Street Spirit
Donate

Street Spirit is an independent newspaper in the East Bay dedicated to covering homelessness and poverty from the perspective of those most impacted. Est 1995.

  • About Us
    • About Street Spirit
    • Vendor Program
    • In the News
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Arts and Culture
    • Arts and Culture
    • Poetry
    • Community Events
    • Fiction
    • YSA youth contributions
  • Features
    • Features
    • Street Spirits
    • Homeless No More
    • In Dialogue
  • Subscribe
  • Past Issues
    • Past Issues
    • Search Our Archive
Donate

Street Spirit is an independent newspaper in the East Bay dedicated to covering homelessness and poverty from the perspective of those most impacted. Est 1995.

Street Spirit swag is available in our webstore! Sweaters, posters, hats, & more! SHOP

Jack Bragen

Share this
Share on Facebook
Tweet about it
Share on Pinterest
Send Email

Jack Bragen lives and writes in Martinez and is author of Instructions for Dealing with Schizophrenia: A Self-Help Manual, Second Edition.

Two decades of writing for Bay Area street newspapers

March 4, 2025
First-person   Opinion
‘When someone is living in the margins, being published matters...’

Post-election shock and it’s effect on one psychotic man

January 6, 2025
First-person   Opinion
This seems very Orwellian, and worse.

Neurodivergent people have limited options for supportive care

October 7, 2024
First-person   Opinion
"Survival, if we have to do it alone, is not easy, and it is not getting easier. "

Life with cognitive differences

August 5, 2024
First-person   Opinion
"...we need more people to understand that even though we may be suffering from an illness, we are not 'less than,' but people just like them."

The right to exist is a human right

July 11, 2024
First-person   Opinion
"The conspiracy to dump people on the streets who can’t make it in the conventional workplaces is a slap in the face to our right to exist."

Tales of insomnia 

May 9, 2024
First-person   Opinion
A morning in the life of Jack Bragen, who lives with chronic schizoaffective disorder.

The ‘unemployable’ also have a right to exist

May 16, 2023
First-person   Opinion
I’m disabled and I’m unable to make it in a conventional job. I’m facing very hard challenges at this point in life.

I hate smoking cigarettes but I can’t quit

December 6, 2022
First-person   Opinion
I must face this demon myself, Bragen writes.

Living with mental illness: the burden of stereotype

October 6, 2022
Commentary   Opinion
The prejudice against people with psychiatric problems seems to be the last socially acceptable form of bigotry, Bragen writes.

The terror that comes with being poor, aging, disabled

September 6, 2022
First-person   Opinion
Fear is a constant burden for people living in poverty, but it can also be a helpful guide.

Car man: Who am I?

July 7, 2022
Fiction
I live in my car, and that could qualify me as homeless. I also have a memory problem: I can’t remember what my name is, with whom I once lived, or even where I came from.

The real-world impact of Trump’s crackdown on government benefits

June 10, 2022
Features   First-person   Opinion
Bragen received an unprecedented amount of mail from Social Security starting in the year 2020, forcing him to engage in a rigorous process of proving his disabilities were legitimate. This was the result of a policy change by the Trump administration.

The power of one’s voice as a nonviolent form of self-defense

May 4, 2022
First-person   Opinion
Your voice can be a useful tool of self-defense when a situation begins to escalate, Bragen writes.

Poverty and hardship are obstacles to health and happiness

February 11, 2022
First-person   Opinion
Living in poverty leads to bad health and premature aging, Bragen writes.

Why aren’t CA stimulus checks automatically given to the poor?

January 10, 2022
Commentary   Opinion
Author Jack Bragen laments how difficult it is for low-income people who don't pay taxes to receive stimulus checks.

A government must—

December 9, 2021
Commentary   Opinion
Jack Bragen reflects on the government's responsibility to protect its people.

Panic at the dollar store

December 9, 2021
Arts and Culture   Fiction
Fiction about a trip to the dollar store gone wrong.

Emerging from psychosis is like a revelation

November 8, 2021
First-person   Opinion
Jack Bragen writes about the experience of emerging from a period of psychosis, using his own experience as a guide.

Beneath the grass, the sprinklers, and the frogs

October 5, 2021
Arts and Culture   Fiction
For cover, I inhabited the biggest of the frogs. But then I...realized that I was about to be eaten, too, and this would truly be my end.

An economic straightjacket traps people with disabilities

October 5, 2021
Commentary   Opinion
Let’s face it: we are harshly penalized for any work activity that we might try to do. I’ve experienced this firsthand. The Social Security Administration boasts otherwise and claims that they offer incentives toward working. This is bogus.

Money can be used as a weapon

September 6, 2021
Commentary   Opinion
Money brings power. While it doesn’t give power over oneself, it gives power over external conditions, events, and people.

There is not enough hope for older people with disabilities who are looking for work

August 10, 2021
First-person   Opinion   YSA youth contributions
There are many causes of unemployability. Being disabled and older, and not having a college degree are near the top of the list.

The onset of schizophrenia: an inside perspective

July 8, 2021
First-person   Opinion
The following is a narrative of the onset of schizophrenia, told from the perspective of the individual who is in the process of becoming ill.

America’s effort to destroy poor, disabled people

June 1, 2021
Commentary   Opinion
We are now seeing the fallout of President Trump’s 2021 Budget, which targets the most vulnerable people and pays the people at the very top with a nifty tax break.

