Story Archives

by Sam Drew/PNN

"We are not afraid of these politicians who are trying to criminalize our youth," said Renee Saucedo to a crowd gathered in front of San Francisco City Hall to protest San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera's recent gang injunction. Approximately ten days ago, a San Francisco judge upheld the City Attorney's application for the injunction, which prohibits certain individuals' presence within the injunction zone.

We were there to speak out against these racist, criminalizing polices. "These injunctions only cause more racial profiling and police harassment against Latino and African-American communities," Luis Aroche, a youth advocate with the Mission Community Response Network, said to the crowd filled with youths, teachers and scholars from neighborhoods across the Bay Area.

To clearly and symbolic illustrate our demands, we had decided to confront City Attorney Dennis Herrera in his office in City Hall and serve him with a symbolic injunction notice ordering him to stay out of our neighborhoods, which include the Mission, Bayview/Hunter’s Point and the Western Addition.

Also included on the injunction notice were six demands from the community:

- Clear and fair criteria to get off the injunction list.

- Guaranteed support services for those on the injunction list.

- A clear process to get off the injunction list that does not involve people having to serve as informants.

- An official investigation of police misconduct and racial profiling during the enforcement of the injunction.

- A public commitment from city officials to implement a long-term violence prevention plan that addresses the root causes of violence.

- An outlaw of future gang injunctions in San Francisco.

According to Sandy Banks Los Angeles Times staff writer, "The LAPD has intensified it's war on gangs with stepped up patrols and tough enforcement of a year old court injunction that allows the arrest of Grape Street Crips if they congregate in the project or on surrounding streets. Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who represents the area, said her office has been deluged with complaints from residents who say officers' heavy handed tactics are saddling young men with arrest records and increasing hostility towards the police. At her prodding, LAPD Chief of Police, William J. Bratton and City Attorney, Rocky Delgadillo have pledged to review the injunction process."

We were calling for not just a review, but an end to the gang injunction in our neighborhoods, streets, parks and communities.

As we walked through City Hall to meet Mr. Herrera, I noticed how much the building resembles a mausoleum with its cold marble interior and how the presence of tortured spirits being held against their will permeated the environment. In contrast, the heat that emanated from the young people seeking an end to this injunction added life to the desolate, soul less environment.

One after another, we piled into the City Attorney's Office to show our unity. The receptionist looked extremely concerned by the presence of all these Bay Area citizens exercising their rights.

After leading a chant Renee Saucedo announced the purpose of our visit and requested Mr. Herrera to accept our papers. After a few seconds of awkward silence the spokesperson for Mr. Herrera said he was busy in a meeting and couldn't come out to receive his papers.

I could tell by how tight the spokeswoman had her arms clenched that they weren't used to having to deal with that many citizens. The law enforcement officer who stood next to Herrera's spokesperson told us, "He won't be coming out because no one made an appointment."

Renee Saucedo swiftly responded "Dennis Herrera didn't make an appointment with us when he started the gang injunction." Her response was met with applause and cheers. Because Mr. Herrera refused to meet with our group, an earful of scholarship was given to the nervous spokeswoman, as many people spoke to how this injunction is a policy only aimed at criminalizing young people.

Although we weren't allowed to see Mr. Herrera, we decided to continue on in the belly of the beast and meet with our elected officials. After all they do work for us. We went into the offices of Supervisors Peskin, Chu, Sandoval, Amminano, Dufty, Maxwell, Alito-Pier and Daly. A copy of the injunction was given to each one’s staff person along with the reasons we wanted the gang injunction to be stopped.

A Southern California newspaper reported that its review of the impact of a local gang injunction showed that nearly 80% of the gang members named in that injunction had been convicted of at least one crime since the injunctions were imposed. More than half of those convicted committed crimes in the injunctions target neighborhoods, indicating that gang members neither ended their criminal acts nor moved away after being served with court orders to do so and that these gang injunctions do little to decrease gang violence.

As Nancy Hernandez, (Homies Organized in the Mission to Empower Youth) said, "This gang injunction is attacking a symptom of the problem not the root cause. The problems are poverty, gentrification, Lack of programs, lack of jobs and after school programs."

As we walked down the spotless halls of power I was reminded of the words uttered by Minister Christopher Muhammad when he spoke at a rally about San Francisco politics, he said, "They use the word gentrification but the real word is ethnic cleansing, to remove poor people of color in every neighborhood."

by Vivian Hain/PNN

Thanksgiving, a holiday which glamorizes the ruthless colonization of America, is more of an economic hardship for many low-income families like mine than a holiday to over-indulge in food and drink on. Well, today, I went to collect my "holiday food basket," which is dispersed from my local food bank to either a non-profit agency or a food pantry, usually a local church in my neighborhood where I can get a food subsidy for a holiday meal like Thanksgiving. This year, I collected my holiday food basket from a non-profit agency.

