Minneapolis, MN – The city of Minneapolis announced their intent to close down Nenookaasi Ikwe Healing Camp in the East Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis. Nenookaasi is an encampment of primarily indigenous people and has been a safe space for over three months.

Because of the steadfast support of local indigenous elders and other local volunteers, the camp has been home to up to 200 people. Because it provides a stable base, residents have been able to access government services, 74 people have gotten stable housing, and the camp has had zero overdose deaths.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who campaigned on ending homelessness in Minneapolis, has been playing a deadly game of whack-a-mole, where encampments of the unhoused are violently closed down, with no place for people to go. Despite many pointing out the cruelty of this approach, Frey has continued this policy.

Nenookaasi recently won their fight to get portable toilets to aid in keeping the site sanitary for the residents. One day later, an eviction notice was issued.

Lead camp organizer Nicole Mason said, “Eviction is violence and results in overdose, disease spread, assault, and the deaths of our relatives.”

Organizers called for a rally on Wednesday December 13, where hundreds of people assembled at The Wall of Forgotten Natives , the site of a former encampment that was violently shut down several years ago. Rallygoers chanted “Who’s land? Native land!” and “Land back” as they marched to the Nenookaasi encampment.

Residents of the encampment were visibly touched to see the massive support for the site that has meant so much to them.

At the rally, a 19-year-old resident of Nenookaasi encampment spoke of the safety and security she had, even as one of the youngest amongst older people. Nenookaasi gives her a place where people do not judge her, something she wished others would take note of and follow. Another Nenookaasi resident spoke if being “outside for a year” and “how that became so isolating.” New to Nenookaasi, he spoke of the welcome and warmth he receives there. The comments from these residents show Nenookaasi is not simply a location, it is home with the attributes of safety, security and support.

Community members, joined by organizations like the Climate Justice Committee, are committed to support Nenookaasi Ikwe Healing Camp. The city of Minneapolis has already moved the date of eviction once and may be moving a second time.

Meanwhile organizers and residents continue to demand no evictions until there is stable, safe housing for all residents, and that the city continue to meet with Nenookaasi representatives to coordinate next steps.

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #OppressedNationalities #IndigenousPeoples #Housing #Homeless #CJC

These comments are ridiculous, considering that the homeless people sleeping on the subways do not have a choice. Capitalist forces have stripped them of access to work and shelter. Mayor de Blasio said the city is offering 200 extra shelter beds – a pathetic attempt at a solution, considering the city’s homeless population is roughly 70,000. Yet instead of blaming New York City’s lack of effort in organizing enough sanitary homeless shelter facilities, Cuomo and the NYPD are directing the blame towards homeless people.

By placing the blame on homeless people, the NYPD and New York officials divert attention from the city’s own failures. Instead of blaming the ruling class for failing to provide shelter to all people, they are trying to make us believe that homeless people are the problem. The problem is capitalism. If the government based its decisions on the needs of poor and working people, they would understand the need to provide adequate shelter for the homeless, and to provide low cost housing and free healthcare for all. This would not only give homeless people somewhere to sleep other than the subways, but would eventually prevent homelessness from becoming an issue at all.

But clearly the ruling class would rather criminalize the homeless than provide for people’s basic needs. As New York officials and the NYPD continue to ignore these blatant contradictions, it becomes increasingly clear that there is only one solution – we need to organize to overthrow the capitalist system that causes homelessness in the first place. The solution is socialism.

#NewYorkNY #PoorPeoplesMovements #Healthcare #HousingStruggles #Homeless #COVID19 #NewYorkPoliceDepartment

Salt Lake residents responded fiercely with no less than three anti-war rallies in the last week, as well as a rally in support of unsheltered folks and tenants’ rights.

On January 4, 200 gathered at an event organized by supporters of Bernie Sanders, and on January 8, hundreds more gathered for a rally organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization in downtown Salt Lake City (SLC), plus another event at the University of Utah organized by Students for a Democratic Society.

At all three anti-war rallies, people from various organizations – along with Iranian Americans who are already feeling the effects of the conflict – spoke about how a war with Iran would only be in the interest of the people at the top, especially defense contractors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Speakers correctly pointed out that every bomb dropped in Iran would be paid for by us, with money that should be going to our communities to pay for health care and housing.

Amid the military escalation, Salt Lakers, and specifically unsheltered folks in the city, faced severe police brutality. Early in the morning on January 3, the Take Shelter Coalition set up camp at the Salt Lake City and County Building. They provided heat, shelter, food, first aid and conflict mediation to any and all unsheltered people in the city, and they intended to stay until their demands for more shelter beds and more services for the homeless were met. The camp was an act of mutual aid, but also a protest against the city’s inhumane treatment of homeless and unsheltered folks.

On the night of January 6, hours after the first anti-war rally, police raided the camp, with dozens of officers in riot gear, shotguns, handguns, batons and the threat of tear gas. At least three were shot with rubber bullets or beanbag rounds, and ultimately 16 were arrested. Police trashed the camp, and the unsheltered folks who had been staying there were forced to move yet again.

In response to the display of police force at the camp, the lack of tenants’ rights in Utah, and abusive landlords in SLC, the newly formed Wasatch Tenants United held a rally January 8 demanding that the newly inaugurated mayor, Erin Mendenhall, keep her campaign promise and provide material relief to homeless folks in SLC. They also announced their intention to begin organizing tenants against ruthless and exploitative landlords as rents continue to rise.

