Author Archives: huffsantacruz

Sacramento Nightly Protests Against Homeless-Hating Laws

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NOTES BY NORSE: Santa Cruz’s Freedom Sleepers haven’t been alone in challenging the Sleep Deprivation laws designed to make cities “unwelcome” to poor people forced to sleep outside.  Recently in Sacramento activists have sustained a nightly campaign protesting anti-homeless laws there.  Santa Cruz activists are talking about resuming protests against the anti-homeless Santa Cruz “Sleeping Ban” (MC 6.36.010a) which prohibits sleeping outside in a vehicle, and/or in any non-residential structure when City Council returns from its Xmas vacation on Tuesday January 13th.  Plans are also afoot among HUFF activists to picket the “First Alarm” (more accurately termed “False Alarm”) security thugs hired to scare away homeless folks from sleeping during the day in parks, at City Hall, or near the library.  For more information, come to the Food Not Bombs meal at 4 PM Sunday January 11th in front of the main Post Office downtown, or call HUFF at 831-423-4833.

Homeless demand change in Sacramento’s no camping ordinance

Campers have been outside city hall for more than 20 days

UPDATED 11:49 PM PST Dec 29, 2015

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —Homeless campers have been outside city hall for more than 20 days, demanding the city reverse it’s camping ban. They aren’t using tents but have similar camp paraphernalia, which is illegal.
“It shouldn’t be illegal to be able to just find a safe spot to sleep,” homeless camper Mohammed Abughannan said.
Other than a few cigarette butts and chalk art on the sidewalk, the campers have been keeping the walkways clear.

“We want to let them to know that we’re not here to trash their property,” homeless camper David Sanchez said. “We’re not here to destroy it.
We’re just here to make a statement that in the future, hopefully, that this will all be resolved.”

Sacramento police said they can stay as long as they’re peaceful and keep the walkways clear. The campers said they’re not leaving until the ordinance is changed.
The city issued a statement that reads in part:
“…The Sacramento city council is not inclined to repeal the city’s anti-camping ordinance.”
“Well, then they better be ready for us to maintain our presence here for a lot longer and continue to grow,” organizer James Faygo Clark said.
“It doesn’t look good, but it doesn’t bother me,” Sacramento resident Ginger Greer said. “I mean it’s the city, you have to expect it.”
Resident Joann Sprogis, who walks by city hall every day, disagrees.
“You know, I have to live with the building codes. I don’t know why these people need to be exempt,” Sprogis said.
“It’s good. They’re trying to change some stuff because it does violate their rights, you know, the right to sleep, the right to rest,” Sacramento resident Tyler Cole said. “So, it’s good they’re trying to change that.”
Violating the ordinance is a misdemeanor. So far, there have been no arrests and no citations have been issued.
VIDEO AND COMMENTS AT http://www.kcra.com/news/homeless-demand-change-in-sacramentos-no-camping-ordinance/37187558

Homeless return to Sacramento City Hall under political, legal cloud

Attorney calls city ordinance prohibiting camping unconstitutional, vows lawsuit

UPDATED 7:39 PM PST Jan 03, 2016
 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —More than a dozen homeless people are back at Sacramento City Hall on Sunday, continuing their camping protest despite weekend arrests.
Homeless advocates told KCRA 3 at least four homeless campers were arrested by Sacramento police.
Mohammed Abughannam, who was among those arrested, said the city’s plan is get homeless advocates off the grounds “because we’re an eyesore.”
Abughannam claims he broke his arm while police enforced Sacramento’s anti-camping ordinance.
In a statement to KCRA 3, Sacramento city spokeswoman Linda Tucker said: “The Sacramento Police Department takes any complaints or allegations of injury very seriously and conducts thorough investigations following all allegations. As of today, we have not received any reports or observed serious injuries related to the protests at City Hall. All arrests were digitally recorded up until the arrestee was booked into the Sacramento County Jail.”

