Greetings from the Nellis Federal Prison Camp in North Las Vegas, Nevada.

I am spending three months here for protesting at Fort Benning, Georgia last year. The protest was to bring a closing to the School of the Americas located there. Graduates of that school are notorious for torture and assassination of thousands of people in Latin America, including such notables as: Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador; four American nuns who were raped and killed; seven Jesuits and their female associates from the University of El Salvador; and numerous other bishops, clergy and religious leaders; and union and social workers in Latin American countries.

My short sentence of three months is almost a joke within the federal prison system. Most of the 600 men here are here for many years. Federal mandatory sentencing guidelines have given most of these inmates as many as ten years or more for non-violent crimes — mostly drug activity and some business crimes. There is also no parole from the federal prison system.

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Ilook at my watch. It’s ten after seven.

It’s cold and drizzling. I lean my spine against a parking meter and wait for the signal.

Loitering with me are Blacks, Whites, Mexicans and Natives, mostly. Why are they homeless? I don’t know, really. As for me, I happen to be a forty-seven year old White American who fell hard. My story is real and so is theirs.

Unfortunately, Gavin Newsom, a San Francisco Supervisor, feels that, regardless of how we fell from favor, homeless stories are trivial stories.

Mister Newsom is making quite an impression on street folk. The San Francisco Chronicle prints his view point each morning and each evening homeless people read it.

The soup kitchens are abuzz with his views. All the mirrors in the public restrooms have his picture, too. His newfound publicity is because Gavin has rock-solid knowledge about homelessness, so he says. The Supervisor has researched the homeless issues for two months and now he claims to know how to solve it.

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Results are out from the Mayor’s Office annual homeless count — a one night excursion where some volunteers along with many others whose paychecks come from city coffers go out and count homeless people.

Apparently, this is the last time it will be done, as they will be switching to a look at the newly installed quarter million dollar computer system now being put in place at drop-in centers to determine the number next year. New York has a similar set up, complete with fingerprinting and phone calls to your family and friends by Human Services, to see if they would put you up. They are now going to do a street count in addition to the computer count, because it is considered such an under count.

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After spending nearly a million dollars, and starting with polling numbers at 74% support, Prop N passed with 59% of voters (22% of registered voters/11% of San Franciscans) voting yes. Proposition N slashes cash assistance by 85%, leaving homeless welfare recipients with only $59 a month. This will, of course be devastating.

Anyone losing that much of their income feels it, and when you start with less then $400 a month, the loss is breathtaking. The Coalition on Homelessness stands firmly behind its stance of opposition to Proposition N, as we know that cash assistance is a critical solution to homelessness.

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Motivation is a strange beast. Some become motivated to do things in life by love, kindness, concern, restlessness, a desire to make a difference, even greed, fear, and jealousy… a whole gamut of inner cravings.

Some even by mere curiosity. Many people might believe what I chose to do was taking an unnecessary risk. Though I might refer them to those brave people who decide to put personal risk aside in order to bring the world reality in pictures and stories from far off places, even at the expense of their own safety. What I chose to do was kindergarten stuff by comparison.

I spent a total of 14 hours with the two of them. Of course, that included breakfast the next morning where they are required to eat in 15 minutes, which by the way is quite a walk from the shelter. As is where they eat dinner I hear. Homeless do a lot of walking from place to place.

All I know when I walked up to the small crowd in front of the homeless shelter in Santa Rosa that night, carrying my guitar and smokes, was that I was curious. Curious about what homeless people were about… what they went through, their daily routine, how they felt about life… were they homeless by personal choice, personal consequence, or just a victim of circumstance?

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Saludos de la Prisión Federal Nellis ubicada en el norte de Las Vegas, Nevada.

Yo estoy pasando tres meses aquí por protestar en Fort Benning, Georgia el año pasado. La protesta se hizo para demandar que cierren la Escuela de las Américas ubicada ahí. Personas que asistieron y se recibieron de esa escuela son notorios por sus torturas y asasinatos de miles de personas en Latinoamérica, incluyendo personas como: el Arzobispo Oscar Romero de El Salvador; cuatro monjas estadouniensas quienes fueron violadas y matadas; siete Jesuitas y sus socias de la Universidad de El Salvador; y varios otros obispos, clero y líderes religiosos; y trabajadores sociales y de sindicatos en países de Latinoamérica.

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She wants to come home so bad. Her first foster mom said that Omani would cry for 3-4 hours.

She would cry for so long that she would just have to put her into a room and close the door, and let her cry herself to sleep, says Johnny Brown as he and his wife, Lisa describe their experience with Child Protective Services (CPS) taking their five year old daughter, Omani away from them.

I listen closely to the complicated background behind the difficult situation Johnny and Lisa Brown are facing. I am amazed by their calm demeanor, despite the stress and frustration swelling within them. The room that the three of us are sitting in is also calm. It is softly lit from the warm lamp standing in corner. Their eloquent voices are gentle, yet filled with strength and passion as they proceed to give further details about how their daughter was taken from them by CPS.

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Like many a fine North American poet, Jack Hirschman is a literary celebrity in Europe, and virtually unknown in the United States.

Friends of the Coalition On Homelessness will of course remember him from dozens of rallies, actions and fundraisers over the years. His words while uncompromisingly political transcend narrow dogma, and if even momentarily make one believe that the great step forward is, indeed, just around the corner.

Frontlines traces Hirschman’s poetic career from 1952 until 2001. His evolution from bohemian to revolutionary is never without the human beings at the bottom of the ladder. This is significant since he was politicized in a time when extremely poor people were dismissed as the “Lumpen Proletariat” — an un-organizable, corrupt body of poor people — by the mainstream Left. It is not only to Jack’s credit that he never upheld that kind of bigotry, but his celebration of the human at the bottom of the well is the driving force behind much of this impassioned work.

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Good Housing News For The Holidays:

Coalition On Homelessness and Homeless Prenatal Program Win Protections for Transitional Housing Tenants After two and a half years of negotiations, tenants living in Transitional Housing Programs funded by the Department of Human Services (D.H.S.) can now enjoy some basic protections against evictions.

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