The building planner was trying to convince us and the city commissioners of how great of an idea it is by making the building more authentic and cultural by using stucco and adobe …. more lols. Well after many hours of flyering and petitioning and outreach to the community, we had a huge turnout.  So many people came out to speak against family dollar, old, young and new folks came.  It was extremely empowering, points were made about how family dollar is exploitive localy and afar, destructive to the character and local economy of el prado, and about how corporate america is just plain fucked up.  Members had powerful presentations and talked about how they personally went door to door to everyone in the area and found out that pretty much no one wanted it there.

Typical corporate america bull shit

Folks who were working on the campaign against family dollar had legitimate concerns and went to the planning meeting for family dollar weeks prior.  The family dollar representative told them flat out if you try to stop us we will sue your town and build it anyway.  This is how they operate threats and exploitation.  the funny thing is they weren’t gonna provide new jobs they were gonna bring in current employees and have a contracted work force come in and build the building, plus all the money goes to a Corporate HQ in colorado. Millions of dollars taken from the local community to go into the hands of an 8 billion dollar company that doesnt give a shit about any local community.

Victory is ours

After over 20 people spoke, the city commission basically cancelled the entire plan which wasn’t the agenda item because they had already approved it.  But the problem was the community did not get a chance to speak out and they did; without a single supporting comment.  Thats democracy in action so i urge you to not give up and go to your local city commission hearings that are important to you and speak your mind!

http://www.dailytaosnews.com/index.php/home/item/1680-famdoll.html

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Around a dozen people have been camping in tents, busses, and vehicles at the Food Not Bombs Free Skool in Taos, New Mexico this week. So far activists have done workshops on non-violent direct action, puppetry, screenprinting, and more. We’ve also provided free food at our weekly Taos FNB sharing spot as well as Kit Carson Park, where we held our Free Skool Welcome Day event last week.

Our construction projects at the farm have included getting our well completed, building a ramada, a bulletin board, and plenty of raised farm beds. Although it still gets cold at night we started planting a few seedlings this week as well.

The Free Skool remains open for classes all summer long, and we’re planning still more topics to teach, including creative storytelling, brewing skills, street medic training, and much more!

find out more at fnb-freeskool.org

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http://blog.foodnotbombs.net/750000-homeless-americans/

I just read a quote of Erica Eichelberger’s from Mother Jones. Her quote was kind but she made a claim “of the country’s roughly 643,000 street folk” which is often repeated by people supportive of the rights of the homeless. Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West quote this figure in their great book “The Rich and the Rest of Us – A Poverty Manifesto.”

This figure however has been reported since at least 1987 and maybe even before that. If you google 750,000 Americans you will find that this number has been used year after year yet as someone that has been sharing food with the hungry since 1980 I can assure you that the numbers are increasing every year. After the 2008 housing crisis the numbers sky rocketed. I have the two quotes at the end that are by people that seek to support the homeless but report that the number is still about 750,000. It is clear that there has been a huge increase in the number of people living on our streets. This doesn’t even start to account for the tens of thousands of “new” homeless in Europe or other countries because of the current economic crisis.

I think it is important to do what we can to determine how many millions of us are living on the streets. To claim that the number has not changed in over 20 years can give the impression the economy has been stable and the capitalism is not failing millions in our country. Sure for each homeless person it is tragic having to struggle against anti-homeless laws and  face all the hardships of cold, heat, hunger and the difficulty of accessing showers and toilets but when viewed as a personal crisis for millions that is increasing every year this becomes the national emergency it really is.

The debate around the number of homeless is also important in a second way. The people working with the homeless can be divided into two camps. One line of thought is that the homeless are in this condition because of personal failing and that the the economic system is basically fine. The other line of thought is that the increase in homelessness is directly caused by intentional economic policies that have cause an increase in unemployment, foreclosed houses and larger numbers seeking food and shelter. If we claim the number of homeless has remained the same since 1987 this supports the idea that we have a population of people that are afflicted with personal issues like addictions and poor morals that keeps these people on the streets and suggests that the best we can do is provide charity. If as is the fact that the number of people forced to live on our streets has increased this suggests that the housing crisis, failure to fund healthcare and education and policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement are responsible for the crisis not personal failings.

