in the spirit of the season, a little carol by the folks from food not bombs atlanta. this song was sung last year outside a bed and breakfast owned by an atlanta politician who supported the city’s anti-panhandling ordinance.

The Sparrow Community House was formed in the face of incredible need. As a group of people, we needed to feel like part of a community and we wanted that community to thrive on service. But before that thirst was placed the need of those alienated by a culture that sees homeless people, poor people as the enfleshed fear that the American Dream, in its most superficial sense, fails.

So six young people, worn out on liberal individualism and the highly-touted prosperity gospel came together and formed a home with a vision. Some of us had worked for and with folks experiencing homelessness. Others of us knew the statistics (Atlanta is the fourth “meanest” city for homeless people, Atlanta is the poorest city for children, on average 68,000 people a year will experience homeless in this city alone) and had felt paralyzed by the gravity of the situation. A few of us have been homeless. But we all had ideas about what a redistribution of resources meant for creating community and meeting unmet needs in the midst of economic hardship and hunger.

We decided to do our work in phases. As of November, we find ourselves at the onset of the first: serving meals. The money and resources to make these weekly meals possible are quickly being made available to us. And now we are searching for an accessible place within the Decatur community to make what we’re calling a potluck (to avoid the widely used term “feeding”) available to folks missing meals.

The second portion acknowledges that dignity and personhood are pulled from poor people along with other tangible resources. Focusing on emotional and physical wounds incurred through that disenfranchisement via counseling, massage therapy, and yoga is more than healing, it is empowering. We have the space and the volunteers to make that service available to those who have been denied access.

Lastly, we will open our doors to homeless friends without any other option in the state of Georgia. Transgender women who are negative for HIV and are over the age of 21 are left out of Georgia’s shelters due to institutionalized transphobia and sexism. This genocide has to stop and we believe that the work to end it falls squarely on the backs of those who cherish justice and mercy.

To serve those broken by the capitalist system is the very least required of each of us. And it is not long before we see this task as a blessing. For it is by meeting the brokenness in others that we recognize our great distance from wholeness. It is through the cracks that the light of reconciliation and peace finds its way. Our solidarity and service to one another will allow us to see beyond this darkness.

-hillary

in japan in the 1980’s, some business men began to use an old term in a new way. the original term, which directly translated means “global localization” was used to refer to the adapting of farming techniques to local needs and environments. But the new use referred to a marketing strategy that encouraged companies to understand local consumers so that profits could be maximized and global expansion would become fiscally feasible. some socially conscious folks are starting to use the expression “glocalization” in place of the bumper sticker standard “think globally, act locally” but obviously the term is more than a little problematic.

perhaps the biggest dilemma is that along with the well-intentioned activists, military and paramilitary forces are co-opting this idiom and implementing the strategy in reverse. in central and south america, the use of school of americas graduates has helped to curb resistance against the state. and if it works there, it’ll work here right?

presently, folks trained in methods of torture in the united states are working with roberto michelette in honduras to suspend the following rights: personal liberty; freedom of association and assembly; and the right to freedom of movement, to leave, enter, and stay within the national territory. This evening, less than two hours from the gates of ft. benning, in atlanta, georgia people experiencing homelessness are finding their own rights suspended indefinitely. arrested for asking for money, not having “proper identification”, sleeping outdoors, or simply sitting down on the sidewalk - our homeless citizens are never safe from police harassment.

with confirmation that xe, formerly blackwater usa, has trained members of the atlanta police force at its training center in north carolina, we can no longer deny that the military’s reverse glocalization is silencing and brutalizing america’s poor along with the huddled, disenfranchised masses abroad that we could more easily distance ourselves from.

may we seek to understand that the fight against systematic injustice is more than an intellectualized international cause. certainly, the struggle against “disappearing” and state sanctioned violence begins on peachtree street and trails through hundreds of fearful occupied nations. we should find the courage to hold those in power accountable, and the love to nonviolently resist with our neighbors who have been stripped of the power they are due. act locally, act globally, but before it’s too late, we must certainly act.

for more pictures from the soaw, check our facebook page

though the house is just starting to become a reality, the idea for it sprung forth almost 7 months ago. and certainly, the need for a living space that welcomes transgender homeless people has been around for longer than many can imagine.

seven months ago, i was a caseworker at a men’s overflow shelter in atlanta. one morning, a young woman, new to the city, came into my office and asked me to help her find shelter for the night. she handed me her out-of-state id so i could make a copy for her file. when i looked at the information next to her smiling, well-posed  picture, a different name than the one she had given me was printed next to a sex field that read “m”. i spent the rest of the day trying to find a single placement for an HIV negative transgender woman. nothing. not in atlanta. not in decatur. basically, not in georgia.

if this client had been HIV positive or a few years younger, there would have been a placement. but since the situation was what it was, i had to tell her to be safe on the streets of atlanta or go back to the city she left in hopes of something better. the streets are the only real option we’re giving trans women. of course, once this life without shelter or income forces these women into sex work, they will be demonized. but if they contract HIV doing this work or while sitting in jail for this survival crime, then there will be shelter for them. kind of sounds like genocide because it kind of is. force trans women into a dangerous situation that lends to abuse and disease and then, once things are at their worst, offer them a space.

the links posted in addition to this note explain what’s been/is still happening.

isn’t it time to denouce the injustice that kills the poor?