Photo/ Sarah Menefee
OAKLAND, CA — The National Union of the Homeless has mandated a winter offensive of homeless organizing. Our dilemma is that we must come up with actions that adhere to Covid 19 protocols. While the country is in a state of emergency because of the pandemic, the homeless have always been in a state of emergency, with multiple deaths which are mostly ignored, each and every year, especially in the winter.
A few years ago at Laney College, Congresswoman Barbara Lee held a health fair on Homeless & Poverty. In L.A. County Jail. It was found that 300 or more inmates had Hepatitis C. There are 50,000 homeless in L.A County who don’t have water to wash their hands or bathroom service to clean their bodies. And now we have the Covid pandemic — proof that poverty kills.
The task of our first training meeting is to brainstorm about what kind of actions we want to do and how we’re going to carry them out. Most importantly, we want to place emphasis on messaging we are going to get out to the public at large and the messaging we want to get out to the homeless people. This means training homeless people in public speaking, outreach, leaflet writing, making press releases, having the ability to be interviewed and carry on a debate. The outcome we’re looking for in general is to have an organization that can react in the shortest possible time to issues as they arise with the appropriate action. I would suggest that I open up the meeting with comments similar to (the above). And then we get right into the brainstorming, with each getting their two cents in. Once we identify our first action, we need to come up with training (practice) — specifically who going to do what, and the training necessary to prepare them for that task. In the beginning of the meeting and in we must make sure everyone is clear on what outcome we are looking to accomplish.
We must also make it clear that we are going to constantly be looking at ourselves to see if we are accomplishing these outcomes. The Mission of the National Union of the Homeless, its heart and soul, is to commit our lives to ending homelessness and poverty and to work tirelessly for the human right to life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness, for social and economic justice for all. We dedicate ourselves to raising the awareness of our sisters and brothers, planning a sustained struggle a building an organization that can obtain freedom through revolutionary perseverance. We pledge to deepen our personal commitment to ending all forms of exploitation, racism, sexism and abuse.
True solidarity demands that we create not only the new society, but also the human being. The OakIand Union of the Homeless demands that there be a homeless commission or a homeless union to see that funds get to their proper place to support seniors and the mentally disabled.
We the People!!