When I started sharing food on the streets in Boston in 1980 there were very few homeless. On March 26, 1981 I spoke at the Pine Street Inn about a protest against the Bank of Boston to be held later that day at noon. We warned that if the Bank of Boston and the Reagan administration implemented their new policies Americans would find themselves eating at soup kitchens. The veterans at the inn came to the protests and suggested we start providing food every day because Boston didn’t have any soup kitchens in 1981. When I tell this story today people are visibly shocked to learn that  there were not thousands of homeless people wondering the streets of America. It is clear we can end homelessness by ending the policies that cause homelessness. There are more than two abandoned foreclosed homes for every homeless American. This is the struggle the first camp does not want to acknowledge. This is one reason I feel Food Not Bombs should be more than a charity but should bring signs, banners and literature to every meal and figure out how they can reach the most people possible. It is not enough to feed people when you know it is possible for everyone to have a safe home and food they can cook in their own kitchen.

HERE IS A QUICK REVIEW OF THE USE OF THE STATISTIC (1987 – 2012)

Dec 30, 1987
Nation’s Homeless Veterans Battle a New Foe: Defeatism – New …
www.nytimes.com › COLLECTIONS › HOMELESS PEOPLE
Dec 30, 1987 – Hundreds of homeless people live in the park behind the sprawling … Tent 31, where Jay Martin lives, is decorated with a small American … Estimates of homeless veterans range from 230,000 to more than 750,000, about ..

Sep 13, 1989
STUDY PUTS NUMBER OF HOMELESS AT 1.5 MILLION / The …
www.csmonitor.com/1989/0913/afil13.html
Sep 13, 1989 – For want of a few hundred dollars, more than 750,000 Americans temporarily … The number of people homeless at some time during the year is …

Dec 2, 1993
Homeless Veterans Get A Break – Chicago Tribune
articles.chicagotribune.com › Featured Articles
Dec 2, 1993 – In any given month, as many as 50 homeless veterans were turned away … about one-third, or 250,000, of the 750,000 homeless people are veterans. … “This is a classic American tragedy, and it must not be allowed to stand …

1995
Homelessness Comes to School – Page 62 – Google Books Result
books.google.com/books?isbn=1412980542
Joseph Murphy, Kerri Tobin – 2011 – Education
In 1995, the U.S. Department of Education reported about 750,000 homeless … groups, with 43% of African American descent

Jan 26, 1996
Helping the Homeless – The CQ Researcher Online
library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id…
Jan 26, 1996 – On any given night, the alliance estimated, some 750,000 Americans will be homeless. It further estimated that between 1.3 million and 2 …

Nov 12, 1998
Homeless veterans tell their stories – The GW Hatchet
www.gwhatchet.com/1998/…/homeless-veterans-tell-their-stori…
Nov 12, 1998 – Stoops said of the 750,000 homeless in America, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 are veterans. A lack of affordable housing, defaulted …

Jun 24, 1999
Emil W. Naschinski – House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
democrats.veterans.house.gov/hearings/schedule106/…/tal.htm
Jun 24, 1999 – The American Legion is pleased to have this opportunity to share its … on any given night there are 750,000 homeless persons in this country.

Jan 10, 2007
Schools Matter: America’s Homeless and the Decider’s War
www.schoolsmatter.info/…/americas-homeless-and-deciders-w…
Jan 10, 2007 – Tonight while the Decider was holding Americans spellbound with his … I figure we could put each of the 750,000 homeless people in a new …

Mar 19, 2007
Dealing with Homelessness in America – Yahoo! Voices – voices …
voices.yahoo.com/dealing-homelessness-america-242715.html
Mar 19, 2007 – This report is in line with earlier, smaller studies that were carried out that suggested America’s homeless numbered around 750,000, or 0.25%

Nov 15, 2007
AFP: Nearly half Americans have housed homeless: study
afp.google.com/…/ALeqM5ggu4ZrDvqrg4_Phz_k4eT__YCn…
Nov 15, 2007 – Nearly half Americans have housed homeless: study … End Homelessness, the United States has around 750,000 homeless people, including …

Jun 24, 2009
Ending Homelessness in America – Yahoo! Voices – voices.yahoo.com
voices.yahoo.com/ending-homelessness-america-3495411.html
Jun 24, 2009 – On any given night there are 750,000 adults and children in America without a place to call home (National Alliance to End Homelessness, …

2008
Homelessness in America [Three Volumes] – Page 47 – Google Books Result
books.google.com/books?isbn=0275995569
Robert Hartmann McNamara – 2008 – Political Science
… more than 750,000 homeless people on any given night in America.1 Given the sheer number of people, being homeless in America raises numerous legal …

Dec 1, 2010
Homeless Services Non-Profit In Long Beach Wins – Long Beach Post
www.lbpost.com › News
Dec 1, 2010 – Efforts to address and tackle the problem of homelessness received a … as Mental Health America will receive grants worth $750000 over the …

Aug 1, 2012
Homelessness & Affordable Housing Sunday | Unbound
justiceunbound.org/…/homelessness-affordable-housing-sunda…
Aug 1, 2012 – 750,000 to 1 million people sleep on the streets every night. … already a crippling situation for a growing not-so-invisible class of Americans.

