Greetings Officers, Members, Supporters and Friends of the California Homeless Union:
Attached hereto is the Campaign Kick Off Announcement for the Sanchez for California Lt. Governor Campaign. I hope that all of you will attend as well as widely share this message and the Announcement.
In the last two years, the California Homeless Union has grown dramatically in terms of new locals, now numbering over 25, new officers and members, successes in the courts, in consolidating our influence and organization in the encampments and other concentrations of the unhoused in shelters, the parks, by the tracks, in the weekly rate slum motels, and the more hidden homeless in the schools, the fields and those facing eviction into the homeless streets. and a growing recognition by friend and foe alike that the organized homeless are step by step becoming a real force in our state.
One of our biggest locals with over 2500 members is in Sacramento where union president Crystal Sanchez has led the way in reshaping the homeless struggle landscape in this, the capital of the most populous state, with the greatest concentration of the unhoused in the nation. For this reason, we were recently approached by the renown author, poet and political activist Luis J. Rodriguez who is mounting his second run for California governor, and who proposed that Crystal launch a companion campaign for Lieutenant Governor.
As we always say, homelessness is just the most concentrated expression of poverty, the most visible manifestation of wealth inequality and dispossession. All the societal and systemic ills of the capitalist system are starkly evident here, the low wage jobs, evictions, family medical bankruptcies, unemployment and the escalating “chemical warfare” against the poor and particularly communities of color in the form of deadly drugs pushed by the powers that be. As Crystal says, “all roads lead to homelessness”,
Thus, the Sanchez campaign will address the broader failures on all fronts of the current administration in a state where eight million are at or near the poverty line despite $31 billion dollars in surplus revenue. The current Lieutenant Governor, Eleni Kounalakis of the infamous ATK land development corporation, is a virtual unknown to the people of California, connected to huge venture capitalists and speculators while performing ceremonial duties and sitting on various state bodies. And, running as an independent democrat, Crystal aims at capturing the growing numbers of democratic voters fed up with the betrayals and bandaid approach of the Democratic Leadership.
Finally, and key to Crystal’s campaign, will be using the electoral process to change the false and increasingly violent narrative against the unhoused, to give voice to the actual homeless leaders emerging today, to use the election to further build the movement of the homeless, the dispossessed and those who understand what’s at stake in in these struggles.
I hope that you will all join us this coming Tuesday, March 15, 2022 for the Official Online Launch of the Sanchez Campaign.
We also encourage you and your organizations to endorse the Campaign and possibly speak on Crystal’s behalf at the Tuesday launch. If you are so inclined, I ask you to contact me directly as soon as possible at princelawoffices@yahoo.com. And, of course, we hope that you will step up and become a leading part of the campaign in the ways that we will announce next week.
Thanks for taking the time to read this message and I hope to see you all next week at the kickoff.
In Struggle and Solidarity,
Anthony Prince,
Lead Organizer and General Legal Counsel
California Homeless Union
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