Street SpiritJ U S T I C E N E W S & H O M E L E S S B L U E S I N T H E B A Y A R E A

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by Maureen Hartmann

Ifirst met Frances M. Beal in a poetrygroup in our senior residence inOakland. Later, beginning in August2011, I came to know her for three

years as a somewhat feisty fellow residentcouncil member. Our board meetingsinvolved some personal sharing and I gotto know in the meetings that she had adoctorate in African-American women’sstudies from the Sorbonne.

I am concerned about race relations inOakland, and I have personal friendshipsthat matter to me. In the 1960s, as a youngwoman studying existential philosophy, Iwas concerned about civil rights in thesouthern states.

I participated in the Oakland Stand Upfor Peace on Saturday, March 14, 2015,held by S.A.V.E. (Soldiers AgainstViolence Everywhere) in which African-Americans and whites commemorated andprayed for those slain by gun violence inOakland, and for those they left behind.

A black mother participant expressedgrief for the loss of her murdered son. As

an Episcopal woman, who converted fromCatholicism partly because they allowwomen to be priests, and as someone con-cerned about women’s rights, I do havesome understanding of the grief of amother who has to bury a son lost tosenseless violence.

I was at Frances Beal’s 75th birthdayparty this year, and became inspired towrite about her activism, after photographsof her life were screened. The best writingvenue of which I could think was StreetSpirit, for which I had written before.

It is a privilege and an honor to be ableto write about a woman of such courageand wit. Frances M. Beal is the daughterof an African-American father and aJewish mother, born in Binghamton, NewYork, on Jan. 13, 1940. She developed apolitical conscience early in life, in partbecause of society’s anti-Semitism andracism, and spent her life as an activist,organizing and writing in the movementsfor civil rights, racial justice, peace andwomen’s rights.

by Terry Messman

The voices of Christian, Muslim,Jewish, Buddhist and Unitarianfaith leaders rang out in defenseof the rights of homeless people

at an interfaith rally held on April 9 todenounce the City Council’s sweepingarray of anti-homeless measures.

Clergy and leaders of churches, syna-gogues and temples delivered an electrify-ing outcry for compassion and justice forpeople living on the streets who are targetedby the City Council and the DowntownBerkeley Association (DBA).

The religious leaders gathered on thesame downtown streets where homelesspeople are being criminalized, harassed bypolice, and even beaten by DBA ambas-sadors, and called for an end to the cruelrepression faced by the poorest of the poor.

THE SPIRIT OF ST. FRANCIS

In a dramatic moment, Louie Vitale, aFranciscan friar who is widely respectedas one of the giants in the movement forpeace and justice, stepped up to themicrophone in his brown Franciscan robesand called the community to conscience.

“Nobody should be criminalized forthe necessities of life,” said Vitale. “Andthese are necessities of life — to be ableto lie down, to get some sleep, to relieveyourself, to find some food. These arenecessities of life!”

As the elderly Franciscan friar spoke

out, it was as if St. Francis of Assisi him-self had stepped forward to demand com-passion for the poor and oppressed.

“I have been working with homelesspeople for the last several decades in SanFrancisco,” Vitale said, “and now I find itin the East Bay where I live. It’s just atragedy to see. I’ve seen people die on thestreets. And the number of people dying on

the streets rises every year. Those of uswho are comfortable have to speak out.What we do for others is what counts. Wehave to realize these are our sisters andbrothers who deserve and need our help.”

Until shortly before his retirement,Vitale had been the spiritual leader of allthe Franciscans in the Western UnitedStates in his role as Provincial Minister of

the Western Province of Franciscans. Healso has overwhelming respect in peace-and-justice circles due to his decades ofnonviolent witness against war. In recentyears, Vitale has served several six-monthsentences in federal prison for acts of civildisobedience in protest of war, nuclearweapons, drone attacks and torture.

He also worked tirelessly for homelesspeople in San Francisco through his workat St. Anthony’s Foundation, which servesthousands of daily meals to poor and hun-gry people. For most priests, that wouldhave been enough. But Vitale wentbeyond even that commitment.

When he would find homeless peopleshivering on Tenderloin streets in theearly morning hours before service pro-grams were open, he often opened up thedoors of his church and invited them intoSt. Boniface so they could find a refugefrom the harsh weather. It wasn’t permis-sible to do so, but Vitale ignored all theregulations in his belief that offering poorpeople a sanctuary was the very essenceof what a church should be.

When San Francisco launched theMatrix program to criminalize homelesspeople, Father Vitale joined Sister BernieGalvin and Religious Witness withHomeless People in committing civil dis-obedience over and over again in protestof the same kind of anti-homeless lawsrecently adopted in Berkeley.

The mural on the Women’s Building in San Francisco featuresimages of iconic women in history. Frances M. Beal is one of thewomen named and honored as part of this mural. The mural waspainted by Juana Alicia, Miranda Bergman, Edythe Boone, Susan Kelk Cervantes, Meera Desai, Yvonne Littleton, Irene Perez, and many helpers.

Photo credit:Plateaueatplau

Frances Beal: A Voice forPeace, Racial Justice andthe Rights of Women

See Frances Beal: A Powerful Voice page 10

Faith Leaders Denounce Berkeley Homeless Laws

A Franciscan friar confronts Berkeley’s anti-homeless laws. Brown-robed Franciscan Louie Vitale speaks out for the rights of the poor.

Alex Madonikphoto

See Faith Leaders Cry Out page 6

May 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T2

A Column on Human Rights

by Carol Denney

You know you’re in exotic terri-tory when you’re at a meetingin Berkeley and someonelooks up, announces an oppor-

tunity for public comment — and nobodywants to say a word.

The annual meeting of the DowntownBerkeley Association (DBA) on April 14featured talks by pumped-up staff hopingnobody would make an issue of the inter-national black eye given the whole townby the viral video that exposed the harass-ment, assault and false arrest of twohomeless men at the hands of the DBA’sBlock by Block “ambassador” program.

They didn’t have to worry. If you sub-tracted DBA board members and staff andthe requisite city functionaries and cater-ing crew, the place was pretty muchempty except for a handful of curiousobservers enjoying the refreshments. Bothcity officials and the DBA are skilled atfeigning surprise when international andlocal backlash against the repressive anti-homeless laws they trot out like clock-work every few years guts Berkeley mer-chants’ chances at a normal year.

They’re also skilled at feigning thatthey are representative.

The Downtown Berkeley Association’sjob is supposed to boost the city’s desir-ability as a place to be and to see, a placeto do business. It poses as representing“downtown” or “downtown businesses,”but at this point it’s made up of a handfulof large property interests collapsinginward, trading appointed board positionsbetween them like casseroles at a potluck,and relying on poorly disguised fakegrassroots (i.e. BARF, Anchor Tenancyarts groups) to imitate support. In otherwords, it’s a lot like the City Council.

John Caner, the DBA’s CEO, tried toseem upbeat as he mentioned the $60,000they’d spent in 2014 on sparkly holidaylights, the effect of which was prettymuch ruined by all the CS gas unleashedon December’s Black Lives Matters pro-testers now suing the city, adding “hope-fully that is now behind us.”

Caner did mention the viral video of thebeatdown by DBA ambassadors, which hecalled “an opportunity for us to learn.”

Lance Goree, who oversees the Blockby Block ambassador program, said of thevideotaped violence against two homelesspeople: “The mistake I made in hiring him(the one ambassador who was fired) willnot happen again.” Kind of an easy assur-ance to make since rehiring someoneyou’ve fired and who may be chargedwith criminal assault would make youlook pretty dumb.

Oh well, these aren’t rocket scientists. Ikind of felt sorry for the Berkeley CityCouncilmembers who were there: LoriDroste, Susan Wengraf, Darryl Moore,Laurie Capitelli, and of course Mayor

Tom Bates, who tried to reassure thesebumblers that they have their back sincemost of Berkeley sleeps through the sys-tematic harassment and criminalization ofthe poor and nobody’s paying attention tothat stuff.

But they may want to rethink the factthat over $100,000 each from the City ofBerkeley and the University of Californiais going straight into the pockets of theseineffectual knuckleheads and their ridicu-lous hanging flower pots, since the hous-ing, mental health, and educational pro-grams that are currently being starved area big part of what would make a practicaldifference to one’s downtown experience.

That $200,000 and the million-plusthat make up the DBA’s budget still lookslike real money to some of us.

Flower pots or housing and shelter space— your choice, Berkeley. The DBA ambas-sadors serve as a foil for the police, theDBA serves as a foil for the City Council,and what got lost along the way was anhonestly representative voice for any com-munity, since the large property owners,well, let’s just say they travel a lot.

Caner cited his DBA poll’s landslidepublic concern that they should do some-thing about homelessness. The numberson any other issue were miniscule com-pared to the obvious idiocy of trying tohave a vibrant town center with peopletrying to brush their teeth, organize theirbelongings, and find their way out of thenightmare created by a housing crisis forwhich the DBA’s own property ownersand landlords are largely responsible.

If there were honest market forces in themix, the empty retail spaces downtown thathave been yawning vacantly for years,would long ago have lowered their ratesand be bustling with new businesses andjobs. Notice how that just doesn’t happenthe way your civics teacher said it would?

Caner tried to look happy about the 16new businesses opening downtown, know-ing that anybody can go to the City ofBerkeley’s website and contrast the number16 with the more than 70 empty retailspaces which large property owners haveno particular interest in filling up — unlessthey can get pre-2008 rates. And that’s notmentioning the hundreds of empty officespaces — don’t even go there.

The City of Berkeley and the DowntownBerkeley Association — which are prettymuch one and the same — could, of course,prioritize shelter and low-income housingto meet community needs, creating morehousing and protecting what’s left.

But that would interfere with the jugger-naut of out-of-town real estate interests whoprefer to knock down the old single-room-occupancy and cheap housing and kick outthe artists, hippies and musicians whowhine about civil rights and democracy.

And who can gather signatures for a ref-erendum on the City Council’s new anti-homeless laws when the City Manager getsdone fluffing them? It’s not that hard, since

so few people vote, and one only needs aset percentage of the voting public torescind a law. Which the council will thenput on the ballot, followed by the comedyof the City and the DBA trying to lookrespectable while pouring their out-of-townreal estate money into robbing the poor oftheir blankets.

Mayor Tom Bates also spoke at theDBA annual meeting, and seems to haveperfected inaudibility. Not only couldnobody hear him, nobody asked him toget closer to the mike or turn up thesound. I suppose they were happy enoughto see that his lips were still moving.

The mayor had two unexciting thingsto announce for the DBA’s future: aBART Plaza redesign for what must bethe fifth or sixth time, and changingShattuck Avenue to two-way traffic —keeping the bar low in a year when theassessments for mandated membershipare going up 2.5 percent and the property-based improvement district has to be reaf-firmed by its membership right after theinternational embarrassment of thatambassador beatdown.

They haven’t fired the second DBAambassador, by the way, the one whostopped people from helping the fellowbeing beaten and who was, in fact, super-vising the green-shirted pugilist. The pro-gram and its staff were saluted withoutembarrassment at the DBA annual meet-ing despite the Peace and JusticeCommission’s recommendation that the

program be disbanded.You can’t make this stuff up. It’s going

to be a blast. It’s the same thing a lot of ushave done before, but come out and joinus because defending civil rights is really,really fun. Our songs are better. Our foodis better, especially considering theDBA’s raggedy menu the other night.

