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Master List of Ghost Ship Support

This is a master list of the various forms of support and community care that people are offering/requesting to support those who have been impacted by the Ghost Ship fire. This information is slowly being moved to a website in order to make the information more easily accessible.

Some of these pages are been vetted and some have not. Please read over pages carefully, especially donation pages. We want to directly support and give mutual aid to those that are affected by the fire while also considering the bigger narrative of gentrification and displacement in the Bay and how it affects more than just artists and musicians.

To add to doc: please email a link for the resource you would like added to hana.o.zait+GS@gmail.com.

This is in order to protect this doc from trolls/folks with intent to do harm, as this has already come up as an issue both in this doc and others related to the fire. That being said, be mindful of what information you think should be included here.

Table of Contents

Support Listings (offered + requested)

Listings of specific types of support

Item donations

General support

$$$/Financial Support

Benefits

General

For specific individuals (doc)

Legal Support

Misc. Resources

Information/toolkits/guides/services and tools offered/working groups

Local and national orgs that support DIY spaces and artists

Cybersecurity

Other

Support Listings (offered + requested)

  • Listings of specific types of support

  • Item donations

  • Many places that have been accepting donations are full, so here are some other amazing places in the Bay where you can donate to.**There are MANY more places in the Bay to give -- other than the Salvation Army (anti-LGBTQIA2S+), Goodwill (overpriced reselling), etc -- please do your research.**
  • POOR Magazine (FB) - poor people led/indigenous people led grassroots non-profit arts organization dedicated to providing revolutionary media access, art, education, and advocacy to silenced youth, adults and elders in poverty across the globe
  • Qilombo - provides direct support for houseless and displaced Black and Indigenous folks in Oakland
  • West Oakland Punks with Lunch (donate) - feeding lunch and providing other necessities to people experiencing homelessness in West Oakland
  • The Oakland Women's Center offers a safe, welcoming place where low-income women receive training and support to achieve healthier, more prosperous lives. "Our Sisters Closet" welcomes donations of gently used men's, women's and children's clothing plus baby supplies, bedding and linens.  Produce from their Rooftop Garden is distributed to clients and they always require clay pots, potting soil, seeds, etc.  Their office and Community Room currently need paper, a copy machine and a card laminator.

  • General support

  • Help Ghost Ship - information about resources, services, therapies, and free goods
  • Resources to support Ghost Ship - Spreadsheet for people to offer or request any resources (e.g. lodging, food, healing work, transportation, etc.)
  • Grief support form - request or offer any support (e.g. getting food deliveries/groceries runs/house cleaners/rides/narcan/herb care/plane tix to where they all need to go)
  • Include relevant info like if you're chemical sensitive, if you have a car, if you would need a ride to get somewhere, if you are QTPOC and prefer to clean QTPOC houses, etc.

  • Facebook Groups

  • Public FB groups and events posting about support
  • “Coordinating effort to improve emergency preparedness infrastructure throughout Oakland's underground art, culture, and community spaces”
  • “We are working on some google docs spreadsheets to organize resources for grief counseling and other areas of mental health for survivors and the loved ones of those lost. This will be up and running as soon as possible, we will keep everyone updated. We do not have any concrete way of contacting everyone affected by this. The best we can do is blast this out there. If you need anything let us know. Because this is a public event we will have to privately share the address. There will be a bazaar type setup where you can shop around for the things you need. HELPGHOSTSHIP@gmail.com, http://helpghostship.com.”

$$$/Financial Support

  • Benefits

  • General

  • Qilombo needs funds after being red tagged! Donate on their website, write a check, or give cash to Van, the Financial Operations Lead.
  • Needs: 1) “Heated yurt to continue having our events. We still have a Healing Clinic on the 23rd and a Kwanza event on the 31st. We made a promise to our communities to be consistent with uplifting events so we cannot cancel. 2) We need your support as we enter 2017 in general, but especially need help with the quick repairs to the building that WILL add up to a several grand (staircase, kitchen reconstruction, AND SUPPORT INSTALLING SPRINKLERS/ALARMS, etc)”
  • Save Burnt Ramen - assist Burnt Ramen in any repairs they may need to help bring the place up-to-date
  • Queens - house where a lot of people affected by the fire are located // fund started by a local comrade
  • Get grieving needs met: Send $ via PayPal to reachingfortheroots@gmail.com or claireurbanski@gmail.com (PayPal.me link) - These funds are being administered by a group of friends in the community with close ties to many of those lost and who have been reaching out to many others most affected. Unlike the Gray Area fund, donations collected by this group will be available to be distributed immediately as urgent needs arise. These folks are supporting ~100 people, many of whom are queer and trans.
  • Examples of costs include: plane tickets for those close to the deceased, food/groceries/toiletries, upcoming memorials to feed grievers, house cleaning supplies, vet bills for the deceased's pets, etc.
  • Immediate Oakland Fire Relief - fund to provide immediate relief for those most affected by the Oakland Fire who are not eligible for any other source of immediate relief // fund started by a local comrades. This is an alternative to the bureaucracy and limitations of the Gray Arts Fund.
  • This was formerly Love will never die (a fund started by a local comrade to cover the unpaid rent of lost friends)
  • Oakland Fire Relief - assistance and relief to the victims and families (The Oakland A's, the Oakland Raiders, and the Golden State Warriors are matching donations)
  • Ghost Ship Fire: Residents Support - this fund is for the 20 residents who have lost their home and all their belongings
  • The DIY Communities Safety Fund is a San Francisco Bay Area-based micro-grant program that provides direct financial assistance for critical upgrades to help make alternative spaces safer and, ultimately, code-compliant. The program provides funds for pre-inspections, remediative construction, legal costs, and other fees necessary to make core life-safety improvements. Organized by Safer DIY Spaces Oakland.

