Fresno’s Third Day of Destruction Against Homeless Encampments

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NOTES BY NORSE:  Fresno activists provide portapotty facilities and trash pick-up’s for the surviving homeless encampments, and document the City’s destructive activities–as shown below.  They have also prompted renewed ACLU legal activity to require the City to live up to the “store, don’t destroy homeless property” order of the $2.3 million Kinkaid settlement of 2007.   Santa Cruz, by contrast, has no 24-hour bathroom, and its only concession to homeless (and indeed broader public) health and safety is to spend $15,000 on a segregated fenced-off portapotty (still projected with no actual facility yet set-up) on the San Lorenzo levee.   The cost of renting a portapotty is $100 per month.   Instead of using thr $15,000 to keep open bathrooms already there in San Lorenzo Park and the parking garages, Santa Cruz city council homeless-degraders are spending three times that amount to set up a “Security Gate” at the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center at Coral St.
Also on the Council’s “harry the homeless” agenda today are measures severely reducing the public space available for street vendors, street artists, sparechangers, street performers, and political activists downtown plus further anti-smoking laws targeting homeless smoker–see “Shafting Non-Shoppers: Expanding the Destructive Downtown Ordinances” at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/09/18742960.php?show_comments=1#18742963

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/09/18742970.php

Central Valley | Health, Housing, and Public Services

The City of Fresno Destroyed the Only Shelter these Homeless People had
by Mike Rhodes ( editor [at] fresnoalliance.com )
Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

These photos are from week 3 of the City of Fresno’s demolition of homeless encampments in the downtown area. Photo below: City of Fresno workers destroy a homeless shelter on San Benito, near H street.

While city officials claim to be on the verge of bankruptcy they did manage to find enough money to destroy the only shelter hundreds of homeless people had. The city would not help by providing drinking water, portable toilets or trash bins, but they were out in force to bulldoze tents, tarps, and wood structures built by the homeless in downtown Fresno.

§Brown Beret member Hashid Kasama observed the demolition

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

§Typical street scene today on H street

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

§Photo 6

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

Another example of homeless people using creative modes of transportation to escape the demolition

§Most people used shopping carts to move their property

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

§Some people just had too much stuff to move

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

§Josh and Martha take a short break from packing

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

§Tearing into a shelter with a bulldozer

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

§Homeless people tried to save anything of value

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

§Dignity in the midst of chaos

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

§Rounding up the homeless dogs

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

§This is just one of many dogs that were taken by the SPCA

by Mike Rhodes Monday Sep 9th, 2013 2:15 PM

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