When I went to pick it up, I was given a small cardboard box full of random canned and dry food that had nothing to do with Thanksgiving Day like dry macaroni, cans of pork n' beans, soup, sloppy Joe mix and tuna, along with a small gray plastic bag full of a couple of small potatoes, sweet potatoes and onions. What was most unbelievable is that instead of being given an actual turkey or a grocery store voucher so that I could go get a turkey for my family, I was given two small frozen low quality Sun-Land brand chickens! I was really upset and perplexed by the fact that this is what poor adults and families are given for the holidays from their local food banks when these families are already facing multiple economic challenges during a time of the season when capitalist values tend to be more important than insuring that everyone gets a proper and nutritious meal for the holidays.

Last year, the same thing happened. I got a "holiday food basket" donated to me from a non-profit and I collected another one from my local food pantry (church). Both places gave me the exact same thing; a bunch of random food that had no relevance to what Thanksgiving is supposed to represent at the dinner table and two Sun-Land young chickens that have a label on them that says: Some giblets may be missing. May contain up to 6 percent retained water. Also, when I attempted to cook one of these low grade quality chickens last year, they had a lot of fat on them and even still had some feathers attached to them too! My friend from Eastern Europe even got out his cigarette lighter and set fire to the feathers on the raw chicken and told me: "This is what we do back in the old country, while sparks flew from the damp feathers as a burning smell filled the air." The chickens had so much fat on them, that I refused to eat them and even ended throwing one whole chicken away after cooking it!

I phoned my local food bank to ask them why they are giving poor adults and families chickens instead of turkeys for Thanksgiving? Their response was that because of the Bird Flu epidemic, there is currently a mass shortage of turkeys. Hence, the Bird Flu is in South East Asia, where turkeys do not exist, but chickens do!

I was also told that there were very few turkey donations given this year (I suppose this could be said for last year too!) and that they had only received 500 turkeys and gave the majority of them primarily to agencies that feed a large amount of people on Thanksgiving Day. I was also told that currently, there is a lack of federal funding for food banks from the US Government (thanks to Bush Incorporated) and that the supermarkets have first dibs on the turkeys, so whatever is left over, the food banks get. I wasn't convinced by this information and later found out that much of it was incorrect.

This problem seems to cross the bridge here in the Bay Area. I was told by my POOR News Network colleagues who live in San Francisco that they were also given chickens instead of turkeys for Thanksgiving just like here in Alameda County. I was told by Laure McElroy, a PNN correspondent who also works with Homeless Prenatal in San Francisco that they had to resort to giving food referrals for "chicken Thanksgiving meals" from their non-profit agency too.

I would go to a local supermarket where I found so many turkeys, literally pouring over the frozen display bin and that the supermarket had marked them down half price in order to get rid of them. So, I bought my turkey with my EBT food stamp card, while thinking about the many unfortunate low-income adults and families who got that same "holiday food basket" for Thanks-Taking and didn't have food stamps or any choice, but to eat "chicken FEED" this year in the wealthiest nation in the world where food is always plentiful.

by Sam Drew/PNN

"I'm trying to get my son back!" was Sandra Thompson's response to my mundane question about her well-being. Sandra has suffered through a series of emotional setbacks that would have crushed a weaker person. But her dogged determinism for justice and strong belief in God have kept her thinking positive

I first met Sandra at POOR Magazine's monthly Community Newsroom meeting in downtown San Francisco. She riveted the audience with her story of being made a pariah for reporting her sexual abuse to the proper authorities and the removal of her beloved son by Child Protective Services(CPS) and the judicial system.

She was attending San Francisco City College working hard to acquire her AA in Criminal Justice. "I wanted to get a degree in Criminal Justice to inspire the youth. I worked myself from homelessness," she said proudly. "But I have a past, I came out of the Foster Care System and later got into juvenile hall, I then got involved with gangs. I spent 6 years at Chowchilla Prison for involuntary manslaughter. I did not do it but I was convinced to take a polygraph test. I was young and wasn't educated about my civil rights . But I've changed my life,"? she said seriously.

Sandra exhibited pride, as she told me she was on schedule to graduate in the Spring of 2008 with a high G.P.A. But her mood quickly changed as she began describing what happened with one of the instructors. While she was working on acquiring her GED, a math teacher offered to tutor Sandra because as she says she "was weak in Algebra and Geometry."?

"He said we would have to go back to his place to study. That is where he attempted to rape me,"? she said her eyes filled with rage and sadness. Sandra did what people are told to do after this type of assault "I reported the incident to Affirmative Action and then I went to the Chancellor."? Sandra spoke with someone at Affirmative Action and then with the Dean and the Chancellors office, but her charges were dismissed. "They sent me a letter that they hired an investigator but they couldn't substantiate my charges,"? she added.

But this denial of justice didn't stop Sandra from speaking out. "I was put on Disciplinary probation because of my disruption of complaining to the chancellors office." Then according to Sandra she was suspended indefinitely for speaking out at the meeting of Chancellors.

Sandra is not only speaking out on her behalf but also for other students,"A lot of other students on campus mention that instructors have done this to them too. But there is no support for students on campus,"? she said.

