Category: Housing/shelter

wendell pierce said this on twitter

Warning Maui Fire Victims: As a victim of Katrina, we saw the criminality begin at this point of the disaster. 1) Insurance companies will abandon you after years of paying premiums. 2) If insurance companies do pay out they will collude with banks and pay off your loan, not you. 
3) Commissions & Coalitions will be put together with government & corporations without your best interest at heart. Demand you are included in the process of rebuilding.
4) Beware of those attempting to steal and expropriate your property. 5) Beware of no bid contractors 
(6) The land grab will be disguised with the declaration you cannot return to the area and should be returned to “green” space, later to be given to speculators. (7) Beware of “land swaps” that give you temporary housing but your original property never returned. 
Survivors of Katrina have seen all of these tactics over the 2 decades since our disaster that we are still dealing with. You as Hawaiians know to well how precious your land is and the history of criminality to steal it. Nothing has changed. Beware of those who want your land! 
Demand that ALL public land transactions in the affected area be frozen until the end of the year. Private sales allowed. Federal funding will be following end to the area, don’t allow your government to give out no bid contracts to political friends. 
Demand that all contractors do“First Source Hiring” meaning hire all temporary employees from the community first.Demand ALL Americorp chapters from around the country be utilized for voluntary workforce for cleanup & distribution of donated resources. Your taxes pay for Amercorp 
Utilize Americorp, and the National Guard. Contact the community leaders in Puerto Rico who went through Maria, New Orleans organizations who suffered through Katrina, and NY after 9/11. Unfortunately you have joined us in the fight for survival and restoration of our communities 

a few items

Mo-no-ny-mous
I mean Shakira
Mo-no-ny-mous
And also Cher
Mo-no-ny-mous
Adele and Bono
and Plato, & Cato,
Colette – and don’t forget Voltaire

(This above for mOm, I sang it to her the other day and she laughed so I thought I’d write it down for her.)

Made fruit salad for the meal yesterday. Last I saw, leaving their house, Paul was going to eat the rest before anyone got seconds. It was that good. And candidly, given that he daily complains about how hard his poops are, who minds that he inhales some food value with his roughage.

It consisted of pieces of melon, blueberries, strawberries, mangoes, the best fucking Bartlett pears I ever et, and oranges. The dressing which is from a recipe I got online, I’m not smart enough to invent it, and it’s for those who can eat dairy: a cup and a half of 10%BF Greek yogurt, three tablespoons of maple syrup and half a capful of vanilla. WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS how nommy it is, and like I said I would have taken home leftovers if there had been any. The mouth feel, good god yall.

Oreo sat on my shoulders a good long while and purred hard in my ear.

I PLAYED A BOARD GAME WITH THREE QUARTERS OF MY DESCENDANTS YESTERDAY. It was Alex’s idea and I had so much fun. Hasbro’s latest version of Clue, if you need to know.

Dax changed the oil in my car. I asked him anxiously from the back deck if the oil was very dirty and he swilled it around in the container and considered the matter and said, ‘Yes’ so dryly that I burst out laughing. I owe him forty bucks for the filter and the oil so I’ll be heading out to drop it off sometime today. Perhaps I’ll combine it with a trip to Peggy’s to ditch that weird fretless bass ukulele.

Made soup yesterday. Started with a litre of unsalted Campbell’s chicken stock, added organic ramen (so damn good), chopped carrots, mushrooms, baby bok choi, a little tiny dab of veggie soup base, a splish of soy sauce. Today or tomorrow I am going to attempt Instant Pot (did you know the parent company is going out of business thanks to asset stripping? Capitalism HOW YOU SUCK) red beans and rice. I may bake up some chicken breasts and taters since the weather seems to be veering off into ‘June-uary’ temperatures.

Thunder and lightning two days ago. Not usual for these parts. We talked about the weather a lot yesterday.

