Sign at NYC Occupy Wall Street Rally on October 8th, 2011, courtesy of (cc) Flickr user Downtown Traveler

Over two million Americans have fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They return to a nation in economic crisis. A third of those veterans come home to face serious medical conditions. Many veterans now consider themselves the 99 percent, and have joined a second Occupation, Occupy Wall Street. On this edition, a special report on veterans standing in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street movements and an encore presentation about veterans returning home from war and the struggles they endure produced by Aaron Glantz.

Featuring:

Sgt. Shamar Thomas, marine veteran; Kurt Biddle, army veteran; Jeff Paterson, Courage To Resist; Jason Matherne, Iraq Veterans Against War; Joshua Shepherd, navy veteran; Douglass Connor, army veteran; Andrew Berends, The Blood of My Brother filmmaker; Michael Hall, former US Army staff sergeant; Rachel Feldstein, New Directions associate director; Joshua Kors, The Nation magazine correspondent; Zollie Goodman, former naval petty officer; Barack Obama, United States president; Todd Stenhouse, National Veterans Foundation spokesperson; Terry “T.J.” Boyd, former Marine Corps sergeant; Ron Finch, National Business Group on Health; Catherine Morris, Sierra College veterans’ counselor; Paul Sullivan, Veterans for Common Sense executive director.

This documentary was produced with support to Aaron Glantz from the Hechinger Institute for Education and the Media at Columbia University Teachers College and the Rosalynn Carter Journalism Fellowship program at the Carter Center. Thanks also to Mike Siv of New America Media.

For More Information:

Iraq Veterans Against the War
National Veterans Foundation
National Coalition for Homeless Veterans
Swords to Plowshares
Veterans for Common Sense
Veterans for Peace
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Oakland

Articles/Blogs/Videos/Audio:

Sgt. Shamar Thomas Defends Occupy Wall Street
The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans
Veterans More Likely to be Homeless
Cost of Treating Veterans Will Rise Long Past Wars
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Not Worth the Cost, many US Veterans Say
Report: Meeting the Needs of Veterans In Today’s Labor Force 

Music:

“Next Bold Move” – Ani DiFranco
“What’s Going On” – Marvin Gaye
“Hero’s Song” – Brendan James

A Homeless Woman in San Francisco. Credit: Franco Folini via Flickr

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani made so-called ‘quality of life’ policing a worldwide trend. And while it may have temporarily decreased crime, there are harsh consequences for the thousands of innocent people caught up in the frenzy of arrests.

On this edition, the criminalization of homelessness. If it’s illegal to be on a city’s sidewalks, parks and plazas, where else can people go?

—

How ‘Quality of Life’ turned Homeless New Yorkers into Criminals

According to the Coalition for the Homeless, nearly 37,000 homeless people sleep in New York City shelters each night.  Their research concludes that the primary cause of homelessness, particularly among families, is lack of affordable housing.  Rents have always been high in New York; but since 1994, so called ‘Quality of Life’ policing, and business friendly development strategies have delivered a one-two punch that means poor New Yorkers have even fewer options for housing, and often find themselves specifically targeted by the law.  Journalist Sam Lewis volunteered with the homeless led group ‘Picture the Homeless’ over the past two years, recording the voices of New Yorkers without a place to live.  Lewis produced this story for Making Contact, about how those without homes are criminalized, and how they’re organizing to change the city’s ways.

—

San Francisco Bans Sitting or Lying on Sidewalks

San Francisco’s reputation as a home for wayward creatives took a bit hit in November 2010, when voters approved a law which would ban sitting or lying on the sidewalks.  As Making Contact’s Andrew Stelzer reports, the law is not only challenging the identity of the city, but is being criticized as a cruel and ineffective way of dealing with the large homeless population.

—WEB EXCLUSIVES—

Extended interview with Paul Boden

Full Length Interview with Paul Boden, organizer with the Western Regional Advocacy Project, about San Francisco’s Sit-Lie ordinance, & other policies across the country that criminalize the homeless and the poor.

