Youngbloods, Elders and Friends: Cynthia McKinney, Charles Barron and 200 other Americans broke the Israeli blockade of Gaza today when the first American "'Viva Palestina" convoy entered Gaza with 50 trucks and cars filled with relief supplies for the 1.5 million Palestinians who have been blockaded and bombarded by Israel for over two years. Several weeks ago McKinney and 20 other activists were illegally seized in international waters and held in an Israeli prison when they tried to bring relief supplies to Gaza by boat. Upon her release from prison Cynthia joined Charles Barron and the other Viva Palestina activists who were being refused entry into Gaza by Egyptian authorities.

The national housing crisis has led to thousands of families losing their homes. The rise in homelessness has contributed to the increase in tent communities across the United States as a grassroots solution to the problem.

A judge has ruled the Sit/Lie unconstitutional but Police Chief Rosie Sizer released a memo stating that all the judge ruled was that Portland should just use disorderly conduct instead of Sit/Lie. That is not what the judge ruled and her vague memo creates NO meaningful distinction between the Sit/Lie and disorderly conduct. This is not how the city should react to the loss of the constitutional legitimacy of the Sit/Lie. Two many good people have worked to hard on this issue for the Police Chief to take such a step without analysis and public input....

As Portland's Sit/Lie ordinance is deemed as unconstitutional, there is evidence all over Portland of underground actions protesting the law. (Some popped up all over the city before the circuit court decision).
The signs the figures are holding have some of the following statements on them:

* "This city wide ordinance has been deemed unconstitutional by circuit court. Sit/Lie in unity to the supreme court. FREEDOM FOR ALL."

* "SIT LIE LAW IS A GVNMENT CURSE - Homeless Front"

Some that I spotted before the circuit court decision simply stated, "SIT LIE" and appeared to be attached with metal to what they were sitting on.

The Fresno police department has finally identified the officers who were captured on videotape in the February beating of a homeless man. But the department has been slow in proceeding with its promised investigation of the police beating. Glen Beaty, meantime, remains in jail on charges of violating parole.

Advocates of the poor and homeless community of Venice Beach have been fighting against Overnight Permit Parking Districts, which are used to criminalize people who park RVs on city streets. Negative press coverage may be contributing to persecution of the homeless, to whom California offers no protection from the rising wave of hate crimes... Report with photos: LA Times Misses Mark - By a Mile - About RVs in Venice by Peggy Lee Kennedy

Signs have been showing up on foreclosed properties around Richmond, VA recently, advertising that the houses are available for free to anyone who needs a home. Though they look like ordinary real estate signs at first glance, they're actually the work of "Squat 2 Own Realty", a group of activists who are helping people take over vacant foreclosed houses without permission from the banks.

At least 15 children, 3 elderly women and a dozen adults, will be homelessness in Champaign in less than 48 hours.  The shelters are full.  The residents, most of whom work, just paid May rent and have no savings.  And the City of Champaign seems to have washed their hands of the problem.

Fresno homeless rights activists have caught the eye of Homeland Security and the attention of the Police Department's Terrorism Liaison Officers.

DIRECT ACTION GETS THE GOODS: Monday, May 11, at 9 a.m., at the Multnomah County Courthouse, 1021 SW 4th Ave. Stop the auction of foreclosed homes by the bank-fraudsters. Support SB 628.

Not active in supporting your neighbors who are facing homelessness because you think Obama will magically make everything all right?

Give up that Ghost....We need grass-roots action NOW, and YOU need to make it happen.... Every Monday morning, foreclosed homes are being auctioned at the Multnomah County Courthouse (1021 SW 4th Ave.). This is being done in spite of the fact that the bankers and their political flunkies are obstructing attempts to require mortgage mediation with the victims of the financial scams that threaten to harm all working class people. (Contact your state representatives about support for SB 628, the pre-foreclosure mandatory mediation bill that the bank fraudsters are attempting to destroy, and see: link to blog.affil.org).

Wear red and bring signs, if you can.

In journalism, sometimes the story comes to you, envelopes you, and you become part of the story, and you really don't have a choice in the matter. Objectivity is impossible and yet the truth comes out. This is one such story...

