Event:2016/12/14 DIYsafety

DIY Safety Project Meeting Number 2

intro

• steven dicaprio:
  • ppl are supporting the eviction moratorium > good
  • evictions, bad
  • Oakland Justice Coalation - passed previous ordinance / just cause eviction stopping evictions on places of 4 units or less
  • went to city council and demanded a moratorium, but we need a proposal
  • Steven is here to ask if ppl can help with this, also join with Steve to hammer out a moratorium
  • Want to focus on folks historically organizing on this issues - affected communities + people who have been doing this for a long time
  • historically marginalized includes ppl in artist community also those not in it
  • 3 other issues:
    • amnesty in zoning - permitting amnesty - have spaces be rezoned & unpermitted work be forgiven
  • turning work spaces into housing has been happening befote but it was used to price out workspaces and that is bad
  • community should be driving agenda, not mayors office
  • working to stabilize housing, working with land trust
  • 20% AMI.. = not affordable housing
  • Steve is asking not to give any $ to the city as this may/will go to gentrification
  • work with folks who are at risk who are in the marginalized artist community, and put these places into land trust
  • lets all work together, connecting lawyers
  • https://www.rephuge.com/

• mara: a group of folk close to the fire, threw in with help ghost ship . com to try to get assistance to groups not just next of kin

• misha: waba
  • formed similar to mara's group
  • want safer spaces for all our communities
  • worried about overdevelopment

• mara:
  • phase 1 (schizophrenic energy everyone trying to do something), phase 2 (pooling resources to coordinate and help ourselves), phase 3 (helping others in other places)

• stephanie:
  • ppl are in immediate need, others have long term need.
  • aggregating resources to meet immediate needs w/o political ideology etc just get shit done who wants to help?

• Kevin:
  • works in policy, housing policy & related fields, wants to helpp

• Zeke:
  • Asylum collective, in the same building as GS. Now lost due to damage
  • Have launched refugeproject, to purchase warehouse for live/work
  • Aggregating resources, gathering spaces for LBGTQ communities - for gathering, not just housing. A permanent refuge - rephuge.com

• Diamond Dave:
  • Flowership, helping from SF

• Dave:
  • Apologize for not being able to follow up on everything. Let's make sure we do exchange emails and get them to diysafety@omnicommons.org Don't leave tonight before making sure everyone in your group has your email. We just got 1k for the space in Richmond, someone is here to donate extinguishers. There's no ego or ownership here. Omni is just providing a space.

Reportbacks

• Volunteer Coordination
  • We are using recovers.org as a place to centralize all of the information we have talked about today
  • Dan: I'm Dan. I am the point person foR talking to other groups. It would be great if we had one site we all used- Julia said we could even do it on recovers.org. You can reach me at [redacted]. Once Stephany has a secure server and 501c3 status we can use this platform, keep private info private, and coordinate dispersal of information. In the mean time please use recovers.org
  • One point person please write down all of your notes and email them to David Keenan at diysafety@omnicommons.org

• Communications
  • Communications wants to help facilitation within our groups and to figure out which groups to reach out to and contact for what. We want to get the contact info for each of the groups. we want to be part of the hub for ppl to get updates from specific groups and to coordinate among ourselves. We want to know how you're communicating with one another and make sure no one is getting lost
  • We will also be working with we the artists of the bay area
  • We will also be IDing which groups are safe to talk to for confidential topics and issues
  • Redundancy is an issues
  • There are a lot of modes of communication ppl are using which may be counter productive. For instance connecting your fb page with activist activities can be dangerous for certain ppl. Omnicommons and riseup are good resources, possible alternatives to slaCK
  • We have a lot of different ppl here and want to be able to talk to someone whose job or livelihood will not be in jeopardy if they are the point person
  • Can do press related work and write press releases
  • Our point person from last week isn't here but I am the point person you can contact Katie: kteulaina@gmail.com
  • Using riseup for internal purposes and will create another group for external contacts, info to come

