Our big, beautiful world-- let's save it.

Right to the City; Anti-foreclosure activists protest Bank of America

No One Leaves in Boston (photo Joe Oliverio)

Yesterday forty of us from Springfield hopped on a schoolbus and drove to Boston under the No One Leaves banner to join 3,000 other activists to protest the brutality of Bank of Boston's foreclosure policy.  Here's a link to a MassLive article which talks about the rally and the arrest of protesters, and a link to Right to the City, the conveners/organizers, and here's a photo history of our day.

We had a short protest at BofA in Springfield before loading

Candejah Pink Bank Tenants leader, goes over the logistics of the day

City Life/Vida Urbana gets ready

Rally at Boston Commons

people block entrances of the Bank of America

Add caption

Ruben (red on the right) rallies us in front of the bank

Verge St: no foreclosure yesterday!

Earlier this week I posted a photo of bittersweet draped over an apple tree.  The photo was taken on Verge Street-- I'd spotted it on my way to the pet store.  Yesterday, I took a couple of other photos, also on Verge St.: people standing up to the banks and saying, No One Leaves!

Half an hour before the scheduled auction at his house, Carlos Pena managed to negotiate with HSBC/Fannie Mae to give him more time to restructure his loan.  The message from all of us?  We're tired of big banks pushing us around, destabilizing neighborhood and making people homeless!

If you want to get involved in this effort, here's how you can do it-- The Springfield Bank Tenant Association and No One Leaves Coalition are newly formed groups dedicated to standing up and fighting back against the banks to put an end to post-foreclosure evictions, displacement of our families and the destruction of our communities. The SBTA--a group of bank tenants (tenants and homeowners living in foreclosed buildings) meets every Tuesday from 6-8PM at HAP Housing (322 Main St.). If you would like more information about the campaign and the effort to fight back, please contact nooneleavesspringfield@gmail.com or call Liz at Arise, 413 734-4948.

Shooting star

I am not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star.

- Sojourner Truth,
former slave, women’s rights activist, abolitionist, and great orator who passed away on this day in 1883.

Photo of a real star shooting across the galaxy from NASA

1,000 postcards delivered - will city councilors get the message?

Megan Jenny from Toxics Action Center, me from Arise, Ward 3 City Councilor Melvin Edwards, STIS member Jesse Lederman from the McKnight Neighborhood Youth Council, Betty Agin and her grandson from the Springfield Health Disparities Project.

Springfield resident and STIS member John Miller

Today Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield (STIS) held a rally and press conference on the steps of City Hall and then delivered more than a thousand postcards to Springfield, MA city councilors.  The message?  Hold a public hearing to consider grounds for REVOKING Palmer Penewable Energy's permit for an incinerator in Springfield.

Three days of intensive flyering brought Ward 4 Councilor E. Henry Twiggs and Ward 1 Councilor Zaida Luna firmly into the "opposed" category-- that is, if Palmer's permit was before the council today, they'd vote against it.  We never got a definitive answer from Michael Fenton, James Ferrera, Jose Tosado and Tom Ashe, and, in spite of calls, emails and a special mailing, we never heard back at all from Kateri Walsh and Clodo Concepcion.  Tim Rooke requested that I convey my information to City Council Aide Bob Arieti, and that Bob would convey it to him.  Still, we're inching toward a majority.  I hope Springfield voters remember who is responsive to his/her constituents and who isn't.

Great photos of the event, thanks to Megan Jenny and her crew from the Toxics Action Center.

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Stop Biomass petitions ready to go!

One thing I've learned about winning a campaign is that usually, there is no single strategy for winning; multiple strategies are needed.

My city, Springfield, Massachusetts, is being threatened with a reduction in air quality by the proposed construction of a "biomass" plant in Springfield. I put the word in quotes because somehow, biomass has gotten a blanket "green" endorsement from federal, state and local officials. Some of these people know very well that burning wood for energy is not green; others don't want to know, and some lack information. The poor public knows the least of all.