With all this drama swirling around Sandra her thoughts remain focused on her seven-year-old son Emmanuel. Sandra smiled warmly as she told me, "His name comes from the Bible."

But her smile quickly disappeared as she continued telling the story of her son. After learning that her husband was giving Emmanuel medication behind her back and that he had threatened him, she took her son to the police station and she was given an Emergency Protection Order. On September 7th, Sandra arrived in court under the impression that she was attending a restraining order hearing.

She sighed as she continued with the painful memory. "But when I arrived [they] told me it was not a restraining order hearing but that it was my custody hearing for a CPS report that said I convinced my son to make false accusations against his father," she said.

At court that day Sandra was shocked to hear that C.P.S. would be removing her son because she was "withholding his medication"? and she was told that this was "not an open case."

Today Sandra's husband has sole legal custody of her son and she has no parental rights, as she is struggling with two court cases. Her current attorney will remove himself in the beginning of December and as of now Sandra, like so many other parents struggling with C.P.S. has no legal support for her next hearing on December 21st.

Yet with all the hardships Sandra has encountered she remains upbeat as she defiantly says, "I'm a survivor of domestic abuse, nothing will stop me from achieving my goals, I want to work with women in prison; I want to make sure what happened to me doesn't happen to other single mothers. I will not be intimated...If you do not stand up and speak out for yourself, things will never change."

If you can assist Sandra Thomsen call (415) 351.9988 or visit the website www.freewebs.com/comelooksee

by Marlon Crump/PNN

"I just want everyone here in San Francisco to know that I do NOT support the gang injunctions," native San Franciscan and recent mayoral candidate Lonnie Holmes told me in an interview for POOR Magazine.

A juvenile probation officer and father of five, Mr. Holmes expressed his disbelief to me of the extremely secretive, racist and classist gang injunctions that have recently been implemented in San Francisco, as well as shared his views and opinions on many of the dire issues facing San Franciscans today.

I met Mr. Holmes on a relatively warm November morning at the Harvest Urban Market in the SOMA district of the City. A well-dressed African-descent man, Mr. Holmes greeted me warmly and asked if I wanted to take a ride with him while he campaigned.

We drove around his native neighborhood, the Western Addition Fillmore District, Grove and Hayes St, and just briefly at the Ella Hill Hutch, to greet his fellow colleagues and community members. A San Francisco Police Department squad car yielded to us as we passed the oncoming traffic, and Mr. Holmes gave a friendly acknowledgment to the officers, shouting out his run for the next Mayor of San Francisco, California.

Mr. Holmes discussed his passion to help the youth, his family background, and his plan towards reshaping the Redevelopment Agency of its plans towards gentrification of the Bayview Hunter's Point, as San Francisco had done to the Fillmore, many years earlier. I was shocked and saddened to hear that his father, his aunt, and eight cousins died during the Jonestown Massacre in the South American country of Guyana.

Mr. Holmes believes San Francisco is on of the verge of a governance disaster if there is no substantive campaign for the city's chief executive office. "If thousands of homeowners and renters are pushed out of the city by misguided policies and inattentive leadership, it would be just as big a tragedy as Jonestown," he said.

We both expressed our feelings of resentment towards the rampant violence that has targeted communities of color, the unquestionable lack of employment opportunities for the youth, homelessness, and the gang injunctions.

After about an hour of driving around, we returned to the Harvest Urban Market to continue our interview. Holmes stated that he believed in social economical change, and violence intervention by providing youth employment opportunities.

Earlier that day, Mr. Holmes was at the scene of a murdered 20-year-old male, at Garlington Court in the Bayview Hunter's Point District. Though he felt that the youth nationwide, and predominately in communities of color were on the serious path of destruction, Holmes also felt that the onslaught of gang injunctions was not the solution at all towards violence reduction, anywhere in the country.

He discussed the beginnings of the gang injunctions in Los Angeles and its spread all across the nation to New York.

"The San Francisco City Attorney's Office is using the band aid approach, rather than treating the entire body. This city has invested a lot money into surveillance cameras, instead of providing much more valuable resources and support towards every community affected with the highest arrest rates," said Mr. Holmes.

Mr. Holmes continued, "Crime can be a symptom caused by poverty, and people are being left out of the American Dream...San Francisco is a very wealthy town, being the Mecca for the wealthy, but it should be for everyone."

Lonnie Holmes stated, however clearly to me that "Corporate Media will not get the privilege of coverage of my opinions, or stories of the issues that we're currently facing within this city, today. Only grassroots organizations of alternative media like POOR Magazine will have that privilege to cover these stories."

My final question to Mr. Holmes was if he could have a face-to-face conversation with current Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, regarding these issues, what would he say to him. The eyebrows of Holmes shifted downwards, a frown on his face was formed, and the tone of pleasantry slightly changed, at the mere mention of Newsom.

"What, you're asking me what I would say to Gavin Newsom regarding these issues? Let me ask you something, Marlon, you ever talked to a brick wall? Newsom's Administration has been truly ineffective to all of these issues, so what's the point?�" he asked me, as I chuckled to myself.