Sunday March 22nd was puntcuated by a large strom front moving through the Grand Vally which brought with it heavy winds with gusts above 60 miles per hour. My first indication that something was wrong was when around 7pm I heard a hurried knock on the door... read more

The City From Below conference took place last weekend in Baltimore, MD. The conference brought together organizations and individuals across urban centers to think about organizing in the city, as it is a crucial space in creating social change. The majority of the participants organize for the rights of the poor, working classes, immigrants, refugees and people of color pushing the agenda that all who live in the city must be involved in shaping its future. Read More

Audio: Opening address from Mumia Abu-Jamal | Opening Panel - Crisis and Resistance in the Neoliberal City w/ David Harvey, Max Rameau, Esther Wang, and Shiri Pasternak | Max Rameau from Take Back the Land in Miami | Resisting Gentrification in the Creative City w/ Stevphen Shukaitis, Beka Economopoulos, Alan Moore, Christina Ulke & Adrian Blackwell | From Cities to Cells (and back again) w/ Vikki Law, Power Inside & Critical Resistance | Urban Struggles and Media Activism w/ the Media Mobilizing Project, The Philadelphia Student Union & more | Baltimore Human Rights Zone: Geography of developement and resistance w/ United Workers | David Harvey - View from Federal Hill, Revisited

Video: Children in the City w/ Elliot Liu and China Martens | Dispatches Against Displacementwith James Tracy and Maria Guadalupe "Lupe" Arreola | Know Your Rights to the City w/ NLG and Picture the Homeless | Chicago 101 w/ AREA's Dan Tucker

More audio,video, and reportbacks on the City From Below Website

MINNEAPOLIS - Last September, Rosemary Williams, a long-time resident and activist of South Minneapolis, received a Notice of Foreclosure on her home. Monday was her last day to legally reside in her home of 55 years.

“When I first learned that my house was being foreclosed on I was very depressed and emotional. I had just gone through some difficult times, temporarily losing my job and seeing my adjustable rate mortgage nearly double in one year, ” Williams related. “But when banks like TCF rejected federal aid money to help people stay in their homes, I said to myself, ‘Someone has got to step up and be a spokeswoman.”

Related: Video: People's Resistance to Scheduled Minneapolis Home Eviction | Evict the Poor--Rescue the Banks? | Stopping Foreclosure: One Woman's Home (from TC Daily Planet) | TCIMC Video of March Hennepin County Sheriff's Sale Action | Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign

In the end, New York City provides a reality-based cautionary tale about the future of America, mired in poverty, about its priorities, what it has become and what it can become. This city that never sleeps, and other cities as well, will experience economic and social death without a vibrant middle class and viable opportunities to earn a living.

...too many inside-the-beltway environmental and climate groups since Obama won the Presidency and the Democrats, are moderating their tactics and their demands, scaling them back to gain access to high-level White House and Congressional leaders, who themselves are being impacted by Republican intransigence and fossil fuel supporting Democrats. It’s an old, familiar story which has played out innumerable times on other issues in the past. And it’s a very big problem for the low-income people of the world, most of them people of color, who are most vulnerable to the more destructive storms, floods, droughts, wildfires, famines and sea level rise that we’re already seeing as the atmosphere heats up.

Is it like the Great Depression? Sort of, because it's quite serious. Not really, because America has a pretty clear consensus on how to deal with it and some regulatory structures left over from that period that have prevented a full-blown repeat.

March 27, 2009 — HB09-1238 if passed, would have been a Forfeiture Field Day for Colorado Sheriffs. Police would no longer need a conviction to Civilly Forfeit a person’s property. Public resistance was fierce.

HB09-1238 would have opened the door for police to target business and homeowners for Civil Asset Forfeiture in “poor communities” where crime rates are higher. Poor neighborhoods, schools and community services dependent on property taxes could have been economically impacted by dropping real estate values, the probable-result of multi-family and other investors frightened away by the HB09-1238 “no conviction needed” to forfeit property law... read more

Under US law, the rich can “steal” cheap foreclosed houses. “People’s” historian Howard Zinn writes, “It is not easy to prove that protest changes policy.” This Monday, March 30th, Rosemary Williams is launching a protest that just might change things! She is refusing to leave her home at 3138 Clinton Ave. South in Minneapolis. It fell into foreclosure after having been refinanced once, and again two years ago to help make ends meet with an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM). Monthly payments shot up to $2,000!

