Story Archives

by Ace Tafoya/PNN media intern

During the summer of 1972, I heard the dreadful sound of slippers… Feet walking slowly, almost sliding to the bathroom to start yet another monotonous day. These house shoes belonged to my sister. She was getting ready to go to work in the tomato fields in the valley. It was 3.00 a.m. She was 14 years old.

Walking into the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery on March 2, 2002 to see five local bay area artworks responding to War and Globalization reminded me of my older sister.

The War mural from Rigo 2002, Michael, Asim Butt, Rene Muslin in
collaboration with LYRIC (Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center), represented how Americans feel about the war. The imagery of the gray colors of the mural, along with the model airplanes flying overhead, and the tape machine belting out youth voices commenting on how they are living during this time of war were very powerful.

On Target by John Leanos working with The Mexican Museum, Horace Mann Middle School and School of the Arts High School, is a powerful response to anti-youth discrimination, and it sent me back to my childhood days when my sister and older brothers were required to work in the fields like some sort of family tradition. "I don’t want you to have to work out there, ever," she said with sad and tired eyes.
I heard of all the horror stories about working out in the fields: the bugs, the mice and rats, dead and/or alive, the fainting spells
of both men and women, the grueling heat and the terrible working conditions.

"possible SIDE EFFECTS may include..." by Rene Garcia of Los Cybrids is a TILT (Teaching Intermedia Literacy Tools) project presented in partnership with Youth Arts collaborative of the San Francisco Art Institute and commissioned by Co-Lab:New Generations Collaborative Art and Learning and conceived in partnership by San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Arts Commission showcasing television
sets exhibiting endless commercials, war references, amazing sounds and lighting effects is an intergenerational, multidisciplinary installation exploring globalizations effects on the relationship between government, multinationals and media conglomerates. They all took me back to that summer when my sister had to wake up so early and face her bleak future.
I couldn’t help to think that she was being used as some sort of symbol.

Visit the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery at 401 Van Ness during the month of March 2002 and with great imagination, it could take you back to a time when life seemed less stressful. Unless you were a bubbling teenager on the brink of working in the demanding fields, or a third world child whose nation has collapsed due to globalization.

by Isabel Estrada/Youth in the Media Intern

The houseless people in front of the San Francisco Public library made a busy contrast to the wide, endlessly lazy gray pavement that just existed to absorb the bright sun. They talked, some collected cans, and others let upbeat phrases roll off their tongues, tempting oblivious passersby to buy a smile, maybe a moment of happiness or a sense of satisfaction at dropping a few pennies into a paper cup. I knew I was supposed to be going to City Hall, the huge stone building with the intricate gold that stood out against all the gray. I finally walked across the wide expanse of grass up to the steps of City Hall and into the cool darkness of the building and found myself just another person in a huge crowd of people waiting to get into the Legislative Chamber.

I tried to squeeze through until the guard at the door let us know that only the people in the line were going to get through.  So I walked passed all the people until I got in line with an old high school teacher.  She was with her partner who was involved in the Mid-Market PAC (Project Area Committee) to redevelop the area spanning from 5th to 8th streets between Mission and Market.  At first I was a little uncomfortable because while working at POOR I have come to see re-developement more as socio-economic cleansing, relieving rich white folks of the plight of having to see defecation on the streets and having to feel bad about all the money they have when there are people with no food or shelter.  However, I was slightly comforted by the fact that my teacher's partner was actually in the PAC meetings to advocate for more housing, more space for non-profit organizations and to keep the pro-business interests at bay.

I was soon to find out in the discussion that in fact the PAC -with all its pro-business interests and plenty of people who wouldn't mind seeing the poor simply swept off of the streets- is only a small hurdle.  As many people would note, the PAC is somewhat willing to listen to the community.  However, the PAC is only an organization of developers hired to advise the Redevelopment Agency. The PAC can give all the advice it wants, but the Agency isn't required to listen, and it has shown that often it doesn't.  That is where the problem arises.

The discussion going on in City Council essentially consisted of public comment on Chris Daly's proposed ordinance of disbanding the Redevelopment Agency, which is made up of of 7 Mayoral appointees, and handing over its work to the Board of Supervisors itself.

The example of the case of the Plaza Hotel, which included the Bindlestiff Theatre, the only Filipino based arts space in the nation, was cited repeatedly.  Over the past year, the non-profit organization TODCO has been presenting the Redevelopment Agency with a plan to renovate the highly dilapidated building, creating more low income housing and providing a space for the Bindlestiff Theatre (as opposed to illegally kicking people out to make it into a tourist hotel, as could have occurred with the Empress turned West Cork Hotel).  The much needed plan is still being held up in the Redevelopment Agency.

