New to sweep support in Corvallis? Here’s what to expect. By Stop The Sweeps Corvallis Whats this all about? This zine is intended to be a guild for people living in Corvallis who want to show up for unhoused people during sweeps, but are maybe nervous about doing so or unsure how to. There are so many resources out there for what this looks like in large urban areas, but relatively few for somewhere similar in size and local politics to Corvallis. Hopefully this serves to give people an idea of what sweeps look like here, and ideas about what tactics can be useful in supporting the unhoused people experiencing them. It is our hope that in reading this zine people will be empowered to help and to take away some of the fear that comes with inexperience. We are a group operating locally that has been providing different levels of support to the unhoused people in our community for a little over two years now. We’re made up of college students, young working class people, and radicals of different stripes. Many of the practices and lessons in this zine were found by trial and error, and continually readjusting based on what worked for us and what didn’t. It is not our hope that you see this and specifically join our group, though you're certainly welcome to reach out to us. But, rather that this zine gives you the tools to be comfortable assisting unhoused people during sweeps and building your own inner circle of people who wish to help. What started with a group chat of people tired of seeing sweeps unopposed and the people experiencing them unsupported has turned into a group of everyday people who are actively seeking to build a better world. One where we all are empowered to offer what we can to help those around us and accept help when we need it. One where apathy and feelings of powerlessness are replaced by community care and the knowledge that together we can do just about anything. What started off as a one off sweep support has grown into twice a week meal and supply distribution, phone plan support, continued sweep support, and a building of community between housed and unhoused people that is mutually beneficial. We believe that there are other people in Corvallis who genuinely care, but don’t know how to put it into practice. If we are one group of people who have been able to do this just imagine what 3 groups, 5 groups , 10 groups, and so on could accomplish. A better future is worth fighting for but that fight needs to be taken offline and put into practice in ways that are immediately impactful. This is not the only way, but hopefully in reading this you will realize how capable we all are of changing the world around us both in the short and long term. What is a sweep? A sweep is the forced eviction of unhoused people via the state or private property owners. Typically you will know a sweep is happening when you see a posting like the one below. They have the location, the date of the posting, when the evictions will take place, and what agency is conducting them Sweeps are inherently violent because they are forcibly displacing people who already don’t have a house to stay in, often without giving alternatives to the people being displaced. Many times the city or other entity conducting them will tell the public a sweep is being done to “clean up” or “beautify” an area. However, they are strictly about scattering and hiding unhoused people out of view of the public. If the issue were truly about cleaning up cities would focus on ways to prevent homelessness, or at the very least providing accessible ways for people to clean up after themselves, in the first place. They would offer no-barrier places to stay that don’t dehumanize unhoused people, and address the systemic poverty that leads people to be unhoused in the first place. They would offer garbage services and sanitization stations to people living in parks. They would make existing services actually accessible to people. Even when the city claims people are being displaced to “beautify” a park these “beautification” projects often come to an end the second people have been displaced. All around town are piles of gravel the city claimed would be used to pave an area and make it less of a mud pit, such as the pioneer park parking lot where two years later the piles of gravel still sits in the corner waiting to be spread. In all of the parks where people have lived is trash buried and clogging waterways primarily because people are not provided accessible garbage services, but also because once people are kicked out the agencies conducting sweeps that claim to be doing so for environmental reasons no longer care to “clean things up”. Unhoused People tend to congregate in areas because there is safety in numbers. People who live alone off the beaten path are much more likely to be harrassed, have their belongings stolen, ect. These large multi-site areas provide people experiencing homelessness a way to build community and look out for one another. In each of these communities there are people who take care of one another’s needs and share what they have. People are able to help one another identify bad actors and kick them out of the area when harm is done. These areas provide safety and community for unhoused people who when spread out over larger distances would have a much harder time without the help of one another. Who conducts sweeps Here in Corvallis sweeps tend to be conducted by the following three groups; Parks and Rec (city), ODOT (state), and private property owners. It’s important to know who is conducting a sweep because each group tends to conduct sweeps differently and have different laws they must legally follow. Different cities will have different players and if you're not local to Corvallis we highly recommend having a baseline understanding of who's conducting sweeps in your city, and what rules they have to follow, and whether they actually follow those or not. Who conducts a sweep depends on the location people are living. City parks are done by the city's Parks and Rec department. Anything that is within 50ft of state infrastructure or 1,500 ft of their posting, most of the time being state owned roads and bridges, is done by ODOT. Single sites are