Press Contacts: Muteado Silencio- & Tiny gray-garcia- (510) 435-7500-
For Immediate Release:
Houseless Women and Children create homes and self-determined solutions for houseless women and children and The City of Oakland Blocks them from opening… in Women’s Herstory Month
Poor, Homeless, Indigenous, Black/Brown women, children, aunti’s , grandmommas, uncles, brothers and Suns build a self-determined solution to homelessness in Deep East Huchuin ( Oakland) want to become in homeful – and instead the City of Oakland blocks it
What: 1st Nations /Indigenous/Black and Brown Community led Ceremony/ Press Conference and Theatre of the POOR installation
When: 1pm Tuesday, March 1st
Where: 250 Oscar Grant Plaza (Frank Ogawa Plaza ) City of Oakland Building and Planning Dept
“Where are we going to go after we have been evicted,?” said Aunti Frances Moore, a formerly houseless member of the Po Poets project, poverty skola, co-founder of Homefulness and one of the Co-authors of the Homefulness Handbook
The City of Oakland has blocked Homefulness since the day we began building in 2011 , said Muteado S, indigenous builder and co-founder of Homefulness
“Us poor and homeless women and children in the US are being victimized by the ongoing War ON the poor everyday in this occupied land, between the demolitions of thousands of units of public housing,the extreme rise in gentrification and post-pandemic evictions of low-income and working class elders and families and the concurrent rise in the criminalization of unhoused encampments and our bodies, while we spend literally trillions of dollars in wars globally which is why it is so urgent for people to listen to our own innovative solutions to poverty and homelessness- solutions like Poverty Scholarship and the Homefulness Project so they can build their own solutions, said Lisa Gray-Garcia,formerly homeless single parent, co-author of Poverty Scholarship – Poor People-led Theory Art, Words and Tears Across Mama Earth and Criminal of Poverty – Growing Up Homeless in America and the most recent release the The SideWalk Motel- Poems and PoShunary from a poverty skola-
Homefulness was launched by Mama Dee Garcia and Tiny – when the indigenous mother and daughter were still sleeping in their car, the park, the bus shelters and shelter beds in the streets of Oakland, LA and San Francisco. They released the vision in 1996 and began a movement. 24 years later – tiny and many other poverty skolaz are building Homefulness rooted and led by 1st Nations and houseless peoples leadership – they teach, speak, and share and build with cultural work and media and writing/poetry workshops in encampments, community centers, schools and jails with other homeless and formerly homeless communities to help share the extremely innovative poor people-led solution to homelessness known as Homefulness As well as with people with race and class privilege, access to resources and /or land who can learn to activate to liberate a different solution to poverty, homelessness and wealth-hoarding, rooted in indigenous and poverty scholarship-
Together the people of Homefulness have manifested a solution that is community, family and home. Together they have succeeded in meeting their needs in ways the City of Oakland has failed. Instead of celebration and support the City responds with delays, fees and more trauma. The impact is life and death. The Sustainable Economies Law Center stands in solidarity with Homefulness. We call on the City of Oakland to GET ON BOARD OR GET OUT OF THE WAY! said Christine Hernandez, Co-director of the Radical Real Estate Law School at The Sustainable Economies Law Center
“The City Dept of Building and Inspection have charged us poor and houseless builders exorbitant fees, conducted endless invasive inspections and accused us of “taking too long to build” and then hit us with a $30,000 impact fee, all to block a poor mother and family led solution to homelessness – Homefulness – I and my fellow houseless/formerly houseless brothers and sisters are committing to live at the building department until they approve Homefulness, “Tiny gray-garcia, concluded.
POOR Magazine is a very grassroots, poor and indigenous people led movement creating media, art, culture, education and solutions since 1996 POOR press is the poor people-led publishing arm of POOR Magazine dedicated to publishing the books and art of very low, no-income, homeless and incarcerated youth, adults and elders.
-Story in the OaklandSide about Homefulness #2
– Story in the East Bay Times about the struggle to build Homefulness
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