Mike Luery/KCRA

The city offered shelter for the campers, but Abughannam said it was not an option for everyone.
“Some people can’t get in because they are susceptible to getting sick. They have anxieties about being around other people,” Abughannam said.
The homeless are supported by civil rights attorney Mark Merin, who won a multimillion settlement from the city several years ago over the confiscation of homeless property.
Merin said he plans to sue the city again for what he calls an unconstitutional anti-camping ordinance.
“It doesn’t make any sense to treat homeless people that way,” Merin said. “We need wiser decisions. We need a more enlightened leadership. And we need the public to come forward and say this is idiotic.”
The homeless protest has now become a hot-button political issue for candidates running for mayor, including Tony Lopez.
Lopez said he supports the city’s enforcement of the no-camping ordinance.
“What they’re doing is actually illegal,” Lopez said. “So the cops have to be cops. Just because you’re homeless doesn’t mean the laws don’t affect you.”
Lopez is not alone. Sacramento Mayor Pro Tem Angelique Ashby, who’s also in the mayoral race, supports the city’s ordinance, calling it an effective tool for outreach to the homeless.
“What we’re really trying to do in Sacramento, I think, is not accept sleeping outside as an acceptable form of living,” Ashby said. “We really want to get people into housing and that requires that we’re able to talk to them.”
Former Senate President Darrell Steinberg, also a candidate, said he has no problem with law enforcement officials doing their job.
“But this all misses the point,” Steinberg said. “The real point is we must have a policy in the city of Sacramento, and our greater region, that puts housing first.”
A fourth candidate for mayor, Russell Rawlings, told KCRA 3 that the city ordinance must be repealed.

On Monday, the state Legislature returns to the state Capitol with a new budget proposal designed to tackle the issue of homelessness statewide.
FOR VIDEO AND COMMENTS GO TO: http://www.kcra.com/news/homeless-return-to-sacramento-city-hall-under-political-legal-cloud/37248182

1 arrested as homeless remain outside Sacramento City Hall

Homeless group continues to protest no camping ordinance

UPDATED 2:12 PM PST Jan 04, 2016SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —One person was arrested Monday morning as homeless protesters remain camped out at Sacramento City Hall after police removed some of them from the area over the weekend.
Lawmakers will introduce an initiative Monday called “No Place Like Home” to tackle the homeless problem throughout the state. The proposed legislation would provide funding for homeless housing statewide.
Some of those who have camped outside City Hall for the last 27 days said help can’t come soon enough.
The Sacramento Police Department told KCRA 3 that more than 40 officers in riot gear removed protesters Saturday, and four people were arrested.
Some homeless went to warming shelters, but most returned hours later.
According to a representative for the homeless group, police were back out at 2:45 a.m. Monday telling protesters they can’t sleep in front of City Hall because it’s considered camping and in violation of a city ordinance.
Former Senate President Darrell Steinberg, who is running for Sacramento mayor, will be at Monday’s planned events in both Sacramento and Los Angeles.
“We must have a policy in the city of Sacramento and in our greater region that puts housing first as the main strategy to seriously reduce homelessness,” Steinberg said.
But not everyone agrees it is the best solution to the problem.
“The fact is services are not existing in a way that take care of people. There are not enough, for one, and they don’t work for people,” said Niki Jones, who is camping out with the group. “They are not culturally competent for people who have experienced trauma. We need to provide
services in a way that can help support people.”

Homeless protesters said they aren’t going anywhere until the no camping ordinance is changed.

FOR VIDEO AND COMMENTS GO TO: http://www.kcra.com/news/1-arrested-as-homeless-remain-outside-sacramento-city-hall/37253358

MORE STORIES AT http://www.capradio.org/news/insight/2016/01/05/insight-010516a/

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Santa Cruz Freedom Sleeper Protests Hit KPFA as Media Coverage Expands

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NOTES BY NORSE:  One of my main concerns about the effectiveness of the Freedom Sleepers is their out-of-the-way location outside a closed City Hall (always at night, and during the Xmas holiday all the time).   Local media attention has been biased or non-existent.  It’s refreshing to read word is spreading, even as activist Toby Nixon and his unhoused comrades brave rain, wind, and cold to keep the protest alive each Tuesday night.  (Tomorrow February 5th will be Freedom Sleep-Out #26).

