Monthly Archive for March, 2006

Minutes from SPEAC Meeting on 3/22/06

1. Chelsea
SHARE participants discussed on 3/21/06 which potential projects sounded the most important. Housing was decided upon, along with showers.
There was a discussion between whether our goals as an organization should be to make people comfortable while they are homeless, or to help people get out of being homeless altogether.
The free wireless Internet and laptop use at General Clinic project was also popular. One proposed idea is to negotiate with the university to setup special accounts for clients whom are regulars at Suitcase Clinic, and whom we thus have a relationship with.
Regarding the library project, Chelsea is going to draft a response letter to the University’s own response letter. The SHARE meeting on 4/4/06 will feature a discussion about the library project, and there will be a special meeting for people interested in contributing to the response to the university’s letter.
Three other good ideas have come out of SHARE. One is to do an educational event on hate crimes, gathering data on housing and shelters, and trying to expand shower hours so there are more showers available at morning and at night. It might be a good idea to meet with Julie, the city’s Director of Homeless Policy.

2. Amit
Amit talked to Dr. Steinbach regarding what we are working on, and gave him our definition of homelessness. Dr. Steinbach found it to be well structured. Steinbach is free any time after Spring Break to talk with. Robert Ratner is also available for consultation. Dr Steinbach does not want us to overreach beyond our capacity as an organization, and to have feasible goals. The locker project, the library project, and a small campus/community awareness project would be the best to work on at the moment.
Regarding the library project, Amit was referred to a JMP student who has worked on this sort of controversy in the past. He suggested that it might be better use an appeal that the new policy is not a disservice to merely the local Berkeley community, but additionally a large disservice to the Cal alumni community, as they do not have student Ids and yet are theoretically entitled to be able to use the internet on campus whenever they visit. An E-mail address was provided.
The needs assessment project is clearly the big thing that we need to focus on for now. We need to decide upon what our needs assessment approach is going to be for this semester and for next semester. Do we want to do an entire city wide needs assessment, or do we stay with a more clinic-oriented, small-scale approach? The former will cost a lot of money and time, yet is potentially more revealing. We decided to do a clinic needs assessment this semester, and then potentially branch out further into the broader community next semester once we become more comfortable with the process.
Regarding the lockers, BOSS has started construction, though it is trapped in bureaucratic maneuvering.
Suitcase can sponsor the SB840 talk, which calls for universal health care for the state of California. It is probably not going to pass, but California is the most supportive state for it. It is a good way to raise awareness for the disparities in health care. Ron Adler will be talking at it. He is a doctor at Alta Bates and is well aware of the issues.

3. Natalie
Natalie met with a representative from the Western Regional Advocacy Project, a group of six cities on the west coast who meet together regularly to discuss homeless issues. This group trains people how to recognize common threads among homeless groups and link them together on a policy and organizational level. They have a short set of questions, and they ask this set of questions to 400 people or so. They get a bunch of people and go through them and make a list of everything that comes up. After 400 people, you get a list of 20 that they work on. Right now National Healthcare for the Homeless just did one/is finishing one. We are going to get this forwarded to us.

4. Andrew
Have annual/biannual homelessness conferences for the city/community hosted by SC?
Andrew will talk to the Apple representative on campus to investigate getting two or three laptops donated (old ones with wireless cards). Will use tax codes as incentives.
Have a syllabus of 50+ social welfare and homelessness related documentary films available to student groups that may be a good way to connect with the university community through regular showings on campus.
East Bay Community Law Center a potential aid in drafting non-profit documents?

5. Next Meeting
We will meet with or without Dr. Steinbach on 4/7/06.

Minutes from SPEAC Meeting on 3/16/06

Roundtable Notes:

  • Talk to other organizations: i.e the Tang Center, Free Clinic, Clinica Del La Raza…
  • Need to come up with TANGIBLE proposals in order to really achieve results
  • Having computers at Clinic – provide locks, maybe students could bring in theirs to borrow, write to Intel or HP for laptop donations. Make sure we take them home at the end of the night. Have volunteers facilitate that process
  • Ask if our clients can use the computer lab in the Church
  • Organize further against Campus restriction on outside internet use. Get together with other student groups i.e. Calpirg to “protest” this restriction/access on the internet
  • Example for an action: we can get students to sting in for 15 minutes and homeless people can come in and use the computers. Similar to people swiping homeless people into the dc
  • Another example for an action: have a Picnic-Internet Campus Access Day. Where we can buy food with unused swipes and get people online
  • Through all of this we want to communicate dignity
  • People thought the name SPEAC was okay
  • We identified sources such as the Daily Cal that made homeless people look bad. Ways to overcome that include: writing on Cal Stuff or submit part of the Suitcase Newsletter to the Daily Cal
  • We wanted to come up with ways to humanize homeless people because often students feel a social distance and alienation from them.
  • Idea: Write a Suitcase Press Release to overcome some of these
  • Amit suggested a T-Shirt campaign- buying and wearing T-shirts each having one number from 1-850 (or whatever it is) of how many people are homeless in Berkeley on a given night and have a statement and something that people can do about it on the back
  • Chelsea suggested getting an ASUC mini-grant to fund some of our projects. ASUC Bill- opinion statement and funding (?)
  • Events to raise awareness: Speaker’s Bureau, Street Retreat-Faithful Fools style, Day in the Life (Roy style), educational videos- movie nights, speakers (Andrew)

Planning Committee Elections Results

Admin: Courtney
Secretary: Neera
Webmaster: Kelly
Class Coordinator: Andrew
General Clinic Coordinator: Sunny
Dental Coordinator: Shireen
Footwashing Coordinator: Nyssa
General Health Eds: Angela and Erum
Volunteer Coordinators: James and Mike
SHARE Coordinators: Addie and Adrienne
Women’s Clinic Coordinators: Sarah and Stephanie
Women’s Health Ed: Angela and Sunniya
Women’s COCA: Yvonne
Children’s Coordinator: Kati and Lijia

Open Positions:
Newsletter, PR, CARE Coordinators, Youth Clinic




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