Our impact in 2025
Check out all the progress we made this year, and learn more about our plans for 2026.
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Street Spirit has a new office!
Original screen print artwork by David Solnit. The print depicts the “Where Do We Go” tents, an installation by Suzi
Against Building Housing on People’s Park
By Julia Vinograd on There isn’t room There’s already 3 or 4 roommates
knocking elbows inside each tulip
and arguing whose turn it is
An ode to the ghosts of People’s Park
By Terry Messman on The ghosts of People’s Park still haunt us today, 50 years after the police and National Guard met unarmed demonstrators with overwhelming firepower. Restless spirits still demand to be heard, and seem to speak with special power in the springtime, bringing to mind the spring of 1969 when the Park was created. It was the very springtime of our generation’s struggles for peace and justice.
Harold Adler captures the spirit of early People’s Park
By Alastair Boone on Harold Adler has photographed all kinds of characters. Throughout the 1960’s and 70’s, he documented Telegraph Avenue hippies and gangs
Remembering Hateman; champion of ‘oppositional caring’
By Daniel McMullan on Another milestone came and went on September 26, 2017. It would have been the 81st birth- day of Berkeley icon and People’s Park denizen Hateman, also known as Mark Hawthorn. A group of about 35 people showed up at People’s Park to remember him at his spot at the top of the Park, reminiscing on his lifelong philosophy of “oppositional caring.”
Remembering Calvin Kelley
By Alastair Boone on Kelley was shot at People’s Park in April—the first ever murder to occur in the Park. A memorial for Kelley
Bloody Thursday: how People’s Park became a battleground
By Benjamin Schneider on At 4:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 15, 1969 250 California Highway Patrol officers arrived at newly constructed People’s Park, while a helicopter buzzed overhead. They cleared a few people who were sleeping on the fresh sod and put up a chain link fence. As the sun rose, Berkeley’s newest green space, a symbol of an alternative vision of society, was enclosed behind a perimeter of state police officers.
Julia Vinograd: People’s Park poet
By Lydia Gans on This article was written in 2015 after I sat down and had a long conversation with Julia at Caffe Mediterraneum.
The People’s Park 50th Anniversary Edition
By Lydia Gans on In April, Berkeley observed the 50th anniversary of the iconic People’s Park. Whether it will be a celebration or a
Hidden Crisis of Homelessness on Tribal Lands
Large U.S. cities are known for high rates of homelessness. The housing emergency on tribal lands is hidden, but just as devastating. Housing shortages and evictions have created a quiet crisis of homelessness for Native Americans. The Trump administration plans to slash housing funding to Native American tribes.
Inmates Forced to Tear Down Camps of Homeless
Prisoners are paid a dollar a day to clear the homeless camps where they once lived. Some officials call this penal labor “a vestige of slavery.”