"Fearful" and others who malign the South Spit jetty homeless might review these two articles I wrote in the late 90's for Street Spirit, a San Francisco-based homeless publication as well as for NASNA (North American Street Newspaper Association). The drive to evict homeless people is a long-standing sickness, which still racks Arcata and Eureka as well as most other California communities.

Most of the phone numbers are probably no longer good (with the exception of mine and HUFF's).



Humboldt County Land Scam Prompts Homeless Deportation
Story by Robert Norse for North American Street Newspaper Association 9/30/97

Protest marches, legal filings, prayer meetings, and plans for resistance marked the final week of preparations as residents and supporters prepared for a threatened County-engineered sweep of the homeless community on the South Spit Jetty south of Eureka. An August 19th settlement agreement between the County and the Jetty community supposedly produced an agreement to end harassment of the campers.

It allowed the homeless community to stay on the federal property at the end of the Jetty unmolested, ending periodic harassment through trespass ticketing and County lawsuit. In return, the South Spitters agreed to take care of the land and move to an alternate site when that became available. The August settlement ended a 1994 "public nuisance" lawsuit--only the latest in a long- string of County gambits to drive off the homeless.

On September 2nd County Health Officer Ann Lindsay ordered the road to the south Spit Jetty gated and guarded, set an eviction deadline of October 2nd, and ordered all property not removed by that date confiscated. Though no one was sick when she issued her order
Lindsay found a causus belli in 8 confirmed cases in April and May, which she labeled Shagela dysentery (Lindsay ballooned the figure to 20).

Regular Spit doctor Wendy Ring rejected Lindsay’s public health “emergency” declaration in a sworn 4-page declaration to Superior Court Judge Buffington on September 25th. Citing unsafe health conditions because of lack of sanitation and washing water, Lindsay found an immediate emergency--even though these same conditions had been standard for years, and ostentatiously ignored by the County in spite of pleas by religious and health workers.

If such an epidemic existed, asked Ring, why did the County refuse to provide funds to fill a water tank for hand-washing in May? Why did County Health express no alarm at 8 cases of Shagala in Eureka inFebruary?

Nancy Dervin, a Christian Minister with Love in Action, who built a 24X32' church on the Jetty and served the community for three years, swore in a declaration to the Superior Court on September 25th that she wrote a grant in 1996 to get water, garbage, and toilets for the Jetty, but the County blocked it. "I was going to try again this year", she continued, "but the Health Department advised me that they would once again block it. [These services]...could have been provided for 2 1/2 years ($1700 a month) with the $55,000 the County has committed to remove people from what little bit of security they now have." The same Humboldt Area Foundation that refused to fund a grant for toilets in 1995 is paying for social workers this year to dress up the homeless deportation.

Dervin claims further that Lindsay's press release claiming that St. Joseph's, Catholic Charities, and Salvation Army were given funding to help soften the Jetty eviction were refuted by direct calls to those agencies. Eureka Police chief Milsapp, she adds, told her "I won't let them set up camps in this town."

Dervin reports that she found Larry, who fled the Jetty earlier and now sleeps in an abandoned building, in tears on September 23rd. The former Jetty resident reported that police had threatened to take his dog and told him nobody from the Jetty was welcome in Eureka. He was given ten days to get out of town.

Lindsay's “health emergency” tale fit in well with County Supervisor Stan Dixon’s plan to redevelope Humboldt Harbor having the State buy the five-mile strip of property from Pacific Lumber and the Army Corps of Engineers to turn into a managed recreational area. The one sticking point: the State’s Coastal Conservancy would not purchase the Pacific Lumber access road until all the homeless were off the property.

Rather than evict them straightaway and be forced to pay costly relocation fees, Dixon engineered a bill via State Senator Thompson to SB-39 authorizing the Coastal Conservancy to make a study and buy the spit.

Lindsay asked and got $55,000 from the County Supervisors for "homeless relocation" expenses, much of which was spent to staff a roadblock gate with sheriffs and security guards and to euthanize or adopt out the residents’ pets.

