|  After a long overnight drive, the bus rolled into San Fransisco. In San Fransisco we were met a number!
of organizations including the Mission Agenda Project, POWER, and others. San Fransisco is a wealthy, international city; the polarization between the rich and the poor in San Fransisco is one of the greatest in the country. Incredibly high housing costs make affordable housing a serious issue for many. With relatively few shelters, many turn to SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotels. The Mission Agenda Project is an organization of people living in those hotels or on the streets. The area of the city where most of the hotels are located, the Mission District, is being gentrified. Rents for these units have skyrocketed from $275 a month to as high as $700 a month, despite conditions remaining deplorable. Thousands have also been displaced through the destruction of public housing. San Fransisco is also !
renown for its laws which have made it virtually illegal to be homeless; people on the streets of San Fransisco routinely are harrassed, arrested, have their possessions thrown away, etc.
POWER, People Organized to Win Employment Rights, was also present. POWER is organizing workfare workers across the city. Currently representing over 3,000 workers, it is working with labor unions to prevent union jobs being replaced by slave-wage workfare positions.  We marched to the corner of 16th and Mission, where we joined one of the Mission Agenda Project's regular speakouts. Freedom Riders joined local organizers in sharing the struggles they have !
had to go through every day just to survive. Poet Jack Hirschman read a poem he had written for this occasion. Our "Economic Human Rights" and "Right to a Job at a Living Wage" banners were joined by banners from the Mission Agenda Project, the Labor Party, and others. From the speakout we marched to the United Nations plaza, where the United Nations was founded. We took time to reflect on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and its significance in our struggle for our human rights here in the United States. From there we marched to the Civic Center Plaza for a rally. After a number of speakers, the freedom bus choir led us to the bus for the drive to San Jose.
San José, California, in the Silicon Va!
lley is a major center of new, high-tech industry. However, for those who lack the technical education necessary to enter those jobs, the high cost of living makes it almost impossible to survive. We rode into town for dinner and an evening tribunal which lasted well into the night. San José POWR, People Organized Against Welfare Rollbacks, CHAM (Community Homeless Action Ministry), and others filled a church hall for this event. A leader from POWR clearly set the scene for the evening: "Today, we have the capacity to actually end poverty with the technological advances led by the industries here in the Silicon Valley. What's lacking is the political will." Others spoke to the issue, like Louie Rocha of the Communications Workers o!
f America who called for unity between unemployed and employed in the fight for economic justice. From there we heard testimony after testimony of people in poverty who were in a fight for their lives. People who followed all the rules, doing exactly what you're supposed to do. People who worked hard -- who did low-wage work up to fourteen hours a day. People of all races. But none of them were able to get their basic human needs in this very rich area. Many worked, but were still homeless, unable to afford the city's high rents. "Low-income housing" in San José is for families making between $50,000 and $75,000 a year. Several homeless people from CHAM have been in a difficult f!
ight for affordable housing for the last seven months. Coming together at the church, they resolved to fight for a place to live. Despite repeated rejection, they continued to fight the city government for their right to housing. Although the interests of homeless people were clearly not on the city's list of priorities, repeated demonstrations, sit-ins and other actions resulted in concessions from the city.  One of these woman gave her story: she had a job as an advocate for housing, helping others to find housing in the city. She herself depended on a section 8 housing voucher to afford housing in the city. When she was forced to find a new house, there were no landlords that !
would accept her voucher. She became homeless, unable to afford housing in the city.
Another woman told her story: although her husband worked up to fourteen hours a day, they could not afford housing for their families, and were homeless. Their children, embarrassed, had to hide their homelessness in school. The mother learned some English, and went to work, but then lost her car when a construction vehicle hit her car. Now, she has no transportation. Like many homeless children, her daughters are sick. One has pnuemonia. She feels pressure to leave her husband, but is committed to keeping her family together. Although they have worked very hard, they cannot make ends meet. Shelters have promised to help her find housing, but none have been able !
to deliver anything. A sixty-three year old man found himself unable to make ends meet because after working day-labor all his life, he found that several of his employers cheated in reporting his work to the social security department. Now, his social security grant will not be enough to support his family. Ann Turner presented a heavy binder full of documentation of economic human rights abuses to Cheri Honkala: "On behalf of those of us who have committed suicide because of welfare reform and are no longer with us, on behalf those of us who have stood on the street with our children, on behalf of POWR, CHAM, Food Not Bombs and the other organizations represented here, I present these stor!
ies of human rights abuses," she said through tears. Cheri solemnly accepted the stories, which will be taken to the United Nations with the other stories from around the country. The forum finally concluded late that night. [Next] [Previous] |
