#encampment eviction

[allthecanadianpolitics]

From Katarokwi Union of Tenants March 21, 2023:

The City of Kingston thinks that they can sweep homelessness under the carpet and evict people who are homeless from their encampments because they’ve provided a few (not enough!) high-barrier shelter spaces for (well-behaved) people to crash in. The moratorium on clearing encampments expires tomorrow on March 21 and the genocidal and illegal bylaw and ‘encampment protocol’ kicks into effect.

Only real, dignified, social, public, democratically-controlled, rent-geared-to-income ACTUAL HOUSING is a solution to homelessness. KUT will support and defend our homeless friends from eviction and will insist that no amount of low barrier shelter beds or sheds or aleeeping pods is enough to ’resolve’ the problem of homelessness.

Join us at a solidarity BBQ in the backyard of the Integrate Care Hub tomorrow, Tuesday 21st at 5pm. Bring donations of money, clothes, wood, smokes, batteries and whatever else you feel people might need.

[bikerlovertexas]

[chaddavisphotography]

A flyer seen on a street sign that reads "Together we can block encampment evictions" "Protest your neigbhors".

[calvins-dad]

i think i’m going to lose my mind

[immaculatasknight]

The face of moral courage

[hack-saw2004]

LESS THAN TWO HOURS AGO: four cornell students have been suspended (and at least the one reporting was evicted, unknown about the others) for their involvement with their campus's gaza solidarity encampment. during a school year centering freedom of expression no less!

[tgirlwithreverb]

I saw that post about what to do if you're homeless again (the one that starts by telling you to spend all of your money on motel rooms lmao) anyway, here's a few thoughts, specifically for trans girls, cuz I don't really care otherwise tbh:

1) plan ahead, most trans girls are in precarious housing situations, you will have a much easier time when it falls apart if you already have a pack with most of the gear you need in it. Also, if you find yourself in a situation where you cant make rent, dont pay part of it, spend that money on gear, pocket the rest and leave, youll have a much nicer time. Look up your local eviction laws, you have plenty of time. (Gear list at the end)

2) travel! If you're in Arizona in May, leave. it's about to be hot as hell. If you're in Michigan in October, leave. It's about to be cold as hell. If you're in a big city, leave. It's way easier to be homeless pretty much anywhere else. Amtrak is cheaper and more comfortable than greyhound, hitchhiking is free and easy, if you're alone it's not that much slower than the previous two, and it's more fun, and sometimes people buy you food or whatever or give you money. I promise it's not scary and you're entirely capable of doing it, no matter who you are. 95+% of people who will pick you up are very nice. All you have to do is take the bus out of town, as far down the highway you can, to an exit with a truck stop if possible, then just stand on the side of the road with your thumb out until someone picks you up. You can stand at the bottom of the ramp(on the highway) near where the merge lane ends or at the top of the ramp(where there's usually a traffic light), the former is more likely to lead to cop interactions but will maybe get you a ride faster, check on hitchwiki for how the cops are in the area. don't be afraid to take a commuter bus or Amtrak to get out of a shitty cop area

3) skip shelters if you can (they are very occasionally a decent place to get stuff from) and encampments, good places to sleep include the trees near railroad tracks or highways, wooded areas behind shopping centers, sections of parks without paths, overgrown empty lots. Hang a tarp above you if there's an appreciable chance of rain, there's tons of YouTube tutorials on how to do this, maybe I'll make a post about what I usually do some day. There are many habits more fun than motel rooms, save your money for them lmao.

4) get on food stamps. This is easier in some places than others, but it makes the whole thing a lot easier. Just tell them you're homeless, if they don't give you a card the same day, you can probably ask to pick it up from that office, alternatively some drop in centers/day shelters can receive mail for you, or you can have it sent to general delivery(USPS service, look it up)

7) libraries are great for charging your phone and using wifi, but also keep an eye out, plenty of random outlets on the outsides of buildings are also powered

5) dumpster. sidewalk trash cans, Aldi, Einstein's, trader Joe's, pizza places, etc. You need to develop a bit of a sense for it but it's an easy way to get cooked food or travelling food or expensive food without spending resources. Also it's fun.

