Leadership of Religious Witness
Religious Witness with Homeless People is a grassroots, activist interfaith organization founded by Sister Bernie Galvin, cdp, in 1993 to provide a united voice for leaders and members of the San Francisco interfaith community in speaking out on core issues related to homelessness. Through coalition building with members of both the homeless and broader communities, Religious Witness has played a major role in shifting the debate from punitive public policies to positive, effective solutions in addressing San Francisco's crises of homelessness and a lack of affordable housing.
This organization is governed by a 14-member Steering Committee comprised predominantly of religious leaders, but also including lay leaders from the civic and homeless communities. Religious Witness staff includes Sister Bernie and her volunteer assistant, Kevin Lynema.
Please also view our Tribute to Dennis Cunningham, a man who has been profoundly generous with his time, advice and pro bono legal support of those members of Religious Witness who have been arrested for participating in nonviolent civil disobedience.
Religious Witness Steering Committee Members
Members of the Steering Committee of Religious Witness with Homeless People reflect the diverse communities of San Francisco. Our Committee members represent diverse faiths, ethnicities, cultures, social and economic classes, and sexual orientations. Over the twelve years of our existence, Religious Witness has powerfully connected these communities and conveyed important messages based on moral imperatives combined with real-world realities. We have merited a reputation of respect that is the foundation of our ability to work effectively for both long-term change and immediate responses to new challenges.
The following are the current members of the Religious Witness Steering Committee:
Michael Bien is managing partner of the San Francisco law firm, Rosen, Bien & Asaro LLP, specializing in complex civil litigation. He has devoted much of his professional career to civil rights litigation on behalf of prisoners, including successful class actions on behalf of prisoners with mental illness, developmental disabilities and vision, hearing, learning and mobility disabilities. In an effort led by Mr. Bien, in 2006 the firm resolved an 11-year-old class action suit against the State of California concerning the shocking lack of adequate mental health treatment in state prisons. The firm's work has resulted in the agreement by the state to spend $600 million to upgrade facilities and provide effective care to those suffering from mental illness. Mr. Bien's efforts have earned him awards for his civil rights work from the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, the California Coalition for Mental Health and the California State Bar, as well as recognition as Volunteer of the Year from the Mission YMCA and the Lion of Judah award from Brandeis Hillel Day School. |
Mr.
Michael Bien, esq, is a lay leader in the San
Francisco Jewish community. He has served as President of the Board of
Trustees of the
Brandeis Hillel
Day School, as a Board member of Camp Tawonga, and as a volunteer in
various leadership roles with the Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Bureau of Jewish Education and Jewish Vocational Services.
He is a member of Congregation Beth Sholom and Temple Emanuel and a fellow
of the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He has also served as President of
the Mission YMCA and on the Board of the Metropolitan YMCA and of the
San Francisco Public Interest Law Foundation.
Dorsey earned his A.B. from Brown University, his M.A. from the Pacific School of Religion and the Center for Urban Black Studies, his M. Div., from the Pacific School of Religion and his D. Min. from United Theological Seminary. Dorsey has extensive field ministry experience and works with interfaith groups on justice and peace issues. Although he continues to teach, he is currently on a leave of absence from his administrative responsibilities as Vice President for Community Learning at the University of Creation Spirituality. |
Rev.
Dr. Dorsey Odell Blake was officially installed as minister
of The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in October 1994. At
that time, Mrs. Sue Bailey (Howard) Thurman presented him Dr. Howard
Thurman's robe, which had not been worn since Dr. Howard Thurman's
death. Dr. Blake was instrumental in developing the University of Creation
Spirtuality, holding positions as Vice President for Community Learning,
Founding Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program, and core faculty.
Rev. Blake has served as the Director of the Center for Urban Black
Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley; Co-Director, United
Campus Ministry, The Ohio University, Athens; and, Program Director
of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. He was also the first full-time
Black male professor at The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, from
1972-77. Mrs.
Mary Jane Brinton has been profoundly influential in a variety
of social justice issues in San Francisco throughout her years as a resident
of this community. She has played a powerful role in increasing outreach
by health professionals to those homeless people suffering from mental
illness. As a fervent advocate for poor and homeless people, Mary Jane
has always held that just and compassionate public policy is key to resolving
the injustices in society that cause and perpetuate poverty and the resultant
homelessness. Recognizing Religious Witness with Homeless People as an
organization likewise dedicated to influencing just and compassionate
policies that directly and indirectly affect the lives of poor and homeless
people, Mary Jane joined the Steering Committee of Religious Witness
in 1994. She has continually brought a unique and persuasive voice of
wisdom to the Committee ever since, not only informing our strategies,
but also energizing our sense of compassion. |
 Rev.
