The Homeless versus the City of Albany

When I was on Shattuck this week, 4/20-4/26, I got the opportunity to get a hold of a copy of Street Spirit. During that short exchange, the guy told me a bit about himself and of Street Spirit because I had asked. I really appreciated his company and his insights on religion because outside of all the hardships he had something that inspired him and kept him going. The Street Spirit newspaper is a newspaper that addresses issues of homelessness, poverty, human rights, etc. in the Bay Area. The copy I obtained was from March.

The next day, my friend posted a news article from NBC news about the Albany Bulb and the homeless population there. The Albany Bulb is about a 10-15 minute drive from Berkeley and the city officials are in the process of making that area a state park. The only problem is that there is a community of homeless people that utilize that space as refuge and to stay away from the streets. The recent article shows that officials are now paying the residents to leave the space. However, Albany does not have a permanent homeless shelter, so where are these residents to go? In addition, is $3000 really enough?

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Albany-Paying-Homeless-3000-to-Vacate-Area-for-State-Park-256473221.html

Looking back at the copy of Street Spirit, I was able to find some news on this evacuation of the homeless from the Bulb and on the temporary shelter that was created to shelter these residents. And I think it's very interesting to see what happened in March has led to the point where the city is paying these residents to leave.

http://www.thestreetspirit.org/albany-officials-ignore-the-needs-of-disabled-people-at-the-bulb/

http://www.thestreetspirit.org/albanys-shelter-program-is-a-dismal-failure/

In my opinion, if city officials in Albany utilize the resources carefully, both the development of a state park and providing shelter for the current residents can be accomplished. This can be an opportunity to fix a broken system where officials can give these homeless people a place to live or something to satisfy their needs. If the shelter program did not work, they can think of a way to refine it.

Poverty in Paradise

This past spring break, I took my first ever real vacation to Hawaii with some of my best friends. This was an experience I was sure to never forget. Hawaii is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places, with clear blue beaches, perfect weather, and gorgeous local people everywhere. I had a lot of expectations before going on my trip to paradise, but it wasn't everything it's all cracked up to be. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time and there are definitely beautiful places to visit, but besides the occasional tension that happens when you go on trips with friends, I had a lot of misconceptions and ideas of what Hawaii was all about.

I imagined Hawaii to be a place largely untouched by modern day consumerism, tropical trees and wild life everywhere, local people, and maybe a lot of hula shows (of course with the tourism). However, I was quite surprised for some reason when I took my first visit to the city of Honolulu. The city seemed extremely outdated and unmaintained. Infrastructure for the most part was not the best, and most surprisingly for me, poverty was everywhere to be seen. Yet, it is clearly goes largely unnoticed or maybe more accurately ignored. On my first trip to Waikiki (in an old bus with quite uncomfortable seats), one of the most tourist populated area, I saw homeless people everywhere, many bear foot, many with clear mental disabilities yelling or talking to themselves. I talked to my friend Evan (who attends the University of Hawaii) about how this was something I never would have expected. In response she said, "Yea, the poverty here is really bad." On our way up to Waikiki beach she told me and my other friend Basia, that the beach was man made and used to be a swamp. This brings up many questions and points of discussion for me. What is this place trying to represent? In the midst of what surrounds the very touristy Waikiki area exists reality, poverty. There is a front however, to maintain this facade of what Hawaii is, when literally what makes up these ideals are fake. From the beach to the things they sell, none of it is real or authentic.  

In discussion, my GSI Laura has often brought up that at some point she realized she doesn't need to go abroad since there are so many issues here that need to be addressed, even more specifically in her home town. This trip really highlights for me her point. Even in paradise, poverty is a huge issue.  I don't know how to begin fixing this problem, but I think acknowledging it as a problem and addressing it is a place to start.

Anonymous Approach to Homelessness, Justified?

We are Anonymous.

We are legion.

We will not forgive governments forcing people to become homelessness.

We will not forget that we can be next.

To the corrupt government holding our future from us.

You will expect us soon enough!

     -“Anonymous – The Homelessness Update 2014” by “OfficialAnonymousTV1”

            Anonymous is “a loosely international network of activist and hacktivist entities,” started in 2003. And, “the group became known for a series of well-publicized publicity stunts and distributed denial-of service (DDoS) attacks on government, religious, and corporate websites.”

Thanks Wiki.

Anonymous is good in what they do: hacking, educating the public of the injustice, and giving a big headache to the FBI. In their YouTube channel, the Anonymous has released the Homelessness 2014 update. Here, they also succeeded in implementing fear to their enemies, or the “corrupted government.”

But, here is the thing. As writing this article, I am, to be honest, a little afraid to mention anything that might provoke the Anonymous, or FBI in a space that is so “public.” How is this fear I am feeling different from the one I feel due to the government censorship? My lack of knowledge in the interests of Anonymous might be the cause. Still, this fear of mine has its reasons.

