Berkeley Fails to Control Police Misconduct

During the Black Lives Matter protests in Berkeley, people trying to nonviolently protest police misconduct were obstructed and injured. Press officers were injured. Religious leaders were injured. People trying to help the injured were injured. Yet the Police Review Commission report about police tactics has glaring omissions.

Homeless Youth: A Bright and Shining Light

All you have to do is walk down Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley to discover we have a serious challenge called homelessness. It is unacceptable that simple cost-effective solutions which are in place to confront this conundrum have to struggle for funding. It is especially disturbing that the obvious is overlooked.

Mandatory Euthanasia

A uniformed man behind thick glass projected impatience. I immediately spotted a number of disintegrator guns built into the walls. I then realized I stood atop a steel grating that would allow for easy, vacuum-powered disposal of my gaseous and liquid remains, should it go that way.

Hidden in the Shadows, Corporations Control Our Economy

Corporations are treated legally as though they were individuals. They receive many of the rights of individuals but don’t have the same responsibilities. Officials in high positions use their corporate status as a firewall behind which they can hide from the repercussions of their actions.

Segregation Shaped San Mateo’s Housing Crisis

Skyrocketing rents, multimillion-dollar homes, and an epidemic of evictions have become fixtures of life in San Mateo County. Widening income inequality is feeding this housing crisis, and decades of discriminatory policy decisions have excluded poor people and people of color.

Santa Cruz Activists Join Together to Defend Right to Sleep

The UN Human Rights Committee condemns the criminalization of homelessness in the U.S.. Santa Cruz attorney Ed Frey says, “Sleeping is and has always been a human right that should be protected and defended by international convention. The time is right for a full-throated advocacy of that right at the highest levels.”

Gimme Some Truth

"I don't want to live in the kind of world where we don't look out for each other. Not just the people that are close to us, but anybody who needs a helping hand. I can’t change the way anybody else thinks, or what they choose to do, but I can do my bit."

New Shelter System — and New Attacks on Berkeley's Homeless

Under Mayor Tom Bates, Berkeley has become more conservative in its social policies, and much more intolerant towards homeless people. Mayor Bates and some City Council members have tried repeatedly to criminalize homelessness. As a result, people on the streets have been under attack repeatedly in recent years.

San Francisco Supervisor Tries to Ban Tents in Winter

Activists condemned Supervisor Wiener’s proposal to ban tents during the winter, saying: “Mr. Wiener’s letter is in direct contrast to the very spirit of the City of St. Francis. His timing was telling, as was his lack of solutions. Homeless people are suffering enough, and his letter was surprisingly cruel.”

Celebrating Frances Townes’ Lifelong Work with Homeless People

Frances Townes used her creative talents to support faith-based love for ALL our neighbors, including our homeless neighbors. Frances was a giant role model in how to live one’s faith through spirited actions seeking justice and loving kindness. Frances never retired from her deep concern for the lives of those less fortunate!

Serving the People on Martin Luther King Day

Leajay lost everything all at once — her job, her housing, her belongings in storage, her children, and then her freedom when the Berkeley police arrested her and put her in jail. This happened many times. Homelessness is a crime in Berkeley, she said, and the remedy, incarceration.

Greyhound Therapy: Symptom of a Failed Mental Health System

Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas handed out bus tickets to about 1500 gravely disabled patients, “transferring” them to states all over the country. Patients were sent to states where they had never been a resident and areas that had no mental institution prepared to receive them.