Agenda Options: More support work for the Survival Sleepers that may return to City Hall tonight; PR Support for Freedom Sleep-Out #100 Coming Up Tuesday June 6th; Parsing the City Manager’s Public Records Response to the New Anti-First Amendment Signs at City Hall; Salinas Victory–Activist Wes White Opens a Chinatown Shelter; Exposing The Phony “Resources” List Being Given Out by Police to Justify Creating More Homeless Refugees Downtown; and coffee to boot! Activist “Laughing” Laura Tucker will be maintaining humorous order at the meeting.
Monthly Archives: May 2017
Many An Interview With the Dwindling Number of Survival Sleepers at City Hall; a 1990 Sleeping Ban Trial; and even more today 9:30 AM on Free Radio Santa Cruz at 101.3 FM
Contact 831-423-4833 to volunteer different kinds of support for the remaining Survival Sleepers at City Hall or to back Freedom SleepOut #99 coming up Tuesday May 30th.
Leave your comments and questions at the same number. $500 reward for any info leading to Free Radio’s finding a 10′ X 10′ studio space to rent in Santa Cruz.
Today’s show also streams at www.freakradio.org and archives at http://radiolibre.org/brb/
More from the City Hall Survival Sleepers at 101.3 FM freakradio.org today 6-8 PM 5-25
Contact Keith and Abbi at 575-770-3377 to provide immediate support for the Survival Sleepers–now facing a round-the-clock attack, designed to drive them from City Hall. Rent Control, City Council Gab, Personal Accounts, and more…
Leave your comments and questions at 831-423-4833.
The show also streams at www.freakradio.organd archives at http://radiolibre.org/brb/
Bad Times in Budgetland: HUFF Quaffs Coffee and Comments 11 AM Today (5-24) at the olde Sub Rosa (703 Pacific, as ever)
HUFF Agenda Prospects: Whence the UCSC/Renters/Unhoused Alliance?…Promising Persistence of the Survival Sleepers Bernalville…RV Updates from Around the State…Camping Ticket DIY Defense…and a look forward at the summer. Come and chat.
Free Radio’s 9:30 AM -2:30 PM Show Today features Survival Sleepers Still Surviving the Expanded Forbidden Zones, Robert Whitaker on Need to Revamp the Psychiatric Model, and Interviews Galore ! 101.3 FM
Contact Keith and Abbi at 575-770-3377 to provide immediate support for the Survival Sleepers–now facing a round-the-clock attack, designed to drive them at the Freedom Sleepers from City Hall. The Sleepers and Food not Bombs supporters have responded by setting up a Storage table in the forbidden zone to tag and monitor homeless property to protect it from Parks and Rec Ranger Seizure. Volunteer a shift during the day!
Leave your comments and questions at 831-423-4833.
The show also streams at www.freakradio.organd archives at http://radiolibre.org/brb/
FightBack against City Manager’s Anti-Homeless Signs at City Hall
Throughout the past week, unhoused folks, who some call the Survival Sleepers, have defied the latest drive-em-out edicts of City Manager Martin Bernal. Other activists are planning protests at City Council next Tuesday. Bernal has refused to answer simple questions about his newly posted signs. Mayor Chase in a recent interview refused to put the issue on the May 23rd Agenda for Public Discussion and Vote.
[ Photo by Abbi Samuels. Items labeled as “Personal Survival Property” at Santa Cruz City Hall. ]
DARKER SIGNS OF THE TIMES
In his latest attack on peaceful protesters and unhoused folks. the powerful City Manager Martin (pronounced Mar-TEEN) Bernal has made sitting, lying, and setting down one’s property on the courtyard outside City Hall a $250 crime. Their mere presence there on the weekends or outside office hours can result in a similar fine. The new green signs went up eight days ago. According to some homeless folks, City law enforcement teams have even been (llegally) insisting that being on the sidewalk in front of City Hall is a crime. See https://www.facebook.com/
“Survival sleepers”, a group increased with numerous elderly and disabled men and women refugees from the closed Winter Shelter program–have been sleeping on the edges of City Hall for nearly two months now. “Bums Begone!” Bernal locked the previously-open City Hall bathrooms and then used complaints of poo poo and pee pee found on the grounds to justify a “no trespass” order. The City hall has been traditionally public space, not to mention the center of government where folks thought they had a First Amendment right to gather peacefully to seek a redress of grievances.
Bernal’s latest “bumbuster” ban is only one of a long series of anti-homeless measures at City Hall. See “5 Citations and New “No Trespassing” Zone Closes City Hall Grounds at Night 10 PM to 6 AM” at https://www.indybay.org/
DISPERSE THE DISABLED !
The population of folks staying there overnight have been driven out of other areas where the act of sitting and lying down, day and night, is frequently treated as a crime. Many of these folks are elderly and disabled–with no emergency shelter, no nighttime bathrooms, spotty daytime meals, and shrunken services. Santa Cruz’s unsheltered population (the City alone) is 1000-2000.