Ryker was just down for his nap and Alex kissed his head AND WOKE HIM UP. He was down for most of the meal and the board game but since he’d gotten no other nap that day and was up at 6:30 Katie was SPARE while Ryker ran around the house terrorizing everything he could and parroting everything his mother said. WITH HER INTONATION. He’s got dozens and dozens of words, some clear enough that people who don’t live with him can understand him. Keith was like that, pristine pronunciation from the git. But Ryker is DIFFERENT. He is stronger, braver (yeah, like no sense of self preservation) smarter, faster, funnier, more able to understand what the adults around him are saying, more able to self-soothe, more durable – he took hits yesterday that would have had me bawling and just walked it off – picking up language so fast. Mike the father brought him back with a pinch bruise on his leg from a recliner, apologetic af, and Katie wasn’t bothered. What can you do? He’s not Alex, or Keith, who conducted themselves from a very early age knowing that the world can bite ya. I told her they should promise each other ten bucks and hand it to whichever of them DOESN’T have to take him to hospital with a broken bone first. You should have seen Katie rubbing her face as she contemplated how many TIMES she’ll likely have to take him to hospital. Like the tshirt said, today we keep the tiny human alive. Except he’s NOT tiny, he can open and shut doors with the handle.

everything about the visit is overshadowed by the fact that Alex is crying every day about how he can no longer go to second street school because his mother can’t afford to live in the catchment area. And the landlord fucked her over by not giving her a duly completed eviction notice so she can’t move up the BC housing list. This world is a horrible place for my children right now and I am helpless.

Over 500 words on TB yesterday. Richie and Blossom have finally met.

the cumulative effect

so

if Keith hadn’t asked me to come with for Peggy’s luncheon

Peggy wouldn’t have reminded me that Cindy’s Festival of the Living Rooms concert is Saturday and suggested I back Cindy up

and I wouldn’t have messaged Cindy to be so kind as to allow me to accompany her

and I wouldn’t have found out that Cindy was low key panicking, and we wouldn’t have rehearsed last night and I wouldn’t be backing her up today for the 3PM concert. She brought like 80 DOLLAH of greek food and we ate like chieftains wit’ da meat on spits, good god yall.

Yesterday with Alex was fun. We didn’t call GGMa but we did have a good time, and I got to see my neurodiverse grandson HAVING A SOCIAL LIFE WITH FRIENDS WHO ALSO HAVE DYED HAIR (three little cis boys with red and pink hair noisily occupying a living room) and once again I was moved to intense and grievous anger that he’s being renovicted and may lose these friends, as children do in moves. I will keep that friendship going if I have to take him on the bus I publicly swear it. Anyway he was invited over and I squared it with his mummabear and we exchanged numbers and his mummabear picked him up. It rained, but not enough to really put out any fires.

He played me something on youtube called Rush E. Don’t bother, it’s a memey thing and your life won’t be better if you look at it. Also he needs to remember to bring his blessed charger with him.

I got him to pick a beat on the Kaossilator and we recorded him playing overtop of that. I will post a fragment when I get around to it and quit panicking about the performance this afternoon.

The counteroffensive has begun. Qapla’ Ukrainy (Success Ukraine in Klingon)

 

shit people shit policy

From today’s Sun “Internal emails at Vancouver city hall in the days leading up to April’s dismantling of the Downtown Eastside encampment show that officials knew there would not be enough beds to shelter people who were displaced.”

Let’s pile another notion onto this dreadful fact:  that thousands of more people will become unhoused in Vancouver – many of them children experiencing their first, and on the basis of statistics, not likely their last experience of having no stable shelter AND MORE PEOPLE KEEP MOVING HERE EVERY DAY … and tourist season is coming so there’s less housing stock because of the AirBnB units that have kicked out long term tenants.

UBI UBI UBI UBI

THIS COUNTRY NEEDS UBI UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME NOW!

(Scanged from tumblr/twitter):

When you hear that an unhoused person ‘refused services’ here’s what it means:

  • refused to give up their pet to get space in a short term hotel room
  • the shelter they were offered a space in isn’t safe for someone of their gender/sexuality/origin
  • couldn’t consolidate their belongings into two bags.

another person added the following:

  • They didn’t want to sit through demeaning and bigoted religious services just for a place to sleep. (Church run food banks do this a lot too btw).
  • They were late and the shelter wouldn’t let them in and voided the rest of their allowed stay bc they didn’t call and tell the shelter they couldn’t make it in before closing. They had no access to a phone or transportation.
  • One of the other people at the shelter got violent/threatened violence, theft, sexual assault – and the shelter refused to do anything about it.
  • One of the SHELTER EMPLOYEES/VOLUNTEERS got violent/threatened violence and the shelter refused to do anything about it.
  • The shelter refuses to disclose if allergens are in the food they’re providing saying, “This is all you’re getting, be glad for this much and thank god!”
  • Shelter refused to believe person is homeless saying, “You are FAR too clean and nicely dressed!”