After waiting outside the meeting for quite a while I decided to try to get in as press but because I had no press pass and all my business cards had run out, the guard said, "Sorry, can't do anything for ya."  On my way back to the line a young African-American man in a large group, they were all wearing hard hats, stopped me and asked if I was a reporter.  When I told him yes he asked me to make sure to include his opinion.  His name is Tyson and the group he was with was YCD (Youth Community Development).  When he told me that he was for the ordinance and against the Redevelopment Agency I thought he would be echoing the general opinion of the African-American community.  He said he thought that Mayor Willie Brown was trying to make life harder for the people before he left office.  However, if I 'm to base the general sentiment of the African-American community on who spoke in the City Council meeting then they were at odds with the young men outside.  I heard by chance that the meeting was being played on a T.V. in the North Light Court.  I was angry and disappointed to find that in the 3 hours I was watching, the young men from YCD who had had so much to say and who had been bursting with so much energy had never gotten a chance to speak.  Perhaps they hadn't even been alerted that the meeting was being shown in the room below or that they could still speak even though they weren't in the Legislative Chamber.  

After some discussion, mainly between Supervisor Yee and Daly, over the fact that Marsha Rosen, the Director of Redevelopment Agency, was not even present, Daly stated that the Agency had been alerted about the meeting with plenty of time to makeplan to show up and ended requesting a 5 week continuance.  Supervisor Maxwell asked the Board to consider that the Agency is "helping and doing things in neighborhoods that we don't even consider."  However, she also mentioned the movement of African-Americans out of the Western Addition: "They called it Urban Renewal, we called it Negro Removal."

John Vargas spoke in a quick, clever and indignant manner in favor of the ordinance and very against the Redevelopment Agency.  "The housing crisis today stands on those failed policies and misapplied capital expenditures that went into the redevelopment process...You can't do anything better than reform this agency; look at what housing, what jobs have been lost.  Why didn't you do this twenty or thirty years ago?"

Next spoke an ex-Supervisor, Amos Brown.  He wanted the board to get rid of the ordinance.  He didn't think that the Board of Supervisors would do a better job.  He stated, "You can't have it both ways, if you want to be mayor run for mayor."  Then he resorted to personal attack with his comment directed toward Supervisor Ammiano, "you sound like snakes and some of you act like snakes."

Geoffery Liebowitz mentioned the case of the Whole Foods proposal for Fourth Street that would allow a grocery store that would provide healthy food with discounts for seniors right next to a building that housed 600 seniors.  The Redevelopment Agency never let it happen.  Liebowitz proposed term limits for the Commissioners on the Agency.

Of the three hours that I watched the public comment there was one pervasive opinion that almost had the quality of conspiracy.  Almost all the African-American's from Bayview/Hunters Point were against the ordinance and very supportive of Willie Brown and the Redevelopment Agency.  One man commiserated that "what the mayor is going through is living hell."  A woman told Ammiano that this ordinance was not "using due process of law."

Another man stated, "y'all need to give us liberty or give us death...The only thing that's savin' us today is the Redevelopment Agency."  James Gardner, who is a member of the PAC, said that he had worked hard to maintain a good relationship with the Agency, "there are difficulties but we're working through them." 

Another woman working with the PAC is scared of becoming unemployed if the Agency were to be disbanded.  Many said that redevelopment had come to their aid and had helped to stop evictions.  Yvonne Dylan said that she felt threatened by the ordinance. Ironically, despite all the praise of the Agency and of Willie Brown coming from the community, it is still the people of Bayview/Hunters Point that are suffering from high instances of asthma and cancer due to the fact that there is a PG&E Power Plant and an old Navy Shipyard dumping ground in the neighborhood. Besides, when you think of it, throwing down some money to appease this community of color is a small price to pay for the Redevelopment Agency if it means that it will be supported when it attempts to sweep all the poor folks out of the mid-market area, which is a much more lucrative area than Bayview/Hunters Point. Just judging by looks it seemed to me that the majority of the people who had spoken were at least middle class. I certainly didn't feel that I was getting a full representation of all of Bayview/Hunters Point. I even heard some comments made about Willie Brown busing a bunch of people over to the meeting so that they could testify in his favor.

There was only one African-American woman from Bayview/Hunters point that was completely against the Redevelopment Agency.  She said, "I do not want what happened in the Fillmore to happen in Bayview...We as the people are not getting housed."  She thinks that it's the Redevelopment Agency that needs "to be evicted." A disabled Asian man from Bayview/Hunters point said that he personally had seen no improvements in his neighborhood except for a prettier McClaren Park.   

One Anglo man accused many of the previous speakers of using "race-baiting to attack this proposal."  He noted that it was mostly communities of color that were evicted and gentrified under Willie Brown when the Dot.Com boom occurred. 

Sam Dodge of the Central City SRO Committee was indignant at all the support from the African-American community of Bayview/Hunters Point, noting that though the PAC may be listening to the people, it didn't mean that the Agency would too.

Every person who lives or had lived on Sixth Street spoke in favor of the ordinance and against the Redevelopment Agency.  Delphine Brody stated that she and the other tenants of the Seneca Hotel had been promised necessary repairs -a working elevator (especially important for the seniors), a washer and dryer as well as a community kitchen- by the Agency for three years.  Yet while they have seen no repairs "police repression has doubled...arresting my neighbors for walking while black."

We heard from a deaf African-American woman, Adriana Taylor who was a single mother living in the Plaza Hotel.  She said that living in such unhealthy conditions and with no kitchen was very detrimental to her son's health.  She said in sign language, "I want to ask for your help in fixing the Plaza Hotel."
 

Allison Lum, a former Sixth Street resident of the Raymond Hotel said that after a fire that occurred, most of her neighbors were not able to relocate.  She asked: if the Agency is doing so well, "why are there vacant buildings when people are dying on the streets." 

