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People of Faith Must Hear the Cry of the Poor

Features   In Dialogue
“Soup kitchens and hospitality, though wonderful, do not go far enough. There needs to be more advocacy which affects political and societal structures. We need a social movement which incorporates the most prophetic aspects of the Judeo/Christian tradition and other religious traditions to bring homelessness and poverty to an end.”

Rising Hunger and Food Shortages in Desperate Times

Features
Many service providers in Berkeley are reporting increasingly desperate levels of hunger and poverty. Survival for the growing numbers who are homeless or on the edge is very difficult. There is not enough of anything — food, housing, health care or safe places.

Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan

Features
The war in Afghanistan is now the longest in U.S. history, yet it has been rendered largely invisible. A new AFSC art exhibit depicts the impact of this war on Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire. We are present in every shot fired, every missile launched, and every bomb dropped.

Hobos to Street People: Artists Uncover Hidden History of Poverty

Features
The art exhibit, “Hobos to Street People," unites the viewer with workers of past generations who overcame unjust economic conditions. It reunites us with our dispossessed counterparts by reminding us of our own historic political vulnerabilities and losses — but also, what justly belongs to all citizens of civilized societies.

Arrested for ‘Sleepcrimes’ at Peace Camp in Santa Cruz

Features
Laying down for the right to sleep is dangerous in Santa Cruz. The jurors found all but one of these “sleep criminals” guilty. Actually, it was a homeless man’s dog who was found not guilty. When the courts have criminalized sleeping by the poor, how can anyone sleep well tonight?

An Alternative to Psychiatry and the Drug Industry

Features
The concept of the wellness model – the kind of peer help and advocacy practiced at the Berkeley Drop-In Center – is a welcome alternative to the powerful drug industry’s proliferation of psychotropic drugs for their newly invented mental illnesses.

Time to Build a New World

Features   Uncategorized
The United States spends enough money in two weeks on war that would feed, house and clothe every person on earth. Why? When 10.6 million children in this country don’t have health insurance, why does the world applaud Donald Trump’s new multimillion-dollar contract with a television station?

Are People Really Homeless by Choice?

Features   Uncategorized
The belief that people are homeless because they brought their predicament on themselves, is one way to justify doing nothing to help. This rationalization allows society to consider the homeless person as a nuisance, one from whom we all need to be protected by law enforcement.

The Bearing Witness Chronicles: Keeper of the Book

Features   Uncategorized
He finds sanctuary in the written word, praying it can hold him. He knows that too many frowns or raised eyebrows will translate to a small tug of his jacket, a kind or maybe not-so-kind tap on the shoulder and small words with large repercussions: “Sorry, but you have to go.”

WRAP Loses One of Its Founders, Mikey Chapman

Features
You never saw him on television or leading a march or a meeting, but Mikey Chapman did the quiet things that keep the movement running. A memorial tribute to one of the founding warriors of The Western Regional Avocacy Project.

South of Silicon Valley, Hunger Haunts Hollister

Features
In a terrible contradiction in U.S. poverty, the farm workers who spend their working lives producing the food consumed by millions in cities all over the country often don’t have enough to eat themselves. Hunger haunts agricultural workers in Hollister, in the very shadow of Silicon Valley’s unparalleled affluence.