Category Archives: Homelessness

activism, Anarchist, General, Homelessness, Immigration, Mutual Aid, Police, repression, Washington DC

Strengthening Resistance To DC Cop Surge Through Mutual Aid + Manufacturing Consent in Greece

ground-level photo of ATF with a dog, FBI in tactical gear in a park in Washington DC
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This week, we’re featuring an interview with Shannon, one half of the mutual aid project operating in Washington DC known as Remora House. For the hour we talk about Remora House, the impact on houseless and non-citizen communities has been impacted by the Trump Administration’s crack down and sending in of troops to DC and some ideas on strengthening the resistance as the feds and national guard are deployed into our neighborhoods to break up our communities and our resolve

Links from Shannon:

Links from Sima Lee:

Then you’ll hear Parias of Athens from the June 2025 episode of B(A)DNews podcast. It’s a chat with participants in a project called Research Critique about the distraction of the Greek public from media coverage of the deadly Tempi train disaster by a heavy dose of culture war discourse about lawlessness on University campuses and social decay. The rail accident was caused by negligence and understaffing under the neoliberal New Democracy regime, killing 57 and injuring nearly 200 and led to heated demonstrations for months more than a year to follow. You can hear the full interview by finding B(A)D News #92 on the website a-radio-network.org or in our shownotes.

Announcement

Update on T. Hoxha Hunger Strike

In a brief update to last week’s announcement of Casey Goonan’s solidarity hunger strike with T. Hoxha in the UK of the Filton24. Casey has ended their participation after 12 days, but as T. Hoxha continues, she has been joined by the anarchist prisoner we spoke to a few episodes ago, Malik Muhammad (currently held in the Oregon prison system). As of Sunday September 7th, Casey is on their 11th day of hunger strike and T. Hoxha is on her 28th against the conditions of her confinement. You can read more and find how you can offer support at https://calla.substack.com/p/international-hunger-strike-grows

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Featured Track:

  • March On la Migra by Guerrillaton from Made in Mexico
activism, Appalachia, Asheville, California, community, Environment, Homelessness, Housing, Hurricane Helene, North Carolina, Oakland, Rural Organizing And Resilience, Transcribed, United States, zine

Homeless Organizing in Oakland and Rural Relief After Helene

Homeless Organizing in Oakland and Rural Relief After Helene

Collage of black and white photo of man holding sign to a tent reading "Oakland Homeless Union" + banner reading "Y'all Means all - Rural Organizing and Resilience" on a realtree background
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This week on the show we’re featuring two inteviews. First up, you’ll hear from Freeway, a houseless activist in Oakland, CA, about the recent series of sweeps of homeless being promoted by Governor Gavin Newsom. Freeway has been a member of Wood Street Commons and is now a member of Oakland Homeless Union (IG or donate).

Then, Janet of Rural Organizing and Resilience (IG or donate) in Madison County, speaks about post-Hurricane Helene organizing and disaster preparedness in the mountains of Western North Carolina. More and links to be added soon.

Other groups mentioned by Janet of ROAR include:

Announcement

Phone Zap for Buncombe County Jail

Members of the Asheville Community Bail Fund have announced a phone zap concerning conditions in the Buncombe County Detention Facility where reports are coming out of a lack of clean water, irregular bathroom breaks and other lack of access are leading to calls for those in the jail to be released or transferred to a facility with more humane conditions.

