Dear loved ones,
Mia Mingus (
http://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/) and I have decided to live together and create/cultivate interdependent queer disabled korean diasporic radical women of color home together. We are embarking on a journey together to put pieces of disability justice into practice, love each other and live on the other side of dreaming. A huge part of this is our need, as crips, as queers, and women of color, as korean (and all) diasporic people; we need each other and we need you.
We’re reaching out across our bi-coastal networks to move to the Bay, specifically Berkeley because of the level of access that can be found there for disabled folks. This is a huge, complicated and multidimensional decision that we have struggled with and we will be writing more about it to you, our loved ones and family, in the coming months.
But right now we need you. We need help finding a place to live and creating a community careshift collective.
Need One: Affordable Accessible Housing is Not an Oxymoron: We dream about an amazing 2 bedroom wheelchair accessible house/housing filled with love and lots of light in Berkeley, CA… We hope to have a great landlord that understands disability justice, but it is not a requirement since we can use our crip super powers to work through anything and with anyone!
Need Two: Growing Collective Interdependent Access and Care Through the Cracks of State Systems: Evidently in this country, disabled people don’t move–and we certainly don’t move together. Our systems for disabled folks are broken, we know this. And we are trying to leverage what we can to get to a place where we could live outside of them, but until then… We need to create a community careshift collective to support me (Stacey) in the months I will be in Berkeley before my disability/medicaid services get started in California. I am a powerchair user and we need people who could come to our home in shifts to help me do things like get out of bed, use the bathroom, get dressed, etc… We dream of a group of community-minded, interdependent disabled and non-disabled folks to help out with these daily access needs. We dream of moving beyond capitalist notions of “payment” for care/access and instead want to have conversations and inspiration-sessions with those interested in what we can all offer and give. We especially invite folks who are interested in putting disability justice into practice and learning together with us.
Do you want to be part of creating collective access with us? Do you want to be part of creating something out of nothing that can hold us outside of the current broken and dignity-stealing systems we are up against?
Our first priority is housing. Please let us know of any information, contacts, or leads you have ASAP. Please pass this note on to folks of your own who might be able to help us. Thank you!
To the other side of dreaming,
Mia and Stacey
Mia Mingus
miamingus@gmail.comhttp://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/Stacey Milbern
staceymilbern@gmail.comhttp://blog.cripchick.com/* * * * *
(Steve Brown wrote:)
Aloha Stacey. I suggest you write to Frank Moore, who's lived collectively in Berkeley for many years (and check out
www.eroplay.com if you don't know it). I'm cc'ing Frank. He's recently out of the hospital, so not sure how quickly he, or someone else, will read this.
Good luck!
Steve
* * * * *
I'm here! I'll send this to the esalon for you.
I have been living tribally for forty years. It is much more practical and stable... If you are friends /lovers committed to being there for one another on every level. During my six weeks of hospital stay, the state cut my /our money off. But we still had the six of us [and our very extended network of friends]. So we got through it. Without that I don't know how people survive alone!
In Freedom,
Frank Moore
I DID THIS A FEW DAYS AGO.