About 75 people gathered at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro on Monday night to pay their respects to the lives lost at the Ghost Ship Collective in Oakland this past weekend. So far 36 people are confirmed dead in the blaze.
The vigil was organized by Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer
of Grace Lutheran Church in the Sunset District. Rev. Rohrer is the
first openly transgender pastor to be installed at a Lutheran
congregation.
"There's a need to create a safe space to mourn and to honor the
transgender lives who were lost in the fire," Pastor Rohrer said as the
vigil got underway. "LGBT people have always been welcomed in artistic
communities. Cash Askew, a famous transgender musician who perished at
Ghost Ship might have been a big draw to the trans community." Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer adressing mourners at last night's vigil.Vigil attendees lit candles and wrote personal messages, which were hung on the railing above the plaza.
Pastor Rohrer, who prefers gender-neutral pronouns, said that they
had already spent some time counseling the families, friends and loved
ones of those who died at Ghost Ship.
"My heart was stirred by the time I spent with the victim's
families," Pastor Rohrer said. "Today we mourn all the victims. We hold
in strength all who were lost. We need safe spaces for trans individuals
so we can go to the bathroom without fear. So we don't have to fear a
change in politicians. Live for those whose lives were cut short—be the
light in the deep darkness."
Tracy Garza, a disabled transgender woman, was the next to speak.
"This is this the saddest time I can remember here," she said. "I'm
seeing some unprecedented things happen across the country—the man
coming into the White House has never been a public servant. Most of us
are trying to remain optimistic, our community has always been
resilient. I am so grateful to those who came for a few minutes to
remember the victims of the Oakland fire."
Garza also reiterated the need for safe transgender spaces. Personal messages hung along the plaza's railing.Rohrer then introduced Rev. Cameron Partridge and Rev. Ian Stanford. Both are Episcopalian priests as well as transgender men.
"I'm here to honor the creation of safe spaces," Rev. Partridge said.
"What can we all do to create safe spaces? Ghost Ship was a place where
people were going not only to be creative, but to be safe."
Rev. Stanford led the crowd in prayer. "O Gracious One. We who call
you by many names or by none at all. We ask that you stand with us. We
ask that you comfort and console us. Bind our voices as one as we come
together. In all our diversity we come to you. As a trans man I want to
call out that trans lives matter. Artists matter. Musicians matter.
Children matter. The disabled matter Mommas matter. All humans matter."
Sister Merry Peter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence fought
tears as she spoke. "I want us to remember that we came here for a
reason," she said. "Why were our artists, our dancers, our trans folk in
a shoddy warehouse? We will have our answers and we will change things
for the better."
The Sister then invited everyone to turn to the person nearest them and say, "I am with you." Some people wept as they did so. Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer and Sister Merry Peter | PHOTO COURTESY OF MONSERRATH ARREOLABoth Rev. Rohrer and Sister Merry said they hoped this would be the final time the community would have to meet amid tragedy.
"While I mourn the victims there has to be action around affordable
housing," said Jordan Gwendolyn Davis, a 31-year-old transgender woman,
after the vigil. "A lot of the people who lived in the Ghost Ship were
priced out of housing. We need affordable housing and work spaces that
are up to code."
Rev. Rohrer suggested that people set up buddy systems so that loved
ones can stay informed during emergencies. "Ensure that at least one
safe person has a copy of your legal name and your emergency contacts,"
they said. "So that if God forbid a tragedy happens, they can be
identified and mourned with full dignity."
The pastor also said that they were happy that authorities were
taking the time to learn the preferred names and genders of the dead
before releasing those names to the public.
Vigil in SF mourns transgender victims of Oakland fire
Michael Bodley
Updated 10:03 am, Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Photos: Paul Kuroda, Special To The Chronicle
A candlelight vigil was held Monday night in San Francisco for several transgender victims of the Oakland warehouse fire.
Several dozen people gathered at Harvey Milk Plaza at Market and
Castro streets to mourn their transgender friends and relatives, most of
whose deaths have not yet been confirmed.