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Featured Track:

  • I Wanna Know If It’s Good To You by Funkadellic from Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow

Continue reading Homeless Organizing in Oakland and Rural Relief After Helene →

activism, Asheville, Capitalism, community, General, Homelessness, Law, Police, Transcribed, zine

“Clean For Who? Safe For Who?”: Asheville Business Improvement District

“Clean For Who? Safe For Who?”: Asheville Business Improvement District

Anti-Business Improvement District flyer from Asheville “Show up to City Council on May 14th for the first of two votes on the proposed B.I.D. Bring a friend! B.I.Ds are bad for • Democracy • Business • Residents Don't take the CRAP NO AVL BID Tell City Council SPEAK UP! MAY 14TH 5PM CITY HALL”
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We sat down with three local activists to talk about the proposed Asheville Business Improvement District, a model of service provision using public funding to increase policing in downtown by an unelected and unaccountable body of largely business and property owners. For the hour, Grace, Madison and Elliot talk about attempts to ram the BID through public process, some of the businesses and individuals behind it, how bids have panned out in other cities around the country and what space there is left to oppose this further privatization of public space in Asheville.

We didn’t mention it here, but there have also been rumblings of the BID model, a version of which was fought and never funded in 2012, being applied to other parts of Asheville, for example West Asheville. You can find more information and ways to get involved with folks organizing against the Business Improvement District at AshevilleBID.com and on Instagram at @NoAVLBid. This is our show for the week of May 12th.

As a quick note, there are a few acronyms frequently used in this conversation. One is RFP, which stands for Request for Proposals and is a process of contracting out an element of a project. Another acronym is ADA, in this case Asheville Downtown Association which is an independent pressure group made up of individuals, business and property owners. Not to be confused with the Asheville Downtown Commission, which was created by the City Council and contains appointed representatives from the ADA, city council, Buncombe County Board of Commissioners and few other community members including business owners.

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Featured Tracks:

  • Asheville BID song (unknown artist)
  • Moving Through The Streets (instrumental)

Continue reading “Clean For Who? Safe For Who?”: Asheville Business Improvement District →

abolition, activism, Anarchist, Asheville, General, Homelessness, Neoliberalism, Police, Politics, Protest, repression, Transcribed, zine

Felony Littering Trials Under Way in Asheville

Felony Littering Trials Under Way in Asheville

Hand painting "Everyone Deserves A Place" on a board with white paint. Photo by Elliot Patterson of Asheville Free Press
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This week: a chat with Pip, a defendant in, and Grace, a supporter of, the Aston Park Defendants case which led to the arrest of 16 people, including 2 journalists for the Asheville Blade, many facing various charges of felony littering and conspiracy to felony litter. You can read some background to this in the words fo the Sanctuary Park defendants at AVLSolidarity.NoBlogs.Org by clicking the “Our Story” link and there’s a bunch more there, including how to support the defendants monetarily. We spend the hour talking about gentrification, police repression, mutual aid and resistance in this small, “progressive” mountain town in the US south. Trials begin April 10, 2023.

Other ASP & adjacent links:

Some past shows that touch on this week’s topic include:

Continue reading Felony Littering Trials Under Way in Asheville →

activism, Albuquerque, Certain Days, community, Homelessness, Housing, Josh Davidson, Political Prisoner, Transcribed, zine

Heater Blocs and Political Prisoners

Heater Blocs and Political Prisoners

This week on The Final Straw we have 4 whopping segments, tidbits in length but whopping in importance.

"TFSR 11-13-22 | Heater Blocs & Political Prisoners" featuring a photo of a diy alcohol heater & the logo for "Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar"
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First up, you’ll hear from Zachariah Jazz (@BlackariahJazz161 on twitter), who distributes alcohol jet heaters with ABQHeaterBloc in so-called Albuquerque, NM, to talk about their efforts to help keep folks living on the streets safer from the elements through mutual aid. [ 00:02:08 – 00:18:56 ]

Then, Tom of Heater Bloc Chicago talks about the construction of these devices, based on shared design.

After that, you’ll hear Josh of the Certain Days Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar collective to talk about this year’s edition and briefly update listeners on the situations of Oso Blanco & Eric King, two anarchist political prisoners Josh does support work for and works on projects with. [ 00:37:42 – 00:50:28 ]

Finally, Sean Swain’s weekly segment! [ 00:51:31 – 00:58:09 ]

Continue reading Heater Blocs and Political Prisoners →