Another man pointed out that neither he nor any of the Supervisors could understand what it means to live in conditions like the Plaza Hotel.  He thought it was time for the people to stop letting "Willie Brown run the city for his business buddies and bring the decision making to the communities."  Bruce Allison mentioned that all over South of Market there used to be low-income housing where now there is the Moscone Center and the Yerba Buena Gardens.  The ex-tenants were never provided with housing at anywhere near the same cost. It's surprising that people wonder why there are so many homeless people in San Francisco.

At the beginning of the meeting, one man said that this ordinance was "a dividin' thing."  And, its turned out to be true.  An African-American man from the Plaza Hotel stated, "It's not about race; it's about housing.  Please take over the agency."  Here we have a man who is both poor and of color which means that he is the one who never gets listened too; the one who never gets any easy breaks.  We'll see if he'll have his way and I will continue to be able to listen to Guajira Guantanamera being played by street musicians in Civic Center Bart station and continue to see people of such different colors and backgrounds who know so much more about life than I when I walk around my city.

"Everytime I come here everything happens to me.  I lose my man, I lose my
head, I lose my mind, feel like I'm almost dead...I been down so long that down
don't worry me."

                        -Stormy Blues performed by Billie Holiday  

by Joseph Bolden/PNN

My last dollar goes to the 14 bus on its way to Embarcadero.
I am traveling with Jewnbug, Tiny, Mari, Isabel Estrada and Charles of POOR Magazine.

My 7th day straight working and I’m not feeling as enthusiastic as the rest of the POOR staff but here we go....

We meet up with huge crowds at the Embarcadero, a multitude of signs, people, shape, sizes, creeds, sex, national origins.
Communities from so many cultures and colors are represented At this beautiful rainbow march, hopefully there will be less police.

This brother wonders where are the TV camera’s, digital camera’s etc, so if the police get rude it can be caught instantly on the web, sent globally before they can stop the evidence from being seen and have their stories of what caused the incidents.

As I record the array of voices and sounds on my trusty recorder, Mari, Jewnbug, and Charles are debating stuff I can’t hear because band music on a flatbed truck is playing and being in front of it guarantees an ongoing trail of salsa/banda

I will be way behind the march because I’m not walking fast

Charles talking a deep south or midwest dialect about the march sounding like an authentic, salt-of-the-earth farmer guy in solidarity with the march. My only critique of today is it doesn’t seem quite as well organized as last year. As we creep up Market Street, I am told by Tiny "The low wage workers" and other people are up the next block."

There is a split or section in the middle of the street where we’ve stopped in the shadow of a huge gray, granite, cement and steel buildings blocking the sun - there is a slight wind makes it colder.

At 388 Market st, The 1st Republic Bank on Fremont walking down Market Street. Supervisor Mark Leno appears and begins to join the march here. Then we are all guided to stop in deference to a trollycar containing Nancy Pelosi and other VIP’s. More children from Horace Mann Middle School and others join in the parade at 4th street.

At 6th street we walk by my tenderloin hotel and I run in for a restroom moment. I use the bathroom, clean up and return to the march still in progress.

Just like last year the marchers take the long way around 8th street before ending the Cesar Chavez March at the Civic Center where a great celebration ensues replete with a Hip Hop artist who is Cesar’s nephew rapping bout globalization and issues concerning low wage workers locally and globally

We set up the POOR Magazine outreach table (aka the Po’ table) at the festival, which has moldy green smudges on it but with a little creative use of our signs as a tablecloth it is serviceable.

All in all it was a beautiful day for us poor folks to celebrate what I like to think of as one of our own, a true hero de la gente, Cesar E. Chavez.

by By Isabel Estrada/PoorNewsNetwork Youth in the Media Intern

A numbness came over me. I’m the one in my family to skip over all the emotional distressing and get onto fixing the situation. "So we’re either going to have to get a lawyer and go to court or we’re going to have to get a new place," I told my mom matter-of-factly. "Isabel, I have bad credit, there’s a one percent vacancy in San Francisco, the rents are higher than they’ve ever been and lawyers charge, what, $200.00 an hour. It’s not that easy," as she said it the furrows in her forehead and around her mouth got a little deeper and her skin a little paler. "Oh," I said, the confidence draining from my voice. I could see the worry beginning to suffocate her. She didn’t see any way out of the situation. Our landlord was trying to raise our rent from $1500 to $3000 because she said we were sub-tenants. We already needed a roommate just to make up the initial rent so there was no way we could afford the increase.

Now Scott Sloan and his family, including daughter Javlyn Woods, her husband and children, of 588 55th street in Oakland are also in danger of losing their home. The inside of the house looks like a movie set. There is a dark reddish light permeating the air. The center of the house is the living room where the older members of the family converge to participate in the telling of how the County Social Services is trying to take away their home. The kids come in to tumble over their mother like newborn cubs, all the while observing us in with intelligent, knowing eyes.

