From: michael hubman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:28:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [0z-kidzz] Fw: Greetings from Skid Row Vol.2 No.1
Watercorps An Update Hello My name is Michael Hubman. I am a human rights and homeless rights activist. In October 2006 I founded Watercorps a charity. At Watercorps we provide bulk drinking water to the homeless people of Skid Row Los Angeles. The ultimate act of giving thirsty people water is the most rewarding thing that I do with my life. With out asking for it I have become known as Waterman, to my clients in Skid Row Los Angeles. Watercorps has made at least weekly deliveries of water from the very beginning, never missing a week. When the weather turns hot Watercorps adds extra delivery days. When the forecast temperature for core city Los Angeles reaches 90 degrees F. we pull out all the stops and deliver water until we just can't do it anymore. Starting in the summer of 2007 with the help of a generous cold storage company we began to chill and freeze the water before giving it to our clients on hot days. The chilled and frozen water was a big hit with the men and women living on the sidewalks of Skid Row Los Angeles. This last May Los Angeles had it's first heat wave of 2008. On Friday May 12, 2008 we were able to make the extra effort. We bought 12 flats of 36 each (432), 1/2 liter bottles, and 16 one gallon bottles. We loaded them onto two pallets and chilled them in the cold storage. When I first began Watercorps I decided to concentrate my efforts in a specific service area. Until recently Skid Row Los Angeles did not have a defined geographic boundaries. In response to police harassment, and there not being enough shelter beds to go around the ACLU sued the city and got a judgment. This judgment provided for a zone where people could legally sit or lay on the sidewalk between the hours of 9:00 PM and 6:00 AM within a geographic boundary. This injunction has since been extended city wide, but for better or worse classic Skid Row Los Angeles has been defined as Third Street (North). Central Avenue (East) Seventh Street (South) and Los Angeles Street (West). San Pedro Street further divides Classic Skid Row into two pieces East and West. Most of the major missions are on the west side. When I started Watercorps it was evident to me that I should concentrate on the eastern half of Classic Skid Row and hope that the people on the western half were getting enough water from the the major missions. I have since learned that Watercorps' service area east of San Pedro Street is commonly known as the bottoms. That Friday May 12, I delivered a good deal of chilled water in the bottoms. I had allot of chilled water left over. Instead of letting it warm up I drove across San Pedro Street on Fifth Street and turned left on San Julian Street. This is the largest concentration of homeless people around, hundreds of people on both sides of the street and only single occupancy hotels and missions on each side. I stopped my vehicle and went around to the back, hundreds of hands reaching for a cold bottle of water. As soon as Watercorps can increase output and saturate the bottoms with drinking water the next stop is the west side of Classic Skid Row Los Angeles. These sidewalk dwellers need drinking water every bit as much. Also nobody should be fooled into thinking that Classic Skid Row is the extent of homelessness in Los Angeles. It is only the epicenter. There are an estimated 75,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County with about half of these in the city proper. Watercorps helps promote a sense of community by giving a gallon of water and some cups to a group of clients to share with each other. Sense of community is great, but what is even more gratifying, when we have enough water, is to give a whole gallon to every one who wants one. Watercorps focuses it's efforts on water and hydration, however I am asked for food all of the time, very sad. Many of our clients are very old and infirm many are in wheelchairs often with there hospital tags still around there wrists. Allot of these people are just innocent simple folks who have nothing, and have no place to go. Of the people I get to know personally I watch as they burn there wick at what seems like four times the usual rate. Since founding Watercorps, a charity I have become a committed human rights and homeless rights activist. I began working with other human and homeless rights activists, Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) in particular. I have participated in several actions with my human rights and homeless rights activist partners, marches demonstrations at City Hall, Police Station, Police Commission and the courthouse. I have also attended many meetings and organizing conferences. One of our most important goals is continuing opposition to, and the abolition of Safer Cities Initiative. This is Los Angeles' gentrification effort. Safer Cities fields a special task force of police to harass and criminalize the homeless people who have chosen to make Skid Row Los Angeles there home. This is a five million dollar a year project fielding an enhanced police presence to police just fifty city blocks. Safer Cities Initiative issues more nuisance citations like sitting on the sidewalk and j-walking on the homeless of Skid Row Los Angeles then the rest of the city combined about 15,000. As with most of the homeless people, they do not have the money or the focus to deal with these citations. The failure to appear becomes a warrant and the homeless are now housed in the county jail, at great expense and waste of resources. When they get out it is usually with court supervision (probation). This is only the beginning of the criminal justice nightmare for the homeless. The police use probation to turn these poor people into third class citizens. Typically police will roll up on a homeless person and ask if they are on parole or probation. If the answer is yes they are handcuffed and stood up against the wall, to be interviewed with there nose to the wall and there back to the cop. Often the cuffs are removed and they are left standing there while the police move on to another homeless person. Many of us would like to think that we would not put up with this kind of thing in our neighborhood. I have made a commitment to deliver an at least monthly human and rights and homeless rights presentation to the public comments forum of the Los Angeles City Council. I hope to publish these short presentations in future editions of this letter. I have just delivered my third monthly general human rights and homeless rights presentation for a total of five times before the Los Angeles City Council. I started the Independent Charities Union, which is attempting to organize other small charities and clients in order to give us strong representation when dealing with large established charities and government, more on that later. In the next letter I will introduce the Watercorps volunteers and network partners To my Rainbow Family friends, I look forward too seeing you this year in Wyoming. Watercorps A Short History First Published July 3, 2007 I have taken great interest in providing drinking water to people in need. For the last eight years I have made drinking water issues the focus of my participation with the Rainbow Family. