{"id":478275,"date":"2026-09-28T14:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T14:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/478275\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T14:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T14:06:09","slug":"were-still-here-city-council-candidate-aidan-hill-wants-to-fight-for-peoples-park-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/478275\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019re still here\u2019: City Council candidate Aidan Hill wants to fight for People\u2019s Park | City"},"content":{"rendered":"

People\u2019s Park activist and Berkeley City Council candidate Aidan Hill moderated a community forum Thursday to examine the persistence of the People\u2019s Park community since the park was walled<\/a> off for student housing developments in 2024.<\/p>\n

The panel discussion featured former People\u2019s Park residents and mutual aid groups that worked closely with the park community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so desperate to fight for this place because it\u2019s the only one that we have in the neighborhood that we call home,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n

People\u2019s Park has been known as a notable site of political activism since the 1960s, though it later became primarily known for tent encampments, with the last one enduring until UC Berkeley closed the site in 2024.<\/p>\n

Hill says the People\u2019s Park community is still gathering for weekly meetings and open mic events in other locations around Berkeley. Free food is provided by East Bay Food Not Bombs, an activist organization that\u2019s been serving People\u2019s Park since the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Suitcase Clinic, a UC Berkeley student organization offering free health services to underserved Berkeley populations, spoke at the event. Executive Director Michelle Choi, who was a panelist at the forum, said the organization used to regularly offer its services at People\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would love if there were to be a physical space where we could go and meet (people) where they are,\u201d Choi said. \u201cBut now that space is kind of gone, and we\u2019ve been struggling a lot to go to different encampments. So we just really wanted to connect to more community members through that panel too, to talk to people and figure out what\u2019s the best way we can support them.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to UC Berkeley\u2019s People\u2019s Park Housing website, the housing project will include permanent supportive housing for more than 100 low-income and unhoused individuals, as well as providing open green space. But Hill is worried the complex won\u2019t stay open to the community once it\u2019s built, wanting the area to continue being a gathering space for the community, envisioning a basketball court, sign language training, artist programs and other supportive services.<\/p>\n

Prior to campus\u2019s closure of People\u2019s Park, unhoused residents were offered temporary housing. But Erick Morales, a 10-year resident of People\u2019s Park and current resident of University Homes, a supportive housing project, described feeling \u201cnot human\u201d at the housing project and instead being treated like \u201ca number,\u201d a stark contrast to the community he had at People\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a community. We did everything for our people,\u201d Morales said at the forum. \u201cFood Not Bombs, water, mental health, clean the bathrooms \u2014 all those things we did as a community. So I enjoyed that \u2026 it\u2019s the best, \u2018cause I lived it with love, I lived with my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People\u2019s Park activist and Berkeley City Council candidate Aidan Hill moderated a community forum Thursday to examine the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[110271,26927,764,187706,187703,187704,76662,187702,143,145,144,11650,5293,26656,127283,149,187705],"class_list":["post-478275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-aidan-hill","tag-asuc","tag-berkeley","tag-dan-siegal","tag-east-bay-food-not-bombs","tag-erick-morales","tag-margaret-solomon","tag-michelle-choi","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-peoples-park","tag-southside","tag-sproul-plaza","tag-suitcase-clinic","tag-uc-berkeley","tag-university-homes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}