Thirty-six bodies have been found in the converted warehouse on 31st
Avenue and International Boulevard, where dozens of partyers were
trapped when a fire broke out Friday night during an electronic music
performance by Golden Donna 100% Silk.
The mourners Monday prayed next to dozens of candles laid out on an
ornate tapestry surrounded by homemade signs with names of victims or
people still missing. A rainbow-colored ribbon was draped over a railing
behind the candles.
“The fire was horrendous,” said the Rev. Cameron Partridge, 43, a priest at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, “and we’re realizing increasingly that there were a number of trans folks there that were part of our community.”
Nobody knows exactly how many of their brethren were killed, said the Rev. Megan Rohrer,
a transgender Lutheran pastor in San Francisco, because most people in
the community use different names from what’s on their birth
certificates, which investigators use to identify victims.
“It’s not known if we will be able to identify all of the individuals,” Rohrer said, adding that “your tears will be my tears.”
Tracy Garza, a board member at the GLBT Historical Society
in San Francisco, said the people living in the warehouse community
known as the Ghost Ship were there mostly because they had no other
affordable place to go where transgender people can live and thrive.
Hundreds of people
holding lights honored those who died in the Oakland warehouse fire
during a vigil Monday night in Oakland's Lake Merritt. Kim Yonenaka
reports. (Published Monday, Dec. 5, 2016)
Hundreds
of people holding lights honored those who died in the Oakland
warehouse fire during a vigil Monday night in Oakland's Lake Merritt.
Those
in the crowd embraced each other or held up lights or flowers and said
aloud the names of people they lost in the blaze, though some booed the
city's mayor when she spoke.
"He worked with troubled kids," Hough's dad said. "Everyone knew him as Mr. Travis. They all loved him."
Attendees
were asked to bring flameless candles, glow sticks, flashlights or
other lights. Whether they knew someone lost in this fire, or were just
touched by the magnitude of this tragedy, the vigil drew a crowd of
about 500 people.
"I'm only 15, and I don't know what they are going through," Taylor Nelson said. "I want to say they are in my prayers."
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf spoke at the event, where she was greeted with boos
and calls to resign from saddended, angry atendants. Some people have
criticized Schaaf, saying she emphasized the warehouse's code violations
instead of the city's shortage of affordable housing in the hours
following the deadly fire.
"As we
move forward right now, our focus has to be on those who we know are
lost and those we are going to learn have been lost," the mayor said.
In San Francisco, a tearful crowd remembered the transgender victims of the warehouse fire.
"Some
of those members don't have a connection to family," one attendee said.
"We are their family; it is our job to hold them up."
The
transgender clergy said some members of the community lived in the
warehouse. But many were there to see popular transgender performer Cash
Askew, the 22-year-old who died in the fire.
Em
Bohlka's father said his daughter was there to see the show. In a
statement, he said his heart is broken, and it was wonderful to see her
becoming who she was meant to be.
It's possible some victims' parents will never know their child died.
Pastor
Megan Rohrer said in life many of the transgender victims struggled to
feel safe and belong. She said in death, the coroner is respecting who
they were.
"It's kind of
beautiful," she said. "They are taking time to make sure they're using
chosen names and preferred gender pronouns."
Hundreds gathered Monday evening at Lake Merritt and in the
Castro for candlelight vigils in honor of Oakland fire victims, and
Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern said he’s hopeful no more dead
bodies will be found at the site of the warehouse fire that has so far
claimed 36 lives.
Saying he can’t be sure there are no additional casualities until
authorities finish searching the site at 1305 31st Ave., Ahern said
there are still “two areas of concern” that haven’t been searched yet
because of safety issues.
But he said, “We don’t anticipate any huge numbers” in addition to the 36 people whose bodies have been recovered so far.
Ahern said 16 victims’ families have been notified of deaths and five more families were being notified this afternoon.
