Early last month, I received the usual fundraising letter from a local shelter that shall remain unnamed. Your $1.96 or whatever will buy some poor homeless guy a turkey dinner. There was the usual picture of a bearded geezer gratefully grasping knife and fork. A gift of $19.60 would buy 10 turkey dinners. $196 would buy 100. And so forth.
I worked at a homeless shelter once, and I recall the holidays as a blizzard of 20-pound birds. They literally lined the hallway. It was a problem to be managed.
Seattle is no different. Rest assured. The homeless will get their turkey.
But the things that they need most — affordable housing, work that pays a decent wage, access to health care, a shot at a decent education — are the same things we all need.
That’s a little harder to get than turkey dinner with all the fixings. That’s about movement building.
The New Seattle
Last Sunday morning, I happened to be in Belltown at 7:30 a.m. There was a cold driving rain. Anyone who had somewhere to go was already there. But the homeless were outside.
Three people stood just outside the Cristalla, the first of the new luxury condos to populate our neighborhood. Near Pike Place Market, four luxury towers are being built. A total of 505 condos with an average value of $2 million will open in 2008. More than 5,000 new downtown condos are under construction. The average price is $750,000.
Here in Seattle, our commitment to ending homelessness sometimes masks a darker side of the issue. My last 20 years of activism have taught me that when government says that housing, not shelter, is the answer to homelessness, what they really mean is “We’ve had enough.”
The City has drawn a hard line on this issue. New tactics — such as intensified police and private security harassment of the urban poor and what appears to be a regional campaign of zero tolerance for homeless campsites — have revealed the gleaming hard edge behind some of the rhetoric.
As cities across the country are becoming the new enclaves of affluence, homeless people everywhere are getting the same message: go away. Upscale urban living is in. The homeless are out. We’re in a new era.
Fund the Fightback
Last month, Real Change broke the story that the Mayor’s office has, since at least May, overseen an immoral and illegal homeless campsite clearance policy that was conducted in secret. Sites were cleared with a day’s notice and no meaningful assistance was offered. In many cases, campers’ possessions were destroyed.
His office has offered few apologies. The clearances, the office says, despite media reports to the contrary, are continuing. To us, this issue is symbolic of the empty promise that homelessness can be ended without addressing poverty and growing inequality.
Homelessness has always been the visible evidence of a society out of balance. As power and wealth are held by fewer and fewer people, the wreckage from decades of neglect becomes more and more visible.
The solution to homelessness isn’t to stage some magic show that culminates in a disappearing act. The answer is in the sort of organizing and movement building that moves us all toward greater democracy and equality.
Real Change has focused our whole organization on helping to create the sort of cross-class movement that builds for real power. The support of readers like you is what makes our work possible.
• Each month, more than 270 homeless and vulnerably housed vendors are able to earn an income by selling our paper. Real Change offers quality journalism on the issues that matter. We amplify the work of those who are making a difference.
• Our vendor staff is focused on creating opportunities for vendor activism and cultural expression, and working with our organizing project to build for power across class.
• Real Change is becoming a regional progressive voice by expanding distribution throughout the Puget Sound area. Real alternative journalism that fights for economic justice is an essential part of building the movement for social justice we desperately need.
• The Real Change Organizing Project is working to reinvent homeless activism by developing a cross-class grassroots organizing model that builds leadership and power.
We’ve set a goal of raising $90,000 this holiday season to enter the new year with the resources that we need to carry out our work. Midway through our fund drive, we’re less than halfway there. Consider the difference that Real Change makes everyday. Watch our video at www.realchangenews.org. And please support our work by donating online or using the coupon on page 3. We’re counting on you.