It’s been my feeling that protests need to be mounted downtown in full public view of merchants and tourists, encouraging shoppers to do a phone-in to City Hall, or a direct boycott, or join CD actions or take up other militant actions of their own to stop the threats to homeless survival in Santa Cruz.   The Xmas and New Year’s season is particularly significant commercially and religiously.   Police can quietly terrorize but generally ignore Freedom Sleepers at City Hall at night, but would find it more difficult to make them invisible during the day on Pacific Avenue.

The recent Public Safety Hysteria has been overseen and orchestrated by the Martin Bernal/Tina Shull/Scott Collins Mangle-the-Mendicants Manager team.  These well-paid unelected officials are at the center of the increasingly militant homeless-hostile Santa Cruz government.   They created the “no homeless RV’s allowed at night” law (goes into effect January 8th), as well as police state police-generated Stay-Away orders from all city parks, greenbelts, and other sleep-at-night-to-survive zones.   The Take Back Santa Cruz, the Harvey West Association, the Downtown Association, Santa Cruz Neighbors, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and the SCPD rhetoric is now the new neo-fascist SantaCruztoosoftonthepoor “normal”.  This language has successfully supplanted the earlier  hypocritical “we’re the most compassionate town around; it’s a national problem; we’re going to end it in 10 years” rhetoric by psuedo-progressives used to reassure university students muddled liberals.

Leave comments at  https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/01/03/18781448.php

Driving Out the Mosquitoes: Making Homelessness Illegal
by Dennis J. Bernstein, Reader Supported News
Sunday Jan 3rd, 2016 6:16 PM

The seaside city of Santa Cruz, California, is one of several municipalities in Northern California that have become home for the herds of bubble up dot-comers rolling the dice in Silicon Valley. From San Francisco to San Jose to Berkeley, and down the coast to Salinas and Monterey, local officials are salivating at the multitude of possibilities for bringing in the tax bucks. And more often than not, these local officials are rolling out their welcome mats for the Silicon set, right over the bodies of the growing numbers of the poor and disinherited in this wealthy nation.

santa-cruz-homeless_franco-folini.jpg
santa-cruz-homeless_franc…


“They’ve actually installed mosquito boxes to drive out the homeless and hungry,” says Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs (Global). “They’ve set up these horrible sound machines that they put under the bridges and in parks that just turn on automatically and drive people out of the areas, because they make you nauseous and give you a terrible headache.”

I spoke to McHenry as he passed out free food in front of the post office in downtown Santa Cruz. McHenry described a situation that is familiar to many advocates for the poor and homeless across the region and across the country. “The poor and growing numbers of the desperately hungry in this city, state, and country are under attack,” said McHenry. “There are new laws just in the last couple of years, and others that have been strengthened, that make it a crime to be poor and hungry.”

McHenry, and more than a dozen other housing and homeless advocates interviewed for this article, expressed alarm at the expanding attempts by state governments and local municipalities to criminalize the homeless by passing harsh laws and local ordinances that make it unbearable and downright dangerous to live on the street.

“Now they’ve got these new ‘stay-away orders’ here in Santa Cruz,” said McHenry, “and city employees can just ban you from parks for up to half a year at a time. And you can end up getting a year’s sentence if you violate these stay-away orders. They treat the homeless and hungry like they’re pigeons, or some kind of vermin that can just be driven away. Their human rights are being totally violated.”

Osha Newman is a civil rights attorney who represents the homeless in Berkeley, Oakland, and Richmond, California. Newman said he is extremely troubled by this new stepped-up brutality against the homeless in the East Bay. “It’s an everyday, daily routine,” said Newman in a December interview. “The cops kicking and punching and prodding the homeless, even as they sleep. Beating them awake. It’s outrageous. Now Mayor [Tom] Bates and his anti-homeless supporters have succeeded in passing a new batch of draconian laws against the homeless, including one saying that you cannot have belongings that take up more than two square feet on the sidewalk. Can you fit your life’s belongings in two square feet?” he asks.