A coalition of individuals and organizations have designed a petition which would prohibit the labeling as "green" any renewable and alternative energy sources that emit more greenhouse gases than coal. Yes, that's right, biomass plants are no better than coal-- and often worse-- in contributing to global warming.

From the new, Stop Spewing Carbon website:

This proposed amendment will ensure that the Commonwealth’s efforts to curb global warming do not make climate change worse.
The amendment requires certain renewable and alternative energy sources to limit the amount of carbon dioxide emissions if they use combustion or pyrolization [decomposition by heating]. The proposed amendment requires renewable and alternative energy sources that use combustion or pyrolization to generate so called “clean and green” energy to keep their emissions at or under two hundred and fifty pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour in order to qualify as renewable or alternative energy sources for the purposes of the Renewable Portfolio Standards.

Massachusetts Renewable Portfolio Standards currently require that a certain percentage of energy sold in the Commonwealth comes from sources defined by law as “Class I” or “Class II” renewable energy sources. The proposed amendment would require waste-to-energy and biomass technologies that use combustion or pyrolization to emit less than two hundred and fifty pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour to be eligible for classification as “Class I” or “Class II” renewable energy sources. The statutory definitions of “Alternative Energy Development” and “Alternative Energy Property” would be amended to exclude such technologies that emit more than two hundred and fifty pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour. Previously operational biomass plants that are retrofitted with advanced conversion technologies would be required to emit less than two hundred and fifty pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour in order to be considered an eligible “renewable energy generating source.”

In order to appear on the statewide ballot next year, we need 66,000 valid signatures between now and November 18, 2009. It's a BIG job, but at the least, it gives us the opportunity to talk to many people about biomass.

Petitions are available by emailing an address on the Stop Spewing Carbon site. Also, I'm sure there will be a high level of coordination in Western Mass, seeing as we have three plants proposed for our area. The Springfield plant, proposed by Palmer Renewable, is the worst of the three, seeing as it will be burning up to 75% "construction and demolition" wood-- that is, trash wood shipped in primarily from outside the state.

Email me if you want to know how to get involved in Springfield: michaelannb@gmail.com.

Photo from paulbence's photostream on Flickr.

Don't let Palmer Legare go to jail! Stand up for tenants!

Palmer Legare, longtime Central American solidarity activist, friend of Arise and housing organizer for the Alliance to Develop Power, was arrested a few weeks ago in Westfield. I received this email forwarded by Palmer and will let it speak for itself except to urge everyone to take action!

Friends,

Three weeks ago I was illegally arrested for “walking while supporting democracy” in Westfield, Massachusetts. I have been threatened with arrest numerous other times and face arrest any day for organizing tenants to create affordable housing cooperatives. But this is nothing compared to what tenants have faced, from cops dragging them out of the shower and pointing guns at small kids before saying “oops sorry, we thought you were someone else” to police charging domestic violence victims for “having been in a relationship with a violent person and therefore putting their neighbors at risk.” The only thing that these people are guilty of is organizing the tenant coop. Please take a couple minutes now to make the call detailed below. EVERY CALL WILL HELP ME STAY OUT OF JAIL!!! PLEASE CALL!!!

In solidarity,

palmer

Take action now to defend organizing in Westfield! Tell Mass Housing to stand with the people, not the corporations! No more repression of tenant organizing!

Last month Alliance to Develop Power Lead Organizer Palmer Legare was illegally arrested at Powdermill Village in Westfield, Ma. The arrest was part of a systematic campaign of repression directed by Peabody Properties, a Boston-based corporation that is trying to wrestle control of the property from the tenants. They will not win! Powdermill Village will become a tenant owned cooperatively controlled permanently affordable housing complex! We need you to take action to stop the repression of tenant leaders and community organizers:

Please call Henry Mukasa, Director of Rental Management for Mass Housing, at 617.854.1000, extension 1161

Sample message:

It has come to my attention that Mass Housing has not been enforcing regulations at Powdermill Village in Westfield. I know that tenant leaders and community organizers have been arrested, threatened and intimidated based on their involvement with community organizing. Now that we have a former community organizer as President, we can not criminalize community organizing. I will continue to monitor the situation.