6) water is free, go into the bathroom of any gas station or grocery store in America(offer not valid in most big cities or on the west coast, but in that case just go to the library) and fill up your water bottle

8) hygiene notes: truckers get free showers from chain truck stops(loves, pilot/flying j) go there and ask them. convenient if you're hitchhiking, also you don't need to shower 3 times a day, really, you'll survive. Ditto with deodorant. Take care of your teeth though. Take your socks off every. day. Change them consistently. Safety razors give a good shave, work well without adequate water pressure, and the replacement blades are very stealable, they're kind of heavy though. Walmart makes these electric razors for women that take AA batteries and are pretty light but give a worse shave, also they kinda go through batteries, pick whatever works for you(cartridge razors suck)

9) traveling food notes: peanut butter is great, tortillas and bagels travel pretty well, tuna packets are pretty good protein for traveling(the ones with rice and beans or whatever are nice since theyre often the same price as the regular), condiment packets are free, hot sauce makes everything better, and mayo goes well with tuna and has a bunch of calories in it, salad dressing packets are free from truck stops and work well turning the Walmart shredded vegetable packages (labeled for making into slaw, next to the bagged salads) into a salad with real vegetables(not iceberg lettuce) in it or mixing in with tuna packets for even more calories than mayo

Gear world:

Necessary items(in order of importance): a gallon of water carrying capacity(an Arizona jug or other twist top jug is conventional, but a bladder+arizona bottles also works), a tarp(larger than 6'x9', not brightly colored), a hank of parachord, a sleeping bag (20° rated, synthetic insulation), a backpack with a padded hip belt(at least 50L, no more than 75), rain gear(a rain poncho might cover your pack too, a rain jacket can help with wind when its cold, a trash bag inside or outside your pack can keep it dry, a plan to watch the weather and not get caught also works), a z-fold foam sleeping pad, three pairs of socks, two pairs of underwear (at least one pair of boxer breifs strongly recommended if you arent incredibly skinny), a decent pair of shoes with good arch support, a functional jacket(skip if you got a rain jacket before), a base layer(wool or poly, absolutely no cotton)

Convenient items: a sleeping bag liner(cotton free, keeps you warm in winter and cool in summer), gallon zip locks to pack your stuff in(helps keep it dry and organized), no more than one change of clothes(as light as possible), a multi-tool(can opener, pliers, wire cutter), lighter(burning rope ends etc), spoon, floss and needles for patching

[ausetkmt]

We Saw This BS - Homeless evicted from Washington, D.C. park encampment

[applesauce42069]

The Jewish definition of Zionism is very different than the popular definition of Zionism. For Jews, Zionism has its roots in a 3,000 year old tradition of wishing to return to our homeland. I would argue that while the political Zionist movement is not integral to Judaism, Zionism, by its Jewish definition is. You do not have Judaism without Israel. Jews traditionally call themselves and the land they come from Israel.

To be a Jew and call yourself antizionist, you must necessarily isolate yourself from your community. You believe that your community has been brainwashed en masse by “Zionism.” You stop going to community events because they’re too “Zionist.” You try to create your own way to mark Judaism without Israel but it falls flat and meaningless, breaking from the tradition of thousands of years of ancestors who yearned for Zion and who each slowly helped create Judaism as we know it today. You either have to be in denial about harm to your community or you have to accept it on some level. You have to be okay with throwing the majority of your own people under the bus, and definitely at least all Israelis. You have to deal with people who tell you your own history with half truths, who know nothing about your culture and have no respect for it.