Three of the victims who died were from out of the country, one each from Finland, Korea and Guatemala, Ahern said.
The vigil at Harvey Milk Plaza, hosted by Rev. Megan Rohrer and other
local transgendered religious leaders, highlighted the fact that many
of the victims of Friday’s three-alarm fire and others affected by it
were transgendered.
Rohrer, the first openly transgendered pastor ordained in the
Lutheran Church, said she had been called Friday to help minister to the
families and friends of victims. Authorities have found 36 bodies so
far in the wreckage of the Fruitvale warehouse art space known as the
“Ghost Ship,” which caught fire Friday around 11:30 p.m. during a party
and electronic music show.
Rohrer said:
“I heard of the great need for there to be a space for
the transgendered individuals who are mourning their friends, who might
not have a safe space to mourn in. … Who might, in addition to their
love of music and art, be in a warehouse because it was one of the
spaces that they felt safe in.”
Rohrer noted that one of those confirmed dead in the fire, Cash
Askew, was a popular transgendered musician. Askew performed with the
group Them Are Us Too.
Rohrer noted that authorities were taking care, as they identified
the dead, to confirm the preferred gender and names of transgendered
individuals. In some cases, however, she said identification and
notification of family had been slowed by difficulty in determining
individual’s legal names.
The Alameda County coroner’s bureau has completed 22 autopsies of the
36 victims found so far and more autopsies will be done on Tuesday,
Ahern said. Names of eight of the victims have been released and others
will be released as their next of kin are notified.
The recovery efforts were halted early this morning because of
structural integrity issues at the front of building, Oakland Deputy
Fire Chief Darin White said.
He said crews have searched through about 75 percent of the building
as of this afternoon and he expects the recovery efforts to resume
tonight.
Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said a criminal
investigation team is looking into the fire and is headed by a deputy
district attorney with expertise in land and property use.
“It’s too early to speculate” on possible charges, O’Malley said, but
she said possible charges could range from murder to involuntary
manslaughter if the evidence warrants.
She said:
“We’ve been getting a lot of phone calls giving us information and we need to follow up on those leads.”
O’Malley said her investigators have begun interviewing people she
described as “operators” of the “Ghost Ship” but she declined to say if
that includes chief operator Derick Ion Almena.
O’Malley said a hotline where people can provide additional
information is available at (877) 288-2882, while victims and their
families can seek support at (510) 272-6180.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf declined to comment on whether local
officials should have done more to investigate potential wrongdoing at
the warehouse, saying, “In the days and weeks ahead we’ll have many
conversations about what we’ve learned and how we move forward.” Schaaf
said, “We have all hands on deck” and at this time the city’s priority
is working with and comforting the families of the fire victims.
Schaaf said she’s limited in what she can say because a criminal investigation is now under way.
She said:
“We would not want to compromise the District Attorney’s ability to hold people responsible for this potential atrocity.”
According to court records, on Jan. 13, 2015, Almena, 46, was
arrested on suspicion of felony possession of stolen property at the
warehouse. According a probable cause statement, a woman said she
flagged down a patrolling sheriff’s deputy and said Almena had stolen
her trailer and she had tracked it to the 31st Avenue site.
The woman, who claimed Almena was her former tenant, performed a
citizen’s arrest of Almena and Deputy Jeremy Lucha arrested him and
booked him into the Glenn Dyer Jail in downtown Oakland.
Lucha said in his report that Almena confessed to having the trailer
“for about a week.” District Attorney officials couldn’t be reached for
comment on how Almena’s case was resolved.
Hundreds Gather At Vigils For Ghost Ship Fire Victims
December 5, 2016 9:35 PMBy Christin Ayers
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Across the Bay Area, friends and family
gathered at candlelit vigils to mourn those who died in the Oakland
warehouse fire.
Lights lifted to the sky Monday night around Oakland’s Lake Merritt
as at least a thousand mourners gathered to pay tribute to those who
died in the Ghost Ship fire.