Please let us know that you have taken action so that we can track the effectiveness of this effort! Email ADP organizer Palmer Legare at palmer@a-dp. org or call 413-218-1313

Photo from the Global Justice Ecology Project (Pamler in the middle)

Springfield Anti-Biomass Meeting July 22

Massachusetts banned new incinerators 19 years ago, with very good reason, but is now not only promoting biomass incinerators, but apparently is even willing to reconsider incinerators themselves. See this Boston Globe article from May, 2009.

Massachusetts already burns 25% of its trash, compared to a 7% national average.

Haven't our policymakers heard about recycling? Are money and politics driving these decisions? Or could they just be that shortsighted? (Amazing what we can justify to ourselves.)
We won't get really serious about recycling until we're not allowed the easy outs.

A new coalition, Don't Waste Massachusetts (no website yet, apparently) is working to keep any new incinerators out of Massachusetts. You can read more about it at Mass Sierra Club News.

Back in Western Mass., Mary Serreze reports on the five biomass plants proposed for our region. Interestingly, each plant's impact is evaluated separately by state officials, with no look at the combined impact. Losing a litre of blood won't do you irreparable harm, but how about five litres?

The plant proposed by Palmer Paving for Springfield, the most urban of the five affected communities, has some special hazards: it will be allowed to burn up to 75% construction and demolition wood, often saturated with toxins that we clearly wouldn't choose to drink from a cup in front of us.

It's late in the day for organizing to stop Springfield's plant but not too late. Arise for Social Justice is hosting a meeting on Wednesday, July 22nd, 6 pm. at 467 State St., to figure out how to build community opposition to biomass. Join us if you can.

Photo from Asea_'s photostream at Flickr.

Movie about the real lives of poor people!

We always want our children (when we have them) to do better than we have done, while not forgetting where they've come from. I know that Cheri Honkala, founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and coordinator of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, is very proud of her son, Mark Webber, an actor turned director who has just made a movie very much based on the lives of poor people in Philadelphia, their trials, and how they organize to fight back. Go, Mark!

I doubt the movie is going to show around here, but I will definitely buy it when it becomes available, and then we'll show it at Arise's office. Here's th trailer and also a short clip about the making of the movie.

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.

The most important rule in community organizing

I've just come from a meeting at my organization, Arise for Social Justice. It was not a regular meeting. We'd asked a guy who has been an ally of Arise for many years to come and talk with us about some recent happenings that had left us wondering about where he stands toward us. The outcome was neither as good as we'd hoped for nor as bad as we'd feared, but at least we know, and can proceed from there.

At the root of the issue we talked about tonight is, I believe, institutional power. Arise is a low-income rights organization, founded by women on welfare more than 20 years ago because we believed then-- and believe now-- that we have a right to speak for ourselves about the issues that affect us. And, of course, we want to change the things that make us poor in the first place.

Many times I/we have thought about just what it is we've accomplished since we've been around. I know that there are thousands of individual people who are better off for having connected with Arise. I know there are many poor people who have been able to up their analysis a few notches after having been with us. But institutional change? Institutional change, as compared with winning an occasional traffic light or getting a vacant lot cleaned up, is the hardest job of all.

Someone asked me not long ago if it was easier or harder to make change now than 20 years ago. Harder! Back in 1985, we mostly had to make government and its myriad agencies accountable. Now, in 2008, the major decisions in this country are made by the unelected, the corporations, the power behind the throne.

I still remember when, in the early 90's, my friend Jean Grossholtz said to me, "There's something going on that you've got to know about if you want to make any sense at all about what's happening: structural adjustment and its tools: deregulation, privatization and globalization,." And my! What the last 15 years have wrought!