I called myself antizionist for several years as a teenager, and this coincided with a complete removal from my community and a stark stop to my education about Jewish history and peoplehood. When I re-engaged, the more I learned about Judaism and Jewish history the more “Zionist” (in the Jewish sense not the popular political sense) I became. Within a few months of actually dealing with antizionist activists, I stopped calling myself an antizionist, because I realized very quickly that I was being tokenized and that for all the people around me claimed to know, they were deeply ignorant about anything to do with my culture and people. When I left my on campus group they replaced me with another token Jew almost immediately. When he fucked off they found another one, whom they weaponized against my campus Jewish community to try and evict our Jewish student centre.

So don’t you dare talk to me about the Jews in the encampment protests. Just don’t.

[smeller-b]

Urgent! Help a homeless trans woman avoid homeless sweep!

02/13/24- Charlotte is a trans woman who is homeless and stuck in a car that has been seriously damaged by a bigot who was stalking her. The encampment she is stuck at is being evicted in 8 hours. She needs $700 to fix her vehicle, or at least $200 for a tow to start. Please share or donate if you can! If 10 people send $20 each that is a start!

VENM0 @ ruby_arnone

Pay///pal

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A legal team is attempting a last-ditch effort to delay the eviction of a group of people living in tents under the Ville-Marie expressway, but Quebec's transport ministry said it can't wait any longer. Advocates for the homeless say for years the most destitute among the roughly 3,000 people without a home have called the Ville-Marie expressway their home. But with the spring thaw and imminent repairs from Quebec's Ministry of Transport (MTQ), they were given until last week to leave their improvised campground. Now, a legal-aid group specializing in helping the homeless has taken up their case.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[radicalgraff]

Mud Wizard 🧙‍♂️ mural in Germany. The Wizard was a defender of the recently evicted village of Luetzerath, which is slated to be totally demolished to make way for the expansion of an opencast lignite mine.

Over the last couple years activists occupied the largely abandoned town to prevent its demolition.

In mid January 2023 police from all over Germany converged on the village as part of a major operation to attack the fortified protest encampments.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 20 April 1914, the Ludlow massacre took place when US troops opened fire with machine guns on a camp of striking miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado. 12,000 miners had gone out on strike the previous September against the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation (CF&I) following the killing of an activist of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). They then demanded better safety at work, and to be paid in money, instead of company scrip (tokens which could only be redeemed in the company store). The Rockefellers evicted the striking miners and their families from their homes, and so they set up "tent cities" to live in collectively, which miners' wives helped run. Company thugs harassed strikers, and occasionally drove by camps riddling them with machine-gun fire, killing and injuring workers and their children. Eventually the national guard was ordered to evict all the strike encampments, and the morning of April 20 they attacked the largest camp in Ludlow. They opened fire with machine guns on the tents of the workers and their families, who then returned fire. The main organiser of the camp, Louis Tikas, went to visit the officer in charge of the national guard to arrange a truce. But he was beaten to the ground then shot repeatedly in the back, killing him. That night, troops entered the camp and set fire to it, killing 11 children and two women, in addition to 13 other people who were killed in the fighting. The youngest victim was Elvira Valdez, aged just 3 months. Protests against the massacre broke out across the country, but the workers at CF&I were defeated, and many of them were subsequently sacked and replaced with non-union miners. Over the course of the strike 66 people were killed, but no guardsmen or company thugs were prosecuted. More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9243/ludlow-massacre Pictured: a striker's family in front of their tent https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=612124227627463&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[chaddavisphotography]

"I support my neigbhors in tents. No encampment evictions" yard sign on Minnehaha Avenue.

