Update on Northampton incident

I got several negative comments on my post about the alleged incident of police brutality in Northampton, and I can tell you that we're continuing to dig for the truth...and I can also tell you that someone I know went to Cooley Dick Hospital and took photos of the alleged victim, which I will post as soon as possible.

One comment from a former Northampton police officer was quite credible until he got to the part where he said there had never been an incident of excessive force in the Northampton police department...that's like saying nurses always wash their hands between patients; child welfare workers always check on the kids when they say they have; DAs never prosecute someone they suspect is innocent; restaurant workers never spit in the food they serve; elected officials never take bribes; grocers never willingly mislabel food as fresher than it is; and tobacco companies always tell the truth.

Come on, everybody is human.

"Poverty is Not a Crime" stops panhandling ordinance

Congratulations! You wouldn't know it by reading the Northampton Gazette article, but skilled and persistent organizing by the new group Poverty is Not a Crime has forced the Northampton, MA City Council to table indefinitely a proposed ordinance which would have restricted panhandling to such a degree as to make it virtually forbidden, and which would have instituted impossible-to-pay fines that could have led to warrants and incarceration.

Thanks also to Bill Newman of the ACLU, who also recently stood up against a Springfield City Council proposal which would have recriminalized possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.

Mayor Claire Higgins said that the community had become so polarized over the ordinance that it was impossible to move ahead. Efforts by the Business Improvement District to improve business conditions had also become inextricably linked to the anti-panhandling ordinance. You can read Fred Contrada's Springfield republican article here.

The new blog The Invisible People has collected some examples of panhandling ordinances, both passed and proposed. Check it out.

Photo from DTE People's photostream at Flickr.

Stop Northampton's Anti-Panhandling Ordinance!

THE ANTI-PANHANDLING ORDINANCE

HIDES HUMAN NEED AND VIOLATES FREE SPEECH

DEMONSTRATE!

Stop Ordinance 285-53! Poverty is not a crime!

Community Resources – food, homes, services – NOW!

Gather in front of the Gazebo at 3:00 p.m. (or join us later on Main St.) on January 6.

Feel free (but not obligated) to bring:

* noisemakers & home-made instruments

* food to share

* protest signs and flags

The Gazebo is located at 14 Center St Northampton, MA

Poverty Is Not a Crime • Freedom Center • Food Not Bombs

Protest Gentrification, Stop the Anti-Panhandling Ordinance 285-53

The following is a post from the Northampton, MA-based group Poverty is Not a Crime.

Host:	Poverty Is Not a Crime
Type:	Causes - Protest
Network:	Global

Time and Place

Date:	Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Time:	4:15pm - 6:00pm
Location:	exact congregation location TBD

The Anti-Panhandling Ordinance Is Just the Beginning!
Stop the Business Improvement District!
End Rascist and Classist Gentrification!
Community Resources, Now!
True Economic Development: For People, Not Profit!

Ordinance 285-53 would restrict “aggressive solicitation” and ban solicitation in much of downtown Northampton through severe restrictions on zone. Originally directed only against panhandling, the word "panhandling" was replaced with "solicitation" in a plastic response to one of our demonstrations to make it seem less classist. Anyone who violates this ordinance will face a fine ranging from $50-$300. Since most panhandlers are obviously unable to pay these fines, they will face incarceration, which entails jail time and future exclusion from shelter opportunities and social programs.

This ordinance is part of a larger program by city officials and select business owners (most are on our side) to gentrify Northampton. Gentrification is the process of whitening and making the area "more upscale" by violently displacing the poor into slums, ghettos, and jails. The reason they want to do this is to make the area look "cleaner" and bring in more tourists. This involves of forcibly removing panhandlers (we know the police isn't after the Salvation Army) from public spaces through the use of force--such as the threat of incarceration or forced treatment this ordinance suggests. Another agent of this gentrification is the proposed Business Improvement District (BID) that outlines this ordinance in its program of twisted 'economic development." The BID also seeks to increase police patrols and hire "city ambassadors"--which exist many other cities across the US as a team of off-duty cops who help tourists get directions while "cleansing" the street of anyone whose race or class isn't quite right. It should also be noted that two of the members of the Downtown Steering Committee that came up with and pushes the BID--Suzanne Beck and Dan Yocuzzo--are the two biggest proponents of the ordinance. It should also be noted that 3 out of the 4 people who spoke in favor the ordinance at the last City Council meeting are also members of the Downtown Steering Committee.

