By Sandy Perry
“In Respect to all, and great Honor to those who gave their best to make life for the Homeless people across the Nation a little better, and wishing them success in their continued Journey through out the universe.” – Al Williams.
This was the theme of California Homeless Memorial Day celebrated in Fresno on June 5. It was attended by the Roedding Park crew, Food Not Bombs, and other local groups as well as people from Merced, San Jose, and Sacramento. A special invocation was performed by Aztec dancers from Fresno State University.
The spirit of the event was to honor and celebrate those who have fallen while fighting for housing and human rights for the homeless. Fresno currently suffers under a “Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness”. Ten Year Plans were invented by Philip Mangano during the Bush administration, to provide a public relations veneer to distract people while they CREATED homelessness by cutting funds for housing.
Improved services by themselves cannot end or even reduce homelessness. That requires real housing that people can afford to move into. But instead of building, California is now SLASHING affordable housing funds, because the State is stealing hundreds of millions of dollars to help finance the legislature’s multi-billion dollar tax breaks for corporations. Without housing, the entire Ten Year Plan model is reduced to rhetoric.
Homelessness will not be solved until we break with the social service ideology that describes it as an individual problem. Homelessness is caused by a dysfunctional and morally bankrupt economic SYSTEM. It did not work 30 years ago, when modern homelessness in America began with the massive cuts in housing programs. It is collapsing completely today. Over eight million people in America have recently lost their jobs, most of them permanently. Up to 13 million homes are being foreclosed. During earlier waves of homelessness, the numbers were not sufficient to create a movement large enough to address the issue. The millions of people being discarded by the system today are a senseless tragedy but they also contain the possibility of a bigger, more politically aware movement to solve the problem.
A grassroots movement has to include the homeless, but it must be broader to have the numbers to be effective. It has to include the foreclosed, the unemployed, the tens of thousands without health care, the immigrants, the city and school workers losing their jobs, or having their wages and benefits cut, and others. We have to bring people together step by step, by working on plans, projects, and protests where some or all of us have common interests. We also have to build connections on a national level, because all these problems are national in scope and cannot be solved only locally.
The private market has proven it is no longer willing or able to provide for our basic necessities. We need a political movement to demand government ownership and distribution of the resources required to meet human needs. When the government takes over banks, or bails them out, it is time to demand that the vacant homes owned by those banks become public housing for the homeless and poor.
Homeless Memorial Day Observed In Fresno
Homeless Memorial Day,
Fresno, June 5, 2010
PHOTO/Sandy Perry
A Lesson In Direct Action
People taking over a city lot in
Washington, D.C. in opposition to
the Mayor’s broken promises. A tent
city has been constructed on the lot.
PHOTO/One DC
By Eric Sheptock
The direct action which ONE DC and its partners have been planning as part of the “Take Back The Land” Campaign of the U.S. Human Rights Network has begun. We had the community block party and then a march to Parcel 42 to occupy it. We hung signs and banners on the chain link fence advertising Mayor Fenty’s broken promise to create affordable housing on that vacant lot. And we had fun doing it.
People’s greatest fears — being shut down by the police before we got started and possibly going to jail — never materialized (though the threat of jail remains). A property manager of this city-owned lot stopped by to say he would have us removed the following day. It hasn’t happened.
Close to 200 people attended the block party and approximately 100 marched to Parcel 42. Some have been remaining overnight, going to work in the morning. Another group has been manning the information table and engaging the public in discussion. Dozens have been coming in the evening to spend time with the campers. Several have brought food and drink to share. Many children come by to play on the vacant lot. Some adult chaperones have even brought their children’s summer activities groups to learn about a pertinent issue. A Georgetown University professor has made arrangements to bring her class who are studying about inner-city issues to the tent city to learn about DC’s affordable housing crisis. People have exhibited a true sense of community and are eager to learn about the issue and get involved.
Going into this, we had a two-pronged goal. On the one hand, we wanted to call out Mayor Adrian Fenty on his broken promise to put 94 units of affordable housing on a vacant lot known as Parcel 42 and to get other local politicians to commit to making good on this broken promise if the present mayor won’t. On the other hand, we wanted to do public education concerning Washington, DC’s affordable housing crisis.
