SAN FRANCISCO — An independent motion is developing among the homeless to make demands on the government, especially in the homeless encampments. Homeless people brought a suit into the 9th Circuit Court in California saying, “You cannot destroy our community.” Government is responding with new laws designed to break up the resistance of the homeless and scatter people.
But some of the new homeless leaders, those who are now dispossessed of what they once had and have fallen into homelessness, are master organizers. They are helping to build a homeless movement that is “of the homeless.” The homeless are demanding that government take care of people’s needs whether they have money or not. These are revolutionary demands for a whole new society and cannot be stopped.
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Shelters are Not the solution to homeless crisis in Los Angeles
San Francisco poet and organizer Sarah Menefee is a long-time homeless rights activist. She is the Homeless Desk on the People’s Tribune Editorial Board, and a founding member of such organizations as the San Francisco Union of the Homeless, Homes Not Jails and 'First they came for the homeless’. Known for her poetry about the streets, her latest collections are Winter Rose, Sign and Holy Eel.