Down the coast from Santa Cruz in Salinas, California, the homeless have been dealt with in a most brutal and destructive fashion, according to legal proceedings filed in federal court. After being ignored and disregarded “like so much trash,” a group of the homeless organized their own self-governed village, “Tents by the Garden,” complete with working toilet facilities.

“In 2012, me and the rest of the homeless community out here in Salinas started Tents by the Garden,” said Rita Acosta, one of the founders of the homeless community, who is now the lead plaintiff in a federal court action against the city of Salinas for illegal seizure and destruction of personal property under the 14th and 4th amendment.

“We had like 28 people in Tents by the Garden that was all into it altogether,” said Acosta in a phone interview at the end of December. “We also started a PHSH program (Public Hygiene to Stay Human), and we got porta-potties on our camping area. But then the city had a sweep here in January 2013 and they moved us all out, closed off our area, and put up gates. Now they complain about the streets being all unorganized. We were organized. They closed our area down and put us on the sidewalk. So now they’re complaining about it. This is their mess. They’re the ones who made it. They need to clean it up. If it was up to us, it wouldn’t be like this, because we had it more organized.”

Anthony Prince is one of the lead attorneys on the case being brought by Acosta and the homeless of Salinas. Prince said his clients have filed for a preliminary injunction against the city that challenges the constitutionality of the city’s policy and practice of seizing and destroying property that belongs to homeless people. “As you may know, under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, people have a right, a property interest which cannot be breached without due process. The government cannot seize property, personal property, without notice and opportunity to be heard. Those are the two essential elements of due process.”

The Salinas legal battle centers around a new city ordinance adopted in October. The city codified its brutal, forced-dispersal policies with a new ordinance that allows the city to seize and destroy property of the homeless, almost at will. Salinas City Ordinance 2564 authorizes the city to confiscate and destroy “bulky items” as well as items that are deemed to be “dirty,” “soiled,” “damaged,” or “broken.”

Prince asserts that 2564 is indeed unconstitutional and in flagrant violation of the recent Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Lavan v. City of Los Angeles. In affirming a preliminary injunction, the Ninth Circuit held that because homeless persons’ unabandoned possessions are “property” within the meaning of the Fourteenth and Fourth Amendments, a city must comply with the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, and the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable seizures, if it wishes to take or destroy those possessions.

According to the amended suit filed on December 22, 2015, the homeless plaintiffs assert that “The City of Salinas has adopted and begun to implement a municipal ordinance that run roughshod over these constitutional rights and threatens the homeless residents of Salinas with grievous and irreparable harm.”

The homeless were in federal court just a few days after a pair of homeless men died of exposure in the nearby city of Monterey. The two men were discovered huddled together without tent or blankets, and with only minimal clothing to protect them from the elements. “By allowing the city to seize essential property, like blankets, clothing, and tents, Salinas’s Ordinance could put the lives of members of the homeless community at risk.” said Prince. “We are determined not to see that happen here.”

“In past sweeps I have had my possessions – my tent, bedding, clothes, blankets, food stamps, identification, birth certificate, family photographs, and important legal documents – taken from me and thrown away,” said Acosta, a longtime resident of Salinas who is now homeless. She talked freely about the daily violence of poverty, enhanced by the brutality of official policy. “Well, it’s a lot rougher for us now that we’re back sleeping on the sidewalks,” she said. “Some of the tents are out toward the streets. We’ve actually had cars hit people’s tents and stuff like that. And I, myself, I had somebody reverse their van into my tent because they thought they were in drive, and they reversed all they way into the tent and pushed me all the way into the back. So it’s scary. It’s dangerous. It was a lot more safe when we had our own area.”

In an August 2015 directive on the subject, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness warned that “the forced dispersal of people from encampment settings is not an appropriate solution or strategy.”

Dumpster Diving for Survival

“Now the police department comes out here with the city,” Acosta continued. “They start around 8 o’clock. They just start from one end of the street until they make their way all the way around it. They tell us ‘you guys should have been ready, getting your things out.’ But how can we be ready with our things out when we don’t have any place to take our things? So it makes it a little bit difficult. Whatever we can’t take with us they have like a bulldozer thing that just comes in and scoops everything up and puts it straight into the trash … straight into the garbage can. They don’t ask or anything – they just take it. They just tell us, ‘We gave you enough time to take your things out.’ Out? To where?” asks Acosta. “There is no where else to go.”

