Monday, February 23, 2015
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Press Release of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
| For Immediate Release: February 22, 2011 | Contact: Washington D.C. Office (202) 224-3553 |
Boxer Statement on House Republicans' Budget Cuts
Washington, D.C.
– U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today held a press conference call
to discuss the House Republicans’ budget cuts, their impact on
California and the threat of a government shutdown.
The following are her remarks as prepared for delivery:
Early Saturday morning, House Republicans – without a single Democratic vote – passed a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government for the remaining seven months of this fiscal year.
The budget cuts passed by House Republicans are extreme and dangerous on many levels.
Everyone agrees that we must cut the deficit. But at a time when unemployment is still high and too many families are struggling, we have to reduce the deficit gradually and sensibly – so that we don’t jeopardize our fragile economic recovery.
This is no time for political vendettas.
According to some estimates from independent budget experts, the Republicans’ proposed cuts of $100 billion off the President’s FY 2011 budget plan could result in the loss of at least 800,000 jobs.
It is inconceivable that House Republicans would pass a budget that would cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs – just as our economy is starting to turn around.
When President Obama took office, our economy was heading off a cliff, and even top Republicans such as former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told us capitalism was on the brink of collapse.
President Obama and the Democratic Congress helped bring this economy back by making difficult choices. We stabilized the financial industry, restored lending, saved the American auto industry, approved tax cuts for the middle class and made important investments in infrastructure and clean energy that helped create jobs.
Now House Republicans are overreaching and threatening our economy.
Democrats agree that we must make cuts to reduce the deficit. We have already agreed to cuts of $41 billion off the President’s budget.
So Republicans have proposed $100 billion in cuts and we have proposed $41 billion. Now we need to move forward and compromise.
No, I heard just the opposite.
Yet this is just some of what the Republican budget would do to California and the nation:
The Republicans slashed EPA’s budget by nearly one third – threatening the agency’s ability to protect public health and our communities from dangerous pollution.
The House Republicans’ budget is clearly a backdoor way to attack our nation’s landmark environmental and public health laws. We cannot allow that to stand.
There are many ways we can reduce the deficit – in addition to the cuts Democrats have already agreed to support:
I don’t want to see a government shutdown and we can avoid it by working together. And we must avoid it because a government shutdown would be a disaster for our nation and for our economy.
Let me be clear: I will do everything in my power to see that no member of Congress gets paid if the government shuts down.
A government shutdown would be a failure of the most basic obligation we have to the American people. If we can’t resolve our differences, we should not receive a paycheck – even retroactively.
That’s why Senator Casey and I have written a bill to prevent lawmakers from receiving any pay during a government shutdown.
I will work to get it passed by the Senate when we get back next week and have it sent over to the House for Speaker Boehner to pass.
I’m hoping it will nudge my Republican colleagues to – once and for all – take the threat of a government shutdown off the table.
I am so pleased Majority Leader Reid today announced his plan to bring a clean 30-day Continuing Resolution to the Senate floor next week that would allow the government to continue running while lawmakers on both sides work toward a common-sense budget.
I hope that Speaker Boehner and House Republicans will join us and approve this CR – so we can avoid a shutdown that would disrupt the lives of millions of Americans.
Thank you. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.
The following are her remarks as prepared for delivery:
Early Saturday morning, House Republicans – without a single Democratic vote – passed a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government for the remaining seven months of this fiscal year.
The budget cuts passed by House Republicans are extreme and dangerous on many levels.
Everyone agrees that we must cut the deficit. But at a time when unemployment is still high and too many families are struggling, we have to reduce the deficit gradually and sensibly – so that we don’t jeopardize our fragile economic recovery.
This is no time for political vendettas.
According to some estimates from independent budget experts, the Republicans’ proposed cuts of $100 billion off the President’s FY 2011 budget plan could result in the loss of at least 800,000 jobs.
It is inconceivable that House Republicans would pass a budget that would cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs – just as our economy is starting to turn around.
When President Obama took office, our economy was heading off a cliff, and even top Republicans such as former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told us capitalism was on the brink of collapse.
