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published a profile on Gonzales, a guard in ILWU Local 26, and his group’s work feeding and connecting homeless people to resources. I was aware of his effort when Random Lengths published “Here Comes Rolling Thunder” this past June. The profile featured Nora Vela and the San Pedro-based Helping the Homeless in Need. Though the groups initially shared the same name, their efforts were independently grown. Gonzales wasn’t happy that the tiny homes controversy this past July took over the debate on how to address homelessness in the Harbor Area. He noted that after a Sept. 3 homeless forum at the Warner Grand Theatre, homeless people became targets of increased sweeps with physical attacks and a general free-forall vilification of the homeless on social media. Many homeless people at their regular haunts were cleared out, including some at a longstanding encampment near the Longshore Dispatch Hall in Wilmington. “It’s my opinion that the forum put the entire Harbor Area homeless population into exile,” Gonzales [See Heart, page 4]
Obama Says ‘No’ to Keystone XL Environmentalists Win Key Battle By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor On Nov. 6, six years after it was assumed to be a “done deal,” President Barack Obama’s administration canceled the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would have tapped into the Athabasca Oil Sands of Canada, generating 181 million metric tons of carbon emissions every year—more than 37.7 million cars or 51 coal plants. The pipeline had been called a “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” It now appears possible that bomb may never go off, thanks largely to an unprecedented grassroots campaign, which 350.org helped coordinate, publicize and support. “The issue of Keystone was kind of a no-brainer,” Sen. Bernie Sanders told MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow at the Democrat’s presidential forum later that day. “It never made sense to me from day one, as to why you would extract and transport some of the dirtiest fuel on this planet…. So I said ‘no’ to the Keystone on day one. I said ‘yes’ [See Keystone, page 8]
November 12 - 25, 2015
ur present discourse on homelessness and how to address it has many problems. But the most glaring parts of that discourse make distinctions between the deserving and undeserving poor, and the classification of homeless advocates as “bleeding hearts.” Local social media pages are filled with posts by amateur gumshoe detectives. Armed with smartphones and snacks, they spend evenings staked out in their vehicles on dark corners tracking and filming the movements of homeless encampments, serial panhandlers and suspected bike thieves. Some do their part by holding up signs reminding motorists to “give a hand up, not a hand out”— ironically on the same street corner where the San Pedro Neighbors for Peace and Justice demonstrators had maintained their vigil against the Iraq war for all those years. Others, like David Gonzales and Nikki Fabela, feed the hungry and provide them with needed supplies in Wilmington. The Dispatcher, the ILWU newspaper, recently
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Volunteers help David Gonzales (second to right) and his Andrew give a helping hand to homeless people in Wilmington. Photo by Slobodan Dimitrov.
Port Truckers Vow to Keep the Pressure On p. 3 Community Artists Respond to Aftermath of SP Fire p. 3 Angels Gate Cultural Center Celebrates 30th Anniversary p. 13
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