Month: November 2015

Before the Deluge

Features   Uncategorized
Instead of focusing on solutions to the loss of homeless services in Santa Cruz, the council has decided instead to pave the pathway to criminalization. The council majority has no capacity to resist the Not In My Back Yard ravings of hostile people promoting greater fear of these roofless, powerless folks.

On the Origins of Broken Windows Policing

Features   Uncategorized
George Kelling was well aware that his “Broken Windows” policy could lend the force of the police to the enforcement of prejudice. Kelling utilized a real-estate metaphor to provide justification for discriminatory law enforcement, directed at poor and homeless people and aimed at “quality of life” crimes.

Defending Freedom of Speech in Berkeley

Features   Uncategorized
It is absurd that the Downtown Berkeley Association, representing the wealthiest property owners in town, is taking public money to pay a private patrol to tear down the posters of poor artists, activists and community groups. We’re paying them to tear down our posters — and rip up the First Amendment.

November Poetry of the Streets

Poetry
Anthropologists study/ street people, find them/ humane, kindly, humble —/ a dog in lap, parrot on a/ shoulder, a young man/ sleeping, curled like a baby./ A raggedy baseball cap/ silvered with small coins./ Passing poets wonder:/ Is it unlawful to be human?/ But lawful to be inhumane?

The Shape-Shifter and the Psychiatrist

Fiction
Dr. Baker asked, “Where did you learn this ability?” “There is a training complex on Mars,” I replied. The nurse and the psych tech chortled involuntarily. Dr. Baker glared and said, “Maybe a jolt of electroconvulsive would zap some of that smart-ass out of you.”

Cities that Criminalize the Poor Risk Losing HUD Funding

Opinion
It’s one thing to show the fallacy of giving tickets to people with no money, and wasting police resources on issues which would disappear if everybody had somewhere to live. But HUD is offering to share two billion dollars in federal funding with cities —if they stop criminalizing the poor.

More Anti-Homeless Laws on the Way on November 17

Features   Uncategorized
Just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, the City of Berkeley is turning its back on the Department of Justice and HUD guidelines and embracing more anti-homeless laws. This new slate of anti-homeless laws will be considered at the City Council meeting on the evening of Tuesday, November 17.

Broken Windows Transcript

Opinion
Join Ibrahim Mubarak, Right 2 Survive; Benjamin Donlon, Denver Homeless Out Loud; JoJo Smith, Los Angeles Community Action Network, Shayla Myers, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles; Liz Brown, San Francisco State University; and Sulaiman Hyatt, BlackLivesMatter Bay Area chapter at a panel discussion organized by the Western Regional Advocacy Project. Speakers address the links business improvements districts increasing power in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and other cities to how policing is connected to racial and economic segregation, gentrification and mass incarceration.