When Having a Kitchen is More Than I Deserve

by Tatiana Lyulkin

I became “vulnerable” very late in life, after my parents died in 2014 and in 2016, and I lost what was basically “their” apartment in Daly City in 2017. I’m not spoiled or lazy, just disabled. So with my parents gone, my Social Supplemental Income check is my only source of income. But last month I got a letter from the SSI telling me I was overpaid and I owe them $10,000 because my studio has a kitchen. 

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Trump’s Crackdown on Homelessness: What Does It Mean for California?

By Marisa Kendall/CalMatters

President Donald Trump’s new law-and-order approach to homelessness bears several striking resemblances to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s.

Trump wants cities to enforce laws that make it illegal for homeless people to sleep outside. So does Newsom. 

Trump threatened to withhold funding from places that don’t. So did Newsom. 

And the president wants to make it easier to force homeless people living with serious mental illness or addiction into treatment.

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WRAP Approach to Artwork as a Key Organizing Tool

by the Western Regional Advocacy Project

From the time WRAP created Without Housing, we have used art as a fundamental organizing tool. Our goal in “Without Housing” was to show data with more appeal than a bar chart. We gave artists the charts and asked them to come up with imagery that showed the real effects of that data on people’s lives. An image can quickly capture and communicate a vital statistic and help reinforce the meaning of those numbers.

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Survivor’s Guilt: The Emotional Toll of Homelessness

by Janita-Marja Juvonen

I see them in my mind’s eye, but also in real life. I can’t simply block them out or overlook them: the many people who have similar experiences today and have to fight for survival, just like I did in the past. These memories make me feel helpless – as helpless as I was back then. This helplessness sometimes makes me sad and often angry. Because on many issues,

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America’s Latest War Target: The Truth

by Jack Bragen

The U.S. is at war. Our government has been lying to us. 

This war exists despite the absence of a specific external enemy. This is a war being waged from the inside out, on multiple fronts, with no physical line that could be drawn on a map. Our nation is fighting a war on truth. 

The weapons of this war are words. And this doesn’t mean the weapons are soft or lack impact.

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