The overwhelming majority don’t even have temporary shelter under recent “Smart Solutions” and “compassion fatigue” that seek to make Santa Cruz “less welcome”. The Homeless (Lack of) Services Center [HLOSC], for instance, discontinued emergency services 2 years ago (such as shelter and food) under the grant-grabbing a “Pathway to Housing” requirement. The HLOSC now looks like a low-intensity prison camp with gates, fences, security patrols, ID cards, and a “move along” attitude.
SUCCESSFUL FREEDOM SLEEPER MOVEMENT
The two-year long Freedom Sleeper campaign to end the City’s 11 PM to 8:30 AM anti-homeless Sleeping Ban has pressured the City into abandoning MC 6.36.010a tickets for sleep at least in front of the sidewalks at City Hall on Tuesday nights when they gathered in small but persistent numbers.
With police driving away unhoused folks from the protective corridors outside City Hall into the rain and wind over the last month, the Survivor Sleepers have taken to the sidewalks as well.
Crackdown at the City Council Sidewalk and Interview with Mayor Chase 6 – 8 PM Free Radio 5-18 (tonight!) at 101.3 FM; At City Hall: Emergency Defense Meeting at 6 PM for Freedom & Survival Sleepers
If you can’t make it to the Emergency Meeting today at 6 PM, Contact Keith and Abbi at 575-770-3377 to provide immediate support for the Survival Sleepers–now facing a round-the-clock attack, designed to drive them at the Freedom Sleepers from City Hall and expand “no homeless” zones outside the library and elsewhere in the city.
Leave your comments and questions at 831-423-4833.
Tonight’s show also streams at www.freakradio.organd archives at http://radiolibre.org/brb/
If you missed the Sunday show, it ran too long for the normal archive (http://radiolibre.org/brb/
Let there be HUfF! Tomorrow Wednesday 5-17 11 AM-12:30 PM at the Sub Rosa Cafe
On the Agenda: City Manager Martin Bernal’s Latest Sign Posting Survival Sleeper Smashdown…Report Back from the Mayor Chase Meeting…Upcoming May 23rd Protest Plans (Sleeping Bags in City Council?)…the Marysville and Salinas Reports…Further Support for the Survival Sleepers at City Hall…plus whatever walks in the door…
Smothering the Survival Sleepers in Santa Cruz, Salinas Chinatown Activists Challenge a Supervisor, Marysville’s Brian Heads for Court, and More from the May 9th “No Penalty for Povery Rally” on Free Radio Tomorrow 5-14 9:30 AM 101.3 FM
Contact Keith and Abbi at 575-770-3377 to provide immediate support for the Survival Sleepers–now facing a round-the-clock attack, designed to drive them at the Freedom Sleepers from City Hall and expand “no homeless” zones outside the library and possibly elsewhere in the city.
Leave your comments and questions at 831-423-4833.
The show also streams at www.freakradio.organd archives at http://radiolibre.org/brb/
Emergency Freedom Sleepers Sleep Out Tonight
DateFriday May 12
Time6:00 PM – 6:00 AM
Location Details 809 Center St. City Hall Courtyard and Sidewalk along Center St
Event Type Protest
Organizer/Author Keith McHenry (posting by Norse)
Email keith [at] foodnotbombs.net
Phone 575-770–3377
PLEASE ATTEND !
The City Manager, Martín Bernal made a number of policy changes that will have an impact on those without housing all across Santa Cruz, the Freedom Sleepers and the Survival Sleepers at City Hall.
The City of Santa Cruz has made it illegal to be at City Hall from 6:00 PM to 7:00 AM Monday through Friday and has closed all of the City Hall grounds on Saturday and Sunday. The signs posted this morning also ban amplified sound without a permit, personal property on sidewalks, walls or pathways, bicycles or sitting, lying on sidewalks, walls, pathways or courtyard areas. There are reports that these policies will be enforced at a number of other city buildings in Santa Cruz.
Library staff have also reported that City Manager, Martín Bernal will be removing the benches outside the library and stationing two or more police officers at City Hall.
The Freedom Sleepers campaign inspired an attempt by Councilpersons Don Lane and Micah Posner to seek a change in the camping ban in March 2016 to make it legal to sleep outside, ending the law that made it a crime to sleep outside or in a vehicle from 11:00 PM to 8:30 AM.
Their proposed change failed to gain enough votes. In response to pressure from the Freedom Sleepers the council did create a Homelessness Coordinating Committee whose report was introduced at the May 9, 2017 City Council meeting.
Local unhoused people started their own nightly protest at City Hall the night after the Winter Shelter closed who are referred to as the Survival Sleepers.
Signs stating that it is illegal to participate in the activities of the protest were posted this morning at City Hall. More signs restricting the homeless were placed at the Downtown Library this afternoon.
To see the new posted restrictions go to https://www.facebook.com/
PLEASE JOIN US WITH VIDEO AND AUDIO EVEN IF YOU CAN’T STAY THE NIGHT!
Please contact Keith McHenry at 575-770-3377