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DESCRIPTION:With prayer and permission from First Nations land protectors, indigenous, 
 houseless, and formerly houseless families and elders reclaim a tiny 
 triangle of Mama Earth in occupied Yelamu (San Francisco) to build a 
 healing solution to homelessness.\n\nWhat: Prayer Ceremony & Press 
 Conference announcing HOMEfulness in Yelamu\n\nWhen: 1:00 PM, January 
 24\n\nWhere: 3990 Cesar Chavez Street, San Francisco, CA\n \n“We are 
 dying just trying to be housed,” said Walter, a houseless RoofLESS Radio 
 reporter for POOR Magazine and longtime San Francisco resident.\n\nAs one 
 of the coldest winters in the Bay Area and across the U.S. bears down, 
 homelessness among families and elders continues to rise. Meanwhile, the 
 primary “solution” offered by local, state, and federal governments 
 remains the same: the erasure of houseless bodies from public space through 
 violent police-led “sweeps”—a chilling, hygienic metaphor used to 
 justify the physical removal of human beings from the 
 environment.\n\n“When my mama and I were being police-harassed, swept, 
 and arrested for trying to sleep in doorways, bus shelters, and the back 
 seats of cars in San Francisco and Oakland, we dreamed of HOMEfulness,” 
 said tiny gray-garcia, co-founder of POOR Magazine and visionary co-founder 
 of Homefulness. “Homefulness is a dream born from a dire emergency. The 
 emergency is homelessness.”\n\nAfter years of surviving poverty and 
 homelessness, tiny and her mother Dee, a disabled artist, began 
 articulating the vision of Homefulness. That vision’s first iteration 
 emerged in 1996 with the launch of POOR Magazine, an intentionally glossy 
 literary magazine co-created by houseless artists, poets, and journalists 
 working out of community centers, shelter beds, and jail cells.\n\nThe 
 first issue—POOR Magazine: Homefulness—examined the root causes of 
 homelessness and uplifted solutions created by poor and houseless people 
 themselves.\n\nOver time, the magazine became a movement: a poor-, 
 houseless-, and Indigenous-led collective creating art, media, education, 
 advocacy, and real-world solutions by and for poor and houseless people 
 across the Bay Area. POOR Magazine launched a press, multiple books, 
 curricula, theater and poetry workshops, a radio station, and an online 
 magazine and video channel—while never letting go of the vision of 
 Homefulness.\n\nIn 2009, amid devastating budget cuts and renewed waves of 
 homelessness within the movement itself, POOR Magazine shifted toward a 
 radically different funding model rooted in interdependence, repair, and 
 reparations.\n\n“We tried HUD grants. We approached housing developers 
 and established nonprofits in San Francisco and Oakland,” said tiny. 
 “No one believed houseless people could create our own solutions. So we 
 had to do it ourselves.”\n\nThis prayerful shift led to the creation of 
 the Bank of ComeUnity Reparations, and Solidarity Family of POOR Magazine, 
 composed of housed or class-privileged allies. “I come from generational 
 wealth built through real estate here in the Bay Area, and I see how my 
 family’s story is directly connected to the housing crisis we face 
 today,” explains River, a Resource Generation member who graduated from 
 PeopleSkool and helped lead fundraising for Homefulness in Yelamu (San 
 Francisco). “I also see how my own liberation depends on projects like 
 Homefulness succeeding.”\n\nIn 2011, with a donation from a Solidarity 
 Family member, POOR Magazine’s houseless leaders were able to purchase a 
 small piece of Mama Earth in Deep East Oakland. Today, in 2026, 25 
 houseless youth, adults, and elders live homeFULLY—rent-free forever—in 
 healing housing at Homefulness Oakland. \n\n“In the time of my ancestors, 
 there was no concept of homelessness,” said Corrina Gould, Tribal Chair 
 of the Ohlone/Lisjan peoples. “Homelessness came with the commodification 
 of Mother Earth.”\n\nBefore building Homefulness Oakland, POOR Magazine 
 sought permission from First Nations people of the land, recognizing that 
 the United States is a settler-colonial project rooted in theft and 
 genocide. Those First Nations relatives now serve on Homefulness elder and 
 advisory councils. That same process of permission, prayer, and 
 relationship is guiding Homefulness in Yelamu.\n\nThere is now a small 
 triangle-shaped lot in Yelamu that POOR Magazine can begin the process of 
 spiritually and legally unSelling and building Homefulness—which will 
 include the Homefulness healing center, educational space, sliding scale 
 cafe/free market, and housing for over 30 houseless residents.\n\nBecause 
 POOR Magazine understands that Mama Earth is not a commodity, they worked 
 with revolutionary legal advocates at the Sustainable Economies Law Center 
 to establish the first-ever Liberation Easement, permanently removing 
 Homefulness land from speculation and profit. A similar Liberation Easement 
 is now being shaped in partnership with Ramaytush Ohlone leaders in 
 so-called San Francisco.\n\n“At the beginning of time, our Ancestors came 
 to know the Original Instructions from Creator. Among the most important is 
 that we are to care for the earth and all things upon it—especially one 
 another. It is time that we remember these covenants that have guided our 
 blessed lives and communities for countless generations. Let us remember 
 our commitments that allowed no hunger or homelessness in the bounty that 
 surrounds us, let us turn to HOMEfulness in our hearts,” said Gregg 
 Castro (t'rowt'raahl Salinan / rumsen & ramaytush Ohlone), Culture 
 Director, Association of Ramaytush Ohlone.\n\n“No one owns Mama 
 Earth—she is not a profit-making commodity,” said tiny at a statewide 
 action demanding “Sanctuaries, Not Sweeps” held one year ago in 
 response to escalating, deadly sweeps across California.\n\n“The dream of 
 bringing Homefulness to Yelamu is at the heart of my work and 
 organizing,” said Mohini Mookim, an attorney at the Sustainable Economies 
 Law Center and Resource Generation member who partnered with POOR Magazine 
 on this land liberation move. “I feel the immense wisdom and medicine 
 that POOR Magazine has to offer to our housing justice movements.” 
 \n\n“I got out with the clothes on my back,” said Monique M., POOR 
 Magazine RoofLESS Radio reporter and sweeps survivor. She was describing a 
 violent sweep where she lost her medicine, clothing, and the RV she was 
 sleeping in. Monique—like the majority of houseless residents in San 
 Francisco and Oakland—is a disabled elder who had nowhere to go after 
 surviving that sweep.\n\nSince the 2024 Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass 
 v. Johnson, houseless people have lost constitutional protections, leading 
 cities across California to dramatically increase sweeps—each one more 
 dangerous and deadly than the last.\n\nHOMEfulness is an answer to the 
 immediate emergency of homelessness. But it is also healing medicine—not 
 only for houseless elders, families, and disabled people, but for all of 
 us, housed and unhoused, who are in need of hope, repair, and 
 home.\n\nPlease join us on January 24 at 1pm at 3390 Cesar Chavez St, San 
 Francisco for a Prayer Ceremony & Press Conference announcing Homefulness 
 in Yelamu.\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/01/21/18883272.php
SUMMARY:Houseless People Create a Real Solution to Homelessness in San Francisco
LOCATION:3990 Cesar Chavez Street, San Francisco, CA
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/01/21/18883272.php
DTSTART:20260124T210000Z
DTEND:20260124T220000Z
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