This seems to be a case of the Alameda county government scamming a poor family out of their home and out of their money simply because they can. Mrs. Beatrice Sloan owned four properties until Alameda County Social Services decided that she was to sick and to old to see to care for them properly, so that they assigned Alfred Fisher, Estate Manager/Investigator, as her public guardian. While Mrs. Sloan’s daughter, Luella Williams was acting as her conservator they did not allow her to sell any of the properties; she could only make repairs. However, in 1997, Alfred Fisher sold one of Mrs. Sloan’s properties first giving the reason that it was for maintenance of the other properties, then changing his story to say that it was to pay for medical expenses though Mrs. Sloan was being cared for by her daughter. None of the family ever saw any repairs or any money. When Williams missed one court date that she says her lawyer never told her about, the Social Services Department decided to assign Sloan a nurse instead of allowing her own family to care for her. Fisher then sold a property where another member of the family was living, giving no reason at all. When she visited the house Javlyn said she never even saw a for sale sign.

Now there are only two properties left, the one that the Sloans and Woods’ are living in and another house a few blocks away. Scott Sloan, at 65 yrs. old has reason to say, "I don’t like movin’," but he’s been packed since October to move out temporarily so that the house can be fixed by Fisher, who has been receiving rent from them for the 15 years they’ve been living there. The reason is that one of his grandchildren has already suffered from Lead Poisoning from living in the house. However, though the family has been requesting repairs for numerous years, the only changes since 1976 have been that smoke alarms were installed and some metal bars were taken off of the windows. The more important requests, like taking care of the lead situation have not been dealt with. Mrs. Woods says that Fisher’s response is to send someone to "come in and take a picture."

When Mr. Sloan asked Fisher where all his mother’s money was going Mr. Fisher got very uncomfortable and soon after started threatening eviction, supposedly because he needed to pay for the rest home where Beatrice Sloan is now living. Sloan has noted that, "when you start asking questions, that’s when all the stuff really starts coming down." Now that he wants to evict them so that he can sell the property, Fisher is stating as a reason that the living conditions are unhealthy because there are eight people in a small two-story house. However a small living space is desirable when compared to the alternative of no living space at all.

Just as my mother and I never believed that our landlady would double our rent just because she could under the obscure Costa Hawkin’s law, Sloan and his family never conceived of being evicted out of their own family’s house. Now they say "we don’t have nowhere to go." As Mr. Sloan put it, this rampant and unfair eviction is "why I see so many homeless people on the streets."

Now Mr. Sloan is looking for a lawyer. He says that all the lawyers he has spoken to are completely willing to take the case until they hear that the Alameda County Social Services is involved and then they back away like they’ve encountered the plague. My mother and I were able to solve our situation because my grandfather was able to give us the money for a lawyer, but what are the Sloans going to do if all the lawyers are too scared to take the case?

After hearing his story I knew exactly how Mr. Sloan felt when he said that if the County Social Services is going to hurt him, he’ll hurt them first, "I will burn it [the house] down." In his face I could see that same indignation masking the fear and worry that had changed my mother’s face so much. As we left all I could do was hope that somehow Fisher and the Social Services department would pay for what they had done to this family.

At POOR we are trying to make sure that the Sloans are not thrown out of their house. If you could assist us by helping to provide a lawyer or any type of support, please contact us at (415) 863-6306

by Joe B.

Excuse me Mr. H.R. Cooley, last weekend I had to visit mama living out of the City.

Every once in a while I leave Planet Holly-S-Frisco for a couple of days break and sanity.

I just remembered, I completely forgot go to a Justice Defence League Saturday for a birthday bash for a hard working, activist senior citizen turning 85.

They are probably fuming thinking “That creep, where did he go?

The only way to make it up is to call or drop by explaining what happened hoping for forgiveness.

The the Housing Authority’s annual me/they visit to their offices on Van Ness and inspection of my apartment.

Yes, I know it has to be done as the rules are set in federal law or statute but at least time my asthema didn’t have me gasping as I worried trying to get scattered paper work in order - I am not the most orderly of people.

With this done I reread a hardcopy of email sent to me by Mr. H. R. Cooley about the stunningly stupid, vicious, new bloodsucking, ordiance in Union City California prohibiting people from sleeping in their vehicles costing $271 fine effective April 30, 2002.

Mr. Cooley(an honest working man) says he’s parked there (around Central Ave) for several years never seeing drug dealers or prostitution and no shanty.

Meanwhile they [Union City Hall? Disgruntled, dwindling middle class types, so called concerned citizens, or developer/speculator folk?
I don’t know which] Italics mine.

Mr. H.R. says “We are a quiet group of working people who can’t aford to pay rent.

We are trying to come up in our lives and they want o maek our situation more unpleasent than it already is.
They say, “Join the commute” or go to a campground.”

I’m thinking when all the vehicles go to one centralized campground then the party really gets started with tickets that turn into warrants, warrants turned into violations and jail time. What happens to the only property they have...? Impounded, junked, or sold.

I always thought if I had transportation I could get a better job, travel to that job, and at least sleep in my own vehicle that I paid for and not a low-mean-dirty-’ord that could become a hard law takes away what many people have as their only means of shelter and transpertation. Their Car/Home, HouseCar, Fourwheeled-Apt., or Auto-Place.

The city certainly hasnt provided one for homeless people.
The Union City coucil and Police Dept. have now joined the
coalition of communities who are pursecuting the less fortunate by harassment and lies.

