Raising Awareness Through Art: Interview with Art Hazelwood

by Vilnius Walker

The growth of awareness-driven social justice campaigns, especially in social media, makes one thing clear: Tapping into communities’ understanding and involvement in local and global issues can be just as powerful as fundraising. 

In California and elsewhere in the U.S., government underfunding and inaction has failed to address the core issues that drive homelessness: low wages, unaffordable housing and a lack of poverty services. 

Of course,

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The Biggest Survey of Homeless Californians in Decades Shows Why So Many Are on the Streets

by Marisa Kendall, CalMatters

Losing income is the No. 1 reason Californians end up homeless—and the vast majority of them say a subsidy of as little as $300 a month could have kept them off the streets.

That’s according to a new study out of UC San Francisco that provides the most comprehensive look yet at California’s homeless crisis.

In the six months prior to becoming homeless,

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Transformation/ Transformacion

by Homefulness Resident/Formerly Homeless Poverty Scholar Israel Muñoz

learn more about Homefulness here: https://www.poormagazine.org/homefulness

(Espanol/Spanish)

Hoy, como todos, sigo con la lucha de cada día. Dejar el alcohol y con la ayuda de la gente que tuve la suerte de conocer a través de otra persona. Una persona con la que tuve el honor de compartir y aprender cosas que no se enseñan en la escuela,

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Homefulness is like Heaven 

by Amir, DeeColonize Academy 

Learn more about homefulness here: https://www.poormagazine.org/homefulness

Homefulness is a community launched by Dee and Tiny Garcia. Homefulness is a safe place for people of color that could join us in the movement to free Mama Earth along with all of our Po Uncles, Aunties, Grandmas and Grandpas. I study at Deecolonize Academy – a school at Homefulness in East Oakland. 

Homefulness is a place that helps our fellow houseless relatives on the streets.

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The Stolen Land 

by Terry Johnson

You are on Indigenous lands swimming in Indigenous waters looking up at Indigenous skies looking down at Indigenous water creatures There is no part of this place that was not is not cared for loved 

Those who are not Indigenous to this land are Settlers 

This does not mean being a part of peaceful settlement  

It means being a part of settler-colonialism 

where invaders came and never left 

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Indigenous Community

By Ava Cameron

Once upon a time, my Navajo people were a proud Indigenous community living on our ancestral lands, in present day Arizona and New Mexico. For years and generations, they had lived in harmony with the land, respecting and preserving its natural resources. However, as the world around them changed, the community found itself increasingly marginalized and pushed out of its traditional lands. With no power, political support or resources to fight back,

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We’re Lower Bottom, Bitches

At Wood Street, a Bond No Bulldozer Can Destroy

Freeway

The sun was high, beating down mercilessly on the volunteers and advocates, as if to say, “I’m on their side, and we don’t want you here.” They, in this case, were the entire Oakland Police (OPD) force, and an endless parade of Department of Public Works (DPW) workers under the command of Oakland city administrators Harold Duffy and LaTonda Simmons.

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Stopping Sweeps Saves Lives, Research Shows

A tent is in the center of the frame. In front of it is what looks like a white dollhouse, laying flat on the ground. The image is in Black and White

by TJ Johnston 

For years, the mantra for advocates of unhoused people has been “sweeps kill.” Now, their tagline has science and hard numbers to back it up.

In a study focused on 23 U.S. cities including San Francisco, researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and several other academic institutions determined that unsheltered people who inject drugs and who are repeatedly forced out of street encampments are likely to suffer higher illness and death rates than their peers who stay put.

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A Brief History of the Tenderloin Linkage Center

by Kenyota

Homelessness is an ever-present and ever-growing problem which seems to confound policymakers around our nation. Many believe that the current crisis facing America is one which can be easily solved through some magical stroke of a lawmaker’s pen or an elected official’s savvy decision making. However, it appears the more attention politicians have given to this issue, the greater the misunderstanding and social stigma. The best “solutions” only seem to exacerbate an already unpopular social crisis and increase a gulf of misunderstanding between those who have and those who have not.

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