—

S’bu Zikode of the Shack Dwellers movement in South Africa speaks to U.S. based housing activists:

—

Featuring:

Neil Smith, Center for Graduate Studies at the City University of New York Geography and Urbanism professor; Carlton Berkeley, Former NYPD Detective and author of ‘What to do if Stopped by the Police’; Genghis Kallid Muhammad, Gene Rice, Elise Lowe, Picture the Homeless members; Protestors opposing New York’s disorderly conduct law; Melvin Williams, Coalition for the Homeless volunteer; Rob Robinson, National Campaign to Restore housing Rights organizer; Barbara Daughtery, homeless New Yorker; Mark Schuylen, former urban planner; Samuel Warber, street musician; Andy Blue, ‘Sidewalks are for People” campaign organizer; George Gascon, San Francisco Police Chief; John Avalos, San Francisco Supervisor; Jen Vandergriff, San Francisco resident; Jason Lean, homeless San Franciscan; Paul Boden, Western Regional Advocacy Project organizer

For More Information

Bryant Park Corporation
New York, NY

Central Park Conservancy
New York, NY

Civil Sidewalks Campaign
New York, NY

Coalition for the Homeless
New York, NY

National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
Washington, DC

Picture the Homeless
Bronx, NY

Sidewalks are for People
San Francisco, CA

Times Square Alliance
New York, NY

Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP)
San Francisco, CA

Articles and Books:

Homes Not Handcuffs: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities.

NY Police Commissioner responds to WABC-TV quotas investigation

A homeless man in San Francisco. Credit: Russel A. Daniels www.russeldaniels.com

San Francisco’s reputation as a home for wayward creatives took a bit hit in November 2010, when voters approved a law which would ban sitting or lying on the sidewalks.  As Making Contact’s Andrew Stelzer reports, the law is not only challenging the identity of the city, but is being criticized as a cruel and ineffective way of dealing with the large homeless population.

—

(sound of guitar playing)

STELZER: Could there be anything more San Francisco than a 20-year-old from Ohio playing guitar on the street?

Warber: “I’m working on a musical project called K N O W , and I’ve been here for about 2 and a half months this time….it’s a travelling rock and roll circus we’re working on.”

STELZER: Samuel Warber is following a decades-long tradition of artists, musicians, and other assorted wanderers who came to San Francisco to find themselves, and to be part of a more accepting society.  It’s the last place you might expect a law that bans people from sitting on the sidewalks—even musicians like Warber.  But in the November 2010 election, that’s just what happened.

Blue: “This law is going to most directly affect the most vulnerable people in our community.  People who need services, while services are being drastically cut in our city.”

STELZER: Andy Blue was one of the organizers of the “Sidewalks are for People” campaign.  They worked to try and defeat a ballot initiative, titled Proposition L, that banned anyone from sitting or lying on San Francisco sidewalks between 7am and 11pm. Voters approved the Prop L law, 53 to 47 percent.

(chanting, singing)

“Sidewalks are for people…no on L.  Sidewalks are for people…NO on L.”

STELZER: The ‘No on L’ campaign held numerous colorful, creative rallies, and their stickers could be seen all over town.  But they only raised about 10 thousand dollars. Supporters of the ban, led by business owners and the chamber of commerce, spent around half a million dollars to fund their campaign.  They focused on stories of gutter punks and street kids hanging out in the legendary Haight district.  Karina Rogers manages a toy store called Kid Robot, a half a block from the intersection of Haight and Ashbury.  Her store had a “Yes on L’ sign in the window.

Rogers: “A few months ago my assistant manager got bitten by a dog from a homeless guy. Which…I don’t know if he’s really homeless or not, but he was really dirty. He was one of the people just sitting on the street.”

STELZER: San Francisco resident Gen Vandergriff is in favor of the sit-lie ban. Its official name was the ‘civil sidewalks’ initiative.

Vandergriff: “Yes, ban it. Because I take my grandchildren out and they see some drunk laying in the gutter with pee going out of him and everything, and that’s no way for a child to be raised.”

STELZER: What are you gonna do about those people, where are they gonna go?

Vandergriff: “Well there’s more shelters in this town, it’s their choice to live in the street. They need to be…I don’t know, ship ’em outta town.”

STELZER: But San Francisco doesn’t have enough shelter beds or services for its homeless population.  With at least 6 thousand homeless in the city, there are only enough emergency beds every night for about one-third of the people who need one. And even San Francisco police chief George Gascon, a big supporter of the sit-lie ban, admits the law probably won’t prevent people from sitting and lying on the sidewalk, because there aren’t enough police to enforce it.