Of course Mobil homes (Homes on wheels) parked in trailer parks are fine if owner are economically well off, now they’re taxable too.

Remember when carjacking was a quick sometimes deadly way to take cars from while the occupants were still it them? Now with this idiot ordinance socalled regular citizens living from paycheck to paycheck, or police can harrass houseless folks in their vehicle legally take cars away creating more homeless and jailed slave labor.

Car or no car folks must gear-up, join other organizations.

What’s last but not least? Oh, yeah, get in touch with Mr. H. R. Cooley
and organize, stratagize, agitate, and intiate altinate solutions.

Howcool101451@aol.com.
Spread Wheeled Anarchy. Have I helped a little? Bye.

by Isabel Estrada/ PNN Youth in the Media Intern

Scott Sloan and I have been traveling 2 1/2 hours by bus from his house on 55th street to the Excell nursing home on High and Virginia streets in Oakland. Scott Sloan is used to this ride because he does it twice a week to visit his mother Mrs. Beatrice Sloan at Excell nursing home. My camera is in my pocket. I’m ready to take pictures but I’m a little hesitant because I have a feeling the hospital is in on the scandal that the Sloan family has been dealing with for the last year including an eviction from their own family home, lead poisoning, inhabitable living conditions and much more. There must be some reason why Mary-Lou Griffin, Mrs. Sloan’s public guardian didn’t want a San Francisco Chronicle photographer to come out to the nursing home with us.

Excell is a monument to dingy whiteness with accents of pale blue. The building is small and it recedes from the street as though trying to escape from the sun.

There are a few elderly people wheeling themselves around, looking blankly ahead. When we walk into Mrs. Sloan’s room, there are four beds, one in every corner. In each there is a tiny woman barely visible under the pale blue blankets. I make a mental note to remember to tell my unborn children that I’ll beat them with my cane if they ever try to put me into a nursing home.

Though Mrs. Sloan can barely speak, when her son asks her if she wants to go home she nods affirmatively and squeezes out a small "yes." Then when he continues to ask her she gets a sad, distant look on her lined face, she knows that she’s not going to be going home. At least if Mary-Lou Griffin gets her way. Scott Sloan says that though Mrs. Sloan cannot speak, he knows that she is happier at home. At home she can watch T.V. and be visited by her over thirty great grandchildren who kiss her, hug her, try to make her eat, play with her hair, talk to her and love her for being the original source of their young lives. Scott Sloan has made it clear to all her great-grandkids, "if it wasn’t for her [Mrs. Sloan] there wouldn’t be no you." He says, "they know how to treat her." In the nursing home she has only white walls, pale blankets and feeding tubes to comfort her.

Scott Sloan, who says he will "be 66 in August, if this don’t kill me," turns into a little kid around his mother, caressing her head and asking, "what’s up mama, huh? Whatcha doing?" in an uncharacteristically soft voice. He tells me of how his mother, who is now skin and bones, weighed 190 lbs. in her prime, "she was a big woman." The admiration makes Scott Sloan stand a little taller. She knew the importance of family. She didn’t just limit herself to caring for her children. She was her whole family’s mama. When she found out that one of her nephews was living on the street she immediately swooped him into her house, clothed him and fed him. No matter her own situation, she wouldn’t stand to see any of her family suffering.

When I ask the male nurse whose attending to Mrs. Sloan and the three other women in the room about what care she’s getting here that she couldn’t get at home, he says that the only thing she needs is 24 hour care. His duties he says are to crush up her pills and give them to her, keep her feeding tube supplied when she needs to be fed, change her diaper and care for her wounds. I assume she also needs to be bathed. Scott Sloan’s response is: "we can do the same thing at home, all the nieces I got, shoot." Mrs. Sloan could receive all this care at home, as she was before Mary-Lou Griffin stepped in as her conservator, but she could also receive the love and respect of her family who all know, "if it wasn’t for her there wouldn’t be no you."

So why isn’t Mrs. Sloan at home? Because according to Scott Sloan, two months ago Mary-Lou Griffin said "She will not be back home. She’s going to a rest home, I will see to that." And why is it that Public Guardian Mary-Lou Griffin –a woman with short dark her, hard lines etched into her face and an upturned nose- who works for the Alameda County Social Services has the right to keep Mrs. Sloan away from her family?

It all started in 1987 when Mrs. Beatrice Sloan, who had been diagnosed as Bipolar, stopped taking her medication (lithium), suffered from a breakdown and was interned at the hospital. Mrs. Sloan’s doctor recommended that her daughter Luella Williams become her temporary conservator until Mrs. Sloan had recovered. Ms. Williams cared for her mother after the breakdown but did not become her conservator until 1994. She was planning to end her conservatorship because Mrs. Sloan’s doctor said it was no longer needed, when she received a court order to present an account of the state of Mrs. Sloan’s assets. When she turned in the account the court said that it was not done professionally. So Luella Williams got the accounting done professionally and turned it in to her lawyer. But when Williams’ lawyer did not turn the new account in on time, the court took the conservatorship and gave it over to Alameda County.