Hearing Mr. Holmes speak so eloquently and openly about all of these issues made me realize how refreshing it is to finally speak to someone who listens and answers rather than continuing to try and talk to the brick wall of the Newsom administration.

by Dale Ray/PNN

I remember waking up each morning to the strong stench of piss all around me and the cold ground beneath me. I would awake with my mouth feeling like cotton, as I tried to lift myself up off the hard concrete.

I lived homeless in San Francisco for many years. I was addicted to crack for 20 years and alcohol for just as long. I still remember my many sleepless nights on the street. Sometimes I would go to the Transbay Terminal just to get out of the cold and there would be twenty or thirty men beside me trying to sleep and stay warm.

These painful memories crept back into my mind, as I read about the future plans for a new Transbay Terminal in San Francisco. I thought about all those homeless men, women and children whose only safe refuge is the Terminal. What will happen to them if the new Transit Center is built?

The proposed plan for the new Transbay Transit Center is being called the Grand Central Station of the West Coast. They say it will be a transit hub for a metropolitan
“New York City style San Francisco,” but how will this city look, and whom will it be for?

In the discussion around the new Transbay Transit Center no one is talking about what will happen to the many homeless people that walk through the current Transbay Terminal doors to find a safe shelter. It is a story that the mainstream media and corporate developers are ignoring.

C.W. Nevius attempted to address the issue in his September 18th article in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled, "Guards, homeless form odd kind of community at Transbay Terminal,” yet he failed to make any connections or see the issue for what it is; a human rights issue.

He did not critically address the issue of what will happen to the homeless people who take refuge at the terminal, as he wrote, "If all goes according to plan, by 2014 a glittering, towering Transbay Transit Center will be erected in the heart of San Francisco. Designers say the tower will not only be a transportation hub, but send a message as a symbolic gateway to the city."

The message San Francisco and the new Transit Center’s supporters, like Nevius, are sending is that this City cares more about its appearance and attraction to wealthy visitors than it does for its own people. Rather than providing what’s necessary for those here to survive the City will be catering to rich outsiders.

The new Transit Center will set the tone for a new generation in the City that will increasingly view homeless people as a problem to push away rather than a symptom of much more rooted problems, such as the lack of services and resources in this city. San Francisco has a reputation as being a liberal minded city, yet its 2007 and San Francisco still considers poor people a problem that need to be cleaned up and out to make way for the rich.

Many people wrongly believe that all homeless people can find sleeping space in shelters if they simply try and that there is no need for people to seek shelter in places like the Terminal. From my own experience I know this is not true.

When I was desperate I would stop in at the McMillan Center on 39th and Fell Street. People go in there to get off the streets but you can’t go to sleep. They only have chairs. When I would start falling asleep someone would come around and say, "You can't sleep in here." All I wanted was a little rest, "I'm tired," I would say to them. But it was always the same. Shelters are no place to live. I preferred my spot in the alley near the corner of Seventh and Market. I along with many other people prefer the streets or the Transbay Terminal to McMillan or other shelters. As a recent Coalition on Homelessness article stated, "While the City no longer officially tracks “turn-aways” from shelters, one Coalition survey of shelter reservation sites found an average of 50 individuals turned away a day from shelter."

San Francisco does not have enough resources and safe places for homeless people to turn to and therefore, many are forced to sleep outside and in public places, like the Transbay Terminal. And often, in lieu of safe housing, houseless folks are cited and arrested for the sole act of being homeless.

In his article, Nevius quotes Charles Drew, a man who frequents the terminal. Drew calls the security guards there his family. In response Nevius ends the article with, "I've been trying to decide, is that the saddest thing I've ever heard, or the most uplifting?" Nevius does not conclude with any kind of analysis of the situation and certainly does not address the deeper question of why in the richest country in the world people are forced to create spaces to sleep and homes where none are provided?

Like Drew, I lost my family when I started living on the streets and when my addiction was at its worst. I lost everything. I lost my sense of integrity and morals. I did not have many people looking out for me on the streets and I was down and out every day.

Once after a night of heavy drinking, I met a couple of officers while I was singing the Nat King Cole song Mona Lisa. After that night they came around three to four times a week and started looking out for me. They became like brothers to me and often brought me food, and clothes, and once a pair of boots. Those two cops kept telling me I could do better, I could leave the life of an addict. They told me I was killing myself on the streets. They were my only constant source of encouragement. "You can do this," they kept saying to me.

I was lucky to have met those two cops. This city needs more people who are empathetic to those struggling on the streets. This city is in dire need of more places and resources to help the homeless instead of sweeping the problem and the homeless out of the streets and under the carpet.

I know what its like to have no where to go and to have to sleep on the street or in a place like the Transbay Terminal. Too many times it was my only option. The people who are still sleeping in the Terminal will be displaced and swept out of the City if the proposed plan is passed. These people will be forced out of their only shelter for a new glittering, towering symbol of the City’s wealth.

