One of the questions we asked people we love about this continuing forty-year process of addressing the root causes of homelessness in America was recognizing that our comrade Paul has also been fighting this neoliberal bullshit for forty years. In earlier emails people spoke about the importance of WRAP. Here is what some of our friends had to say about Paul’s role over the last forty years.

I’m proud to be part of recognizing Paul’s longevity and accomplishments – as well as his unflinching commitment to the struggle for justice and human rights for unhoused folks. Paul and I met when I was sleeping in Hospitality House’s (HH) shelter in 1983. He referred me to one of my first paid jobs, washing Muni buses. I got my first paycheck in the mail after being homeless, using HH as a mailing address. Because of Paul. Paul is my friend, my mentor, my “brother from another mother” – for 40 years, he has lifted up the best of our struggle, and he’s reminded us time and again, we don’t always have to win, but we can always keep fighting. Always. Joe Wilson, Executive Director of Hospitality House in San Francisco. He has worked with and for the community there since 1983.

I have had Paul Boden on my shoulder whispering in my ear for 27 years and counting and am all the better for it. Jackie Jenks, former Executive Director of Hospitality House and Executive Director of Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, which confronts the causes and responds to the effects of poverty in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, NC.

To name just a few Paulisms: Moving from an “I” to a “we”, the importance of outreach, the mentality of working ourselves out of a job, keeping a focus on ending homelessness, knowing policymakers are targets, not allies, that housing is also a way to create jobs, the importance of building trusting relationships with decision maker’s secretaries, that nothing ends homelessness like a home, that local governments didn’t create homelessness, and its the feds that need to solve it, keeping an eye on systemic change not band aids, the intersection of racism and homelessness, ablism and racism, the classism involved in labeling homelessness. Doing all that with a sense of humor. So many concepts that I follow carefully in my work every day I learned from Paul. Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness,

As you know, we are raising $40,000 for WRAP’s vital work and all donations will be matched 1:1 up to $20,000 through December 31st! Contribute $40, $400, $4,000 to help make sure that mass homelessness is not around another 40 years and to honor Paul’s powerful work. WRAP can’t do this absolutely essential work without you. Thank you!

I met Paul in 1991-ish when I joined the National Coalition for the Homeless Civil Rights Workgroup calls. Paul was still the Executive Director of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness. We were both holding down spots on the board of the National Coalition for the Homeless as "formerly homeless" board members. I was really excited to hear someone else talking about the fact that just because folks have lost their home doesn't mean they've lost their civil and human rights. I was also excited to hear someone else bring a critique of the Reagan administration cuts to housing and that homelessness is created by bad public policy. I fucking love Paul for being so fucking consistent! Lynn Lewis worked at Picture the Homeless in New York City for seventeen years and is currently working on an oral history project to document the work of the organization from the perspective of longtime homeless leaders who made that work possible

Paul is the living embodiment of solidarity - with the poor, with the unhoused, and with all those fighting for human rights in our world. The truest, most brilliant leaders I know and respect are those who center not themselves - but the work and the leadership of others to do the work. This is Paul - one of the most selfless, charismatic, passionate people I've ever met. Paul fights for a future that is possible - and that we will achieve - and does so with the unwavering commitment to justice and equity that winning it requires. Paul represents the world we can have - and the way we are going to get there. I fucking love him.  Eric Ares, Housing and Homelessness Director for Los Angeles Council Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez

Paul is incredible. He talks the talk and walks the walk – without fail, without compromise, without traditional accolades or acknowledgment. And he leads with love – not just in concept, but in reality. He loves his colleagues and cares about the whole WRAP family in ways that I could never sustain – because it takes a lot out of you to give like that. He’s a brilliant, funny, hard-core, committed person, organizer, and activist. And it’s fun to smoke cigarettes and drink Bud with him too – work hard/play hard balance may be one of his superpowers. Becky Dennison, Executive Director with Venice Community Housing and former Co-Executive Director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN)

Donate here, and consider making a monthly, recurring donation, to honor Paul’s 40-years of kick-ass organizing work or mail a check to Western Regional Advocacy Project, 2940 16th Street, Suite 200-2 

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