Jana Drakka was born in Falkirk, Scotland in October 1952. There
she trained and worked as a teacher
of young children and as an adult literacy tutor. Jana started to travel
in 1975 and visited many places in Europe on her quest to discover more
about the female side of spirituality. She was recognized as a priestess
of the ‘old religion’ in 1977. After five years in Amsterdam – during
which she taught Business English and developed and refined her practice
as a spiritual healer – Jana moved to America and settled in San
Francisco. She has spent the last eleven years training in Soto Zen Buddhism
and received priest ordination in September 2001. In 2005, Jana accepted
the position of Diversity Co-ordinator in the Outreach Department of
the San Francisco Zen Center. She also works at the Hartford Street Zen
Center and teaches meditation to homeless folks at the Mission Neighborhood
Resource Center. |
 Mr.
John “Fitz” Fitzgerald spent the first half of his
professional life teaching and counseling students, coaching them on
stage and ministering to their spiritual needs. (Notre Dame High School,
Niles, Illinois and University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana.)
His 40th birthday led to a “mid-life opportunity”. He founded
two Catholic Worker houses of hospitality (Phoenix, Arizona and Oakland,
California), and helped create and administer programs of homeless services
(MacDonald Center, Portland, Oregon and Berkeley Emergency Food & Hunger
Project, Berkeley, California). Fitz is currently the Justice Education
Coordinator at the St. Anthony Foundation in San Francisco.
He is part of a team that welcomes more than 500 groups per year from
schools, churches and corporations for community service, justice education
and
solidarity experiences with St. Anthony Foundation’s poor and homeless
guests. |
 Rev.
Norman Fong currently serves on the Steering Committee for the
Chinatown Coalition for Better Housing. Since his own family’s
eviction experience in 1970, he has been an active advocate for affordable
housing, tenants’ rights and basic human rights. He served overseas
as a “Human Rights Intern” of the Board of Global Ministries
of the United Methodist Church (1977-80) and was ordained a Presbyterian
Minister in 1981. For the next nine years he served as a co-Pastor and
associate for the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown. In 1990, he chose
to work full-time as an advocate for affordable housing and has served
as Program Director for the Chinatown Community Development Center ever
since. Most recently, Norman was awarded the prestigious “Social
Justice Sabbatical Fund Award” from the Vanguard Foundation. |
 Mr.
Souleiman Ghali is founder and current President of the Islamic
Society of San Francisco, an umbrella organization established in 1991
to administer the largest Mosque in San Francisco, as well as other local
institutions. Souleiman is an avid proponent of dialogue between the
faith communities and has been working tirelessly to raise consciousness
about Islam. Souleiman truly believes in working to eliminate religiously
motivated conflicts and wars and in bridging the widening gap between
Christians, Jews and Muslims. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, of Palestinian
parents, Mr. Ghali came to the U.S. in 1979 as a college student. He
is a husband, father of two boys, Ibrahim and Muhammad, a resident of
the Bay Area and a downtown San Francisco business owner. Mr. Ghali believes
in advancing the understanding of Islam as a tolerant and just religion
through his prominent public speaking and advocacy for American Muslims.
Mr. Ghali has been featured in many articles in the San Francisco
Chronicle and has been hosted on radio and television programs, both nationally
and internationally. He is a regular speaker and lecturer about Islam
at many churches, synagogues, universities and businesses. Souleiman
has also worked with the Commonwealth Club and the World Affairs Council.
In brief, Souleiman is one of the most active Muslims in the Bay Area,
working tirelessly to foster a better community
for all. |
|
Rabbi
Peretz Wolf-Prusan is rabbi and senior educator at Congregation
Emanu-El in San Francisco. He was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion in 1990.
