Douglas Freitag: singer, gardner, bookworm
By Kate Wolffe on By Kate Wolffe Douglas Freitag, known by his friends as Double Digging Doug, has been sprucing up gardens around Berkeley
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Celebrating a life of activism
By Ken Butigan on After 23 years, Street Spirit editor Terry Messman retires Terry in handcuffs after his second protest at Malmstorm Air Force
Encountering a Broken Health Care System
“I know that a person can be broken, but the system can be broken, too. I may be seen by others as a broken-down body with a broken-down mind. But I see a broken system in the mental health and medical field, from the front lines.”
Counties Cancel ICE Detention Contracts
Most cancellations are motivated by public outrage over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance,” under which every migrant crossing the border without papers is criminally charged and held in detention centers. Over 3,000 children have been torn from their parents and thousands of others have been incarcerated.
Attacking the Poor in a Full-Page Newspaper Ad
Imagine if all poverty and need were forced into the shadows based on the perceptions of danger by imaginative wealthy people. We would have what we have now; housing built predominantly for the well-off, with so little housing for the poor that the rest of us huddle under overpasses.
Joy in the Midst of Sorrow in Santa Maria Orphanage
This amazing priest not only housed 300 orphaned children from the streets of Mexico City, but he also took care of 20 homeless elders in his own house and started a home for children dying of AIDS. Father Norman also ran a soup kitchen that fed many people in the village.
They Left Him to Die Like a Tramp on the Street
Life is sacred. It is not just an economic statistic when someone suffers and dies on the streets of our nation. It is some mother’s son, or daughter. It is a human being made in the image of God. It is a desecration of the sacred when that life is torn down.
Tragic Death of Oakland Tenant Mary Jesus
Being evicted felt like the end of her life. As a disabled woman, she saw nothing ahead but a destitute life on the streets. She told a friend, “If I’m evicted tomorrow, I have no choice but to kill myself. I have no resources, no savings, no money, and nowhere to go.”
Animal Friends: A Saving Grace for Homeless People
“I wrapped her in my jacket and promised I’d never let anybody hurt her again. And that’s my promise to her for the rest of her life. In my mind she’s a little angel that saved me as much as I saved her.”
Writing for the Street Spirit: My 17 Year Journey
Writing for Street Spirit has awakened in me a sense of responsibility toward others. Street Spirit is a way for people silenced by big money and big media to have a voice.
GOP Seeks Massive HUD Budget Cuts
Despite the severe shortage of affordable housing, the GOP is seeking massive new cuts to HUD’s housing programs. Their budget would also result in nearly $6 trillion in catastrophic budget cuts over a decade to our nation’s federal domestic programs, not including the military.
How Big Growers Exploit and Intimidate Farm Workers
The lawsuit says managers routinely threatened to send farm workers home if they failed to meet the quota, and to blacklist them afterwards, preventing them from returning to the U.S. to work in subsequent years. One manager told them, “You came here to suffer, not for vacation.”