An essay by Adriana Camarena about affordable housing, police brutality, homelessness, art and activism. The author was commissioned by the YBCA to write a response to the exhibit “Take This Hammer”, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), March 11th to August 16th, 2016 (Guest Curator: Christian L. Frock) and present work at the event: […]
The Naming of Things* For Chris Carlsson, and in memory of “Processed World” magazine. I have found the place where making romantic sentences full of pathos and bravado has become factory work. On a plain of paved streets in Sunnyvale, past rows of ticky-tack Spanish-tiled roofs, in a cove of office-warehouses, holding herds of cubicles, […]
On a sunny summer afternoon in Dolores Park, a bottle scavenger in a red cardigan picked her way through the partying crowd. She was minding her business, which is picking bottles. She wove in and out of techno dancers and picnickers, barely given notice. When acknowledged, she was identified as one of the others. That […]
Michael “Med-O” Whitson has lived 32 years in the Bay Area and 30 of those years in his apartment on 1668 Page Street. He and LisaRuth Elliot were flatmates in the Haight, when their building was sold, and after they initially refused to accept a buy-out settlement, the new owners hired the leading landlord law […]
LisaRuth is a community historian, artist, bread baker, urban farmer, writer, editor, everyday bicyclist, activist, and San Francisco resident of 18 years. Her adult, professional, and creative life has been shaped and inspired by the magic of this city and the communities it has supported, as well as by stints living elsewhere for study, work, […]
Benito Santiago: Lifelong San Franciscan, disabled elder, musician & public school teacher; Duboce Triangle resident. Benito Santiago is a community elder being Ellis Acted out of his long term SF home. Tony Robles wrote about Benito for the San Francisco Bay Guardian: “Benito is a teacher with the San Francisco Unified School District. He is […]
Jason and Sandy were evicted from 6511 Raymond St. Oakland by Dan Daigle. They had been living there 3 years and 5 months, since they arrived to the Bay Area. Jason is a rambling rover of Ukrainian, Italian and Jewish descent living in the settler colonialist state of the USA. He thinks story-telling is sexy; […]
Steven has lived in San Francisco for 30 years. He was evicted from his apartment at 940 Capp Street after 26 years of living there by the resident owners of the house via family members move-in. He feels this move-in eviction was retaliation for, among other justifiable actions, his declining to sign a new and […]
Patricia Kerman is a disabled senior citizen, who has lived in her current flat for the past 27 years. Tom Rapp has lived there as her roommate for the last 15 of them. They are being evicted by Kaushik Dattani. Eviction Free San Francisco wrote about Patricia and Tom: “Born and raised in Detroit Michigan, […]
Rio was born 34 years ago in San Francisco General Hospital and has been involved with the 24th Street corridor of the Mission ever since. His parents have been artists and activists in the neighborhood for over five decades. He currently works at Somarts, a non-profit arts and cultural center, as a manager and curator. […]