Stop the Cicero institute.
Stop the Utah homeless concentration camp.

An injury to one of an injury to all

no one of free until we all are free

#housingnothandcuffs

https://www.commondreams.org/news/utah-homeless-internment-camp

https://housingnothandcuffs.org/

Housing, not Handcuffs.
The bill is already sponsored by the following Representatives: Ansasri (AZ), Garcia (TX), Johnson, GA), Lee (PA), McGovern (MA), Holmes Norton (DC), Ramirez (IL), Schakowsky (IL), Thanedar (MI), Tlaib (MI), and Valazquez (NY)

If your Representative is not on that list, please copy and paste the following into the form on the website of your Representative and share with friends.

Dear Representative --

Please sign on as a sponsor for the newly introduced Housing not Handcuffs Act of 2025. This act prohibits federal agencies from arresting, ticketing, or otherwise criminalizing homelessness and is meant to be the first in a series of steps laying out a cohesive plan to combat the shortage of affordable housing and the lack of family-wage jobs in America.

Being poor is not a crime. Every single study of homelessness shows that it typically starts with one bad event -- a medical crisis, a car accident -- and spirals to a place where wages cannot make a dent in debt.

Homelessness is a symptom of low wages and weak social support. It is not a moral failing and absolutely should not be criminalized.

The only crime is not doing more to support the poorest who walk among us.

#Resist #ResistOfTheDay #Housing #HousingCrisis #HousingNotHandcuffs

We all know that homelessness itself is criminalized, especially following the passage of Boston's tent ban ordinance last fall and the Supreme Court's ruling in Grants Pass V. Johnson earlier this summer. Warm Up's Legal Working Group is trying to chip away at the effects of this. Read on for more about our Court Support Program, an update on our Bail Fund, and how YOU can get involved!

#boston #warmupboston #solidaritynotcharity #bailreform #bailfund #decriminalizepoverty #decriminalizehomelessness #housingfirst #housingcrisis #grantspass #housingjustice #housingnothandcuffs #legalaid

Downtown Clean & Safe Expansion and Renewal

City Council hearing
Portland City Council is holding a hearing on the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe ESD Expansion Petition on Thursday, Oct. 31 at 2:45 p.m.

Background
Three years ago, the Portland community mobilized against renewing the Downtown Clean & Safe Enhanced Services District (ESD) contract. A 2020 City Auditor’s report found that ESDs in Portland had virtually no oversight or accountability while overpolicing communities. The Clean & Safe ESD in particular was funding Portland police officers and hiring armed private security guards to patrol public streets, all while subsidizing the salaries of Portland Business Alliance executives.

Thanks to community pressure, in 2021 City Council reduced Clean & Safe’s contract term from 10 years to five. But despite overwhelming pushback, City Council still approved the five-year contract. Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, the only commissioner to vote no, said, “The city failed the community today.”

Since then, the City finally began responding to the 2020 audit. They hired a Seattle-based firm, Uncommon Bridges (formerly BDS Planning), to write a report recommending “best practices” related to ESDs. Portland community members opposed several of these recommendations (such as forcing residents like condo owners to pay ESD fees) at public feedback sessions and in written testimony. However, many of these objections were ignored.

Now, two years before the contract expires and mere months before the new City Council takes office, Clean & Safe is trying to fast-track a new, expanded contract. In August Clean & Safe filed a petition to expand its boundaries, revise the fee rate structure, implement residential rate caps, renew the ESD for another 10 years, and set up a new five-year contract. Their petition addresses minimal recommendations from Uncommon Bridges, like rate caps, while ignoring calls for greater oversight and transparency.
If approved by City Council, these items would go into effect on October 1, 2025.

Tell City Council what you think!

Don’t let PBA rush this contract through City Council! Submit testimony today.
The link to register to testify orally, or to submit written testimony, is posted in the agenda for the City Council hearing by 9 a.m. the Friday before the hearing.

Agenda Items
Thursday, October 31st - 2pm
951
Amend District Property Management License Code to update fees and district boundary to extend Downtown Portland Clean and Safe Enhanced Services District Property Management License Fee for an additional ten years and to align with amended City Charter approved by voters in Portland Measure 26-228 (replace Code Chapter 6.06) (Ordinance)

952
Authorize Agreement for District Management Services of the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe Enhanced Services District by Clean & Safe, Inc. for an estimated amount of $58 million over five years (Ordinance)

TALKING POINTS
City Council should table this petition until the current Clean & Safe contract expires in 2026.

Given existing concerns about Clean & Safe’s governance and transparency, the City should not renew its contract in this rushed manner.

The petition ignores key community concerns about Clean & Safe, namely lack of transparency and governance. This petition does not introduce any requirements about transparency in governance or operations, as recommended by Uncommon Bridges/BDS Planning in their report to City Council.

Since taxpayer money goes into the ESD, the public should be able to provide feedback like any ratepayer. Public entities already pay into the ESD, and new public entities like Oregon State University fall within the proposed expanded boundaries. However, Clean & Safe continues to shut the public out of its planning process.

The rate increase violates the moratorium on new taxes and fees proposed by Gov. Kotek and the Central City Task Force. The moratorium as recommended is supposed to extend through 2026 at a minimum, while the proposed new contract will take effect in 2025.

The rate increase would solidify a double standard in matters of City-level revenue generation and distribution. According to this double standard, increasing taxes to fund public services is problematic and to be avoided (“A persistent complaint of late from businesses and leaders like [Mayor Ted] Wheeler is that Portland is one of the highest-taxed cities in the country,” OPB) while increasing rates to fund the ESD’s private services is unproblematic and to be encouraged. The proposed rate increase reveals that the true nature of leaders’ complaints about taxes is not about the tax burden, but about whether private organizations receive and control disbursal of collected revenues.

