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Derrick Hayes: Street Spirit vendor, community member

By Alastair Boone on
Features   Street Spirits
Walking down Franklin Street in Downtown Oakland you’ll see a larger than life mural of a man in a baseball cap. With gentle eyes and a wide smile, he looks east over the city, watching over the people passing by. Small businesses line Franklin Street to the left and right. Below the mural is a parking lot, and shiny office buildings tower above. In between lies the portrait of Derrick Hayes, a 59-year-old homeless resident of Oakland who has been selling Street Spirit for almost 20 years.

Oakland opens safe parking RV site as vehicle evictions roll on

By Ariel Boone on
Features   News
Jorge Peña walked his tiny dog, Chiquita, around the inside perimeter of 711 71st Avenue in Oakland, behind the RVs parked neatly facing each other, stopping to say hello to his neighbor sitting in the shade. He is one of the first residents of Oakland’s new, invite-only “safe RV lot” next to Coliseum BART, and he calls it a “godsend.”

Homeless in Trump’s America

By Peter Y. Sussman on
Commentary   Features   Opinion
A man who lives at taxpayer expense in luxurious public housing in Washington, D.C. has started a campaign against those who aren’t so lucky. There’s something that repels him about homeless people, and in two appearances in recent months, the president began to clarify what it is.

Life, living, and sex work in Vienna, Austria

By Markus Schauta and Ruth Weismann on
Features
Until a few years ago, the corner of Linzer Strasse and Wissgrillgasse was Anna’s workplace. It was there, just past the tobacconists, that she waited for customers. “I would go to a cheap hotel with clients,” says this woman from Vienna, who has been a sex worker for 15 years. “The owners just took money for the room.” The client would pay.