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!

When I visited her home studio, the sheer numbers of her art pieces astounded me. Every wall was covered with her paintings, and shelves were filled with her sculptures. Her art ranged from fabulous human figure sculptures to sculptural reliefs to oil paintings to drawings, the best artwork I’d ever seen.

“Dogtown Redemption,” a new documentary film, humanizes and celebrates those who live in the America that many of us do not see. The film is not only the intimate story of recyclers in West Oakland, but a journey through a landscape of love and loss, devotion and addiction, prejudice and poverty.

It’s hard to quantify the values of hope and beauty. How do you measure what happens to someone creating art for the first time? YSA’s mission is to use art and jobs training to transform the lives of low-income and homeless youth to ensure that they meet their full potential.

I realized that bringing them to life in drawings was quite unique, seeming to have more joy in it than I’d ever experienced before. Walter was delighted. Nate always greets me now with a thankful smile. Donald, the very gentle one, spoke proudly and warmly when pondering his portrait.

Police use laws against trespassing, panhandling, loitering, vagrancy and disorderly conduct to punish poor people and exacerbate their misery. They also confiscate their meager possessions, bringing additional despair. Homeless people are an irritant to public officials and a fruitful source of arrest statistics for police departments throughout the nation.