64-year old Jinny Jernigan, homeless advocate for over 10 years, was one of four additional social workers paid by the County to walk the Spit as protective cover for the homeless removal. On September 23rd, she quit, disgusted with the County's activities and swore out a declaration indicting the County for incompetence at best: the social
workers had virtually no resources or information to give the Jetty residents.

Derven denounces what she terms "self-contradicting, false, and/or exaggerated claims" of alleged work done by county Social Workers to justify the near-Martial Law conditions. South Spit resident Dennis Maddox wrote bitterly of the County and media smearing the Jetty residents as living in filth and disease, and then expecting landlords to take them in elsewhere in the County. For those without SSI or TANF, even those who receive a pittance from General Relief, this false promise of safe housing "can only mean one of two things: jail or the cemetery."

Resident Jesse Katz writes, "I was living in Eureka and I moved out here to get away from he drugs and the police harassment of the homeless. I'm clean out here. For the large part we were chased out here, given no options. The Jetty is closer to a community than I ever found in Eureka. Kill me or take me to jail. I don’t want either but I’m not afraid."

Writes seven-year resident Guy Keller, "I'm being held against my will, because i don't have ID. They will let me out, but they won’t let me back in." Fourteen-year old Meredith Giles writes, "My mom has asthma, emphysema, and her kidneys are failing. I feel like I'm more free here than anywhere else in the world. When all this started happening, I felt like I was a prisoner, that I was more of a number than a person. It didn't feel like America, that I was trapped in some other country."

James Darpino, who lives at the Spit with his wife and two children and one of the few operational vehicles, writes of the "simple but beneficial way of life" with "people tightly knit." "The unity here has a bond so strong that nobody goes without food, without water, or any of the basic necessities of life."

Merv Jensen, reporter for Homeward, a Sacramento-based homeless newspaper, went to Eureka in mid-September to speak with County Heath officials and Jetty residents. He saw the County's anti-homeless campaign as an "some sort of a far-fetched land deal, an immoral, unfeeling, and remorseless effort." So struck was Jensen with the naked injustice of the situation that he returned to the Jetty after filing his story to stand with residents when and if the County moves against them.

Resident and long-time activist Susan Dunn heads a family that lives in a large converted bus. She has spoken and organized against the harassment of homeless people in Santa Barbara and elsewhere and has been a major news source for Jetty residents putting out their story on the Internet ("http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/lobby/7252", her e-mail:"mailto:a-citizen [at] geocities.com").

Alarmed at the possibility of an armed confrontation on the Spit if authorities move on the homes of the homeless, she has proposed organizing a modern-day wagon train and has called the Sheriff to seek a "walking demonstration with vehicles" permit to buy the people time to relocate.

"There are lots of people with disabilities, that's why they're here," says Dunn. "They can't work anymore. There are people who have injuries, they can't walk far. Others are on crutches, probably for the rest of their lives. They will not be able to walk to the free meal, and the places they need to go. Social Services used to send these people to the jetty because there is nowhere to go. On the jetty, the people are much better off. The mentally ill are relatively safe...People on the jetty have formed a real community...a church, and a playground."

Lurch, who has been homeless in Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara, says "homeless out here aren't activists or protesters; we're losing it because of that." Phil, disabled from a well-to-do family writes "The family out here on the Jetty is more important than my own family because they need more." Eleven-year-old Chris in 5th grade: "I feel like something is going to happen, like three is going to be a big storm or something."

80% of the South Spit residents are disabled, mentally or physically. There are about a dozen children. One-third of the community is female. Most of them have non-operational vehicles. Dr. Ring swears in her court declaration, "most...live in trailers which provide shelter from the weather, cooking and food storage facilities, and some security from theft and assault. Evicting people from shelter, however poor, in the face of oncoming winter weather, without providing an alternative will have detrimental effects on their health...and is not in any way justified by the medical facts."

Jernigan calls continuing County claims that they are housing homeless with the money "simply lies." A Health Department worker's claim to Street Spirit (9/23) that the County had helped relocate over 130 people: a claim Dervin and Turner said was knowingly false. Jetty attorney Jan Turner knows of less than 10 people that the County has even tried to help get alternate housing as of late September--almost always with no success.