Gascon: “I have absolutely no interest in doing anything that will impact homelessness in a negative way. This is really about looking for a fair solution to creating a better quality of life for people that are doing business…residents in some neighborhoods are quite frankly being harassed and even in some cases being…you know, physical assaults.”

STELZER: But critics of the sit-lie law point out that assault, harassment, even spitting on a passer-by, are all already illegal.  They say giving the police more powers is likely to lead to abuse.

Avalos: “The main argument they have is fear. It’s not based on policy, it’s not based on the laws that don’t exist. It’s really about people’s perception, about homeless people and homeless young people in general.”

STELZER: John Avalos is a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors. The board voted down the sit-lie ban in early 2010. But Mayor Gavin Newsom, who supports the ban, put it on the ballot himself.

Avalos: “Back in the late ‘90s, there were discussions about “super predators”, why we needed to have stronger gang laws and stronger penalties. This is all part of it, now we have a “super predator”-type homeless kids who are on Haight Street; that is not the reality. I’ve been going to Haight Street for like 20 years now, and it hasn’t changed much at all. It’s a place that has a mix of tourists, local people, local residents shopping, going to cafes, and a lot of homeless kids. It’s traditionally been like that.”

STELZER: Indeed, walking down Haight Street, out-of-towners say the street life is part of what they expect of this historic neighborhood.

New Yorker: “It’s part of the culture. I’m not from San Francisco, but it seems like part of the culture of Haight.”

STELZER: Well that’s one of the things, they’re saying for out-of-towners it makes it uncomfortable, and people are getting harassed…

New Yorker: “You don’t want to homogenize it.  I’m from New York and that’s what happens.”

Magdalena: “There are some of them in Prague. Sometimes plenty.”

STELZER: And do people get mad?

Magdalena: “No, I don’t think so. It’s not so bad, and they are not really bothering anybody.  I think it’s just something you see in every big city.  I don’t know if there is any big city without these people.”

STELZER: Jason Lean is one of those street people.

Lean: “We’re just sitting, not doing anything, you know, just sitting around, having a good time, and just hanging out and stuff.”

STELZER: Looking grimy on the sidewalk next to his mangy dog, Lean is sitting near the corner of Haight and Masonic. He says in his few months living on San Francisco’s streets, he’s occasionally harassed by the cops, and he expects that will only increase now.  Under the new law, after a warning by police, there’s a $100 fine for the first offense.  That rises to $500 and 30 days in jail for repeat offenders.

Lean: “Basically, low income, no income, and the elderly. So, that’s basically who’s gonna be affected. It’s economic profiling, that’s basically what it is.”

STELZER: Jessica Naugle has worked at the All You Knead restaurant on Haight Street for 5 years.

Naugle: “I just imagine what it would be like to be down and out and having a feeling like you kind of have nothing and none of the benefits of society, and then to have people come along and say like ‘Oh by the way, we’d also like if you were just gone off the street.’ There is no other answer, nowhere to go, so it is basically saying ‘We’d really just wish you would disappear’.  To me that must…I can’t imagine how that would feel. But I bet it would be really bad. I bet it would feel like the world was basically turning against you and wanted you to die.”

STELZER: Sit-lie laws are currently on the books in about 60 other cities across the country, including Seattle and Los Angeles.  Some have been struck down in court as unconstitutional, with judges ruling the ban violates people’s right to a protected activity—sitting down, or that it’s cruel and unusual punishment. But unlike San Francisco’s law, which covers the entire city, most cities apply the ban only to business districts, or particular commercial corridors.  That’s one reason advocates for the poor are planning to challenge the new sit lie law, in hopes it will be overturned.

(music)

STELZER: Travelling musician Samuel Warber has seen how the sit-lie ban works in Santa Cruz, California.

Warber: “I’ve been down there where people were sitting around and then the police would show up and you’d have to move, or people would start scattering, cause of the rule.”

STELZER: And where would they go?

Warber: “I think there’s benches.  But most of the time people are like rats, they just go somewhere else.”

(music fades out)

Boden speaking in January 2010. Credit: cangress.wordpress.com

An interview with Paul Boden, organizer with the Western Regional Advocacy Project, about San Franciscos’ Sit-Lie ordinance, & other policies across the country that criminalize the homeless and the poor.