The use of this figure in recent articles and books 2012 – 2013
A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West

At the time of this writing, about 680,00 people were experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. There is no reason to believe that number has been reduced by any significant amount since. 72
The Rich and the Rest of Us – A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West on Page 111

Erica Eichelberger Mother Jones
“A recent report by the US Interagency Council on Homelessness blasted the national wave of out-of-sight-out-of-mind laws affecting many of the country’s roughly 643,000 street folk: “Criminalization policies further marginalize men and women who are experiencing homelessness, fuel inflammatory attitudes, and may even unduly restrict constitutionally protected liberties.”
—By Erica Eichelberger Mother Jones

The figure of 750,000 homeless Americans can be found at Naeh.org

750,000 homeless Americans

http://blog.foodnotbombs.net/750000-homeless-americans/

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Therefore SFL FNB calls for advocates of economic and social justice to plan to converge the weekend of November 15-17. We wish to create and collaborate working groups for the topics of community & interfaith justice, police & state violence, anti-globalization, anti-capitalism, & free trade itself, and we welcome further additions as well.

Fort Lauderdale Food Not Bombs itself will seek to share food for the convergence, hold workshops, and collaborate on an Anarchist Book Fair. If you would like to join or create a working group for FTAA+10, please contact us at

swampzine (at) gmail.com.

if you are interested we will be forming a spokes council in the coming weeks for different aspects of planning this convergence to build their vision for the FTAA+10.

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Vice.com Reports On Recycled Food Markets

According to Jarrod Shanahan, a new start-up called the Urban Foods Initiative is cribbing from FNB and others who collect food that can’t be sold from markets..but there’s a twist: they’re selling it! The article also quotes several “veteran dumpster divers,” dispelling some of the stigma around the concept, which is used to provide Food Not Bombs sharings about as much as it isn’t: “A lot of it is aesthetic. Brown marks on zucchini, blemishes that aren’t bothersome to the eater but won’t make that particular item sell. This guy’s plan is actually proof of that.”

Follow the link to read more, but we’ll leave you with this choice quote:

“Mass agricultural goods are themselves the product of this desire to conquer scarcity—the unpredictability of the environment, being unsure if we will be able to find food to survive.” said Dumpster diver Mary LeMont, “Capitalism, through austerity measures, is trying to recreate this sense of scarcity, but only at the bottom: finding new ways of sustaining the working poor with even less.”

Student Journalist Reports on Cities’ Anti-Homeless Campaigning

Andres David Lopez features Fort Lauderdale FNB as well as policies nationwide that are effecting homeless and poor peoples’ access to food aid and basic services: “Every city in Florida is really dependent on tourism dollars and city officials are under a lot of pressure to keep up that revenue…They all seem to think they can do that by getting rid of homeless people.”

Besides focusing on bleak and depressing Florida, there’s also some focus on those who are trying a little harder, including a member of California’s state assembly, who supports a homeless rights bill introduced to the legislature in December: “I can’t understand why sitting on a sidewalk is illegal…We need to defend the right to exist for people that do not have a home.”

Follow the link to read more…everywhere government fails to provide for the welfare of its people, it’s quite possible Food Not Bombs will be there to teach people that another society is possible.

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Hundreds of people gathered outside the office of Alderman James Cappleman, a representative for the 46th ward of Chicago, on March 6th. Cappleman has become infamous in Chicago for banning a Salvation Army food truck from his ward, making it illegal to be in bus shelters if you are not waiting for a bus, and pursuing many other anti-homeless policies, including closing low-income housing.

Various groups have claimed he is fighting a one-politician “war on the poor,” and are particularly critical of his choice of timing; making shelter and hot meals even more scarce in the middle of winter.

While the Salvation Army food truck scandal appears to have been resolved, Chicago Food Not Bombs as well as new community start-up Uptown Uprising appear to just be getting started, so follow their good work going ahead – and find out who the pro-hunger politicians are in your community!