One clear-cut example of institutional change that Arise has been able to accomplish is moving Springfield, MA's city council and the school committee from an all at-large system to one where each of our wards will have an elected representative as well as at-large seat. The first elections under the new system take place next November. It took 13 years! I really think that one reason we were able to win is that nearly every citizen of Springfield had a self-interest in the outcome. Of course, at first the only people who knew they were being denied their voting rights were people of color and poor people. If we didn't frame it that way directly, we sure knew we had limited access to power. Eventually, after our trying every trick in the book (referendum, persuasion, a federal lawsuit) 74.2% of the voters felt the same way.

A victory-- but we didn't fight for ward representation so that any of us individually could run for elected office. We did it because it was the right thing to do. But just one thing feels off for me: it was not directly a victory for poor people. Yes, I know, if ward representation works well, then poorer wards will have a voice. It's just not enough.

Now that the campaign for ward representation is done, the community partners we worked with and who are more likely to directly benefit from better democracy (because they know how to use it) are fading into the background. I know we can call on them if we really need to and if the issue fits them them, but once again we can feel the gulf that separates those with instututional power and those without. In a weird way, it feels good. We turn once again to our own struggles against poverty and injustice, which are so deeply linked to the struggles of others even when they don't know it. But that's part of our work, too, to make those connections.

So the most important rule in community organizing? Don't stop. Don't stop, be true to yourself, accept your failures and successes, but above all, don't stop.

Steal this Revolution

Most people my age who were politically active in the sixties and seventies don't talk about it much with those who weren't-- or who weren't even born. The Establishment-- remember that word?-- has been very successful in trivializing and stereotyping the counterculture, while never failing to make a buck wherever possible. To speak openly about the sixties tends to evoke laughter and eye-rolling, especially among our children. Everybody who wasn't there thinks they know what it was all about. Keep talking and you'll find out we're responsible for the increasing disrespect of children for their parents, the rise in crime and single parenthood, and, of course, AIDS.

I often think about the disconnect between my own experience and the "common perception, " especially when I compare organizing against the Vietnam war with organizing against the war in Iraq.

(Now, I know the first thing that is jumping to many people's minds is the difference in which those of us against the wars treat the members of our Armed Forces. We are certainly doing better this time around. But I have to tell you that the image of hippies spitting on returning veterans was almost entirely a lie-- part of the propaganda war against us.)

My daughter was saying earlier this week that she thinks more young people are politically active right now than in decades, mostly because of Barak Obama. I believe her. What blows my mind is that their activism is that of the early sixties-- the John F. Kennedy era when idealism reigned and we believed in the possibility of change. Yes, we can!

The counterculture was the inevitable result of crushing materialism, wars, assassinations and poverty riots. We grew out of the early sixties retaining our idealism while abandoning our belief that change could take place within the system. Everything that followed grew from that. Longterm, of course, we had about as much chance of surviving and thriving as would the lone communist country in a capitalist world. But what a ride we had in the meantime.

To seriously mine "the sixties" for its wisdom and follies is more than I'll undertake this evening. However I got quite a rush recently (the words are coming back to me!) to see a post on BoingBoing about the collaborative online updating of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book called Steal This Wiki-- "over 500 pages of the most useful street and homeless survival combined with plenty of ways to fight oppression of all sorts."

Hoffman has always gotten to me. he's a local boy (well, Worcester MA) and a fellow Sagittarian. I will never forget the trial of the Chicago Seven-- eight, with Bobby Seale-- and apparently Steven Speilberg and Alan Sorkin won't, either. Production of a new film about the infamous trial is is scheduled to begin in March, now that the writers' strike is over.

As far as Steal This Book goes, the way the economy is looking, it can't be updated soon enough.

Number of homeless encampments is increasing: crisis and opportunity Part One

Tent Cities: What they're like, why they're growing, and how they're a part of the burgeoning international movement for housing..

I've been tracking the growth of homeless encampments and tent cities across the country ever since 2004, when homeless people and Arise for Social Justice organized our own "Sanctuary City" in Springfield, MA. Our tent city, which came about to meet the crisis of a shelter closing, lasted six months and sheltered 70-80 people a night-- some 400+ people over the course of the encampment's lifetime.