A Third Avenue building in New York City at twilight. Credit: Marina Ortiz via picturethehomeless on flickr

According to the Coalition for the Homeless, nearly 37,000 homeless people sleep in New York City shelters each night. Their research concludes that the primary cause of homelessness, particularly among families, is lack of affordable housing. Rents have always been high in New York; but since 1994, so called ‘Quality of Life’ policing, and business friendly development strategies have delivered a one-two punch that means poor New Yorkers have even fewer options for housing, and often find themselves specifically targeted by the law.

Journalist Sam Lewis volunteered with the homeless led group ‘Picture the Homeless’ over the past two years, recording the voices of New Yorkers without a place to live.  Lewis produced this story for Making Contact about how those without homes are criminalized, and how they’re organizing to change the city’s ways.

—

LEWIS: It’s around 11:15pm when New York City Police Officers begin to tape off certain areas of Pennsylvania Station. Since the fall of 2009, throughout the night, yellow caution tape remains draped along the edges of the station’s cavernous waiting areas. Amidst the steady flow of commuters and tourists are homeless people, who for decades have used the station’s waiting areas as a warm place to rest during the winter months.

(sounds of Penn Station protest) “Homelessness is not a crime, let us rest and we’ll be fine… Homelessness is not a crime let us rest and we’ll be fine…”

LEWIS: Homeless people and their advocates claim that the taped-off lobbies are just the latest in a series of strategies designed to make homeless people disappear from where they are normally seen. But as a consequence, Quality of Life, or Zero Tolerance Policies – first established in the early 90’s – created a class of individuals largely excluded from the city’s public spaces.

“They don’t even notice that the homeless is out here, it’s getting worse now, and it’s getting worse every year.”

“But this is a mechanism to keep the homeless away, out of site, out of mind, and make New York the Mecca of the world for tourists.”

LEWIS:  The New York State Penal code classifies a series of non-violent public behaviors, like loitering, panhandling, public drunkenness and graffiti writing as “disorderly conduct”, a violation punishable by law. Even though the “disorderly conduct” statute is not specifically designed to criminalize people without shelter or housing, norms about appropriate public behaviors have created a class of crimes most likely to be committed by homeless people.  Once a person is arrested, even if it’s for a violation, his/her name will not clear on a criminal background check: a standard practice for potential employers and private landlords. Federal law also gives housing authorities the power to deny access to people based on criminal activity.

(sounds of protesters) “Hey hey, ho ho, disorderly conduct’s got to go. Hey hey, ho ho, disorderly conduct’s got to go…”

LEWIS: In 2010, Picture the Homeless, a grassroots organization founded and led by homeless people based in New York City, launched a campaign calling on state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, to address the NYPD’s use of the Disorderly Conduct statute. But the pattern of law enforcement predates Cuomo, who has now been elected Governor of New York state by more than a decade.

Smith: “There is a kind of history and geography to the relationship between gentrification, homelessness and policing on the streets.

LEWIS: Neil Smith is a professor of Geography and Urbanism at the Center for Graduate Studies at the City University of New York.

Smith: “You have to go back to the 1990’s when Giuliani, under his Police Strategy Number Five, which drew on the Broken Windows Theory.  It was very much about clearing homeless people off the streets and it was very much about how the city looked. So in a sense there was a post modernity to it, so that it was the symptoms, it was the aesthetics of the street that were important.  But that began a very brutal crackdown against homeless people in New York.

LEWIS: After being elected in 1994, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani drew on the ‘Broken Windows Theory’ to support his new strategy for Quality of Life policing.  The ‘Broken Windows’ phrasing comes from a 1982 article in the Atlantic Monthly.  The idea is that broken windows and other signs of neighborhood neglect were considered to be visual cues to potential criminals that the community tolerated illicit behavior. Giuliani updated the concept.

“Crime is not a force of nature,” he wrote, in a 1997 USA Today editorial, which then continued: “Graffiti, blaring car radios, street prostitution, drag racing and drunk driving, low level drug dealing, public drinking and urination, squeegee window cleaners, and other aggressive beggars are, in effect, society’s broken windows. They create an atmosphere conducive to more serious crime.”

Giuliani is often credited as the Mayor who “cleaned up New York City.” But…

(city/ street sounds in the background)

Carlton: Giuliani was the worst mayor as far as police because he gave police really full reign…”

LEWIS: Carlton Berkeley, a former detective with the NYPD, just published a book, What to Do When Stopped by the Police.

