Miguel Castaneda reports on Occupy San Diego activist Raul Carranza’s personal struggle to stop cuts in funding for the disabled.

“My plan was to stay at UCLA, but I saw how stressed out my mom was,” Raul said. “My brother was also very sick at that time…my mother was falling apart. I dropped out of UCLA and re-enrolled in Southwestern College. I was in class up until this semester when I had to drop all my classes so I could focus of fighting the case full time. So they made me choose between fighting for my life or going to school.”

Raul threw himself into Occupy San Diego:

If it wasn’t for Occupy. I wouldn’t be where I am now. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure everyone gets the benefits that they need because I’m not the only one that this happened to. There are a lot of people that aren’t as lucky as I am, they don’t have the family support.

People don’t have this support and can’t fight for themselves, so the system just runs them over. I want to be able to help them as well.

Read More: The system runs over people | SocialistWorker.org