OUR STORY

Grassroots community organizing

Pasadena for All got its start in the summer of 2020. During the heatwave of that year, concerned citizens organized via Reddit, email and other social media to come together every Saturday to distribute cold water to awater to the unhoused population in Pasadena. After a consistent practice developed, the regulars organized under the banner of Pasadena for All in just one of many influences from the org Ktown for All. Without hierarchy or an official nonprofit designation, the members of Pasadena for All volunteer their free time to regularly come together to distribute supplies to those experiencing homelessness in Pasadena. Pasadena for All's advocacy has two primary foci: engendering housing-first solutions to homelessness and ending criminalization of homelessness and that activity that homeless people engage in for survival. Optimal solutions to homelessness are compassionate, forgiving and directed by the agency of the people experiencing homelessness firsthand.

Core Principles

We believe that housing is a human right and that no person is solely to blame for their being unhoused. Homelessness is possible because our society does not prioritize or provide for the basic needs of every person in it.
We are against the criminalization of the unhoused and the impoverished. This means that we are against a system that penalizes and incarcerates people who are taking actions (camping, sleeping in cars, squatting, etc.) that are a result of being unhoused, whether that is due to financial challenges, mental health challenges or some combination of multiple factors.
Solidarity not charity. While assistance may generally flow one way in our outreaches, our work is done in the spirit of achieving an equitable society where people are empowered to help others freely and effectively. We want to come to folks as friends and equals. We believe that homelessness is something the vast majority of us are much closer to than is comfortable to acknowledge; we recognize that many axes of marginalization and oppression come together to create the struggles that our neighbors experience and so we come to them as neighbors who see their struggle as our struggle and we act in solidarity.
We recognize that we are able to spend this time and distribute supplies because we possess materially more and are able to give to those who are in material need.
We do what we do with the full knowledge of how racial capitalism disenfranchises Black, Indigenous, people of color, and other marginalized axes of experience.
Unhoused voices are centered, lead the conversation, and define the needs we seek to fulfill. In this vein, we practice relationship-building so that the well-being of our neighbors always comes first.
While we recognize the importance of transitional housing in the spectrum of Pasadena’s needs, we believe that permanent, decent housing is the best way to end homelessness.
We believe in a “housing first” model which does not require sobriety, a lack of a criminal record, etc. from residents.
We stand against the involvement of the police in the distribution of goods and services to unhoused individuals.
We believe that unhoused people should have agency over their own lives, meaning that they should not be forced into housing or shelter.
We don’t know everything about the state of being unhoused; the unhoused are the subject matter experts on their own experience.
If a person chooses not to go into a shelter option offered by an authority figure, that does not mean that they are undeserving for help and care.