The following proposal reached consensus at the General Assembly of Occupy Boston on January 1, 2012:
Mutual Aid Amendment Proposal
- This proposal will supersede the previous Mutual Aid proposal of $5,000 that was consented to by the Occupy Boston General Assembly on December 20th, 2011.
- The purpose of the aid provided by this proposal is to provide transitional assistance to Occupy Boston activists who were most physically affected by the eviction of the Dewey Square encampment and the support network it provided. This will help members transition away from life in the encampment and also help them be more productive activists.The aid provided by this proposal is temporary. It will end January 29 or when the allocated funds of $4400 are exhausted, whichever comes first.
- Assistance proposed will include and be limited to: T-Passes, Food, Cell phones assistance, Occupant Hosting assistance
- To ensure that recipients of mutual aid are active members of Occupy Boston and the Dewey Square encampment, individuals must have signatures of two sponsors from the working groups in which the individual is an active member in order to receive assistance.
- All requests for aid must be made in writing and submitted to assigned members of the Mutual Aid Working Group (MAWG) at General Assemblies or MAWG meetings. Mutual Aid Working Group Members will review requests and then request the approved amount of money from the Financial Aid Working Group (FAWG). Aid will then be dispersed by MAWG at the following General Assembly. Other forms of aid will be dispersed via working groups, as described below.
- As this proposal is meant to provide transitional assistance, aid from this proposal will be available until January 29th, four weeks from now.
- Funds donated with the Mutual Aid WePay Button will be used to offset the $4,400 taken out of the General Fund, up to $4,400. Nearly $700 has been spent from the previous Mutual Aid proposal; this amount will be subtracted from the final week that this presented proposal is active.
- We ask the Media Working Group to help promote Occupy Boston Mutual Aid to help generate donations to it.
- Income checks are not required. We ask that those seeking aid are in need of assistance and remember that others are seeking funds as well.
- For members seeking individual support from their working groups, requests must be put in writing to the working group, and MAWG will collect written requests at General Assemblies in order to provide accountability and oversight.
T-Passes:
For T-Pass assistance, T-Passes will be distributed via working groups. From now until the 29th of January, working group weekly budgets will be allocated a separate budget of $45.00, with the $45 to be reserved for members of the working group to receive T-Passes. A total limit of $375 per week will be made for working group expenses outside the regular weekly budget. With the weekly limit of $375, Mutual Aid expenses for T-Passes will not exceed $1,500 over the four weeks that Mutual Aid will be active. $375/week is the cost of 25 $15 weeklong, unlimited T-Passes. Requests for the T-Pass aid are to be made using the standard working group disbursement request.
Food:
For food assistance, aid will be made in the form of gift cards to grocery stores. A limit of $25.00 per person per week will be made. Written requests are to be submitted to MAWG, and, if approved, will be made available at the following GA. A limit of $375 per week will be made for purchase of grocery store gift cards, carrying a four-week limit of $1,500.
Occupant Hosting Assistance:
For hosting displaced Occupants, $25 per week per hosted Occupant will be made available to hosts who seek it. A limit of $50.00 per week will be made for those housing multiple Occupants. For day-to-day hosts, $5/day will be made available, and $10/day for multiple Occupants, with weekly limits of $25 and $50, respectively. Funds will be dispersed directly to hosts after written requests, with written signatures of those hosted, are made to MAWG. A limit of $200/week will be made for Occupant Hosting, carrying a total four-week limit of $800.
Cell Phone Assistance:
For cell phone support, assistance will be made via working groups. One cell phone will be made available to working groups whose members require cell phone assistance, and up to a total of ten cell phones will be made available. Phones purchased will be available on a first-come first-serve basis. Cell phones made available by this proposal will be $20 to $30 Straight Talk phones, and a total of $35 from the Mutual Aid Fund will be spent on 4,000 minutes available for 30 days without rollover. These costs will be outside the weekly working group budgets. Total costs to the Mutual Aid Fund for cell phone support will not exceed $600. Requests for cell phones must be made by working groups, following standard FAWG weekly disbursement procedures. We will also seek donations of cell phones from within and outside the Occupy Boston community to offset costs.
7 Responses to “GA Refines Mutual Aid Proposal”
I like it.
Your cellphone allocations are way out of line. FYE (For Your Entertainment) on Washington Street, Downtown Crossing has been selling them for less than ten dollars apiece, complete with SIM cards and prepaid airtime, throughout most of 2011 but now that they’re going out of business, maybe they’re already sold out.
I think a closer look at a lot of the other expenses would yield similar bargains if not outright donations from the rest of us as to whatever is really needed.
With respect to food: If you ask to read the back page of any copy of the weekly newspaper “SPARE CHANGE” sold on the street for one dollar that any vendor would gladly lend you, you will see an entire page listing free meals available withing walking distance of Dewey Square seven days a week. This being the case I wonder how much money should be tendered to support a lifestyle that the rest of us find unaffordable
Weekly or monthly unlimited-ride T-Passes are a good idea and absolutely necessary, but I wonder if they should be held in common rather than handed out for the exclusive use of specific individuals. Shouldn’t we operate out of central location and only make them available as needed for individual trips for specific reasons? I know this sounds awfully paternalistic and nit-pickey, but these costs can mount up astronomically and we need to be in this struggle for the long haul.
We also need a bicycle pool. Bikes are labor-intensive and tend to get stolen, but they make a lot more sense especially in downtown Boston for those who need to get to the various free meal locations on time.
During non-rush hours, they can also be taken on the subway and commuter rail (except for the Green Line) for longer distances.
I am personally committed to building up a big inventory of used bicycle parts and to acquiring the skills needed to disassemble old bikes in order to obtain them. If anyone is interested I already have about a dozen such bikes squirreled away already. If anyone has the time and skills they are available to OB.
Housing: I would like to start a working group focusing on the possibility of finding a way to cut a deal with the public and/or private owners of unoccupied and abandoned (but not necessarily foreclosed)buildings to bring them up to code in exchange for sweat equity. The Department of Neighborhood Development (DND) keeps a database of hundreds of these ranging from big factories and warehouses to single-family cottages all over metro Boston presented on an interactive map (red dots for City-owned, blue dots for privately owned) that you can zoom-in on for specific information.
[Where’s the rest of this article? It seems to end with “Whereas, Occupy Boston has, at last count, 57 working …” without going anywhere]
And now it seems the enemies of the republic need benefactors to mooch from. Let the bolshevics work for a living before they pretend to speak for those who do.