revolutionary access available for silenced voices, providing revolutionary advocacy for fellow folks in struggle trying to survive, creating cultural art and street based education.  We will continue to live the revolution by any means necessary. We can't control rumors and lies that are craftily posted on social media and disseminated by other means.  This manipulation is rooted in envy, jealousy and distortion of the truth.  It has no place in our humble revolution known as Homefulness.

(Editor's note:  Tony Robles is co-editor of POOR Magazine and board president of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation (www.manilatown.org).  He is following in the footsteps of his uncle Al Robles, Manilatown elder, poet,  historian and major figure who fought in the anti-eviction struggle for the International Hotel and was instrumental in the subsequent rebuilding of the hotel 30 years later.  Al Robles was a board member of POOR Magazine until his death in 2009, and honors him as an elder ancestor through our work and our Al Robles Living Library Project)

January 27, 2015

As we gear towards a new local and state government election season, it would appear that San Francisco Mayor Ed “the Liar” Lee may go unchallenged in his first re-election bid and what would be his final term as mayor.

Lee almost single-handedly sold the city hook line and sinker to high tech industry giants such as Google, Facebook, and Dropbox. He gave them huge tax cuts and other incentives, which inspired many of their employees to move closer to work, thus displacing many low income and people of color residents, some of whom were life-long.

Now it would appear that Lee is using typical political doublespeak to try to appeal to the very same people he helped displace. He is pretending to champion the cause of poverty and homelessness by throwing terms like “affordable housing” and “ending poverty” around, with hopes to increase his chance of winning the election. He even gave some homeless and poor folks a false sense of hope by making them feel included in Measure “C” back in 2010. Measure C was a ballot initiative that promised to use some hotel taxes to build affordable housing, housing he had no intention of having extended to homeless or other poor folks.

Two faced politicians are nothing new to San Francisco [or anywhere else in the world for that matter]. For instance Gavin Newsom, the current Lt. Gov. of California who is expected to run for governor at the end of Brown's term, hand-picked Lee as his successor on a platform of “ending homelessness as we know it.” Newsom set the ball in motion for the current housing crisis by appointing Lee to finish his final term as mayor, knowing full well what Lee had planned for the city as well as the poor population.

Getting back to the myth of affordable housing: it is necessary to point out why this term is doublespeak. To us low income folks who are not in the political arena or real estate industry, we hear the phrase affordable housing and think, “Oh great! Finally decent housing I can afford!” But politicians and developers actually mean “affordable
to the wealthy and middle class, but not to the poor.”

The people have cried for a transparent government for quite a while, but Ed Lee is transparent in a completely different way. As in, his lying is flat out obvious.

January 27, 2015

I stand on the point overlooking baby Baghdad.
As I gaze across the waters of the bay…
I’m mesmerized captivated by the bay’s view…
An iconic landmark a rare diamond in the rough….
I’m intrigued by its panoramic view.
The point is well known for its famous history rich culture and renown sights….
So what’s the Point?
Notorious for its reputation ….
Hard hitters and grave diggers….
Occupy these concrete huts….
Then we have our wild flowers raised in stone flower pots….
The sundial looks over us casting shadows of the sun remaindering us what time it really is…
Captured by the hunter and blinded by its view….
Eyes wide open and still can’t see in front of you…
Street corners and sidewalks covered like painted canvases….
Dots periods form images making the picture complete…
So what’s the Point…?
We survive deadly elements on a daily basis.
Yet, we continue to beat the odds that are critical to our existence…
Our environment grows more and more hostile but we endure.
Redevelopment and Gentrification threats are on the rise…
Leaving us no choice but to submit to the times….
Fears of displacement or maybe de-location….
No matter how you look at the situation…
The numbers of blacks has decrease in population…
So what’s the Point?

A treasure chest tucked by the bay….
A ghetto reality soon to fade away….
Known for its landmarks and breath taking views…
We’re more than a sight.
We’re the Hunter’s Point/ Bayview…
Transformation has been applied influenced by capital and political demise.
You better recognize!

A written agenda set in motion for Hunter’s Point present time…
Plans have been implemented to meet proper provisions…
So what’s the point!
I shout out to my community….
I shout out with a point…
I shout out to the residents in the Bayview / Hunter’s Point…

January 21, 2015

The transparent liar Ed Lee has done it again: first by throwing elderly and disabled people of color under the bus with an unreasonably harsh policy of punishing fare evasion; and then by pretending to be a hero by agreeing with the SFMTA’s recent proposal to extend free Muni to elderly and disabled patrons as it has previously done for the city’s youth.

