KuroKoumori

if you can, please take the time to donate to these bail funds in appalachia, or at least reblog. appalachia is a deeply impoverished part of this country and these people could use all the help you can give. this post includes links for cities that may not be in appalachia but another part of the state is. this is by no means comprehensive. if you have any links to funds from these states feel free to reply with a link, especially if they are for virginia, west virginia, or maryland. please do not hesitate to tell me if any of these are fake.

ALABAMA:

montgomery bail out

local organizer star robb (tweets from birmingham DSA confirming this) is bailing people out in hoover and birmingham, venmo: @/starrobb, cashapp: $StarRobb

etowah county’s freedom fund (twitter link) paypal is here

huntsville paypal

GEORGIA:

atlanta solidarity fund

support #justiceforgeorgefloyd protestors in atlanta

messiah young and taniyah pilgrim bail money, goes toward two black people who were attacked by police in their car

athens freedom fund

KENTUCKY:

louisville community

lexington bail

MARYLAND:

baltimore action legal team

MISSISSIPI:

mississippi bail fund collective

bail fund for zach borenstein, a man who was arrested during protests in mississippi on may 30th (excess funds will be going to the mississippi bail fund collective)

NEW YORK:

emergency release fund: new york city, which is specifically focused on trans people

OAR of tompkins county

brooklyn community bail–as of 5/30/2020 they are asking people to direct their donations elsewhere

the bronx freedom fund

may 2020 buffalo

liberty fund

rochester cashapp: $BLMRoc

NORTH CAROLINA:

take action chapel hill

NC community bail fund of durham

charlotte uprising

alamance county

forsyth county

asheville

fayetteville

greensboro

OHIO:

columbus freedom fund’s (twitter link) paypal is here

canton/akron

BLM cleveland (twitter link) paypal is here

cincinnati bail–for this one, you need to click the amount you want to donate and then pick “cincinnati bail fund”

PENNSYLVANIA:

lancaster bail fund for #blacklivesmatter–as of 6/2/2020 lancaster has met their goal and is no longer asking for donations

bukit bail fund of pittsburgh

dauphin county

philadelphia community bail

philadelphia bail fund–as of 6/2/2020 they have met their goal and are asking people to donate elsewhere

pittsburgh aftercare jail support

SOUTH CAROLINA:

columbia bail (twitter link), cashapp: $SodaCityBail; they also have a separate cashapp for money that goes toward supplies: $PSLColumbiaSC

charleston, SC protestor fund

TENNESSEE:

nashville bail

mid-south peace and justice center (memphis), cashapp: $OfficialBLMMemphis

just city memphis

hamilton county

knoxville venmo: @/endthemoneybail-knoxville, memo: “BLM”

VIRGINIA:

richmond community bail

roanoke bail

WEST VIRGINIA:

BLM west virginia

OTHERS:

appalachian feminist coalition bail fund, although they are encouraging donations to the aforementioned group in knoxville, tennessee

the bail project also operates in numerous states across the country, including those that are in appalachia

Remember also that just because a bail fund’s immediate needs have been met, many of them need deep financial wells in order to provide continued support for the communities and people they serve long after the initial bail.

nina silber, “this war ain’t over,” 2018

annika neklason, “conspiracy theories and the civil war,” 2020

james baldwin, “nobody knows my name,” 1961

j.b., from “taking sides: revolutionary solidarity and the poverty of liberalism,” 2015

If you work with the homeless, you hear this sentiment a lot. A lot.

Everyone who hates seeing their tax dollars go to the needy seems to think that this is the ultimate “gotcha”. How can that person possibly be homeless if they have a nice cell phone? How can homelessness really be so bad if you have an Android? How can social programs be underfunded when their clients have iPhones? 

You want to know why the homeless have smartphones? There’s a couple of good reasons:

It’s leftover from a previous, more stable life. Homeless people aren’t video game characters, they don’t just spawn on street corners, fully formed. Most people do not experience long-term homelessness - the average homeless person is on the streets for less than a month. These are people who used to have jobs, apartments, cars, etc, until some sort of catastrophe put them on the street. You might lose your apartment or car, but most people own their cellphone outright, and can hang onto it when something bad happens. 

It was given to them by a concerned family member or friend. Most homeless people do actually have non-homeless family members and friends who care about them. Their family might not be able to let that person live with them at the moment, due to addiction or mental health problems, but they still need a way to get in touch with that person and check in on them. Giving them a cellphone is the easiest way to do that.

It was picked up second-hand. People upgrade to the newest device all the time, and when they do that, many of them will sell their old phones. It’s easy to find cheap, secondhand cellphones on the internet or in pawn shops, and they’re a valuable tool worth having. 

It was given out by a social services agency or charity. When you work with the homeless, getting in touch with them is one of the biggest challenges you face. You need to be able to get hold of them at a moment’s notice to let them know about appointments, openings in important programs, updates on applications, and all sorts of other crucial information. Instead of wasting hours and gas driving around looking for people the old-fashioned way, many social agencies just give out cheap phones to their clients, to make sure that they can always contact them. 

It doesn’t have a plan. Many people who see a homeless person on a cell phone assume that that person is also paying for a costly phone and data plan. That’s usually not the case. Many homeless people use pay-as-you-go phone minutes that they can top up whenever they happen to have the money. Even without any minutes, phones are valuable - free public wifi can be used to make phone calls, look up information and stay in contact with friends. 

It’s for emergencies. By federal law, even old, deactivated cell phones are able to place calls to 911. Sleeping rough is dangerous, and it never hurts to have a phone nearby, even if its only use is to call for help. 

Kutani ware HANAZUME tea cup 

Japan