Berkeley: “…He took over from Dinkins. Dinkins tried to bring back community policing. Giuliani came in and he said that’s bullshit. I want real cops, we’re going to go out here and fight real crime and we’re going to be aggressive, no matter what the circumstances is.”

LEWIS: Giuliani’s notoriety for restoring order to New York landed him multi-million dollar consulting gigs in Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. And Quality of Life policing tactics, promoted by Giuliani, have spread throughout the country. A 2006 study published by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor in US cities has been rising since 2006. Neil Smith says the Broken Windows Theory, and law enforcement strategies that followed it, overlook decades of public policies that failed to address a trend of increasing homelessness.

Smith: “What we saw in the 1980’s was the real signs of the failures ultimately of liberal urban policy as it had been since the 1930’s, if you want to go back that far, but really in the post-second world war period.  It was failing because of course people couldn’t afford housing, people were being thrown out of jobs – what does liberal housing policy do when so many people are unemployed and don’t have a home?”

Ghengis: “And that’s what I see, and now it’s become an epidemic. And they are not just people who are drunks, who have just given up.  These are people who have been displaced, put out of their homes for one reason or another.”

LEWIS: Genghis Kallid Muhammad is a member of Picture the Homeless.

Lewis: “There was no such thing as you seeing homeless people in Penn Station, or Grand Central or Port Authority or any of these places. That never existed in my growing up in New York and it’s not just a thing in the state of the New York or the city of New York, but it’s across the whole country.

(classical music and station sounds in the background)

LEWIS: By the 1980’s, Homeless encampments, graffiti-sprawled subway cars, vacant buildings and prostitution became a normal part of the urban landscape.

Smith: “And what that then meant locally was that while there was in the beginning, in the 1980’s, a lot of support, a lot of liberal support for homeless people, that support very much fell away and there was a new kind of revanchism – a real revenge against homeless people that kicked in.”

LEWIS: Again, Neil Smith:

(classical music continues in the background)

Smith: And it wasn’t so much a revenge from the right wing – it was a revenge from liberals in fact. And it was very much about making people feel secure.  The real insecurity was coming from the extraordinary rise in the cost of housing, people were feeling insecure about housing. People were feeling insecure about jobs – when it hit the middle class, when it was structural unemployment that was happening in the 80’s and into the 90’s, people were feeling insecure. What various political administrations, locally, nationally and even globally, were able to do was to transplant that insecurity from very real daily issues of housing and jobs, access to medical care, child care. They were able to transplant that, to displace it, onto issues of migration, class issues around working class demands for fair wages and ultimately, of course, onto homeless people.”

Rice: “I have witnessed the impacts of the so- called Quality of Life offenses being put into play by the previous Mayor, Giuliani.”

LEWIS: Gene Rice, a leader of Picture the Homeless’ Disorderly Conduct Campaign, lived on the streets for nearly a decade, collecting cans to make a living.

ACT: “And at the same time that homelessness has reached record proportions in our city, thereupon, it follows that homeless people are forced into a constant interaction with the NYPD  who’s job is to police the streets of New York to make it safe for our citizens.”

LEWIS: Private property owners and business elites supported Quality of life policing because it removed homeless people from major commercial centers, public parks and transportation hubs.

ACT: (11:00) “You know, I didn’t know what disorderly conduct was about and I got arrested a couple of months ago.”

LEWIS: Elise Lowe is also a member of Picture the Homeless.

Lowe: And the cops stopped me because I had picked up a bottle to put it in the garbage, they said it was consumption of alcohol and they arrested me.  I spent a night in jail – that was my first time ever being locked up. ”

LEWIS: Since disorderly conduct is a violation and not a crime, the potential sentence maxes out at fifteen days in jail. But if an individual does not show up to their court date, neglects to pay the fine or can’t perform community service, an outstanding warrant is issued for their arrest.

(street sounds and people’s voices in background)

ACT: (6:40) “I’ve been taken off the train, just because I had a package, a bag, next to me when the train wasn’t even crowded, saying that you’re taken up more than one space and its maybe 2 o’clock in the morning….”

LEWIS: Barbara Daugherty has been homeless for over two years.

