HUFF now has meetings every other week at the same time and place, but can be contacted whenever at 831-423-HUFF.
There are no City Council meetings (for those interested in such things) until the second Tuesday in January.
The Annual “Homeless Memorial” will be held as usual at the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center at 115 Coral St. at 10 AM on Wednesday 12-20-17. The general public (even the general homeless!) are actually allowed in past the security guard kiosk, the gates, and presumably without ID cards. Just don’t try to get a meal there (showers are OK, not sure how about how much bureaucratic tape is required to use the bathroom).
So far no new storage program has been started (or even proposed) by the City after it withdrew its support for Brent Adams program, due to open on December 1st. Funding and land was abruptly withdrawn, reportedly because of Adams occasional candor around the insufficiency of current overfunded and servicelight programs.
San Lorenzo Campground continues as a survival campground, though shrunken in size with the eviction/deportation/dispersal date apparently delayed.
HUFF is seeking volunteers to help cull through infraction citations for the last six months from the ranges and cops to check on whether Chief Mills’ officers have stopped enforcement of the Sleeping Ban at night on public property. Volunteers step forward to help–and call 831-423-4833.
Please report conditions in San Lorenzo Park, downtown, the neighborhoods, and the parks where numerous nightly encampments have grown. If you live there, consider establishing contact with HUFF at 831-423-4833 on a regular basis to provide updates for the radio show Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides (Sundays 9:30 AM- 2:30 PM, Thursdays 6-8 PM at 101.3 FM and freakradio.org). Fences are going up in Star of the Sea and Laurel St. parks, without significant input or approval from the Laurel St. community, anyway.
The Sleeping Ban City Council’s current toleration of San Lorenzo survival activity should not be mistaken for fair and equal treatment of unhoused people in public spaces generally. The restrictive laws include Stay-Away’s, single vehicle parking, overnight (and in some areas 24-hour) parking bans, new fences around parks at night, abusive enforcement of Downtown Ordinances on Pacific as well as heavy and selective enforcement of the “no smoking” ordinances.
The real reason limited camper toleration is here is police enforcement is an impossibility. Both in terms of economics and real-life-consequences, the plan to drive homeless folks out of sight and out of town just doesn’t work. As services are cut back or require “a path to housing” (vouchers, checks), folks appear on the streets, next to buildings, etc. Tickets in the Pogonip, along the tracks, and in the parks has caused a migration to residential neighborhoods—causing a flurry of quacking and cawing by enraged bourgeois residents. Police Chief Andy Mills, ever sensitive to the concerns of Downtown merchants and NIMBY residents, has triaged police services by the San Lorenzo campground coup.
The San Diego ACLU (local ACLU take note!) has failed a lawsuit against anti-homeless deportation policies down there. See http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/sd-me-homeless-lawsuit-20171116-story.html .