President Obama and the Democratic Congress helped bring this economy back by making difficult choices. We stabilized the financial industry, restored lending, saved the American auto industry, approved tax cuts for the middle class and made important investments in infrastructure and clean energy that helped create jobs.
Now House Republicans are overreaching and threatening our economy.
Democrats agree that we must make cuts to reduce the deficit. We have already agreed to cuts of $41 billion off the President’s budget.
So Republicans have proposed $100 billion in cuts and we have proposed $41 billion. Now we need to move forward and compromise.
Shockingly, the House Republicans have not only cut, but they have used deficit reduction as an excuse to carry out vendettas:
-
Against the EPA;
-
Against food safety;
-
Against family planning, women’s health and Planned Parenthood;
-
Against the Corporation for Public Broadcasting;
-
Against health care reform;
-
Against clean energy;
-
And against education programs – like Head Start and Pell grants – that give our children a chance at a better future.
No, I heard just the opposite.
Yet this is just some of what the Republican budget would do to California and the nation:
- Pell Grants in California would be cut by more than $700 million – reducing financial aid for many of the more than 1 million California students who rely on these grants to help pay for college.
- Head Start would be slashed by $1.1 billion nationwide, leading to layoffs of 55,000 teachers and staff and more than 218,000 low-income children being cut from the program. In California, more than 24,000 low-income kids would lose access to this critical program.
- Cuts to Community Health Centers would cause more than 3.3 million patients to lose access to care, including 457,000 Californians. In California alone an estimated 12 heath centers would close and 750 jobs would be lost.
- The Republican budget eliminates all funding for high-speed rail. Nationwide the cuts to high-speed and intercity passenger rail could put 200,000 jobs at risk – including tens of thousands of jobs in California.
- Cuts to afterschool programs would mean that 100,000 children nationwide – including almost 11,000 California children – would be shut out of programs that would keep them safe, away from gangs and drugs, and help them learn.
- 110 Planned Parenthood Centers in California, which serve 730,000 patients, would no longer be able to receive federal funds for any purpose. This means they would no longer be able to even participate in essential federal programs, such as Medicaid. This would jeopardize the health and lives of thousands of women and families in California – and millions of women and families across the country – who depend on Planned Parenthood for access to life-saving cancer screenings, contraception, annual exams and other basic health services.
- The Republican budget would lead to nearly 900 fewer Border Patrol Agents nationwide and would slash funding for border security fencing, infrastructure and technology by $272 million.
- The Republican budget would cut $1.3 billion from the National Institutes of Health funding for medical research to develop new treatments and cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases. In addition to the impact on patients and families who are looking to NIH-funded research for help and for hope, this cut could threaten the future growth of the biomedical industry – which employs nearly 268,000 Californians – and would eliminate about $160 million in funding for California researchers alone.
The Republicans slashed EPA’s budget by nearly one third – threatening the agency’s ability to protect public health and our communities from dangerous pollution.
The House Republicans’ budget is clearly a backdoor way to attack our nation’s landmark environmental and public health laws. We cannot allow that to stand.
There are many ways we can reduce the deficit – in addition to the cuts Democrats have already agreed to support:
- Ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas would save $15 billion over ten years;
- Ending subsidies for oil and gas companies would save $44 billion over ten years;
- Cutting waste, fraud and abuse in government contracts – according to the Obama administration, we could $500 billion over ten years;
- Ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bringing our troops home would save more than $1 trillion over ten years;
- And we must not repeal health care reform – which would reduce the deficit by $230 billion over 10 years and by more than $1 trillion over 20 years.
I don’t want to see a government shutdown and we can avoid it by working together. And we must avoid it because a government shutdown would be a disaster for our nation and for our economy.
Let me be clear: I will do everything in my power to see that no member of Congress gets paid if the government shuts down.
A government shutdown would be a failure of the most basic obligation we have to the American people. If we can’t resolve our differences, we should not receive a paycheck – even retroactively.
That’s why Senator Casey and I have written a bill to prevent lawmakers from receiving any pay during a government shutdown.
I will work to get it passed by the Senate when we get back next week and have it sent over to the House for Speaker Boehner to pass.
