Community grows on Wood Street
By Dayton Andrews on Faced with displacement, bonds between residents are strengthening Located at the edge of West Oakland, it spans several blocks along
Commentary
View Articles in Other Categories
Berkeley’s Downtown Streets Team helps people learn how to care again
By Timothy Busby on Through the long hard process of becoming homeless, you break, lose sight of the basic values of life and become depressed to a level only the home- less few experiences.
I am one of the 400 homeless youth in Berkeley
Editor’s note: This story was produced in partnership with the Community Based Newsroom, and is part of “The Right to
Moms 4 Housing: Oakland’s Robin Hood
By Terry Messman on The brave and strategically brilliant members of Moms 4 Housing have given the entire nation a wake-up call about the disastrous shortage of affordable housing and the power of civil disobedience to confront the injustices of gentrification and the eviction-for-profit system.
Money buys choices and I don’t have it
By Jack Bragen on I’m prefacing this essay with a personal statement: I’m in favor of money and I’m in favor of me having
Are homeless people beautiful?
By Osha Neumann on This very odd question occurred to me after Terry Messman, the editor of Street Spirit, suggested I write something for the paper in conjunction with the publication of my book, Doodling on the Titanic: the Making of Art in a World on the Brink.
Lose your ID, lose your identity
By TJ Johnston on A few months ago, I lost my ID. I retraced my steps to the stores where I took it out when fishing for store cards and cash in my pouch. No luck—it wasn’t at any of them.
Intimidation: the cost of disability benefits
By Jack Bragen on 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.
Is Berkeley’s ‘shared sidewalk ordinance’ working?
By Timothy Busby on In April, the City of Berkeley voted to enforce a new law that limits the amount of space your personal be- longings can take up on the sidewalk. The new regulations state that if your personal property takes up more than 9 square feet, the city can take it away, and you could be subject to a citation.
Thanksgiving on Telegraph Avenue
By Ace Backwords on I always get this weird flashback when I’m walking down Telegraph Avenue on Thanksgiving day. Back in the Good Old Days I used to always meet up with my pals Duncan and Vince at this Telegraph Avenue coffee shop every Thanksgiving. Joint called the Wall Berlin. The Wall Berlin was one of the few coffee shops that was open on Thanksgiving. So it became kind of an annual holiday tradition for the three of us. I can still picture us sitting there at our table outside the café, quietly sipping on our coffee and talking about our plans for the holiday.
The homeless shuffle: enough is enough
By Timothy Busby on Berkeley’s homeless residents staged a protest march on Wednesday, October 23rd, starting at the Seabreeze encampment on University Ave and West Frontage road and ending at Berkeley City Hall. The purpose of the march was to bring attention to the cruelty of what I will call the “homeless shuffle,” the process by which agencies such as CalTrans, the Berkeley Police Department, and Amtrak take turns forcing people to move from corner to corner, and disposing of all their personal property in the process.
Buddhism for the rich vs. Buddhism for the poor
By Jack Bragen on It is well known to almost anyone exposed to Buddhism that its originator, Gautama Buddha, left behind rule of a