For days, the local arts community in the East Bay has been in shock. Monday night, they were in mourning.
An artist
who calls herself Mz. Butterfly told KPIX 5 the creative community in
Oakland is close. She was grieving for sound engineer Barrett Clark, one
of those still missing and unaccounted for in the wake of the fire.
“It’s affecting the community deeply,” said Mz. Butterfly. “Everyone in Oakland and beyond has been affected by this tragedy.”
She also knows Derrick Ion Almena, the controversial master tenant
who has faced backlash for throwing the party in a warehouse that was
not up to code.
“All I can tell you is that he’s a very horrible person and he has a long history of harming people,” she said.
Monday night, amid the anger there was also love. One man held a sign that read “HUGS HERE.” Oakland resident Chris Edwards, who said he lost friends in the fire, handed out free candy.
“Lost a lot of friends and my friends lost friends,” said Edwards.
“I’ve just come out to show love for the people who were lost.”
He, like many others at the vigil, was still reeling.
“It’s been intense. The loss of life has been devastating,” said Edwards. “And beyond that I worry about the artist community and if it’s gonna be destroyed.”
Edwards said he has already heard tales of city officials knocking on
the doors of other artist’s compounds in search of violations.
His fear: that the ripple effects of this tragedy have just begun.
As many as 50 people gathered in San Francisco’s Castro District
Monday evening for a candlelight vigil in honor of Oakland fire victims.
The vigil at Harvey Milk Plaza, hosted by Rev. Megan Rohrer and other local transgender religious leaders, highlighted the fact that many of the victims of Friday’s three-alarm fire and others affected by it were transgender persons.
Rohrer, the first openly transgender pastor ordained in the Lutheran
Church, said she had been called Friday to help minister to the families
and friends of victims. Authorities have found 36 bodies so far in the
wreckage of the Fruitvale warehouse art space known as the “Ghost Ship,”
which caught fire Friday around 11:30 p.m. during a party and
electronic music show.
“I heard of the great need for there to be a space for the
transgendered individuals who are mourning their friends, who might not
have a safe space to mourn in,” Rohrer said. “Who might, in addition to
their love of music and art, be in a warehouse because it was one of the spaces that they felt safe in.”
Rohrer noted that one of those confirmed dead in the fire, Cash Askew, was a popular transgendered musician.
Askew performed with the group Them Are Us Too.
Rohrer noted that authorities were taking care, as they identified the dead, to confirm the preferred gender and names of transgender individuals.
In some cases, however, she said identification and notification of
family had been slowed by difficulty in determining individual’s legal
names.
Trump election raises housing, homelessness concerns Published 12/01/2016
David-Elijah Nahmod
Federal funds for homelessness and housing programs could
dry up under a Trump administration, leaving city officials scrambling to
determine how the services can be maintained if President-elect Donald Trump
follows through on promises he's made to deport undocumented immigrants and
penalize sanctuary cities like San Francisco.
The city could lose as much as $1 billion per year in
federal funding, leaving advocates concerned about where that shortfall would
be made up and about how housing services would be provided to the homeless,
seniors, immigrants, and others.
Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors have reaffirmed San
Francisco's sanctuary city status, and Lee said at a unity rally after the
election that San Francisco would remain a welcoming place for all, including
LGBT people, people of color, and all religious faiths.
Earlier this month, Brian Cheu, director of community
development for the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development, held a
forum to assess the housing needs of the homeless, senior, and LGBTQ
communities. Also mentioned was how programs could continue being funded should
the city lose its federal funding during a Trump administration.
"Currently our department was asked to provide a
summary of our current federal dollars and what it supports so that the mayor
could better understand how a cut to our federal funding would affect our
department," Cheu said at the November 17 meeting. "The mayor will look
at available funding sources to see how the general fund and other sources
would be used to maximize the availability of existing services and avoid losing
valuable community resources."
Cheu also said that it was too early in the budgeting
process for the city to finalize strategies should certain significant funding
streams be eliminated.