I’m hoping it will nudge my Republican colleagues to – once and for all – take the threat of a government shutdown off the table.
I am so pleased Majority Leader Reid today announced his plan to bring a clean 30-day Continuing Resolution to the Senate floor next week that would allow the government to continue running while lawmakers on both sides work toward a common-sense budget.
I hope that Speaker Boehner and House Republicans will join us and approve this CR – so we can avoid a shutdown that would disrupt the lives of millions of Americans.
Thank you. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Save Redevelopment's Housing Funds!
Save Redevelopment's Housing Funds!
With the passage of last year's AB 26x, all of California's redevelopment agencies are scheduled to dissolve on February 1, 2012. Many agencies still have balances in their Low and Moderate Income Housing Funds (the twenty percent of redevelopment funds designated for affordable housing).
SB 654 (Steinberg) would specify that the balances in dissolving redevelopment agencies’ housing funds shall be used for housing construction and other housing-related purposes This bill clarifies conflicting provisions of last year’s AB 26x and has received unanimous bi-partisan support thus far.
from Housing California!
Sunday, November 6, 2011
2nd injured vet in Oakland wall street protests
Sending you guys this link. A second vet was injured while trying t0 get away from the wall street protests and denied medical treatment while incarcerated by the Oakland Police Department.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
My Position on the City of Davis regulating church ministrys assisting the homeless
Hello,
It was good to see that the city voted to allow the Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter to serve the homeless and limiting the provision of shelter to the fire code capacity of the individual hosting churches. I strongly believe that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) provides churches with the legal precedence to coordinate programs on their campuses in accordance with their religious mission. It has been established by the Circuit Courts that the provision of shelter and food is central to a churches mission. The presence of homeless people on a church's steps does not meet the scrutiny for a public nuisance (293 F3d 570 Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church V. City of New York Docket number 02-7073). Any public nuisance from a church ministry program must be shown empirically in order to justify regulation of a church ministry or constitutional harms arise(Stuart Circle Parish V.bd of Zoning Appeals, 946 F. Supp. 1225, 1241 (e.d va 1996).
What brought this issue to the city council were complaints that the neighbors around and 5th and D Street raised about the hypothetical concerns of public nuisance that could arise due to concentration of homeless services at 5th and D Street. It can be said that the neighbors prior experience with homeless transients before the evolution of Interfaith Winter Shelter Programs at 5th and D Street played a role in generating some of the concerns with having more church programs at 5Th and D Street serving the homeless.
The Davis Police Department will tell you up front that the neighborhood is quieter because of the existence of these programs. The city had no justification in the first place in proposing to regulate the interfaith shelter. These are the true facts. If the city can show empirically that the Interfaith Winter Shelter is generating a bad impact on the neighborhood, the city can prevent the operation of any shelter or such program. The neighbors have the right to take their concerns to the council but the concerns have to be events that are occurring as a function of the programs that are already in operation, not programs that are proposed like the locker program.
It is good that the Interfaith programs will be evaluated in a year or so. It will provide peace and mind for the neighbors and the city. On the other hand though the church has always coordinated excellent programs. There is too much at stake to allow a program to be poorly coordinated.
It is a shame that more could not be done to assist the homeless of Davis. The homeless problem is not that big in our community in relation to the wealth that our community possesses. So much could be done if there was a political will on the part of every citizen in our community to make sure that the homeless could be given an opportunity to get on their feet. This life is tough already even for people who have a job and a place to sleep. Imagine what our homeless go through. Is it right for our war vets suffering from PTSD to come back to the states with no shelter and inadequate medical resources (I use this as one example)?
Perhaps there should have been a greater effort to include the neighbors in the discussions of the revised (MOU). My belief is that they would have not provided proof that the Interfaith programs were posing a harmful safety danger for the neighborhood. They would have stated what has already been stated "there is a hypothetical concern with centralization of services at 5th and D Street".
We need to think beyond hypothetical concerns and develop programs that will get our homeless the help that they need. Every citizen has a duty to assist others in need as every citizen has a duty to vote.
