Author Archives: huffsantacruz

Mock-Nazi Salute Case in Two Mayors Trial Goes to Appeal

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http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/12/18735117.php

Update on the Two Mayors Trial Case
by Robert Norse
Friday Apr 12th, 2013 4:46 PM

The eleven-year-long lawsuit against the Santa Cruz City Council for an exclusion and false arrest back in March 2002 is now going to appeal before Judge Robert Whyte in Federal District Court. Late last year, an 8-person jury in November dismissed all damage claims against former Mayors Christopher Krohn and Tim Fitzmaurice. Eleven years ago, I was arrested at City Council for making a brief gesture of dissent (a silent mock-Nazi salute) and refusing to leave. The two attorneys involved are challenging the jury verdict with a response due from the City Attorney by May 5th.


This was a civil trial around the issue of the right of citizens to remain at City Council, even if Council members find their opinions and the expression of those opinions offensive. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had held that only an actual disruption can be the basis for a criminal charge of disrupting a public meeting. Hence the kind of arrest that Mayor Krohn–pressured by former Mayor Fitzmaurice–initiated was a false arrest. Indeed, even the Santa Cruz District Attorney’s Office declined to file any criminal charges against me.

City Council declined to modify its “decorum” rules to comport with the First Amendment and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals standards. They preferred to spend $125,000+ of the City’s money defending the arbitrary and erroneous use of power by the Mayor to exclude outspoken critics from Council.

For more detail, follow links in the stories below.

Some reports on the actual trial:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/10/29/18724715.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/10/31/18724886.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/11/03/18725012.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/11/05/18725161.php

A video of the “don’t act like fascists” salute:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Robert+Norse+Nazi+salute&view=detail&mid=4F2A7A28CA0D15CA656B4F2A7A28CA0D15CA656B&first=0

A 25-Year-Old Lawsuit and the Persistence of Homelessness Advocates

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NOTE BY NORSE:   Fresno activists are at work looking for locally federally owned property.  A decade or more ago, the city made a listing of its unused properties as possible homeless campgrounds, shelter, or housing under pressure from homeless advocates here.   Time to dust off the local list and join with other advocates to look into the federal prospects as well.

Oh, and in the meantime,  for those outside: postpone sleeping at night and stay out of public spaces during the day.   Santa Cruz’s new investigatory commission on “public safety” as another of the “blame the homeless and their enablers” measures by the NIMBY crowd formed last night by “Enough is Enough” Mayor Hillary Bryant has no homeless people or advocates among its 20 members.

    Written by Ruth McCambridge
Created on Wednesday, 10 April 2013 13:48
April 7, 2013; Source: The Washington Post
NPQ has written repeatedly over the years that it is one thing to pass a law, but an entirely different and more lengthy process to enforce implementation. In this case, after 25 years of fighting, advocates have finally garnered a court ruling to have a federal law properly implemented.
Title V of the McKinney-Vento Act, passed in 1987, requires federal agencies to list unused, surplus, or underutilized properties in the Federal Register, and to reach out to homeless services providers, giving them a 60-day right of first refusal on leasing or buying the sites. Since then, almost 500 properties have been obtained by groups serving the homeless.
But on March 21, 2013, in response to a lawsuit filed by the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that many government agencies have not been complying with the law. That ruling mandates that the General Services Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development must take more steps to ensure that agencies comply.
“We’re very hopeful this order will result in potentially thousands of properties that have never been made available to homeless services providers to be screened for suitability and be made available,” said Tristia Bauman, an attorney with the Center. “We expect we’re going to be able to more closely monitor whether the government is complying, and have access to buildings that were unbeknownst to us before.”
According to this article, the agencies named in the original suit were the Department of Veterans Affairs, Defense Department, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the GSA, and D.C.’s Department of Health and Human Services. A permanent injunction issued in 1993 ordered the government to implement the law and preserved the right for the issue to again be brought to court if agencies did not comply. Attorneys for the government have tried to get that order lifted, but to no avail.
In the March opinion, Lamberth noted a large difference between the count on unused federal properties (28,000 between 2005 and 2011) reported through the Title V process and on properties labeled by the Office of Management and Budget as surplus (69,000 excess, unused ,and underused) federal properties.
The National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty, one of the groups that filed the original lawsuit in 1988, has long advocated for better administration of Title V. Without constant monitoring and pressure, this law would fade into disuse, wasting the original advocacy effort. NPQ has written similarly about the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Act.—Ruth McCambridge

Santa Cruz Human Rights abuse news compilation at North Bay Uprising Site

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North Bay Uprising compiles Santa Cruz homeless civil rights updates.   Tip of the hat to the NBU folks!

Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:15:11 -0700
Subject: Santa Cruz Human Rights abuse news compilations
From: northbayuprising@gmail.com
To: rnorse3@hotmail.com

Thank you for taking the time (and the energy) to provide us with information about the abuse in Santa Cruz. Your Notes by Norse are insightful and give context.

I have separate compilations for the attacks against those without homes, and against political activists:

[http://northbayuprising.blogspot.com/2013/01/santa-cruz-attacking-houseless-people.html]

[http://northbayuprising.blogspot.com/2013/01/santa-cruz-11-with-linda-lemaster-ed.html]

—
Tune in every Thursday, 3 to 6pm, at www.ozcatradio.com, transmitting live in Vallejo at 89.5fm KZCT.
Northbay Uprising radio is a showcase featuring a wide variety of soul-driven music across many genres, interviews with independent musicians, producers of “do it yourself” media, and information about bay area concerts and cultural events, including a news digests for the San Pablo bay area, reporting on the ecology, community localization, civil rights movements, and more, with interviews of the people in the news. http://northbayuprising.blogspot.com

Kansas City Homeless Can’t Even Hide Out

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NOTE BY NORSE:  This story headlines the usual anti-homeless bias when media tails the police department in its “clean-up”s.  For more dialogue and discussion, go to the tv/audio attached and more relevant extensive comments that can be found following the article at http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/police-discover-hidden-underground-tunnels-used-homeless-221637268.html .

Santa Cruz homeless activists distributed several hundred “Empty Buildings Are the Crime” stickers at the Project Homeless Connect event yesterday here; meanwhile across the street the Santa Cruz City Council threw more money (another quarter million dollars in promised bonus recruitment payments) at the police department  This in a city with no documented rise in crime, simply a form of police-pandering hysteria after the .shooting of two SCPD cops.  

Deputy Steve Clark of the Santa Cruz PD absurdly claims that 1/3 of the crimes in Santa Cruz is committed by homeless people.  If true, of course, it shows how police are being used as a private security force to criminalize homeless people in public spaces at the behest of the merchants and conservative hate groups.  A recent Public Records Act request seeking the specifics behind Clark’s venomous statement has still gone unanswered here.

Clark’s long-time hostility to the local needle exchange program bore toxic fruit a month two months ago when City Council met behind closed doors and shut down the only needle exchange program in the City Limits.   A less accessible more distant and hence less effective county agency which demands documentation from those using needle exchange in a self-defeating move, has taken over the program.

Clark has recently been reported verbally assaulting and demeaning homeless people to discourage their presence at public buildings and in public places if they speak up for their rights.  When recently criticized in a Starbucks restaurant by a homeless person nearby, he reportedly imperiously (and successfully) demanded the man leave with an implicit threat of arrest.  Ironically, Clark’s mentality is what is driving homeless people “underground”, out of sight, and out of town.  Which is the point, of course, of this kind of hate crime.

Treating the homeless need to hide underground as some sort of bizarre and amusing curiosity or a public health hazard when the city offers no alternatives is a kind of fascist doublethink which is a curious obscenity all its own.

Police discover hidden underground tunnels used by the homeless

By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News | The Sideshow

During a routine crime investigation, Kansas City police discovered a series of underground dirt tunnels being used by the city’s homeless.

Local affiliate KMBC was on hand for the discovery when newscasters accompanied Kansas City Police

Officer Jason Cooley, who was leading an investigation of stolen copper wiring from a nearby grain mill.

While checking on the seemingly ordinary homeless campsites, Cooley discovered a series of tunnels that went several feet under the earth and stretched nearly 25 feet.

“It was kind of in a little hill and probably four feet beneath the surface,” Cooley told the Kansas City Star.
Hope Faith Ministries, a local homeless organization, said the group had never seen anything like it. Carla Brewer was on site from the organization, offering the homeless individuals a place to shower and sleep away from the camp.

Police said they were especially concerned about a pile of dirty diapers discovered next to one of the underground tunnels.

“We’re working to find out if, in fact, they’ve got kids down here, because this is not a safe environment for that,” Cooley said.