What do police brutality, homelessness and abusive landlords have to do with the potential war with Iran? Every dollar spent killing people in Iran is a dollar that could be spent on feeding and housing people who desperately need it here. But more than that, the same capitalist class profiting from war is profiting at the expense of tenants and homeless folks in SLC.

As rents increased over 50% in the last few years, the city refused to build affordable housing – to the benefit of landlords. As developers build expensive new apartments and shopping malls at the location of a now-closed homeless shelter, developers profit. Our politicians are complicit because they too get a cut. In fact, Mendenhall’s husband is a property developer in SLC, giving her absolutely no incentive to address homelessness or rising rents.

Through the threat of war abroad and violence by local cops, Utahns came together to defend Iranians and their neighbors both sheltered and unsheltered. The past week showed clearly the strength of people united against the capitalist class across the United States and in Salt Lake City.

#SaltLakeCityUT #AntiwarMovement #PoorPeoplesMovements #Iraq #Iran #US #MiddleEast #PeoplesStruggles #Homeless #DonaldTrump #NoWarWithIran

Salt Lake City, UT — More than 50 people gathered in the heart of Salt Lake City on August 22 to protest the ongoing “Operation Rio Grande,” an act of police violence that has displaced hundreds of homeless people and led to over 400 arrests in just a few days.

Utah Against Police Brutality organized the protest, which took place in the Rio Grande area of Salt Lake City — where almost all vital homeless services are located. Those who have not been arrested have been pushed further and further from The Road Home shelter and other services on which they rely.

Jason Brentner, a former resident of the Road Home shelter, spoke to the crowd about how Operation Rio Grande harms homeless people in Salt Lake City, “When you spread out the homeless population, like they’re doing right now with Operation Rio Grande, you are hurting people’s chances of survival. The City of Salt Lake and the SLCPD, the message you are sending is that a shopping mall and a cafe is worth more than a person’s life.” Brentner is referring here to the Gateway Mall and the Pioneer Park Coalition, who have been active supporters of the war against the homeless.

Operation Rio Grande was born out of a desire from developers and business owners in the Rio Grande neighborhood to push homeless people out in order to make area more palatable to upper class shoppers. Wealthy business owners created the Pioneer Park Coalition as an advocacy group for business and property owners, with the prime objective to permanently move the homeless out of sight of downtown.

Plans are being made to close the Road Home shelter, which houses 1100 persons, and to open up three shelters across the valley which jointly will only shelter approximately 700 people. These new shelters will not open for years. City officials and the police have chosen to put profits before people.

Lex Scott, an organizer with the United Front Party, addressed the media’s coverage of the operation. “The media says they [the police] are getting rid of the criminal element, but that is not what they’re doing. They are criminalizing homelessness. Being homeless is not a crime!”

#SaltLakeCityUT #PoorPeoplesMovements #PoliceBrutality #PeoplesStruggles #Homeless #Utah #Antiracism

The following is one in a regular series of commentaries by Mumia Abu Jamal from SCI Greene Prison

The great French writer, Anatoli Franz, once wrote, “The law in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

As the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ reach daily record levels and as every major media outlet boasts about the booming economy, the problem of homelessness abounds. A recent TV network report claimed that in New York City alone, over 400,000 people were millionaires and that a bare handful of city residents have annual incomes that exceed that of several nations.

In the midst of this unprecedented wealth, in one of the wealthiest nations on earth, lies hollow, soul-devouring poverty, and even homelessness. In a response that gives a whole new meaning to the term draconian, New York's Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced the city's plans to toss thousands of women, children and men out of city-run shelters and into cold wintry New York City streets.

Those found to be homeless in the streets will find a new place to stay, Rykers Island Prison. And to those who dare seek refuge in the shelters, they are forced to work in what is essentially slave labor, or their children will be snatched away from them and placed in foster homes.

Giuliani, in classic autocrat fashion, has criminalized homelessness.

With a small-minded nastiness of more prison warden than political leader, Giuliani has chosen to banish or browbeat the homeless. Banish them from the streets or to browbeat them into accepting jobs that no one else wants, under threat of prison, or under the fear of the seizure of one's child. For these homeless poor this is not an economic boom but a time of griping terror.

If homelessness is a crime, it is one committed by a system that does not fairly distribute social wealth, does not educate poor youth, nor provide decent social services. In a nation where capital is the greatest possible attainment, poverty is the greatest possible offense. To the ruthless El Duce, Giuliani, the homeless poor are to be put in prison for daring to mar city streets. And better a jail cell than a homeless shelter, for there, one feeds the prison industrial complex.

This is Rudy's job application to the ruling class, as he gives reign his to unbridled ambition. But there's a malevolent method to Rudy's madness, for as Mayor of the capitol of capital, the interests of big business are paramount. It was these interests that pushed for so-called welfare reform, meaning the abolition of welfare, and are pushing now the slave labor angle on the homeless.

Why? Well, scholars Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward in their book, The New Class War, made that point about welfare, which strengthened the hand of labor. They wrote, “If the desperation of the unemployed is moderated by the availability of various benefits, they will be less eager to take any job on any terms.” In short, there is an emerging recognition from analysts of all political persuasions that the income maintenance programs have weakened capital's ability to depress wages, especially by means of manipulating the relative numbers of people searching for work.

In effect, These programs have altered the terms of struggle between business and labor.

As a result, unemployment has lost some of it's terror, both for the unemployed and for those currently working. With those programs now gone or going, the terrors represented by the homeless serve to discipline and curb an anxious working class which is precisely what Rudy means to do.

From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu Jamal.

#WaynesburgPA #CapitalismAndEconomy #Commentary #HousingStruggles #MumiaAbuJamal #Homeless