South Bend is under Occupation

It's a chilly fall evening and there are eight people standing in front of the First Source Bank in downtown South Bend. A woman holds a sign that reads "We are the unsilent majority" and a man holds a sign about how the only votes that count are for American Idol.  Cars honk in support as people drive by and read the signs.

It's just after 5:30 p.m. and the group is deciding on whether or not to postpone their General Assembly until a few more people arrive.  While it's usually held at 5:30 p.m. every day, the group is small now.  At the Occupy South Bend rally on the first day of the Occupation, over 150 people showed up in front of Wells Fargo Bank.  Since then, the group hasn't reached that size, as many people go home at night.

The Occupy South Bend movement began as the South Bend chapter of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in September by people who grew tired of Wall Street's power over the U.S. economy.  Since then, Occupations have been sprouting up all over the country as people are standing in solidarity with the hundreds and thousands of people who are flocking to New York City.

One man is down just a block or two away, talking to a few people near the Occupiers' camp at Civic Center Park on Michigan Street in front of The Morris Performing Arts Center.  Someone asks if they should go remind him that the G.A. is about to begin.

"We don't want to impose on people's freedom," says Jonathan Deak. "If they don't want to come, we shouldn't make them."

Deak is one out of a handful of people involved with Occupy South Bend who has taken up permanent residence at their encampment in front of the Morris Theatre.  During the rain a few days earlier, he was mixing concrete donated by a local union to help secure their tents.  Their goal is to stay dry and warm, but as rain becomes more common during the fall season until it then becomes snow in winter, that may prove to be difficult.

The tents now are on top of a layer of pallets, a layer of plywood, and a layer of tarp each.

"Our end goal would be to have outdoor carpet on the inside and on the outside to help protect us through the winter," says Deak.

That's just one of the many goals that the Occupiers have. Each individual has their own story and their own goals, but they come to a consensus on decisions through group discussions.

Right now, the decision is to hold off on the G.A. just for a few more minutes, in hopes that anyone who wants to join a little late won't end up missing much.

One occupier, Chris Lovejoy, used to be a student at IU South Bend.  He was pursuing a Bachelor's Degree and grateful for the Pell Grant that allowed him to work towards a degree that he hoped would help him find a better job in a field he enjoyed.

"Then I got sick one semester and didn't have enough completion hours," Lovejoy says. "I had 12 credit hours and had to withdraw from all 12, and I lost my Pell Grant because of that."

He went through the appeal process to see if he could get it back and continue taking classes.  He was denied and no longer can get a Pell Grant for financial aid.

"I could still pay cash, but I can't afford nearly $200 a credit hour. It would take me over 20 years to graduate," he adds.  His plans now have changed; he will attend Ivy Tech, which is much more affordable, but he won't be able to get the Bachelor's degree had had been working toward. 

"That's why I'm here at Occupy South Bend.  They change the requirements every year and make it harder for students to get Pell Grants and keep them if they get sick. More money for Pell Grants, more education, more chance for health care. That's what our country needs," he says.

Other Occupiers listening to Lovejoy agree and begin talking about their own aspirations, and which degrees they would get if they could go to IUSB or Ivy Tech and get a degree.

It's nearing 6 p.m. and a few more people have shown up, including a few people waiting to be bussed to the Notre Dame v. USC game.  They listen, standing off to the side, as Deak, a man named Dagon Young and a woman named Carissa Taylor decide that it's time to begin the G.A.

The format of the G.A. is simple: Deak is the facilitator today. Taylor takes minutes of the G.A. and Young serves as the lead of the stack, which is where anyone who wants to speak lines up, in order to keep the conversation organized and give everyone who wants to speak the opportunity to do so.

They begin by asking for items to add to the agenda.  Events and sustainability are the only things added.

"I think these are ideas we should do every week," Deak says. Friday nights we'll have documentary screenings. Saturdays, after our G.A., we'll have a time to relax [at the camp], talk, listen to music and have a little Party for Peace for people. On Sundays, I'd like to have a little potluck BBQ for people to hang out, eat and talk about our ideas and about where this movement is going."

Taylor gets in the stack and agrees and mentions plans for advertising the events and getting the word out.