It was good to see that the city voted to allow the Interfaith Rotating Winter Shelter to serve the homeless and limiting the provision of shelter to the fire code capacity of the individual hosting churches. I strongly believe that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) provides churches with the legal precedence to coordinate programs on their campuses in accordance with their religious mission. It has been established by the Circuit Courts that the provision of shelter and food is central to a churches mission. The presence of homeless people on a church's steps does not meet the scrutiny for a public nuisance (293 F3d 570 Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church V. City of New York Docket number 02-7073). Any public nuisance from a church ministry program must be shown empirically in order to justify regulation of a church ministry or constitutional harms arise(Stuart Circle Parish V.bd of Zoning Appeals, 946 F. Supp. 1225, 1241 (e.d va 1996).
What brought this issue to the city council were complaints that the neighbors around and 5th and D Street raised about the hypothetical concerns of public nuisance that could arise due to concentration of homeless services at 5th and D Street. It can be said that the neighbors prior experience with homeless transients before the evolution of Interfaith Winter Shelter Programs at 5th and D Street played a role in generating some of the concerns with having more church programs at 5Th and D Street serving the homeless.
The Davis Police Department will tell you up front that the neighborhood is quieter because of the existence of these programs. The city had no justification in the first place in proposing to regulate the interfaith shelter. These are the true facts. If the city can show empirically that the Interfaith Winter Shelter is generating a bad impact on the neighborhood, the city can prevent the operation of any shelter or such program. The neighbors have the right to take their concerns to the council but the concerns have to be events that are occurring as a function of the programs that are already in operation, not programs that are proposed like the locker program.
It is good that the Interfaith programs will be evaluated in a year or so. It will provide peace and mind for the neighbors and the city. On the other hand though the church has always coordinated excellent programs. There is too much at stake to allow a program to be poorly coordinated.
It is a shame that more could not be done to assist the homeless of Davis. The homeless problem is not that big in our community in relation to the wealth that our community possesses. So much could be done if there was a political will on the part of every citizen in our community to make sure that the homeless could be given an opportunity to get on their feet. This life is tough already even for people who have a job and a place to sleep. Imagine what our homeless go through. Is it right for our war vets suffering from PTSD to come back to the states with no shelter and inadequate medical resources (I use this as one example)?
Perhaps there should have been a greater effort to include the neighbors in the discussions of the revised (MOU). My belief is that they would have not provided proof that the Interfaith programs were posing a harmful safety danger for the neighborhood. They would have stated what has already been stated "there is a hypothetical concern with centralization of services at 5th and D Street".
We need to think beyond hypothetical concerns and develop programs that will get our homeless the help that they need. Every citizen has a duty to assist others in need as every citizen has a duty to vote.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
My Thoughts on the Davis Open Container Policy
My Thoughts on the
By Richard Cipian
In order to examine whether the modification of the ordinance is the best city policy, we have to examine two competing philosophies. The first philosophy is the decreasing of crime in city parks that is associated with alcohol consumption. The second philosophy is the fostering of the cycle of incarceration for our mentally ill and economically deprived homeless in
A majority in the homeless community drink alcohol for three reasons. The first reason is that many in the homeless community do not have jobs . The second reason is that the homeless do not have a motivation to get shelter because there are long established waiting for affordable housing along with the other barriers to housing that I do not have to mention. Just refer to the 2007 Homeless Yolo Homeless Summit document. The third reason is that mental illnesses and painful physical disorders run very high in the homeless community and like students and housed community members, we turn to alcohol consumption to reduce stress in our daily lives. We can work as a concerned community work together to increase the amount of jobs we provide for our homeless through job fairs, as well as a master list of all open jobs in the community that are open to the homeless including odd jobs. We can provide more housing opportunities for our homeless by establishing a trust fund that funds scholarships for homeless people who would like to be housed. Such a scholarship program would pay the first months rent, security deposit and a months rent for a individual seeking to be housed. Expand the section 8 voucher programs to people in the
Some may say that the above are laudable ideas and that
It may be a county mandate to work on homeless concerns but that does not limit city government in
If we established a city park where drinking was allowed, and publicized that drinking was allowed in that park, you may be able to funnel the folks who are drinking in public places into the park and watch them. Hopefully, less members in the homeless community will be cited for breaking the ordinance. If this strategy does not work, you can always continue with the ordinance changes. The other option is to have a officer confiscate the alcohol beverage of a drinking homeless or house enabled person and try to do homeless outreach on the spot - provide a homeless person drinking with assistance with social services ( look at Woodland P.D's policy) instead of issuing a citation for first or second time offenders.
