Laying Down and Waking Up a Slave in Texas

by Pariah A.K.A. Robert
A cop with an evil grin points a gun as bodies and tents go flying, and a figure in the foreground stares at their phone looking distressed.

It’s poetic…
In Texas, we’re trapped in pits with small widdows.
Inside these cells, we’re funding our own imprisonment;
the chains are encrypted inside the chips and soup sales.
We’re inside of an identity crisis believing our souls out of favors,
So we accept the chains;
believing a greater change will come save us…
Can you dig that?!?!
I guess that Willie Lynch Syndrome dies hard in some places.
Since I’m older now,
In these younger guys I see my own reflection. … READ MORE

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CART- A Compassionate Alternative Response to Homelessness

by Tyler Kyser

As the pandemic continues and the shelter-in-place (SIP) hotels made available to unhoused community members begin to shut down, the most marginalized are suddenly being forced back onto the streets. As this occurs, one can only imagine the influx of calls to 911 dispatchers requesting the presence of police for nonviolent unhoused folks. 

That is why it is so critical for San Francisco to implement the Compassionate Alternative Response Team, or CART,

… READ MORE

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Return to Sender: House the Bay Rallies Against UC Hastings Settlement

by Jiffy Phan, organizer with House the Bay

“Homes not barricades!! Homes not barricades!!”

These are the words chanted by protesters marching through the streets of the Tenderloin. Some were carrying police barricades, while others held signs that read ‘DEFUND SFPD,” “Rent is Theft” and “Black Homes Matter”. Others were equipped with medical supplies and sustenance, and in the back you could hear the Brass Liberation orchestra playing their instruments brightly to the beat of the chants.

Community organizations such as House the Bay,

… READ MORE

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Beware the Budget Cuts, Cameras and Civilians: On the Future of Policing in San Francisco

by Madeleine Matz

Near the seven-hour mark of the July 8 meeting of the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Appropriations Committee on the San Francisco Police Department budget for the next fiscal year, I realized I simply could not go on. After two long presentations, dozens of questions from supervisors and almost five hours of public comment, the end was not in sight. I was exhausted.

This was, for some organizers, the goal. Many of the over 400 callers used a script,

… READ MORE

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Defunding the Police: On the road to abolishing oppressive policing

by Western Regional Advocacy Project

Black Lives Matter and other abolitionist groups are leading communities across the country to recognize that the criminal justice system is a powerhouse of violence and white supremacy. Policing was racist at birth, with its origins in scalping Indigenous people and kidnapping Black people escaping slavery. It has a long history of keeping non-white, non-property owning people “under foot” and disempowered. From Reconstruction to Jim Crow and up to the present, police budgets across the country have continued to grow,

… READ MORE

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Homeless Tenderloin Residents May Face Massive Police Enforcement in Hastings Settlement

by Quiver Watts

City May Abandon Housing for Thousands of Unhoused Residents While Removing Tents

San Francisco, CA — As thousands protest to end police violence during a pandemic, disproportionately black homeless residents may face massive police enforcement in a settlement reached between the City of San Francisco and UC Hastings College of Law. The settlement compels the City to “employ enforcement measures” for those who do not accept shelter placements or safe sleeping sites — yet provides less than 10% of homeless residents with such offers. 

… READ MORE

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Oppose Nancy Tung & Geoffrey Gordon-Creed

by Jennifer Friedenbach

George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Erik Salgado was killed and his girlfriend shot in Oakland this past weekend, while last week, San Francisco resident Sean Monterrosa was killed in Vallejo.  This month has been a powerful reminder of what happens without police accountability. 

Nancy Tung and Geoffrey Gordon-Creed were nominated by Mayor London Breed to fill two seats on the Police Commission.  These seats must be approved by the Board of Supervisors;

… READ MORE

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No State Execution by COVID-19

by Press release

Press release: SAN QUENTIN PRISON PROTEST West Gate, Saturday May 9 @ 11AM

A car caravan demonstration to demand protection from the deadly COVID-19 virus for prisoners is set for Saturday, May 9th. Cars will assemble at the Larkspur Ferry Terminal parking lot at 10AM. The caravan will begin at 11AM driving up Sir Francis Drake Blvd. to the West Gate of San Quentin State Prison. They will be protesting prison authorities who are leaving the most vulnerable people—prison inmates in overcrowded conditions—in danger without basic protections and unable to enact physical distancing.

… READ MORE

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COVID-19: Homelessness & Faith Communities in San Francisco

by Kelley Cutler, Human Rights Organizer

Unfortunately we will not be publishing a print version of our April 1st edition because of the risk to our vendors and readers. In the midst of this pandemic, our Street Sheet vendors need your support more than ever. Please consider making a donation to our EMERGENCY VENDOR SUPPORT FUND to help vendors cover essential costs while they are unable to sell the newspaper.

Today we spent time figuring out how to organize collecting and distributing tents across the City for folks who have no place to ‘shelter in place’ during the pandemic.

… READ MORE

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Moms 4 Housing

by Quiver Watts

An armored vehicle was parked outside the house on Magnolia Street in Oakland when a SWAT team dressed in what looked like military fatigues broke down the door. Deputies from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department swarmed in to carry away their targets. So what threat was the police force sent in to pacify? What danger warranted all the police, the guns, the fatigues, the vehicle meant to respond to terrorism threats?

Mothers. 

… READ MORE

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