The original conservator was a Mr. Ford, then came Sydney Martinez and finally Mary-Lou Griffin took over in October of 2001, right after Luella Williams passed away. Already in 1997 Alfred Fisher, who acts as the Estate Manager and Investigator for the Alameda County Social Services sold one of Mrs. Sloan’s 4 houses. No reason was given to Mrs. Sloan's children and they didn’t even see any For Sale signs up. I met Alfred Fisher; he is a thin African-American man with nervous eyes and a demeanor that seemed to sway like a tree under harsh winds. He gave me a bad feeling from the beginning and I was amazed to find that he is a preacher at a storefront church at 8901 MacArthur St. in Oakland.

Now Mary-Lou Griffin says that Mrs. Sloan either needs to be in a nursing home, which is $5,939 a month or she needs a 24-hour in-home nurse, which could cost 25,000 a month. Griffin says that the $5,939 cannot be paid for without selling Mrs. Sloans last two properties, one is where Scott Sloan has lived for 15 years and the other is housing Richshalda Williams, Mrs. Sloans granddaughter. So Griffin wants to evict Mrs. Sloans’ family from Mrs. Sloans houses so that she can sell it, and can pay for Mrs. Sloan to lie in a depressing, dingy white nursing home, without any T.V., until she passes away. But this is not just another example of bureaucratic injustice There’s something wrong with the whole picture.

Up until a few weeks ago, Richshalda Williams, Luella Williams’ daughter, received update calls twice a week from a nurse at Excell and was even informed by a woman who works at the home that Mrs. Sloan could leave the facility at any time. However when Richshalda Williams asked Mary-Lou Griffin when Mrs. Sloan would be back, Griffin got uptight and told her that Mrs. Sloan would not be going home and that Richshalda Williams better speak to the doctor. After that the doctor said that Mrs. Sloan could not go home, the nurse stopped calling Richshalda Williams and the women who had said Mrs. Sloan no longer needed to be in the facility had changed her story.

I just found out that Mary-Lou Griffin has now sent a letter to both Mr. Scott Sloan and Richshalda Williams letting them know that that their rent will be increased from under about $600 a month to $2000, effective May 1st. And this is despite the fact that Scott Sloan’s granddaughter has lead poisoning from the house and Alfred Fisher, who has known for a year that the house has dangerous amounts of lead, hasn’t made any repairs.

Scott Sloan had surgery for cancer of the brain in 1987. He can’t sleep because he stays up at night thinking of his mother in the nursing home and the fact that Alameda County is trying to sell his own mother’s house that he has been living in for 15 years. He recently suffered from a stroke because of what is happening to his family and to his mother, who used to be so big, who never took any shit from anybody. So while Scott Sloan, as a 65 year old disabled man, should be taking it easy he knows that his only option right now is to fight for his family.

I’m just glad when we leave the nursing home. The place smells of old sheets and dirty hair, and every once in a while an incoherent scream will jump out at you from behind the curtain in one of the rooms. Scott Sloan and I agree loudly and wholeheartedly that we’re never going to be put in any rest home. But apparently it’s not that easy. Mrs. Sloan is obviously unhappy in the rest home without the comfort of her family, and her family sure doesn’t want her there and yet there she lies because Alameda County thinks that some woman named Mary-Lou Griffin knows what’s best for her. Under those nightmarish pale blue blankets in that neon light, Mrs. Sloan squints as she looks around. Scott Sloan says that she’s looking for her grandbabies

by Emilio Guiterrez and Lisa Gray-Garcia/PNN

It was late.. perhaps a little over when I should be getting to bed – but the call sounded urgent- and after all it was my sisters’ youngest daughter on the end of the line. "Uncle Fred, I know its late but can I stay there tonite, I have nowhere to go and I can’t sleep on the street another night."

That’s all she said and then the phone was silent, a deep, precious silence, implying so much. Speakin’ of a life spent without a mama or even a decent papa, no-good men after no good men, alongside money troubles and lost children. My niece was not perfect nor was she sober, but she was family and therefore I would open my door to this child once again. "Come outa the cold before it gets any later" I whispered.

"Thank-you, Uncle" Click

Lissa, my niece, only stayed at my house for one night, enough time to get one nights sleep, a shower and a hot meal. Before breakfast the next morning she was gone like a wisp of string in the night sky.

That was a six months ago. Last week I received an official letter from The Housing Authority. I wasn’t sure why I should feel nervous. I paid my rent on time. I cleaned up around my apartment. I mean what had I ever done but be too poor to ever move my family out of the projects, something I will always regret, something I will always live with. Then I opened the letter. "You are officially served with notice to move…." There were more words citing the "illegal stays by a person under the influence, based on the One Strike Policy" I dropped the letter.. as though it was made of concrete instead of underweight county-issue paper. I will not be able to fight this, I don’t even know who to call, or what to do.. or most importantly..where to go

Emilio Guiterezz, a disabled elder of Samoan and Chicano descent, currently resides in a building run by the Housing Authority of Sacramento, Ca. He co-wrote this piece with Lisa Gray-Garcia as part of POOR Magazine’s writer-facilitation program which aims to give very low and no-income folks a voice in the media about issues of poverty

************************

"One Strike" Policy is Jim Crow!
Oakland InPDUM Protests Federal Eviction Law at
Oakland Housing Authority
by Oaktown Uhuru News

"Drug Activity is in the White House, not the
Projects!" and "Evict George and Jeb Bush!" read some
of the signs held by demonstrators on Monday, April
1st in front of Oakland Housing Authority. The Oakland
branch of the International People's Democratic Uhuru
Movement (InPDUM) held a press conference and
demonstration in protest to the Supreme Court ruling
last week to uphold the "One Strike" policy.
Participating organizations included Just Cause
Oakland, the National Coalition for Black Reparations
in America, the African People's Solidarity Committee
and Poor News Network.