There’s nothing quite like the roaringcompany of people who know the street,lawyers who love the people who knowthe street, ACLU types who love to singthe old civil rights songs, artists whosework seems to blossom under the press ofrepression, and all of us who get toembrace honesty and conscience as a mat-ter of course in life. Come to the party! Iwant to meet you.

DBA Paints a Happy FaceOver a Brutal Beatdown The Downtown Berkeley Association tries to lookrespectable while pouring their out-of-town realestate money into robbing the poor of their blankets.

Protesters rally to condemn the anti-homeless laws in Berkeley. Sarah Menefee photo

Two Downtown Berkeley Association ambassadors confronted a homeless man andbegan beating him. Bryan Hamilton’s video of this brutal assault has gone viral.

Defending civil rights is really fun. There’s nothing quitelike the roaring company of people who know the street,lawyers who love the people who know the street, artistswhose work seems to blossom under the press of repres-sion, and all of us who get to embrace honesty and con-science as a matter of course in life. Come to the party!

Booted Outby Claire J. Baker

What you see is allwe got. Booted out ofa "jungle" by a creekinto an overgrown lot,church steps at night,a mall in stall;

photographed as objectsof pity wherever we daresettle in town or city.

We die of hypothermia,hunger, and we're sick.So, public, take your pick.

May 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 3

by TJ Johnston

The Right to Rest Act, CaliforniaSenate Bill 608, which woulddecriminalize sleep, rest, thesharing of food and prayer, was

pulled from committee without a vote.But the struggle for the bill in Californiawill continue next year.

For now, SB 608 has been delayedafter State Sen. Carol Liu (D-La Cañada-Flintridge) asked the Transportation andHousing Committee to hold off a vote onApril 7 when it appeared there weren’tenough votes to advance the legislation.

“Today wasn’t a defeat,” said PaulBoden, director of the Western RegionalAdvocacy Project, one of the homelessadvocacy organizations sponsoring the bill.“It was step one in a long process.”

SB 608, known as the Right to RestAct, will still be active next year, he said.The state legislature still has up to twoyears to act on proposed legislation.

If passed by both the Senate andAssembly, the bill would ensure allCalifornians — regardless of housing sta-tus — the rights to rest, move freely inpublic, share food, pray, and sleep in alegally parked vehicle.

In effect, it would make local sit-lieand anti-panhandling ordinances thatcities use against their homeless residentsunenforceable throughout the state.

At the hearing, proponents of the bill —including a busload of advocates of home-less people from San Francisco andOakland — turned out in great numbers.Supporters outnumbered opposition lobby-ists from business alliances and city gov-ernments 6 to 1 during public comment.

Their refrain throughout the sessionwas “stop criminalizing homelessness.”Several wore T-shirts with the words“Homeless Bill of Rights” and an imageof a dove and a pair of hands breakingchains. This popular design comes froman image drawn by Ronnie Goodman, ahomeless artist who has regularly lent hiswork to homeless people’s struggles.

Angel McClain, whom Liu invitedbefore the panel, spoke in defense of SB608. Now a senior advocate at St. Mary’sCenter in Oakland, she spent 15 years onthe streets, staying in tents, abandonedhouses and by freeways — essentially,any place where she could find refuge.

She said that police officers targetedher for arrest simply because of her home-less status. “I was arrested for little or noreason because I was known as a home-less person,” she told the panel. “Mycousin told me the police had a scheduleto pick me up and put me back in jail.”

McClain also suffered dehumanizingtreatment from the police. “I was treatedlike dirt, no consideration, like a piece ofgarbage that you discard,” she said.

Opposition to the Right to Rest billcame mainly from the League ofCalifornia Cities, which argued that thebill would exempt homeless people fromso-called “quality of life” laws that in the-ory apply to all people, but in fact areused almost exclusively against homelesspeople. The statewide association wrote aletter to Liu that the bill wouldn’t createor expand housing and social services.

But Boden said that is not the focus ofthe bill. It’s meant to remove legal barri-ers homeless people face because theyhave been arrested for the necessary actsof resting, sitting or lying in public.

“It’s not about ending homelessness, justdecriminalizing it,” he said. “Everyone

sleeps, eats and sits, but only some get tick-ets or go to jail for it. Criminalization onlymakes things worse for people living on thestreets. And by not having to enforcecrimes of status, law enforcement can focuson real public safety issues.”

However, senators on the committeeand opponents of the bill said SB 608would remove a tool from police inenforcing local ordinances (see sidebar).

Appearing before the panel, Matt Gray,a lobbyist for Taxpayers for ImprovingPublic Safety and the California SmallBusiness Association, painted a worst-casescenario of what would happen to commu-nities if the bill passes.

“The answer is simply not to allow therest of California to be like SanFrancisco,” he said.

Recently, the city of San Franciscowas also used as a model of homelesscriminalization in a report from theUniversity of California at Berkeley lawschool. Of the 58 cities with anti-home-less ordinances it studied, San Franciscotied Los Angeles to lead all others in theiroverwhelming number of anti-homelesslaws — 23 in San Francisco. Homelesspeople were given about 23,000 citationsin a seven-year span for such nonviolent,poverty-related offenses as sitting, resting,camping and panhandling.

In the last five years, San Franciscofurther restricted homeless people’s activ-ities with prohibitions on sitting and lying

on sidewalks at certain times, staying inpublic parks overnight, and parking largevehicles on most city streets overnight.

Berkeley — which has 10 anti-home-less ordinances of its own — is consider-ing adding many more, including settingone’s belonging by a tree, lying on planterwalls, and panhandling within 10 feet ofparking pay station.

On March 17, the City Council for-warded these recommendations to theCity Manager for recommendation.

Osha Neumann, an attorney with theEast Bay Community Law Center, saidthe proposal would make Berkeley’s tree-lined and metered streets off limits tohomeless people if it is enacted.

“Taken together with existing laws,these ordinances would essentially makeit illegal for people who are homeless tohave a presence on our streets and side-walks,” he said.

Right to Rest bills are moving throughlegislatures in Oregon and Colorado.

Two years ago, a more expansive ver-sion of the legislation called the HomelessBill of Rights passed the AssemblyJudiciary Committee, but died when theAppropriations Committee declined tobring it up for a vote.

Right To Rest Legislation Held Over in State Senate

Street SpiritStreet Spirit is published by AmericanFriends Service Committee. The ven-dor program is run by J.C. Orton.

Editor, Layout: Terry MessmanWeb designer: Jesse ClarkeHuman Rights: Carol Denney

Contributors: Adam Allen, Claire J.Baker, Frances Beal, Rose MaryBoehm, Janny Castillo, Carol Denney,Lydia Gans, Maureen Hartmann, T.J.Johnston, Judy Jones, Josh MacPhee,Alex Madonik, Peter Marin, SarahMenefee, Dawn Phillips, Steve Pleich,Caroline Pohl, Mary Rudge, RyanSmith, Suitcase Clinic, George Wynn

All works copyrighted by the authors.The views expressed in Street Spirit arti-cles are those of the individual authors,not necessarily those of the AFSC.

Street Spirit welcomes submissions.Contact: Terry MessmanStreet Spirit, 65 Ninth Street,San Francisco, CA 94103E-mail: spirit@afsc.orgWeb: http://www.thestreetspirit.org

by TJ Johnston

If there was any doubt that SB 608, theRight to Rest Act, would face anyroadblocks in the legislative process,

they were surely dispelled when StateSen. Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton)weighed in. Before Galgiani’s remarks, afew of the California state senators on theTransportation and Housing committeehad already voiced reservations thatwould lead to a prospective “No” if SB608 author Carol Liu asked for a vote onthe bill on April 7.

Some were concerned about provi-sions in the bill such as a $1,000 fine tocommunities upon violation of the act.Others wanted clarifications on how thebill would affect those sleeping on publicversus private property. (Liu said itwould not apply to private property.)

But Galgiani’s rambling explanation ofwhy she wouldn’t support the bill left someincredulous. While asserting that unevenapplication of anti-homeless ordinances

aren’t a problem in her district, she saidcops still need them for other reasons —such as thwarting gang warfare.

“You and I and law enforcement can-not tell who is homeless from someonewho belongs to a gang,” she said. “If Idress down, I can blend in as well.”

She then recounted a recent incidentthat happened in her district.

“This last month,” she said, “we’ve hada drive-by shooting at a market just blocksaway from where I used to live a few yearsago, where three people were killed. Nowit’s a known place where people loiter.How do you define ‘loiter?’ You can’tdefine it just by looking at someone or see-ing that someone is spending time at aplace for too long. That’s why we mustrely on law enforcement for the judgmentson behavior taking place. Law enforcementneeds that tool to address the behavior.”

What Galgiani failed to mention is thatthe U.S. Supreme Court found anti-loiter-ing laws to be unconstitutional in 1999 pri-marily because of their vagueness.

Galgiani also related another recenttale of an altercation among three motor-cycle gangs near a strip club where gun-fire was exchanged.

“These are the problems in my district,”she said. “Law enforcement in my district,they’re not bothering people who arehomeless. I respect that is occurringthroughout the state.” She added that thestate should “do a broad blanket for every-one to abide by” if SB 608 becomes law.

Another addition for the file under“you can’t make this up” came from MattGray, who lobbied against the bill onbehalf of two business organizations.

While he encouraged creating afford-able housing and improving social andhealth services — at the same time,referring to homeless people as “tran-sients, homeless or whatever you want tocall them” — he ultimately said the over-arching solution wasn’t “allowing the restof California to be like San Francisco.”No city in California has more anti-homeless laws than San Francisco.

You Can’t Make This Stuff UpStupid Things California Lawmakers Say About Homelessness

Contact Street SpiritVendor Coordinator

The Street Spirit vendor program ismanaged by J.C. Orton. More than 150homeless vendors sell Street Spirit inBerkeley and Oakland. Please buyStreet Spirit only from badged vendors.

If you have questions about the ven-dor program, please e-mail J.C. Orton atnoscw@sbcglobal.net or call his cellphone at (510) 684-1892. His mailingaddress is J.C. Orton, P.O. Box 13468,Berkeley, CA 94712-4468.

Homeless advocates demonstrate in Sacramento for the Right to RestBill which would end the enforcement of many anti-homeless laws.

Photo credit:Janny Castillo

Supporters of the Right to Restoutnumbered opposition lobby-ists from business alliances andcity governments 6 to 1 duringhearings in Sacramento.

Mission Street Sleepby George WynnYour City of St. Francisblack feetbrown feetwhite feetpeek out beneath blankets along lowerMission chain link fence and pigeon droppings galoreacross from Bankof America door

May 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T4

by Caroline Pohl

The Suitcase Clinic runs threedrop-in clinics in Berkeley eachweek: Youth Clinic, Women’sClinic and General Clinic. In all

three of our clinics, we welcome ourclients with open arms.