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Food Not Bombs Around the World is a new zine created to demonstrate the diversity and strength of the idea and the movement known as Food Not Bombs in the 2010′s. Download it here to add to your literature table or for whatever else you feel like! Also e-mail us at swampzine at gmail dot com if you want us to mail you some copies.

This zine is part of the Food Not Bombs Free Skool, which opens for summer classes in just two months! If you ‘d like to be a part of the Free Skool or want to help create more literature about Food Not Bombs, email us.

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Anarchists Against the Wall, the Israeli anti-occupation peace group, is ten years old this April! Therefore to celebrate their anniversary and continue to combat damages both physical and legal to Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists that engage in civil disobedience against West Bank expansion, AAtW has called for solidarity fundraisers.

So are any Food Not Bombs groups interested in putting together an “April Against the Wall” event? If so, let them know here and look over their resources section for educational material.

Donate to Anarchists Against the Wall

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However, what does this mean as a tactic in general for Food Not Bombs groups and homeless advocates? Categorizing the homeless as “undesirables” and pushing them out of their borders has been the institutionalized reaction for decades for cities across Florida, California, and really almost all of the US.

To underscore just how severe anti-homeless attitudes pervade these cities, here’s some FORT LAUDERDALE MAYORAL FUN FACTS:

• Mayor Bob Cox in 1981 suggested pouring kerosene into dumpsters to discourage scavenging.
• Mayor Jim Naugle in 1993 ordered a homeless camp in Holiday Park closed without offering any indoor alternative. At that time, down the street from the park, a $500,000 stable for police horses was being built.
• Mayor Jack Seiler in 2010, while discussing ways to crack down on homeless panhandling, complained that he couldn’t even get a Big Mac at the nearby McDonald’s drive-through without being asked for money by a homeless person. Soon after the city spent $27,000 on signs that were put up all over downtown, pictured right.

So no one should expect a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment. But it is important for FNB activists, even if they may not have a favorable view of city governance, to make use of these opportunities - it is often the only way to pressure city officials to deal with homeless issues progressively at all. To leave it otherwise means that they will only be discussing homelessness when they find time to pass another ordinance discriminating against them, such as the infamous sharing bans that have been effecting cities such as Orlando, Philadelphia, Houston, and more. Organizing actions at city public events and speaking to churches and homeless service groups are other proactive tactics to demand action for homeless rights.

Let’s here from other FNB’ers out there – what tactics do you use to advocate for the homeless? Posting on this blog is free to FNB advocates worldwide – create a login and write about your experiences! (If your post isn’t quickly approved send an e-mail to swampzine at gmail dot com and we’ll get it up straight away)

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http://www.npr.org/2013/01/27/170407141/a-doctors-kindness-gives-homeless-inventor-a-second-chance?guid=1359338475485#
In California in the early 1980s, a cracked tooth sent Mike Williams to the dentist’s office.
When Williams asked to see the tooth, the dentist said he had a mirror but that there was no camera or anything to show people the insides of their mouths. So, Williams invented one: the first intraoral camera.
His invention was a big success, and it led to other medical technology ventures that made him millions of dollars. Williams’ career as an inventor and entrepreneur took off, but it wouldn’t last.
“The real estate market destroyed a lot of my financial capabilities, and my home went into foreclosure [in 2009],” Williams tells NPR’s Robert Smith. “I had a group that defrauded me in Florida, took about $2.5 million from me in a scam, and it just kept going and kept going and I couldn’t stop it.”
His world was crumbling. Then his wife asked for a divorce.
“ To me, a patient is a patient, no matter what kind of status [they] have. They need the help, [and] we can give him the help.
- Dr. Jong Chen
“I packed my car, told my kids to come and get what they wanted and I basically hit the streets,” he says.
The successful inventor had become homeless.
For a while, Williams lived out of his car and kept a journal on a laptop. Once he fell behind on the car payments, he took shelter in a dumpster. The situation hit him hard.
“I found out that I was really nothing, and that was very hard for me to grasp; the fact that no one wanted me around,” he says. “I was something nobody wanted to see or be involved in, and that crushed me.”
One night last August, Williams was sleeping in a Sacramento park when two men began kicking and beating him. They beat him until he passed out, taking his belongings and leaving him with severe injuries.
Williams walked to the emergency room. He didn’t have health insurance, and he says he waited for hours before seeing a doctor.
“Little did I know that that beating would be the beating that changed my life,” he says.
A Second Chance
Williams’ injuries eventually led him to Dr. Jong Chen.
He went to Chen complaining of pain in his lower abdomen; it turns out he suffered prostate damage that required surgery. Before the operation, the two men struck up a conversation, and Chen asked him how he became homeless and what he did before that.