On March 25th, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled
that public housing tenants can be evicted for their
relatives' or visitors' suspected drug activity, even
if it occurred without their knowledge. The ruling
upheld the federal eviction law for federal subsidized
housing operated by the Department of Housing and
Urban Development and local housing agencies such as
the Oakland Housing Authority.

Four African residents of Oakland's public housing
challenged the law. According to the Oakland Housing
Authority, nearly 80 percent of public housing
residents are black.

Oakland president of the InPDUM Bakari Olatunji
spelled out the contradiction in this blatantly
vicious law, "African people are already victims of a
drug economy we do not control. The government has
used the drug economy to lock up over one million
black men and to justify killing African people. Now
this same government wants to use the presence of
illegal drugs to justify making entire families
homeless. President Bush lives in public housing and
his daughters have used drugs. Is he on the streets?"

Passersby on Harrison St. honked their support at the
demonstrators which also included Jervis Muwwakkil,
whose son Jamil Muwwakkil was beaten to death by six
Oakland Police Officers last year. His death was
justified by the OPD because of the presence of drugs
in Muwwakkil's system.

Stated Wendy Snyder, a member of the African People's
Solidarity Commmitee, "White people make up the
majority of the drug users in this country and yet
white people can sit up in our homes in Berkeley and
Mill Valley and use drugs and not get thrown in jail.
There has been and continued to be so much unnecessary
suffering. We must build a movement of white people's
reparations to the African community."

Eddie Ytuarte of Just Cause Oakland discussed Oakland
Housing Authority's other unfair practices while
N'COBRA denounced the law and called for participation
in the August "Millions for Reparations March" in
Washington D.C.

The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement
is calling for all concerned individuals and
organizations to come together to take on this issue
and other blatant violations of the democratic rights
of the African community. Contact oak_inpdum@yahoo.com
or call (510) 569-9620.

by Mari- Youth in the Media Intern (and Po' Poet)

Young, African descendant, writer and artist…..I met him the first time in Community Newsroom at POOR Magazine, his name is Charles Jolivette. He was introduced as a special guest to talk about a book he wrote called Making Luv 2 Freedom. The title caught me off guard. I had to look at the book's title to make sure I heard him correctly.

After Newsroom, I was assigned to do a review on his book so I started by reading it. The cover of the book is a piece of beautiful, hard-hitting artwork. The art seems to represent the struggles that all people go through, such as hunger, love, materialism, incarceration and capitalism. In the middle of the image there is a picture of a pen. To me that represents how a person’s struggle and their source of freedom is attained through writing. The cover art was done by Charles’ girlfriend, Maria Allardo.

After I read the book, I interviewed Charles Jolivette, we discussed many issues, one of which was the title of his book, Making Luv 2 Freedom. "I wanted something catchy, something that sounded patriotic, suggestive, and sexual. A title that would grab your attention and interest you to buy the book"

I asked him what motivated him to write. He said, "Seeing people struggle, lack of consciousness in other people’s writing, and my own struggles"

I asked him to comment on his writing, "My poetry is abstract. It’s not about what you see, but what you get"

I was amazed by the consciousness and deep thought that Jolivette put into his poems. One of my favorites was entitlled, Call Me Crazy because it deals with issues of slavery, racism and indigenous peoples, to name a few, and as well, he integrated Spanish and Filipino words into the poem.

An excerpt from "Call Me Crazy."

Call me crazy but I think they stole our babies

In slavery they made me

But decapitated my family tree

So I’m searching east and west

And climbing hills and smelling breath

Investigating

The walks of natives to earth

My people were here first

So, I deserve to kiss the dirt

Makin luv to Freedom is a great book to read. It opens your mind to other thoughts, ideas, and cultures. I urge everyone to read this book. It talks about issues of racism, capitalism, sexism, and the struggles of all oppressed people of this land. The objective of his book is to open people’s hearts, minds, and souls. In Charles’ own words "I want people to be conscious of history and the future"

For more information or to purchase the book go on-line to rap4rights@aol.com

by Michael Steinberg

Grace Well, a disabled very low income 85 year old African American woman in San Francisco, has been fighting an eviction brought by an out of state landlord for almost two years now. Since 1989 Ms. Wells has lived in her flat at 908 Page Street, one block off Haight in the city's Western Addition. She's been in the neighborhood, once an African American working class community, since the 1940s.     

In July 2000 June Croucher--whose address is listed by the SF Assessor's office as P.O. Box 50533, Reno, Nevada 89513--bought Grace Wells' home. Shortly before that the long term tenant who lived in the flat above Ms. Wells passed away. It's still vacant, with one front window fully thrown open to the elements, offering Ms. Croucher every opportunity to move in there, but June Croucher isn't satisfied with just one flat. She wants both of them so she can convert the building into her own personal mansion. And she has to throw Grace Well out on the street and make Ms. Wells' life a nightmare to get her SF dream house, well business is business.     