As a college student who is interning at an anti-homelessness organization in Oakland called WEAP, Women’s Economic Agenda Project, I cannot help but to compare the approaches taken by my organization to the one of Anonymous. The “Anonymous approach” to homelessness in the U.S. is much more sensational and informative that the work the WEAP has done. However, it seems that WEAP has provided a more intimate cure to the homelessness, by launching anti-eviction campaigns, and discussing homelessness in a non-virtual space or by face-to-face. Fascinatingly, WEAP and Anonymous have been around for about the same years. But, they have vastly different history when in working with homelessness. Is there a better approach? Does the better approach necessarily cancel out the unique benefits that another provides?

Anyways, Anonymous is fabulous in their hacking skills. I wish I had them.

            Lucky you. And, thanks to them for their videos. They do help in spreading the facts of poverty and inequality to the larger audience. And, they do help in raising questions that should be answered by all activists who are involved in reducing inequality, poverty, and injustice. What does justice mean to you? What is equality, in a world that we live in now?  I am assuming I did have my ideas unrefined as I began my work. However, it would’ve have been more helpful to have these terms defined explicitly as my first step. I then could’ve tracked my progress in my work and possible modifications to my ideas of poverty, inequality, and justice.

           My most agreeable form of understanding justice comes from John Rawls, an American philosopher of politics. By Rawlsian terms, Justice as fairness is achieved by minimizing inequality, and having the better-off contribute for the worst-off. When studying inequality and poverty, I find justice, as a concept that must go noticed.

Does justice matter? I think so.

Is There Responsibility in Photography ?

Recently, I have become made aware of a trend of poverty related photography collections. There are layers to the discomfort I feel when it comes to this sort of photography. First, I believe that the individuals being depicted are being exploited for the opportunistic motives of fame, money, or etc. on behalf of the photographer. In addition to the exploitation of the subjects in the photos, many times the excruciating photos stir up emotions and yet do nothing to help this individuals whatsoever.  The only way collection serves any efforts to uplift these individuals from their place in poverty is by making others aware of that their extent of poverty exists.

Furthermore, capturing images of poverty is not a new element of photography. However, in previous years many time the photographer capturing the images was a by product of the surrounding community when it was in the United States. Today, there has been a new trend for what has been coined by some as "white-guy photography." No, this does not just mean that a white man is the photographer. Instead, "white guy photography," refers to the tendency for white individual leaving their life of privilege to move to/ or visit those impoverished areas only to capture these images. While I understand capturing images from a trip or practice experience from another country, I don't know if I support the for-profit use of these exploitive photos. Many times, I have come across the biographies of photographers or summaries about how the poverty image collections come to fruition and all of these "white guy photography" collections have almost identical descriptions. Many of these collections start off as an after affect from a "white guy," leaving his happily content life of well-paying employment for some reason or another to find "his calling" and ends up in photography telling someone else's story, for their own personal benefit.

My concern in this is the lack of assistance these collections gives back to the subjects of the pictures, the poor. This is where the exploitation comes into play. While the photographers are doing their part in making the greater public aware that such depths of poverty exist, the lack of any action plan affiliated with helping the subject is disheartening. I do admit that spreading awareness of this poverty is beneficial, since there are some individuals that would never see it otherwise. However, I am not convinced that their work is sufficient. I understand the social documentary aspect, but I just think that in this day and age that incorporating some sort of assistance is more than possible. Maybe I am expecting a bit much?


I found an interesting article that elaborates on the power of photography to change our views on poverty:

PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGES OUR AWARENESS OF POVERTY


Below are three examples:

Humans of New York Project
A Citigroup Trader Took These Pictures Of New York Prostitutes
East NY and Brownsville

My Encounter with Poverty in Berkeley.

This time, I want to share a rather hard experience I witnessed regarding hunger, and my exposure to poverty. Going back to GPP 115 material about middle-class everyday interaction with the poor, ‘zones of interaction’, and the visibility of poverty, I was presented with a rather uncomfortable visible image of the struggle of poverty recently. Anaya Roy explained how poverty in the U.S, tends to detach us away from it, because we feel uncomfortable and distanced from it, unable to understand or acknowledge our own space and relation to the problem. I thought I had a had a rather critical perspective about that notion, that I could experience and perceive everyday poverty because I myself experience some sort of financial/social struggle, and have seen and worked in Mexico’s slum towns. But I had never witnesses such an uncomfortable image about the struggle of poverty until recently. I was walking down Bancroft with my cousin, near Urban Outfitters around 11:30pm, when we both saw a homeless person bend down, eating dog shit off the sidewalk. As we passed by him, he kept eating it, telling us to “stay in school, or shit you will eat.” It was a really hard sight for both of us. At that moment, I could not even judge or look down on him, how could I? I just felt great sorrow and guilt. Guilt that I, unlike him, had the option to go to a cozy home and fix myself a warm meal. I had the urge to go to a store and buy him food, but nothing was open at that time, so I just walked away. I still feel horrible, knowing I didn’t not so anything, and worst, about my own privilege. I still do not know where I stand in this encounter, but know I cannot judge what he was doing because I have never been forced to such a combination of human suffering. I just wonder what the man perceived that act as:  luck ‘having found food’ to feed his hunger, or suffering, degrading himself to eat animal excrement because of his economic situation, or perhaps something else to hard to understand