Despite only weekly services and lackof permanent facilities, Suitcase Clinicaims to create a community for its clien-tele while also providing them withimmediate healthcare and relief. SuitcaseClinic, as an organization, parallels thetemporary and ever-changing climate ofhomelessness — empowering its volun-teers with the ability to adapt to meet thedifferent needs of our clients.

At General Clinic, we strive to cater tothe entirety of Berkeley’s homeless com-munity: the young and the old, womenand men, newcomers and regulars. Ourvolunteers take extra measures to providepeople with personalized services, such as

soothing clients during footwashing andmassage, listening closely to theirrequests in haircuts, and followingthrough with their dilemmas from the pre-vious week. This makes the experience,both for the clients and volunteers, differ-ent with each visit.

So this week, on behalf of GeneralClinic, I would like to introduce you toone of our clients, known to many of us asTwinklebell, and to others simply asTwinkle. Here is a man beloved by bothvolunteers and clients alike, and whoseadamant desire to do good for his owncommunity inspires many of us atSuitcase Clinic.

A Berkeley native, Twinkle came froma large middle-class family, with 70 firstcousins. He grew up in a past era trans-formed by the great civil rights move-ments of the 1960s and 1970s, and hisfamily members were active participantsin this new wave of radicalism. As aMexican-American himself, Twinkle

spent his childhood struggling in concordwith these groups in order to gain a senseof his own community identity.

Twinkle is both an activist and leaderwithin the homeless population. “It is mychoice to live a nomadic lifestyle,” hesaid, “and to find out what freedoms wereally do have.”

Twinkle possesses a high schooldegree, as well as two years of a commu-nity college education. He has a back-ground in legal studies, and works inde-pendently, choosing his battles on thestreets in the context of larger politicalendeavors.

Just the other day, Twinkle challengedpolice officers who were wrongly inter-preting Oakland’s Sit-Lie Ordinance byenforcing the law at an incorrect timeinterval.

“I simply bring these kinds of cases tocourt,” Twinkle said. “Whether or not alawyer or organization wants to choose tocarry through with them to a higher level,

well, that’s their choice.”According to Twinkle, many people

are driven to homelessness by the imprac-tical ideals of happiness forged by themedia. “When you think about it, ourcountry is one of the richest in the world,”said Twinkle. “For as long as I have lived,the economy has been pretty darn great,too. So, then why are a large number ofpeople still unhappy and why are thingsstill the way they are?”

Currently, Twinkle is working at agrassroots level to change this, and is anactive participant in Indybay.org andFarmer’s Market campaigns. He alsorecently attended Suitcase Clinic’sHomelessness and Poverty Symposium.

Yet, Twinkle’s ultimate goal is tosecure a sense of community in the BayArea. He encourages others to dance withhim as he attends Ecstatic Dance three tofour times a week, and wants to bringback the ice-skating rink Berkeley oncehad a long time ago.

“I’m just trying to bring people togeth-er,” said Twinkle. “I believe that we allhave a right to happiness — in whateverway we all believe that to be.”

STORIES FROM THE

SUITCASE CLINIC

A Desire to Do Good for His CommunityTwinkle is beloved by volunteers and clients alike. His adamant desireto do good for his community inspires many of us at Suitcase Clinic.

University students involved with Suitcase Clinic create a sense of community by providing meals and many needed services.

Are You Cold, Mr. Canerby Carol Denney are you cold, Mr. Caneris that why you want to makehaving a blanket a crime?are you cold, Mr. Caneris that why you're targetingpeople who don't have a dime?are you cold, Mr. Caneris that why you want to takeblankets away from the poor?are you cold, Mr. Caner?getting old, Mr. Caner?is that what you're doing it for?

is it true, Mr. Caneryou want to make peoplekeep all of their things off the ground?is it true, Mr. Caneryou want to pass lawsso that people can't sleep or lie down?is it true, Mr. Caneryou want to stop peoplefrom asking for help from a friend?is it true, Mr. Canerare you through, Mr. Canerwe're wondering where it will end?

blankets -- are you serious?blankets are soft and they're warmblankets -- it's mysteriousblankets can't do any harm

are you tired, Mr. Canerdid life get so hard thatyou're taking it out on the town?are you tired, Mr. Canerso tired of it all that youwish there were no one around?your rich friends, Mr. Canerhave chased out the businessesbecause the rents are so highare you tired, Mr. Caneryou're fired, Mr. Canerthis is one town you can't buy

blankets -- are you serious?blankets are soft and they're warmblankets -- it's mysteriousblankets can't do any harm

are you sure, Mr. Caneryou're comfortable targetingpeople with nowhere to go?are you sure, Mr. Caneryou should target the poor whenthe whole world is watching the showit's absurd, Mr. Canerwhen rich people want to takeblankets away from the poorit's absurd, Mr. Canerin a word, Mr. Canerplease see your way out the doorit's absurd, Mr. Canerin a word, Mr. Canerwe don't need your help anymore

Ark of Lonelinessby Peter Marin

Filing in, one by one, as if into an ark of loneliness, out of the rain the shelter, its gray emptiness anchored at the bottom by green cots arranged in rows, boots tucked under, men asleep, rocked on the surface of watery dreams by a great storm never to end.

A Classic For All Agesby Mary RudgeSeven-year-old Diana and Icry over Gogol’s The Overcoaton channel 9 nowcold Russia old poor maneven without subtitleshis face we both know.

It was cold in our house last winterwe had coats from the thrift shopat night we slept in one bedwe piled on all the coats.

The cold old man is going to diewe saw that face once in our mirror,

and cry.

Passportsby Rose Mary Boehm

He looks at my facestamps my passport.Yes Sir, I know I am a fraud.Pardon me? Oh, of course.I was born in dark timesin a place of horror.No Sir, I didn’t. I changedmy nationality for love.Was he worth it?I am not sure I follow, Sir.Love for my children.We couldn’t go throughdifferent doors. And thenI ask myself, now that youbrought it up: will any manever be worth the sacrifice?I lived through dark times,in places of horror. And oftenwondered whether I wouldbecome transparent.

Ghosts in Atlantaby Peter Marin

There are ghosts herehaunting the downtown streetsbefore sun-up, men the colorof night on their wayto the labor pools, seekingthe work whites won’t do —mend sewers, clean pools, cartgarbage, wash dishes, trekto the dump what everyonethrows away: the detritus ofa culture haunted by waste,burning at night in great pyresunwanted things, unneeded lives.

May 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 5

by Lydia Gans

The Berkeley City Council is mov-ing to enact ever more draconianlaws targeting homeless people —

in effect, criminalizing homelessness. Panhandling within 10 feet of a park-

ing pay station would be a crime. Puttingpersonal objects in planters or within threefeet of a tree well would be a crime. Poorpeople will have to have a tape measurehandy to make sure they’re not commit-ting a crime.

As a matter of fact, just about anythingthat a homeless person needs for sleeping— tents, mats or sleeping bags — cannot beleft on any sidewalk at any time of day. Norcan personal items be attached to trees,planters, parking meters, etc. And, oh yes, itwould be a crime to sit against a building.

People who object to this inhumanetreatment of homeless people are organiz-ing to express their opposition. An inter-faith coalition of Buddhists, Quakers,Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Christians,Muslims and Jews is speaking out againstthe criminalization of homelessness.

On April 9, they held a protest in soli-darity with homeless people at the down-town Berkeley BART Plaza. Starting at5:00 p.m. with a meal and an interfaith ser-vice, the vigil concluded with a sleep-out atthe Plaza until 6:00 a.m. Friday morning.

By 5 p.m., a good number of people hadgathered. Several rows of chairs had beenset up, the speakers were set up, and a col-orful banner made by young people atYouth Spirit Art Works declared:“Interfaith Solidarity with HomelessPeople.” The Berkeley UnitarianFellowship provided the sound system andchairs for people attending the service.

J.C. Orton of the Catholic Worker wasthere serving a hearty vegetable soup, andVirginia Hollins-Davidson of the BerkeleyUnitarian Fellowship, with a nod to thePassover and Easter holiday tradition,served matzos and cups of grape juice.

Rayven Wilson and Carena Ridgeway,young leaders in the Youth SpiritArtworks program, introduced the speak-ers. There were more than 20 speakers,representing the many faith communitiesin the coalition. Their messages wereinspiring, calling for people to work for asociety more just and compassionate.

Some applied lessons from the scrip-tures. Rabbi Michael Lerner read: “Whenyou offer your compassion to the hungryand satisfy the famished creatures, thenshall your light shine in darkness.”

Muslim Minister Keith Muhammadsuggested that the world today operateslike a Monopoly game, ruled by thosewith money. He said, “We’re in a worldwhere greed has become a way of life.”

At several times during the service, theassembly was led in song. Copies of lyricsof old familiar songs had been handed outearlier. One of the most moving songswas, “Sometimes I feel like a motherlesschild, a long way from home.”

The closing talk was given by FriarLouie Vitale, a man much loved andrespected for his many years of activismin the struggle for peace and justice.

Preparations began for the night-longvigil. Candles were lit. There were moresongs and more people spoke. Lutheranpastor Rev. Sharon Stalkfleet focused par-ticularly on the vulnerability of homelessyouth. The singing of the movementanthem, “We Shall Overcome,” markedthe end of the formal program.

As people settled down for the night,an informal “open mike” ensued. Oneman appeared with a guitar and delightedeverybody with his singing. There weresome funny and some very touching sto-ries. A young man told of just being 24hours out of the hospital for drug use. “Ijust went to my first AA meeting,” he saidwith pride, but, and his tone changed, hehad no place to go. He was out of the hos-pital — and out on the street.

Thirty to forty people settled in for thevigil. Homeless people from the streetjoined with members of the faith commu-nity. Some people left after a time, somecame later. A dozen or more stayed till itended at 6 a.m. in the morning.

Virginia Hollins-Davidson of theBerkeley Unitarian Fellowship is one whostayed all night. Asked about her experi-ence, she said, “For me it was exhilarat-ing!” In spite of the noise and the brightlighting in the Plaza, she managed to sleepfor almost four hours. She was preparedwith warm clothes and three sleepingbags, so she didn’t feel the cold concretepavement. And she felt safe.

“Some people would probably be waryof being out there with people who areactually homeless,” she said. “There wasone guy next to me who clearly waschronically homeless. He had such a gen-tle look on his face.” They exchangednames and talked a bit.

She felt totally safe and secure duringthe night. In the morning, those who hadstayed shared coffee and pastries that hadbeen donated. “Then we had a prayer andcleaned up. There was a real sense ofcamaraderie. It was great.”

Sally Hindman, an organizer of theevent, also stayed the night. She had quitea different take on the experience. “Thesituation on Shattuck is a real scene,” shesaid. “From my one night out, I don’tknow how anybody gets sleep out there.”

She described the noise, the brightlights, the cold, people dealing with men-tal health issues. That’s why peopleforced to sleep on the streets choose tosleep in doorways in more private, out-of-the-way places. But then they are at riskof being attacked and having their posses-sions stolen.

Just one night was a powerful lesson inhow miserable it is to be homeless. Andfor a homeless person in Berkeley, it cantake two years of miserable nights to getinto affordable housing.