March 19 marked the sixth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Last week, protests took place across the U.S. and around the world expressing outrage at the continuing destruction and connecting the dots between the war abroad and profiteering and racism on the home front. Many events took place on Saturday, March 21st, sponsored by the ANSWER coalition and coinciding with a march on the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Marchers also targeted the Veterans Administration and four companies who are making money off the war. [Read Report]

More Highlights:
» In San Francisco, CA, demonstrators drew links between the war in Iraq to oppression against people of color here at home. Dozens of gatherings converged on the public transportation centers to protest the January murder of an black passenger by a police officer. [Read More]
» In Rochester, NY, a series of protests covering the entire day of March 19 were coordinated using a spokescouncil meeting model. [Read More]
» In Chicago, IL, protests marked another successful challenge of the city's restrictive regulations on public gatherings, which peace and immigrant rights activists have been fighting for seven years. [Read More | | | Background: Feb11 | Feb8]

Looking ahead, a national memorial project was launched in Olympia, WA on March 20. Over the next few months, the effort will build memorials in cities across the country, commemorating civilians whose deaths have been documented to be a result of US aggressions. On the east coast, anti-war groups are joining forces to target the commodification of war at a huge shopping mall in Pennsylvania.

More Reports: Boston, MA | Fresno, CA | Los Angeles, CA | Long Beach, CA | Fort Collins, CO (video) | Salem, OR | St. Paul, MN | Tacoma, WA | Washington, DC (March 19) | Boston, MA | West Chester, PA | | | Related: Day X, The Re-Xamination

Curtis Reliford and his Follow Your Heart Action Network sued Starbucks for slander after a Starbucks manager tried to have Curtis arrested for panhandling. Curtis, and about 20 supporters, attended a court hearing on March 17th in front of Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Jeff Almquist. The case was dismissed on the premise that calling a charitable organization a "panhandler" was not going to hurt its reputation or influence how it conducts its business.

It stemmed from an occurrence back in 2007 where Curtis, founder of the Follow Your Heart Action Network, parked his truck and trailer in front of Starbucks on Pacific Avenue in order to get a cup of coffee. The manager claims Curtis went table-to-table asking for donations, though the witnesses all claimed he had just arrived and had not asked anyone for money, he just wanted coffee.

Curtis Reliford started the Follow Your Heart Action Network to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. He has received the 2006 KSBW Jefferson Award, the American Red Cross' Good Samaritan Award, and the NAACP's Community Service Award. Further action against Starbucks is being planned. Read more

Previous coverage: Santa Cruz Sends Relief to Louisiana || "Thank You Santa Cruz!" from Shreveport, Bogalousa and New Orleans, Louisiana || Gulf Coast Communities Still Need Help from Santa Cruz || Follow Your Heart: Refusing to Abandon Katrina’s Victims

Housing activist group, Picture the Homeless, along with East Harlem residents are rallying outside of an abandoned building in El Barrio to protest City housing policy. They say that the building, and others like it city-wide, should be renovated and made into affordable housing units. They also say that many of the vacant buildings can be used to house the homeless.

Event also marks the 10th anniversary of the Global Women's Strike
On Friday March 6, several dozen mothers, grandmothers, children, and their supporters gathered in front of the Department of Human Services (DHS) office in downtown Philadelphia to challenge the agency's priorities and practices. The women say the DHS has a pattern of mistaking poverty for neglect, and trauma caused by domestic violence as evidence of poor mothering. Several spoke at length about their experience trying to get their children back from the state foster care system, or encountering abuse, neglect and racism within what are supposed to be solutions. The group then marched down the street to the Arch Street United Methodist Church, where a teach-in was held. Read More & Pics | globalwomenstrike.net | Related: Philadelphia Activists Attend International Gathering