Dale Ray, has been living clean and sober for the last five years and has just graduated from Session 1 of the Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute at POOR Magazine. He will be releasing his book To Hell and Back published on POOR Press in February of 2008. For more information on his book or to order a copy, please call 415-863-6306.

To view Nevius' full article go to:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/09/18/BAOBS820J...

To learn more about the Redevelopment plans for the New Center you can visit the Transit Transbay Center Website at:
www.transbaycenter.org/transbay

The Transbay Join Powers Authority Citizens Advisory Committee (TJPA CAC) meets monthly on the second Tuesday of every month at 5:30 pm at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street (at 3rd Street), San Francisco, CA, in the 2nd Floor Conference Room. TJPA CAC meetings are open to the public. Send an e-mail to cac@transbaycenter.org to be added to the CAC mailing list to receive copies of upcoming agendas.

Currently TJPA CAC has no voting members who represent the homeless community.

by tiny/PNN

"Peddlers, panhandlers and prostitutes, they all need to be cleaned out [of Manhattan]." The first time I heard Rudy Giuliani speak was on a NBC nightly news broadcast. It was 1996. I was living in Oakland, Calif., at the time -- 3,000 miles away from Manhattan, where, as mayor, Giuliani was implementing his "clean-up campaign." But the sting of his speech still scared me.

It was the first time I had heard hygienic metaphors to describe poor people like me who were surviving in an underground street-based economy. Rudy Giuliani had become mayor of New York City on a campaign that constructed a new scapegoat for all of America's crime problems: "the squeegee man" (aka a person who cleans car windows at stop lights).

Giuliani was emboldened with "the broken window" philosophy, which claimed that if broken windows remain unfixed for a period of time the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

The theory was promoted by the hyperconservative Manhattan Institute and was already litmus tested by N.Y. Police chief Bill Bratten. In his now-infamous statement, Giuliani publicly linked three street-based economies and communities with dirt or trash: They were something to be cleaned up as a means to create the perfect U.S. city.

Under his rule, ridding Manhattan of the newly designated and oxymoronic "quality of life" criminals such as panhandlers, recyclers, window washers (aka squeegee men), sex workers, hot dog peddlers and street artists was the way to have a crime-free, user-friendly, corporate dollar-fueled city.

All of these memories came to me as I watched the little-seen but important documentary Giuliani Time. The two-hour-and-20-minute feature, produced and directed by Kevin Keating, uses a series of in-depth interviews with policy makers, advocates, sociologists and urban planners to reveal how Giuliani's policies during his reign from 1994-2001 led to extreme and dangerous police empowerment and subsequent decimation of human and civil rights of poor people and communities of color. The film shows how he created a template for criminalization that would be eventually emulated and implemented by mayors across the country -- from Atlanta to San Francisco.

The movie begins with a look at Giuliani's family roots with crime and vice: His uncle Harold was a loan shark out of a bar he ran in Brooklyn and eventually did hard time in Sing Sing. It then follows Giuliani's ambitious rise from state attorney general to a mayor who appropriated as his own the "quality of life" crime campaign from then-police chief Bratton.

The film shows a somewhat dense series of interviews outlining Giuliani's draconian strategy of using New York police to attack and manipulate the short-lived mayoral run of David Dinkins. Once he achieved his position as mayor, Giuliani began an onslaught of race-based profiling and harassment of African-American communities in New York by the NYPD.

Simultaneously, he launched a campaign to cut people off welfare en masse, regardless of its impact on poor families, to have homeless people considered criminals, and to have the simple acts of sitting, standing and sleeping outdoors and surviving on a street-based economy designated as crimes.

His welfare policies succeeded in making Giuliani the mayor best known for getting 600,000 welfare recipients off welfare and into a new form of slavery, "workfare." Workfare, is the hard labor (that isn't considered real work by the welfare system and most of society for that matter) one must do to get the minimal cash aid distributed by welfare. This includes doing previously union-held jobs like crack-of-dawn street sweeping and public restroom cleaning, and other forms of menial labor, for much less than minimum wage.

As this documentary revealed, Giuliani's police policies resulted in the specific profiling, abuse and arrest of men of color. The film shows the horrors that resulted from a newly emboldened police force -- including the brutalization of Hatian immigrant Abner Louima and the murder of Liberian immigrant Amadou Diallo.

As the daughter of a poor, homeless woman of color who worked on the street to survive in L.A., Oakland and San Francisco, I have felt the direct impact of locally implemented Giuliani-derived criminalizing policies over the last 10 years such as the Business Improvement District (BID), which in San Francisco was based in Union Square but modeled after Giuliani's BID in Times Square. Each BID includes a squared-off area that is policed by a private police force that cites, harasses and profiles everyone selling, sitting or standing who appears to be "poor." With the BIDs come the so-called "community courts," which are courts dedicated to the adjudication of "poverty crimes," i.e, selling without a license, trespassing, sleeping, urinating and other low-level crimes of poverty.

