In this issue:Police Raids on Fresno HomelessMemorial to Mary Who DiedNew Orleans After KatrinaTroubles for the Berkeley Housing AuthorityLink Between Foster Care and HomelessnessAn Epidemic of Rising PovertyAngel Behind Prison BarsBlaming Street People for Cody's DemiseMASC Storage Lockers Offer New HelpInterview with Osha Neumann, Artist/AttorneyResisting Unjust CEO Pay RatesLiberation from Hell of AddictionPoor Leonard's Almanack: On Social ChangeSept. Poetry of the StreetsReview of Jan Steckel's PoemsARCHIVESJuly 2006June 2006May 2006April 2006March 2006February 2006January 2006November 2005October 2005September 2005August 2005July 2005June 2005May 2005April 2005March 2005February 2005
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Bulldozers, Barbed Wire and Repression in Fresno
by Mike Rhodes
Homeless activists bravely block the bulldozer from destroying a homeless encampment in Fresno. Mike Rhodes photo
Barbed wire fences went up on Saturday, August 26, in downtown Fresno to keep homeless people off a strip of land owned by Caltrans. City officials and police forced homeless people from multiple encampments in downtown Fresno in a raid that displaced hundreds of unsheltered people.The homeless campers were told to move to the Poverello House, a nearby homeless center. Assistant Fresno City Manager Bruce Rudd said, "We met with the Poverello House yesterday and they said they could take in anyone who needed a place to stay." Several homeless people I talked to scoffed at this assertion and said the Poverello House doesn't have the facilities to take in the hundreds of people who had just been displaced.
Dee, one of the homeless women in the area, told me that the Poverello House closes at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday. "There is no way they are going to let us all in there," Dee said.
I went to the Poverello House and asked Paul, the person in charge for the day, if I could see the facilities where the hundreds of homeless people were going to sleep that night. Paul looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car and said that he would have to call his boss and have them call me. Paul confirmed what Dee had said: They start getting people out of the Poverello House at about 12:30 p.m. and everyone is gone by 2 p.m. on Saturday. Nobody from Poverello House called me back.
Memorial to Mary Who Died on the Streets of Oakland
by Lydia Gans
Art by Tiffany Sankary
It is sad to think of Mary's lonely death. Whatever fears prevented her from going into a shelter, Ken Katz said, "It was amazing that she survived." And it was amazing that she was not bitter, but remained the sweet woman everyone liked and cared about.
She died alone, on the cold concrete in the back of Albertson's parking lot in Oakland's Lakeshore district. She had been homeless for more years than anybody could remember. Her name was Mary and she was 65 or 66 years old; but beyond that, nobody knew much about her, not her last name, nor where she was from, nor if she had family somewhere.
When Mary died, no relatives turned up to mourn her. Said local resident and activist Ken Katz, "She led an anonymous life and died an anonymous death."
Yet, in the words of Oakland City Councilmember Desley Brooks, "She really did have a family. She was part of something and I think she knew that." Brooks was one of two dozen people who gathered at Lakeshore Baptist Church to hold a memorial for Mary. She reflected the feelings of many of those gathered there when she said, "Mary had become part of my life."
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