Category: Testimony

Testimony Project posts, about witnessing and the dehumanization to people who are unhoused.

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Why Can’t We Care for Our Neighbors?

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An agency with the County obtained a grant to supply water to unhoused people over the summer. The grant is likely running out in a couple of weeks unless additional funding has been secured. The distribution is handled by enlisting community groups to each collect up to 10 cases of water per week and bring it to people on the streets. I’ve been bringing water to three communities in West Oakland. People are very thankful for the water, but often hungry and ask  hopefully if I have food. Sometimes I do, but often I don’t. I’ve met people who are… read more

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Fish Stick

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A man died during a sweep last week. Some, but far from all, of the displaced people from the sweep were moved into transitional housing. Others had to find somewhere else to go, where they may be swept again in another week or another month. The man who died had been through two sweeps in recent weeks, losing belongings each time, including a van. He was not one of the ones being offered a legal or transitional space. He was only being helped by people with lived experience and advocates to move his belongings yet again, and they didn’t have… read more

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Abatement of a Community of People

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There had been a longtime community living in a creek area, mostly hidden under a cover of trees from the housed neighbors surrounding them. Some of them lived together for years, off of meager resources, taking care of each other, and offering some degree of safety and stability to each other. O–, E–, U–, and T– were four people living there that I came to know. Sometimes they didn’t have enough food. O– reached out to a local faith-based charity and received food. As she shared information about the needs in the camp with those who responded to her call,… read more

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Discharged from the Hospital on a Cold, Wet Morning 

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On a cold, wet morning in the winter of 2019, I was talking with another parishioner in a Catholic church following daily mass. A man came in, shaking and crying, pleading for help. He had been in the hospital nearby for hernia surgery, and was discharged shortly after the operation. He had nowhere to go, and when he returned to where he had left his belongings before going into the hospital, they were gone. He had no coat, no shelter of any kind, no survival supplies, no belongings, and he was shivering. We spoke with him for a while, and… read more