Recent interviews with Berkeley activist Cornerstone Carol Denney, Santa Barbara’s ‘Nuff Said Nancy McCradie, and Downtown Dirtdemolisher Danny on the likely death of the 24-hour bathroom on Soquel Ave, a look back at Freedom Sleepout #12 on September 30 last year, & and a far flash-back to June 1996 when Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides was broadcast “from jail”. I spent a month in lock-up for feeding folks food in San Francisco with Food Not Bombs.
The show will air at 9:30 AM Sunday 1-17 at 101.3 FM and stream at freakradio.org . You can also catch it later archived at
Tune in Thursday, 6-8 PM at 101.3 FM or go to www.freakradio.org. for the mix of new and old.
An update on the Tuesday 1-12-16 City Council meeting and a flash back to March 28, 1999. We’ll be replaying: Interview with a Miami ACLU attorney on the Pottinger decision in Florida that set up Safe Sleeping Zones for unhoused folks in Miami, Florida, activist David Silva struggling to change the Sleeping Ban with “Don’t Sleep Tonight Night” and other protests–in the aftermath of the failure of a drive to end the Sleeping Ban in the Winter of 1998-99.
Freedom SleepOut #27 To Follow First 2016 Council Meeting
START DATE:
Tuesday January 12
TIME:
5:00 PM – 5:00 AM
Location Details:
With light rain predicted, Freedom Sleepers and their allies will congregate and crash in front of City Hall, on the adjacent sidewalks, and under the eaves of nearby closed buildings (like the Civic Auditorium and the Library) until dawn.
HOMELESS-HOSTILE CITY COUNCIL RETURNS
City Council chairwarmers return well-rested from a Xmas vacation while the homeless community continues to face rain, wind, cold, vigilante and police harassment, and the loss of property that comes with being vulnerable outside.
FREEDOM SLEEPER GOALS
The Freedom Sleeper objective: to support fundamental changes in how homeless people are treated in Santa Cruz, beginning with the abolition of the Sleeping Ban sections of the Camping Ordinance.
Unofficial accounts suggest that former Mayor Don Lane will be following up on his October facebook intention to move that City Council strike all mention of “sleeping” from the City’s Camping Ordinance. While still providing no legal places on public property for the 1500-2000 City homeless to sleep at night.
This preliminary change has long been sought by homeless activists–from HUFF and other organizations making up the Freedom Sleepers including Food Not Bombs, Homeless Advocacy and Action Coalition, Homeless Depot, and the Homeless Persons Health Project.
GLOOMY AGENDA FOR THE HOMELESS
City Council’s open session begins at 2:30. Item #14 finalizes a law that gives total power to the city’s traffic engineer to restripe any city parking places s/he so chooses to ban “oversized” vehicles (i.e. homeless homes on wheels). Item #15 sees the return of a hostile staff report dismissing the crying need for winter Warming Centers.
The report proposes no support for such survival centers (even to the limited extent of opening up unused vacant buildings) unless the County and private sources move first. The reactionary staff reaction is no secret & holds no surprises. The staff and their captive City Council have refused to open vacant buildings throughout the wet cold winter.
The two items are expected to come up between 3 and 4 PM, with the usual “we ain’t listening, but talk for two minutes if you’d like” Oral Communications around 5 PM
SECURITY THUGS HARASS HOMELESS IN STORM
Instead last Tuesday 1-5 in Freedom SleepOut #26 Tough-It-Out Toby Nixon set up a Tent on the sidewalk adjacent to City Hall and braved the storm there. First Alarm “Security” guards and police continue to drive homeless people away from the eaves of nearby buildings.
Around 4 AM Toby reports being accosted and awakened by a sadistic First Alarm Security Guard, apparently eager to assert his authority. See “Sleepouts at Santa Cruz City Hall Advance to 2016” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/01/08/18781626.php for the milder version of this encounter.
