Even as Oakland was evicting many of its most vulnerable citizens from homeless encampments, the City declared a shelter crisis. Oakland officials had reports of the severe lack of available beds in homeless shelters, and they knew these displaced people had nowhere to go.

Former Mayor Art Agnos’s idea of putting hundreds of people on a ship offshore is overdue. Just make sure the people on board are the failed leadership robbing poor people of tents and blankets while the city builds luxury hotels. I challenge Agnos to relocate offshore himself, an extremely challenging endeavor.

The structure, if you can call it that, is made from heavy plastic tied to a fence facing a field where trains speed by many times a day. Inside the tent, Miss Raynel’s young nieces are under a blanket. There’s nothing behind them but fencing and a wild dog running in the field.

Despite our campaign and collective offer to raise the funds, services and volunteers to balance neighborhood complaints and concerns with the basic needs of recyclers to earn a livelihood, Alliance Metals is now closed.

Radical and dissenting journalists were part of nearly every social-change movement and populist rebellion in U.S. history. In their day, they were hated by the powerful, and condemned as muckrakers, agitators and disturbers of the piece. Many are now remembered as exemplary models of journalism with a social conscience.

Last year, San Francisco spent more than $20 million policing so-called “quality of life” ordinances for more than 60,000 incidents, nearly all involving homeless people. The City’s Budget and Legislative Analyst concluded that the $20.6 million could be better used to provide housing for its homeless residents.

Workers are aging in the fields. Women especially start to worry after they pass 50. They depend on the fields, but the work is hard and as they get older, it gets harder. Crew leaders won’t hire older people for many jobs. They have to work, because there’s no alternative.

Market ideology undermines human rights for elders. Old people, children and the disabled are vulnerable in a profit-based economy that ignores the rights to housing, education and health care. Popular struggle is necessary to demand these needs be met. When movements weaken, the safety net is slashed.

The entrepreneurship program began running outdoor sales three years ago by taking tote bags and other products designed by Youth Spirit Artworks to sell in front of the Berkeley Bowl. That turned out to be popular with the shoppers and provided needed income for the young people.