We as a community can truly change lives if we have the political will. Otherwise, more in our homeless community will wind up in Yolo jails unable to pay citation fees. Missed opportunities for social mobility in our homeless community would have been lost.
Feel free to enter this email in the public record.
Hope all is well,
Richard Cipian
Saturday, February 24, 2007
1st Annual Homelessness Awareness Day at UC Davis
Dear All,
I thought I would forward something I wrote about everything behind the
Homelessness Awareness Day at UC Davis as well as an update on where
we are with event. Please forward this email to every person on your
contact list and come out if you have a chance. Hopefully this event
can be a stimulus for social change for our homeless. I am thinking in
an idealistic college student fashion but anything is possible- sort
of at least!
Dear Readers,
This article is about an event activists and college students are planning at UC Davis for Feb 27th, 2007 at noon at the MU on the quad. Students and anti-poverty allies are putting together the 1st annual Homelessness and Hunger Awareness Day. The day has the goal of educating students at the UC Davis campus as well as community members about the needs of the homeless population as well as those who are impoverished in the Davis community. At the event we will have a rally comprising of homeless speakers, poets on homeless and poverty concerns, an open microphone for concerned community members and words of inspiration for our student leaders. We are also coordinating a resource fair where we are providing information for students who have an interest in volunteering with a social service agency that serves the homeless or the poor. Furthermore, we will also be collecting winter wear donations at the event.
The event is going to be held at the quad of the MU at 12 noon Tuesday
27th of Feb from 12pm till 1pm. Anyone is welcome to show up and speak
in the mic about concerns they may have or even about the wonderful
work they are doing for the impoverished. Just come out and hear from
the very people we are serving. Basically this whole thing at UC Davis really was inspired by the death of Jesse Newberry, the 24 year old homeless male who died last May in 2006 on
the rail road tracks by Freeborn Hall at UC Davis. On the 15th of Feb, 2007 the ASUCD Senate passed resolution 10 which designated a homeless awareness week at UC Davis. The students
also received funding approval for sound equipment and flyer's which
are crucial for publicity of the event. The 27th was chosen because
of the availability of the quad at the MU for a rally. The 21st of Feb
is the day of the National Homelessness Marathon broad-casted from
Fresno California this year so the 27th works out well with other
nationally coordinated homeless awareness events. Also, other
universities in the United States coordinate a National Homeless and
Hunger Awareness Week on November 12th through the 18th
(www.nationalhomeless.org/awareness )so this Hunger and Homelessness
Awareness Week at UC Davis is very similiar to Hunger weeks other
universities coordinate. The UC Davis chapter of Cal-Pirg coordinates
thier own Hunger and Homelessness campaign. They have a few projects
in the woorks they would like to coordinate this year like a sleep out
on campus and a hunger banquet.
The students have been very supportive and they are are putting a lot
of energy into the planning of the event to ensure its success. We
have contacted many in the community from the government sector,
homeless activists, Davis community members, leaders of student and
community groups and organizations. We have a tightly knit homeless
community in Davis and we have been getting the word out to the
homeless here. The Spare Changer, is a Non-profit 501-C3 and monthly
newspaper journal that educates the community of Davis about
homelessness through a monthly literature journal that is distributed
by homeless people in the community for a donation. HAGS is a group of
concerned homeless people and allies that advocates and organizes for
social change. Food not Bombs is another group that provides lunches
for the homeless every Sunday at Noon in Central Park. There are also
other non-profits in the community which are working for
the concerns of the homeless.
The challenges that remain for the event include getting an adequate
supply of flyer's out into the community and ensuring that we have
shelter from the rain if it indeed does rain on the day of the event.