24-HOUR BATHROOM SHUT
The previously 24-hour bathrooms in the Soquel St. garage bathroom were closed on December 23rd because of a massive upsurge in “loitering”, using the bathroom as “shelter”, and graffiti activity. City Hall has kept its bathrooms closed during the daytime period when Tuesday protests were held, even though Council offices were open at that time.
RED CHURCH PASTOR LEAVING TOP POST
Red Church pastor Joel Miller has announced his retirement from the lead pastor position. Miller has been responsible for supporting and organizing the Monday night meals there as well as initiating the small but real weekly shelter program with other churches serving 20 people. He has also offered to open his church as a Warming Center on a frequent basis.
Recent Interviews with Eugene’s “Dangerous John” Thielking, Psych Prisoner Rebekah Mills, a review of some of Tuesday’s first-of-the-year City Council meetings with its “no parking for big RV’s if the big Traffic Engineer sez”, little hope for Warming Centers, etc., and a replay of the August 7, 2002 show in the midst of the fight against the Downtown Ordinances with Street Spirit editor Terry Messman on “With the Homeless Behind Bars in Sacramento” and SF Coalition on Homelessness activist L.S. Wilson on the “Care Not Cash” scam backed by Gavin Newsom.
The show will air at 9:30 AM today at 101.3 FM and stream at www.freakradio.org . You can also catch it later archived at
Homeless individuals returned to sleep at Santa Cruz City Hall on January 5 for the twenty-sixth community sleepout. Facing intermittent downpours of rain, some slept in a large tent on the sidewalk in front of the city hall courtyard. Signs attached to the tent read, “No Sleep Til Justice.” Some individuals successfully slept under the eaves of the city offices building itself, which is a no-trespassing zone at night. One person slept directly on city hall’s brick walkway with out a blanket. Regardless of the sleep location, it is illegal to sleep in Santa Cruz anywhere in public between the hours of 11 pm and 8:30 am.
Since July 4, community members, many of them calling themselves “Freedom Sleepers,” have been organizing the sleepouts one night a week at City Hall to protest laws that criminalize homelessness and the simple act of sleeping.
Initially they attempted to sleep on the lawn in the courtyard area of city hall, which is also a no trespassing zone at night. In response, police conducted raids at nearly every one of their sleepouts. After many were cited and or arrested in the courtyard, the sleepers moved the location of their sleep-protest to the sidewalk in front of city hall. Eventually the police raids subsided.
To keep the courtyard free of sleepers, the city has instead chosen to hire all night security patrols, who often stand watch over the sleepers for hours at a time. Staying up all night has weighed heavy on some of the guards, who are employed by First Alarm Security Services. Several guards have been caught sleeping in their cars (see: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/09/17/18777749.php#18777759), which is a violation of the camping ban, the very same law the sleepers are directly protesting themselves through civil disobedience. Some of the guards have expressed frustration with the protesters, a homeless woman was roughed up while they were arresting her in the courtyard (see: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/09/16/18777700.php).
According to reports from the Freedom Sleepers, there were transgressions from the guards at the last sleepout as well.
Toby Nixon, of the Homeless Advocacy & Action Coalition, said that at about 4 am on January 6, a First Alarm security guard began to shine a bright light on the activists’ tent and attempted to initiate a “conversation” with the individuals inside it. After exiting the tent, Nixon says he insisted the security guard stop harassing them as they attempted to sleep. He claims the guard responded that he was working there and that it was his right to do whatever he wished.
According to Nixon the First Alarm guard left after some coaxing, and the sleepers inside made it through another night at Santa Cruz City Hall.
Again, a tip of the hat to the dedication of phorographer/journalist Alex Darocy, whose photos involve braving wind and weather at early hours of the morning when most of us are in bed under a roof, myself included.