Upon graduation he was called to Congregation Emanu-El to spearhead
the revitalization of the Congregation's youth education program. He
developed a nationally recognized family education program currently
serving over five hundred and fifty students and their families. He
established the B'nei Mitzvah Program that includes Mitzvah Corps,
Family Torah Study, and the Guide Rabbi Program. To build a stronger
teaching faculty he founded the Madrichim student teaching program
and the Halutzim adult teacher-training program and cofounded the San
Francisco High School Havurah, which was named Program-of-the-Year
by the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation in 1995. Prayerbooks
designed by Rabbi Wolf-Prusan include the popular Emanu-El Family Haggadah,The
Sh'ma And Its Blessings, the prayerbooks used for the Shabbat Minyan
and the Late Shabbat, and The High Holy Day Machzor for the Contemporary
Reform Service. Rabbi Wolf-Prusan continues serious study of Jewish
texts at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem, Israel, as a Fellow
in the Center for Rabbinic Education. He is a Whizin Consulting Faculty
member of the Shirley and Arthur Whizin Institute for Jewish Family
Education, University of Judaism. Rev.
Keenan Colton Kelsey was born, raised and educated
on the East Coast. She attended Emma Willard School, in Troy, NY, and Sweet
Briar College in Sweet Briar, VA. Her activism was sparked during the 1960's
in Washington, D.C. with involvements in war protests, civil rights and
gun control rallies, and Head Start. She was on the founding team for
the original Earth Day. She came to San Francisco in 1971. Since then,
she has worked for
the SF Ecology
Center and KQED, was a freelance editor/writer, has owned and operated
a bird store, and also married and had two children. Her children led
her back to
the church
of her youth, and so she joined Old First Presbyterian in San Francisco.
Her first confrontation with a Call to Ministry was from a social justice
perspective,
but her years in Seminary led her to parish ministry. She has been pastor
at Noe Valley Ministry Presbyterian Church in San Francisco for five years,
where she is able to live out and lead others in commitments to solve homelessness
and increase affordable housing, cultivate church and social inclusiveness,
and promote immigrant and senior advocacy. She does this within the context
of a welcoming
and faithful
church community, a church which offers spiritual comfort, nurturance,
inspiration and encouragement to all. |
Alan Lew has become one of the leaders of the burgeoning Jewish Meditation movement. His book One God Clapping; The Spiritual Path of a Zen Rabbi, published in September of 1999, was a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller and the winner of a PEN award, the Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence. The book chronicles his ten years as a serious student of Zen Buddhism and his current work in exploring the use of meditation in enhancing Jewish spirituality. Alan Lew was ordained as a rabbi in 1988 at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York where he won more than a dozen major academic awards. He received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 and a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop in 1970. He has published several books of poetry, including Eight Monologues (Open Books, 1978). His most recent book, This Is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation, was published by Little Brown and Co. in August of 2003. |
Rabbi
Alan Lew has been the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth
Sholom in San Francisco since July 1991. He is also the director of
Makor Or, a center for Jewish Meditation adjacent to his synagogue.
Previously, he was the rabbi of Congregation Eitz Chaim of Monroe,
New York, and the first chaplain of the Jacob Perlow Hospice of Beth
Israel Medical Center in New York City. Rabbi Lew is the Past President
of the Board of Rabbis of Northern California and for ten years he
has been the moderator of the Mosaic television program on KPIX-TV
in San
Francisco.  Pastor
April Prosser was born in Boston in 1942, and moved to Augusta,
Maine, where she stayed during her school years. Her husband, Evan, and
she met while they were attending the same college in the Boston area,
marrying at the end of their Junior year. They have now been married
for 41 happy
years. After college graduation, the Prossers moved to Hawaii for a couple
of years, and then to San Francisco—where it was love at first
sight. They stayed for five years, wearing flowers in their hair with
the best of them, then moved “back to the land” to the Grass
Valley area, where they built domes and lived together with many people
beside a creek in the country. At a major turning point in the Prossers’ life,
a man with whom Evan worked introduced him to Jesus Christ. April followed
two days later and their lives have never been the same. Evan’s
first pastorate was on top of a mountain on the Canadian border in Washington
State for three years. During this time April taught people of all ages.
Ten years ago, Evan felt the Lord’s call to return to San Francisco,
in order to begin a church for homeless people. The Prossers describe
the Homeless Church as, without question, the most rewarding and exciting
part of their lives. April now oversees a women’s home, mans the
computer, holds services with Evan, distributes soup and blankets, and
counsels homeless people, as well as many other tasks. The Prossers continue
to look forward to what the future will bring. |
 Rev.