Around 100 people attended the forum at the Castro Senior
Center inside Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church at 110 Diamond Street. The
meeting was divided into three groups. Elena Chavez Quezada, senior program officer
for the Walter and Elise Hass Fund, led the homeless discussion. Clinton
Loftman, who also works with the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community
Development, facilitated the senior housing discussion. The HIV and housing
discussion was led by Pastor Megan Rohrer of Grace Lutheran Church.
Andrea Aiello, executive director of the Castro/Upper Market
Community Benefit District and Tommi Avicolli Mecca of the Housing Rights
Committee both participated in the homeless discussion. Aiello addressed the
Castro Cares programs, which puts community monitors out onto the streets of
the neighborhood to help lead them to the services they need.
"Homeless outreach is about getting to know
people," she said. "How can that happen when monitors are out there
for two hours every six months? While we've touched a lot of people there's a
gap. Something is missing. We're not quite providing what the people
need."
Avicolli Mecca said people need to fight evictions and see
that more housing is built.
"We need to decriminalize homelessness – we need
to involve homeless folks in the discussion. Why is there no shelter in the
Castro? Our community has a homelessness crisis," he said.
One homeless man who declined to give his name spoke up
during the discussion. "We need to lean on the tech companies," he
said. "Make them come through with funding. It's disgusting that we have
so much wealth – there should be no one on the streets."
He also mentioned mental health concerns, noting that in his
experience psychiatrists were shying away from homeless services because they
could charge higher fees to tech workers.
At the HIV table, people were expressing concern about the
possibility of funding cuts. Several people mentioned that the housing policies
that have been developed in Salt Lake City were a good model for San Francisco
to follow. Salt Lake City – and the state of Utah – has decreased homelessness
by 91 percent by increasing the services it offers and by sending more outreach
workers into homeless communities.
Rohrer spoke to the Bay Area Reporter
after the meeting.
"Before the meeting, I thought the most emergent issue
would be a response to the projected loss of $2 million dollars in HIV/AIDS
housing funds due to federal recalculations," Rohrer said. "After
listening to the needs of advocates, service providers, and legal advisers
supporting individuals with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco, I now understand that
the potential loss of federal funding is across a wide range of important intersectional
issues affecting vulnerable San Franciscans."
Rohrer, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said that they
were pleased to learn about a new computer portal that will soon streamline the
application process for low-income housing. The portal will also email
individuals when housing that matches their criteria becomes available.
At all three discussions, the scarcity of available housing
was an ongoing issue. Some noted that the cost of building affordable housing
has limited the city's ability to match the needs of its low-income residents,
while others argued that the city could build the housing regardless. A number
of people expressed support for the city's new Department of Homelessness and
Supportive Housing, which aims to streamline all services under one roof.
"While it's always good to have discussions on this
topic, the simple fact is that the city has to provide housing to the
homeless," Avicolli Mecca said. "Why is the city continuing to build
luxury housing for the rich? We especially need housing for the homeless in the
Castro. The LGBT community has high rates of homelessness and poverty – yet
in the past six years no housing for the homeless has been built in the Castro
area."
Aiello pointed out that a lot of the suggestions made at the
meeting had been heard before.
"The city knows what needs to be done," she said.
"It just needs the political will to do it. Optimism was expressed about
the city's move to bring all services under the new Department of Homelessness
and Supportive Housing. I share that optimism, but strong leadership and the
political will will be needed."
Cheu said that he was pleased with the meeting. He called
the evening "an honest, civic dialogue about important issues such as
civic housing, housing for HIV-positive folks, and the homeless."
"As we were holding the meeting in the Castro, these
three issues are of key importance both to the city at large and specifically
to the Castro community," Cheu added. "There was a good mix of
stakeholders represented, and that being said, there is always the need to have
even more constituents present who are affected daily by these issues."
HandUp's innovative technology is revolutionizing how donors connect with those in need.