• Finance
  • We have written up a campaign, it isn't officially up but -- search "safe+sustainable diy creative communities fund" on youcaring.com
  • oTHER YOUCARING
  • We want to get it up so we can coordinate finances bc events are coming up quickly
  • Will collect money and will cord with independent benefits throughout the Bay Area
  • Would like to distinguish bw grey area and other fund raising campaigns which are giving funds directly to the families whereas we are funneling money into the arts community for ppl who are living in unsafe spaces currently to help make those spaces safer
  • I talked to the mayor's office about the different fund raising happening online and asked where those funds are going and he said the mayors office has received many calls with ppl
  • The three of us are meeting with Laura from Omni tomorrow to work on getting fiscal sponsorship so all funds will be tax deductable
  • Sparx, an online event platform, has offered all of the funds they raise from work anywhere in the city over the next 6 mo will go to our fund, and there is a possibility of extension if it goes well
  • How are you guys doing outreach?
    • That is sort of our next step, we've been workiNG on how to receive money in and we will be turning to outreach next. We will also be working on an intake form
      • There are already some intake forms that exist. If you know of any please talk to us so we can streamline that
    • diyfininace@omnicommons.org
  • Immediate step is to start raising funds before the new year bc thats when ppl donate
  • Long term goals are
  • Setting up home depot pro account for materials - we want to coord with construction team -- we want to cord in kind material and service donations. If you have purchased any materials we may be able to reimburse you later so please hold on to your receipt

• Legal
  • My name is Sean, I am a lawyer. I mostly do employment law but do some eviction law. But I will be coordinating the legal groups efforts
  • Most of the legal issues we've seen so far have come from the city - esp SF - which is a bit stickier
  • I am happy to recommend an attorney if you need one, I am also happy to explain to you what the legal process is like
  • If you have any specific questions send them to us and we will research them for you or connect you to experts
  • We also want to male sure we continue to gather and make music and art bc organizing is important but so is community and coming together
  • Talking to the land lord is like talking to the police - think of it like that
  • Dont be shy about reaching out, thats what I'm here for sean.d.mchenry@gmail.com
    • You can contact me through a working group
  • I'm dan and you can find me at thisoldemail@yahoo.com - I know a tenants rights lawyer who is holding a workshop, contact me if you are interested

• Construction
  • We are really struggling with our communication
  • We got the email and secure server stuff out of the way by talking face to face tonight. We got 10 places that need help and will start contacting and working with them tomorrow
  • We will get a surveymonkey or gismo or something up so we can gather a list of ppl with specific skills and resources
  • We are also thinking of starting some sort of art space action lists - we will create a bay area day of action when we have bay area wide rebuilding of art spaces - then we can do drywall repair, dumpruns etc. on a large scale
    • We also want to do a nation wide art action day using the burning man network to activate this moving forward
  • Right now all of our emails are being directed thro the omni commons mailing list, we will consolidate soon

• Code Compliance
  • We had a lot of architects, engineers etc willing to help
  • We exchanged some business cards but we need a way for ppl to reach out to our group with specific requests - like if you need help tearing down a wall or help with code compliance
  • right now we have an omnicommons list serve group we are using to coordinate internally

• Policy
  • I'm Mia and we didn't accomplish all that much - a lot of ppl were new and we were working on filling ppl in, moving from the SF statement of solidarity to more actionable measures like the eviction moratorium
  • If you know anyone who is working on writing legislation please talk to me, my name is Misha and I am working with the we the artists of the bay area group

• Niki: We will reach out and see if there is an opportunity for one point person from each group can meet with all of the other point ppl next week

• Im from the oakland coalition of warehouse - I'm sorry I missed open announcements earlier- we have a fb group. If you know anyone affected or displaced by teh Oakland fire please come talk to me

• Somebody had mentioned that there is a meeting on Fri at 11am at 7677 Oak Port, Suit 1120 - law offices of lawyer who represented Oscar Grant

• Niki: Thank you for coming. It is a hard process but it wonderful that we are all coming together

• So far across the board over $1,000,827 has been raised across different fund raisers