August 2020 - Street Spirit

Month: August 2020

Are you unhoused in Oakland, Berkeley, or Emeryville? Caltrans might owe you money

By Natalie Orenstein on July 14, 2020

A lawsuit settlement requires California’s Transportation Department to reimburse homeless people who had their belongings taken or destroyed by the agency between 2014 and 2019. Here’s how to file a claim.

The state should house people living with mental illness

By Jack Bragen on August 1, 2020

Commentary Opinion

When we see our fellow human beings wither away and die on the streets, when we see encampments in the news that appear not much better than living under a pile of trash, when we see human beings who have names...the cure is not worse than the disease. Something must be done.

Why would anyone want to live on the street?

By Timothy Busby on August 1, 2020

Commentary First-person Opinion

Only after I accepted the fact that the person I was before was never coming back…could I begin to accept another life.

How shelter in place helped me feel more at home

By Andy Pope on August 1, 2020

Features Homeless No More

During many years of homelessness, I lived in a place where there is no shelter. Now that sheltering in place is required, I am living a lifestyle that is the direct opposite of my previous manner of life.

Large-scale decarceration is the only way to halt COVID outbreaks in prison

By Stop San Quentin Outbreak Coalition on July 17, 2020

Commentary News Opinion

Releasing a mere 6 percent of the people inside California’s overcrowded prisons falls woefully short of the large-scale decarceration needed to protect the health and safety of the community.

Oakland’s Driver Plaza, longtime hub for Black seniors, can keep its Porta Potty—for now

By Ariel Boone on July 24, 2020

Features News

The people who use the space during the day needed a Porta Potty there, so the community paid for one. But since its arrival in May, the toilet has come under attack.

The end of an era for a dynamic duo

By Julia Irwin on August 1, 2020

Features

In demonstrating new possibilities at the intersection of legal advocacy, policy work, and on-the-ground activism, Henson and Neumann have paved the way for the next generation of street lawyers.

Incarcerated insights into isolation

By Joe Garcia on August 1, 2020

Commentary Features Opinion

To those of you going stir crazy while struggling to shelter-in-place and self-isolate, please try and focus on the positive aspects of this new reality. It’s important to find your own beacon of light to pull yourself through the worst of the chaos. Decades of incarceration have taught me this and ingrained in me the coping skills to get through any seemingly depressing situation.

I am incarcerated at San Quentin. I have COVID-19.

By Thanh Tran on July 17, 2020

First-person Opinion

I write this after 3 days of being curled into a fetal position, fighting off COVID-19. I was sick and bedridden when I received my test results that read, "COVID Negative." This is what it looks like to test someone and then try to transfer them.

Month: August 2020

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