Sleeping on the sidewalk, as Alex points out, is itself illegal after 11 PM under the City’s Sleeping Ban (MC 6.36.010a) with a $158 fine (when court fees are tacked on). Virtually no tickets have been given out for late-night sleeping–even when folks were sleeping on what was once the grassy City Hall lawn (now torn up and taped off by vigilant city authorities).
Instead, the vast majority of the tickets were for “being in a closed area’, which was, conveniently enough, the City Hall grounds. The City Hall grounds were declared “closed” 10 PM – 6 AM in response to a peaceful but persistent (nightly) protest against the very same Sleeping Ban back in 2010 (“Challenging the Darkness: Peacecamp2010 goes on as the Repression Deepens” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/04/18657817.php ). Elsewhere in Santa Cruz ticketing continues–though at a reduced rate–under the Sleeping Ban, a slow-down credited in part to the weekly Freedom Sleeper protest as well as recent Department of Justice support against a Boise Sleeping Ban and HUD standards encouraging city’s to “decriminalize” homelessness by eliminating such cruel and archaic laws.
The decree closing City Hall grounds at night by Parks and Recreation Director Dannettee Shoemaker will come under court scrutiny in demurrers filed by activists ticketed under MC 13.04.011c (being in a closed area) in court. One such argument was already rejected by BasementLevel Baskett, the balefully biased bailiff of Courtroom 10 in the case of Monterey Max. Other cases will be appearing Departments 1 and 2 (Call HUFF–Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom–for more info at 831-423-4833).
In my recent cases, junior City Attorney Reed Gallogly has refused to dismiss two such charges, even though I’ve pointed out that the City implicitly acknowledged the accuracy of the “agenda” defense. That defense affects any and all Freedom Sleepers and their supporters who were ticketed for “being on the city hall grounds after 10 PM: whether sleeping or not. The defense involves the fact that the City’s “closed” City Council area up to two weeks ago included the only spot in the City where its 24-hour agendas were posted, making the closing a violation of the Brown (Open and Accessible Public Meetings) Act. This is true since there’s nowhere else in the City that the agendas can be viewed physically for a 72-hour period before the agendaized meetings 24 hours a day as required by law.
Gallogly’s refusal to dismiss the charges seems to be part of a hard-liner strategy designed to punish the protesters’ use of their First Amendment rights to embarrass a City which makes sleeping and survival camping a crime after 11 PM, while providing no shelter to its 1500-2000 homeless folks. The 100-cot Winter Armory shelter hardly fills the bill. Gallogly has also declined to agree to a delay in trial for one activist undergoing heart surgery, insisting he “tell it to the judge”.
As well as stirring memories of yesteryear, the show features a long interview with the last (and well-intended) chair–Mark Halfmoon–of the Santa Cruz Citizen’s Police Review Board right after it was decapitated by the Mathews-Rotkin City Council.
This destruction of the CPRB was done, I’m thinking, to eliminate any public discussion of the Selective Enforcement issue involving harassment of poor people and musicians on Pacific Avenue under the newly-expanded Downtown Ordinances (making almost all the space illegal to table or play or vend in). The matter excited significant public anger and had passed the Board. It was supposed to reach the City Council agenda, but that was frustrated by then-Mayor Emily Reilly who improperly blocked it. Reilly is the same woman who now runs Emily’s Good Things to Eat, a bakery at Laurel and Mission. She was elected as a “progressive” and progressed to destroy even the weak board overseeing the SCPD.
The show will air at 6 PM today at 101.3 FM and stream at freakradio.org . You can also catch it later archived at
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 PMSunday 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.
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.
Likely to be discussed: Legislature and San Jose’s “support managed encampments” proposed funding; Sleeping Ban reform discussion at City Council this month or next?; Direction Action Protest to Expose Driving Homeless People Out Into the Rain; a Lookback at 2015…and whatever falls out…
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. (TomorrowFebruary 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.
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_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. http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34391-focus-driving-out-the-mosquitoes-making-homelessness-illegal Reader Supported News http://readersupportednews.org/
