Join us. Lets tell the city- No more tax title auctions in Springfield

Jackie and Son   picture by John Morris

Please join Arise and Springfield No One Leaves to let the city of Springfield know that we will not  stand for one more sale of property by auction that has been taken by tax title and sold to speculative developers instead of serving the  citizens who are in need of housing in their very own city.

Tuesday June 18th, 2013
Springfield City Hall
5:30pm
We will meet in front of city hall- located across from Court Square downtown Spfld
Visit Arise Facebook Page for updates and more information on contacts and directions

                                       https://www.facebook.com/groups/75509399798/

Please Join Us Let our voices be heard

Mass Parole Board Immediately Release Donald Perry Please Sign Petition

Please follow the link below. Consider signing this important and powerful petition. Let the Massachusetts Parole Board know that men like Donald Perry are vital to our community.
This may be one of the most important petitions you endorse this year. Please let your voice be heard. Please circulate this urgent demand to all of your concerned friends and contacts.





Peace,

http://www.change.org/petitions/massachusetts-parole-board-immediately-release-donald-perry

"Most Serious Attack on Poor People In 25 Years"

Forty voices filled with frustration. From all areas of our community. A vicious attack on us by the state government was underway. The guidelines for determining homelessness were revised. Under these new revisions , you could even sleep in a car and NOT be considered homeless The legislation crossed our governors desk, and HE SIGNED IT.
     
      We showed up on Thursday July 26th at 12:00 noon. The employees that worked in the Mass State building located on Dwight st in Springfield were forewarned as they arrived for work that morning. They knew we were coming. We arrived carrying sings and organizing chants. Mad, worried and determined, we stood on the walk in front of the building. Cars honked, folks yelled out windows in support. Michaelann Bewsee E.D of Arise, said that it was the worst attack on poor people she had seen in 25 years. This statement got allot of attention. Arise for Social Justice has been a advocate of the poor folks in our city for decades. Michaelann has seen it all. Alone we are easy targets for the oppressors. That is why we have to come out and stand together on attacks like these. We have strength in numbers. They cant ignore us. And anyone who knows Michaelann, knows it is close to impossible to ignore her.

      We entered the State building and marched up three flights of Stairs to Governor Devall Patricks office. We carried a protest sign with the signatures of all that were there that day.Outside of the Governors office door, we were meant by Elizabeth a staffer in the Devall Patrick administration.
She told us that she wanted to hear what we all had to say. She also told us that she has been a fan of Arise for a long time. She was cordial and invited all of us (30 +) into a large board meeting room. She introduced herself and her colleague's and stated that she felt this new legislation was a sensitive issue. Michaelann explained in clear and concise language that we wanted the revision changed and not left to the discretion of the agency or government officials whimsical or literal interpretations. Plainly she stated  "That if you were living in a bus station on Friday you were considered homeless, and therefore eligible for shelter. However on Saturday when the revision was instituted, under the same bus station roof as Friday, you would no longer be considered homeless and thus, NOT ELIGIBLE FOR SHELTER."
 


    This is the ATTACK Michaelann was referring to. Cuts in exactly the wrong place. On the most indefensible population of the state .And not just the state, but our country. You have to wonder who is responsible for this unforgivable, heartless piece of legislation? Well folks,I hate to think that the Governor fully realized the potential impact that this change would have on us. Did someone explain the "Bus Station Example" to him? Did he get it? Elizabeth, the staffer could not offer any relief beyond promising that Devall Patrick would be made aware of our protest and our visit. Oh, and our Protest sign with all of our signatures.

     We ended our 30 minute visit with Elizabeth and staff abruptly, Michaelann making it clear we were not happy or satisfied in any way. So what do we do now? Did you call your state rep? Senator? Congressmen? Are you as mad as we are?  This is just wrong on so many levels.
  
      Please get involved. A phone call to your elected officials office in a presidential election year carries a little more weight than non election years. We must all at least do that. Call Arise, ask what you can do .Better yet, visit us at 467 State street in Springfield Massachusetts. We love visitors. We need you to help support our campaigns. If you want to help, but cant come down,please contribute. Drop a check in the mail. Your financial support helps insure the grassroots work that we mobilize on. It cost us money and we are poor folks also. Collectively we do make a difference. We need your help. Times are tough. We are experiencing extreme hardship. Please insure the integrity of our work.

Another front in war on women

berkshireeagle.com,Posted:   04/19/2012 12:06:12 AM EDT, North Adams

The bumper sticker on our car reads "Stop the War Against Women." Maureen Dowd's April 11 column ("Many fronts in war on women") identified several "fronts" in this war, but not this one. 

I'm talking about the front where the government of Massachusetts takes aim, yet again, at poor women (and their children). The economic recovery has been sluggish and around the country, state governments are slashing budgets. And what a surprise! Programs that primarily serve poor women and their children are at the top of the hit list.

In Massachusetts, the House Committee on Ways and Means has released its budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins July 1. While there are a few modest increases in programs that benefit low income families, several other proposals are likely to cause thousands of families to sink deeper into poverty, to become homeless, and/or to become entrapped in (or forced back into) violent relationships they might otherwise leave.