On a disorder to order scale of one to ten, Sanctuary City ranked about 7.5. Run by homeless people themselves with training and material support from Arise and others, it was visible, political, and absolutely essential to people's wellbeing. Sanctuary City closed when the Warming Place shelter was able to reopen in November.

The intent of my research, initially, was to look for existing models of organization that could be used to help Sanctuary City residents self-manage and survive. I couldn't find much but I did find Dignity Village in Portland, OR and ShareWheel in Seattle, WA. ShareWheel had put up a page at Anitraweb.org about tent cities that was particularly helpful.

How things have changed in the last three years! Like other social issues, I know that increased reporting may account for some of my perception that tent cities are becoming more common. On the other hand, the forces that create homelessness certainly haven't diminished. In any case, there is never a day that I can't find a new mention of tent cities and encampments.
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Unless you live in a gated community, or an extremely affluent town surrounded by other affluent towns (and maybe not even then), you have people without homes sleeping rough all around you.

• Sometimes people throw up a tent or a tarp or two in public parks, riverbanks or behind abandoned stores. Survival there depends on remaining absolutely unnoticed, or noticed by only a few people who, for whatever reason, leave them alone.
• Larger, more visible communities often spring up in semi-public places-- under a bridge, in a field, in the parking lot of a deserted mall. People wind up there because they've seen or heard about it. Some people have been kicked out of a shelter while others wouldn't be caught dead in one. Mostly these encampments operate with no structure, little structure or with a set of standards that are hard to enforce.
• Other, more structured tent city communities often are started by homeless people with some political awareness or who work in conjunction with a sympathetic, organized group or church. These communities, like the recent New Orleans tent city, often have political goals as well as meeting the immediate shelter needs of their residents.

But whether residents have political goals or not, I have never seen an encampment of homeless people develop solely for political purposes.
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At yesterday's Arise meeting, I heard about a woman who was kicked out of the Friends of the Homeless shelter for three days because she allegedly was turning tricks behind the building. She was banned from the overnight shelter too, because that shelter is also run by the Friends. So that's it for homeless women in Springfield-- nowhere else to go, now that the Warming Place has closed. The next two closest shelters that take women are fifteen and twenty miles away and may or may not have room, and whatever you may or may not think about her behavior, being unsheltered is especially dangerous for women. If she knew any of the people tenting out last night, that's probably where she went.

Feeding people and fighting stereotypes at the same time

A friend tipped me off to this great project in Lawrence, MA called Labels are for Jars. The effort raises money to feed people by sales of a tee-shirt that challenges labeling. Around here, you can get these tee-shirts at Newberry Comics, downtown Amherst.

The power of coincidence

I opened my daily email from Sojourners today and saw that the quote of the day is one I just put in a newsletter and that hangs on the wall of my office. Coincidence? I think not....

Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.

- Frederick Douglass

The creative, committed people at Manos Unidas

Arise had the great good fortune a few years ago to have Anaelisa Vanegas-Farrara intern with us. At the time, she and others had just started a new group in Pittsfield, Manos Unidas, and Anaelisa was soaking up everything she could to benefit her group.

"We are a multicultural, grassroots community empowerment organization that seeks, working alongside Latino immigran and underheard community members as well as with the wider Berkshire community through shared resources, participatory education, and living arts. We will construct a culture of community that crosses borders of class, race, culture and geography. Think globally, Act locally" Check them out.

Ward Representation moves closer to the Springfield ballot

The Home Rule legislation which will allow a question on ward representation to be placed on this November's ballot has passed the House of Representatives and is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow in the Senate's Rules Committee, according to Candace Lopes, aide to Sen. Stephen Buoniconti, when I spoke to her yesterday.

The legislation will have plenty of time to pass the full Senate to make it on our city's November's ballot.

When the City Council finally passed an 8 & 5 version of ward representation last October, it was with the threat of our-- Arise, the NAACP and Oiste's-- federal lawsuit going to trial in just a few months.

