Street Speak

Today's episode features some incredible poets reading their pieces aloud. To read these poems and many others, check out our full 2023 poetry edition of the Street Sheet, available at streetsheet.org

Featured Poets:
Virginia Barrett
Dee Allen
Johanna Elattar
Detroit Richards
Aaone Enosa
Revolt
Martine Khumalo
Lisa Willis

Submit Your Writing!
Street Sheet is always accepting submissions of poetry, personal stories, and news articles for our bi-monthly newspaper, which supports the survival and well-being of over 100 hundred vendors. To submit your work or to pitch us an idea for a story, visit our website.

Support for Street Speak comes from our listeners! Please donate to us online at https://coalition.networkforgood.com

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On September 27th, the ACLU, Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights, and the Coalition on Homelessness—the organization that creates this podcast—filed a lawsuit against the City of San Francisco. They, and the seven homeless plaintiffs they represent, allege that the constant "sweeps" of homeless encampments carried out by numerous city agencies are unconstitutional.

We speak with Zal Shroff and Hadley Rood, lawyers with the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR), as well as with plaintiff and homeless activist Toro Castaño, about what this lawsuit could mean for the thousands of unsheltered San Franciscans who call this city home.

To support the lawsuit, please report any encampment sweeps you see to the legal team using this form: https://forms.gle/fSUgkK1TEUVk7fLW6

Today's weather report is brought to you by Revolt, an activist, rapper, singer, illustrator, journalist and all-around troublemaker, who rouses the rabble with the arts that he dabbles in. This new track "She's Homeless" is inspired by and builds on an original song by Crystal Waters. You can find more like this at revoltrightnow.com

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This podcast is created by the same people who bring you the Street Sheet, San Francisco’s street newspaper.  This year's April Fools Day issue hits the streets of San Francisco full of comics that were compiled and submitted by A.B.O. Comix, a collective of creators and activists who work to amplify the voices of LGBTQ prisoners through art.

On today’s episode, we speak with Casper Cendre, the director and a co-founder of A.B.O. Comix,  a project dedicated to supporting queer and trans artists in prison and creating a world beyond our carceral system. A.B.O. Comix 5th comic anthology is available now on their website! This book features accomplished cartoonists and first time doodlers in an effort to amplify the voices of LGBTQ+ prisoners . Proceeds from this anthology go back to the contributors so that they can access commissary & gender affirming items, healthcare and legal support.

GET INVOLVED!
You can find ways to get involved on the A.B.O. Comix website! You can volunteer to be a penpal to one of the many incarcerated artists the collective works with, or buy some incredible merch to support their work, including comic anthologies, prints, T-shirts, and more. You can also offer up your skills to find out how to best support this project!
https://www.abocomix.com/

A.B.O. Comix also has a Patreon! When you donate to the Patreon you not only get some awesome perks, but you also know that your money is going directly into commissary accounts for incarcerated artists, as well as toward supporting the visionary work of the collective.
https://www.patreon.com/abocomix

You can also offer up your skills to find out how to best support this project! Send them an email at [email protected]

WEATHER REPORT
Mia Pixley uses her cello, voice, and music performance to study and represent aspects of self and other, community, and the natural world. You heard “Good Taste” off her album Margaret in the Wild. You can see Mia Pixley perform live at Cesar Chavez Memorial Solar Calendar in Berkeley on April 16th at 6pm!

To find her music and learn about upcoming shows, visit miapixley.com

SUPPORT THE PODCAST
Support for Street Speak comes from our listeners! Please donate to us online at https://coalition.networkforgood.com

Support the show

Today's episode features some incredible poets reading their pieces aloud. To read these poems and many others, check out our full poetry edition of the Street Sheet, available at streetsheet.org

Featured Poets:
Kevin Madrigal Galindo
Detroit Richards
Jonah Raskin
Judy Joy Jones
Johanna Elattar
Revolt Right Now
Virginia Barrett

Submit Your Writing!
Street Sheet is always accepting submissions of poetry, personal stories, and news articles for our bi-monthly newspaper, which supports the survival and well-being of over 100 hundred vendors. To submit your work or to pitch us an idea for a story, visit our website.

Support for Street Speak comes from our listeners! Please donate to us online at https://coalition.networkforgood.com

Support the show

The overdose crisis claimed the lives of 700 San Franciscans in 2020—twice the number of COVID-19 deaths during the same period. Poverty, criminalization, and the demonization of people who use drugs has put our community members in greater danger, and the stigma surrounding drug use has stalled meaningful efforts to create services and implement policies that will save lives.

We speak with Ashley Fairburn—a harm reduction worker at the San Francisco AIDs Foundation—about what the overdose crisis is, the disparate impact it has on homeless San Franciscans, and how we can practice harm reduction in our own communities.

Learn more!
The San Francisco AIDs Foundation has so much helpful information about the overdose crisis and many programs to help keep people who use drugs safe.
https://www.sfaf.org/

Resources:
Never Use Alone— call this number to let them know if you're going to use, and they will call back to check on you in a few minutes 1(808)484-3731
TED Talk by Dr. Carl Hart— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9HMifCoSko

Weather report brought to you by Ivan and The Be Extra Terrestrials (The Be.E.T.s), an American band formed in Riverside, California, in 2005 by singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist producer Ivan Gomez. The band is currently based in Oakland, CA. The sole member of band, Ivan writes, records, engineers, and produces all tracks except where noted, despite the plural moniker. The fruit of the ear loins of a chronically depressed melancholic loner, Ivan attempts to convey what makes him tick.