[fatehbaz]

There are thousands of people homeless in Edmonton. About only one week ahead of the winter holidays in December 2023, the City of Edmonton pursued plans to sweep over 130 homeless encampments as part of a what has been described as a "shocking" eviction plan. But at the same time, in January 2024, the city was clearing camps amidst sustained deadly severe weather, during a polar vortex event with temperatures of -50 F/-46 C. Meanwhile, a court case presented by homeless advocates with Coalition for Justice and Human Rights was trying to slow brutal sweeps and evictions. But when a judge shut down the case in the middle of January 2024, it took the City of Edmonton just one single day to turn around and set up an "operations centre" to expand sweeps again, as the daytime high temperatures for the preceding week and over the next few days were sometimes as low as -25 F/-31 C. In less than two weeks after the lawsuit was scrapped, by the beginning of February 2024, the city had already cleared 49 encampments. (The city ostensibly has access to institutional and financial power as the Alberta provincial capital and a center of the province's massive fossil fuel industry, yet the city spends its effort on evictions.)

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[Quote.] Two weeks since a lawsuit challenging Edmonton's practice of dismantling homeless encampments was scrapped by a judge, nearly 50 encampments around the city have been torn down. A new emergency operations centre - set up by city administration one day after the suit was dismissed - is helping co-ordinate sweeps as evictions continue at an accelerated pace. The Emergency Operations Centre has overseen the removal of 49 encampments, the city said in a statement. About 211 structures were removed during the sweeps [...]. The encampment operations centre was established on Jan. 17, as Edmonton police promised to hasten tearing down encampments [...]. The day before, a judge ruled Coalition for Justice and Human Rights, a group that challenged the city's encampment policies, did not have legal standing in the case, putting an end to the high-profile legal challenge and, in turn, lifting restrictions on how the evictions could proceed. "The bottom line is they're doing this because that lawsuit longer exists," [A.N.], a lawyer for the group, said. "They feel emboldened.[...] And that means, from our perspective, they're continuing to breach the fundamental rights of the most vulnerable and marginalized within our city." [End quote.]

Text by: Wallis Snowdon. "49 homeless encampments dismantled in Edmonton since lawsuit scrapped". CBC News. 1 February 2024. [Bold emphasis added by me.]

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Screenshot of headline from 15 December 2023.

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Headline from 12 January 2024 (updated 15 January 2024).

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[Quote.] It feels like housing is at a tipping point in the city of Edmonton. There have been four main events highlighting the situation: [1] A case that was brought against the City of Edmonton by the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights about encampment sweeps; [2] Encampment sweeps perpetrated by the Edmonton police days before a forecasted deadly cold snap; [3] A decision by Edmonton City Council to declare a housing and homelessness emergency; [4] The Alberta government’s announcement that encampments will continue to be cleared out, while also arguing there’s sufficient shelter room. That contention has been refuted by advocates, shelter workers and the province’s official housing critic. [...]

The state of housing both in Canada and globally is worsening, but the housing crisis is not new. [...] Under Canada’s National Housing Strategy Act passed in 2019, the federal government affirmed the human right to housing. [...] This isn’t happening, apparently, when it comes to encampments, which are both a site of human rights violations and of human rights claims. The Coalition for Justice and Human Rights was denied legal standing by the judge in its case against Edmonton because he ruled it wasn’t the right group to represent the interests of people experiencing homelessness. While that means this particular case will not proceed, it garnered significant media attention and does not refute the claims by the coalition, only its standing. The coalition argued human rights were violated during encampment sweeps. It sought to maintain permanent restrictions on encampment evictions, and had been supported by many advocates in Edmonton, including those who submitted affidavits. [...]

[U]nhoused people [...] are disproportionately Indigenous [...]. When authorities make reference to “public safety” concerns about encampment, unhoused people are positioned as dangerous.

The destruction of those encampments simply drives people who are unhoused further to the margins. Sweeps do not end people’s experiences of homelessness; they move them out of public view. [...] Homelessness in Edmonton has resulted in increased amputations due to exposure to extreme cold, while encampment sweeps lead to the overburdening of a shelter system that is already inadequate and the denial of rest for people who are unhoused. [End quote.]

Text by: Katie MacDonald. "Encampment sweeps in Edmonton are yet another example of settler colonialism". The Conversation. 8 February 2024. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Image shows screenshot of article's headline.]

[immaculatasknight]

School spirit