The tunnels appear expertly crafted and obviously required a substantial amount of time and effort to create. In fact, authorities said they aren’t exactly sure how the individuals squatting at the site were able to create them.

After discovering the tunnels, a police robot was used to further investigate the underground dwellings.

Once police were able to confirm no one was inside them, they brought in a tractor to fill in the tunnels.

California Homeless Bill of Rights Goes to First Hearing

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NOTE BY NORSE:  Tom Ammiano’s proposed Homeless Bill of Rights apparently went to a first hearing earlier this month, but I’m still trying to get some specifics:   Has it been weakened?  How effective has its inspiration–the earlier Rhode Island Homeless Bill of Rights–been in on-the-ground protection of civil rights there?  No clear answers yet, but keep your eyes on the bill…  I also include an article detailing Ammiano’s defense of the bill.

Finally, A Bill of Rights for the Homeless!

By Rita McKeon, Member of the BOSS Community Organizing Team (COT), a project of Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency
Thursday April 04, 2013 – 08:35:00 PM

Authored by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, the California Homeless Bill of Rights, AB5, had its first hearing in Sacramento on April 1st, 2013.

In recent years several cities have enacted or attempted to enact “broken window” laws—laws designed to criminalize homeless people and remove them from public view. The California Homeless Bill of Rights and Fairness Act is a first step to de-criminalize homelessness and grant equal rights protection to ALL: housed and un-housed.

This legislation would be a major public statement recognizing the basic human and civil rights of people without homes. It will help shift our discussions from the characterization of homeless people as vagrants or service-resistant to the reality in our society that there are not enough homes that are affordable on very low incomes, not enough jobs for people with low skills, not enough care for people with serious physical and mental health needs. Our discussions can then shift from blaming the victims to solving the problems: this is what AB5 will do—publicly validate the dignity of people without homes so we can direct our attention and resources to fixing the problems they face.

Inhumane laws do not solve poverty, they only increase the misery of being poor. In many major US cities there are ordinances that make it punishable by law to feed homeless people and laws that make it illegal to “camp” in a public space, ultimately making it illegal to sleep, a basic human need. Some laws even make it illegal to sleep in your car. Hundreds maybe thousands of people end up with citations they cannot afford to pay, some facing jail time because they were caught sitting or sleeping.

This is both a waste of tax payer dollars and a civil rights abuse. In February 2013, in the San Francisco Tenderloin District, a homeless man spent 30 days in jail because on two occasions a police officer found him sleeping on a milk crate. He was charged with public nuisance, unauthorized lodging and obstructing a sidewalk. The first two violations are listed as misdemeanors which can carry a year of jail time each – again, for sleeping on a milk carton.

Whose quality of life is being improved by broken window laws? City officials say the goal of these ordinances is to preserve quality of life and keep down public nuances. Yet, citing homeless people and inflicting them with costly violations and jail time does not address their quality of life—rather, these laws are designed to serve big business and developers who want clear streets and storefronts. The fact is, people do have the right to sit, stand, and gather peacefully in public areas. And for behaviors that are less than peaceful or that damage property, there are already laws in place.

Everyone is deserving of equal rights and protection. The California Homeless Bill of Rights and Fairness Act will assure the protection of homeless people’s property rights, access to public space, right to safety, right to sufficient health and hygiene centers, right to engage in life sustaining activities, right to privacy and confidentiality, right to counsel, right for homeless school children to stay at the same school they attended before they became homeless, and more. You can find the full Bill text on assembly.ca.gov.

It’s about respect and dignity! When AB5 is passed it will help ensure that homeless people are treated as human beings: with respect and dignity. Send a letter of support to your district Assembly Member. Visit www.wraphome.org to learn more about the efforts to pass AB-5.

AB-5 is authored by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano (D, San Francisco) and co-sponsored by Western Regional Advocacy Project, Western Center on LawaBy Dan AiellPSP homelessness.

(This article first appeared this morning in the Bay Area Reporter.)nd Poverty, JERICHO: A Voice for Justice, and the East Bay Community Law Center. See a full list of Bill supporters at http://wraphome.org/images/stories/ab5documents/AB5EndorsersMarch1320

HUFFster denounces Santa Cruz County jail at protest

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http://sinbarras.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/statement-of-solidarity-from-santa-cruz-homeless-united-for-friends-freedom-huff/

Statement of Solidarity from Santa Cruz Homeless United for Friends & Freedom (HUFF)
Posted on April 9, 2013 by sinbarras

Becky Johnson, one of the Santa Cruz 11 and an organizing member of HUFF, gave a wonderful speech at our Speakout + Rally on April 6th on local homeless issues and conditions in Santa Cruz County Jail. Below is the transcript, audio and video are coming soon:

When President Dwight D. Eisenhower left office in 1961, he warned “Beware the Military-Industrial Complex.” Today, it’s “Beware the Prison-Industrial Complex.” For prisons today have become big business in a country where manufacturing generally is suffering & unemployment rates are high.