Prior to Lee's mayoral term, Muni was essentially free to anybody who boarded the bus from the rear. People were rarely questioned or stopped. Part of Lee’s efforts to “clean up the city” has been cracking down on fare evasion, thus making it even more difficult and expensive for poor people to live in one of the most expensive cities in California as well as the entire country.

Now it's getting closer to Ed Lee's potential second elected term as mayor. Many of the people impacted by his fare evasion crackdown are, like himself, of Asian descent. No political candidate in history in this country has ever won an election by not carrying the vote of his own people. One dead alleged fare evader and at least one severely beaten alleged fare evader later, the policy has not only turned out to be fruitless but a waste of city funds that could be used on much worthier causes.

On the steps of City Hall at noon this week, many elders and disabled spokespersons sat holding signs alongside community leaders and local politicians. Many of the elders were Asian descended females but all types were present. Many spoke asking for clarity about what will happen with the new proposal to make Muni free to elderly and disabled people.

At about 12:45 most of the demonstrators went inside to hear how the city board members would cast their votes.
My friend Mira Ingram and I were asked by a local news station about how the new change would impact us.

By 5pm that evening I got the news via Facebook that the Board approved the new measure to go into effect March 1 2015.

Under the bus then over it: even yoyos ain’t got no tricks like that!

When a mother and her autistic son are evicted, where are they supposed to turn? For Bessie Taylor of Monterey County, every option has come up short. Now, she’s worried about what comes next.

Bessie Taylor and her autistic son, Devonte

Bessie and Devonte Taylor are staying in a motel, but come Friday, the money for that will run out.

“I don’t want to cry in front of him. I don’t want him to see that I’m hurting. But he knows. He’s going, ‘Are you OK? Is it my fault why we moved?’ He thinks it’s his fault that we had to move. He asks me every day, ‘Is it because of me?’ No, it’s not because of you,” Bessie said.

So whose fault is it? It seems like a mix of negligence on behalf of the Taylors’ landlord and the Housing Authority of Monterey County.

Bessie has lived in her home, Section 8 housing in Salinas, for 22 years. She moved in with her son Devonte when he was nine months old. Now 22, Devonte’s life revolved around their home – there, he could come and go safely, make food on his own and relax in his room watching movies.

“Movies are his thing,” Bessie said.

But in June, Bessie learned for the first time that she and Devonte have the right to “reasonable accommodation” for the needs of public housing residents with disabilities through the Fair Housing Act.

Taylor began the application process.

“I got letters from the teacher; I got letters from the doctor,” she said. She completed the paperwork, and filed her request for reasonable accommodation Sept. 27.

By that time, her landlord – who had already been eyeing a raise in rent – came to expect the money from the “reasonable accommodation” expense as a condition for the Taylors staying in their home.

But the money didn’t come. A month after putting in her request, Taylor hadn’t heard an answer.

After Bessie’s calls and visits, with the help of her friend Pamela, a local community advocate, she finally heard back from the Housing Authority. But the accommodation they offered wasn’t enough for the landlord.

Suddenly, after 22 years, Bessie and Devonte Taylor were being evicted.

When a mother and her autistic son are evicted, where are they supposed to turn? For Bessie Taylor of Monterey County, every option has come up short. Now, she’s worried about what comes next.

“That’s the only home he’s ever known,” Bessie said.

She was made to pay for her own moving truck and storage expenses, as the Taylors moved their lives into a storage unit. They began looking for another place to live – a frustrating process, as the demand for Section 8 housing far exceeds the supply.

They still haven’t found anywhere. Now, they’re staying at a motel, paid for in part by Poor Magazine. But the money to fund that situation will run out Friday. And Bessie doesn’t know where to turn.

“I called the Salvation Army. I went to the Red Cross,” Bessie said. “Nobody will call me back.”

And homeless shelters aren’t safe for Devonte, Bessie explained.

“My son, he walks all through the night. He mumbles, he makes all these funny noises. They don’t understand that,” Bessie said. “In the shelter, you go in at 6:30 and you have to be out at 6 in the morning. They don’t care that he has a disability.”

These conditions simply don’t work with Devonte’s life.

“He has appointments scheduled; you can’t break that. When you break that, it messes him up,” Bessie said.

What the Taylors need is a stable home.

“All I’m asking for is just a place to call my own. For me and him. Just somewhere I can lay my head and not worry that I have to get out tomorrow,” Bessie said.

“He needs a place of his own. He doesn’t need to be living in a motel. He needs his own room. His everything. I had to put everything that he owned in the storage, everything that was his. Kids are like that; you can’t just uproot them and take their things away from them,” she said.