Daugherty: I’m not laying down, I’m sitting up, you know, but if you’re not like me – homeless having a bag – they don’t bother you.  A few times I was taken in because they said, oh you have a warrant.  No, I don’t have no warrant. I know I don’t have no warrant, a warrant for what? They take me in, and I wind up having to go through the system and see the judge and I’d be released and there was no real warrant. But they put you through that because they want the quota.

LEWIS: The criminalization of homelessness was also aided by a trend of privatizing public space.  Strapped for cash during the fiscal crisis of the late 1970’s, the New York City government handed over the management of several parks and opens spaces to corporate and private sponsors.  Organizations like the Central Park Conservancy, Bryant Park Alliance, and the 42nd Street Partnership have helped to fill the gap in the Park’s Department operating budget.  Urban spaces that are created for “public use” are now developed with commercial enterprises that generate revenue to be used for maintenance.  But as a result, law enforcement agents patrolling those spaces have a different agenda.

Melvin: “So a guy that’s coming in-  a regular guy that’s coming in with briefcase or his computer, you know what I’m saying, those are two different bags, but you’re not going  to say that to him.

LEWIS: Melvin Williams volunteers with the Coalition for the Homeless; throughout the 90’s he was homeless himself and was harassed in many of the parks and public spaces that were managed by the public-private partnerships.

(voices in background)

Williams:  With places like Sony.  You know that big corporate place? Ooh well, they couldn’t tell you that you couldn’t stay in there, but they would say, oh you have a time limit or you’ve been here too long.  And I would say well, what about that man? He was in here when I got here and you’re putting me out and he’s still there.”

(sounds from an active public space (union square during rush hour) i.e. people talking/laughing, street musicians, skateboarding etc…)

ACT (9:14) “And Sony was allowed to build a building that was a certain amount, it was a certain height, with tax incentives.  So as a part of that deal you’re supposed to create so much public space.”

LEWIS: Rob Robinson, formally homeless himself, is now an organizer for the Campaign to Restore National Housing Rights.  He says that when a private organization manages a public space they can impose their own rules and regulations.

Robinson: “When Sony wants to have a party in that space, all of a sudden they’re forcing homeless people out because the cameras might come in and they don’t want the cameras to see homeless people sleeping in there.”

LEWIS: Another example is Manhattan’s Bryant Park.  In 1988, the Bryant Park Corporation, a not-for-profit private management company, directed by neighboring property owners, took ownership and closed the park down. After a 4-year renovation, the park reopened, with a budget six times larger than under prior city management.

Schuylen: “Bryant Park was the last place on Earth you ever wanted to be near.  It was derelict, it was this abandoned corner.”

LEWIS: Mark Schuylen, a former urban planner specializing in the management of public/private partnerships, says the costly transformation made the park a much better place, for tourists and business owners.

Schuylen: “Now instead of drug dealers, we have ice skaters, now instead of people who are prostituting themselves, we have fashion shows, now instead of people who are hanging out and homeless, we now have people eating ice cream cones and reading novels.”

LEWIS: But Bryant Park’s conversion to an attractive public space didn’t include plans or resources for those who were swept away or incarcerated.  Former NYPD Detective, Carlton Berkeley, says that Quality of Life policing strategies are part of a much broader agenda to increase property values.

Berkely: “When they gentrify an area the poor people have to go.  Initially, they’re not leaving, so how do you get them to leave? You use the police and start harassing them.”

LEWIS: Berkeley says pressure on police officers to make arrests and issue summonses to fill quota demands has increased under the Bloomberg Administration.  According to WABC-TV, out of almost 400 thousand people charged with misdemeanor infractions, like disorderly conduct and loitering that went to court in 2008, just over half were dismissed outright. Again, Neil Smith:

Smith: And Bloomberg has in many ways benefited from the violence that Giuliani explicitly perpetrated. The attacks on homeless people in the 1990’s became integrated into a much larger, much more scuttleist attempt at securitizing the city.”

LEWIS: Berkeley recalls a recent conflict between residents and the police.