The ESD should not fund significant portions of Portland Business Alliance salaries. The petition does nothing to reduce how much ratepayers contribute to PBA salaries. It is inefficient and inappropriate to use public resources to subsidize the salaries of business lobbyists.

The 5-year term of the proposed contract will fully bypass the first terms of incoming City Council members. New representatives will not be able to evaluate and alter the program within their terms; further, representatives elected to District 4, which overlaps the ESD’s service area, will face two elections prior to the new contract expires. Adopting the contract with its proposed 5-year term would be an affront to voters at the very moment they are choosing their new representatives.

The proposed contract will partially subsidize the activities of the Portland Business Alliance and empower the PBA to continue its efforts to shape local policymaking and elections through the full first terms of incoming electeds. The PBA is not only the City’s most prolific political lobbying organization; the PBA also directs a political action committee actively working to shape electoral outcomes in favor of its own interests, without the limits imposed on candidates under the Small Donor Elections Program. By approving the proposed contract, the outgoing City Council will be partially subsidizing and tacitly authorizing PBA’s continued political activity and influence operations throughout the 2026, 2028, and 2030 City Council elections.

Portland Business Alliance sued and bankrolled a campaign to block charter reform. They should not be allowed to circumvent the new City Council by pushing an early renewal.

#PortlandOregon #PDX #StopTheSweeps #HousingNotHandcuffs #CareNotCops

https://www.portland.gov/auditor/council-clerk/events/2024/10/31/city-council-meeting-afternoon-session

This week at the encampment, we distributed a hot meal prepared by a comrade from @baystate_johnbrown and @thenetwork_ne, 180 pounds of ice, 20 cases of water, snacks, and safer drug use supplies as part of our harm reduction efforts. On our mobile distro, we also distributed dozens of sandwiches, seven cases of water, cold juice, toiletries, socks, snacks, and safer drug use supplies throughout Downtown Crossing, Boston Common, Back Bay, and South Station. For volunteers at both distros, we held drop-in seminars on harm reduction principles and practices.

We’ve also been doing lots of tabling lately, handing out information on Warm Up Boston and our material aid programs. Thank you again to everyone who has invited us to table this summer, and to everyone who has stopped by our table!

We are always excited to welcome new comrades. Send us a DM or email ([email protected]) if you are interested!

#warmupboston #mutualaid #feedthepeople #housingnothandcuffs #housingisahumanright #harmreduction #harmreductionworks #boston #solidaritynotcharity

Think of the #SCOTUS ruling on #grantspass and ask:

Is #homelessness caused by:

(a) the gutting of the bottom layer of the #housing market (apartment buildings for low income people) and the forced preservation of upper-middle-income #urbanplanning.

OR

(b) were not being big enough dicks to people in homelessness

you decide.

#affordablehousing #endhomelessness #housingnothandcuffs

Our comrades returned to the encampment this week to drop off essential supplies for survival. This included a chili, cases of water, along with other requested items.

Our solidarity with the homeless begins on the most human level, to make sure everyone has the means to survive before anything else. It has become immensely normalized for us to simply look the other way. This is in fact, not normal. This is drilled into us from a young age that some people in this world just can't support themselves. They leave out the landlords, bosses, and cops who push us out onto the street. And they sanctify the rampant neglect of our politicians to do anything substantial about it.

Our solidarity with the homeless begins on this human level, but it is driven home when we see that we ourselves are only a few paychecks away from being in their position. A great many homeless people will tell you how easy it is for one thing to happen after another and you find yourself without housing and without help.

We are blessed to have that capacity to help these folks out in which ever ways they want our help. Not only does their day become easier, but we also get to act on that more natural response we all have to make sure we all have the means to survive before anything else

#WarmUpBoston #EncampmentSupport #MutualAid #FuckTheTentBan #HousingNotHandcuffs

Our comrades returned to supply the encampment this week with soup, snacks, cases of water, harm reduction supplies, clothing, and items essential for day to day living.

The residents have recovered somewhat but not completely from their forced removal last week. The stress, the tension, the exhaustion persists; everything is made harder when you have to start all over again and again. This is how the state responds to homelessness. Half hearted and half assed services or harassment under threat of handcuffs.

While we gather our forces to fight for housing for all, we will continue to support our neighbors directly. We are currently accepting donations for the following items!

• T-shirts
• Shorts
• Light pants
• New/unopened underwear
• New/unused socks

To support our work, please consider a small monthly donation to one of the platforms found in the link in our bio. To take part in the fight for housing first and for all, feel free to DM us here!

#WarmUpBoston #EncampmentSupport #MutualAid #FuckTheTentBan #HousingNotHandcuffs

Johnson v. Grants Pass is the most important case about homelessness in over 40 years. This case will decide whether we will be a country that arrests and tickets our most vulnerable people, or if we will invest in proven housing solutions. #HOUSINGNOTHANDCUFFS #HomelessnessIsSolvable

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6EMamUgiEi/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

We've united with 30+ SF civic organizations in filing an amicus curiae brief in Grants Pass v. Johnson — a Supreme Court case that will decide if people can be criminalized for being too poor to afford rent.

San Francisco and California leaders must fulfill their promise to implement a housing-first approach to homelessness.

It's time for accountability. It's time for affordable housing for all.

#HousingNotHandcuffs