“We Don’t Have Anywhere Else to Go”: Bernal RV Residents Face Deadline with No Exit Plan

by Contributing Author

by Madeleine Matz

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) recently began enforcing a ban on overnight parking on Bernal Heights Boulevard, endangering the homes of RV dwellers who have parked there for years. Now, the RV residents are protesting their impending eviction.

Two neighborhood residents—Armando Martinez, who lives in an RV on Bernal Heights Boulevard, and Flo Kelly, a traditionally housed neighbor—gathered vehicularly housed residents to give public comment at the March 5 SFMTA board meeting.

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It’s now significantly more deadly to be homeless. Why are so many people dying?

by Contributing Author

by Marisa Kendall, CalMatters

For many people, living on the streets of California is a death sentence.

That’s according to a recent study that took the first deep look into mortality rates in homeless communities throughout the country. It found the death rate more than tripled between 2011 and 2020. The findings make it clear that at the same time the number of homeless Californians is soaring,

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Sweeps Do Not End Homelessness

by Contributing Author

Mayor London Breed released a statement on March 1 reporting on a reduction in the number of tents in San Francisco due to sweeps. While the Mayor’s office credits the Healthy Streets Operation Center (HSOC), which conducts encampment removals, conflicting data indicates that revenue from the November 2018 Proposition C—”Our City, Our Home”—is in fact responsible. On the same day, the Mayor submitted an amicus brief in support of overturning the Grants Pass case,

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To Our Sacramento Readers

by Contributing Author

Hello San Francisco! Hello Sacramento!

The Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee (SHOC)_ is now publishing news and views from the capital city in San Francisco’s Street Sheet.  SHOC has published Homeward Street Journal, our local homeless paper, for over 20 years, providing thousands of issues for distribution on our city’s street corners and in its encampments, supporting unhoused vendors and uplifting the movement for housing for all. 

Now we are moving in a new direction.

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Homelessness Should Not Be Normalized for Neurodivergent People

by Contributing Author

by Jack Bragen

The media has taught Americans to associate “mentally ill” with “homeless,” and vice-versa. Politicians and authorities have brainwashed Americans to believe homelessness is caused by untreated mental disorders or a drug addiction. This is a sadly mistaken way of thinking, and it is promoted so that society can continue subjugating and otherwise mistreating those who are different. 

But it is a half-truth. Some people are homeless and have a mental condition or drug addiction,

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How to Help 12,000 Low-Income Residents in Sacramento

by Contributing Author

by Isidore Mika Székely Manes-Dragan

The Community Summit on Homelessness, held in September 2023, provided many ways to elevate the voices of the homeless community. The event was coordinated by the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee (SHOC) and its many supporters and allies. Representatives from the Sacramento and Oakland homeless communities came together to attend. One of the functions of the event was listening booths,

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Supervisor Dorsey Surprises All with Ask for PSH Hearing

by Contributing Author

by Jordan Davis

On February 6, I was at the Board of Supervisors meeting, getting ready to make moderate supervisors wince with my acerbic comments once again, when I heard District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey introduce a hearing on permanent supportive housing (PSH). The hearing was to focus on security procedures and safety inside and outside such housing. He cited neighborhood concerns about conditions around these sites as a reason to schedule this hearing. 

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Rule by Fear, and Why We Should Overcome It

by Contributing Author

by Jack Bragen

Bullies love to instill and weaponize fear. A common tactic is malevolent sarcasm: They think it’s funny that they can harm us. Bullies will assume they can scare anyone. Many criminals rely on fear as a survival tool. This essay will discuss fear, and how Donald Trump and governments employ it. 

Evolution gave human beings the capacity for fear. We are not alone in this.

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The Greatest Lesson I’ve Learned Out Here

by Contributing Author

by Freeway

A former resident of the Wood Street tent community, which the city of Oakland swept last year, muses about events surrounding the eviction.

We’re finishing up the park clean-up today. This event was quickly pulled together because some neighbors bonded together to try to demonize us, particularly the people in those condos across the street. They are in some glorified hate groups. They even complained about the sawdust from the wood art my husband creates! 

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Freedom from Domestic Violence: “How Could I Lose Myself Like That?”

by Contributing Author

By Christiane Rosenmuth

My name is Christiane. I’m married, still, and have three grown children. And this is one thing I’ve learned: leaving my husband was the only decision, the only right one that I could make to come into myself and finally, at just over 60, create a worthy life for myself.

I wanted to emigrate – to spend my twilight years in my husband’s home country, which had become my second home over the course of our 30 years together.

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