The procedures for nightly crash pad assignments were located in the handbook for Berkeley Free Church switchboard employees and volunteers. The careful detail and step-by-step instructions indicate the importance that the Free Church placed on its relationships to those who offered their homes for the program, which lasted for several years between the Free Church’s founding in 1967 and its dissolution in 1972.
Crash pads seemed to be in constant demand, and the Free Church recognized the need to keep hosts satisfied so that they would continue to participate and provide housing for those in Berkeley without a place to sleep.
In their efforts to preserve relationships with hosts, though, the Free Church does not appear to have paid the same kind of attention to the transient folks in need of these services, exposing homeless youth to potential exploitation (as the recollections of Jodi Mitchell suggest).