Schuyler Rhodes is Pastor of Temple United Methodist Church
in San Francisco. In seventeen years of ordained ministry, Pastor Rhodes
has served churches in New York City, New Jersey and rural New York State,
as well as being Campus Pastor at the University of California at Berkeley.
He has also served as a Consultant on Peace and Justice ministries to
the General Board of Global Ministries Women’s Division, where
he coordinated National Peace and Justice Week and taught seminars to
the United Methodist Office at the UN. He is the current President of
the Board of Directors of the Interreligious Foundation for Community
Organization and Pastors for Peace. Rhodes has completed a five-year
term as a member of the International Affairs Committee of the World
Methodist Council. Rev. Rhodes has published numerous articles and monographs,
as well as two books, Words to the Silence: A Book of Uncommon Prayer and Pentecost
Fire: Preaching Hope in Times of Change. |
 Father
Louis Vitale, ofm, is a member of the Franciscan Order and a
Catholic priest. Presently, he is the pastor of Saint Boniface parish
in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Most of his ministry has
been working in the field of social justice and peace. He has a Ph.D.
in Sociology and teaches courses on nonviolence at the Franciscan School
of Theology in Berkeley. He was assigned in Las Vegas, Nevada as director
of a center for social justice for the diocese between 1969 and 1979
where he worked with welfare mothers and immigrants. He was involved
in campaigns with National Welfare Rights that shut down the Las Vegas
strip
and won
restoration of the rights of welfare recipients. In Nevada, he was co-founder
of the Nevada Desert Experience which initiated a campaign against nuclear
testing that has resulted in a moratorium on testing and continues to
carry on the struggle against new efforts to develop new nuclear weapons.
From 1979 to 1988 he was the Superior of the Order of Franciscans in
the western states. He returned to Las Vegas and co-founded Pace
e Bene,
a center for nonviolence, with which he is still associated. Following
a sabbatical
in mid-1992 he came to Saint Boniface Parish and subsequently became
the pastor. He is presently very active with the Interfaith Coalition
for
Immigrant
Rights, the Bay Area Organizing Committee and various other struggles
for justice. He is a native of Los Angeles where he studied and spent
three years in the Air Force before entering the Franciscan Order. |
Sister
Bernie Galvin, cdp, Founder and Director of Religious Witness with Homeless
People, is a Catholic nun and a member of the Sisters of Divine Providence.
Sister Bernie earned both her B.A. and M. Ed. from Our Lady
of the Lake University
in San Antonio, Texas.
Sister Bernie’s ministry history reflects a deep, long-term commitment to social justice issues, particularly as they relate to working people and to poor and homeless people: After 17 years teaching junior high students, she began full-time community organizing throughout the South – Louisiana, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas. She organized sugarcane field and mill workers in Louisiana, as well as textile workers, state mental health workers and nursing home workers throughout the Appalachian states.
In 1993, Sister Bernie founded Religious Witness with Homeless
People, a grassroots, activist,
interfaith policy-advocacy coalition in the San Francisco Bay Area after bearing
witness to the intensified suffering of homeless people under the newly adopted
and rigorously enforced Matrix policy of San Francisco.
In 1999, Sister Bernie initiated Religious Leaders’ National Call for
Action on Housing, a project of Religious Witness which collaborates with
Housing America to influence the increase of the Federal housing budget for
low-income housing across the nation.
Sister Bernie continues to the present to serve as Director of Religious Witness with Homeless People and Organizer and Coordinator of Religious Leaders’ National Call for Action on Housing.
Sister Bernie has been the recipient of numerous awards, including: 1995 and 1999 San Francisco Bay Guardian Local Hero Award, American Jewish Congress Menches in the Trenches Award, Regional Pax Christi U.S.A. Peace Award, 1998 and 1999 Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco Saints Alive Award and the California Legislature's 2004 Woman of the Year Award (District 13).
A Tribute to Dennis Cunningham
 |
| We pay special tribute to Attorney Dennis Cunningham for his tireless
support of Religious Witness with Homeless People and its members.
Dennis has provided pro bono legal representation for the hundreds of Religious Witness leaders and members who engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience in our numerous demonstrations throughout the years. On one occasion, when eighty of us were arrested by federal police at a Presidio demonstration in violation of our Second Amendment rights, Dennis appealed the lower court decision and successfully argued our case before the Ninth District Court of Appeals. We honor Dennis Cunningham not only as a staunch defender of those who speak out for basic human rights in the face of injustice, but also as our brother and friend. |