Acosta makes the point that many homeless people still work, but find it more and more difficult to keep their jobs and their lives in order because of these new laws being imposed on the homeless. “In the Sherwood Park area,” she said, “there was this young man, he works. So when they were throwing his stuff away, he was yelling ‘Hey, hey that’s my … you’ve got my work stuff in there.’ And he actually jumped into the dumpster, into the big trashcan, to get his stuff out. No sooner than he jumped out, another big ol’ load came and almost crushed him. He was actually lucky he jumped out when he did. When you ain’t got nothing they just want to take more from you,” Acosta reflected.

In Berkeley, poor people’s attorney Osha Newman tells a story similar to Rita Acosta’s: The homeless, tired of being ignored and disrespected, founded their own community in Albany, between Berkeley and Richmond, on a piece of land known as the Albany Bulb that juts out into the bay. “There was a whole community of people living out on the Albany Bulb taking care of themselves,” Newman lamented, “not taking a penny from the government, asking nothing from the city but to be left alone, [and] those 60 or so people, they were evicted, with nothing. Kicked out of Albany and into Berkeley, where they have been kicked around ever since.”

Back in Santa Cruz, as the free food is being dished out by homeless volunteers, who also made it, Keith McHenry tells me that major cuts were made to the homeless services center, based on cutbacks by the Feds. “They shut down emergency services,” he said, “so the meals for hundreds and hundreds of people in early July, late June, disappeared. The showers disappeared, the mail service for a while disappeared … but came back, although at a much more limited level. And then around 50 employees were fired, who were dealing with the homeless service. It ended up being a total crisis. Two people living at the shelter, when they got their eviction notices, ended up getting hit by cars and killed. The local homeless people said that they were basically depressed and freaked out and didn’t want to go back out on the streets. One case was of a middle-aged woman who got hit by a car,” said McHenry. “I don’t think that case has been solved; it was a hit and run. And so there’s been such tension in the homeless community in Santa Cruz. Many of these people actually owned homes in Santa Cruz, but during the housing foreclosure crisis, folks lost their own places or they were renters that lost their places because their landlords were foreclosed on.”

According to a recent report from the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, 21.8 percent of the nation’s children and 15 percent of the population overall are poor and often hungry. Despite the growing needs of so many people, the Feds continue to cut vital services and assistance meant to help the most at risk among us. “Added to this,” said Jennifer Jones, the Executive Director of the FPWA, “are the funding cuts for meals for home-bound seniors, vocational training programs for those who’ve lost their jobs, food for low income families, and the list goes on. At a time when our nation needs to protect people from continued and increasing hardship, and support economic growth, the Federal government has imposed sequestration cuts and proposes further budget cuts that take us backwards.”

“It’s also now become illegal to feed the hungry,” asserts McHenry, who has been arrested many times, once on Christmas Eve in a Santa outfit, for giving out free food. “Santa was tossed into the police wagon and the food was tossed in the garbage by the cops, while dozens of hungry people looked on,” said McHenry. “They are making laws across the United States against feeding people outside, in city parks … Their new strategy is to make it so hard for you to get the permits to feed people, and limiting it to just a small amount of time.”

“It’s not illegal to be homeless in the United States,” said Anthony Prince, “but what we see increasingly is an effort to criminalize the status of being homeless. As you may know, it is against American jurisprudence to criminalize a person or a sub-class of people based on their status, but that is exactly what the new laws do.”



Photo: Homeless veterans at sunset on the outskirts of Santa Cruz. (credit: Franco Folini)

Dennis J. Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints, syndicated on Pacifica Radio, and is the recipient of a 2015 Pillar Award for his work as a journalist whistleblower. He is most recently the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.


