Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-1-24, which directs California state agencies and departments to begin clearing unhoused people living on state property. The order comes at a time when similar policies are rising across the country, despite evidence that these approaches do not work to end people’s homelessness. Bay Area mayors, including Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, have enthusiastically embraced the governor's order as a “step forward in the right direction.”

We as housed people want to emphasize that punishing our unhoused neighbors does not score political points with us. We refuse to accept political rhetoric that offers fake compassion and only self-defeating violence. Rather, we insist on meaningful housing solutions designed by poor and marginalized people bearing the brunt of the crisis—for example, our partners at POOR Magazine.

Law Center staff working on housing justice came together to write a statement condemning the governor's executive order and urging Oakland Mayor Thao to stop the sweeps of houseless people. You can read the statement here.

Law Center client APSARA on track to own their property!

Law Center Staff Attorney Jay Cumberland has been working with APSARA (Asian Pacific Self-Development and Residential Association) since 2020, originally to help them vet a potential nonprofit partner to allow them maintain their housing agreement with HUD. But after a thorough interpretation of the agreements, Jay eventually came to the belief that APSARA doesn’t need a partner organization after all, and had an opportunity to fulfill a dream of full community ownership of the property. Shelterforce — a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to telling stories about affordable housing — started reporting on the story and began inquiring about the ownership status of the property to HUD. Since then, HUD personnel conducted a site visit to Park Village Apartments and discussed moving forward with a modified physical transfer of assets, according to Cumberland.

You can read the story of how the community of Cambodian immigrants created a thriving community in the Shelterforce article here. 

POOR Magazine is looking for legal volunteers for their monthly Poor People’s Legal Clinic!

Our client, POOR Magazine, is looking for legal volunteers for their monthly Poor People’s Legal Clinic! The clinic provides drop-in legal support for poor and unhoused people around all areas of the law (contract, landlord tenant, family law, all the settler-colonial laws/lies). It happens in-person on the first Thursday of every month from 12-1 pm at Homefulness (8032 MacArthur Blvd, Oakland).

There are two opportunities to support: 1) volunteer in person to provide one-time legal advice or 2) be on call to answer questions for other volunteers (not necessarily during clinic hours).  

Before volunteering, you’ll need to:

• attend POOR’s PeopleSkool Degentrification/Decolonization Seminar happening August 24-25 or this coming January
• attend one session of POOR's Community Newsroom on the first Thursday of the month at 1 pm at Homefulness (if you're local)
• attend a zoom meeting with POOR to discuss the Clinic and your participation.

If you’re interested in volunteering, or have questions about this opportunity, please reach out to Ari at [email protected]. 

POOR Magazine’s Roofless Radio WeSearch Report is Out! 

POOR Magazine also published its latest  WeSearch report, called “Sweeping Us to Nowhere” which documents how violent sweeps are killing unhoused people while silencing their solutions. You can find their report on their website. 

WeSearch (a word created by tiny aka @povertyskola) is a poor people-led research project of POOR Magazine dedicated to “listening, learning, hearing, and reclaiming the endless counting and shuffling of data, counts, surveys, reports created about us poor and houseless peoples without us poor and houseless peoples.”