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WELCOME!
Gray Panthers of the Berkeley-East Bay Area
2026 Public Speaker Series starts January 28 1:30 PM on Zoom RSVP
Since 1975 we have been an independent nonprofit member-led organization made up of multigenerational activists seeking immediate and long-term social change. We currently host monthly public speaker meetings on special topics, usually on zoom; a monthly social event for voting Members, and a bimonthly Business/Board meetings where we plan, budget, and set policies. We work with alliances and coalitions for housing justice, healthcare for all, and labor, and we help each other participate in local and state actions and rallies.
We are part of the National Council of Gray Panthers, with 22 other local chapters and networks in California and other states, all of us inspired by our founder Maggie Kuhn. 1972 to confront ageism and speak to issues of universal health care, affordable housing, and other issues concern and solidarity, including collaboration with the disabled community.
MEETINGS AND EVENTS
Check the calendar for regular meetings and public events that we track, with videos of past meetings on the menu. See a video of a recent meeting.
All welcome to join our monthly Speaker Meetings from 1:30 to 3:30PM on the fourth Wednesday of each month (except November/December). These are resource rich, with time for questions and discussion built in!
Sign up to get the link to our Wednesday gatherings and other occasional email Action Alerts. Be sure to tell us something about yourself! Let us know if you need a phone call.
Follow us on Facebook, call or text us at (510) 681-2367, or email us at [email protected].
Our members and supporters are people of many ages and abilities, and we support dignity and inclusion for all. We have been workers, students, retirees, entrepreneurs, artists, renters, and homeowners, housed, and unhoused.
MORE ...
See our PARTNERS pages for links and info on the allied groups that make us look good! We are stronger together, and we bring a valued perspective and unique voice to the groups we work with.
Rights of the Homeless and Transition to community-based Community
The Berkeley chapter co-founded the Bay Area Landless Peoples Alliance in 2017, and signed on to its Declaration of the Rights of Landless People. In addition to decriminalizing homelessness, ending police harassment and taking of their belongings, displaced people have the right to organize camps for mutual care and safety, supported by basic city services. Their collective and individual voices, capacities, and agency should be a substantial part of publicly funded budgets, for services, jobs, and contracts carried out in their created in their name.
HOUSING FOR ALL - EXPAND LOW-INCOME HOUSING, AND PROTECT RIGHTS AND EVICTION DEFENSE FOR ALL TENANTS.
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longtime members of the National Alliance of HUD Tenants with members who live in six of the cities senior and disabled low-income housing buildings.
- work with the Berkeley Tenants Union, serve on the coalition screening committee for the Berkeley Tenants Convention to endorse a pro-tenant solidarity slate of candidates for the Rent Board every two years. Members also track and support tenant organizing and eviction defense in Oakland (Moms4Housing, ACCE, TANC)
PROTECT PATIENT CARE AND WORKER RIGHTS IN NURSING HOMES --- TRANSITION TO UNIVERSAL and PEOPLE FOCUSED SYSTEMS OF HEALTHCARE -- INCLUDING UNIVERSAL LONG TERM CARE THROUGH HOME AND COMMUNITY BASED SUPPORTS AND SERVICES
We call for accountability and transformation in this essential industry. In 2020, Gray Panthers East Bay joined with national and state coalitions led by disability rights advocates, challenging ablist and agist responses to COVID-19, and the forced institutionalization of people with disabilities and older adults needing care. This led us into a new campaign with the National Council of Gray Panther Networks to (once again) expose the rampant corruption of the nursing home and long-term care industry, resulting in tens of thousands of needless deaths under COVID-19.
The National Council's Gray Paper will be posted shortly. Medical researchers and independent evaluation teams report a vicious cycle of poor care, rooted in widespread self-dealing business practices by corporate owners and managers, financed by government contracts with very weak oversight - a situation the industry has lobbied hard for through campaign contributions and back room deals. Many of these nursing homes and long-term care facilities are essentially real estate investments. Underpaid, understaffed workers are blamed, but their employers have rigged their facilities for failure and then received pandemic relief funds to shore up profits. Gray Panthers join disability rights advocates, healthcare workers, and unions in calling for full investigation of state and federal levels
We support transition to a universal healthcare-care-for-all system, with full public investment into community-based systems of health care that center on the individual and the environment where we can thrive. This includes adequate housing, safe, clean neighborhoods, and fair wages, benefits, and a voice in the workplace for home health aids and other domestic caregivers, so that older adults and persons with disabilities can live well and age and die in their home communities, close to family and friends.
The 2021 Gray Paper on cutting off the corrupt Nursing Home Industry and Transitioning to a system of community-based lifelong long term supports and services WILL BE LINKED HERE. -
RESOURCES: For more on the history, people, and achievements of Gray Panthers in the East Bay, Berkeley, and around the country.1. Roger Sanjek, Gray Panthers, 2008 (available on Amazon, Kindle, and Apple Store). Story of the founder, Maggie Kuhn from Philadephia, and in-depth history of the Berkeley chapter through the early 2000's.
