“You can’t stay here,” City Administrator of occupied Huchiun, aka Oakland, told us houseless, formerly houseless and housed allies gathered peacefully at Oakland City Hall at Day 1 of our Bay Area launch of Sweeps Free Sanctuary Communities.
“You are violating Park Code—you can’t have tents here, you can’t sleep here,” at approximately 11:50 pm at the SF City Hall site of Sweeps-Free Sanctuary Communities 8 as park rangers arrived with guns and mace on their holsters and told us “we needed to leave—that our work, although important, wasn’t legal in the park.”
“This is important work but you can’t stay in the park with these tents, you are welcome to move to the perimeter of the park,” he said pointing to the green bike lane that surrounded the city hall plaza in San Francisco.
“You mean we can move to the bike lane—how is that safe? We as houseless people are never safe, we are constantly, violently swept and removed, but we are safe here together in this sanctuary and if you force us to leave you will be making us Unsafe again,” said Tiny Gray-Garcia, formerly houseless, sweeps survivor and co-founder of POOR Magazine and Homefulness.
On Tuesday, December 17, in response to increasingly violent and relentless sweeps of houseless residents of California, houseless and formerly houseless sweeps survivors along with housed allies and spiritual leaders will launch “sweeps-free sanctuary comeUnities” at City Halls and other public land sites in Yelamu (San Francisco), Huchiun (Oakland), Yocut (Fresno), Tovaangar (Los Angeles) and Sogorea Te (Vallejo) and Chief Sia’hl (Seattle).
In both Huchiun and Yelamu (Oakland & San Francisco) houseless warriors are committed to the beautiful healing sanctuary ComeUnities we have built “[i]n Huchiun we have relocated to the parking lot of the Greyhound Bus station and are holding space” said John Janosko, formerly houseless resident leader of Wood Street commons.
Updates from other locations who launched sweeps-free communities across so-called California.
From Tovaangar/Los Angeles: Yesterday we gathered at the site of a former city-run shelter that has since been abandoned and locked up by barbed wire fences where a year ago, our community on Aetna Street was violently displaced.
On these vacant, so-called “public” lands we rebuilt our sanctuary community on Aetna Street with our announcement of the San Fernando Valley Homeless Union led and founded by warrior women who lived on Aetna Street. We are fighting for Aetna Street to once again be a sanctuary for houseless people in the San Fernando Valley where community can power free laundry, free showers and provide free clothing and hot meals to everyone in our community. That evening, we held a community dinner where 200 people came throughout the night to support local street vendors and receive free medical care powered by All Power Free Clinic to build the sanctuary we need to defend our communities from sweeps, raids, displacement and deportation. 6 unhoused people dying on the streets of LA every day. We are committed to the call of houseless action across CA to reverse the tide and stand with poor and houseless peoples fighting for land liberation everywhere. We are a landless peoples movement! We have the solutions. We are the solutions!
Updates from occupied Duwamish land Seattle: our noon rally was beautiful, and we had 30-40 houseless warriors and housed allies on the steps of “Seattle” Shitty Hall. There was music, food, hot drinks, safer drug use kits, clothes, blankets, sleeping bags. We had speakers from Nickelsville, International League of Peoples Struggle, vehicle residents and WHEELs Women in Black held a moment of silence for our stolen relatives.
From Yocut lands, aka so-called Fresno, Dez Martinez, formerly houseless founder of Homeless in Fresno and We Are Not invisible, commented: “Yesterday we met at the City Hall lawn. We had prayer then we had four speakers, one regarding the housing elements and lack of units we had the attorney speak on the data of the arrests, the criminalization and also the current trials that are in the courts due to the arrests for being unhoused. We had a previous unhoused individual speak about the difficulties of surviving the streets, the stress and disrespect that they went through in the shelters and the length of time it took for them to get into permanent Supportive Housing. Of course I said My Words which were basically covering the county and City responsible for using the funding for more than just admin fees telling them about the dream camp safe camp that I had here in Fresno for a year and a half that had never had an issue or a problem and ask them to model another safe area just like that that’s governed by us I also spoke on the criminalization the amount it cost us how Mental Health is affected by homelessness I also spoke on the lifespan of people that are evicted and lifespan on individuals that are suffering homelessness and trying to survive.”
