AUSTIN ADVOCATE

Voter Power - to the Polls
By Joanne Zuhl

Sean, a registered voter when he was housed, wonders how he will get his ballot now that he’s not.

“Good question,” he says. “I’ll have to make arrangements.”

Arrangements include getting his voting address changed and trying to pull together information about the candidates without a television, radio, newspaper subscription or mail-outs. It’s hard to keep up on the issues, he says, but they are among the most important issues in his life right now.

“I think that it’s important that people on the low end of the financial spectrum develop an awareness that many of the services that they receive are dependent on voting and public input,” Sean says. “Many don’t realize that. They’re just looking for handouts.”

That’s not good enough, say voter registration activist now scouring the city for unregistered, disenfranchised voters. Dozens of organizations across the country and here in Portland are targeting low-income families, people experiencing homelessness, and ex-felons for voter registration.

“This is the first year that we’ve had a real emphasis on voter registration, education and mobilization, and that sort of came after the 2000 election,” said Katie Fisher with the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “Just the sheer numbers in the census showed us that low income people are voting at a much lower percentage than middle income and higher income citizens, which explains why many times we feel like the low-income population is on the defensive in trying to get services and programs that they want.”

The National Low Income Housing Coalition is among several clipboard-laden groups these days. From the National Homeless Coalition’s “You Don’t Need a Home to Vote” campaign, to the Faithful Citizenship Project, getting low-income, homeless and otherwise disenfranchised voters to the polls is the popular past-time of summer political activists. The national Community Voting Project is raising $2 million to help community-based organizations register poor and homeless people. Oregon Action is taking a four-pronged approach to reach young voters, homeless and low-income populations, and ex-felons. The Oregon Bus Project’s Voters Wanted program is registering patrons to Sisters of the Road Café and other homeless and low-income people on the streets.

The soccer moms of 2000 have been replaced by the impoverished, homeless, and disenfranchised of 2004.

“There’s a real movement toward using databases to figure out who hasn’t voted and trying to target them demographically,” Fisher said. “Analyzing all this data—who is the most likely to be mobilized according to the issues right now—everybody’s data is showing that low-income, minority voters are the ones that haven’t been voting.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, citizens with higher incomes are more likely to vote, with a 72 percent voting rate for families with annual incomes of $50,000 or more. That’s compared with only 38 percent of people voting in families that make $10,000 or less each year. Likewise, the percentage of unemployed people voting - not including those outside of the labor force such as retired people - was far lower than those who are employed. Voting statistics also favor homeowners over renters, with the duration of residence also contributing to a higher likelihood of voting.

Neither of these factors — income and residence — favor people experiencing poverty or homelessness, even though their survival is often more tied to public policy.

Former state legislator and local activist Joann Bowman is leading Oregon Action’s campaign to register, educate and mobilize low-income and homeless voters, as well as ex-felons, who often don’t know that they are eligible to vote. It’s Bowman’s dream to be able to command the attention of legislators in Salem with the power of the 30,000 new voters. And that voting power, Bowman believes, has the power to override the financial influence of those who write big checks.

“The people that we focus on” — the ex-felons, the low-income, the homeless — “that don’t have the power to write those big checks, if all they can do is vote, then they really don’t feel they have the same level of influence,” Bowman said. “My argument is that the more folks who are engaged, the more they participate, the more they educate, and actually vote, the more impact they will have on their policy makers. Let’s face it, (politicians) go to the communities where they got the votes.”

Bowman offers as an example the highly subsidized upper-class housing developments in Northwest Portland, compared to the lack of decent, affordable housing for low-income families in Northeast Portland. “You can absolutely tie that into who voted and who didn’t,” Bowman says. “The Northwest has an extremely higher voter turnout than Northeast. It’s because those people exercised their political right and some other folks didn’t.

“I keep telling people that the political climate could change overnight if low-income and homeless people actually bonded together and voted. Then those people could actually be representated by people running for office.”