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 Reader Supported News
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Berkeley Speakers May Join Freedom Sleepers for SleepOut #26 in Santa Cruz Tuesday Night

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Title: Braving the Downpour: Freedom SleepOut #26 Seeks Shelter
START DATE: 1/5/2016
TIME: 6:00 PM – 6:00 AM
Location Details:
Next to the City Council chambers at 809 Center St. and under the eaves of the nearby offices
Event Type: No type given
Contact Name Toby Nixon (posted by Norse)
Email Address tobynixon [at] gms.com
Phone Number 408-582-4152
Address
BERKELEY SPEAKERS MAY JOIN SANTA CRUZ PROTEST
Homeless Advocacy and Action Coalition activist Toby Nixon will continue the weekly Freedom SleepOut’s in front of Santa Cruz City Hall. He has invited Berkeley activists to join the protest this Tuesday.

Berkeley’s City Council recently passed anti-homeless laws (see “Letter to Berkeley: You Are Being Scammed by Your City Council.” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/11/25/18780349.php).

In response community supporters of the unhoused (both those living outside and those sleeping indoors) formed Liberty City outside Berkeley’s City Hall for two weeks until driven away by armed police. (See Carol Denney’s satirical treatment of the fencing off of the area on p. 1 of the January issue of the Pepper Spray Times at http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/pdfs/pst-01-01-16.pdf ).

Berkeley activists familiar with this controversy have agreed to speak on the issue of Urban Shield–a police-bolstering program that they say is being used to terrorize homeless folks in Berkeley. The event is scheduled for 6 PM in front of the City Hall chambers.

BAD WEATHER REQUIRES STRONG ACTION
With rains slated throughout the week, Toby has put out a call for tents, tarps, blankets, cups, and bowls as well as other forms of support (food, hot drinks, video/audio,).

Folks will be sheltering themselves under the eaves of the City Hall buildings. At 10 PM, when that activity becomes “illegal”, protest participants will decide where to go to stay dry and warm.

MAYOR MATHEWS’ MEAN MENU
Mayor Cynthia Mathews declined to support opening empty public buildings, even simple warming centers staffed by volunteers. Other nearby cities such as San Jose have not only opened warming centers, but are discussing supporting actual encampments in the face of predicted harsh El Nino winter weather.

Mathews earned notoriety in 2009 for her costly attacks on Calvary Episcopal pastor Joel Miller for his once-a-week meal program at the Red Church. The Monday evening meal–which Miller still provides–happens across from property Mathews owns between the Nickelodeon and Jack’s Hamburgers on Lincoln St.

Her campaign to defrock Pastor Miller cost him tens of thousands of dollars, but was ultimately turned back. See “Cynthia Mathews–Scrooge for the Season” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/24/18667496.php

She has been a leading voice in pushing anti-homeless actions ranging from Move-Along laws, Permit-Only parking, support for the anti-homeless Sleeping Ban, police-initiated Stay-Away orders, and the latest “no parking for homeless RV’s” law passed this fall.

LANE’S LAW CHANGES MAY SEE LIGHT OF DAY SOON
Councilmember Don Lane’s proposed removal of some sections of the Sleeping Ban from the Camping Ordinance are slated to be unveiled Monday January 4th, according to privileged insiders who were graced with an audience last week.

These reportedly include excluding sleeping at night on public property, under a structure, or under a blanket–unless you’re in your car when it may remain “illegal”.

Lane’s initial discussion of this issue began in October at http://www.facebook.com/Don.Lane.SC/posts/1039891709365296 . He has made no further public pronouncements since.

RELATED STORIES
“Homeless Activists Maintain Protests, Continue to Sleep at Santa Cruz City Hall” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/01/02/18781397.php
“Cold Sidewalk & Warm Spirits: Freedom SleepOut #25” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/12/28/18781280.php
“Driving Out the Mosquitoes: Making Homelessness Illegal” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/01/03/18781448.php
“Council Member Cynthia Chase Refuses Dialogue on Homeless Voting Record” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/01/02/18781386.php

Toby Nixon’s Homeless Advocacy and Action Coalition facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/Hoacad/?fref=ts .

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Sunday Show Will Cover Debate on “Diversity of Tactics” and “the Black Block Tactic” vs. “Strict Non-Violence”

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Today’s Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides show is 4 1/2 hours long starting around 9:30 AM on 101.1 FM and www.freakradio.org . It will archive later at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb160103.mp3.

