Stay Warm this Winter! Come to Houston and Volunteer with Autonomous Disaster Relief!

By an anonymous contributor - It's Going Down, December 5, 2017

We need…

anti-oppressive people skilled in construction, childcare, squatting, media, cooking, growing food, fundraising, medics, healers, birthworkers, herbalists, artists, musicians, and Spanish speakers.

Houston is the 4^th largest city in the US and the heart of the oil industry in terms of both corporate headquarters and industrial infrastructure, but most of the city’s people have always been considered expendable by those powers.

In the days immediately after the storm, disaster communism naturally took hold as neighbors took it upon themselves to organize boat rescues in the absence of any help from the state. For a few weeks, its influence extended beyond the hardest hit neighborhoods and we found ourselves as a small part of a large mobilization. Neighbors helping each other were the biggest force, church groups and liberals were out in large numbers, and even the local fascists were playing at relief work (in their own neighborhoods). Many businesses shared resources, including restaurant kitchens which were used to mass-produce free meals for distribution.

Fourteen weeks after Harvey, those free meals are a distant memory. Thousands of people are newly homeless, or living in unsafe conditions, or crowded in with family – and it’s starting to get cold here at night.

This is a critical time for anarchists to intervene against the return to normalcy – we do not want to rebuild the old Houston of hyper-individualism and slow death under capitalism. We want to take space opened by the storm and build new ways of supporting each other and relating to each other.

If you can help with that, and you don’t mind camping (with bathrooms/showers, kitchen etc) in a communal setting, get in touch with us at htxautonomy@protonmail.com

Projects Include:

• Mobile daycare/unschool and free store (we set up 4-5 days a week and need consistent volunteers)
• Radical library/storefront and meeting space (help us hold regular teach-ins and fun events)
• Garden/Nursery (propagating and seeding high value food & medicine plants for giveaway/fundraising)
• Medic tent & apothecary (we’ve got the tent and some supply sources but not enough people)
• Arts & Media (help us put on shows, surround our spaces with good art, in-person social media help also needed)
• Construction support (we’re connected with various crews that go out to help repair or restore homes, there’s no shortage of work)

Contact and More Info:

Please contact us at htxautonomy@protonmail.com if you’d like to come. Don’t just show up! Also, please read this primer on H-town here.

See Also:

• Audio Report: Autonomous Relief In Houston Post-Harvey - By the collective, It's Going Down, December 6, 2017
• Three months after Harvey, opinions on Trump’s response ’tilt negative’ in Texas - By Mark Hand, ThinkProgress, December 5, 2017

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.