She further describes the Peoples March inside to chambers stating “We then went over to march to the county building which is about two blocks away from the city hall and when we got there we were met with a whole bunch of police. LOL But we chanted, took our chance outside then we went to go walk in they took our posters from us we still went upstairs where we were met by another group of officers and then we went inside the chambers where we met by another group of officers it was ridiculous to have that many amount of police merely for community members wanting to speak up at Board of Supervisors County meeting. We had a few interviews with the media. I brought up how we are joining together with Where Do We Go, Poor Magazine and Wood Street Commons to combine our forces in solidarity with this Liberation Day. Of course, I addressed my rights being violated at the Fresno County Public building as many of us spoke up about multiple issues with homelessness, housing criminalization and fighting for more places like homefulness.”
In addition to providing crucial resources for fellow houseless relatives in the cold wet winter, we will be presenting solutions to homelessness created by us houseless people.
Solutions that are healing housing models like Homefulness and Wood Street Commons Community As well as looking at the example of Tent City 3—created by SHARE/WHEEL in Seattle, Washington—which could be replicated by cities and counties across the US
“Public land should be for the public, instead we face violent sweeps,” said La Monte Ford, Wood Street Commons Sweeps survivor.
Following the Grants Pass v. Johnson Supreme Court Ruling that deemed houseless residents of the US are no longer protected by the 8th Amendment of the Constitution, California Gov. Gavin Newsom enhanced his already violent “sweeps” policy of houseless people by directing state agencies to dismantle homeless encampments on state land. He also threatened cities across the state with drastic budget cuts if they didn’t comply with his clearing orders.
Hundreds of houseless elders and disabled adults lives have become gravely endangered and have died in increasing numbers due to this state sponsored violence over the last several months. “Sweeping my mama and me caused us to lose multiple shelters, tents and cars we slept in and eventually each other. Sweeping, jailing and harassing us houseless people never gets us a home, or ‘solves’ our homelessness, it just makes our homelessness more dangerous and more deadly,” said Tiny Gray-Garcia, formerly houseless, incarcerated, co-founder of POOR Magazine, a poor and houseless people-led movement, and Homefulness—a homeless peoples’ solution to homelessness that currently houses 22 formerly houseless youth, adults and elders.
All the government “solutions” like Cabin Communities and shelters have failed to create the necessary foundation unhoused people need to be able to rebuild our lives, said John Janosko, houseless resident leader at Wood Street Commons, a community of houseless people working to organize and support fellow houseless people.
“There is no social justice in criminalizing our unhoused community there is no solution in solving homelessness by incarceration,” Junebug Keaoloha,formerly houseless Community health workers and poverty skola with POOR Magazine /San Francisco.
“200 years ago, before colonization there wasn’t even a concept of homelessness,” said Talking Chief/spokesperson of the confederated villages of Lisjan/Ohlone and co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust and Family Elders Council member of Homefulness.
“We center the launching of these sweeps-free sanctuary comeUnities in liberation of occupied and stolen indigenous land because we cannot talk about homelessness without talking about indigenous and Black Land theft, return and reparations, the violent history of indigenous land theft and genocide of colonization, chattle slavery, false borders and mass incarceration of Black, Brown, Indigenous and Disabled houseless peoples have led to the collective trauma of so many of us on the street and then we are terrorized by hundreds of laws that criminalize our bodies for being poor, without a roof, sleeping in our car, in doorways, in parks, on streets and in tents on so-called public (read: stolen) land. ” concluded Tiny Gray-Garcia.
“The city, the so-called service providers—they’re not offering anybody anything. They’re just leaving us destitute. What should we get instead? We should get treated like the human beings that we are. I should get treated like your brother or sister,” said Giselle “Gelly” Harrell, Aetna Street Solidarity. Aetna Street Solidarity is an intergenerational community of housed & unhoused people organizing in Van Nuys against the criminalization of the poor, currently working with POOR Magazine to create their own Homefulness Project.
Huchiun, Yelamu, Yocut, Tovaangar, Sogorea Te, Chief Sia’hl
What, where?
“Seattle” Shitty Hall. There was music, food, hot drinks, SAFER DRUG USE KITS”
That’s comforting for the children that might encounter them at the parks and city public properties.