Hindman suggests an interesting com-parison between homeless people in ourcities and people living in war zones andrefugee camps and other areas of conflictaround the world.

“It’s like being a refugee in a camp,”she said. “And you’re not even in a campwith enough other people to provide alevel of security. Like we have thousandsof people in our country that are refugeesjust living in our doorways.”

The Interfaith Working group is askingclergy, members of congregations, reli-gious groups, seminary students and presi-dents and faculty members to put pressureon the City Council. The action on April 9was their first protest of the anti-homelesslaws. They will be producing an open let-ter from clergy and interfaith leaders tosend to the Berkeley City Council.

In Hindman’s words, “Our mission isto bring members of the City Council totheir senses about the moral atrocity ofcriminalizing homeless people in the faceof dire circumstances facing the poor.

“We will do everything that we can tostop the City Council from passing anylaws which criminalize homeless people.We want to shine the light of our faith tra-ditions on the wrong of these proposedactions.”

Interfaith Vigil for the Rights of Homeless People“We have thousands of peo-ple in our country that arerefugees just living in ourdoorways.” —Sally Hindman

This Land Is Your LandWords and Music by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land. This land is my landFrom California to the New York islandFrom the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highwayI saw above me that endless skyway I saw below me that golden valley This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps To the sparkling sands of her diamond desertsAnd all around me a voice was soundingThis land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strollingAnd the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rollingAs the fog was lifting a voice was chantingThis land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothingThat side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my peopleBy the relief office I seen my peopleAs they stood there hungry, I stood there asking Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me, As I go walking that freedom highwayNobody living can ever make me turn backThis land was made for you and me.

Vigilers begin bedding down for the night at the BART Plaza. Lydia Gans photo

Rayven Wilson and Carena Ridgeway were the MCs at the event. Lydia Gans photo

As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing

That side was made for you and me.

May 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T6

Now that Mayor Tom Bates and theBerkeley City Council have voted for a setof laws equally as mean-spirited andrepressive as the Matrix program, Vitalefelt compelled to step up once again to con-front the cruelty of anti-homeless laws.

In an interview, Vitale said that all theworld’s faith traditions teach that justicefor the poorest of the poor is at the veryheart of their belief. Vitale said, “PopeFrancis has said over and over that ournumber-one concern is about the homelesspeople. He constantly says that what itmeans to be a member of the human com-munity is to look out for each other.

“Every one of the religions, that’s whatthey mostly talk about. I don’t care if it’sChristian, Muslim, Buddhist or whatever,they all have this same direction given tothem by their faith. I’ve learned from allof these various faiths.”

Voicing the same reverence for all lifeexpressed by St. Francis in his canticles,Vitale said, “We have this beautiful, won-derful world created to take care of all ofus, and our number-one obligation is toshare it with one another.”

The Franciscan friar contrasted theheartless attitude of Berkeley businessowners and politicians with the spirit ofcaring he has often observed among verypoor people who have so much less.

Vitale said, “One thing I’ve alwaysnoticed among the homeless communityis that people help each other, and oftenhelp much more than those who havemore economic opportunities. I feel thatkind of sharing is what we’re here for.”

RABBI JANE LITMAN

CRIMINALIZING HOMELESSNESS IS

IMMORAL.Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman, a Berkeley

resident and the rabbi at Coastside JewishCommunity, offered an inspiring defenseof homeless people at the rally on April 9near the Berkeley BART station.

“Criminalizing homelessness isimmoral,” she said. “It’s hard enough to bea homeless person. Our religious traditionteaches that we need to care for the under-class and not criminalize them. It’s reallyappalling, and it’s a violation of the will ofthe people of Berkeley who voted specifi-cally against that social policy in 2012.”

Rabbi Litman said the laws are notonly inhumane, but senseless from a poli-cy standpoint as well. “It’s not onlyimmoral, it’s also foolish on a pragmaticlevel,” she said. “It costs so much more tocriminalize homeless people, not only interms of money, but also the social costsare very high in terms of wasted lives.Whereas finding people homes would becheaper and more socially beneficial.”

Rabbi Litman noted that the interfaithrally on April 9 was held during Passover,which began this year on Friday evening,April 3, and ended after sunset onSaturday, April 11.

At the rally, Litman told the Passoverstory about the slaves who had escapedfrom Egypt and were at the shores of theRed Sea. Chariots were right behind them,but when Moses took his staff and rose itover the Red Sea, nothing happened,according to Jewish tradition.

One man waded into the Red Sea, firstup to his ankles, then up to his hips andfinally all the way up to his lips. At thatmoment when he was about to drown, hekept wading and only then did the seafinally open.

“That’s us,” said Rabbi Litman. “We

need to wade in. We can’t think that we’regoing to just stand on the shores and wavea staff.” The lesson for homeless advo-cates in Berkeley, she said, is that we can-not remain on the sidelines and we cannotbe hopeless.

“We have to wade in all the way,” shesaid, “and keep testifying that the sea ofgreed and corruption and apathy andinjustice will part as we declare our faithby walking and speaking.”

Litman said the interfaith rally wasextremely powerful and praised SallyHindman, a Quaker and longtime home-less advocate, for bringing together peo-ple of faith in support of justice.

“I was extremely moved and proud thatwe came together on this importantissue,” said Rabbi Litman. “SallyHindman is an incredibly dedicated andvisionary person. She is tireless in hercommitment to doing the right thing.”

RABBI MICHAEL LERNER

SET THE OPPRESSED FREE AND BREAK

EVERY YOKE.Rabbi Michael Lerner, rabbi of Beyt

Tikkun and editor of Tikkun magazine,said that Berkeley had turned its back onits own progressive history in violatingthe human rights of poor people.

“It’s a terrible shame that the city whichis famous for being on the liberal and pro-gressive edge of the issues turns their backson the homeless, on the poor, on the hun-gry,” Lerner said. “It’s an outrage.”

Rabbi Lerner then read a passage fromIsaiah as a prophetic message to Berkeleypoliticians:

“Is not this the fast I have chosen: tobreak the chains of injustice and untie thecords of the yoke, to set the oppressedfree and break every yoke? Is it not toshare your food with the hungry and toprovide the poor wanderer with shelter —when you see the naked to clothe them,and not to turn away from your own fleshand blood?” (Isaiah 58:6-7)

MINISTER KEITH MUHAMMAD

HUNGER DOESN’T SPELL CHRISTIAN,MUSLIM OR JEW. HUNGER IS HUNGER.

Oakland Minister Keith Muhammadfrom Mosque 26B delivered a stirring ora-tion, one of the most inspiring of the day.Minister Muhammad reminded the gath-ering that the world’s diverse faith tradi-tions speak with one voice on the issue ofjustice and compassion for homeless andhungry people in our midst.

Muhammad said, “We are compelled

by the word of God to do what we can toensure that the poor man or woman orchild that is lying in the street, that weaccept the responsibility to lift them up,whether we know them or not, whetherwe are from the same faith tradition ornot. Hunger doesn’t spell Christian,Muslim or Jew. Hunger is hunger. Andthe answer for hunger is food. The answerfor homelessness is shelter. The answerfor nakedness is clothing.”

Minister Muhammad said that in look-ing at “this world of people that suffer andstruggle,” he was reminded of the game ofMonopoly because it “depicts the mindsetof the world in which we live, a worldruled by evil and greed.”

He said that Monopoly is a metaphorfor the way landlords in the Bay Area tryto get control over every square inch ofproperty in order to make people pay andpay endlessly.

“If they want a one-bedroom apartmentin Berkeley, make them pay $2000 amonth,” he said. “If they want a one-bed-room apartment in San Francisco, makethem pay $3000 a month. If they want aone-bedroom apartment in Oakland, makethem pay 1,800 a month.”

Muhammad then dramaticallydescribed how housing prices in the BayArea have skyrocketed. He asked how itcould have happened that a home that waspurchased 80 years ago for $5,000, andwas resold 50 years ago for $40,00, thenwas sold again 10 years ago for $250,000,and was sold a few years ago for a half-million dollars. And now unscrupulousreal estate dealers and banks have thenerve to charge $700,000 for the samehouse in a never-ending spiral.

Muhammad warned, “We’re playingthe game of Monopoly and we’re losing.It is now producing a world of poor,struggling and suffering people. Peoplewho have lost their homes — not becausethey’re not decent people. People whohave little too eat — not because they’renot decent people. “

REV. SHARON STALKFLEET

JESUS IS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE

POOR.Rev. Sharon Stalkfleet, pastor of the

Lutheran Church of the Cross in Berkeley,knows many people living on the street, inpart because the YEAH youth shelter islocated at the Lutheran Church. And everyWednesday, the church sponsors a spaghet-ti dinner that serves 100 people.

Rev. Stalkfleet said she attended the

rally on April 9 to show solidarity withthe people she has come to know.

“I care because I know a lot of peoplewho are living on the streets,” said Rev.Stalkfleet, “or who are fearful they’regoing to lose their homes or apartmentsand will end up living on the streets. So Iwas there to be in solidarity with people Ialready know. It is very important.”

She spoke out strongly against the anti-homeless measures passed by theBerkeley City Council on March 17, andwarned that there was a growing move-ment in the entire country to punish andbanish homeless people.

“It’s part of the movement in our coun-try and our state and our city to criminal-ize the poor,” said Rev. Stalkfleet. “It’sinhumane and it’s also rather ridiculousbecause these laws do not really serve anypurpose except harassment. The lawsthemselves do not make anybody safer,and then you think of how much moneywill go into enforcement. And then home-less people are going to be in jail and willhave to be dealing with fines and it justcreates a circular problem for the poor.”

Rev. Stalkfleet said many people haveno alternative but to live on the street or inshelters due to soaring housing prices.

“Affordable housing is not affordable,”she said. “And it’s only going to getworse before anything gets better becausethe rents just keep getting higher andhigher. It really makes it very difficult forpeople who have limited means to find aplace to live. The people are not the prob-lem. Being homeless is the problem andto treat a symptom by trying to push itaway somewhere else where it will not beseen is very inhumane.”

Speaking at the interfaith rally in supportof homeless people is of central importanceto her understanding of ministry, she said.

“Jesus said, When did you see me hun-gry and did not feed me, and when didyou not clothe me? Jesus is in solidaritywith the poor. The community is called totake care of each other and to love ourneighbor. So as a community, we’refalling short when we see people on thestreet and we criminalize them.”

REV. THERESA NOVAK

TREAT PEOPLE AS THE PRECIOUS

SOULS THAT THEY ARE.Rev. Theresa Novak, an ordained min-

ister with the Berkeley Fellowship ofUnitarian-Universalists, offered a prayerfor compassion at the rally.

Faith LeadersCry Out AgainstInhumane Laws

See Faith Leaders Cry Out page 7

from page 1

Many people gather in downtown Berkeley for an interfaith rally in solidarity with homeless people. Alex Madonik photo

May 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 7

In an interview following the event,Rev. Novak said, “I really hate the waythat our society is demonizing poor peo-ple. It’s not just the homeless — it’s allpoor people. The homeless are the mostvulnerable in our society. Everythingabout faith, about trying to live withhuman care and compassion, means thatwe need to treat people as human beings,as the precious souls that they are.”