Support for Street Speak comes from our listeners! Please donate to us online at https://coalition.networkforgood.com

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At the height of the Delta variant spike, the City of San Francisco announced plans to close down the Shelter in Place Hotels that had kept about 2,000 people safe and off the streets over the course of the past year. We spoke with Lina Khoeur, a fourth year medical student at UCSF, and with Naomi Shoenfeld, a medical anthropologist and nurse practitioner who has been working and researching in the SIP hotels. Both of them shared what they have seen of the benefits the SIP hotel program  has offered to tenants, and why they are asking the City to #KeepHotelsOpen.

UPDATE: Since the interviews were conducted the City announced a short three month extension of the program thanks to community pressure. But the extension mat not be enough—hotels should stay open until all tenants are placed in safe and permanent housing.

Learn more!
Presentation on the study of SIP Hotels conducted by Naomi Shoenfeld and Dr Elizabeth Abbs - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1EV0V765rC9Yk46ZMfpye8hJErbS6Ezbk/

Get Involved!
Sign up for the Coalition on Homelessness ACTION ALERTS here: https://www.cohsf.org/take-action/

Weather report brought to you by Bella Hangnail, off her new album Mask Era. Listen to the full album here: https://bellahangnail.bandcamp.com/

Support for Street Speak comes from our listeners! Please donate to us online at https://coalition.networkforgood.com

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This episode features an interview with Paul Boden of Western Regional Advocacy Project, a local organization coordinating a regional response to the criminalization of homeless people. We talk about Business Improvement Districts, the shadowy private entities that are turning neighborhoods across the country into outdoor malls - and determining who has access to spaces that were once public.

Get Involved!

Western Regional Advocacy Project: https://wraphome.org/

Learn more about Business Improvement Districts (AKA Homeless Exclusion Districts): https://wraphome.org/homeless-exclusion-districs/

Weather report brought to you by Mega Bloom, a local preschool teacher and musician whose new album is coming out this winter. Hear their first album Music for Little Sprouts here: https://megabloomsmusic.bandcamp.com

Support for Street Speak comes from our listeners! Please donate to us online at https://coalition.networkforgood.com/

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This episode features an interview with Celestina Pearl, the Outreach director at St. James Infirmary. She spoke with Street Speak about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sex workers in San Francisco, the history of SESTA/FOSTA, the connections between homelessness and sex work, and the incredible mutual aid work that is sustaining sex workers during this challenging time. 

Get Involved!

St James Infirmary: https://www.stjamesinfirmary.org/

RAD Mission Neighbors: https://radmissionneighbors.org/

Learn about SB 357 to decriminalize sex work in California: https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/20210310-senator-wiener-introduces-legislation-repeal-discriminatory-law-prohibiting-loitering

Weather report brought to you by InoPoGu (Inocente Po Guizar), a Mexican trans queer person who's very outspoken about gentrification, got gentrified out of the bay, and is currently seeing some horrible gentrification and gentrification attempts in New Orleans. They are lightweight homeless/couch surfing, and ask listeners to please share their music and art! https://inopogu.bandcamp.com/

Support for Street Speak comes from our listeners! Please donate to us online at https://coalition.networkforgood.com/

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This episode is a pre-recorded panel hosted by the Housing Justice Workgroup of the Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco exploring the panelists own experiences with racism and homelessness. The speakers draw connections between racism, structural causes of homelessness such as neoliberalism and the defunding of housing investments for poor communities, the use of homeless people as a political wedge by monied interests as a smokescreen for racism, the disproportionate impact homelessness has on brown and especially black communities and why/how racist policies such as redlining have led to the lack of accumulated wealth in the Black community and where we should go from here. 

Speakers include Joe Wilson, Director of Hospitality House, long time Housing Justice member Andrea Mayfield, Youth leader Malcolm Mobley, Jameel Patterson, son of late Mother Brown who founded United Council of Human Services. The panel is moderated by Laura Guzman, founder of Mission Neighborhood Resources Center, and currently of the Harm Reduction Coalition. 

This panel has been shortened for the purposes of our podcast, but the full recording is available on the Coalition's Facebook page here: 
https://www.facebook.com/140260129335933/videos/461067321688418

The weather report is from Equipto & Michael Marshalls album Kim-3. Sigue La Movida. Song called “in their shoes” featuring Tony Robles.

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This episode dives into the reality of life inside San Francisco's Shelter in Place (SIP) Hotel program. There are 2,400 formerly unhoused people currently staying in SIP hotel rooms in San Francisco, and while the City has committed to housing most of them, the details of where and how that will happen are unclear.

We'll hear first from Mary Crisis, a former SIP hotel worker who penned a damning open letter about the conditions in the hotels which you can read on their twitter page @jfchrist. Then we speak with SIP hotel tenant Nicholas Garrett about the necessity of the SIP Hotel program as well as the violations he has witnessed inside.

The weather report is brought to you by Ezra Teshome, a singer songwriter out of San Francisco. Their Ethiopian ancestry and exposure to old folk, blues, and electronic music are major influences for their work. Listen to more music by Ezra Teshome on their website: https://www.ezrateshomemusic.com/

Want to get answers to your burning questions about poverty and homelessness? Have thoughts and feelings about our show? Let us know at bit.ly/streetspeak

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