Santa Cruz County is no exception.

For a jail to be profitable, it must be full. Nevermind that it’s paid for with taxpayer dollars. Our electives & appointees don’t care. For them, it is a job security program for police, judges, bailiffs, deputies, file clerks, probation officers and attorneys.

I myself have been fodder for this system with my “criminal” career: I am a convicted sidewalk hopscotch chalker, criminal songster, & in the case of the Santa Cruz Eleven, a suspected sign-holder & blogger. But what I want to talk about to you today is the criminalization of homelessness.

Currently in liberal, progressive Santa Cruz it is illegal to sit on a sidewalk less than 14 feet from a building. It’s illegal to sit on a park bench with your feet up. The Sleeping Ban, MC 6.36.010 section a, outlaws the act of sleeping anywhere out of doors or in a vehicle between the hours of 11PM & 8:30AM within the City Limits.

A separate provision outlaws the use of a blanket between 11PM – 8:30AM out of doors. Hacky-sacking, hop-scotching, and tossing your car keys to your husband are illegal acts on Pacific Ave., the shopping-Mecca where all the City Council members friends have stores.

Let me tell you about Gary Johnson, a homeless man, and an activist. Gary was arrested 4 times within 3 days for BEING on the County property in front of the Court House after 7PM. He was charged with trespassing. When he pointed out that he had a sign which said “A legacy of Cruelty MC 6.36.010 a, PC 647 ( e )”

and that the trespassing code has an exception for “traditional public forums,” the DA turned around and charged him with misdemeanor illegal lodging. He was sentenced to 2 years in jail for these 4 acts of sleeping. Recently he lost his appeal of the sentence before Judges Symons & Burdick.

What homeless person can pay a fine of $162 for sleeping in a cardboard box? None of them. And the authorities know this. But, they can bill you and me for the salary of the police officer who cited or arrested them. They bill for the time the officer spends in court. They bill for any public defender, but with most infraction crimes, the person charged has no right to one.

This jail is full of homeless people! And many who were marginally housed when they were arrested, will be homeless upon their release.

The Drug War fuels many of these arrests. So do mandatory minimums and the 3-Strikes law. But we could cut down on a HUGE amount of local incarceration if we repealed a whole-host of laws which frankly are selectively enforced against the poor and homeless.

When I spent the night here in “G” Dorm in County Jail, I met women there who should NOT have been there. There was one woman, so mentally-challenged that the other inmates had to tell her to put her underwear on. One mother of four with chronic intractable pain from a car accident, was jailed for the crime of supplementing her inadequate pain relief with heroin.

In jail, despite a known diagnosis of chronic intractable pain due to past injury, for which she had been treated with addictive pain medications, she was forced to quit “Cold Turkey”. Her only relief were hot showers. One day, in serious pain, she was pulled from an “unauthorized” shower dripping wet & thrown into an icy holding cell. While in there, she watched as deputies watched “prison porn” on their monitors where women prisoners were tormented & sexually abused.

Another woman was serving 3 months of a 6-month sentence for assault when she herself was assaulted by three women in Jade Street Park after hours. The women beat her over the head with a frying pan (she showed me the scar on the top of her head). They stole her laptop computer. As they fled the park, she called 911 on her cellphone. Police and an ambulance arrived while the three women were still in the area. Terry, the only injured person, was sent to the hospital.

She was arrested in the emergency ward. The three women had convinced the police that Terry had attacked THEM! When by pure chance, her brother’s roommate was able to buy her laptop back (the smoking gun) the DA ignored it.

Since she was still charged with felony assault, Terry was forced to plea “no contest” to a misdemeanor. Judge Adrianne Symons ok’ed that one.

Another form of abuse is the arbitrary nature of what charges are filed and what the how much bail is set. When Gabriella Ripley-Phipps was arrested in December of 2011 for basically protesting the destruction of the Occupy Santa Cruz encampment, she was charged with “obstructing an officer” and bail was set at $25,000. When shooting suspect, Jeremy Goulet was arrested for breaking into his female co-workers home and sexually assaulting her in her own bed, his bail was set at $250.