the Business Improvement District Plan:
http://northamptondowntown.com/pdf/NohoBID_OperationsPlan.pdf

Rascism: "the potential customers of the BID are...mostly white" - page 22, under the section "Target Customers"
Classism & business control of gov't: "the City of Northampton will participate in the BID as a member...includ[ing] participation in panhandling intervention efforts and ordinances" - page 9

Another agent of gentrification is the "All Roads Lead Home" plan to "end homelessness" that Mayor Higgins, as well as other area mayors, signed onto. This program approaches ending homelessness entirely from the perspective of profit, and featured only one homeless person on its forming committee.

"All Roads Lead Home":
http://www.northamptonma.gov/gsuniverse/httpRoot/mayor/uploads/listWidget/5979/All%20Roads%20Lead%20Home.pdf

On page 26, this plan talks about "host towns" for low income housing to raise property values...meaning that the housing these city governments are building are not based on where the homeless actually are and what helps them, but instead based on moving them out of town. Seeing as the motivation and direction of this proposal is making money, this housing will most likely be slums and ghettos.

City Council does not have the authority to pass this ordinance or the BID! It is not their choice. The people must unite, and declare our demands: stop the anti-panhandling ordinance, stop the BID, and community resources (adequate food, shelter for human beings not profit, and social services) NOW!

Homeless man found dead in Northampton

Yesterday morning I checked the news and found an article by Fred Contrada at the Republican about a homeless man found dead in Northampton. His name was John Paul Kozlowski and apparently he'd been sleeping out in the Meadows,.

I asked my sister, a former staffer at the Warming Place, if she knew him.

"I thought he'd gone to Alaska!" she exclaimed.

I hope to find out more about Mr. Kozlowski in the coming days. If anyone knows more, please respond.

Meanwhile I continue to wonder where the area's homeless people will be spending their days this winter.

Getting a bit chilly for tenting out

As I was pulling into my driveway after the Vote No on Question One last night, I saw a friend of mine who's been sleeping out in a tent in a local park. He asked if he could come over and take a shower to clean up for work the next day, and I said yes, so we had a bit of time to chat.

My friend is actually working under the table for a local property owner, helping him with drywall, carpentry, etc. (He has a criminal record for drugs and getting a straight job has proved difficult.) He's making about $65 a day and is able to save a little-- not a lot, because he still has to eat and wash his clothes, and this week had to purchase a tarp to prepare for the weekend's predicted rainy weather.

"I think I could afford to rent a room," he said, "maybe $75, $100 bucks a week."

Problem is, I haven't seen a room for rent for that price for at least five years. If you live in the Springfield, MA area and know of a room at that priice, let me know.

I've been collecting the latest information on tent cities for a post. Meanwhile, Ira from Northampton has told me that many people in the Northampton area are tenting out, and my friend is scarcely the only person I know in Springfield who's also in a tent.

What will this winter bring? Springfield will open another overflow shelter (not the Warming Place, however) and no ground has been broken yet at Friends of the Homeless' Worthington St. shelter renovation, which means yet another winter without a place for people to go in the daytime.

Meanwhile there are boarded-up houses on just about every street in Springfield that I drive down.

Homeless organizers find each other

Springfield is only 20 miles away from Northampton, but sometimes it seems so much farther. At Arise we've nicknamed that distance the "Tofu Curtain"-- not because there are no poor and homeless people in Northampton and Amherst (there are!) but because the pervading culture beyond that curtain can be very hard for poor and working class people to swallow-- sorta like tofu, if you ask me.

Yesterday I went to Arise to do some copying for my job and met Ira McKinley, a homeless community organizer from Northampton. Suzanne had run into him at the Haymarket Cafe in Northampton, and invited him down to Arise. What a pleasure! Ira had a DVD with him of a cultural event for poor and homeless people that he organized last year. Homeless people showed artwork, read poetry, played music, did juggling and participated in a fashion show. Next year, homeless people in Springfield are going to be a part of it! And Ira will be helping recruit Northampton poor and homeless people for a project we have in mind for later this year.

I added a link to his blog, Social Change in Mind, on my blogroll-- check it out-- Ira's doing more organizing than writing right now, but that's fine with me.

Genuine community organizing is hard enough to find, but homeless organizing, led by homeless people, is even rarer. So glad we found each other.