Featured: interviews from Freedom SleepOut #25 last Tuesday, a replay of Chris Hedges demanding dogmatic non-violence, an earlier lengthy exchange in the aftermath of protests in Vancouver, B.C. and  a Berkeley update from activist Carol Denney. 

HUFF still slurpin’ coffee Wednesday morning 12-30 11 AM at ye olde Sub Rosa Cafe

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On the HUFF horizon:  DIY New Year’s Eve parade and promenade Friday evening; reinvigorating demands for SCPD reform in Santa Cruz in the wake of mainstream media reports of police/prosecution/mayoral murder and cover-up in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Minneapolis, Chicago, Ohio, and Missouri; Warming Center Whiplash: Alternatives to Hypothermia when no Program is in Place; Report from Freedom SleepOut #25…and, of course, more than you want and less than you hoped for…

Conscience Against the Cold–Freedom SleepOut #25 in Santa Cruz

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https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/12/28/18781280.php

Title: Cold Sidewalk & Warm Spirits: Freedom SleepOut #25
START DATE: Tuesday December 29
TIME: 7:00 PM – 7:00 AM
Location Details:
On that cold hard sidewalk in front of City Hall across from the Main Library and whereever else nearby that people can shield themselves from the cold winds of night (temperatures expected to drop to 35 degrees),
Event Type: Protest
Contact Name Toby Nixon
Email Address tobynixon [at] gms.com
Phone Number 408 582 4152
Address
ANOTHER NIGHT IN THE COLD
Continuing an unbroken chain of protest sleep-out’s against Santa Cruz’s “cruel and unusual punishment law” for being poor, visible, and asleep: MC 6.36.010a.

The Sleeping Ban which bans sleeping on any public property, in any structure that’s not a residence, in any vehicle on public property within Santa Cruz City limits.

The $158 fine is usually unpaid by homeless people, who are almost the only ones who get cited. Unpaid citations result in an additional $300 Failure to Pay fine, which is then sent to “Collections” and can impact driver’s license, child support, credit, and other necessities.

Hundreds of such tickets have been written this year. Though in response to the weekly Freedom Sleeper protests, police seem to be using other ordinances to accomplish the same expulsion of the poor objective.

RADIO SHOW DISCUSSION
Free Radio Santa Cruz talkshow host John Malkin will be doing a guest hosting KZSC (88.1 FM) Wednesday night on John Sandidge’s Talkabout show where the 7-7:45 PM topic will be the Sleeping Ban. Call-in at 831-459-4036.

STRATEGY MEETING
Freedom Sleepers will have a preprotest public meeting on the sidewalk outside City Hall at 809 Center St. (On Center between Church and Walnut) at 4 PM before the Tuesday protest. Alternate strategies involving flooding the offices of abusive City departments may be the focus of daytime demos.

SLEEPING BAN REFORM?
Former mayor Don Lane will reportedly be announcing language to amend the Sleeping Ban on January 4th. Preliminary reports suggest that amnesty, reparations, and the right to sleep in one’s legally parked vehicle will not be a part of the reform.

CALL ‘EM UP AND DRESS ‘EM DOWN!
Contact Councilmembers to demand changes:
420-5023: David Terrazas
420-5022: Don Lane
420-5024: Pamela Comstock
420-5025: Richelle Niroyan
420-5026: Cynthia Chase
420-5027: Mayor Cynthia Mathews
420-5028: Micah Posner

Each of the Gang of 7 can be contacted by e-mail; first letter of their name, full last name, followed by cityofsantacruz.com (e.g. dterrazas [at] cityofsantacruz.com )

The whole City Council can be reached at citycouncil [at] cityofsantacruz.com .

BULLIES BOW TO THE BROWN ACT: NEW DISPLAY ON SIDEWALK
In an earlier (2010) move to crush homeless protest, the City “closed” City Hall grounds after 10 PM. Police repeatedly gave unconstitutional citations for this “offense” in the last six months, which some of us are challenging in court.