ACT: (21:22) “We grew up blocks away from Marcus Garvey Park, they put up a million dollar condominium.  As soon as the people moved in there (sounds of him beating on the table imitating the drums) and this was a tradition, every Saturday for fifty years, you had the drummers beating their drums in the park. We could sleep to it! Cause we knew the beat.  Now, since these people came one of them called the police department and what they said was, I  pay 1.5 million dollars to live here, not to hear black people beating bongos, making noise from 9 o’clock to 7 o’clock in the evening. And what the police did, is they take that one phone call and the police come out and they act on it.  So now I’m going to give you a summons for being disorderly.

Smith: “That was geared to the gentrification of the city, but it wasn’t as hard wired under Giuliani as it is under Bloomberg. So what Bloomberg has done is a very explicit pro- business gentrification policy.  Leading that has been the re-zoning of, I think now the numbers are up over a hundred neighborhoods in the City. The whole point was to lubricate the reinsertion of those places into a highly profitable real estate market, that’s what the re-zoning has been about. In that process, the result has been to keep rents artificially high, push rents higher and drag the bottom of the market up, therefore making it more and more difficult for people at the bottom end of the market to get housing  – increases in homelessness, hence the 120,000 figure.

LEWIS: 120 thousand.  That’s the number of men, women, and children who slept in the New York City municipal shelter system in 2009.  It’s an all-time record, and under Mayor Bloomberg’s watch, which began in 2002, this count has increased by 45 percent. Now families comprise nearly 80 percent of the shelter population.

ACT: (Officer Berkeley, 22:09) “Bloomberg, what does Bloomberg want? He wants to bring more and more rich people to New York, and he says it, cause they got to pay more taxes and this and that! But we’re saying when you bring all those rich people here, into our neighborhoods, where do we go? And you know what? He doesn’t have an answer for that.”

LEWIS: “It’s not a homeless crisis, it’s a housing crisis” – is the campaign being waged by Picture the Homeless.  The idea is that a lack of affordable housing produces homelessness, and criminalization fails to address this root cause.

Muhammad: “You’re made to be ashamed of homelessness, something that is beyond your control. The blame is put on the people who find themselves in the dilemma of homelessness.  They are made to be the guilty party and this is wrong and it must be stopped now and attention must be brought to the whole city, state, country and the world!”

LEWIS: For Making Contact, I’m Sam Lewis, in New York City.

Roundtable guests Max Rameau, Annie Flores and Shereen D'Souza in the "Making Contact" studios. Photo: Khanh Pham

When we hear about human rights violations in the news, it’s often about genocide, war, and politically induced famine.  But what about the basic human needs that we, here in the US, not in a developing nation, need in order to go about our daily lives? On this edition, a round table discussion about the right to healthy food, the right to housing, and the right to healthcare.  Do Americans have these, and if not, what’s standing in the way?

Featuring:

Annie Flores, Womens Economic Agenda Project; Max Rameau, Take Back the Land Founder; Shereen D’Souza, California Food and Justice Coalition Director.

For more information:

California Food and Justice Coalition
Berkeley, CA

Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign
Cleveland, OH

Take Back the Land
Miami, FL

Women’s Economic Agenda Project (WEAP)
Oakland, CA

Making Contact covered health care reform, Iraq war veterans, and food crises in U.S. breadbaskets.

Two wars continued, the economy remained in freefall, and as hardship ensued, people crafted creative solutions.  On this edition, we look back at some of the most compelling stories we brought you during 2009, and find out where things are headed for 2010.

Featuring portions of the following shows:

Many Voices for a Single-Payer System

Voices: Single-payer protestors at Senate Finance Committee meetings; U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.).

The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans

Voices: Zollie Goodman, former Naval petty officer

How We Survive: The Deepening Homeless Crisis

Voices: Max Rameau, Take Back The Land founder; Marie Nadine Pierre, Take Back the Land participant.

How We Survive: Sprouting Up in Empty Breadbaskets

Voices: Rachel Klein, Fresno Community Food Bank Worker; Evangelina Zaragoza, Needs Food Aid; Nayamin Martinez, Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities Health Coordinator.

The Greening of America: A New Deal for Everyone?

Voices: Lawrence Martinez, Randy Mason, Keith Rose and Antoine Sawyer, Richmond Build trainees; Zoey Burrows, Solar Richmond Development & Communications staff member; Samuel Charles, Richmond Build lead instructor.

Also featuring: Russ Choma, Investigative journalist with the Investigative Reporting workshop at the American University School of Communication.