Not surprisingly, one of the hot button issues for low-income families is Section 8 vouchers currently under threat of budget cuts and services reductions. According to Fisher, that issue, along with employment, the economy and outsourcing jobs calls many residents back to the polls. So does the war in Iraq. The makeup of the military personnel in Iraq, with recruitment appealing particularly to low-income individuals, is of specific concern, Fisher said. In general, the issues that low-income and homeless families care about are the same as those in middle- and upper-class families, but their opinions on them are often quite different.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition intends for its program to keep people plugged into the process, so that voting is reinforced by an awareness about the issues every election year. “I think part of the reason that they haven’t been voting is the sheer barriers that homeless and low-income people face to voting,” Fisher said, running down the obstacles. Homeless people don’t have a traditional dwelling address, which many people assume is necessary to register to vote, and particularly in a state such as Oregon, to receive a ballot in the mail. This also means they’re not on any mailing lists to receive campaign material.

“They’re not being targeted by the campaigns because they’re hard to find,” Fisher said.

And many people on the streets simply don’t know that they can vote. In Oregon, it is not necessary for a person to have a mailing address to register, even though one is asked for on the registration form. Many social service agencies and organizations allow their address to be used as a mailing address. For place of residence, people on the street can simply note the corner or general neighborhood. If a person on the street registers with one of the organizations soliciting voters, he or she does not need to mail in identification.

Low-income and homeless people are also more likely to lack a car, taking them out of the loop of the Department of Motor Vehicles where many people register to vote. Fisher said low-income families also tend to move and change addresses more because they are renters. On top of that, and perhaps because of it, there’s apathy.

“There seems to be a lot of disparagement and hopelessness among the homeless that what they do won’t make any difference anyway, so why bother,” Sean said. “It’s actually the exact opposite, but it’s a real common feeling.”

“You hear from a lot of low-income and a lot of young voters and a lot of the population targeted, saying, ‘I’m not going to vote because the politicians don’t listen to me anyway,’” Fisher said. “What I’m sensing now is people are now saying ‘I’m going to register to vote and make them listen to me.’”

In a small classroom at the Multnomah County juvenile detention center, Johnnie Gage with Oregon Action surveys the roomful of young adults about the issues that matter to them, and then gives them the lowdown.

“The fact is, if we’re not involved in the process, none of this means anything anyway. We will be held accountable to somebody else’s standards, somebody else will be determining what goes on in our lives, and the cycle goes on and on.”

The classroom is part of Oregon Action’s voter registration effort targeting young adults from the juvenile justice system to register people in their own communities. Among the youths, the issues of concern include police behavior in their community, school funding, the war in Iraq and the possibility of a draft. In a show of hands, about half responded that their parents voted.

The example Gage uses to bring home the power of voting is Measure 11, which stipulated mandatory sentencing for crimes, with little regard for mitigating or aggravating circumstances. It was essentially a flop, Gage says, but it’s still on the books, and it’s an example of policy that directly threatens the youths at this facility.

“That didn’t have to be,” Gage says. “So when the next ballot measure or something that impacts you comes about, either you stand by the wayside and let it happen or you learn how to mobilize folks and get your issue on the table, and how to frame a message. You learn some of those things that can empower you, and most of them seem to get it, that they can make a difference.”

Gage also draws on the mobilization efforts of Northeast communities after the Kendra James and James Perez shootings. Those are held as movements of success to bring attention to an issue, working within the system and forcing a movement of change. The voter registration process also acquaints youths with the potential in volunteering, something many of them considered, “something that rich white folks did so they didn’t feel guilty,” Gage said.

“As a vehicle, it has to do so much more than with getting folks registered to vote,” Gage said. “It gets them in a dialogue with folks they otherwise would have never come in contact with. So they begin to see things from a different perspective. It empowers them.”

For Tara Watson, the meaning behind voter registration hit home during a frustrating turn at making countless registration form copies at Kinkos.