After viewing this documentary, I became even more terrified of Giuliani's impact. Rarely has one man so successfully harnessed the hatred and ignorance of the U.S. public for poor people and people of color. And rarely has the connection between race, class, xenophobia and ableism been so clearly played out in legislative actions such as the BIDs, community courts and overall police harassment of poor people that reverberate today in cities across the United States and is referred to by economic justice organizers as the "Manhattanization" of a city.

Quite by accident I was able to witness firsthand the impact of Giulani-like policies in action in Georgia. As a member of a delegation to the U.S. Social Forum, I visited Atlanta. Upon entering one of their business improvement districts, aka a Disney-like mall "town" that included chain stores and restaurants, I was met with a small corporate-logo covered police car filled with "officers" who wore cartoon-like bounty hunter hats. When some of my group and myself attempted to lean against a light pole and make a cell phone call we were asked to move because our leaning created a "perception of loitering."

As a low-income resident of San Francisco, another one of thousands of U.S. cities following Giuliani's model for "cleanliness," I grapple every day with the new science fiction-like world of where to sleep, sit, stand or dwell in a public place as a poor person when all of those things can be a crime. Where, even if you don't "look homeless," the mere perception of loitering is a citable offense.

Like some of the worst and bloodiest horror movies, you want to cringe and look away from Giuliani Time, but hold on to your seat, watch, look and listen carefully, because this man is running for president, and we must act now or his new form of fascism masked as "cleanliness" will be the norm for the entire United States.

by Bruce Allison/PNN

Around 8:00 am on a cool San Francisco morning, I walked into the Kaiser Hospital and met James Chionsini, a member of Health Care Action Team. We sat in the lobby and began speaking with Lionel Stanford, a formerly homeless senior from Honduras.

We were at the hospital for a meeting with the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California on the issue of hospital dumping of homeless and low-income patients into shelters and onto the streets in the City. State law requires that a meeting be held in order to address "homeless patient dumping" and we were there to make sure our voices were included in the report that would be sent to the state government. After the first meeting was closed off to service providers and advocates The Health Care Action Team (HAT) and the Coalition on Homelessness had protested and demanded another open meeting be held.

While we were talking in the lobby, the President of the Hospital Council arrived. I followed him closely, as he was acting suspicious. At the last minute, he changed the location of the meeting to a new place saying the first would be too small. He did not post signs about the change as required. Instead he posted notice of a change of an agenda item.

Then I yelled down from the mezzanine level to James where the meeting had been moved to, and he quickly posted signs.

With the help of James' last-minute signs, all people including, members of the Homeless Coalition, the chairperson of the Mayor's Disability Council, Anna Lolis and her service dog Henry, Lionel, the Head of HANK homeless outreach team, Buster's Place drop-in shelter Director Hank Williams, and all the hospital officials were finally able to find the meeting.

The President of the Hospital Council started the meeting. First the council wanted to know about homeless patient dumping happening in San Francisco and beyond. Being a poverty and disability scholar myself, I know all about the nightmare of hellthcare in this country for poor people and am extremely familiar with the illegal hospital dumping that's been occurring.

Since I was born, the City has gone from having 14 hospitals down to 7 while the population of San Francisco has not decreased. The issue of patient dumping is clearly connected to these hospital closures because there are simply not enough facilities to support the need. Hospitals are kicking out homeless patients and dumping them on the street with I.V.s still sticking out of their arms.

I told the council that out-of-City hospitals are also dumping to the shelters in San Francisco, mainly the Sheeton medical center, in order to side step the law and say they are not dumping in their own county. Then Hank Wilson brought up the fact that people from hospitals are dumped constantly at Buster's Place.

After listening to the presented information, the council adjourned the meeting and closed by saying that a record will be release next year after all the hospitals in the State have reported their problems to be looked at by the State Assembly.

There will also be another hearing on Thursday, December 6th at San Francisco's City Hall #263. All community members are urged to show up and testify to let the state government know about the problems with patient dumping in San Francisco.

Please stay tuned for a follow up report by poverty scholar and PNN columnist Bruce Allison.

by Joseph Bolden

Noel Niches

It’s a Sunny,brisk weather in San Francisco, I’ve just come from C.H. P.’s [Community Housing Partnership] Enterprises Launch.

After years of vocational job training and retention skills they found the so-called public & private business sector had major conniption fits over patchy,sketchy missing spaces in employee’s work his/her-stories.

I know from personal experience if you’ve lost, were fired,voluntarily left the for force,or through a nervous breakdown drifted for months or years…

That’s what’s they want to know about the missing parts.

Whether ex convicts who’ve paid in time for their crimes,traveled a bit,or was in college, university or undergraduate school it’s a pesky thing most employer’s like to know.

Sometimes many of us cannot or refuse to reveal personal facts because most likely its the very thing used against us to become gainfully employed!

C.H.P. filled positions with people trained who had doors constantly civil or not closed in their faces.

November 5th a few people were being hired that when it began.

November 29th makes it official publicly.

Meanwhile I’m working in one of these places but thinking of transferring after a time haven’t decided when yet.

