Viveca Jones sets up a makeshift sidewalk shop at Hopkins and California, displaying straw hats, woven baskets, antique jewelry, gowns, umbrellas, glasses and fedoras. She sits beside her car with a purple cane and arrives by 8 a.m., sometimes not finishing setup until 1 p.m. She sells on Thursdays at Shattuck and Vine, Fridays in front of Monterey Market and Saturdays at the downtown farmers' market. She sometimes earns $250 from a single basket and now works three days a week. She began at the Berkeley Flea Market in the late 1970s, holds a vendor permit, and faces neighborhood pressure despite major health struggles including dialysis, a transplant and a 2019 stroke.
At the corner of Hopkins and California, Viveca Jones flips open a large brown bag, letting its mouth fall to the sidewalk and its contents spill out: straw hats and woven baskets joining the antique jewelry, gowns, umbrellas, glasses and fedoras that constitute her makeshift street shop. Sitting on a chair next to her car and grasping a purple cane, she heaves a sigh of relief. I've been in this business for a long time, she says. So I have a lot of stuff.
She says she now has a vendor permit to sell on Berkeley's streets but some residents try to push her out because they think I'm poor. She's survived two life-threatening health challenges in the past decade. She was on dialysis for kidney failure for four and half years, before receiving a transplant in 2016. She had a stroke in 2019, which led to three brain surgeries. She lost her eyebrows and eyelashes, her hearing in one ear and many of her memories.
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