Pamela is still helping the Taylors. She says that Monterey County has few resources for women of color.

Bessie Taylor is looking for support with money or legal services to get back into a stable home with her son Devonte.

“There’s no Black leadership here, no one in the City Council that represents the voice of Black people,” Pamela said. “They don’t have anything over here for women of color.”

For Pamela, this is personal. Her own son, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, wasn’t able to get the resources he needed from the county. He died earlier this year when he was struck by a train.

“With my son’s death and all the personal things I went through with marginalization, I wanted to make sure that Bessie had a voice and that she was supported and was not alone,” Pamela said.

“We can’t bring my son back. But we can help to keep her son – and let people know that Black lives matter. I want her to be recognized and respected and helped along the way,” Pamela said.

Bessie Taylor is looking for support with money or legal services to get back into a stable home with her son Devonte.

How you can help

POOR Magazine is currently seeking legal support for the family to overturn the illegal eviction from public housing as well as collecting emergency donations for Bessie and Devonte to keep them temporarily housed in the motel so they are not on the street. So far we were able to extend their motel stay by two weeks.

If you are a lawyer in that area, call us at 510-435-7500. If you can donate, please go to www.poormagazine.org/rev_donor and add the notation “4 Bessie.”

Yael Chanoff is an activist and journalist with Poor News Network and can be reached via deeandtiny@poormagazine.org. Visit POOR at www.poormagazine.org.

PNN-TV: Pacific Island Scholars Sing spirit into Mama Earth & Mama Ocean- at the Indigenous Block at the March for Climate Leadership, California

By Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia/daughter of Dee, mama of Tiburcio

“You gave away his Xbox????” With a look of terror my 11 year old sun’s friend was desperately hoping this news was not true. “Yes I did,, and if he was given another one, i’d give that away too.” Since my sun was born i have been living in fear of the impending threat of digital games, phones, pads, pods, chats, tweets, tubes and teeth. This hilariously serious conversation came flooding into my mind when I heard the most recent case of Tech Addiction- (my new name for child addicts dying on the digital streets) the murder of an entire family by 16 year old Jason Hendrix of Corbin, Kentucky

Like the fostering of any new addiction. It always begins with the ready supply of the substance to the potential user and the easy access to the substance dealer. To lock in and broaden the potential reach and success of the substance it must receive complicit or explicit societal support such as the coming of age alcohol-induced parties and celebrations practiced across Mama Earth by so many of us colonized peoples, normalizing the man's poison aka alcohol for all of our young people.

For the first two years of my sun’s life my family was in deep poverty and struggle, me juggling the extensive care for my mama who was very sick as well as the always hard care of my then infant child. I was unable to work and therefore unable to afford child care and rent--much less food and diapers. It was at this time in the middle of so much struggle that i launched Mamahouse a collective home for poor single mamas like myself, so we could support each other with child care and shared resources and support, the one thing so many of us single parents lack. It got me out of homelessness and was beautiful in all the ways of interdependence, sharing and collective work that it should have been, except for one thing, I was now in the position of saying no to my 2 year old sun who was already being offered a video game to play, a computer to play on and a phone to “use”

I said no many times, even in the face of so many introductions to the digital streets, “You will be forced to come around someday, my co-madres all warned me, shaking their heads, just wait and see.”

Now don’t get it twisted i am not a hippie mama with back to nature privilege and no phones, TV’s or computers in the house. I am a concrete jungle survivor who barely made it out of a life of poverty and houselessness. I was raised by a poor single Afro-Puerta Rican mama who had followed the Bernie Mac school of child raising and was still slapping me upside the head till the day she transitioned if i “did something wrong”. But i knew the terrifying way face-book had so easily become “face-crak” to my already formed brain and therefore knew in my deepest heart that these digital streets were no place for a child, much-less a young person’s un-hardened skull open to all the force a satellite transmission ever needs.

From the video game themes, ranging from fetishized gendered characters like Movie star planet that helps young girls and boys be rich and famous so they can spend thousands of “fake” dollars buying inappropriate clothes and things to Grand Theft Auto, that promotes young men and women hurting, stealing, killing or cheating each other in some criminalized image of “pseudo-gangster” (read cool Black, Brown and working-class youth) all created/designed by 20 something mostly white, middle-class tech designers who were raised in the suburbs of Amerikkka or the Military Industrial complex video sponsored killing games like Halo, Dark Souls or Dead Rising where you can be the shooters ,snipers, killers or zombie killers in the omnipresent zombie apocalypse we all have been waiting for.