I watched the proceedings on community access TV with a great cynicism. I knew that it was the lawsuit that had finally forced the City Council's hand, that they'd begun to see ward representation as an irresistible force. Even then they passed as weak a version as they could get away with, and didn't even pass it outright -- they voted to put the question on November's ballot. Ten years ago our coalition worked the streets and collected enough signatures to get the 8 & 3 version of ward representation on the ballot, and it won 58% of the vote! It did not become law because one-third of all the registered voters would have had to vote for it-- and not that many turned out for the whole election.

Not once during the evening's proceeding was there even a mention of the twelve solid years of community organizing that had gotten us to this point-- and of course the council did not call themselves out on their twelve years of foot-dragging, broken promises and outright lies. There were a few councilors along the way who were exceptions-- but they were never in the majority. (Oh-- and Tim Rooke, who never once lied about his opposition to ward representation.)

Our lawsuit was stayed by Judge Ponser pending the outcome of the Home Rule legislation and the November vote. I want to stop and say a heartfelt thanks here to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Goodwin Proctor, who took on our lawsuit pro bono and who have been passionately committed and intelligent in their work with us. They mined the collective memory of community organizers to compile many lifetimes of racial injustice, police brutality, economic discrimination and thwarted expectations. Much of this was never heard in trial.

Twelve years of organizing-- petitioning, two lawsuits, lobbying the councilors, building community support-- has now come down to a binding vote for eight ward councilors and five at large for the City Council, and four ward reps and two at large for the School Committee (with the mayor as the deciding vote).

We, the plaintiffs, have to decide whether we will actively support the question. At this point we are not of one mind. We have to talk to each other. We're tired, bitter, feeling betrayed. And yet.

The Arise board of directors met last night and while we postponed an official vote until we know for sure that people will get to vote on ward rep in November, my sense is that we will throw ourselves into rebuilding a coalition and getting this law passed. This time, it only has to pass by a majority.

One built-in shortcoming of our lawsuit is that it has focused the public's attention on the racial inequity of the current at-large system, to the exclusion of all the other excellent reasons we need ward representation. I'm going to write more about them in another post. But I have to say, one more time, for the record:
Forty-six years of an at large system
Five Blacks and one Latino elected
in a city now a majority of color.
Enough is enough..

Arise for Social Justice is not closing

In another two hours I will be back at the Arise office with a half dozen other Arise members, packing boxes, moving the remaining furniture onto to the truck, and, finally, locking the door at 94 Rifle St. for the last time.

Sadness and relief-- sadness that Arise's quest for social justice does not always run straight ahead, and relief that we will finally be able to focus on our plans for getting back to our roots.

We have always been a shoestring organization-- how could an organization of and for low-income people be otherwise?-- but this last year has been rough. Money has gotten tighter and tighter. A local foundation said we were "too political" for them to fund, and we were turned down for two other grants we thought we were likely to receive. Our small staff has not been paid consistently in a year, and sometime in December we realized more effort was going into figuring out how to pay the rent than in organizing. (And people wonder why more poor people are not politically active. Being poor is a fulltime job!)

I loved our office but it was in the wrong place-- harder for people to get to, and less easily connected to the political life of our city. The people who were most likely to walk into our office were people in need-- always true, of course, but they tended to be less able to recognize their own poverty as part of a larger problem. We began doing more advocacy than organizing. I knew we were headed in the wrong direction when we asked a sampling of our newest volunteers and members to describe Arise, and they would say, "Arise helps people!" No-- our mission statement says we are here to educate, organize and unite low-income people to know, stand up for and achieve our rights, and transform those conditions that make us poor in the first place! If we "help" people along the way, great. But that is not our mission.

The next three months will be spent meeting in people's houses, re-educating and committing ourselves, and ORGANIZING! If all goes well with fundraising, we can reopen a physical office in September or October. But the office is not Arise; Arise is in the will and commitment of our members to win a better life in a more just society.

Arise is not closing. We are being reborn.

PS-- you can still reach us at the same number-- 413-734-4948.