At the event we hope to have homeless people speak, some homeless
poetry readers, statements from local politicians as well as a open
mic so that anyone from the homeless or poor community; even community
members in general can speak in reference to any concern that they may
have. We are also gathering information about social service agencies
that can use student volunteers and where the homeless people who do
attend the event can gain information about what resources are offered
to them. We are also having a community and campus wide resource drive
for clothing ( anything that can keep a homeless person warm).
We hope from the event that we can stimulate awareness on campus about
homelessness and in the community. This will ensure progress at
building community tolerance and understanding towards the homeless
and impoverished. Furthermore, it is unprecedented for a group of the
impoverished to mobilize together for the sake of social change. It
happens but infrequently. Members of our poor community are less
politically integrated than those of the community with higher income.
This is not hard to realize though because the impoverished have to
think about earning income for a wage and making sure the most
immediate resources important for life like food and shelter are met.
There is no time to read the political section of a California
political digest. What our homeless need are shelter opportunities and
an easier access to jobs. It would be great if the Davis Chamber of
Commerce would provide jobs for our homeless or even to assist them
with job training. Maybe we can get a group of UC Davis medical
students and doctors to do health screening, dental care and health
education for our homeless. Maybe we can have some in house
psychiatrists and therapists in private practice in the community
volunteer their time to do mental health outreach for our homeless.
What I am sort of going on a tangent about is getting more support for
the upward mobility of the homeless from the private sector and from
those influential in the community who are in the position to think of
new non-profit ideas and to provide direct care to the impoverished (
like medical doctors in the community for example). There are so many
ways that we can do better at serving our homeless. The government
sector works hard on homelessness concerns but the funding is very
limited. We have the Governors office thinking about cutting AB 1234
which is mental health outreach for special populations including the
homeless. If there is a cut to this program, almost 4000 people in
California will become homeless ( Housing California,
www.housingca.org).
If we mobilized our community around political issues central to
homeless concerns, at least Davis would become a community which will
advocate against social service cuts at the local , state and national
level for our homeless. I have ranted off task but raising awareness
for our homeless and increasing homeless advocacy is such a need.
Another great idea that come from this event is increasing educational
programs by actual city of Davis commissions specifically on the topic
of homelessness.
There are other student groups at UC Davis that provide service to the
homeless community through direct service like Help and Education
Leading to the Prevention of Homelessness, Student Homeless Outreach
Club, the Willow Project , Campus Mosaic and the UC Davis chapter of
Habitat for Humanity. For more information please contact me at richardcipian@gmail.com.
Best,
Richard Cipian
I thought I would forward something I wrote about everything behind the
Homelessness Awareness Day at UC Davis as well as an update on where
we are with event. Please forward this email to every person on your
contact list and come out if you have a chance. Hopefully this event
can be a stimulus for social change for our homeless. I am thinking in
an idealistic college student fashion but anything is possible- sort
of at least!
Dear Readers,
This article is about an event activists and college students are planning at UC Davis for Feb 27th, 2007 at noon at the MU on the quad. Students and anti-poverty allies are putting together the 1st annual Homelessness and Hunger Awareness Day. The day has the goal of educating students at the UC Davis campus as well as community members about the needs of the homeless population as well as those who are impoverished in the Davis community. At the event we will have a rally comprising of homeless speakers, poets on homeless and poverty concerns, an open microphone for concerned community members and words of inspiration for our student leaders. We are also coordinating a resource fair where we are providing information for students who have an interest in volunteering with a social service agency that serves the homeless or the poor. Furthermore, we will also be collecting winter wear donations at the event.
The event is going to be held at the quad of the MU at 12 noon Tuesday
27th of Feb from 12pm till 1pm. Anyone is welcome to show up and speak
in the mic about concerns they may have or even about the wonderful
work they are doing for the impoverished. Just come out and hear from
the very people we are serving. Basically this whole thing at UC Davis really was inspired by the death of Jesse Newberry, the 24 year old homeless male who died last May in 2006 on
the rail road tracks by Freeborn Hall at UC Davis. On the 15th of Feb, 2007 the ASUCD Senate passed resolution 10 which designated a homeless awareness week at UC Davis. The students
also received funding approval for sound equipment and flyer's which
are crucial for publicity of the event. The 27th was chosen because
of the availability of the quad at the MU for a rally. The 21st of Feb
is the day of the National Homelessness Marathon broad-casted from
Fresno California this year so the 27th works out well with other
nationally coordinated homeless awareness events. Also, other
universities in the United States coordinate a National Homeless and
Hunger Awareness Week on November 12th through the 18th
(www.nationalhomeless.org/awareness )so this Hunger and Homelessness
Awareness Week at UC Davis is very similiar to Hunger weeks other
universities coordinate. The UC Davis chapter of Cal-Pirg coordinates
thier own Hunger and Homelessness campaign. They have a few projects
in the woorks they would like to coordinate this year like a sleep out
on campus and a hunger banquet.
