By Bill Quigley and Davida Finger and Lance Hill - August 07, 2010

Five years after Katrina, tens of thousands of homes in New Orleans remain vacant or blighted. Tens of thousands of African American children who were in the public schools have not made it back, nor have their parents. New Orleans has lost at least 100,000 people. Thousands of elderly and disabled people have not made it back. Affordable housing is not readily available so tens of thousands pay rents that are out of proportion to their wages.

Our guest, Gioioa von Disterlo, is the current Civil Rights Organizer at Coalition on Homelessness. She also works as a staff writer and writer facilitator for Poor Magazine. Gioioa has organized in San Francisco for seven years, and has worked on a range of community issues including abuse, disability, mental health, racism, queer institutional predation, global systems of oppression, and civil rights.

June 27, 2010 - Toronto Media Co-op

In the aftermath of the G20 protests, police just can't seem to get enough...Two people...at Metropolitan United Church were [sleeping] in tents...At 6am on a cold Sunday, three Toronto Police felt the need to wake them up and get them to move on.

Jennifer Friedenbach has worked about 18 years on homeless and poverty issues, including welfare rights, housing, homeless prevention, healthcare, disability, and human and civil rights.

Growing because Washington ignores it.

The crisis of worldwide, capitalist business is entering its third year. It began in the summer of 2007 as a disruption of a specialized segment of the U.S. financial sector, when the devaluation of securities in which home mortgage and other debt had been used as speculative business items led to the insolvency of the special-purpose vehicles constructed for the purpose of creating and marketing these items. The crisis consequently spread further and further.

CBC News - May 15, 2010

Protesters crashed an open house at Vancouver's Olympic Village on Saturday, forcing police to lock the area down...Police tangled with the demonstrators as they attempted to push their way inside the building. Police shut down the open house at about 4 p.m., an hour earlier than scheduled, and locked down the area.

Tiny (aka Lisa Gray–Garcia) is a poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist, PO' Poet, spoken word artist, welfareQUEEN, lecturer, Indigena Taina/Boriken/Irish mama of Tiburcio and daughter of Dee and the co–founder and executive director of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork. POOR is a grassroots, non–profit, arts organization dedicated to providing extreme access to media, education and arts for youth, adults and elders struggling with poverty, racism, disability and border fascism locally and globally.

March 22, 2010

"As much as we would like to join the celebration of the...passage of the health bill last night, in good conscience we cannot...Instead of eliminating the root of the problem - the profit-driven, private health insurance industry - this costly new legislation will enrich and further entrench these firms. The bill would require millions of Americans to buy private insurers' defective products, and turn over to them vast amounts of public money."

-- Physicians for a National Health Program (US)

By CARL GINSBURG - Counterpunch

A more unappealing plot of land does not exist in all of New York City. The location of the Family Intake Center...built for the processing of homeless families citywide, fits the bill. The nearly completed multi-story family shelter and homeless administrative office sits directly over the trash-strewn tracks...[of a] commuter train...Trash, traffic, parking lots, grinding noise, huge bus depots, a criminal courthouse choked with defendants: seems like the right place for a new homeless center.

By Jonathan Cook - March 22, 2010

Natalie and Weisman Zakai say the past three years -- since the Jewish couple offered to rent their home to Bedouin friends...have been a living hell...“I have always loved Israel...But to see the depth of the racism of our neighbours has made me question why we live in this country.”

The prison industrial complex is the current manifestation of the legal legacy of the racialized transformations of plantations into prisons, of Slave Codes into Black Codes, of lynching into state-sponsored executions.

Guest, Bob Offer-Westort, Coordinating Editor of the Street Sheet, San Francisco homeless people's newspaper, and the Civil Rights Organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness. Guest, Tiny (daughter of dee, single mama of tiburcio) is a poverty scholar, co-editor and founder of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork, member of the Poetas POBRE- Po' Poets Project and the welfareQUEENs, and author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing up Homeless in America.

The first few days at the Olympic Tent Village have gone strongly and smoothly, thanks to the community effort to support and defend it. Hundreds have gathered during the evening and through the night, especially Downtown Eastside residents, homeless people, and youth...Over the next week, we are calling on all supporters to continue to defend the Olympic Tent Village and to support the residents.

Day 2 at the Olympic Tent Village went strongly and smoothly, thanks to the community effort to support and defend it. Hundreds gathered during the evening and through the night. During the day, there were a few minor police altercations, including the identification of two undercover police officers and another incident when the [Vancouver Police Department] attempted to barge into the Tent Village.