By Melody Parker, Gloria Woodson, Jaleah Winn and Damon Shuja Johnson
Special to The Post
Under recently passed Proposition 1, California’s behavioral health services will be allocated $1 billion for services for the unhoused in 2026-27, Governor Gavin Newsom announced last summer.
Although some of the funds from the Mental Health Services Act were diverted to Proposition 1, individuals living with behavioral health conditions and housing challenges are maintaining hope for wellness and recovery.
Damon Johnson, a peer counselor who serves as the executive director of Black Men Speak and Men and Women of Color will be affected by the state’s new rules. Living with a behavioral health condition, he is an advocate and a leader. Damon, best known as Shuja, was incarcerated for 34 years and today is advocating for the rights of persons with similar lived experience and for the survival of peer-led programs like the one he manages.
Two days after his reentry to the community, Shuja began work as an outreach coordinator for Black Men Speak. Within a year, Shuja was promoted and later appointed to director after the loss of former Black Men Speak Executive Director Joe Anderson.
A native of North Oakland, Shuja was raised in an all-women household after his grandfather was murdered. Though dealing with his own grief, the loss caused Shuja to become the “man of the family.”
His grandmother’s nurturing helped him to overcome the trauma of his grandfather’s death which, “gave him a foundation as a child.” He recalls fond memories of his childhood, like riding a new bike he received for the holidays. “My friends and myself spent meaningful time together as children,” he said. “Together, we would build go-carts, climb trees, have rock fights and find worms, crabs and bees.”
But his trauma impacted his childhood and led to his being impacted by the system. Shuja grew up mostly in detention halls and prison.
Besides directing Black Men Speak! (BMS!)/Men and Women of Color (MWOC), he is also the director of a self-help center in Oakland. There, Shuja and the peer workers provide support to the unhoused. He coordinates a digital literacy program, co-facilitates trainings for peer support specialists, organizes a service animal resource, provides peer support and directs speakers’ bureaus.
BMS! and MWOC are programs increasing wellness and recovery by sharing stories of hope and journeys to meaningful living. Members have authored presentations and spoken to audiences on topics such as post-traumatic stress disorder, family, community violence, self-worth, spirituality, and mental health, alternative therapies, eight dimensions of wellness, reentry, single parenting and health.
The members have been featured nationally and locally, at trainings and conferences and throughout Alameda County Behavioral Health Care services. The organization has been in operation for over a decade.
It all began in 2009 and received nonprofit status in 2012. The group developed from Peers Organizing Community Change, formerly known as Pool of Consumer Champions (POCC), originally established as an all-men’s committee.
The committee co-founders Dewitt Buckingham and Darnell Livingston organized men with experience in the public mental health system for a speaker’s bureau. This was the consensus of the committee after a process facilitated by Katrina Killian, Steven Bucholtz, Sally Zinman and Jaleah Winn.
The committee and facilitators composed the following mission. The BMS!/MWOC mission is “to inform and enlighten the mental health community and the general public about issues concerning men and women of color suffering from mental health and substance abuse challenges, through storytelling thereby promoting ad increasing wellness, recovery, and freedom.”
Shuja has a vision and plans for the organization. “BMS!/MWOC will be sustained with the funding of $1.5 million for capacity building to hire people to pay salaries for staff.”
Currently, BMS!/MWOC has volunteers assisting the programs. Funding will enable the enhancement, increase in self-help services and provide for outings and meals. “We want exposure as when adults and children have taken the free BART rides to go to places outside of Oakland that they never traveled,” Shuja said. “We want to go to Africa. More influential communities can travel, and we need the same opportunity.”
Despite several barriers that are facing Shuja and the organization, he is determined to fulfill the nonprofit’s mission. “There is money. Children wear $200 shoes. We want to teach financial literacy, not to be a slave but how to buy and how to keep. BMS! needs some rich friends and we also need friends who have know-how. We need support from private and public sectors.
“BMS! is one of the only Black organizations in ACBHCS. Today we have the SB 803, Peer Support Specialist bill that will enable us to bill Medicaid/Medi-Cal and only two full-time staff. We do not have the support of the community.”
Shuja is honored to be a participant in advocacy for legislation to improve the lives of peers and is not discouraged by changes to statewide policies. The current changes coming down the pike with Prop 1 are motivating him to work more diligently for the rights of behavioral health clients.
“This is about employment and empowerment and authenticity. The unhoused can be asked about hope and faith. I had to have faith and hope every day that I awakened in prison. I would have died in prison, but I had hope, faith and peer support and it manifested.
“My first reentry job is to go back to my family and save them and if this is repeated among families then we will have wellness and community. Kids raise themselves today. Today, grown folks cannot be in kids’ business. We want to do better. How can we bring back the good of the past?”
Today, the good of the past is coming back with the work of Black Men Speak! Men and Women Of Color. All support is welcome. Black Men Speak and Men and Women of Color welcome contributions and invitations to collaborate. In order to contact the program staff please reach out to 510-969-5086 or shuja@blackmenspeak.org.