Rev. Novak said that the laws passedby the Berkeley City Council are com-pletely inhumane. “They give peoplenowhere to go — absolutely nowhere togo,” she said. “Our society is going in thewrong direction. We need to providehousing for folks before they end up onthe streets. And to just say, ‘Move along,’that’s punishing the victims.”

Novak explained that she came to theinterfaith rally because the members ofher Berkeley congregation asked her to doso. “I came to lend my voice and do reli-gious witness on behalf of the vulnera-ble,” she said. “ It’s part of my call as aminister. When I took my ordinationvows, I vowed to minister to all people,regardless of their station in life.

“Our primary faith tenet as Unitarian-Universalists is to do what good we can inthis life — and that means having com-passion for our fellow human beings.”

RABBI DAVID COOPER

ELIJAH COMES AMONG US DISGUISED

AS A HOMELESS PERSON.Rabbi David Cooper of Kehilla

Synagogue told the gathering that the bib-lical prophet Elijah is often disguised as ahomeless person, in the legendary tradi-tion. Cooper said that when these storieswere told to him as a young boy, the mes-sage was that every homeless person youencounter should be treated with the samerespect as you would treat the prophet.

That message has a great deal to sayabout how our society should treat home-less people. Rabbi Cooper explained,“Remember when you see a homeless per-son, you should treat them well becausehe could be the prophet Elijah. And evenif he isn’t the prophet Elijah, they shouldstill be treated just as well.”

One of Cooper’s favorite stories aboutElijah is a very timely metaphor about thelaws passed on March 17 by the BerkeleyCity Council to banish homeless people.

Once, when Elijah came to a giant ban-quet in the guise of a homeless person, hewas kicked out. (The persecution ofhomeless people is an age-old story.)

Yet when Elijah returned dressed inprincely robes, the same people treatedhim as an honored guest and gave himbanquet food and wine. Strangely, Elijahput the food in the pockets of his clothing,rather than eating it.

When asked why, Elijah said, “When Icame in before dressed as a homeless per-son you kicked me out. But when I cameback in wearing these beautiful clothes, Ifigured that the food that you provided mewith was for my suit — and not for me.”

This story from the folk tradition isnow being lived out all over again on thestreets of Berkeley, Rabbi Cooper said.

“I live in a town where we punish thehomeless and where we reward thewealthy,” he said. “And frankly, if Elijahthe prophet were wandering among us, hewould be really pissed off. And he woulddemand that we do some repentance.”

Cooper said that we must make oursociety a place where people can have a

place to sleep and food to eat and themedical care they need. “At that time,” hesaid, “then maybe Elijah will be able toforgive us. So let us go forward and makethis the world it should be, a world whereElijah would be happy.”

REV. KURT KUHWALD

NO ONE SHOULD BE CAST ASIDE IN

OUR ECONOMIC SYSTEM.Rev. Kurt Kuhwald, a Unitarian minis-

ter in the East Bay, helped to coordinatethe interfaith rally. In an interview, hesaid, “I was there to support the right ofhomeless people to have a place inBerkeley without being harassed. It pointsto the egregious economic circumstancesthat we’re faced with, where people areforced into homelessness and they’re keptwithout housing.”

Describing the anti-homeless laws inBerkeley, Rev. Kuhwald said, “I thinkthey’re intolerable. I think they demon-strate a meanness of spirit that is unac-ceptable, especially in a city likeBerkeley. Berkeley is known for its liber-ality and its support of all people, so topromote these kinds of laws is unaccept-able and immoral.”

Berkeley officials have “no justification”for these laws, he said. “They could workthese things out without criminalizing peo-ple, especially people who really have suf-fered as a result of a lot of things in thissociety that have worked against them.”

Kuhwald pointed to economic inequal-ity as a more deeply rooted source of therepressive, anti-homeless laws beingenacted all over the country. “It’s veryclear that this country is on a trajectoryright now that is saying plainly and loudlythat everybody isn’t equal and that somepeople are better than others,” he said.

“For instance, CEOs are more importantthan people who work the line atMcDonald’s. People who are real estateagents and sell multimillion-dollar housesin the hills of Berkeley are more importantthan the people sleeping on the streets.”

A society that favors the rich over thepoor is practicing a very destructive kindof discrimination, he said. So protestingthe anti-homeless laws is, at the sametime, a moral statement against theinequality that has become so prevalent.

“There should be an economic visionthat says that everybody in society is valu-able, that no one should be cast aside inour economic system,” Kuhwald said.

“As a person of faith, it was important

for me to be there because I believe that atthe core of all this, it’s a moral issue. Themoral issue points directly to the questionof whether we really are all equal or not.”

SALLY HINDMAN

“SEEK JUSTICE AND LOVE KINDNESS.”Sally Hindman, a Quaker and longtime

homeless advocate, played a key role inorganizing religious leaders from manydiverse interfaith communities to cometogether as one and speak out for thehuman rights of homeless people.

Hindman said, “We have a clear call-ing that we are to work for justice. I feellike I could not be a Quaker, I could notbe a Christian, and not speak up abouthow wrong this is. It is so wrong to crimi-nalize homeless people.”

The City Council’s latest anti-homelessmeasures are similar to Measure S, the anti-sitting law that Berkeley voters rejected in2012. Hindman questioned why the mayorand council are trying to pass laws alreadyturned down by voters in the last election.

“Criminalizing homeless people is notgoing to work,” she said. “It’s 10 timesmore expensive than social services, andit’s wrong. It has been criticized as anapproach to solving these problems bysome of the most respected policy-makingbodies in America. It was voted down byBerkeley voters in 2012. No one with aconscience would support it.”

“Every human being deserves the dig-nity and the respect of having a home,”she added. ‘And there isn’t a reason in theworld why we can’t do that. We’re the

richest country in the world. We have 536billionaires in this country. And we haveto quit pretending like we don’t have theresources to end all poverty.”

On March 2, 2015, U.S. News & WorldReport reported that there are 536 billion-aires in the United States. The UnitedStates has the majority of the world’s bil-lionaires, and it has the lion’s share of theworld’s wealth and resources.

Recently, the United Nations HumanRights Committee in Geneva condemnedthe criminalization of homelessness in theUnited States as “cruel, inhuman anddegrading treatment.” UN officials alsosaid they were baffled that such a wealthycountry not only had such high levels ofhomelessness, but also criminalized thoseliving on the streets.

Hindman echoed the UN Committee’squestions. She said, “The U.S. by anystretch is one of the richest countries in theworld, and we have the resources to endhomelessness tomorrow. This situation,where hundreds of thousands of our citizensare forced to live in doorways in urbanareas, with all their worldly possessions insupermarket carts, is morally unacceptable.It’s unacceptable in Berkeley and it’s unac-ceptable across America.”

Hindman said she had been reflecting onthe prophet Micah: “What does the Lordrequire of you? To seek justice, and lovekindness, and walk humbly with the Lord.”

“That calls us away from criminalizingpeople who are merely struggling to sur-vive,” she said. “It calls us to pursue com-passionate solutions to these challenges.”

Faith LeadersCry Out AgainstInhumane Laws from page 6

Carena Ridgeway, Rev. Kurt Kuhwald, Sally Hindman and Rayven Wilson organize the rally’s speakers. Alex Madonik photo

Rabbi David Cooper tells how Elijah appeared as a homeless man. Alex Madonik photo

May 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T8

by Steve Pleich

Some years ago, San Diego Countypartnered with local nonprofits toprovide “basic dignity” to people

experiencing homelessness in the form ofincreased access to bathroom facilities. Ithas long been the hope of homeless advo-cates in Santa Cruz that such an ideacould find some traction in a communitywhere this need is so great.

Indeed, in Santa Cruz, the situation isdire and reflects a generalized and perva-sive bias against the homeless communi-ty. For the unhoused in Santa Cruz, thesimple act of relieving themselves withoutpublic restroom access is just one moreinstance of having to sacrifice their basicdignity as human beings just to survive.

As Housing NOW Santa Cruz found-ing member Linda Lemaster said, “It isbad enough that homeless people arecriminalized in our community. Do wereally have to humiliate them as well?”

Santa Cruz does have some history ofcity-sponsored programs to increasedowntown bathroom access. A BathroomTask Force was formed in 1999 withsome support from the City Councilwhich set up “temporary” porta-potties inthe downtown area.

HUFF (Homeless United forFriendship and Freedom) founder RobertNorse recalled this effort and the reasonsfor its demise. “Whatever promise this

program had in making bathroom facili-ties more available to the homeless com-munity was eventually beaten back andultimately beaten down with ‘vandalism’mythology,” Norse said.

“The bathrooms are long gone but themythology lingers and continues to gener-ate substantial resistance to progress, evenin the form of simply revisiting the idea.”

The proposal currently being recom-mended to the City Council wouldinvolve a public/private partnershipbetween “Basic Dignity Campaign SantaCruz” and the City. It is worth noting thatthis type of collaborative effort has suc-cessfully worked in Santa Cruz to reopenpublic facilities that have had their hoursreduced or have been closed completelydue to lack of funding.

The fiscal reality is that that there aremany demands on the city’s budget andother city services and programs occupyhigher budgetary priorities. But Rabbi PhilPosner, whose “Camp of Last Resort” pro-gram is challenging the city to create safesleeping spaces for people experiencinghomelessness, holds out some hope.

“Discussion and consideration of thisproposal may pave the way for a realisticapproach to this pressing need,” RabbiPosner said. “And additional bathroomfacilities in the downtown area could bene-fit the entire community, not just those peo-ple experiencing homelessness. Additionalbathroom facilities along the San Lorenzo

Riverway could support both our camp pro-posal and the ongoing program to revitalizethat area of the city.”

Funding for this program would besecured through private contributions anddonations. No public funds would be usedfor the purchase or rental of portable orsemi-permanent bathroom units.

Depending on the amount of moneyraised, these units could range from thebasic “porta-pottie” to full-service bath-room facilities like the “Portland Loo”produced by Madden Fabrication.

The Portland Loos are simple, sturdy,flush toilet kiosks, which provide environ-mentally friendly, clean, and saferestroom facilities. This is the ideal solu-tion if we truly want to accord peopleexperiencing homelessness not only basicdignity, but also a sense of belonging to acompassionate community that under-stands their daily challenges.

The City’s participation would take theform of installation and maintenance ofthe new facilities through Public Works

and oversight by the Parks and RecreationDepartment and the Santa Cruz PoliceDepartment, depending on placement.

Of course, any program such as thiswill require much thought, planning andpublic process. But homeless advocatesand even some civic leaders believe this isan ideal time for consideration of the ideaof “basic dignity.”

Santa Cruz City CouncilmemberMicah Posner was instrumental in theplacement of the only 24-hour-accessrestroom in the downtown area. Aptlynicknamed the “Posner Pottie,” this first-of-its-kind facility could serve as a com-munity icebreaker on the issue.

Posner’s father, Rabbi Phil, echoed thesentiments of many when he said, “Wehave to do better — better for peopleexperiencing homelessness, better for ourcommunity, better for ourselves. Let’shope that now is the time for basic digni-ty, an idea whose time has surely come.”

