PHOTO/KEITH MCHENRY–Post-Secondary Coach
It is time to re-establish the National Union of the Homeless
SANTA CRUZ, CA — Robert Woodlief, John Thompson, Nick Marini, and Manuel Murillo lived in a vacant lot behind Ross Clothing in Santa Cruz in November 2018.
“We heard an explosion,” Woodlief told reporters, saying when he jumped the fence, one of nearly 20 vehicles in the crash was already on fire. “The flames started coming up getting really hot. I had to jump back out,” added John Thompson.
Woodlief “cut the seat belt and freed his legs and ripped that guy out of the car basically with 20 seconds to spare,” Nick Marini told reporters. He emptied a fire extinguisher on the blaze as Robert and John freed the driver. Manuel Murillo directed traffic and led a van-load of school children to safety.
They were among the first to find safety behind Ross Clothing. By April 2019, over 200 people called the camp home.
When Santa Cruz City officials announced the eviction of Hero’s Camp, Wes White, of the Salinas Homeless Union introduced the camp council to Attorney Anthony Prince who suggested they file a federal lawsuit seeking to block the eviction.
Deseire Quintero, Alicia Kuhl and the rest of the council drafted a complaint and filed to stop the eviction in the Federal District Court in San Jose, temporarily halting the eviction to the shock of city officials.
It was during this struggle that the campers started the Santa Cruz Homeless Union, adding another local to the California Union of the Homeless, adding enthusiasm to re-establish the National Union of the Homeless.
The National Union of the Homeless started in 1985 in Philadelphia and at its height had 25 local union chapters in 25 states with an estimated membership of 30,000 homeless people of all races and genders. Locals organized protests, occupied foreclosed properties, and participated in the 1989 Housing Now! Rally in Washington, DC.
Homeless union organizers from across the country met during the June 2019 Poor People’s Congress in Washington DC and voted to form the Committee to Re-Establish the National Union of the Homeless. Several original union activists, including Savina Martin, Willie Baptist and Anthony Prince were among the 30 who voted to reestablish the union.
This is our mission statement:
“The heart and soul of the National Union of the Homeless is to commit our lives to ending homelessness and all poverty and to work tirelessly for the human right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, for social and economic justice for all. We dedicate ourselves to raising the awareness of our sisters and brothers, to planning a sustained struggle and to building an organization that can obtain freedom through revolutionary perseverance. We pledge to deepen our personal commitment to end all forms of exploitation, racism, sexism, and abuse. True solidarity demands that we create not only the new society, but also the new human being.”
Kristin Colangelo, coordinator of the University of the Poor’s Homeless Union History Project, whose mother was a union member in the ‘80s and ‘90s, helped organize our first Officers Training School, named after homeless union pioneer Ron Casanova, at the People’s Forum in Manhattan which emphasized, “we are homeless, not helpless.”
After Federal Judge Davila ruled in favor of the City in Quintero v. City of Santa Cruz, Deseire Quintero was denied shelter and forced to join over 100 others in seeking a place to sleep in the forests of the Pogonip, along the freeways or in the doorways of Santa Cruz. City officials knew there would not be enough “Shelter Beds,” intentionally forcing people into dangerous conditions, yet told the court under oath there would be shelter for all.
On October 27, the Diablo winds knocked a tree on Deseire and her neighbor’s campsite, killing her and injuring the friend she was checking on.
“This cause is a great cause and we’re tired of being treated like dirt. We’re not, we’re human beings. We bleed just like you and we’re good people. We need a safe place and this is a safe place right here,” said Deseire Quintero.
We are the people who build America. We are the heroes at Heroes Camp.
Keith McHenry is co-founder of Food Not Bombs.
