Street Speak Interview with Apple and Josh

by TJ Johnston

This transcript of the Street Speak podcast was edited for brevity and clarity. Listen to this episode in its entirety at streetsheet.org/street-speak-podcast.

We welcome Apple Cronk along with her partner, Josh Donohoe, who are co-plaintiffs in the Coalition on Homelessness’s lawsuit against the City of San Francisco for their practices in encampment sweeps and the destruction of property belonging to unsheltered residents. That case was recently resolved and signed by Mayor Daniel Lurie on Friday,

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National Homelessness Law Center Condemns Violence and Violent Rhetoric Targeting Homeless People

by Contributing Author

by the National Homelessness Law Center

Everybody needs a safe place to live. But instead of lowering rents and fixing our broken housing system, politicians are setting the stage for violence by cutting funding for vital programs, passing laws that make it a crime to sleep outside, and continually demonizing and vilifying homeless people. Their actions have devastating and fatal consequences.  

Three separate incidents within the last week highlight this horrific trend.

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“Todos Somos Samara–We Are All Samara” 

by Contributing Author

Homeless Activist and Mother Fights for Housing as Disabled Daughter Leaves Hospital

by Lupe Velez

On Tuesday August 27, Faith in Action, in collaboration with United Educators of San Francisco and the Coalition on Homelessness, held a press conference, rally and march, starting at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in the Mission District and continuing to Catholic Charities. The event was held in support of a houseless family, Maria Zavala and her daughter Samara,

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Trump’s Attack on the Movement for Housing for All

by Contributing Author

by Cathleen Williams and Sandy Perry

Washington DC, August 12, 2025: “Yesterday, I walked from the White House through the National Mall… The streets are eerily empty for an August afternoon near the storied monuments. In some places, there are more ICE, DEA, ARNG, and FBI personnel than there are regular people. There are fire trucks blocking lanes of traffic for no reason. There are Humvees sitting outside of Union Station for no reason other than to terrorize people–to let *us know that we are being watched…” Facebook post,

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Coalition on Homelessness Response to Trump Administration’s Executive Order to Criminalize Homelessness

by Contributing Author

On Friday July 24, Trump signed an Executive Order to make it easier to remove people from the streets. This executive order follows a trend of draconian measures enacted by the Trump administration that targets the country’s most vulnerable communities. This Executive Order doesn’t solve homelessness, it criminalizes it. It scapegoats people in crisis, ignores decades of data, and wastes taxpayer dollars on failed, punitive approaches.

Through this plan the Trump administration seeks to criminalize homelessness through increased encampment sweeps,

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Surviving as an Older, Disabled Adult: The Struggle is Real

by Contributing Author

by Jack Bragen

Living with a mental illness can sometimes be a no-win scenario.

If you fail to take your medication or if you fail to follow other rules, you are subject to being thrown out on the street from your housing because you are considered a troublemaker. 

If, on the other hand, you’re taking your medication and you’re doing all of the things you are expected to do,

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D5 Supervisor Wants a Shelter in Each District, But Where’s the Housing?

by Contributing Author

by Jordan Wasilewski

I am no fan of my new supervisor, Bilal Mahmood, whom I think cares more for his wealthier constituents in his district than Tenderloin residents. He just proposed legislation that affirms my viewpoint.  

In May, he introduced an ordinance that would require the City to approve new health and homeless facilities in each supervisorial district by June 30, 2026. Those facilities would include new homeless shelters,

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A Day in the Life of a Psychiatric Patient

by Contributing Author

by Jack Bragen

The treatment system has always been a “frenemy” to me as a mental health treatment recipient. I need these services, partly because of how the socioeconomic part of our infrastructure functions. I could not live without having money from Social Security, and having my medical care and psychiatric treatment paid for. In a “utopian” society, this might not be the case, but unfortunately we don’t live in Utopia. 

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Three Ways the U.S. Government Can Prevent Homelessness

by Contributing Author

by Jordan Wasilewski

Ever since Donald Trump was re-elected, I have been thinking about what led to this morass. As somebody who grew up in a working class Democratic household with one parent as a member of a union, I recently changed my voter registration to “no party preference” because the Democrats have been defecating the bed  on economic justice issues. After the federal government drastically reduced social safety-net programs in the 1980s,

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