“You kind of look at them as some kind of arbitrary piece of paper, but it’s so much more. For somebody, this is their segue to government.”

Watson makes the copies as an intern with the Oregon Bus Project’s Voters Wanted program, whose goal is to register 6,000 new voters with specific attention on the homeless, for the November elections. After learning that there were an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people homeless in Portland, Watson became even more driven.

“That’s a sizable number of people that are essentially disenfranchised, for a lot of reasons,” she said. “But they’re the people who are most affected by budget cuts and program reductions and such.”

They are part of the community of people who have specific needs and concerns, and if they don’t vote, those concerns don’t get on the agenda, Watson said.

“Voting is something everybody should do, regardless of their situation,” she says. “They would help prevent things like budget cuts, but I also think that it would add awareness to a community. I think a lot of people don’t understand what it’s like to be homeless because they’re not homeless. If anything, it would bring awareness and empathy to the typical American citizen. In America, we have the resources to make life better for everybody, but sometimes we don’t do that.”

Watson is quick to run down all the barriers, real or perceived, derailing potential voters, specifically the lack of knowledge about the process.

“We need outreach,” she says. “We need to tell people that you don’t need to have a house, you don’t need to have anything but a concern for your community to register to vote.”

To date, the Voters Wanted program in Portland has registered nearly 1,500 people who hadn’t been voting.

Taylour Johnson’s faith — religious and social — led her to commit the summer to register people experiencing homelessness. She’s an intern with the Faithful Citizen Project, a collaborative effort of the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, The National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice and the National Council of Churches.

“I was a senior in high school, and the presidential election occurred in 2000. I wasn’t 18 yet and it was a horrible feeling for me,” said Johnson. “Voting has become one of my favorite rights as a citizen of the United States. Voting is such an amazing thing for me, and it makes me feel just a little bit depressed that young people nowadays don’t look forward to it and that some people nowadays just don’t feel engaged with it. It’s bittersweet. I feel so proud to vote, and it saddens me to see so many people who don’t feel empowered, when they should. It really is a powerful thing.”

Taylour is a student at the University of Oregon, but she became keenly aware of the concerns and issues surrounding poverty and homelessness while in high school. “I realized how politics affect these people’s ability to live and survive,” Johnson said. “You look at the statistics and they show that people who don’t vote are low-income people, single mothers, homeless people - and the elected officials don’t have to be accountable to them because they aren’t registered voters and they don’t vote. “In the past three or four years, you can see how elected officials haven’t held themselves accountable to lower-income families and people.”

As an example, Johnson is quick to cite the recent Measure 28, which failed and resulted in cuts to social services that cater to the lower incomes. That includes public education, which particulary hurts lower-income families because they can’t buy a private alternative.

“They don’t cut the services that benefit the people who vote, they cut the services to the people who don’t vote, because they don’t vote.”

Talking with people on the street in the registration process, Johnson said she hears a lot of the “my vote doesn’t count,” or “people in my community don’t vote so what’s my vote going to do.”

“There’s just a lot of hate for the system, hate for the government, and viewing voting as giving in,” Johnson said. “They don’t feel very comfortable with it. It’s just like with any community that’s not represented as well by their political officers, like young people. They don’t hear about issues they want to hear about. They don’t always see public policy helping them.”

It wasn’t until the 2000 election that the general public became keenly aware of the disenfranchised population, and it’s no secret that the removal of names from the voting rolls in Florida is a motivating factor behind the move to reach citizens not being targeted by the campaigns.

“For me, when I turned 18, I just thought I absolutely had to vote,” said Joann Bowman. “But I grew up in a time when peope were being brutalized because they were trying to exercise their right to vote. So that left a lasting impact on me. I hope the 2000 election left the very same impact on a whole new generation of people.”

While some of the organizations directing voter registration programs aren’t nonpartisan, most of the registration programs do not take sides regarding candidates or issues. For Bowman and many others working on the effort, the education and empowerment to get involved is the real measure of success. Bowman says she has no illusions that she’ll wake up on Nov. 3 and everything will be absolutely wonderful, but she hopes that down the line more people will push for change, in and out of office.

