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Pursuing truth toward justice

The Valley Citizen

Pursuing truth toward justice
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Beard Brook Village

Homeless: Taking Back the Parks

August 3, 2021 By Eric Caine 16 Comments

Sherry Lopez June 29 2021

Little Sherry Lopez can’t go to the park. Everyone calls her “Little Sherry” because she’s the smallest Sherry they know. Little Sherry is well short of five feet tall. She’s closer to four feet tall. She’s a few years past forty years old. Little Sherry is developmentally and physically disabled. She walks haltingly and often has difficulty with simple concepts. Other than “little,” the most common word people use to […]

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Beard Brook Park, Beard Brook Village, California homelessness, Modesto Homelessness, San Joaquin Valley homelessness, Stanislaus County homelessness, Stanislaus County Low Barrier Shelter

Homeless: The Covid Correction

December 7, 2020 By Eric Caine 12 Comments

Under the 9th Street Bridge, Modesto

For many of us, the cause of homelessness is simple: “It’s the drugs.” Not far behind drugs as a cause of homelessness is the belief that, “They’d rather be homeless than work for a living.” This explanation goes back to Ronald Reagan’s declaration in 1982 that, “the people who are sleeping on the grates — the homeless who are homeless, you might say — by choice.” Neither explanation is going […]

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Beard Brook Park, Beard Brook Village, Homelessness and Poverty in Stanislaus County, Homelessness in Modesto, Homelessness in the San Joaquin Valley, Modesto Outdoor Emergency Shelter

Beard Brook Village: The End Game

March 9, 2019 By Eric Caine 10 Comments

The last days of Beard Brook Village were like the aftermath of a natural disaster— people pawing through the rubble of discarded clothing, bicycle parts and cooking utensils, a stream of humanity pushing shopping carts, baby strollers, and wheel chairs to and fro, and loose dogs everywhere. The debris-strewn chaos of Beard Brook was in stark contrast to the city’s new encampment, tentatively called Gateway Village, where uniform rows of […]

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Beard Brook Park, Beard Brook Village, Homelessness and Poverty in Stanislaus County, Homelessness in Modesto

Homeless: Stanislaus County Workers Bring Christmas Spirit

December 22, 2018 By Eric Caine 3 Comments

A bevy of Stanislaus County service workers, many wearing purple T-shirts emblazoned with the motto, “Together We Rise,” brought food and comfort to the homeless encampment at Beard Brook Park Saturday, just three days before Christmas. Working off the clock, many of the workers are part of the county’s outreach effort and know village residents by name. They helped distribute pizza, pillows, blankets and Christmas cheer to the hundreds of […]

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Beard Brook Park, Beard Brook Village, Homelessness in Modesto, Homelessness in Stanislaus County

Homeless: Time to Commit to Beard Brook Village

November 30, 2018 By Eric Caine 4 Comments

Flooded and collapsed tents at Beard Brook Village became routine as the first real storm of the season hit Modesto this week. The heavy downpour ran off the road above the tents at Beard Brook Park, cut channels along the sloping hillside, and wreaked havoc with campers ill-prepared for heavy rains. With little to no vegetation on the hillside, the clayey soil became dangerously slick on its surface and sticky […]

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Beard Brook Village, Homelessness in Modesto, Homelessness in Stanislaus County

Primary Sidebar

Off The Wire

?Monster Fracks? Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.
“Monster Fracks” Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.
A Times analysis shows that increasingly complex oil and gas wells now require astonishing volumes of water to fracture the bedrock and release fossil fuels, threatening America’s fragile aquifers.
www.nytimes.com
Newsom urges SCOTUS to consider encampment ruling that has 'paralyzed' California cities
Newsom urges SCOTUS to consider encampment ruling that has ‘paralyzed’ California cities
The Democratic governor’s intervention lays down a mark in a legal dispute with potentially profound implications for one of California’s most pressing issues.
www.politico.com
Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events
Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events
Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.
www.propublica.org
How hungry is California? Millions struggle to eat well in an abundant state
How hungry is California? Millions struggle to eat well in an abundant state
How bad is hunger in California? A lot depends on your access to food aid, which expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic but now is being reduced.
calmatters.org
Sacramento DA sues city over homeless encampments
Sacramento DA sues city over homeless encampments
Sacramento County had nearly 9,300 homeless people in 2022, based on data from the annual Point in Time count. That was up 67% from 2019. Roughly three-quarters of the county’s homeless population….
www.mercurynews.com
At Last, a Real Possibility to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change
At Last, a Real Possibility to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change
After decades of minimal action, Congress passed the largest and most comprehensive piece of climate legislation in U.S. history. Will we make the most of this opportunity?
www.audubon.org
How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US
How the fentanyl crisis’ fourth wave has hit every corner of the US
The epidemic’s staggering scale and infiltration of communities is laid bare in a new study.
www.bbc.com
Can licensed tent villages ease California's homelessness epidemic? This nonprofit thinks so
Can licensed tent villages ease California’s homelessness epidemic? This nonprofit thinks so
Taking people off the street and into tents is a new twist on homeless shelter being explored by the San Francisco-based Urban Alchemy in two tent villages operating in Los Angeles and Culver City.
www.latimes.com
Mississippi has problems, but it's handling homelessness better than L.A.
Mississippi has problems, but it’s handling homelessness better than L.A.
The public tends to blame homelessness on poverty, drug use, crime or even warm weather. But other cities don’t have L.A. levels of street homelessness because they have more available housing.
www.latimes.com
Neo-Nazis March Through Florida Park
Neo-Nazis March Through Florida Park
The demonstrators raised “Heil Hitler” salutes and waved flags with swastikas.
www.thedailybeast.com
Families have high hopes for Gavin Newsom's CARE Courts. Providers want to lower expectations
Families have high hopes for Gavin Newsom’s CARE Courts. Providers want to lower expectations
Gov. Gavin Newsom?s experiment to push Californians with mental illness off the streets and into treatment, CARE Court, starts soon.
calmatters.org
Pope says 'backward' U.S. conservatives have replaced faith with ideology
Pope says ‘backward’ U.S. conservatives have replaced faith with ideology
Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church. He says they have replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time.
apnews.com

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The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

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The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

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