often issued trespass notices by police. Lastly any sweeps occurring on private property, the main one in Corvallis being the railroad line that runs through pioneer park, is conducted either by police or privately contracted crews. There are certain areas that may have overlapping jurisdiction so you may be dealing with two or more of the agencies listed. When it comes to Parks and Rec and ODOT they more or less have to follow the same rules: - Postings must be done two weeks in advance - There will typically be a 3-5 day window in which they’ll come - Legally they must give people an alternative place to stay but frequently don’t or recommend the shelter system which many houseless people actively avoid (and for good reason). - They must hold any belongings seized for 30 days before they throw them away (What counts as a belonging and what counts as trash is entirely up to their discretion. This results in people losing personal belongings because they were designated as “trash”. - They typically show up between 7-9 am - Each of these agencies will use heavy machinery to demolish peoples living sites. ODOT frequently uses prison labor to do the manual “clean up” after people have either taken down their site or had it destroyed by heavy machinery. Trespass notices issued by police typically give people 24-48 hours from the time of posting to move their belongings otherwise police will destroy and throw away everything at the site. When it comes to private entities, there really are no laws to help protect the people living in that area. The company doesn't legally have to give any notice or hold any belongings, nor do they have to give an alternative place for people to stay. These private sweeps are typically conducted either by police issuing trespass notices or by the private entity hiring a crew to take care of it. Frequently the crews they hire are construction workers whose attitudes and compassion, or lack of, towards unhoused people can vary greatly. Sweeps by private entities are perhaps the hardest to plan for simply because you don’t always know their coming. The best way to be able to respond to these is to regularly check in on unhoused communities and have a handful of people from those communities who know how to contact you should they need you. The private entities in Corvallis are mainly the before mentioned railroad, the forested area near the Corvallis Safe Camp Church, and the area behind Home Depot. Resistance vs support So we know what a sweep is, and who conducts them, now how do we help? The way we see it there are two ways to assist a camp facing eviction; resistance and support. To assess which one is best you need to know what your and folks living in the area's goals are, as any efforts should be led first and foremost by the people living in any given area. The end goal of resistance is that people don’t have to move, whereas the end goal of support is trying to make sure that moving goes as smoothly and are as non-traumatic as possible. We always recommend going out and talking to the folks facing eviction a few days in advance to let them know you’ll be there to help and to get an idea of what their needs are and what capacity they would like to see you there in. Supporting the people facing eviction is the tactic that our group has the most experience with. This looks like showing up before the agency conducting the sweep letting folks know you’ll be around to help. Helping people pack and driving their belongings to their new spot. Distributing supplies people might have lost during the eviction. Recording the agencies and cops conducting the sweep, and de-escalating when applicable. The major con of support being that most of the time folks will end up having to move that day, however not always. Sometimes when enough people show up to support the sweep will be postponed anywhere from a day to months. The pros of using support as your tactic are that you can do it effectively with relatively few people(3+), and it doesn't escalate things to a point where cops will show up and arrest or attempt to disperse people making it a relatively safe form of direct action. Resisting is not a tactic that we have much personal experience on but we can speak to the times that support has turned into small scale resistance. In our experience there have been times where a small group of people, sometimes only a site or two, have decided their not moving that day. Having people around who are able to witness and record the agency conducting the sweeps response to this typically detours them from acting aggressively. In our group's experience the group conducting the sweep often decides it’s more trouble than it’s worth, and leaves the sites alone. Planned large scale resistance on the other hand is very much a numbers game, and should only be done with the explicit consent of the people living in that area, as any actions taken have the potential to fall back on unhoused folks infinitely harder than they do on the housed person taking that action. The people who live on the streets in Corvallis typically haven’t wanted to open that can of worms. Maybe one day we’ll have some more insight into what that looks like, but until then we do have some questions we think people living in Corvallis should ask while considering resistance. We believe these are important to consider given there is no precedent for what sweep resistance looks like in Corvallis, nor what the cities response to it would be. Larger cities often have the luxury of knowing how resistance typically plays out, whereas we don’t. We can make assumptions based on how sweep resistance plays out in other cities, but really we don’t know until we know. This is not to dissuade people from resisting sweeps, but rather to help people create a more fully thought out idea of what resistance could look like. - First and most important is the general consensus of unhoused people living in the area wanting to resist the sweep? - What are the risk levels people are willing to take? Given risk levels what gear might be needed? I.e if people are willing to ignore dispersal requests and the city uses tear gas will people have adequate gas masks and eye protection, especially unhoused people who may have respiratory issues? - How do we gather people outside of our group to come support this? Who do we reach out to? - Do estimated numbers have a chance of winning? 