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Resist Criminalization of Mental Illness Photo

by salim (salim [at] mashriq.org)
photo of today's demo and direct action
homeless_resist.jpg
video will be posted tomorrow morning
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by Coalition on Homelessness
ARTIST AND ACTIVIST COMMUNITIES RESPONDING TO SAN FRANCISCO
POLICYMAKERS' CONTINUED INDIFFERENCE TO THOUSANDS OF HOMELESS DEATHS

WHY:
TO RAISE PUBLIC AWARENESS THAT CHARITY CANNOT SOLVE HOMELESSNESS

WHEN:
12:00 PM THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2000

WHERE:
HOUSING RIGHTS COMMITTEE OF SAN FRANCISCO,
427 SOUTH VAN NESS AVENUE (BETWEEN 15th & 16th Sts.)

[San Francisco, CA] 12/21/2000 –- At noon Thursday, December 21st, ARTISTS
AGAINST HOMELESS DEATHS –- an affinity group of artists, housing and poverty
advocates, and other social justice and human rights activists –- will hold
a press conference in front of the offices of the Housing Rights Committee
in SF's Mission District. Representatives of the group will be on hand to
talk to the media about their motives in undertaking the task of creating
and "wheatpasting" 183 life-sized numbered silhouette posters in various
locations throughout the city. Each of the 6'x3' posters represents a
homeless person who died on San Francisco's streets during the year 1999,
the highest number of these tragic and needless deaths recorded to date.

ARTISTS AGAINST HOMELESS DEATHS is a collaborative effort aiming to raise
the people of San Francisco's awareness of the omitted factors contributing
to each passing year's increasing total of homeless deaths. In the words of
one member, "50 weeks out of every year poor and homeless people are
demonized by business improvement interests and sensationalist media; and
then criminalized at the hands of politicians and law enforcement agencies.
The holiday season provides these same gangsters with a yearly opportunity
for public spectacles of hollow charity and false sentiment. We find this
charade to be cynical and offensive."

The group shares a common conviction that the tragic absurdity of 183 people
dying on the streets in 1999 of neglect -- in the most expensive housing
market in the world's most dominant superpower during an unprecedented
economic boom -- can no longer be ignored. Fully recognizing the obvious
moral, social and legal arguments to condemn an indifferent, market-driven
government for permitting this disgrace to continue in San Francisco, as
well as in other cities across the U.S., ARTISTS AGAINST HOMELESS DEATHS
have chosen to avoid the pitfalls of preaching or moralizing by instead
finding solidarity and expression through anonymous artistic direct action.

"Budge," the anonymous artist/human rights activist who first envisioned the
demonstration art project, later organized production and execution of the
poster project. He says he "wanted the posters to be this stark, singular
image, this vacuum, a negative space where a person once stood but is now
vacant… to evoke a sense that they were among us and now they are gone."

The editor of the Coalition on Homelessness' STREET SHEET, Chance Martin,
co-authored 1999's annual San Francisco Homeless Deaths Report with
representatives from the Dept. of Public Health. "Documenting the growing
number of senseless and avoidable deaths among homeless people provides the
Coalition with a baseline to guide our continued advocacy. The causes and
circumstances of homeless peoples' deaths teach us all the many places where
critical gaps and lack of coordination in our public health system and
homeless services wind up costing homeless men, women and children their
most basic human right. Anything we can do to stop the number of these
deaths from rising –- or, more hopefully, reduce them -- can only benefit
the quality of life for every poor and homeless person in San Francisco."


(An interfaith memorial service for homeless people who died in San
Francisco during the year 2000 will take place later December 21, at 5:30 PM
in Civic Center directly across Polk St. from City Hall. The Reverend Glenda
Hope of Network Ministries will lead the service. Bring a candle and a
friend.)
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