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Family This is the story of Watercorps, where we provide bulk drinking water to the homeless people of the Skid Row district of Los Angeles. In February of 2006 I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in a hurricane Katrina relief effort at Emergency Communities / Made With Love Kitchen in Saint Bernards Parish Louisiana. While in the area I got to witness the heroic efforts of the Common Ground Collective in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans Louisiana. That spring / summer I organized a water transport effort at the Rainbow Family gathering of the tribes in Colorado, under the banner of Rainbow Water Corps. This effort brought over 400 gallons of drinking water into the gathering. Once the water had been consumed the empty gallon plastic bottles were refilled with Rainbow filtered water. Upon returning from Colorado I felt encouraged to take a step towards advancing my passion for drinking water issues along a career path. I looked at examples of many programs that brought clean safe drinking water to people in need. I believe that is one of humanities most pressing needs. I was especially informed by a study by the World Health Organization titled Drinking Water Response To The Indian Ocean Tsunami. http://www.who.int/household_water/research/DW_response_tsunami.pdf After much study and sole searching I came to the conclusion that I would found a charity devoted to engaging in relief and development water issues. Having decided to found the above-mentioned charity I was faced with a new dilemma, where to begin. I started with some definitions. I defined relief water as the drinking water response to a natural or man-made disaster. I defined development water as a response to the drinking water issues of people who do not have access to safe clean drinking water even on a good day. A relief response would entail preparing my new and untested organization for a relief response to an unknown disaster, sometime in the future. A development approach would most likely entail an international response, an equally daunting prospect. Starting up such a charitable organization from scratch was challenging to say the least. In a moment of clarity it came to me. Perhaps I should start closer to home. What about a program to bring drinking water to the homeless people of skid row in Los Angeles? My longtime girlfriend Dorie owns a bridal shop and I have made many trips to the fashion district of Los Angeles. On these trips I have long observed the humanitarian disaster that is the fashion districts close neighbor Skid Row. On some of my visits downtown I would venture into Skid Row to observe the lives of the people who literally inhabit the sidewalks of this area. Skid row is a district of downtown Los Angeles that has perhaps the largest concentration of homeless people in the nation. Its history goes back in living memory as the go to place for homelessness. I will offer more later on the history and culture of Skid Row and the people who live there. For now I will offer perhaps a simplistic explanation of how Skid Row developed. A long time ago, the first rescue mission opened to serve the homeless population of inter city Los Angeles. The homeless people responded by taking advantage of the rescue missions services. More missions opened and more homeless came I concluded that by starting up a drinking water project serving the homeless people of Skid Row Los Angeles, I would be addressing elements of both relief and development water. Applying just do it logic, on October 15th of 2006 Watercorps became operational. I loaded 24 one gallon plastic bottles of filtered drinking water into my car and headed for Skid Row. I parked on the east side of San Pedro Street just short of 6th Street. I got out, and with a stack of 16 ounce paper cups in one hand and a gallon plastic bottle of filtered drinking water in the other, I walked up to my first client and said; Thirsty? Like a drink? There are many charities providing food clothing and other comfort items to the homeless people of Skid Row. However the specialty of drinking water distribution was not being done. Watercorps was a hit right away. The hot streets of Skid Row are a very dry place. There is no public place besides one drinking fountain each in two small parks in an area of fifty city blocks where a person can get a drink of water. I made a commitment right away to do a water distribution run at least once a week I have faithfully kept that commitment without fail. The 16-ounce paper drinking cups quickly gave way to giving each client a one-gallon bottle of water. Distribution practices improved, and gallon per run counts went up from 24, 36, 48 and finally 96-gallon runs. Watercorps has received donated new one-gallon plastic water bottles, and we are able to filter Los Angeles tap water for taste. We still buy bottled water. As part of the Watercorps mission I have become a homeless, human rights and Skid Row activist. Even in winter the sidewalks of Skid Row can be a very hot and dry place. It didnt take long to project the needs of Watercorps clients from winter into the hot days of summer. All through the spring Watercorps has been making preparations for ramping up the water distribution program, in order to make a real difference when the hot days of summer come around. Apart from soliciting industry for in kind donations and the casual pitch to my friends and associates, this is the first mass outreach for Watercorps. I will endeavor to make updates on a regular basis, under the subject line Greetings From Skid Row. To my rainbow friends, the national gathering of the tribes 2007 in Arkansas will be the first national gathering I will miss since I started in 2000. I will be here in Los Angeles doing the good work. I will be at the gathering in spirit. Thank you all for listening, Michael Hubman Founder Watercorps My contact information is as follows: E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mail: Michael Hubman Watercorps 4333 Santee Pl. Riverside CA 92504 Telephone: 714 746-1203 Needs List is as follows: Local Volunteers Web / E-Mail help Bottled water fob. Los Angeles One gallon plastic bottles fob Los Angeles Cold Storage Space / Warehouse space in Los Angeles Pick Up Truck Cash Donations Footnotes i http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Family ii http://www.who.int/household_water/research/DW_response_tsunami.pdf - - - LOVE IS THE ANSWER 0z. newz letter= http://www.geocities.com/rubyslippers42047/index.html 0z. calmunity home page= http://www.geocities.com/rubyslippers42047/ozmain.html NACHOMMA`s= http://www.geocities.com/rubyslippers42047/NACHOMOMMASMAIN.html ### ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