5 people resisting are easy for the city to deal with but what about 50? - Realistically how long will we be able to keep up resistance? - If the city successfully disperses people what is the plan to help the unhoused people living in that area get out with their important belongings? Or what is the plan to help replace what they lost? - How do we plan to care for one another and unhoused people in the days after resistance, win or lose? - Given the answer to these questions, what tactics for resistance best fit and are realistic pathways to success? A typical sweep in Corvallis So what does a sweep actually look like? We typically get there around 7am before the agencies conducting the sweep do. We bring coffee, and either a pre-prepared breakfast or a propane stove and things to cook as folks start waking up. We set up a main station with food, beverages, garbage bags/totes, cigarettes, and common distro supplies (we’ll get into those later). As folks start waking up they either come over to chat or we make a point to say hi and let them know we’ll be around if they need anything that day. Until the agency evicting people that day shows up it’s more or less just hanging out. People from other orgs may show up, it’s good practice to chat with them, get to know their plans for the day, and see if they have any info you might not that their willing to share. For our group S.O.R.T has been a reliable ally in sharing information about upcoming sweeps, what the evicting groups plans for that day are, as well as sharing needed resources like tents and blankets. Being a non-profit there are some things S.O.R.T cannot do, this just means that they’ll focus their efforts on what they can do and we’re able to relocate people to fill the gaps so that all needs are being met more efficiently. Once the agency evicting people shows up have a point person selected who can be the go between, this person ideally is someone who appears to have some forms of privledge (white, cis assuming, a man, ect) and of course is comfortable doing so. Find out what their plan is and where they're going to start, if another group has not already done so. While one person is doing that, have others go around and ask unhoused folks who are out if there’s anything you can help with. We typically offer labor, things to put belongings in, and the knowledge that if they need anything we will do our best to get it to them, if you cannot get it to them that day you should get their contact info or a description of where they’ll be staying next so you can get it to them later. Most of the day is spent helping people pack and move their belongings, bike carts and people who can drive are great for this. Advocating for the people being evicted to get them more time and having the people conducting the sweep out of their immediate area to help lessen some of the stress. When numbers allow having someone designated to drive around and pick up supply asks so they can be delivered then and there is always a big plus. Most of the time sweeps efforts are largely focused on the people who live in tents. There are however certain spots where people living in RVs and other vehicles tend to congregate. When this is the case everything above is still applicable, but there are a few more things to think about with vehicles. Mainly does the vehicle run, or are we gonna need to find a way to move it? If it runs sometimes it might need a jumpstart so having cables on hand is helpful. If it doesn't run, having someone whose vehicle is able to tow is a real lifesaver. When we have not had a truck in the past we have still been able to help by either fundraising for a tow truck budget or dispersing the costs of tow trucks amongst the people in our group to make it happen. Our job is simply to help people's day go as smoothly as possible, make sure people are able to get out with all of their belongings, and that no one is arrested in the process of moving. Sweeps are always traumatic for the people experiencing them regardless of how “smoothly” they go no amount of support can stop that. However, having people show up for them and assist them in whatever ways they need helps to at least shows unhoused people that there are people on their side who want to give more than empty words or donations to charities that aren’t accessible. Solidarity doesn't always solve the problem but it does help to spread it out and make it more bearable short term, and in the long term lays a foundation for solving these problems. Useful roles - Eviction crew talker - this is the person primarily in charge of advocating for folks. This often means asking for more time and de-escalating. This person's goal is generally making sure people have the time and space to be able to pack up all their belongings, and to mitigate situations that may get the cops called if they're not already there, or to stop people from being arrested and taken into custody. This person may also engage in other roles as needed. - Cooks - These people stay at the main table for the most part and serve people food, take down needs/ requests, and disperse information or requests to the people in other roles. They serve both as a way to get people food and disperse relevant information, jobs, and supplies. Item requests can be stored with them for easy pick up. We've found it’s helpful to write the person's name on their item to make sure everything goes to the right people. Common request items, and things to help people move their belongings can also be stored here. The cook area should be set up somewhere easily accessible and seen from anywhere so people can easily find you. - Movers - These are the people who assist with most of the physical labor and actual moving process. Most commonly these are the people going around helping people pack, hauling their garbage to dumpsters, and helping people move their belongings to their next chosen site. When helping people move their belongings it’s helpful to have a car or bike cart to make things quicker and easier. - Supplies