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Western Regional Advocacy Project

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40 YEARS OF HOMELESSNESS

Art Hazelwood (WRAP Minister of Culture)

Forty years ago, the federal government slashed affordable housing budgets of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), marking the beginning of the contemporary crisis of homelessness.  It has become political fodder for local politicians to say they will end homelessness “in this city” with complete disregard for the fact that no one city created homelessness, and none will end it on their own.

To understand why national rates of homelessness skyrocketed in the 1980s, we must ask; what systemic factors changed in the late 1970s and early 1980s to allow so many people to fall through the social safety net and end up living and dying on our streets? What has been happening over the last 500 years to result in Black and Indigenous people being disproportionately represented in the houseless population, and hit hardest by criminalization? Homelessness is a direct result of the decisions and funding priorities of the federal government, in a larger context of white supremacy, settler colonialism and neoliberalism. If the federal government had chosen to support affordable housing, health care, anti-poverty wages and programs, worker’s protections, and quality education—rather than war, tax breaks for the wealthy, and corporate welfare—mass homelessness would not exist in our nation.

In 1983, the Reagan administration tasked the Federal Emergency Management Agency  (FEMA) with directing a national solution to the rising number of people without homes. FEMA, the federal agency responsible for disaster relief, did what they always do, which was to create thousands of short-term, emergency shelters. Given the economic downturn of the 1980s, popular sentiment was that the crisis would self-correct in time.  But by 1987, the passage of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act marked the first federal legislation devoted solely to “managing” the epidemic of homelessness that was growing across the nation. As real affordable housing programs were being defunded by the federal government, funding for shelter programs grew exponentially. For four decades, homeless shelters that were meant to be a temporary solution to a temporary problem remain the primary response, along with criminalization, to people sleeping en masse in the streets.  This ain’t no temporary problem and the Federal Government never honestly thought it would be.

Ronnie Goodman, (2020) Rest in Power Brother

Historical context is critical to understanding who is hardest hit by forty years of social disinvestment. Ongoing systems of white supremacy and settler colonialism that affect everything from housing to healthcare, education to transportation, and especially the criminal (in)justice system mean that homelessness and its myriad related traumas disproportionately impact people along intersectional lines of race, gender, sexuality, disability, immigration, and so on. This is no accident. 

It is exactly across these intersectional lines of difference that so many of us have joined forces in working for meaningful and deep change, building on ongoing fights for prison abolition, racial justice, disability justice, and countless other struggles. In 2005, for example, several groups organizing in the western US came together to create the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP),and across the country other community groups are doing the same thing all fighting to give life to the realities of people with firsthand experience of these oppressive systems and to push for dignified solutions. We are continuing the fight to combat carceral shelters, end the criminalization of racialized poverty, stop the sweeps, and fight for actual housing, healthcare, education and dignity that all human beings deserve. True community organizing brings allied local groups together to find common threads and strategize paths forward, mobilize legal resources for  members, creates artwork and shared messaging, connects communities through coordinated direct actions, research and so much more. Seek out these groups and expand the Human Rights framework of dignity and respect for people is not a charity issue, it is the least we should demand and expect of our government.

After 40 years, the system is still doing exactly what it was designed to do: manage and minimize the presence of homeless people. It was NEVER intended to address homelessness in any real way. I was here 40 years ago, and I’m still here today. The bunk beds and crash pads that FEMA funded was implemented to create a new category of housing status for members of a community but thats exactly what it has done. After 40 years of inhumane abject failure it is past time to recognize “managing visible homelessness” isn’t a solution to shit. Homelessness is just a more visible manifestation of a society lacking in justice. 

Our organizing and public education most continue to build on the realities of all oppressed people so we lift our realities and our power together!  

(Left) Mayor and Housing Director of NYC in 1936, artwork funded by WPA
Federal Public Housing Administration created 1937
 
(Right) Art Hazelwood and WRAP 2022
Overthrow of neoliberal governance – freaking soon

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Register here tinyurl.com/Mumia-film for Thursday Register here tinyurl.com/Mumia-film for Thursday night’s online screening of this moving, informative, personal, important, and artfully-made film. Cast includes Cornel West, Angela Davis, Dick Gregory, Alice Walker, Ruben ‘Hurricane’ Carter, and Amy Goodman.
Forty years ago, the federal government slashed af Forty years ago, the federal government slashed affordable housing budgets of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), marking the beginning of the contemporary crisis of homelessness. https://conta.cc/3k4mDpA
Theatre of the POOR presents CRUSHING WHEELCHAIRS Theatre of the POOR presents CRUSHING WHEELCHAIRS 
Sunday 2/12/23 4pm San Francisco 2948 16th St.
Sunday 2/26/23 4pm Oakland 1540 Broadway 
For more information poormag@gmail.com
One of the questions we asked people we love about One of the questions we asked people we love about this continuing forty-year process of addressing the root causes of homelessness in America was recognizing that our comrade Paul has also been fighting this neoliberal bullshit for forty years. In earlier emails people spoke about the importance of WRAP. Here is what some of our friends had to say about Paul’s role over the last forty years. https://conta.cc/3vbUnUx
Next Thursday, the 22nd, at 11am we are having a p Next Thursday, the 22nd, at 11am we are having a press conference as the preliminary hearings begin and need all our allies to show up and call for justice! https://conta.cc/3FyNtgH
A lot of work done addressing oppressions across t A lot of work done addressing oppressions across the country takes place in courtrooms and legislative bodies. This work is not always successful due to the fact that the oppressors are the ones making the laws. But we know you can’t fight a system if you don’t know the ins and outs of how that system works.  https://conta.cc/3VQrVDl
Join the next Public Works Committee Meeting to re Join the next Public Works Committee Meeting to reject the “safe work zone” ordinance that aims to further criminalize unhoused people and their advocates during sweeps.
Monday, 12/12 at 10:30am
bit.ly/oakmtg-1212
Let's Celebrate Chucho Let's Celebrate Chucho
We are raising $40,000 for WRAP’s vital work at We are raising $40,000 for WRAP’s vital work at this 40-year mark, and all donations will be matched up to $20,000 in November and December! Contribute $40, $400, $4,000 to help make sure that mass homelessness is not around another 40 years. https://conta.cc/3VAWHQ8
1936 1936
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Ashland, OR. HouseLess Community Gathers for “Let Us Sleep" 1/27 Rally in Ashland - WRAP

wraphome.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –Media Contact – LookingForMyRights@gmail.com(541) 414-5166 On Friday, January 27th, HouseLess community members a...
2 days ago
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