We haven’t had much luck with the politicians. Nonetheless, we have had plenty of media coverage. We’ve done quite well in the public education department. There has been some crass, uninformed remarks from readers of articles on the web. Most notable is the ever-present notion that those who can afford a cell phone or Ipod should be able to pay rent. Some say that gentrification is a good thing or that tax dollars shouldn’t go toward helping the poor live in the city. On the contrary, residents of the Shaw neighborhood had praise for our efforts.
As we were pressing the mayor to break ground on this promised affordable housing project, we received word that he has altogether nixed those plans. He now wants to erect condominiums on that very lot. We posted a banner on the fence naming the tent city “The Land of Broken Promises”.
Within the present societal structure, the government controls certain aspects of our economy and, short of revolution, we have no choice but to apply to them for certain needs — such as the funding for affordable housing. We have requested a meeting with the mayor. The mayor may be hoping for us to disband through infighting so that he won’t need to meet with us. Win, lose or draw, we’ve succeeded at publicizing and politicizing the need for affordable housing in our nation’s capital. And, while we aren’t certain that we’ll realize victory by having affordable housing built on Parcel 42, having raised people’s consciousness is a victory. We plan to remain until the police shut us down. We see this as the beginning of something much bigger — a renewed culture of speaking truth to power and of making demands on our politicians. No matter how it ends, we win.
You can reach Eric Sheptock at (240) 305-5255 or at www.ericsheptock.com.
The direct action which ONE DC and its partners have been planning as part of the “Take Back The Land” Campaign of the U.S. Human Rights Network has begun. We had the community block party and then a march to Parcel 42 to occupy it. We hung signs and banners on the chain link fence advertising Mayor Fenty’s broken promise to create affordable housing on that vacant lot. And we had fun doing it.
People’s greatest fears — being shut down by the police before we got started and possibly going to jail — never materialized (though the threat of jail remains). A property manager of this city-owned lot stopped by to say he would have us removed the following day. It hasn’t happened.
Close to 200 people attended the block party and approximately 100 marched to Parcel 42. Some have been remaining overnight, going to work in the morning. Another group has been manning the information table and engaging the public in discussion. Dozens have been coming in the evening to spend time with the campers. Several have brought food and drink to share. Many children come by to play on the vacant lot. Some adult chaperones have even brought their children’s summer activities groups to learn about a pertinent issue. A Georgetown University professor has made arrangements to bring her class who are studying about inner-city issues to the tent city to learn about DC’s affordable housing crisis. People have exhibited a true sense of community and are eager to learn about the issue and get involved.
Going into this, we had a two-pronged goal. On the one hand, we wanted to call out Mayor Adrian Fenty on his broken promise to put 94 units of affordable housing on a vacant lot known as Parcel 42 and to get other local politicians to commit to making good on this broken promise if the present mayor won’t. On the other hand, we wanted to do public education concerning Washington, DC’s affordable housing crisis.
We haven’t had much luck with the politicians. Nonetheless, we have had plenty of media coverage. We’ve done quite well in the public education department. There has been some crass, uninformed remarks from readers of articles on the web. Most notable is the ever-present notion that those who can afford a cell phone or Ipod should be able to pay rent. Some say that gentrification is a good thing or that tax dollars shouldn’t go toward helping the poor live in the city. On the contrary, residents of the Shaw neighborhood had praise for our efforts.
As we were pressing the mayor to break ground on this promised affordable housing project, we received word that he has altogether nixed those plans. He now wants to erect condominiums on that very lot. We posted a banner on the fence naming the tent city “The Land of Broken Promises”.
Within the present societal structure, the government controls certain aspects of our economy and, short of revolution, we have no choice but to apply to them for certain needs — such as the funding for affordable housing. We have requested a meeting with the mayor. The mayor may be hoping for us to disband through infighting so that he won’t need to meet with us. Win, lose or draw, we’ve succeeded at publicizing and politicizing the need for affordable housing in our nation’s capital. And, while we aren’t certain that we’ll realize victory by having affordable housing built on Parcel 42, having raised people’s consciousness is a victory. We plan to remain until the police shut us down. We see this as the beginning of something much bigger — a renewed culture of speaking truth to power and of making demands on our politicians. No matter how it ends, we win.
You can reach Eric Sheptock at (240) 305-5255 or at www.ericsheptock.com.
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