Steve Pleich is an advocate for peopleexperiencing homelessness in Santa Cruz.

Basic Dignity Campaign Launched in Santa Cruz“We have to do better — better for people experiencinghomelessness, better for our community, better for our-selves. Let’s hope that now is the time for basic dignity,an idea whose time has surely come.” — Rabbi Phil Posner

The “Posner Pottie” is the first of its kind and provides 24-hour restroom access.

by Carol Denney

The Right to Rest rally in Sacramentohad to carry on without me. But Imet a lot of the people it would real-

ly help over the three days I spent enjoyingthe hospitality of, first, the Berkeley Jail,then the North County Jail, waiting for anarraignment that never came.

I met great women: strong, honest,clear-minded about their own failings andwilling to climb any mountain of any sizeto help their families stay together. Wetalked a lot. Some of them could tradeencouragement with their boyfriends innearby cells and plan a little for theunknowns, their potential release or thepotential of a lengthy stay.

They were loving and warm with eachother and to me. Some were new to jailroutine and some had enough experienceto help others navigate with less terror.

But mostly we talked about housing.Almost everyone was doubled up withfriends, maxing out somebody’s basementspace, jeopardizing friendships and familyrelations, straining to find harbor neartheir jobs if they had no cars, and losingjobs because of transportation and eco-nomic issues. We traded tips and ideas forjob sharing, space sharing, what it’s likein other states where we had relatives andpossibilities, anything. These women areresourceful, kind, and focused.

They knew that wealthy people wereplaying games with the housing supply,and that as mostly black women, the dis-crimination they faced stacked the deckagainst them. Yet they managed to makethe stories of their struggles wonderfullyfunny. “They can’t beat me,” one of my

cell-mates said. “I have my son and I amgoing to make things right.”

I kept thinking about Berkeley CityCouncilmember Lori Droste’s declarationon March 17, the night she affirmed hersupport for the next round of anti-homelesslaws promoted by the City Council andDowntown Berkeley Association by sug-gesting that going to jail was really goodfor people. People who support jail-fillingpolicies love that concept: that jail makespeople straighten up and fly right.

There might be some logic to that ifpeople needed a wake-up call. But like me,most of the women in jail with me werebewildered about their arrests. Most ofthem had called the police themselves forhelp and been inexplicably jailed, or werecaught up in a melee and inexplicablyjailed, or, like me, were inexplicably jailedby a cop who had some peculiar back storyabout me from some other political eventor moment in time of which I have longstopped keeping track.

We’re a pretty focused group,Councilmember Droste. Three days in jailwithout even a court date is not just illegal,it’s a pretty good recipe for having your cartowed, your job lost, your responsibilitiesleft hanging in precarious ways. And thegreen-suited Santa Rita gals, the ones withmental health challenges, well, I doubt evenyou are going to argue that jail is the bestplace for them. They, too, were a sweetbunch doing their best to help each otherstay clear-minded through a trying day.

It’s cold in there, CouncilmemberDroste. It’s freezing if they rammed downyour door and took you away in your nightclothes. Some of the police are brutal, andthink nothing of using the worst profanity

and mind-numbing disrespect. And nomatter how much of that one endures, itdoesn’t create more housing, which is theonly answer to homelessness.

At one point we began talking aboutbooks, and I had to laugh, since one of thebooks they’d given me in the Berkeley jailwas a raunchy tale about police corrup-tion. It had made me wonder about thedepth of their jail library, which also had acopy of English author and medievalistscholar M. R. James’s annotated ghoststories. But after we laughed about that, Imentioned Michele Alexander’s The NewJim Crow, which others recommended aswell. The discussion we had was so mov-ing. We talked for hours about the bookwhich explains so clearly the nonsensicalsystem which allows police and courts toupend whole communities.

I did learn something, though,Councilmember Droste. When I was finallyreunited with my property — after beingreleased in Oakland with no money, nophone, no identification, nothing, since itwas all back at the Berkeley jail, anarrangement which is apparently routine —I realized they had neglected to note that Ihad had with me a pink umbrella. Eitherthey honestly think a pink umbrella some-how continues to be pertinent to chargesthey have dropped, or Officer Kassenbaumreally, really wanted a pink umbrella.

Please find money in the budget for pinkumbrellas for the officers who are currentlyobligated to invent exotic ways to acquirethem, Councilmember Droste. I reallywanted to attend the Right to Rest rally inSacramento, but hey, Officer Kassenbaum,when you’re jonesing for a pink umbrella, Iguess something’s gotta give.

Book Club in Jail and the Lost Pink Umbrella God Walked In Haiku by Carol Denney

god walked into churchand was thrown out because heseemed kind of crazy

I weep for the sufferingby Judy Joy Jones

I weep for the suffering on earthand rejoice in those that giveknowing god smiles from shore to shorewhen we offer our handto those in need

beyond homelessnessand hunger go wehearts entwinedwith heaven’s designsto spread unconditional loveto all we meet

I weep for the suffering on earth

Homeless Streets 2015by George Wynn

Where are weas a society?

Not lookingat everyday realitybecause someone'shands may notbe clean

We are aboutreaching outfrom the heart

And our heart is outat sea.

May 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 9

by Dawn Phillips

Neighborhoods that have seendecades of public and private dis-investment, environmental degra-

dation and racist segregation are nowbeing flooded with an influx of new capi-tal, new developments and new residents.Is this new wave of investment actuallygood for people and neighborhoods? Whoreally benefits from urban development?

The regional median home price in theBay Area at the end of 2014 was$742,900. This means that to afford ahome, you would need a 20 percent downpayment of $150,000 and could expect amonthly mortgage of $3,323.79.

Cash investors account for one in fiveof all home sales and there is a growingnumber of absentee buyers. WaypointReal Estate Investment Group has spent$1 billion purchasing hundreds of single-family homes in Oakland and ContraCosta County. Wall Street-backed invest-ment firms like Colony Capital,Blackstone and Och-Ziff are literally buy-ing up neighborhoods around the countryand making it impossible for anyone whocannot afford an “all cash” purchase toacquire homes in these communities.

This type of speculation has con-tributed significantly to rising prices anddeepening disparities in homeownershiprates for Latino and Black families.

Proposals for big development projectsare popping up all over the Bay Area.

In San Francisco, Maximus Real EstatePartners is proposing to build 345 units ofluxury condos with retail space above the16th and Mission BART Station rightnext to an elementary school. The 10-story-tall project will cast a permanentshadow on the school playground,increase the housing prices in the sur-rounding area, and raise commercial rentsfor small mom-and-pop businesses.

Hundreds of teachers, students, par-ents, and neighborhood business ownershave organized a powerful coalition todemand that the project be 100 per centaffordable in a community hard hit byevictions, displacement of Latino resi-dents and longtime small businesses.

It took community residents and orga-nizations coming together to ensure that aproposal to develop a huge section of EastOakland would include plans to stabilizecurrent residents, provide affordable hous-ing and provide jobs to those in the area.

One resident described her view of theColiseum City project as “feeling like itdidn’t include those who live [nearby], andthat the development would be an ‘alienspace city’ plopped down in East Oakland.We’re here now, so let’s move you out!”

While the project promises to create20,000 jobs over a 25-year period, there isno guarantee that current workers wouldkeep the jobs or that the new positionswould be union. It covers an area betweenthe Oakland Airport and the ColiseumBART station, and includes multipleparcels of public land. There are many con-cerns about how that land will serve theneeds of current East Oakland residents.

Residents in the San Antonio neighbor-hood of Oakland are opposing a plan tosell a city-owned parcel to a developerwho wants to build a 24-story project with298 luxury units. The land is in a prime

location on the edge of Lake Merritt andthe city’s proposal to sell it far under mar-ket value to a small group of hand-pickedbidders has raised serious opposition.

Projected rents for a one-bedroom unitin the building will be $3,150 a month,making the units affordable to householdswith $113,000 or more in annual income.According to US Census data, the medianhousehold income for the zip code thatincludes the neighborhood is $38,363 ayear. It is clear that, if approved, this pro-ject will not serve the affordable housingneeds of the neighborhood. It likely willdrive up the cost of living in this working-class community with a large and diverseimmigrant population.

There is a widely held view that histor-ically disinvested and neglected neighbor-hoods should welcome all new develop-ments. This view holds that any invest-ment is better than none at all. For manyresidents of those neighborhoods, theopposite feels true. Working-class Blacksand Latinos are being displaced at incredi-ble rates from their neighborhoods.

In Oakland, you have to make $8,000 amonth to afford the median monthly rent of$2412, and in San Francisco you have tomake $10,400 a month to afford the medianrent of $3,100. Someone making minimumwage would have to work 163 hours a weekin Oakland and 212 hours a week in SanFrancisco to be able to afford housing.

This affordability crisis is compoundedby the fact that real wages for Blacks andLatinos have decreased in the Bay Areaover the last decade. The argument thatproducing new housing will solve the cri-sis feels like a limited solution. Racial andeconomic inequity is deepening and thecurrent approach to development is con-tributing to that, not helping it.

We hear too often from our electedrepresentatives and public agency staffthat we cannot make demands of privatedevelopers who are coming in with ideasand money, for fear that we will scare offinvestors. A large part of this problem isthe over-reliance on the private sector todrive urban development.

The public sector sees its role as facili-tating and supporting private developmentthrough public policy and spending. It iscommon practice for cities to ease exist-ing land use and building regulations, aswell as providing generous public subsi-

dies to encourage private investment.Twitter successfully negotiated a payrolltax break from San Francisco in exchangefor staying in the city and expanding.

Forest City received almost $61 mil-lion to develop the Uptown project inOakland, a huge sum for a city with amodest budget. For both cities, this is astandard part of doing business and pro-moting development.

This type of development results in asevere mismatch between the needs ofresidents and the profit-motivated interestof those driving urban development.While our communities are crying out forbasic infrastructure like grocery stores,retail stores that serve families, and low-cost housing for a range of family sizes,what often gets prioritized are new busi-nesses and services designed for new,higher-income residents, not the projectsthat benefit existing residents.

This approach that focuses develop-ment on serving new, future residentsrequires and facilitates the displacementof current residents and businesses, aswell as social, cultural, faith and politicalinstitutions that serve the community.

Luxury condos, high-end bars, restau-rants and retail are not making our com-munities healthier or more sustainable.For those on the front-lines of the gentrifi-cation crisis, it feels like the public sectorhas made landlords and private developersrich at the expense of working-class com-munities of color.

We want development to be driven bythe leadership and vision of current resi-dents. We want our public representativesand agencies to ensure that residents arefully informed and deeply engaged in pro-jects that are coming to their neighbor-hoods. We want residents to have the abil-ity to participate in actual decision-mak-ing around the types of development andwho the developers are. We want devel-opment to be driven by those who will bemost impacted by it.

We want 30 per cent of all land inworking-class communities set aside forcommunity-controlled, community-drivenprojects. We want our public agencies tostop the sale of all public land to privateentities. We want to see existing land trustand land banks expanded.