Christmas music plays on a radio station,I’ve been invited to one Christmas party and have a guest or two in mind.

The radio show I’ve not been on in so many months I feel I should get back on before the year is out.

My own little business is slowly starting all that’s needed is help with uploading my image to another web site.

Still haven’t set up my own site because my pc is connected to phone lines
(I know,that’s easy get some orange box to get connected.)

But folks,to be smurfing [talking on the phone while on the internet simultaneously] will place me in the multicolor light speed of technology which I refuse to do!

No Friggin’ multi tasking for me {My apologies if I’ve offend any of my readers with what I’m about to say below}
[All my clothes are off,no watch,socks,in gritty equalized,give to get situations.]

Because concentrating on her,I want no distractions except slow rhythmic music.
The Slower The Better.

That will cost me readers or I’ll get a few serious invites on email or myspace pages either way I’ve told my truth and the devil is shamed.

My two niches may just keep me more mellow and alive.

First is House Sitting.

Second is Massage Therapist.

Curiously in either professions one has to be honest,have personal integrity.

A spotless reputation for placing others at ease so people have no fears.

That professionalism is a gold-platinum standard.

If I can do these two - job/career it would be ever so rewarding and relaxing to finally do two well paying professions where leisure,time,patience,is appreciated and not seen as wasted productivity.

I would’ve loved to have been an air courier escorting diamonds, cadavers around the world, or an anonymous…
Ok,here I go again now I understand why I needed 3 females editing my work.
Lets resume.

Let’s say body parts in those skin flick commercials you see before the feature films begins or at the end.
[It’s what I thought of to get off the streets and be paid doing it pun intended.]

But it was not to be so do with what you’ve got.

I’ve been thinking about a book lately when I met Mr. R. Gaule,former owner of "Soups" a nice,cozy,diner I use to frequent and where this stories origin begins.

I wanted to ask only two questions of him but may become more.

There have been errors, mishaps,misadventures,and mistakes in judgements made so what perfection is boredom all neat,clean,and waiting to die it just doesn’t know when.

May everyone find their niche or small pocket in life that works for them and not worry about other opinions.

Just live their lives however long or short they want and do what works for them and be at long last peace within their own souls.

Again for those not use to my writings I do apologize for anyone feeling offened in what I've honestly written.

by Marlon Crump/PNN

"Unfortunately, as of today Thursday September 27th, 2007 we have just received notice from the General Services Contracting Department, that our final day of service will be Friday September 28th, 2007. We sincerely apologize for the sudden and unexpected notice..."

This "special notice letter" from the American Building Service was an interoffice memorandum unexpectedly firing eighteen S.E.I.U. Local janitorial employees with less than 24-hours of notice right before the holiday season.

On the evening of November 20th at POOR Magazine's Community Newsroom, Andrew Solis from Service Employees International Union (S.E.I.U) Local 87 told the poverty scholars and staff at POOR about the evils of a new kind of employment gentrification: "being semi-bought, sold, told, and literally left out in the cold."

"When the new San Francisco Federal Building, located on 7th St was built here in San Francisco we were the first to clean it up. On September 27th, 2007, we were given less than a 24 hour notice of termination from these positions!" Solis explained, as we listened intently.

On the following day, of September 28, 2007, the employment of eighteen janitors from the SEIU Local 87 Union ceased to exist, without any reasonable explanations for their terminations and with less than 24-hour notice. The Union workers had been cleaning the new San Francisco Federal Building for its grand opening when they were notified of their termination.

The American Building Services (A.B.S), a janitorial service contractor, contracted the janitors for the work at the federal building. A.B.S has also contracted employees at other federal buildings, including one located at 50 Union Plaza, and the Office of the Immigration and Naturalization Services at 630 Sansome Street.

A non-union company based out of San Diego, California, called Exemplar Enterprises suddenly seized the janitors' contract at the federal building from the A.B.S. This company has no office or business license in the Bay Area. Its project manager, known thus far as only Daniela, the company's attorneys, Lewis & Rocca and its president, Martha Lutt, have refused to answer any inquiries into what seem to be illegal practices.

According to sources requesting anonymity, it is a possibility that Exemplar Enterprises President, Martha Lutt, is also an employee of General Services Administration (GSA), potentially causing a serious conflict of interest.

The 18 families of the 18 pink slipped janitors have now been deprived of a holiday season, courtesy of the U.S Federal Government of AmeriKKKa. A.B.S employed by the Government Service Agency, was ordered to wipe the ink off of the union contracts meant for many workers already struggling to provide for their families here in San Francisco.

The fired janitorial employees have many questions, all of which have been left unanswered. Why has Exemplar Enterprises been able to immediately obtain this janitorial contract from A.B.S.? Why was this particular non-unionized company exempt from having to comply with the Displaced Workers Protection Act?

The "special notice" provided by the A.B.S. has given no such information and has thus left its employees confused and in the dark about the abrupt loss of their jobs.