And then the endless chatting, texting , tweeting, role playing, and tagging. Between all this simulated life who has time for real life? especially real , boring, hard-working, not really that exciting life.

And although I think it is actually urgent for us to completely move off the killer digital streets, or at least severely limit our use, if for nothing else to stop the never ending hunger for more and more of Mama Earth's finite energy, the reality is that the internet is a powerful research tool and there are thousands of great math, science, art, media and music sites that can be used for learning and teaching, talking and communicating.

And yes as a poor single mama i have needed a “break” raising my energetic sun multiple times just like the next in-struggle mama. When we were in our deepest financial stress i went through elaborate schemes to prop my sun up in front of a cartoon show that i thought was age appropriate so i could get some work done, help my mama or just rest. I can’t always be there to entertain this goofy child who is endlessly wanting my attention. But books and art and drawing and sports are real too. And so i would limit the TV and cartoons and the movies to a minimum of one night a week. And i begged, borrowed and stole for endless paper and art supplies and went to the library A lot.

And no matter how tired or depressed i was I would read to him and tell him bed-time stories when i didn’t have to work at night. And most importantly i began teaching him very early on that if he ever wanted to play a “video” game he would have to learn to make one, I taught him the little i knew about the “code source” the root, back-end of every website and video game and digital application from twitter to face-crak. And perhaps most important of all, I taught him to be conscious, I explained to him in detail who owned most of the games and phones he and his friends desired so much, how the Zuckerbergs of the world made millions of billions of dollars off him and his friends every time he would click, chat, drag, text or tweet,only to flood our no longer affordable city with more 20 something over-paid employees riding in private buses. The same 20 & 30 something people who would rather my sun and his poor, working class Black and Brown friends and their families were no longer living in Gentrification City, USA. Yes i made the connection between video games, tweeting, face-craking, i-phoning and gentrification and the direct impact it all had on our lives.

The final tragic irony was both Mamahouses were ended by greedy, gentryFUKing landlords, burning us out in MamaHouse 1 and raising our rent by $700. 00 in one month in MamaHouse 2 scattering all of us formally houseless mamas into houselessness, again, gentrified out of our working class neighborhoods of color forever by the same forces, industries and tax breaks who were supplying our children with so much digital distraction.

Then in the last three months dozens of different mamas and aunties have come to me with stories of 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 and 16 year old children screaming, destroying things, and/or becoming dangerously violent against their own families when their technology was taken away, limited or withheld. And then the story of Jason Hendrix, 16, of Corbin, Kentucky, who killed his parents,, and his sister Grace Hendrix execution style on Wednesday in their home, police believe after his computer privileges were taken away.

In our own Deecolonize Academy - a revolutionary indigenous -run/poor people-led, arts - based school at POOR Magazine and Homefulness we have addicted children who don’t sleep all night because they proudly announce, “ I’m a gamer, yo.” We have a no-technology rule at skoo, but sometimes they are so tired they can barely get through a school day. We are hoping to break this addiction next semester when we ask them to lead a WeSearch investigation on the radiation, racist and classist stereotypes and Military Industrial complex lies funneling into their young heads from the devices. Not to mention their current investigations into gentrification and Climate Change both side effects of these extremely wealthy Tech Dealers who ride private buses and never get arrested for their drug pushing into our children’s minds.

So this is my point fellow mamas and uncles and grammas and dads, you aren’t being mean cause you make your child read a paper book, or go outside and play with a ball or have them sit in a car and look out the window without something in their head, hand, ear or eyes, endlessly distracting them, exciting them , stimulating them. This is called Life, and its not always that fun, and there are real tangible ways to interact and get along and learn and be in the world that has NOTHNG to do with digital interaction.

You aren’t being mean if you just say no to a phone at 10 or a computer at 12 or an iPad or tablet at 5. It's not necessary. Your children will live and guess what they will thrive and not be in any creeping danger of never spoken of but very real, brain tumors, early cataracts, glaucoma or thyroid cancers caused by phones, pads, wifi signals or computer blue screens. And if they challenge you, " well you use the phone, ipad and computer," remember who the parent is and say, that's right , i do and I'm an adult and you are not, and you have no business comparing yourself to me (followed up by other issues like who pays the bills, rent, food, clothes, etc if you even entertain their "challenge" this long).

Actually with this "no" you will be saving your child, from the increasing robotization and corporate theft of our bodies, minds, souls and neighborhoods, and your children will be the few among us actually awake and aware enough to help heal this very tortured mama earth, help their lost, evicted and zombified friends and families and as an extra added bonus they will be ready for the real zombie apocalypse when it arrives