Our 2025 media picks

Journalism:

Print

Lauren Helper, “‘A volunteer jail’: Inside the scandals and abuse pushing California’s homeless out of shelters,” CalMatters, February 2025

Marisa Kendall, Katie Anastas, Aaron Schrank, & Lisa Halverstadt, “Move along: Targeting homeless Californians,” a five-part series, CalMatters, June 2025

Yesica Prado & Erika Carlos, “San Francisco is weaponizing parking rules to displace RV communities. Here’s how it started,” El Tecolote, November 2025

Radio

Alastair Boone, “Sidewalk Stories,” Crosscurrents by KALW and Street Spirit, 2025

Shaina Shealy, “A Tiny Plot,” a Snap Judgement podcast series by KQED, 2025

Books:

Brian Goldstone, There Is No Place for Us, Crown Publishing, 2025

Maggie Helwig, Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community, Coach House Books, 2025

Film:

No Place to Grow Old, a film by Davey Schaupp (2025)

Crushing Wheelchairs, a film by POOR Magazine (2025)

Best of Street Spirit (2025):

The Bulb, 16-page special issue of Street Spirit, April 2025

Alastair Boone, “Chaos and confusion during closure of Oakland shelter,” June 2025

Caron Creighton,“The power in paper: 35 years of street news,” March 2025

Zack Haber, “The ‘first-aid’ of education: a Gazan teacher’s journey through genocide,” March 2025

Cole Haddock & Maria Toldi, “Our house in the middle of the street,” February 2025

Bradley Penner, “What is the cost of encampment ‘resolution’?” June 2025

Bradley Penner, “Years after eviction, Wood Street rides on,” November 2025

‘Sunflower,’ “Dispatches from the sweep zone: Looming escalations,” October 2025

Forthcoming in 2026:

Wood Street, a documentary by Caron Creighton, 2026

“Swept off the Map,” an investigative mapping project by Cole Haddock and Maria Toldi, Street Spirit, 2026

What was your favorite media about homelessness this year? 

Let us know: streetspiritnews@gmail.com