Homelessness

Homelessness Means Being Cast Out of Civilization

Features   Uncategorized
If we become homeless, we find that the police aren’t here to protect and serve. Instead, they have become the strong arm of the law that tells us where we can’t be. It is the same arm that could punish us by taking us to jail for panhandling, trespassing, and disorderly conduct.

National Day of Action for the Right to Exist

Features   Uncategorized
The sit/lie law that Seattle passed in 1993 is nearly verbatim the same sit/lie law that San Francisco passed in 2010. The sit/lie law that San Francisco passed to use against homeless people is the same law that San Francisco police now use to harass Occupy protesters.

A Modest Proposal to Drive Away the Poor for the Sake of the Tourists

Opinion
Virtually everything about capitalism says that only the top one percent of upper-income people really count, while the 99% who struggle for everything don’t deserve to even survive. The Occupy movement is trying to point out this flaw in a very concrete way by camping out and protesting.

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.

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.

Glimpses of the Spirit – Mia and the Circle of Kindness

Features
After Dorothy’s pet cats saved her from a fire that destroyed her apartment, the elderly woman paid to have her cats housed even as she was left destitute and homeless. Mia was so moved by Dorothy’s compassion, she gave her the same kindness Dorothy had given to her cats.