The only problem with Croucher's plan is that Grace Well refuses to move. And she's gotten a lot of support in her fight to keep her home. That support was apparent on Thursday, March 21, when over 30 of her backers rallied in front of Ms. Wells' home and threw up a picket line to inform neighbors and the media of her struggle.      

The action also attracted three SFPD black and whites, whose officers lurked around the block. Demonstrators carried signs reading "Greed Isn't Pretty," "Stop Senior Evictions," and "This Is Bullshit." They serenaded sympathetic neighbors and the cops with chants of "Yuppie Yuppie Stole My Pad, Yuppie Yuppie Bad Bad Bad!"     

Dean Preston, an attorney representing Grace Well, told the crowd that June Croucher "has made life hell" for Ms. Well. "Croucher has served Grace two eviction notices," Preston said. "She decreased Grace's services in her home--including cutting off her heat this winter."     

Ms. Wells' heat is back on now, due to public pressure mounted against her landlord's unscrupulous actions. But Croucher is continuing her eviction shananigans. Now she's trying to use the infamous Ellis Act--which allows landlords to kick out tenants if they claim they're going out of the landlord business.     

Ted Gullicksen of the SF Tenants Union, which organized the March 21 demo, declared "We're here to say, 'You don't have the right to take away someone else's home because you have lots of money and the tenant doesn't.' We'll be back and we'll keep coming back until we stop this eviction." Gullicksen also said, "This neighborhood has been gentrified to an extraordinary degree in recent times. On a small block around the corner on Scott Street, 75-95% of the tenants have been displaced by owner-move-in and Ellis evictions over the past year and a half."     

The 2000 Census reported that, between 1990 and 2000, the median monthly rent in SF jumped from $643 to $977, a 59% increase. Over that period units renting for between $250 to $749 a month decreased by over 50%, from 132,278 to 63,849. Meanwhile units renting for $1000 or more a month skyrocketed from 24,070 to 90,247, an astronomical 308% increase.  

Grace Well and her supporters are determined to make sure that she doesn't end up as another unfortunate statistic in the rich's war against the poor in San Francisco.    

by Leroy Moore Jr.

In Home (Un)Support Service, IHSS

IHSS what is that

I don't have a home

No support on the streets

I’m caught in the system

Dot coms moved in my home

My support system is broken

Mother in a nursing home

Father in prison for three strikes Poor, Black and Mentally Ill

Sisters in foster care

Nobody cares

Sleeping with strangers

I’ve seen all of this and am only a teenager

You hear me; I donít have a home

Uncle Sam took away my support

Hispanic, disabled and unemployed

One strike and Iím out is this Americaís past time

What is IHSS

No roof over my head

Another night and another one dead

Can’t afford a loaf of bread

Do I qualify

Cause I don’t have a home and

The INS thinks I lying about my disability

Pete Wilson thought I was a strain on the economy

You think I’m crazy

Your advice is more and more medication

You don’t understand my situation

Four jobs under the table and you call me lazy

IHSS

Is not in my vocabulary

Please! English only!

I’m in shackles in the land of the free

I have no home

The US don’t want me

Disabled in my country equals no opportunity

Living on the streets in the riches country

IHSS SSI and ADA

Uhh I can’t comprehend

INS LAPD and Prop 187

Oh yeah know I understand

No money

No family

No community

I don’t need your pity

From Mexico to the US

From the streets to the hospital

From the hospital to prison

I’m on the move

My home keeps on changing

I’m just waiting

For a bed in a shelter, SRO or better yet section eight

Right now I’ll take anything

In Home STOP!

I have been kicked out

I have not been inside for a long time

Outside, out numbered, outstunned.. out out get out

Homeless

Alone

No green card, no service

No income and I know the outcome

********************

Open Letter to Gray Davis from Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization (DAMO)

I’m writing to you to voice our strong disapproval of the recent proposed change in the services of In-Home-Support-Services system! We have received noticed that in Governor Gray Davis’ Proposed Budget Act for Fiscal Year 2002-03 will radically change the In-Home-Support-Services program. As we understand this change, will cut out family members’ eligibility to be care providers and also limit the choices to one caretaker.

As disabled youth and adults we depend on our families for our special needs, support and as you know historically the family support network has played an important role in people of color communities. Most of the time the family is the only resource in disabled youth and adults, especially low income and people of color with disabilities. To cut this link inside the homes of people with disabilities is an invasion of privacy, family values and leads to separation i.e. institutionalization which equals segregation. This proposed change would unfairly hit families of color and low-income families who have lack of resources to afford a caretaker and have their own cultural norms inside their own homes.

We all know that people with disabilities live under harsh poverty so why are you taking away the little amount families get to take care their disabled. This proposed change would dig people with disabilities and ourfamilies deeper into the poverty blanket. Please realized that In-Home-Support-Services family member provides are a life or death necessity and should be left up to the families and the disabled community on how and who provides in our own homes! We demand you to keep families together by rejecting this deadly change in the In-Home-Support program.

Sincerely

Leroy F. Moore,

Executive Director/DAMO