One of the most dangerous proposals is that House Ways and Means (like the governor) proposes an eight month time limit on stays in emergency shelters for homeless families with children. The state verifies that these families have no other safe place to live and the families already have to comply with strict rules in order to remain in the program, but that will be irrelevant -- they will be evicted after eight months even though they have nowhere else to go. Funding for Emergency Assistance that covers these shelter costs will be cut by $14 million.

Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC, what most people think of as "welfare") is also cut in several ways. A long-standing rent allowance for people who do not live in subsidized housing ($40 per month) is eliminated. Another component of the House attack on poor women and children is their cutting of the clothing allowance for those on TAFDC.

This allowance, created in 1981, has stood at $150 per year since 1987! It has stayed the same for a quarter-century, while prices more than doubled (that $150 is now worth $72 in 1987 dollars). While the full allowance was clearly not enough to buy shoes and other necessities for growing children, the House has slashed it in half to $75. We challenge any legislator's family to try getting by on that!

Outside language of the budget (Section 35) would impose outrageous limitations on benefits paid through the electronic benefits transfer system (EBT). These limitations include that TAFDC recipients would not be able to use their benefits to help pay their rent, buy toothpaste or shampoo, or even pay for a child's haircut.
These are just a few examples from the House budget proposal illustrating how we continue to balance the budget on the backs of poor women and children. They reflect several disturbing, but persistent misperceptions. 1) We can't trust poor women with our hard-earned tax dollars. 2) People are poor because of their personal character defects and need to be punished and shamed more than they need to be helped.

Research shows that two out of three adult welfare recipients are currently or formerly battered women. Do we really mean to make it financially impossible for them to leave their abusers or to stay out once they have managed to leave?

If you are as outraged as we are by this particular "front" in the political and economic war on women, contact your state representatives today and ask him or her to support budget amendments #603, #664, and #842. And while you're talking to them, explain that we are tired of sticking it to the poor because we refuse to tax the rich!

The commonwealth needs to increase revenue and the most equitable strategy is to increase taxes on those best able to pay, our high-income residents and large corporations. Neither the governor nor the House has incorporated this tactic into their budget proposals.

Our two neighbors with the largest populations, New York and Connecticut, have graduated income taxes (which tax higher levels of income at higher rates). So do 33 other states and the District of Columbia. For a state that claims to care for equity -- to be a "commonwealth" -- it is long past time for Massachusetts to demand more from those who have benefited the most from our public investments.

Dr. Susan Birns is board president of the Elizabeth Freeman Center and professor of Sociology/Anthropology/Social Work at MCLA. Dr. Brent Kramer is an economist at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Why we Occupy #1

Eviction pending for Wall St. protestors? Make a few calls!

According to the New York Times, NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg is telling protestors they will have to clear out Friday so the park can be "cleaned" for the enjoyment of all.

Yeah, I'm sure his 1% Wall St. buddies would like to be able to look out the window without seeing the unintended fruit of Wall Street's sowing.

rgent -- tomorrow at 7 am, the New York City police plan to evict the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

The only way to stop the eviction is a roaring outcry to New York's billionaire mayor, Mike Bloomberg, and to the owners of the protest park. We must show them that their global reputations are on the line.

Let's flood their offices with phone calls! Avaaz will tell the media about the numbers of calls made, multiplying their impact on the public image of Bloomberg and Richard B. Clark -- the CEO of the company that owns the park. If enough of us call now, we could turn the tide and stop the eviction--but only hours are left!

Call the Mayor and Brookfield Properties Here:

• New York mayor Michael Bloomberg: +1-212-NEW-YORK (639-9675)
• Brookfield CEO Richard Clark: +1-212-417-7063
• Brookfield US headquarters: +1-212-417-7000
• Brookfield Canada headquarters: +1-416-369-2300
• Brookfield Australia headquarters: +61-2-9322-2000

After calling, post a message about how the call went -- to help Avaaz count the number of calls made, and demonstrate the wave of worldwide support for the protesters.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/emergency_callin_to_stop_eviction/?vl

Suggestions for your call:

• Say that you have a message for Brookfield CEO Richard Clark or NYC Mayor Bloomberg (depending on who you are calling)
• Stop the eviction of Zuccotti Park
• We have a constitutional right to protest.
• This is one of the biggest shows of public outrage in decades and these people represent hundreds of thousands across the world who stand with the protesters and the movement for real democracy.
• The protesters are cleaning up the park, keeping it clean and safe

http://www.avaaz.org/en/emergency_callin_to_stop_eviction/?vl

We can help make sure the thousands of protesters rights to freedom of speech and assembly are respected by calling Billionare Bloomberg and Brookfield. Forward to everyone!