App-based driving provides a shred of hope for some

May 5, 2021
Commentary   Opinion
App-based driving is a mixed bag; it is a sign of desperate times, but it fills a need for many.

For people with mental illness, jail should never be normalized

April 6, 2021
First-person   Opinion
People who violate our overly complex and needlessly punitive web of laws, when they do so due to being disconnected from reality due to a psychiatric illness, are suffering from an illness and they are not criminals.

What if I told you I could change reality right in front of you?

February 11, 2021
Arts and Culture   Fiction   YSA youth contributions
Frederick Walford has been in treatment for "delusional thoughts" for years now. But what if I told you he has been misdiagnosed?

Good terminology is necessary for good mental health treatment

February 10, 2021
Commentary   Opinion   YSA youth contributions
Mental health consumers are rendered impotent by the verbal and psychological tactics of those in the mental health treatment system. This prevents us from building decent lives for ourselves.

Natascha the sentient house cat

December 2, 2020
Arts and Culture   Fiction   YSA youth contributions
Justin had what he wanted. Natascha was a one-year-old, female, Russian Blue cat, in near-perfect health. He had bought a pet hospital months before to avoid answering the questions of an adoption agency or county shelter.

People living with mental illness are not represented in politics

November 3, 2020
Commentary   Opinion   YSA youth contributions
As an adult with mental illness and progressive values, my primary focus is not on national politics or getting Trump out of office. My main concern is about the treatment of people who live with mental illness and our lack of opportunities to better our conditions.

The state should house people living with mental illness

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.

The pandemic resembles one of my psychotic episodes

April 1, 2020
First-person   Opinion   YSA youth contributions
The current pandemic makes it seem as though the world has gone insane. This time, I'm not crazy, but neither are other people. Reality has taken a surreal turn.

Money buys choices and I don’t have it

February 1, 2020
Commentary   Opinion
I’m prefacing this essay with a personal statement: I’m in favor of money and I’m in favor of me having

Intimidation: the cost of disability benefits

November 1, 2019
Commentary   Opinion
Many people with disabilities are dependent on government benefits in order to survive. However, the process of acquiring these benefits is nowhere near easy. It can be deeply intimidating, making it feel inaccessible for those who already struggle with disabilities.

Buddhism for the rich vs. Buddhism for the poor

October 1, 2019
Commentary   Opinion
It is well known to almost anyone exposed to Buddhism that its originator, Gautama Buddha, left behind rule of a

Disability insurance is a poverty trap August 2019

August 9, 2019
Commentary   Opinion
If you are unable to work competitively due to a disability and you receive benefits because of this, it isn’t free money—it comes with certain costs. Disability benefits and SSI are set up to impose limitations in what you can and can’t do.

Watching James Michaelson

June 1, 2019
Arts and Culture   Fiction   YSA youth contributions
Creating multiple inconveniences was one of many strategies for interfering with James Michaelson’s inconvenient, daily activities. He was opening a can of tomatoes, and my prompt instructed me to speak into the microphone.

New California bill may threaten independent workers

March 1, 2019
Commentary   Opinion
The California Legislature is currently considering Assembly Bill 5, could make it much more difficult to work as an independent

Society in 2120 (part III)

February 1, 2019
Arts and Culture   Fiction
Recap of part II: “As if to punctuate what it had said, the car abruptly accelerated and passed a cluster

Enlightenment is not the solution to poverty

January 1, 2019
Commentary   Opinion
When basic necessities aren’t present, or when one’s living conditions are otherwise compromised, (such as if you live in a

Society in 2120 (part II)

January 1, 2019
Arts and Culture   Fiction   YSA youth contributions
Recap of part I: The force put out by the book, the evil force, was stronger. It was involuntary: I

Society in 2120 (part I)

December 1, 2018
Arts and Culture   Fiction   YSA youth contributions
In a car, on my way to work, I saw the ever-present, giant, illuminated billboards along my flight path, displaying

Modern-day scammers prey upon the poor

November 1, 2018
Commentary   Opinion
I am constantly astounded at the level of sophistication reached by modern day swindlers. If ordinary folks fail to be

Social security is not enough to live on

October 1, 2018
Commentary
When a person is born disabled or becomes disabled as an adult, they are in for a life of hardship

Abolish the Inhumanity of War and Poverty

July 13, 2018
Opinion
We face a spectrum of cruelty, from bullying in the schools to the inhumanity of poverty and the catastrophic cruelty of war and nuclear bombs. Inhumanity leads to senseless shootings at the local level and senseless wars on the global level. People must learn to be kinder and more humane.

Compassion: A Way Out of Conflict and Enmity

June 18, 2018
Opinion
Compassion means empathy and imagining the perspective of others. The idea that “we are all one” may be dismissed as straight out of the 1960s. But that idea stays with me and continues to influence me. This consciousness of love and compassion is one of the pillars of most religions.

Psychiatric Cruelty in the Modern Era

August 10, 2017
Opinion
Before the first medications were developed, lobotomies were used on the most difficult cases, and electroshock was often used as well. Even with modern treatments and knowledge in the field of psychiatry, senseless cruelty continues to be perpetrated upon persons who suffer from mental health problems.

Lost and Homeless Among the Stars

February 6, 2015
Fiction
When I die, or after I die, I want to look back at my life and see that I ate that cookie, I drank that vodka, I made love to that woman. I did not shy away from living because of the petty fear that death might come sooner.

Post navigation

Previous Author
Next Author



Donate
  • Contact
  • Sitemap
  • Site Credits
  • Facebook
  • Twitter