A rendering of the pod prototype designed by Williams in his joint venture with Chen.
Courtesy of Mike Williams
“And I started telling him the story,” Williams says. “And I said, ‘As a matter of fact, I’m the inventor of that little wire catheter you’re using.’ ”
Chen thought it was a waste that an inventor like Williams was on the street, so he devised a way to help him. He later called Williams at a local Salvation Army shelter and asked to take him out to breakfast.
“He said ‘I want you to bring your patents. I want you to bring whatever you’re working on,’ ” Williams says.
They went to breakfast, and Williams talked of about his idea to invent a secure, safe place for the homeless and people that are displaced in society.
“I want to give them a safe place to live,” he says he told Chen.
Williams came up with the idea while resting in one of the only safe places he could find: a dumpster. He’d even drawn up the plans for a self-contained survival pod — a 6-foot by 6-foot structure with a single bed and a chemical toilet.
Chen signed on, and they formed a company to start working on a prototype pod. They also envision other applications — FEMA could use them for emergency housing, and airports could rent them to travelers with long layovers.
All of that got started with an unusually generous contribution.
“To me, a patient is a patient, no matter what kind of status [they] have,” Chen says. “They need the help, [and] we can give him the help.”
Chen got Williams out of the shelter and back on his feet. He helped him get an apartment, new clothes and treated him to meals when the two would meet.
Williams says he is humbled by the second chance he’s been given by the generosity of one man, and says it’s people like Chen who are truly helping people.
“[Dr. Chen] is truly an amazing man,” Williams says. “I’m just telling you, [he] is the example for America.”

LETTER TO DR. CHEN, MIKE WILLIAMS AND ROBERT SMITH
I was very moved by this story. I have been sharing food with the homeless for over 30 years and often meet people like Mike Williams. People who had money and were doing well but ran into problems and ended up on the street. Also it is very common for people to he beaten while living outside.  Over the years a number of people who argued that the homeless just needed to “get a job” have returned to our meals to share that they too had fallen on hard times and understood my position when they had given me a rough time for defending the homeless.

Yet I have also heard wonderful stories of compassion. A mother happened to pass our meal in Tucson and told me how our volunteers in Sacramento had saved the lives of her family when she happened upon our meal at Cesar Chavez Park. A laid-off teacher who could not take another day dealing with the humiliation from social service workers started off to one of the bridges to throw her daughters off into the river before jumping herself but our volunteers treated her with dignity. She donated $20 to our Tucson group after sharing her story.

I have also been approached with plans for a “self-contained survival pod — a 6-foot by 6-foot structure with a single bed and a chemical toilet” many times over the years. A design firm in San Francisco gave me plans in the early 1990′s but there were several huge issues about the idea. The “Mad Housers” also had a great design for small houses for the 
homeless but the city of Atlanta destroyed their buildings and arrested 
the owners in the months before the Olympics in 1996.

First with as many a five empty abandoned houses for every homeless American both after the Savings and Loan crisis and today with the foreclosure crisis it would be more practical to house homeless people in these homes helping both the homeless and the homes so they would not be in disrepair. The second is that as we saw in the struggle to let people live in the tent city in Sacramento we would need to change the impression people have the the homeless and change laws regarding public space and the rights of the homeless. 

People should not have to live in a self-contained survival pod — a 6-foot by 6-foot structure with a single bed and a chemical toilet. All Americans have the right, really all people have the right to housing and again with so many empty foreclosed homes it is time to let everyone return home. No one should have to live on he streets of America nor stand in line to eat at a soup kitchen when we can spend billions for war and prisons.

I do not want to slow the progress of Mike’s project but I would suggest he would have better luck trying to sell it to airports and relief organizations like the United Nations. As for providing safety for America’s homeless we need to change society. When I first started to feed the poor in 1980 there were almost no homeless Americans and our goal was to slow the policies of the Reagan administration but by 1988 the number of people made homeless was so dire cities started to implement anti- homeless laws, the laws that placed Mike in danger and sent him to you for treatment.

Thanks so much for your consideration.

Keith McHenry co-founder of the Food Not Bombs movement.
www.foodnotbombs.net

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