“You have to have people inside the political system willing to push the envelope, but you also have to have people outside willing to push the envelope. When you have both, then you can move the system.”

For more information about voting laws in Multnomah County, call 503-988-3720 or visit the county elections office at 1040 SE Morrison St. in Portland.

Reprinted from Street Roots, Portland, Oregon, July 2004.

top

POOR, HOMELESS
BUT WE HAVE A VOICE, WE HAVE A VOTE
By Pamela Wynn

Low-income means living on the edge. My apartment rent creeps steadily upward while my name has stagnated on the waiting list for Section 8 housing over the last three years. A crisis and I could end up on the streets again. I've been there. It was traumatic and frightening. Daily countless others find themselves in similar devistating circumstances as the gap grows between those who have their basic human needs met and those who do not. In the 2004 elections, we have an opportunity to turn the tide with our votes.

In God's eyes we are all created equal, and yet, federal and state legislative bodies ignore this fact as they continue to cut vital programs for housing, health care, child welfare and education. The poor are being cast aside. Over time, the vote has been denied to the poor and people of color in this country by the enactment of laws requiring land ownership, literacy, and most recently, a permanent address. Many continue to be silenced. According to our Declaration of Independence, governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed." As citizens of this country, the government's powers are derived from you and me. When we exercise our right to vote, we refuse to consent to a government that supports unequal treatment of its citizens.

In the Gettysbuerg Address in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared that, "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth or freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." You and I are the people to which this government must answer. It is our duty to hold our government and ourselves accountable to acting in the manner of a compassionate, caring nation that does not perish from the earth. We can do this in part with our vote.

For many years, I didn't vote. I can't say that my one vote would have made a difference in any particular political race. The fact remains, however, that I didn't take advantage of the one tool most readily available to me in making my voice heard by my government. For the last twenty years, I continue to live on the edge, but I vote, even when the odds are against the candidate of my choice, even when it feels pointless. Because I am poor, I sometimes feel as if nothing I have to say or can do is of any consequence in this society. For that reason alone, it is imperative that I vote, for when I vote, I choose hope over despair. When I vote, I am active instead of passive. We need to participate in the political process. politics in and of itself is not a bad thing. It is the way we order ourselves as a sosciety. We must elect politicians willing to work towards an equitable distribution of resources.

Vote - neither you nor I can change the system alone. Together we can!

Pamela Wynn resides in New Brighton, Minnesota.

top

Homeless Across America
It’s possible: $3 starts up a construction company
By Jo Meeks

With some creativity, a little teamwork and a few bucks, more homeless people could be making a living wage.

While passing through Oklahoma City, Oklahoma recently, Mike showed me how it can be done with his $3 construction company.

Homeless, but with 25 years experience in construction, Mike collaborated with Pastor Sandy when she was developing her downtown outreach ministry to people on the street. He had the skills—helping her refurbish a building she used for the ministry—and initiative. That motivated Sandy to do a few simple things to set him on the road to employment. She made an eye-catching color flyer off her personal computer, charged him less than $3 for copies, and let him use the ministry’s phone number as a contact.

The flyers went up, the calls came in, and the money is still adding up. Not only has Mike billed thousands of dollars in jobs, he has also given other homeless men work.

Mike’s flyer offers the following services which don’t require licensing fees or permits: vinyl siding, painting, roofing, sheetrock, lawn maintenance, and general handiwork. Mike supplies the labor; his clients supply any required materials. He has a portfolio of before and after photos from his jobs.

There are plenty of people on the streets with skills and the desire to work. Do you have a computer and a phone number? That may be all a homeless person needs to start earning money and becoming financially independent.