Nardia, a resident on the Jetty, writes that her repeated attempts to get even a single application form from Social Workers were met with silence and that her family members have not been allowed past the armed and guarded gate.

In practical terms, there is virtually no housing available for under $300; the Housing Authority has a long waiting list, does background checks, and only slumlords will rent to people without rental references. Trailer parks wonUt admit those trailers still mobile on the Jetty because they are too old. The County has refused even to supply gas money so people can seek housing on their own. Eureka bars overnight sleeping in vehicles.

Humboldt County and the City of Eureka, nestled near the north-western most corner of the State, have 1000-1500 homeless. The County ignored the recommendations of two County Grand Juries for the creation of a permanent homeless shelter and refused to ratify an affordable housing element which would allow for zoning for shelters and campgrounds. This failure endangers future federal funding--which the County is apparently willing to sacrifice in its disdain for the homeless, according to Reverend Eric Duff, a concerned local.

First Baptist Church member Abby Newal reports that even “liberal” Arcata, which recently elected the first Green Party majority in the country on its City Council, wonUt let homeless sleep in cars and limits guitar-playing to ten minutes at a time at the downtown Plaza (where police were arresting Food Not Bombs for feeding the homeless two years ago). Working with her Baptist church, Newall put up homeless people in her garage as a temporary shelter for a year, but police shut it down after one complaint from a neighbor.

Ruben Botillo is a writer on the Internet (sananda@hotmailcom). Botillo heads the American Homeless Society and has organized two protests supporting the South Spit Jetty community. He has written the County Grand Jury, denouncing local expenditures on a huge new empty jail, a brand new courthouse, and a “Taj Mahal” library that is now largely closed because the County can’t pay for staff.

He sees a $20 million Humboldt Harbor dredging and gentrification project behind the South Spit land grab. Botillo regularly flays county authorities for their anti-homeless policies and this summer called for a boycott of Humboldt County to protest wilful mistreatment and neglect of the poor.

Barely a week before the eviction deadline, Turner filed a lawsuit demanding the courts enforce the August settlement agreement. She filed 28 declarations documenting that persons providing necessary medication, food, water, and transportation have been prevented from entering the Spit, that those on the spit without picture ID have been unable to leave, that the health "emergency" used to justify wholesale abrogation of constitutional rights is a pretext to facilitate state purchase of the Spit.

Turner further contends that the state agency planning to purchase the property, the Coastal Conservancy, has refused to do so until campers have been removed; the Coastal Conservancy paid for the guard gate. The County’s unilateral decision to blockade the
homeless on federal property also cuts access to a state beach and a county park.

String, another veteran on disability with a broken back asks, "they're closing down the military bases; why can’t the homeless go there and try to make a living? Why don’t they let us go in some of those ghost towns or abandoned homes and let us fix them up?”

Merle Adams, an American-Apache Vet who has lived on the Spit on and off for 10 years, simply says, "I had a dream three times. It was the same dream, that I got shot. I ain’t got no place to go. I'm willing to die for my land."

To get to the South Spit Jetty by land coming north from the San Francisco Bay Area take the Hookten Road turnoff from US 101 south of Eureka., just after the Lolita exit. The Jetty is 5-10 miles further. Guards are required by court order to let in vehicles containing food, medicine, or clothing donations for those on the Spit.

On September 26, Judge Buffington issued a temporary restraining order, delaying eviction of the Jetty residents until after a hearing 9:30 AM October 10th Superior Court (855 5th St., Eureka). The armed guard and the roadblock remain, but guards have been instructed they can’t keep out people bringing in food and medicine or visiting
relatives. Guards are also limited in their searches and can’t keep people from leaving.

Human rights activists urge supporters to contact media about the "homeless cleansing" underway in Humboldt County and ask folks to come out on the Spit and volunteer to help. Botillo can be reached at 707-444-2553 and suggests protests against the deportation and bogus “health emergency” be phoned or faxed to the office of County Health Officer Dr. Ann Lindsay at 707-822-7041 (phone) and/or 707-445-7299 (fax).

