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Gentrification abroad: The destruction of a Roma village

By Sylvia Sawislak on
Arts and Culture   Commentary   YSA youth contributions
As I walk through a Roma village in Istanbul, I see pink and yellow painted houses that are rusting, with open windows that have clothes hanging down the sides. There is trash everywhere I step. Ahead of me in the distance, I see tall buildings that are multicolored and modern. These are the apartment buildings that are replacing the Roma village. As Roma activist Sadi Cati shows me around, the Roma people living in the little houses look very unhappy while staring at me.

Berkeley homeless services imperiled

By Susan Black on
Commentary   Opinion
At the Berkeley city council meet- ing on May 21, Berkeley’s City Manager unveiled her budget proposal for the next four years. This proposed budget would eliminate $223,356 from Dorothy Day House’s proposed funding. This amounts to a 20 percent cut in the money we will receive from the city.

39 years of Food Not Bombs

By Keith McHenry on
Commentary   Opinion
Food Not Bombs has been serving meals at People’s Park five days a week since 1991. And as the Park commemorates its 50th anniversary, Food Not Bombs is celebrating 39 years serving meals to the hungry. In honor of this shared anniversary, Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry shares his project’s origin story.

Unity grows in East Bay activism

By Dayton Andrews on
Commentary   Opinion
I have seen something quite remarkable start to develop over the last few months. In the face of increased pressure on working people to find decent housing, some of the most hard-pressed people in the Bay Area have not only been standing their ground against threats of eviction—they are also traveling across neighborhoods to support comrades in other struggles doing the same.

The economy of prison and homelessness

By Kevin D. Sawyer on
Arts and Culture   Commentary   Opinion   YSA youth contributions
The United States misappropriates resources (including the human ones) in a business-as-usual profit over people custom. For decades, the U.S. prison industrial complex has embraced tough-on-crime legislation to branch its growth through the incarceration of its citizens. One of the many downsides of this policy is the increase in people living in squalor while others are “sheltered” in the name of public safety.

The history of The Village Movement

By Anita de Asis Miralle aka Needa Bee on
Commentary   Features
In January 2016, me and my daughter started feeding our unhoused neighbors in the streets. Little did we know that simple sharing would evolve into a crew of 70 people called Feed The People. Who knew that Feed The People would transform into a movement called The Village, which fights to decriminalize homelessness, builds emergency shelters, asserts that housing is a human right, and joins the call for another model of urban development that does not displace lifelong residents of The Town.

The People’s Park trees have standing

By Carol Denney on
Commentary   Opinion
At 4 a.m. on December 28, the University of California cut down 40 trees in People’s Park, arguing that they endangered public safety, or at least blocked the light. The “long-deferred maintenance”, as a UC Berkeley statement describes it, was initiated without any warning to neighbors, park supporters, and community members. In the weeks since, the University’s demolition of the trees has continued—as of the end of January, they have cut down at least 42 trees.