  • For specific individuals (doc)

Legal Support

  • Fulvio Cajina is a BLM and civil rights litigation attorney in the Jack London area, offering services for anyone directly affected by the fire. He speaks English and Spanish.
  • If in Berkeley,  call the Rent Board ASAP at 510-981-RENT or contact Jesse Townley. PLEASE pass this on to ANY Berkeley dwellers!
  • East Bay Community Law Center - focuses on defending eviction lawsuits brought against low-income tenants
  • California Lawyers for the Arts is offering free and low cost legal and mediation services for artists affected by the fire
  • (From the Omni DIY Safety Working Group meeting) Sean McHenry (sean.d.mchenry@gmail.com) will be the legal conduit for any tenant and help find a lawyer/connect with any tenant with the greater organizing efforts. Notes here from the meeting are available here
  • (From the Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee solidarity statement) If your warehouse/DIY community spaces is experiencing repression, such as law enforcement harassment, random landlord or fire inspection etc, there are lawyers within the National Lawyers Guild who have stepped up to offer assistance. We’ve also heard that some people have been approached by law enforcement or the Bureau of Alcohol Firearms Tobacco and Explosives with questions about the fire at Ghostship. Please keep in mind that you have the right to remain silent! It’s best practice to give no comment, ask the official for a business card, and inform them that your attorney will contact them.
  • (From BG Anaraki) If you are a family members of our lost, ppl that were in the building (especially the injured), tenants of buildings fearing eviction or anyone who thinks they may face legal action against them (besides the douchebag ghost ship master tenant) -- email revolutionoakland@protonmail.com to connect with the lawyer John Burris (of the Rodney king and Oscar grant cases!). He is putting his firm’s full force behind us! And they're very enthusiastic about it!

Misc. Resources

  • Information/toolkits/guides/services and tools offered/working groups

  • The Oakland and Berkeley Public Libraries have free Tool Lending Libraries. Fines are forgiving. Resident cards are lax too. **Be sure to check in about the residency card thing before you go in. Let this FB group or vb@riseup.net know if you also just need to be matched with someone who has residency.**

  • Local and national orgs that support DIY spaces and artists

  • (e.g. by offering grants, fiscal sponsors, spaces, advice, etc.)
  • The Awesome Foundation (national) - no-strings-attached microgrants ($1000)
  • CERF+ (national) - help artists prepare for and recover from emergencies (including offering grants + no-interest loans)
  • Community Arts Stabilization Trust (SF) - create stable physical spaces for arts and cultural organizations
  • Fractured Atlas (national) - eliminate practical barriers to artistic expression
  • Meow Wolf’s DIY Fund - annual fund to support DIY music and art spaces, with additional consulting resources available for legal, building code, and organizational structure improvements
  • Nation of Makers (national) - dedicated to helping makers by supporting maker organizations; through advocacy, the sharing of resources and the building of community within the maker movement and beyond (their Risk Management team is trying to help other spaces across the US with the impact of the tragedy to their local areas)
  • NYC Loft Tenants (NYC) - organized by loft tenants for loft tenants to educate newcomers, advocate for tenants’ rights and improve the 2010 NYC Loft Law
  • One Plus (national) - facilitates a matching system to connect nonprofits with architecture and design firms that have made a pledge to pro bono service on active design project needs
  • East Bay Community Foundation (East Bay) - Community Resilience Fund - will provide grants to community-based organizations working to mitigate the medium- and long-term impacts from this tragedy, including addressing the underlying issues of safety and affordability of spaces for the artist community in Oakland. EBCF is committed to ensuring that funds are available for long-term recovery after the initial crisis passes.
  • If you would like to direct a contribution to support victims and their families, please contact Ken Harootunian at kharootunian@eastbaycf.org or (510) 208-0844 for assistance.

  • Petitions and Advocacy

  • Cybersecurity

  • Other

  • Sparxo Inc - Event ticketing to contribute 100% of service fees to artist fund: Know an organizer that throws events in Oakland? Use Sparxo to sell tickets and we will donate 100% of all service fees collected to an artist aggregation fund that can be given immediately and directly to any artist for (almost) anything they need for the next 6 months. If need be, we can extend this program to last through the year or two, or three. → Sign up link
  • Work with David at Omni Commons to setup an easy way for artist to collect the money/validate how the resources are allocated