For further information contact the websites of Susan Dunn or Rueben Botillo [see above] or log on to the California Homeless Civil Rights Action Network homepage "http://www.cruzio.com/~chhc/hcr.html"

To volunteer support for the South Spit Jetty community, contact Chuck and Katherine Frank: 916-629-2746.

Robert Norse works for HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) and can be reached at 408-423-HUFF. Mailing address: 309 Cedar St. #14B, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. E-mail: "mailto:norse3 [at] hotmail.com" Fax: 408-429-8529. Website: "http://www.huffsantacruz.org" Flyer by HUFF




Eureka's Homeless Refugees Fight To Redeem County's Promises
Story for November Street Spirit by Robert Norse 10/27/97

Legal struggle, colorful local protest, out-of-town pressure, and some media sympathy combined to force concessions from County authorities in the ongoing struggle to disperse the Humboldt County homeless from their coastal refuge, where many of them have lived for as long as a decade.

The County successfully used a combination of relentless disinformation and brute force to remove the last of the Jetty residents from their 120 vehicles, jailing four of the homeless on October 21. But an underdog publicity campaign, peaceful but persistent resistance, and ongoing organizing has kept some of the homeless community fighting for its rights--even as it faces new eviction deadlines from the temporary hotels and campground grudgingly provided by the County.

The cynical charade was played out to its brutal conclusion as the County swept in swiftly to seal its carefully-planned sabotage of a binding August court settlement between campers and County agencies that should have allowed Jetty residents months to relocate and secured permanent housing for the 150-200 community members.

As reported last month, a "health" crisis was the power card used to sabotage the terms of the crucial August settlement. That settlement would have allowed campers to remain on the federal end of the property until an itinerent campground or other permanent housing arrangements were established.

Swift removal of the homeless remained the pressing concern of the County and a key element of State Senator Thompson's bill establishing a managed recreational area. The Coastal Conservancy--chosen to run the area--would not purchase the property unless and until the homeless were gone. Enter Health Officer Ann Lindsay and her convenient "health" concerns.

Spring and summer cases of Shigella dysentery, both in Eureka and on the South Spit were not serious enough for Lindsay to send in portapotties, fresh water, and or sewage hookups to the Jetty, though this is what they'd sought for years. But suddenly, in the wake of the signed settlement, they were enough to override the legal agreement, set up a guard gate, and terrorize the homeless community with an October 2nd eviction deadline.

That deadline was put on hold when Judge Buffington issued a court order requested by Redwood Legal Assistance attorney Jan Turner--for several years the legal champion of the Jetty community and a key author of the August settlement. Friends of the homeless hoped Buffington would weigh the assessment of regular Spit doctor Wendy Ring, who disputed Lindsay's findings of a crisis.

Attorney Sara Senger issued a press release in late September titled "'Emergency' on Jetty a False Alarm" which noted that "for many years, the County Department of Social SErvices has referred clients who were homeless to the South Jetty, as the safest and best place for homeless persons in Humboldt County." "Homeless who do not live on the Jetty live in dangerous abandoned buildings, cardboard boxes on the streets of Eureka, under freeway overpasses, and even on highway medians" The Salvation Army separated itself from the County's deportation effort.

Initial optimistic assessments turned sour when Lindsay's workers began distributing 48-hour eviction notices at the Jetty on October 15. The next day Buffington dissolved his Injunction. The judge made a shotgun of findings. He ruled that the August 19 settlement had not been prepared in "final written judgment."

He held that though on the one hand he had "no opinion on the legality" of Lindsay's eviction order, still the "public health may be endangered and the need to protect the overall health of county residents must take precedence over any contract". Lindsay's police powers and actions were undertaken independently of County authority. Buffington wrote these words even though no hearing was held in open court on the specifics of the county-concocted health crisis.

Skeptics suggested the need to win an upcoming election and gain one more year of office to secure a pension may have been influential in Buffington's decision. Attorney Sara Sender, a close observer of Humboldt County's Machiavellian legal maneuverings, suggested that the County played its legal hand very skillfully.