For More Information:

Many Voices for a Single-Payer System:

California Nurses Association (CNA)
Oakland, CA

Physicians for a National Health Program
Chicago, IL

Health Care-NOW! New York, NY

Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care

Single Payer Action Washington, DC

U.S. Congressman John Conyers

U.S. Senator Max Baucus

The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans

Aaron Glantz, Author
 of “The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans
”

National Veterans Foundation
Los Angeles, CA

New Directions Los Angeles, CA

Sierra College Veteran Student Alliance

Swords to Plowshares
San Francisco, CA

Veterans for Common Sense
Washington, DC

How We Survive: The Deepening Homeless Crisis

Take Back the Land
Miami, FL

US Human Rights Network

Picture the Homeless

How We Survive: Sprouting Up in Empty Breadbaskets:

Binational Center for the Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities
Fresno, CA

California Institute for Rural Studies
Davis, CA

California Conservation Corps Foundation
Benecia, CA

California Food and Justice Coalition
Berkeley, CA

Fresno Community Food Bank
Fresno, CA

Fresno Metro Ministry
Fresno, CA

The Greening of America: A New Deal for Everyone?

Ella Baker Center Green Jobs campaign
Oakland, CA

Richmond Build
Richmond, CA

Solar Richmond
Richmond, CA

“Overseas firms collecting most green energy money”

Russ Choma, Investigative Reporting Workshop
Russ Choma

Green Equity Toolkit: Advancing Race, Gender and Economic Equity in the Green Economy

Bottles and cans at Canners' Redemption Center, NYC. Photo Credit: Michael Premo

People are struggling just to stay afloat. We’re still in the midst of a recession. Despite reports of expected slow economic growth through the first half of 2010, millions in the U.S remain unemployed. In these rough economic times, how are so many making ends meet?

On this edition, we continue our series “How We Survive.” We meet a New York City street canner who’s changed his life and community one can at a time; A San Francisco couple paying the bills … with pickles? And we talk to author John Curl who says an unemployment movement may be on the rise.

Featuring:

John Williams, economist with Shadow Government Statistics; Michael Premo, producer; Eugene “The King of Cans” Gadsden, canner; Ana Martinez De Luco, canner; Drew Swope, canner; John Curl, author.

Special thanks to contributing producers Michael Premo and Rachel Falcone.

For More Information:

The Bottle Bill
Culver City, CA

Container Recycling Institute
Culver City, CA

Housing is a Human Right
New York, NY

Michael Premo
New York, NY

Picture the Homeless
New York, NY

Shadow Government Statistics
Oakland, CA

Books, Articles and Reports:

‘For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America’ By John Curl

Across the U.S., virtually everyone is feeling the deepening economic crunch in one way or another. Unemployment rates are soaring and homelessness is skyrocketing as the economy continues to sink. Millions of Americans are in dire straits… and stories of trying to survive the times are all too common.

On this edition, we visit with a family who lost their home and now lives inside their cramped trailer in a city parking lot. And we’ll hear how two different communities are dealing with the economic crisis by taking matters into their own hands.

Featuring:

David Clements, homeless, lives in trailer with family; Jennifer, Chloe, Yanni, Enya, and Kierlan, David’s family; Nancy Kapp, New Beginnings Counseling Center homeless outreach coordinator; Max Rameau, Take Back The Land founder; Eric Evinowskis, Pinellas Hope facilities manager; Sheila Lopez, Pinellas Catholic Charities CEO and Pinellas Hope director; Rocco Mariano, Laura Letziati, James Stockstill, Pinellas Hope clients; Marie Nadine Pierre, Take Back the Land participant; Kelly Penton, City of Miami spokesperson.

Executive Producer/Host: Tena Rubio
Producer/Co-Host: Andrew Stelzer
Mixing Engineer: Matt Fidler of “Fidler, Sound and Media”
Executive Director: Lisa Rudman
Associate Director: Khanh Pham
Production Coordinator: Elena Botkin-Levy
Interns: Keisha Thomas, Asma Mohseni, Patti Restaino, and Rita Daniels

For more information:

New Beginnings Counseling Center
324 East Carrillo Street, Suite C
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
805-963-7777
mail@newbeginningscounselingcenter.org
www.newbeginningscounselingcenter.org

Pinellas Hope
5726 126 Avenue North
Pinellas Park, FL 33760
727-556-6397
www.pinellashope.org