We want to see the creation of mecha-nisms that will support collective owner-

ship and control of land for green space,housing, health, job creation, urban agri-culture and other community-servingneeds. We want community control ofland as a way to stabilize and strengthenour communities.

We want to see tenant rights and pro-tections in all cities throughout the regionand we want to see the preservation andimprovement of the rental housing stock.We want all jurisdictions to pass and fullyenforce Just Cause and Rent Control. Wewant to see public revenues and programsdedicated to improving the quality ofolder buildings and housing.

We want stronger enforcement ofbuilding and health codes that do notresult in the displacement of residentsfrom their homes. We want to see housingmade more affordable, healthy and sus-tainable for all residents.

Human development empowers a com-munity to identify the types of housing,services and infrastructure that should belocated in their neighborhood. It ensuresthat the interest and needs of longtime res-idents play a central role in defining thevision for neighborhood development andchange. It supports resident leadership byproviding resources, tools and informationto support their full engagement.

A human development approach alsocentralizes decision-making power in thecommunity and ensures that residents arenot only able to offer their opinions, butthat they have actual decision-makingability to say what development looks likein their neighborhood. This approach tocommunity development fosters institu-tions and enterprises that are of value tothe residents, puts protections in place thatprevent displacement and gentrification,and results in positive human develop-ment outcomes for all residents.

This is our vision for a new urbanagenda centered on racial and economicequity and a healthy society for all people.Human development driven by the needsof working-class communities of colorwill create neighborhoods and cities thatwork better for everyone.

This is a call to action. Join us.

Dawn Phillips is the Co-Director ofPrograms at Causa Justa :: Just Cause andcan be reached at dawn@cjjc.org or#HousingisaHumanRight@CausaJusta1

Planning For People, Not for Profiteers

“March” Art by Josh MacPhee

Someone making minimumwage would have to work163 hours a week in Oaklandand 212 hours a week in SanFrancisco to be able toafford housing.

May 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T10

As a young woman, she went to Franceand studied at the Sorbonne, and becameaware of the international dimensions ofthe struggle for justice through meetingstudents involved in working to end thecolonial domination of Algeria.

When she returned to the U.S., shebegan working with SNCC (StudentNonviolent Coordinating Committee) in theearly 1960s. In 1968, Beal became a found-ing member of the SNCC Black Women’sLiberation Committee, which evolved intothe Third World Women’s Alliance.

She became nationally known due to herimportant 1970 study of the intersection ofrace, class and gender oppression, “DoubleJeopardy: To Be Black and Female.”

Frances Beal is a living link to the eraof radical social change when civil rightsactivists also were protesting the war inVietnam, and began organizing on issuesof women’s rights and economic injustice.Beal describes it as “the triple oppressionof race, class and gender.”

Beal worked for the American CivilLiberties Union from 1987 to 2005. Shewas elected the national secretary of theBlack Radical Congress. She also hasbeen a lifelong peace activist, and herantiwar commitment stretches fromprotesting the Vietnam War in the 1960sall the way to her recent opposition to thewar in Iraq and the Middle East.

I think of the boar symbolism in themovie, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”about a six-year-old black girl and herfather in Mississippi. The boars, protect-ing and companioning black and whitechildren, were for me symbols of wit andcourage, and of a God beyond gender, asin former pagan times they had godlikequalities. They are related, for me, to thestamina of Francis M. Beal.

Beal’s life also seems related toOakland artist Charles Curtis Blackwell’sreligious poetry concerning biblicalwomen and modern women he personallyknew. In his books, Is the Color ofMississippi Mud and Redemption inBlindness, he definitely expresses belief inwomen’s rights, supporting and strength-ening her stance.

While I was preparing the Street Spiritinterview, I saw the new documentary,“She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” ather suggestion, which featured Beal as shespoke out on women’s rights. I wasextremely impressed with her sincerityand conviction. The film is a documentaryhistory of the early years of the modernwomen’s movement, from 1966 to 1971.

In this important and very well-reviewednew film,“She’s Beautiful When She’sAngry,” Frances Beal is featured severaltimes speaking for women’s rights.

In the Village Voice review of the film,Alan Scherstuhl called it“one of the year’sbest films.” He added, “That defiant sis-terhood changed the workplace, our sexu-al politics, our language. ‘She’s BeautifulWhen She’s Angry’ is the best filmedaccount of how that happened you couldever expect to see.”

Ms. Magazine reviewer Kitty Lindsaywrote, “A feminist film masterpiece. Offersan inspiring account of the women’s libera-tion movement of the late 1960s.”

Frances M. Beal is meaningful to mebecause she is a woman willing to strug-gle for the rights of the vulnerable, espe-cially for women’s rights, lesbian rights,and for economic justice and equal jobopportunities for low-income people. Thatis why I was inspired to interview her forStreet Spirit.

Interview by Maureen Hartmann

Maureen Hartmann: Can youdescribe your family and upbringing? Andhow did this affect your later work forhuman rights?

Frances M. Beal: I come from a work-ing-class family. My father was a truckdriver. My mother was a housewife — herjob during those days. My mother camefrom an immigrant Jewish family. Mygrandfather was very involved in politics.

My mother was the first child born inAmerica. They entered the United Statesin the early 1900s. The two older siblingswere born in Denmark, because that wasthe country that was taking refugee Jewsat the time. My father was born in 1904,so they were about ten years apart.

Having an African-American fatherand a Jewish mother in a town that wasvery reactionary was difficult for the chil-dren. All children want to belong, and Ihad a great need in that direction. I fortu-nately took it out in a positive way, by try-ing to be the best of everything: the bestreader, the best mathematician, the best intrying out for sports, the best in trying outfor music.

My mother didn’t make things easier.Aside from being Jewish in an anti-Semitic town, she also was a member ofthe Communist Party involved in labororganizing. My mother protested in frontof “Birth of a Nation,” which was a veryracist film that was produced at the time. Ican remember as a child being embar-rassed. Why does my mother have to dothis?

My father was no less a conscious per-son as a black man. He was part NativeAmerican. By that time he was a labororganizer, and it was kind of rough theretoo. My father told of the bosses coming

around with thugs. The gangsters were thetruck-owners in the life within which Igrew up.

Even though on a superficial level, youdon’t want your parents to be differentfrom everybody else; on another level,you’re learning about injustice. My moth-er had a lot of educational material for uskids. I remember one book (at home), ThePictorial History of the Negro People inAmerica by Langston Hughes. Black his-tory had, of course, not even begun to bethought about in terms of transformationof the educational system.

I’ll give you an example of what mymother was like. The teacher was teachingabout slavery as a benign system for giv-ing food, for giving clothing. The slaveshad all these things given to them, unlikeother people. Mom made sure we kidsconfronted this view in the classroom andinsist slavery was a system where peoplegot beaten, they could not go where theywanted to go and families got split up.

African-Americans did not sit thereand take it: there were all kinds of resis-tance. For inequities, you have a personaland political and social responsibility todo something about it. My mother,because she was a communist, was con-cerned about class and racial issues, butalso gender issues. She was also interestedin the struggle for peace. Growing up in asmall town with progressive parents —that was my background.

Hartmann: When did you get marriedand start your own family?

Beal: I went abroad to France in myjunior year. My husband had been in theNavy. He was on a ship that went aroundthe Mediterranean. Racial relations in themid-’50s in the United States were notpretty. One of the murders that affected

me then was that of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy, suspected of flirting with awhite woman in Mississippi.

Both my daughters were born inFrance. We stayed for six years. I attend-ed the Sorbonne. There I started to raise afamily. The marriage was not on the bestof grounds. There was a lot of passion andI knew my husband since I was 15 yearsold. We began having a good time livingin Paris. But once the kids came it was alittle different. The other problem — hewas an alcoholic. He would go out anddrink. He came from a family that was aseries of alcoholics. They did not just takea drink too much now and then; they wereclinical alcoholics.

After the kids came, we grew apart, sowe decided to come home to dissolve themarriage, where we have family. When Iasked him for child support for the kids,however, he would see it as asking formoney for me.

Hartmann: How did you begin work-ing for civil rights and social change?

Beal: The good thing that happened,my ex hooked up with a woman fromDenmark who was very fond of the girlsand encouraged him to pay child support.My mother and my brothers providedmoral support and helped me with childrearing.

I went to work to support my familyand was lucky to land a job at theNational Council of Negro Women. I hadconcerns and involvement in the CivilRights movement and the women’s rightsmovement, and felt I could get a positionthere.

This was during the period of theVietnam War. All of us were protesting. Itwas a question of a war which was not

Frances Beal A Powerful Voicefor Peace and Justicefrom page 1

Street Spirit Interview with Frances Beal

Already a mainstay of the civil rights movement, African-American women were also pioneers in fighting for women’s rights.

“She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” is a powerful film that documents the early stages of the modern women’s movement.

See Interview with Frances Beal page 11

May 2015 ST R E E T SP I R I T 11

justified, and in which the U.S. was anaggressor. It was a new concept forAmerica.

Blacks had a history of struggling forpeace. There was a 1935 demonstration of50,000 people in Harlem, protesting theItalian invasion of Ethiopia. We have ourAfrican American spokespersons likeW.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson.

Finally, I connected with the CivilRights movement. I started to work withthe International Affairs Commission ofSNCC (Student Nonviolent CoordinatingCommittee). While I was in France, I gota sense of the anti-colonial struggle on aworld-wide basis. I was in some café dis-cussions with some Africans. I also cameacross an old copy of Simon deBeauvoir’s The Second Sex.

When I came back here, it was mostlyto civil rights contacts. I spoke French,and I had already an international contactwith SNCC.

Hartmann: How did you becomeinvolved with the Women’s Movement?

Beal: How I became involved in theWoman’s Movement was very interesting.I was working with an entity of SNCC,called the National Black AntiwarAntidraft Union. The purpose was to dis-courage young blacks from going off towar. Most of the staff was female.

What really angered us was that JamesForman, a SNCC leader, was pushing fora political alliance with the Panthers. Wewere concerned about how women weretreated and how they were oppressedwithin that organization. He came backwith a book by Eldridge Cleaver, calledSoul on Ice. We came to the conclusionthat Eldridge Cleaver was a thug whoraped black women to work himself up toraping white women. We wrote aresponse to that book, called Soul on Fire.

Other female issues began to concernus. We found many black women hadbeen sterilized without their knowledge.That convinced us of the need for good,safe, birth-control methods. The abortionissue was one that the right-wing madethe focus. It was not just an assault onwomen’s abortion rights: it was an assaulton women’s right to birth control. That ishow I became an active voice for blackwomen’s liberation.

Hartmann: What originally sparkedyour determination to become so involvedin the struggle for civil rights?

Beal: I was living in France at the timeand I did some writing explaining theCivil Rights movement. In France, wesaw the news of Little Rock, Arkansas,and Eisenhower sending troops in.

[Editor: In 1957, after Arkansas Gov.Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas

National Guard to prevent black studentsfrom enrolling in an all-white high schoolin Little Rock, President Eisenhower sentin federal troops to allow the students toattend the formerly segregated school.]

The U.S. was in the so-called ColdWar, the fight for democracy against theSoviet Union. Yet here the U.S. wasoppressing its own people, Negroes as wecalled ourselves.