Months before the settlement was finalized, County officials openly joked about using "the health card" to torpedo the looming legal settlement. The County had extensively researched the powers of the County Health Officer for months before signing the settlement, apparently preparing for an end run around it.

Further, Lindsay and her bosses were careful not to use the word "emergency" in statements about the Jetty that set up a guard guard, ID cards, and security personnel. That wording, says Sender, would have required public action by the County Board of Supervisors and public hearings.

The fear and panic spread by eviction threats from Lindsay, Department of Social Services Chief John Frank and other County authorities did have disastrous consequences. Illegal and arbitrary searches by security guards manning the locked gate were reported by the Eureka Times-Standard (10/5).

In early October, after the County had failed to respond to an earlier domestic dispute, a family fight led to a vehicular fire from an overturned gas stove that severely burned two children and their monther and killed elderly Philip Heiland. County apologists and local media blamed the campers and suggested this was more evidence "justifying" the rush to deport the campers.

When contacted by Street Spirit on October 16, Lindsay had no specifics as to what amount of money was available for housing, how many people had been helped, or how long any kind of help effort would continue. She made no commitment to carrying out the terms of the settlement, but criticized Jetty residents for not having children in
school and inadequate sanitation facilities.

Lindsay herself had refused to send out portapotties, potable water, and/or sewage lines; schools had turned away several children, saying that the Jetty community would be shortly evicted making enrollment pointless. Lindsay also declined to halt the evictions at least until such time as the Board of Supervisors guaranteed adequate funding for a healthier alternative than the Jetty area.

On October 17, a coterie of County officials posed for the press in announcing a $170,000 award from the Waste Management Board to "return the south spit...to its natural state" in a rush demolition/ bulldoing effort that would remove all sign of the 10-year old homeless encampment.

Sharing the limelight were Health Department Director Jeff Arnold, Supervisor Stan Dixon (who prompted the Thompson bill), Environmental Services Director Dennis Kalson, and--inevitably--Ann Lindsay--all instrumentally in the disinformation campaign to oust the homeless. Father Eric Duff estimated that only a few thousand (of the $55,000+ appropriated for "homeless relocation expenses) had made its way directly to the homeless.

Duff noted that attempts to involve civil liberties advocates, environmentalists, earth first headwaters activists, and other liberals in support efforts for the South Spitters were almost entirely unavailing. He had originally called the Hope Coalition and the Green
Party (whose have a majority on the Arcada City Council an hour to the North) to set up a vigil in early September to circumvent the Coastal Conservancy/County blockade/guard gate. None of the liberals responded.

A Green Party member, who insisted on remaining anonymous, said he didn't favor "forced relocation", but acknowledged that neither he nor any other Green he knew of had taken any action to protest or stop it.

He suggested that trust be placed in "the integrity and concern" of County Health Officials like Lindsay and suggested that "encouraging homelessness" (through providing facilities for the South Spit Jetty community) was not a viable ooption.

This Green Party member argued for half an hour on the phone, that County health officials were really acting in the best intersts of the campers, that the health crisis was real, and that oppositional accounts were not to believed. When criticized for Green Party inactivity on the issue, he referred Street Spirit to his boss County Environmental Health Chief Dennis Kalson.

Official zero hour for the homeless campers was Sunday, October 19 at 5 PM. Campers reported that tow only spent 3 hours actually hauling out disabled vehicles that day (or was it Tuesday?). Duff estimates that 20-40 campers defied Lindsay's deadline and stayed on the spit. Camper Jesse Katz said had he left when at the deadline, "scavengers" from Eureka, who arrived in boats afterwards, would have carried out their "clean-up shopping" expeditions, looting the makeshift vehicular homes he and others were pressured to abandon under threat of arrest.

24 hours after the deadline, Amy Martin,a resident of seven months reported she had no plans to move, saying people don't understand what homeless people face trying to join the mainstream: hostile landlords, even banks that don't want their money. "When you say you're from the jetty, it's like a wall goes up. It's really sad. I know of at least five people who are now living in abandoned houses in Eureka."

