October 25, 2021 Press release, POOR Magazine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

A Homeless People’s Solution to Homelessness…

POOR MAGAZINE, a collective of Poor, Homeless, Indigenous, Black and Brown writers and activists, hit the road to share an innovative model to solving homelessness called Homefulness. Members of POOR Magazine will share their innovative “Homefulness Handbook,” accompanied by a series of writing/poetry workshops in encampments, community centers, schools and jails with other homeless and formerly homeless communities. Leading a tour on stolen land and hoarded resources, they share the template of Homefulness via storytelling and spoken word performance with fellow houseless and housed residents of so-called Bellingham, WA., Bend and Eugene, OR. 

Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources UnTour/ Book Tour and Teach-in 

Partial Itinerary:

Friday, November 12th

10am – RoofLess Radio Writing and Visioning Workshops – in the streets with houseless residents 

6pm – Po Poets Project performance – feat. POOR Magazine & local Po Poets. Including reading of The Homefulness Handbook and other new books from poorpress.net at Flow Shala, 203 West Chestnut St Bellingham, WA. In person space will be limited to 35, email brel.alexandre@gmail.com to reserve a seat and/or accessibility accommodations. Proof of vaccination required. Virtual attendance is also available on Zoom. Register at tinyurl.com/poormagazine.

Saturday – November 13

10am – Breakfast Teach-in on The Homefulness Handbook – with housed and houseless residents at Bellingham Karate Church, 519 E Maple St Bellingham, WA. No registration necessary, masks required. For accessibility accommodation, email bellinghamhomefulness@gmail.com.

1pm – Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour through Occupied Lummi Nation and Nooksack Tribal lands aka Bellingham, WA. A ceremonial walk to call in land and resource liberation visiting sites of historic oppression, held in community and prayer – Locations TBA, South Hill

*November 14 & 15th will be in so-called Bend and Eugene, Oregon 

“Where are we going to go after we have been evicted?” saidAunti Frances Moore, a formerly houseless member of the Po Poets project, poverty skola, co-leader of the Stolen Land Tour, author of The Making of Aunti Vol #1 & 2  one of the Co-authors of The Homefulness Handbook.

“Us poor and homeless people in the US are in a state of emergency.” Between the demolition of thousands of units of public housing, the extreme rise in gentrification and post-pandemic evictions of low-income and working class elders and families, and the concurrent rise in the criminalization of unhoused encampments and our bodies, it is urgent for people to listen to our innovative solutions to poverty and homelessness–  as they are our own. Solutions like Poverty Scholarship and the Homefulness Project– “so they can build their own solutions,” said Lisa Gray-Garcia, formerly homeless single parent, co-author of Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-led Theory Art, Words,Tears Across Mama Earth and Criminal of Poverty, Growing Up Homeless in America and the most recent release The Homefulness Handbook and The SideWalk Motel: Poems and PoShunary from a Poverty Skola.

Their innovative book and curriculum release will be accompanied by a series of writing/poetry workshops in encampments, community centers, schools and jails with other homeless and formerly homeless communities to help share the extremely innovative poor people-led solution to homelessness known as Homefulness. Homefulness will also be shared with people with race and class privilege as well as with those who have access to resources and/or land, who can learn to activate and liberate a different solution to poverty. Please contact poormag@gmail.com to inquire about bookings or to schedule a reading or performance. All tours will also include a poverty skola “Stolen Land Tour” of wealth-hoarding enclaves across Turtle Island.

In addition to the release of this powerful How-To book, The Homefulness Handbook, which details how to do the powerful work POOR Magazine poverty skolaz are doing in Oakland right now, seven of the core youth, mama and elder leaders of this work will be leading one of their herstoric StolenLand/Hoarded Resources Tour—  a prayer walk through some of the most wealth-hoarding neighborhoods in the US with the medicine of radical redistribution and ComeUnity Reparations. These innovative models fund Homefulness, guided and informed by the innovative theory Poverty Scholarship. 

The Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tours were launched on MamaEarth Day in 2016 by Indigenous, Houseless, Disabled, Black, Brown and Poor youth, adults and elders who “toured” through gated, policed, guarded and protected neighborhoods of extreme wealth from Park Avenue to SillyCon Valley. The tours are loosely based on the Bhoodan Movement of India launched by Vinoba Bhave, who walked through India asking wealthy “land-owners” to gift their land back to landless peoples.

POOR Magazine is a very grassroots, poor and indigenous people led movement creating media, art, culture, education and solutions since 1996. POOR press is the poor people-led publishing arm of POOR Magazine dedicated to publishing the books and art of very low, no-income, homeless and incarcerated youth, adults and elders.

Books are available on www.poorpress.net – writers available for readings and events.