Hartmann: When you returned to theUnited States, how did your involvementin civil rights organizing lead you on topeace activism and women’s rights?

Beal: I participated in some of the civilrights demonstrations as well as localstruggles for welfare rights and the fightto legalize abortion in New York. Duringthe March on Washington in 1963, I was8-1/2 months pregnant at the time withmy second daughter, Lisa. SNNC waspulling people together and organizing forthe March which brought 250,000 peopleto the nation’s capital, the largest massdemonstration ever at that time.

As the Third World Women’sAlliance, we participated in anti-nucleardemonstrations. We were involved in civilrights and gender rights struggles, andthere was the moral question of droppingbombs that would eliminate large num-bers of people. There was the idea that theend of the world could have taken place,if some idiot had pressed the red button.

During that period, a lot of the focuswas on Vietnam. It had been raised inCongress that nuclear weapons be usedagainst the Vietnamese people.

In the late sixties and early seventies,the beginning stages of the women’smovement took place. Some women werebeginning to feel like second-class citi-zens within the anti-war movement, aswell as working in the anti-racist move-

ment. That was the birth of the modern-day women right’s movement.

Women of all classes and races partici-pated in what became known as thewomen’s liberation movement. That’swhat the new film, “She’s Beautiful WhenShe’s Angry,” tries to document.

We were no longer prepared to accepta lot of anti-female attitudes, all the wayfrom abortion to equality on the job toequality within social justice movements.SNCC had women doing things they hadnever done before, running meetings andcreating agendas.

Hartmann: Do you believe we havewe progressed in inter-racial relationssince 1963?

Beal: There has been some progresssince then, but we have a long way to go.We have to realize that interracial justicealso involves Asians, Latinos, and NativeAmericans. We see a child of more thanone race, and we are not as shocked as in1963. People still say, it is all right for

you, but think of the children, their identi-ty questions, how other people perceivethem.

There has been some progress. Wehave mixed-race people on a massivelevel. We still have people who talk aboutthat as a bad thing. We have movedbeyond the raw racism of the 1960s, butrace is still a defining issue so far as edu-cational and economic opportunities areconcerned. And as the Trevor Martin caseshows, a white man can gun down a blackmale child and an all-white jury will sethim free. Yes, race still matters.

Hartmann: What do you think hap-pened with racial relations as a result ofMartin Luther King’s assassination?

Beal: I think there was an immediateresponse. “Martin Luther King was one ofthe bravest black men we have lost in thisstruggle,” as Ossie Davis said at his funeral.Amongst blacks, some of my students didnot know who he was just five years later.He was a person calling for racial justice. Alot of people took up the struggle. Whatunited them was that he and Malcolm Xwere both proposing racial justice inAmerica. Both were murdered. When youlook around today, and you see the assaultson young black men, and white men gettingaway with it, you realize we have notadvanced very far. Black lives matter.

Massive incarceration of young blackpeople in this country has become a goal, atool, for controlling the black population.It’s also denying people the right to vote. Inmany states, you lose your right to vote forlife, or in California, you lose for the lengthof your furlough. I worked with MichelleAlexander in the ACLU on racial profilingissues. Her book documents the mass incar-ceration of African Americans and calls itthe new civil rights issue.

Frances Beal was one of the first to explain the “triple oppression” of race, class and gender faced by African American women.

The Street SpiritInterview withFrances M. Bealfrom page 10

Virtue Reward Meby Adam Allen

Virtue reward me as I strip the bark from a tree.Will you kindle my passion to do the good?Whole log on leaping flamesmake my blood move toward strong resolve.

My skin is just the first layer on the way to my corewhere the will to do worthy deeds finds a beginning ember.Sometimes I feel the temperature rising inside to outas my hands grasp ahold of a moment where I can make a difference.

For right I walk in a fever dream of glorythat will not envelope me forever and ever,but at least let there be left in the remaining coalsenough warmth for the next man to begin again.

Silence Breakingby Ryan SmithSilence breaking as the day is brewing.Blankets creasing, sleeping is ceasing.Pack my bag, Leave the spot, not wanting a snag.Cars passing, soon were blazing.Rip, pack, click, pull, exhale, cough, pass.Glass on glass avoid adding carcinogens to the grass.If it is good you may know fast, but you've had amazing creeper in the past.On the block, beats drive by, birds sing in the sky,Leaves rustle before they lay.Footsteps on the ground, a mixing of sound, blending the noises the ear has found a collage of what is around.The music made by a college town.

Fallingby Peter MarinCan they be other than they are, silent as rock, the pine tree bending slowly, the sea-mist cool and pure? Can they be other —not flesh, not memory, not the brute creatures pursued by cops mad to keep order? Blood, says the report, 2.5, so drunk he could not, pissing, balance, falling 15 feet straight down, breaking 2 teeth, 3 ribs and the surface of shallow water to hit the mute rocks below.

In many states, you lose your right to vote for life, or inCalifornia, you lose for the length of your furlough. Iworked with Michelle Alexander in the ACLU on racialprofiling issues. Her book documents the mass incarcerationof African Americans and calls it the new civil rights issue.

May 2015ST R E E T SP I R I T12

by Dawn Phillips

Working-class urban dwellers arein crisis. They face rising evic-tions, an aging housing stock

that is unsafe and in many cases uninhab-itable, soaring housing costs and the dra-matic displacement of Black and Latinopeople.

U.S. Census figures show that SanFrancisco’s population has grown from776,700 in 2000 to 817,500 in 2013. Inthat same period, the Black populationdramatically dipped from 60,500 to just48,000. As a result, Blacks currentlyaccount for less than 6 percent of thecity’s total population.

For Latinos, the situation is growingmore dire as well. A study by the MissionEconomic Development Agency and theCouncil of Community HousingOrganizations found that the historicallyLatino Mission neighborhood went frombeing 50 percent Latino in 2000 to just38.5 percent in 2013.

San Francisco may be ground zero forracialized displacement, but the problemis spreading. Skyrocketing housing costsare a key aspect of this phenomenon.

In Oakland, rents increased 12.7 percentlast year, the second highest increase in theentire country, and the $2,412 medianmonthly rent is three times the nationalaverage. Further south, along the Bay AreaPeninsula, in places like Redwood City andSan Mateo, tenants report rent increases ashigh as 125 percent.

According to the MetropolitanTransportation Commission’s 30-yearprojections, there will be a huge unmetneed for affordable housing in the region.

There is a need for 34 percent of allhousing produced to be affordable forvery low-income residents, 22 percent forlow-income and 15 percent for moderate-income people. Actual production, how-ever, will meet only 10 percent of the verylow-income need, 9 percent of the low-income need and 11 percent of the moder-ate-income need.

This crisis of affordability is truenationally as well, where there are only 29affordable units for every 100 low-incomehouseholds.

Why is the state of affordable housingand the conditions facing tenants such acritical urban issue?

The Right to the City’s Rise of theRenter Nation report shows that the top 25most populated cities in the country are allmajority renter cities. Sixty-four percentof San Francisco’s and 61 percent ofOakland’s population are renters.

Harvard’s Joint Center for HousingStudies projects that there will be 4.7 mil-lion new renters in the next decade andthat half of them will be seniors and thevast majority will be people of color.Dramatic as these figures are, they do notfully reflect the depth of the situation.

The 4.7 million does not include peoplewho would like to rent but are unable to doso, including homeless individuals andfamilies, who number over 600,000 nation-ally on any given day. They do not includepeople living in Single Room Occupancybuildings, those who are doubled or tripledup with family and friends and many oth-ers in various forms of precarious housing.Neither do they reflect the almost 2 millionmostly Black and Latino incarcerated men,who will face tremendous housing insecu-rity upon their release.

Speculation in single-family housingplayed a key role in the foreclosure andsubprime crisis and it is doing the samewith the rental housing market.

Gentrification has created a housing

crisis for urban, working-class tenants ofcolor that is compounding historic racialand economic fissures. Cities are raciallyand economically more inequitable thanever before.

Causa Justa :: Just Cause’s reportDevelopment Without Displacement:Resisting Gentrification in the Bay Area,defines gentrification as a profit-drivenrace and class reconfiguration of urban,working-class, communities of color thathave suffered from a history of disinvest-ment and abandonment.

The process is characterized by thereplacement of working class people ofcolor with higher-income residents will-ing to pay more for the housing.

Gentrification is driven by private devel-opers, landlords and corporations; and facil-itated by public sector policies and rev-enues. Gentrification happens where com-mercial and residential land is cheap, rela-tive to other areas in the city and region,and where the potential to turn a profiteither through repurposing existing struc-tures or building new ones is great.

Enough is enough. We will not bemoved. Our neighborhoods and cities arenot for sale. Gentrification stops here andwe are fighting back. Tenants are creatinga new vision for urban development, onenot driven by speculation but centered onhuman need. We are calling for tenantorganizing for the right to the city.

Right to the City is a national formationof almost 40 community organizationsbased in 13 cities around the country. Thealliance is dedicated to building a stronghousing and urban justice movementnationally and internationally through anurban human rights framework.

The alliance has initiated the nationalHomes for All campaign to promote anew vision for housing justice based onthe 5 principles of affordability, accessi-bility, long-term stability and protectionfrom displacement, health sustainabilityand quality as well as community control.

Based on the idea that tenants mostimpacted by gentrification and housinginsecurity have to lead the creation of anew urban housing vision, Right to theCity groups are organizing and supportingthe leadership of working-class tenants in

cities across the country.This year we will bring together a broad

base of tenants and movement partners toRenter Assemblies nationally, where thou-sands of working families and individualswill share their stories, inspire each otherand develop a plan for making change atthe local, state and national levels.

The Assemblies will build up throughto 2016 where we hope to lift up the voic-es, vision and power of working-classrenters nationally to spark a national dia-logue that will hopefully be a part of thePresidential debates.

Here in the Bay Area, an emerging for-mation of faith, community and labororganizations are coming together to coa-lesce a movement to expand protectionslike just cause laws, rent control andenforcement of healthy housing codes.

Many are responding to the needs oftheir constituencies: the teachers, publicservants and service workers struggling tofind quality housing they can afford and

increasingly being displaced out of theBay Area. The existence of strong region-al formations like this one will anchor anysuccessful effort to push for tenant rightsat the state and national levels.

In California, there is an urgent need torepeal regressive laws like the Ellis Actand Costa-Hawkins, and pave the way forreal eviction protection and rent control.Dynamic local and regional organizing isthe foundation on which larger scalehousing security will be achieved.

Tenant organizing and rights are a keyaspect of a powerful anti-gentrificationstrategy. They are also necessary to anurban agenda centered on racial and eco-nomic equity and a healthy society for allpeople.

This is a call to action. Join us. Why?Because housing is a human right.

Dawn Phillips is the Co-Director ofPrograms at Causa Justa :: Just Cause and isChair of the Steering Committee of the Rightto the City Alliance.

We Will Not Be Moved: The Fight Against RisingRents, Soaring House Costs and Displacement

“We have nowhere to go! Don’t evict us!” Many families are organizing to resist displacement. Photo credit: Just Cause

“Families for tenant protections now.” The youngest are threatened by displacement.