Emma, Morgan, Maria Paz, Alice, Ben, Rewan and the whole Avaaz team

SOURCES:

Occupy Wall Street protesters fear eviction from park
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/10/13/occupy-wall-street-protesters-fear-eviction-from-park/

Update: Occupy Wall Street Responds to Bloomberg’s Cleaning ‘Eviction Notice’
http://www.observer.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-responds-to-bloombergs-eviction-notice/

Putting poor people to good use

Today Liz and I went to a hearing held by the Dept. of Housing and Community Development on the new HomeBASE program, which is supposed to help eligible families avoid homelessness.  The hearing focused on the regulations themselves, and how they might be fine tuned; we were there mostly to talk about the implementation end.

To put that in human terms, when a young woman with a baby (apartment lost in the tornado, didn't know about FEMA, staying for 2 months with a friend in subsidized housing whose own housing is now at risk because of her presence) goes down to the Dept. of Transitional Assistance to apply for Emergency Assistance (necessary before you can apply for HomeBASE) and is twice told she is not eligible and turned away with no written explanation, then something is wrong with the implementation picture.  It was not until she came to Arise with her story and we gave her a flyer (thanks, Mass Law Reform) about HomeBASE, with certain key parts highlighted, and sent her back down to DTA, that she was able to get help.

The hearing today wasn't huge.  Some advocates came, and some agencies charged with administering some aspect of the program, and a couple of poor people.

One of the testifiers (this was an official hearing) is the head of a local housing agency.  Among other things, he spoke about how the housing rate is set too low, and may, through the law of unintended consequences, concentrate poverty in particular areas.  I've heard him speak about the need to have our neighborhoods economically diverse before; and while I agree with some of his analysis in theory, it's really a much more  complicated scenario.  So i thought i knew where he was going.  But I was wrong.

"Poor people should be able to live in more affluent neighborhoods," he stated, "because they need people to hire for the low wage jobs."

My mouth fell open.  I could not believe what I was hearing.  And he went on later to speak about how many homeless families are coming from out of state, and shouldn't these scarce benefits be preserved for the people on his long housing waiting list, a point nicely countered later by someone else who said that studies show a statistically insignificant difference between the needy families who come to our state and our needy families that go some somebody else's state, which also has long waiting lists., etc.

I've been pondering  his remarks all evening.  Let me get this straight: at least a few of us (not too many, mind you) should live in affluent neighborhoods so we can do their dirty work?  Can we all get hired to become maids and gardeners?  Can we wander their snowy neighborhoods with shovels?  (Actually, we do that already.) Work in the convenience  and mega-drug stores?  (We do that already, too.) And wouldn't affluent people really prefer we commute rather than live next door?

As classist, serf-like and  preposterous as his idea is, it also belongs to an era long gone, never to come again.  This isn't the Fifties. Most people's fortunes have been rolling downhill for decades. Sure, we still have a few affluent neighborhoods in Springfield, but they're ragged around the edges, and in a city where nearly thirty percent of us live below the poverty level, there just aren't enough affluent people to go around-- not here, not anywhere.  

Even the HomeBASE program, rotten with good intentions and riddled with  regulations, is predicated on the belief that, starting basically from zero, a homeless family can turn its life around in just one year.Do these policy makers and administrators read the same news that I do?  Is anybody predicting the economy will recover in just one more year?

I have a lot more I could say about we what we, as poor people, need to do, but that's another post.

The only numbers you need to know to understand the budget debate.

Republican plan for the next ten years:
Cut spending on government programs over the next decade by $4.3 trillion. 

Cut tax revenues over the same period by $4.2 trillion. 

In other words: steal from the poor (actually,  steal from almost everyone) and give to the rich.

Oh, and squeeze social policy change in there, too, most of which will benefit corporations by removing regulations.


Here we are in Western Massachusetts desperately fighting to stop three polluting biomass proposals tokeep our air from getting any worse than it is, and yet the Environmental Protection Agency is going to lose 16% of its funding just in the current, stop-gap budget.  Republicans say that environmental regulations hurt jobs.  What they really mean is it hurts corporations, two-thirds of whom paid no federal taxes at all last year.

I've often wondered just what rich people think they and their children are going to do in twenty, fifty or a hundred years, after they've completely ruined the economy and the environment.  Living in gated communities won't cut it, because the rich will still have to breathe the same air.  Live underground?  Colonize the moon?  Are they really that self-delusional?

I hope it's clear to everyone that winning protections on the local level is about all we've got--  that's not saying much, given that federal cuts produce state cuts and state cuts produce local cuts....but at least, in terms of the mayor and city council, we put these folks in office and we can take them out again if they fail to listen to what the people of Springfield want.

Arise recently joined a statewide coalition, Campaign for Our Communities, which is basically about restoring the income tax rate to 5.9%, with subsidies and rebates for anyone earning under $100,000 so that we would not experience the increase.  Only we're not supposed to frame it as raising taxes!  And we're not supposed to talk about the cuts poor people are experiencing, supposedly because that's not the "message" that will resonate with the middle class-- who wants to protect poor people?

Frankly, I'm sick of the bull, from progressives as well as reactionaries. Let's start telling the truth, people, it's class warfare, and we, the poor and working class,  didn't start it.  But we'd better get ready to fight it.

Photo from ElyceFeliz's photostream at Flickr.