Jo Meeks is a homeless advocate who travels nationwide dispensing friendship, respect and dignity to people on the streets. She can be reached at: aheartforthehomeless@yahoo.com

top

Praise Him With Cymbals
Psalm 149:150
Story by Troy England Evitt
Illustration by Ashely Holt

Uncle Frank

Uncle Frank could barley contain his extasy as he read the ingredients of his frozen entree. When he got to "partially hydrated apple pectin", he lept from his chair, ran upstairs to the second story veranda and began to rave.

"Blessed are the children of the TV dinner generation! Blessed are they which partake of partially hydrated apple pectin! Yay, verily they shall be redeemed," he shouted to no one in particular.

As with St. Francis of Assasi, birds lighted on his fingers and shoulders as he stood on the veranda in his t-shirt and boxer shorts. He swallowed air for several minutes and was then able to belch, "The Lord provides", just as Mrs. Hemly pushed her baby carriage by. The child began screaming at Uncle Frank's belched pronouncement.

"You horrible freak!" began Mrs. Hemly. "Horrible, half-naked, bird-covered, burping, monkey-man freak!"

Uncle Frank ignored the young mother's verbal barrage and said, "May your screaming infant be richly blessed."

At that very moment, a large truck careened around the corner, its brakes malfunctioning, and struck mother and child, killing both instantly. Uncle Frank was called away from the scene of horror by the buzz of the egg timer, heralding the news that his TV dinner was ready for consumption.

"Heabonie Fadder," sad Frank, who never prayed over food wearing his dentures as he considered addressing God with false teeth as bad as lying. "Bleff thith thy bounty ath I rethive the addathiths and preservatiths of the almighty. Amen."

Uncle Frank was a diagnosed schizophrenic whose delusions were generally para-religious in nature. He had, over the years, attempted to join several monastic orders but was too unstable to pursue a life of true piety.

After dinner, he held his usual "Bible study", which consisted of reading the good book to a group of mechanical, cymbol-bashing monkeys while drenched in flour and nude. He concluded the services by dialing phone numbers at random and singing "happy birthday" to the parties on the other end as they repeatedly protested that he'd reached the wrong number.

Amen.

top

tonbo

top

Thoughts of a Homeless Writer
Jeremiah Hurta

I am no longer than a pen that could never go un-noticed
As a beauty could ever completely go so much deeper
Receiving and taking in those pains of those in denial
For to release and learn from that power to which we hide
For why could I be subjected to that without mercy, lost-
As to witness and burn, beyond such Earthly foolery-
To live without living and dying without living the truth
As I am that, who could never speak of visions, illusions
For what to share, to witness what is to become of us
Or take that to which others would, could only mock in return
For I could only know that light to which I must carry, but-
I will touch so many for now and the rest of eternity….

top

A Sound upon the Streets
Jeremiah Hurta

Sounds coming not from only here, but everywhere-
Sounds within my worn and tired mind, searching
Sounds entering each subliminal thought, pitching-
Sounds of overtures of hearts beating out of rhythm
Sounds of learning, feeling, experiencing that of a higher degree
Sounds so little, turning my head, my thoughts into that of pain
Sounds of deceit upon a world so much filled by translucent beams
Sounds leading us into those of lies to which entrap spirits of guilt
Sounds of our spirit now passed into bodies slowly dying into night
Sounds, as we shall all soon awaken within those fears of the alleyway
Sounds upon that street to which marks my Homeland Prison….

top

CONNECT THE DOTS, WOULD YOU?

"We didn't connect the dots." F.B.I. responding to the recent furor.

Enron and janjaweed both plunder for the greed.

Workplace violence, teenage shooters same as war for selfish need

Connect the dots, would you?

Buy a house, pay the bills, ideals and morals say we have to.

Some will rise honest and fair; some will lie, cheat, steal, and kill;
some will learn to hate the rich, marking them as terrorists.

Educated making wealth, targets of the pol pot syndrome.

The rich play God behind religion, assassinating any questions.

Public safety and general order must not come at the expense of truth.

Child labor in friendly countries nodded and winked at by businessmen.