The students have been very supportive and they are are putting a lot
of energy into the planning of the event to ensure its success. We
have contacted many in the community from the government sector,
homeless activists, Davis community members, leaders of student and
community groups and organizations. We have a tightly knit homeless
community in Davis and we have been getting the word out to the
homeless here. The Spare Changer, is a Non-profit 501-C3 and monthly
newspaper journal that educates the community of Davis about
homelessness through a monthly literature journal that is distributed
by homeless people in the community for a donation. HAGS is a group of
concerned homeless people and allies that advocates and organizes for
social change. Food not Bombs is another group that provides lunches
for the homeless every Sunday at Noon in Central Park. There are also
other non-profits in the community which are working for
the concerns of the homeless.
The challenges that remain for the event include getting an adequate
supply of flyer's out into the community and ensuring that we have
shelter from the rain if it indeed does rain on the day of the event.
At the event we hope to have homeless people speak, some homeless
poetry readers, statements from local politicians as well as a open
mic so that anyone from the homeless or poor community; even community
members in general can speak in reference to any concern that they may
have. We are also gathering information about social service agencies
that can use student volunteers and where the homeless people who do
attend the event can gain information about what resources are offered
to them. We are also having a community and campus wide resource drive
for clothing ( anything that can keep a homeless person warm).
We hope from the event that we can stimulate awareness on campus about
homelessness and in the community. This will ensure progress at
building community tolerance and understanding towards the homeless
and impoverished. Furthermore, it is unprecedented for a group of the
impoverished to mobilize together for the sake of social change. It
happens but infrequently. Members of our poor community are less
politically integrated than those of the community with higher income.
This is not hard to realize though because the impoverished have to
think about earning income for a wage and making sure the most
immediate resources important for life like food and shelter are met.
There is no time to read the political section of a California
political digest. What our homeless need are shelter opportunities and
an easier access to jobs. It would be great if the Davis Chamber of
Commerce would provide jobs for our homeless or even to assist them
with job training. Maybe we can get a group of UC Davis medical
students and doctors to do health screening, dental care and health
education for our homeless. Maybe we can have some in house
psychiatrists and therapists in private practice in the community
volunteer their time to do mental health outreach for our homeless.
What I am sort of going on a tangent about is getting more support for
the upward mobility of the homeless from the private sector and from
those influential in the community who are in the position to think of
new non-profit ideas and to provide direct care to the impoverished (
like medical doctors in the community for example). There are so many
ways that we can do better at serving our homeless. The government
sector works hard on homelessness concerns but the funding is very
limited. We have the Governors office thinking about cutting AB 1234
which is mental health outreach for special populations including the
homeless. If there is a cut to this program, almost 4000 people in
California will become homeless ( Housing California,
www.housingca.org).
If we mobilized our community around political issues central to
homeless concerns, at least Davis would become a community which will
advocate against social service cuts at the local , state and national
level for our homeless. I have ranted off task but raising awareness
for our homeless and increasing homeless advocacy is such a need.
Another great idea that come from this event is increasing educational
programs by actual city of Davis commissions specifically on the topic
of homelessness.
There are other student groups at UC Davis that provide service to the
homeless community through direct service like Help and Education
Leading to the Prevention of Homelessness, Student Homeless Outreach
Club, the Willow Project , Campus Mosaic and the UC Davis chapter of
Habitat for Humanity. For more information please contact me at richardcipian@gmail.com.
Best,
Richard Cipian
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