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The Genesis of Street Spirit in a Berkeley Seminary

Features
We blocked the roads into Livermore laboratory for hours until the police pulled up with giant earth-moving machinery. Father Bill O’Donnell, a priest who had joined with Spirit on many acts of resistance, warned the driver, “We are chained to this missile. If you use that machine, you will crush us.”

They Left Him to Die Like a Tramp on the Street

Arts and Culture   Features
Skid Row was an oppressive place where thousands were locked in merciless, grinding poverty. Every day, the Catholic Workers served meals to countless destitute people on Skid Row. And every day, they sang. I never got over that — the songs they sang in the midst of terrible hardships.

Food Not Bombs Sues for Right to Share Food in Florida

Features   Uncategorized
Fort Lauderdale faces a lawsuit by Food Not Bombs for criminalizing food sharing. Laws to criminalize homelessness are “a response to the visibility of homelessness in public spaces,” said Kirsten Clanton of Southern Legal Counsel. “It’s business interests. It’s an effort to sanitize public space, often for tourism and tourist dollars.”

An SRO Hotel Is Hardly a Home in San Francisco

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An eye-opening film by a UCB student exposes the degrading conditions and overcrowding in SRO hotels in San Francisco. Many low-income families are caught in slum conditions and live in cramped, unsanitary and dangerous rooms. They endure drug-dealing in hallways and managers who threaten tenants and their visitors.

The Sense of Loss When a Community Is Erased

Features   Uncategorized
Andy Kreamer asked people to call out the names of Albany Bulb residents who had been lost. The amount of loss that has been suffered in the past year is overwhelming. The residents have lost more than their homes. They’ve lost their safety, their friends, their peace of mind.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

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It is heartbreaking to go out to the Albany Bulb and see what has been done to our former home. Those of us who still live on the streets are under constant persecution due to the inhumane laws that criminalize our very existence.

California Vagrancy Laws Violate Human Rights

Features   Uncategorized
“Anti-homeless laws today and the vagrancy laws of prior eras — restrictions like anti-Okie laws, the Sundown Towns and Ugly Laws that explicitly discriminated against migrants, people of color and people with physical disabilities — have come back with a vengeance.”

John Lewis and the Spirit of Selma

Features
“I thought I was going to die on that bridge. I thought it was the last nonviolent protest. But somehow I survived, and a group of nuns took care of us at a hospital.” — John Lewis

A Right Delayed Is a Right Denied

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“We are here to let San Francisco know that we will resist these laws. We will resist any law that criminalizes the bare necessities of life activities and the basic existence of our people!”

My Journey from San Francisco to Selma

Features
Bishop James Pike of Grace Cathedral thundered from the steps of City Hall: “I’ve been there, and friends, we need more bodies down there, more bodies, and especially more white bodies.” In that instant, I knew I would go to Selma.

Working Hard in America’s Twilight Economy

Features   Uncategorized
Jamie Dimond, the head of JPMorganChase, made over $9,000 an hour during the time his company committed numerous financial crimes, including stealing people’s homes and wrecking the economy. On a good day, Robert the gleaner, a Gulf War veteran who gets around on an old one-speed bike, makes about eight dollars.