City bosses have recently apparently acknowledged that excluding people from the posted agendas outside the City Council chambers is a violation of the Brown Act. This Public Meetings law requires that agendas be accessible 24 hours per day for a period of 72-hours before each meeting. A new display has been constructed on the sidewalk across from the Civic Auditorium which is accessible 24 hours a day.

City Manager Martin Bernal was advised of this fact back in August, but responded with klieg lights, parking bans and increased First Alarm Security thuggery. See “Silence from the City Manager on the Eve of the 11th Freedom Sleepers Protest” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/09/22/18777951.php

He and the City Council as well as City Attorney Anthony Condotti violated the law again on December 15th by holding a closed dinner with all 7 Council members and their friends which we protested. See “Freedom Sleepers Confront City Council at el Palomar” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/12/09/18780826.php.

ADDITIONAL INFO AND RESOURCES
Bring your own warm clothing. Donations of food, clothing, tents, blankets, and sleeping bags are welcome. Even brief visits can cheer the hearts of the Freedom Sleepers–who are now almost entirely unhoused–the earlier housed activists having retreated indoors for the winter.

Toby Nixon will be livestreaming some of the event. More info about his Homeless Advocacy and Action Coalition (HAAC) at http://www.facebook.com/Hoacad/?fref=photo .

If you have video, cameras, or audio devices–they can be useful for keeping the armed and uniformed Sleepbusters aware they are being watched.

Brent Adams’ Warming Center Project will be open the night of the protest. See http://www.facebook.com/warmingcenter/ .

This posting was written by Robert Norse. I encourage any additions or corrections.

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Coming Up on Sunday’s Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides

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 Part 2 of Tristia Baumann (National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty) phone interview;  Berkeley Peace and Justice Commissioner George Lippman; Interviews before and during Freedom SleepOut #24 last Tuesday with Crow, Red, Nico, Toby, Joey, Andrew, Laura, Lawrence, Abbi, and Elijah..songs swiped from Uncle Bansai’s Myn Ynd Wymyn.


Tune in at 9:30 at 101.3 FM or dial up freakradio.org on your computer.   Or check out the archive at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb151227.mp3 in a day or two.

 

HUFFsters & Freedom Sleeper Supporters:  I’m resending a slightly updated version of an earlier e-mail which initially had the wrong web address to hear the 12-13 Forum featuring Aguirre, McHenry, and Baumann.  The correct address ishttp://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb151220.mp3 (2 hours and 13 minutes into the file).      The link for the Community TV show featuring me, Aguirre, Baumann, and Pleich can be found below.

Tuesday’s Freedom Sleep-Out 25 is still slated for 7 PM and on into the evening, with an earlier meeting for those who want to attend at 5:30 PM at the Red Church (Calvary Episcopal in one of the side buildings).

D.C. Attorney Tristia Bauman of National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty on Free Radio today 6:30 PM 12-24

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Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides, the twice-weekly homeless civil rights show will be playing the first half of a phone interview with NLCHP Senior attorney Tristia Bauman on the national (and local) fight to restore civil rights to folks outside.

Part one of the interview is scheduled for 6:30 PM, part two for 10 AM on Sunday 12-27.

Also on the show:  a report from the Homeless Memorial Reading of the Names of the Dead, reactions to the Santa Cruz Scent-Anal’s smearjob on the Freedom Sleepers protests, and some audio from Freedom SleepOut #24 last Tuesday 12-22.

Tune into 101.3 FM or www.freakradio.org.   Or hear the archive later at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb151224.mp3 .

Phone in to leave comments and/or questions that will be broadcast and/or answered later at 831-423-4833.   Or e-mail Robert Norse at rnorse3@hotmail.com .

HUFF Shouts Humbug at City Council’s Xmas Chilly Cheer 11 AM 12-23 Sub rosa Cafe

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Any chance to make the City Council Sinners Repent?      Not likely.    Legal Leapabout:    Attorney Judi Bari may be up for helping follow up on illegal seizures of homeless property;  a review of the year’s abuses and victories.  Reports of violence attacks on the homeless.     The latest chapter on the Lane-Posner “real soon we’ll put the Sleeping Ban on the agenda”.   Xmas treats.