Duff, apprehensive about the prospects or an armed confrontation (since some residents had declared they would defend their makeshift homes and legal rights with force if necessary) successfully found a mediator, but Lindsay refused to mediate.

Sheriff Dennis Lewis initially insisted he would not evict homeless campers without a clear court order (which was never forthcoming). But after an anonymous threat that a bomb had been placed in one of the towed vans, Lewis's men moved in with shotguns and ATVs on Wednesday, October 22nd. Ironically, the four arrested were not
militant protesters, but 3 men and a woman who hadn't had time to claim all their property and to get their vehicles working.

"They told me I had 20 seconds to get out or go to jail," said Wendell Strouse, who had lived on the spit for five years. Strouse explained he was still there trying to repair his pickup truck. When he was ordered to leave, the Eureka Times-Press account continues, he just had time to grab his and a neighbor's dogs, and jumpinto a car which had nolicense plate, and drive off the sandy peninsula. Attorney Turner was barred from the jetty during the arrests.

At presstime (10/26) Daryl Nazelrod, Jr. was still being held on warrants and Marsha Brantley had a courtdate for "failing to obey a health officer's order."

Attorney Sender wondered why health and evironmental concerns were being focused on the south spit when a decomissioned nuclear power plant and a massive chlorine dump from fifty years of rapacious logging scarred the north jetty.

Two days after the arrests on Friday October 24th, the new Humboldt refugees and their supporters held a demonstration at the Humboldt County courthouse to dramatize and keep alive the injustice perpetrated at the Jetty.

Spit doctor Wendy Ring issued a press statement with four concerns: First Lindsay waited until after the Shigella outbreak to bring in toilets and potable water that would have prevented it. Second that the county signed and then violated the August 19 agreement to provide alternate shelter prior to deporting the residents.

Third that the promised open-ended motel vouchers, for short-term lodging, were only good for a week. Fourth, the promised 3 month camping period on the North Jetty had been reduced to 16 days with a cost of $10/day per campsite, which the county refuses to pay.

Jesse Katz, reached at the Ranchmotel, said "My rent is only paid until the 26th. I was lied to about my pets, vehicle, and possessions being taken care of. "The only respite we had was when we had our lawyer go to get an Injunction. Only ten people that I know of actually got housing."

Emphasizing the bogus brou-haha around toilets and "fecal contamination", Ring and the refugees announced a Restroom Sit-In, baldly termed a Shit-In by more outspoken South Spitters. Demonstrators lined up outside the County Courthouse restrooms and outdoor portapotties, with rolls of toilet paper in hand, and invited passersby to join them. Many did.

The demonstration continued for four hours, involving dozens of people. "Since the board of Supervisors, the County Health Officer, and Judge Buffington are so concerned about where we go to the bathroom, we are sure they will not mind our using their restrooms while we wait for them to come up with an alternative," concluded the demonstraters written handout.

In the wake of the protest, a week's "free" motel rooms and 15 days "free" camping at Samoa Boat Ramp County Park on the north spit of Humboldt Harbor had expanded to facilities until at least the end of the month. Recent arrival and internet reporter Susan Dunn reported those remaining at the hotels and the North Jetty were a fraction of the original community. "Most were just given $20 vouchers and sent on their way."

Still Dunn expressed her belief that solidarity and protest had improved a bad situation. "Even here (in the Ranchhotel), we were not allowed to receive Jetty residents from other hotels until we protested."

There was still discrimination to be overcome. Marsha Brantley reported that nighttime visiting--even of other residents in the Ranchhotel--was forbidden and that former Jetty residents not only had to undergo daily "inspections" by motel personnel, but were required to clean up their rooms themselves.

Through all the stress and tension, the November 1st eviction deadline looms for the South Spit Refugees at the hotels and in the North Jetty. Outside, draped on Susan Dunn's bus, which serves as a makeshift ark for the Jetty residents' animals, hangs a huge cloth banner: "So now where do you want us to go?"