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by Tiny Gray Garcia aka povertyskola
“OWWW, OWWWWWWWW, OWWWW, OWWWW, OWWWW, OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.” Bobby, a houseless neuro-divergent relative, had been screaming in two-second intervals from the bed he was forced to lie on in the nursing home for the last several hours. Picked up on a 5150 hold in Alameda, he was supposedly being “treated” rather than “tented” or incarcerated. Bobby’s nightmare will get frighteningly worse with the upcoming statewide LIEgislation Proposition 1.
Which is why I need to drop some povertyskolaz knowledge on some of the ballot initiatives that will mess us poor folks up even more than we already are. LIEgislations loaded with and cloaked in so much double-speak you may not be able to untangle the truth from the BS.
So I’m going to focus on Prop 1 (statewide) and Prop F in San Francisco (for “F-U, poor people with substance use struggles”). And to all my fellow houseless/po’ povertyskolaz, please vote on March 5. Your vote matters for local and state issues, no matter what you think about the rest.
Politrickster Propaganda: Proposition 1, Treatment not Tents, will refocus billions of dollars in existing funds to prioritize Californians with the deepest mental health needs, living in encampments or suffering the worst substance use issues.
FACTS: Prop 1 will codify, LIEgislate and demand forced treatment of houseless people’s bodies. Period. Prop 1 will support the arrests, tent, belongings and medicine seizure of houseless people’s bodies and comeUnities. Prop 1 would impose a new $6.4 billion bond to primarily fund forced treatment and institutionalization, so if we refuse their “shelter beds” we end up incarcerated. Finally, Prop 1 will divert money away from beautiful education, art, afterschool and support services for poor youth and elders that keep us poor people from becoming isolated, abused and/or depressed, which often leads to our homelessness.
Notwithstanding the ironic Prop 1 tagline, Treatment Not Tents, they are already violently and endlessly sweeping us houseless humans like we are trash all over California and the U$.
“Newsom is pimping the Care Court. Prop 1 doesn’t increase treatment at all; it funds the beds he said already existed in Care Courts,” one of my povertyskola mentors, truth-teller Paul Boden, broke it down.
For this povertyskola, Newsom’s politricks on the backs of the poor is sadly nothing new. He literally became San Francisco’s mayor by pimping houseless people’s struggles, causing this povertyskola to lose my measly cash crumb that helped keep me, my mama and my Sun housed with the infamous LIEgislation Care NOT Cash, which he created. Care NOT Cash demanded that poor people pay for their “shelter beds” instead of receive the little bit of money we were getting for toiletries, medicine etc.
Care Courts were another Newsom plan, adding an additional layer of allegedly more user-friendly court systems directed at poor people, which haven’t led to more treatment or beds but instead have funneled a lot more money to anti-social workers, judges, non-profiteers and the injustice system.
“I lost my tent and I was raped,” Mary S reported to RoofLessRadio from Tongva (LA) skid row.
The sick, sad part is every settler town in Occupied Turtle Island has multiple LIEgislations, laws and codes on the books, new and old, as the pauper and ugly laws that adjudicate our lives when we are outside. In a recent RoofLess Radio interview I did with comrade General Dogon from LA Community Action Network in Tongva (LA), he broke down the insanity of LA’s new tent-taking law 41:18.
“Under 41:18, this mayor doesn’t let you set up a tent in LA, so what happens? You just have people sleeping without any blankets or covers and protection right out on the street,” said General Dogon, LA Community Action Network.
If a povertyskola I know needs substance use treatment or a home, I would NEVER refer them to Care Court. I get to work referring them to my underground system of grassroots advocates and what we at POOR Magazine call Revolutionary Love Workers, like JuneBug Kealoha, Manna from Heaven’s Diane and Omowale, Aunty Frances Moore and the Self-Help Hunger Program and all of us warriors at POOR Magazine and Homefuless, to name a few.
“Prop 1 is just the next block in the structure that they have been building to force people into internment out of sight out of mind where they can continue to collect money off the backs of the poor. Like Care Court, conservatorship, and now Prop 1, none of these provide the true resourcing and real time housing that is needed,” said warrior sisSTAR Crystal Rose Sanchez, Sacramento Homeless Union.
“They took my tent, I was in a silent meditation. Now I just want to get out of here. I’m not safe here. Please let me out,” Bobby told me calmly in a rare break from his OWWW. “I mind my own business outside. I just need to be free, like you, like any human.” He turned his head toward the wall and stopped talking and resumed crying.
Bobby, like so many of our relatives in deep struggle inside our own minds, living on the street, absolutely don’t want to be inside. Don’t want and are terrified of forced treatment and forced “housing.” Similarly, there are thousands of us on the street who are desperately trying to get inside, but there is no place we can afford or be accepted because of multiple hoops, credit checks, wait lists, gatekeepers and the lie of rent.
In the middle of all this, there are solutions like Wood Street Commons, Nickelsville (Washington State), Aetna Street, Camp Resolution and Homefulness. Solutions created by poor, houseless, neuro-divergent, disabled people, informed by poverty scholarship and our own overstanding of each other’s lives and struggles. But these settler governments refuse to listen or see any way but their own incarceration nation.
“We had a community that took care of each other. We provided free, healthy food stocked kitchen, healing services and a free store, but most of all community, provided where people felt safe,” recalled John Janosko, resident leader of Wood Street Commons.
Politrickster Propaganda: PROPOSITION F (for F-U, low-no-income substance users) would require anyone who receives CAAP (County Adult Assistance Programs) benefits to be screened for substance use disorder if the City reasonably suspects the person to be dependent on illegal drugs. When screening indicates a recipient may be dependent on illegal drugs, the City will provide a professional evaluation and may refer the recipient to an appropriate treatment program.
First of all, this is a racist, classist, ableist invasion of privacy, as the majority of people seeking the cash crumb are people of color, disabled and/or houseless. Furthermore, the cash grant itself keeps a lot of poor people who happen to also be substance users housed, which will lead to more of us poor, disabled people holding on by a thread into the street.
Finally, there is such a thing as harm reduction, London Breed! There are beautiful, amazing warrior survivors of substance abuse who are working their harm reduction programs and thriving. No, they wouldn’t pass these tests, but they are low income and will quickly become houseless when and if they fail them or just opt out of the test and lose that urgently needed support.
“No matter how many times you sweep me, jail me or count me, it doesn’t give me a home.” – Tiny 2019
To hear more on the upcoming election politricks for povertyskolaz, tune in to Po Peoples Radio live radio and podcast at poormagazine.org/radio 6 p.m. PT Tuesday, Feb. 27, or find Po Peoples Radio wherever you get your podcasts.
Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, aka “povertyskola,” is a poet, teacher and the formerly houseless, incarcerated daughter of Dee and mama of Tiburcio and author of “Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America” and many more and co-founder of Homefulness, a homeless people’s solution to homelessness. Reach her at www.lisatinygraygarcia.com or @povertyskola on Twitter.
