About this Event
Award-winning investigative journalist Brian Barth joins us to discuss Front Street: Resistance and Rebirth in the Tent Cities of Techlandia. Challenging everything we thought we knew about our unhoused neighbors Front Street takes us on an immersive journey deep into Silicon Valley’s homeless encampments. Brian will be joined in conversation with San Francisco Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan.
About Front Street
In this wide-reaching portrait of the constellation of people living in tents, shacks, and cars in the shadow of tech campuses and skyscrapers, award-winning journalist Brian Barth introduces us to the misfits, activists, and iconoclasts of Silicon Valley’s homeless encampments. Blending memoir, investigative reporting, history, and cultural criticism to paint a portrait of a community searching for dignity and connection in the midst of a national crisis, Front Street is a conversation-changing story about the struggle for housing.
This immersive work follows residents of three distinct camps: Wolfe Camp in Cupertino, Crash Zone in San José, and Wood Street in Oakland. Regularly harassed by police and local government, and frequently at risk of often violent and always destabilizing sweeps, these camps may seem chaotic to some but more often than not, to their residents they are sites of refuge and rebirth. In research on 19th- and 20th-century homelessness and philosophical contemplations of communal anarchy, and through honest conversations with residents, Barth shows how the solution to homelessness isn’t as straightforward as one might think.
Front Street considers the root causes and possible solutions to chronic homelessness, contemplating political, economic, social and spiritual approaches alike. With empathy and poise, Barth follows this cast of characters, describing their personal stories, quotidian experiences, private philosophies and political activism. In doing so, Front Street explains why the country’s current approach to homelessness has become at once cruel and ineffective and makes the radical argument that encampments, when treated generously and fairly, have something important to teach the rest of us about autonomy, dignity, connection, and care.
COVID SAFETY PROTOCOLS: We strongly encourage attendees to wear masks at our events, although they will NOT be required. We will have masks available for attendees who want them. Do NOT attend the event if you, or any member of your family, have any respiratory symptoms (e.g. cough, runny nose, and/or sore throat), or have had a significant exposure to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. We have virtual options available, or we can refund your ticket(s).
ACCESSIBILITY: To request an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for this event, please email events [at] keplers [dot] org at least one week prior to the event.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Kepler's Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 34.29