The seed for HandUp,
a crowdfunding site that solicits donations to help the homeless, was
planted in early 2012 when Rose Broome passed a shivering woman huddling
in the doorway of a real estate office in San Francisco. “On a cold
night, I was walking down the street and saw a woman sleeping on the
sidewalk,” recalls Broome. “She didn’t have a jacket, she didn’t have a
sweater — just a thin blanket protecting her from the cold ground.” That
night, Broome says, “I made a commitment to myself to do one thing to
make a difference, and that one thing turned into HandUp.”
The platform for HandUp allows those battling homelessness to appeal
directly to donors to fund their particular needs. Since 2013, more than
2,000 people have raised nearly $1.6 million. By sharing their stories
on the site, those in need are able to fundraise for housing assistance —
security deposits, moving costs, help paying back rent, and so on — as
well as for food, education, medical care and technological access.
“Having a phone, the Internet, the ability to text is extremely
important for everyone, especially for the most vulnerable people,” says
Broome, who, besides cofounding HandUp, acts as its CEO.
The need for funding is enormous. Nationwide, 3.5 million people
struggle with homelessness every year, and 50 million people live below
the poverty line. But there’s a misconception about what being homeless
looks like, says Broome, pointing out that the image of a person
sleeping on the street, wrestling with mental health issues or drug
addictions (or both), tends to capture the public’s imagination. In
reality, however, 30 percent of those who are homeless are part of
families. As Broome puts it, “You could walk right past 80 percent of
people experiencing homelessness and not know any different.”
HandUp works by partnering with organizations that serve homeless
populations. These organizations help their clients sign up and create
profiles on the site (to date, they’ve launched more than 5,800
campaigns in 29 cities). When donors give, the money goes to the
organization, which will pay for the items requested. Donors get an
email update when their money has been put to use. HandUp also helps
homeless people create donation request cards, which they can hand out
to people they meet on the street, and donors in San Francisco can buy
HandUp gift cards in $25 increments and distribute them when they meet
someone in need (the cards can be used for groceries, clothes and other
goods at HandUp’s nonprofit partners).
Join the cause! Help those experiencing poverty or homelessness. Read their stories, then post a message or make a donation here.
Broome and her cofounder, Sammie Rayner, are passionate about using
technology to solve problems and create change. “It’s surprising, but
right now, only 8 percent of charitable giving happens online,” Broome
says. And unfortunately, the nonprofit sector tends to lag far behind
the private sector in adopting new technologies. “So often, nonprofits
are the last to get some of the best technology to do their work,” adds
Rayner.
For the nonprofits that work with HandUp, the platform allows them to
fund needs that wouldn’t otherwise be met, filling in the gaps left by
restrictive government and foundation grant funding. SF Cares, a
collaborative project of several Lutheran churches working to serve
low-income and homeless individuals in San Francisco, has used HandUp to
raise $18,000 for the needy they work with, plus another $20,000 toward
their general operating costs. “They’re funds our organization never
would have gotten before,” says the Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer, the executive
director of SF Cares and pastor at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church.
And the people doing the giving through HandUp are new donors that SF
Cares might not have reached on its own, she adds.
Rohrer says she loves the way HandUp lets people combatting
homelessness “speak in their own voice.” And she likes that the site
lets people decide for themselves what they need to improve their lives.
“Plus,” she says, “any time that I don’t have to spend fundraising
means I get to eat with the homeless, and I get to sing songs with them
too.”
Creating human connections is as much a part of HandUp’s purpose as
developing innovative technological solutions. “On HandUp, you can read
the stories of thousands of people who need help with very specific
goals,” Rayner says. “As soon as people read the human story and have
that connection through our platform, it’s harder to have the same
stereotypes, and it’s harder to judge.” When donors give on HandUp, they
can also post words of encouragement. The people who receive money
through the site often say those kind words mean more than the donation,
adds Broome. “A lot of people who are homeless feel invisible,” she
says. HandUp helps them feel seen.
