A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
Early morning clanging of plastic trays, moving anxiously through metal food ports, signify breakfast time. Come and get it. The rusty, metal tray slots open, and a dusty, burnt orange tray slides into my isolation cell. As my stomach grumbles, awaiting relief, my eyes rest upon a single piece of stale, flat coffee cake, topped with a small mound of dark brown, fear inspiring peanut butter. Holding a sinister grin on his face, a young guard inquires,
Everyone has one, some are hidden some are not
Some don’t know when to take them off, some people just forgot
Some are temporary, some are forever
Some are too much, some change like the weather
A lot of people wear them without knowing
It’s a shame when a young mask stops growing
It’s a mask that appears, a mask that took years,
“It is fair to say that we have witnessed an evolution in the united states from a racial caste system based entirely on exploitation (slavery), to one based largely on subordination (Jim Crow), to one defined by marginalization (mass incarceration).” – Professor Michelle Alexander, ‘The New Jim Crow’
Let’s talk about this mass incarceration for a little bit. We from the inner city face all the hardships in this country, and by design we were meant to be destroyed,
What is a Political Prisoner and Prisoner of War?
Political Prisoner: A person incarcerated for actions carried out in support of legitimate struggles for self determination* or for opposing the illegal policies of the government and/or its political sub-divisions. (Special International Tribunal on the Violation of Human Rights of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the United States Prisons and Jails, December, 1990)
Prisoner of War: Those combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and racist regimes captured as prisoners are to be accorded the status of prisoner of war and their treatment should be in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
October 15th to October 19th, 126 prisoners went on a hunger strike at the Glenn Dyer Detention Facility in downtown Oakland. Their primary grievance was indefinite solitary confinement, a practice that continues due to semantic loopholes.
The strike was organized under the umbrella of Prisoners United, a coalition of incarcerated individuals representing jails and prisons across the Bay Area.
On Thursday morning, a group of family and friends of Prisoners United gathered outside of the Alameda County Administrative Building,
The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing recently released its Five-Year Strategic Framework. Outlined in the 68-page document are ambitious goals, including reducing chronic homelessness by 50 percent and ending family homelessness—all by 2022. We take a deep dive into the strategic framework. Here’s our analysis.
Coordinated Care
The cornerstone of the strategic framework is coordinated entry. The direction towards streamlined care, through a federally mandated process defined as Coordinated Entry,
Names: Taylor Michael, 42, and Joanne Fong, 48
Time without a home: Michael: Just under a year; Joanne: Since June 2015
What does homeless mean to you?
Michael: Well San Francisco’s my home. I maybe houseless, displaced, it just means displacement.
What does home mean to you?
Michael: Home means a place I can have my doors secured, kick by after work,
One stands as the financial and cultural hub of the world. The other is the center of the global tech universe. In the battle between New York and San Francisco, residents of these two iconic cities are quick to list reasons why their city is superior.
But historically, the two are more similar than they are different. Often dubbed the “New York of the West Coast,” San Francisco has long stood as the shining capital of liberalism for the western United States.
In the wake of the North Bay fires, adequate services for chronic homeless, undocumented, and incarcerated people have been few and far between.
Harper Bishop (L) points to a section of his home as wife Cristy surveys their home destroyed by the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, California, U.S., October 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam.
In the aftermath of the North Bay fires neighbors and community members have come together to offer their spaces,
I came to San Francisco about twenty years ago ‘cause jobs were kind of scarce for me. I came to California to change myself and find more opportunity and cause I didn’t like the snow too much in Toledo, Ohio, which is where I’m from. I mean its nice to look at from the window but I don’t like to be in it. When I was a kid I didn’t really have a lot of time to myself cause I came from a family of ten.