runner- this is who item requests are sent to. They go around and pick things up and drop them off at the cook table to be distributed. Items you should bring to any sweep If you cannot get ahold of these things, showing up to offer your time and labor is still great! However, these are things that we’ve found incredibly useful to have on hand. Some of these items you might have to buy, others can be acquired through different connections you may have to the larger Corvallis community such as grocery stores, churches, non-profits, jobs, family, and friends. - Coffee/ breakfast - Cigarettes - Bins/ luggage/ heavy duty trash bags for helping people move - Rope or paracord - Batteries - Spare tents - Blankets/ sleeping bags - Greenies or a way to refill propane tanks - Plastic sheeting for tarps (Home Depot sells strong 20x100 ft sheeting for > 80 dollars and can be cut down to size to provide tarping for lots of people in a more cost effective way) - Jumper cables - Notepad and pen for taking down distro requests Security culture Even if you just plan on supporting and not actively resisting, having some culture of operational security within your friend group or org is always a good idea. Here in Corvallis for us it looks like: - grey bloc: To prevent identification by the authorities, wear clothing that conceals your identity. Cover your hair, tattoos, piercings, and other distinctive parts of yourself. Don't wear clothing that is distinctive or can be easily tied to you. Hats, masks, sunglasses, and hoodies are all encouraged - Let a trusted friend/ comrade know where you are. Have their number memorized or written on you somewhere hidden in case of emergency or arrest. If your town has a bail fund or jail support group have that number written on you as well. - Have a day of chat separate from your main chat. Not everyone needs to know everything that went down that day. Use an encrypted messaging chat like signal that has the option to make messages expire after 24 hours. It’s okay to shoot big updates or asks into the main chat, but most of the day should stay between you and the people physically there. - Don’t give agencies conducting the evictions or cops any personal information about you, your comrades, or the unhoused people living in the area. With small town sweep support sometimes talking to these agencies is a necessary evil, and typically speaking should only be done to advocate for the people being evicted. Hot tips - Read up on de-escalation tactics and have an idea of how to use them in practice. - Always be nice to the ODOT inmate crews; they typically do not want to be there nor do they have a choice in the matter. Some of them have been unhoused and experienced sweeps themselves. This is the state using one disenfranchised group to hurt another disenfranchised group and these crews are very much deserving of compassion. - Being somewhat involved in unhoused communities outside of sweeps helps in being able to aid during sweeps. If people know you they're more likely to trust you with their belongings and to ask for aid. We do this by doing 2 weekly meals and distros in areas where lots of people live, but there’s plenty of other ways to do it. - Remember people's names and genuinely listen to their stories. You might be there to help but you should also be there to build community with the people your giving aid to. - Take the time after an action to discuss what works for you and your group. This is just the way we do things but there’s a million ways to do the same thing, and what works for us may not work for you. Most of these lessons were learned through experience and trial and error. Most of the resources of sweep support/ resistance are aimed at urban areas with existing radical infrastructure, which means those of us living in more rural areas have to be creative and figure out what works for us. - Find ways to connect and support one another. Sweeps are traumatic first and foremost to the people experiencing them, but that doesn't mean that being there to aid during them is easy. You will see and hear a lot of genuinely heartbreaking things and need to have the ability to cope and to help comrades cope with them. Outro, a message of hope This work can definitely be hard both physically and mentally, but in taking the time to build community alongside doing the work there’s so much potential there for joy and an endless imagination of what could be built. We’ve been lucky to have a space where we can get to know so many people and their stories, aspirations, and talents that we may have otherwise never crossed paths with. In supporting others we’ve learned how to accept support ourselves. We’ve built a community across class divides that enables us to lean on one another when we need it. Shared and learned countless skills applicable to all aspects of life. One thing we’ve learnt is that we need the knowledge and experience of unhoused people every bit as much as they need support from the broader Corvallis community. That unhoused people instinctively know what mutual aid is truly about, if we are to build communities resilient to oncoming climate catastrophes, a rise in white supremacy, transphobia, ect we have a lot to learn from unhoused people. I leave you with a few of my favorite memories of getting to be a part of this type of community work. - After a multiday sweep full of helping people move, spreading hay, and distributing resources, the final day fell on a day we would typically do food. None of us in the group had time to cook, so one of the people affected by the sweep went and bought food to grill so we could all still share a community meal after all that had happened the last 3 days. - - Running into one of the people we had helped after our very first sweep, after a year and some of having lost contact, to find that him and his family had found stable long term housing. - Being shown someone’s favorite comedy sketches around the grill - Any of the times someone has trusted me enough to share their writing, art, or anything they have made with me. The list goes on… Twitter/ Instagram @StopTheSweepsCV Email stopthesweepscorvallis@protonmail.com
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