All that is currently known about this mysterious situation are the following facts. On February 10, A.B.S started their new contracted company with 4 out of 17 janitors. A.B.S was unaware of the new contract, so G.S.A decided to give Exemplar the contract. Exemplar proposed a contract that paid employees one dollar less than the Union workers, and reduced the amount of employees from eighteen to eight. They took over the contract, without the Union workers knowing that there was another contract proposed.

The Union employees that were fired were led to believe by federal managers that they would receive employment, by Exemplar Enterprises. It was requested that all the Union workers fill out a two-page application for employment, but employment was not extended to any of them. They were notified of their rejection for employment, in a letter signed the company's president, Martha Lutt. The only conditions for employment by Exemplar for the S.E.I.U Local 87 union members, was for them to sever all their ties to the union, itself.

The Union workers were primarily immigrant workers with families, of low-income status, and of color and are now fighting for the return of their jobs. The employees have been picketing outside the new federal building for two months, since October 1st, 2007. Since their protests, The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents (I.C.E) have also arrived using tormenting tactics and deportation threats.

The new Exemplar employees have been overworked, even prompting Exemplar itself to recruit individuals in the vicinity, including workers from the Best Western Hotel, on Seventh St out of sheer desperation. Employees of the federal building have constantly complained of improper custodial work, by the new employees.

San Francisco Board of Supervisor, Chris Daly's office is writing a proposal asking other fellow Board of Supervisor members, to support the janitors' struggle. This might happen as early as next week, and many are hoping this will pass. Andrew Solis has contacted Mayor Gavin Newsom, asking for his support individually, in addition to the support of the entire Board of Supervisors.

"I think it's horrendous how these companies think they can sit back and play with people's lives. With the unions standing in solidarity, that's the only way we can fight them," said Teresita Cruz, Vice President of S.E.I.U.

Exemplar sounds more like "exempt from any and all liabilities."

Please join POOR Magazine on Thursday, December 13th at 12:00 noon for a protest at the Federal Building on 7th street between Market and Mission in honor of the workers and demand their employment back.

by Newsbrief posted by PNN Staff

Pasadena, CA- This Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 3:00pm, a Federal Appeals Court in Pasadena, California will hear oral arguments in a precedent-setting legal battle to prevent Religious Freedom violations, environmental destruction and public health dangers associated with the use of treated sewage effluent for snowmaking in proposed ski area development on Arizona's San Francisco Peaks.

Tribal dignitaries and spiritual leaders as well as environmental groups will gather at the Pasadena Courthouse to attend proceedings in the case that will determine the fate of American Indian religious freedoms and challenge the Federal Government's lack of responsibility to protect public health.

The Tribes, Environmental groups and religious leaders are unified in multiple lawsuits against the US Forest Service, which leases the public land to the private ski business and has approved the proposed development. The San Francisco Peaks are recognized internationally as a sacred site. The Peaks are a unique ecological island and are held holy by more than 13 Native American Nations.

On October 17th, 2007 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the U.S. Forest Service and the Arizona ski resort the opportunity to challenge a previous unanimous decision by the court, which had blocked the ski area owner's proposed development and treated sewage snowmaking on the sacred Peaks.

To signify the importance of this precedent-setting case, a coalition of tribal representatives, environmental groups, local community based organizations and concerned citizens will march from All Saints Church in Pasadena to the courthouse at 1:00pm.
A prayer vigil will be held outside the courthouse during the proceedings.

The Chairman of the Hopi Tribe, Chairman of the Yavapai Apache Tribe, the Speaker of the Navajo Nation Council and other dignitaries, as well as representatives of Environmental Justice Groups, including the Sierra Club and Flagstaff Activist Network will be present at the courthouse and are scheduled to speak at a press conference following the proceedings.

For more information visit: www.savethepeaks.org.

What: Appeals court hearing in precedent-setting legal battle against U.S. Forest Service. There will be a march, prayer vigil and rally before court proceedings, and a press conference with legal council, tribal leaders and environmental groups to follow.

Who: Coalition of Tribal Dignitaries and religious leaders, including the Chairman of the Hopi Tribe, Chairman of the Yavapai Apache Tribe, the Speaker of the Navajo Nation Council, as well as Environmental Justice Groups, including the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Flagstaff Activist Network.

When: Legal arguments to be heard on December 11th, 2007

12:30pm - 2 mile march starting from All Saints Church going down Colorado Blvd. towards the U.S. Court of Appeals.

1:40pm - March arrives at the U.S. Court of Appeals, vigil outside of courthouse.

3:00pm - Court proceedings begin.

5:00pm - Press conference outside of courthouse.

Where: U.S. Court of Appeals located at 125 S. Grand Ave. in Pasadena, CA.
March begins at All Saints Church located at 132 N. Euclid Ave. in Pasadena, CA.

Why: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently granted the U.S. Forest Service and an Arizona ski resort the opportunity to challenge a previous unanimous decision by the court, which had blocked development. The ruling had been hailed as a victory for Religious Freedom, Environmental Justice & Human Rights.