In the case of Kenneth Massei, the man who was falsely arrested for stealing flowers from the memorial for the 2 slain police officers, bail was set at $5000. He was forced to spend 18 days in jail here until his attorney showed the receipt for the flowers that he had in his possession when he was first jailed.

Isaac Collins, the only person arrested last year at the UCSC 420 event, was jailed here for 82 grams of chocolate & butterscotch brownies that tested positive for marijuana. Collins is black. The deputy that arrested him said he picked Collins out of the large crowd of pretty much all-day law-breaking because “he was wearing a very colorful shirt.”

So in conclusion, we need to End the Drug War! End the war on the poor! End mandatory minimums! End 3-Strikes! Repeal the Sleeping Ban, Blanket Ban, and laws which were written and are enforced specifically to be us

NOTE FROM NORSE;  Becky Johnson’s blog can be found at http://beckyjohnsononewomantalking.blogspot.com/.

ed against homeless people. Justice demands that we don’t stop until this work is done. Thank you.

Sanctuary Campground Presentation Wednesday

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NOTE FROM NORSE:  Looming is the impending closing of the Winter Armory Shelter (last night April 15th) as well as the increased crackdown on homeless camps, homeless people in public spaces, and even the very limited Homeless (Lack of) Services Center (which calls itself the Homeless Services Center).   Various individuals and groups have been encouraging people to gather together in survival camps, set up a non-profit to find private land, engage in protest camping, or, as Brent Adams suggests below, seek to persuade the community to set up community sanctuary campgrounds.  Brent has been holding regular meetings and notes he has been working on a video presentation.

For an example of Brent’s video work, see http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/17/18717690.php .    Brent is also a victim of malicious political prosecution as one of the last of the Santa Cruz Eleven to still face a possible four years in prison for a peaceful protest involving a three-day occupation of a long-vacant Wells Fargo Bank.

——————–

Hi,

I welcome you to this exciting new conversation about homelessness in our community.
The simplicity of a Sanctuary Camp and what it would mean to its residents and the greater community is easy to understate.
It is true that we’re proposing a solution so obvious and so low cost that most Homeless Industry
advocates completely step over it because it doesn’t serve the entrenched bureaucracy.
No one would argue that homelessness is an easy problem to tackle.
There are cities like Santa Cruz all over the country that are wrestling with the very same issues and have
come up with solutions that work.   We’re happy to share those examples and “models” with you.
We’d like you to visit our working group and see what we have planned so far and we invite you to contribute yourself
to a solution that is going to help hundreds if not thousands of people into the future.
It has been shown that Sanctuary Camps help people stop the nightly madness of finding a safe warm space to lay down.
It is a place for them to keep their belongings safe instead of having to manage large bike trailers or backbacks as they move about.  It helps people regulate their medical and mental health programs.  It helps people focus on their drug and alcohol addictions.
All of the circumstances that create homelessness are exacerbated by the conditions of homelessness.
This is the greatest feature of a safe sleeping space such as a Sanctuary Camp…  It gives people a place to BE.
Most of us take that simple fact of life for granted.  Just a safe place to be.
For a Sanctuary Camp to be successful, we’ll need the support of the community.
This first phase is our time to have conversations within the community.
We strive for partnerships with local government, police, churches and community groups.
We’ll need individual commitments of local citizens to become stake-holders who’ll help us anchor this possibility
in reality.
We’re near completion of a video presentation (work-in-progress will be shown on wednesday).
Please join us every Wednesday at 6pm.  387 Coral St. Santa Cruz.  (BEHIND BUILDING- Big roll-up door)
If you have problems finding the space, call 332-9040
Sincerely,
Brent Adams
Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp

A Tale of Two Cities: Denver and Santa Cruz

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Report from the StreetSurvey finds law criminalizes activities necessary for homeless survival without providing alternatives.

By Chris Casey | University of Colorado Denver, University Communications
DENVER – Denver’s controversial “camping ban” has left the homeless no place to sleep outdoors safely and legally at night, forcing them into hidden spots or to seek indoor options that don’t exist, according to a report written by a University of Colorado Denver political science professor.
In collaboration with the Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL) community group, Associate Professor Tony Robinson, Ph.D., compiled survey results of 512 homeless individuals regarding the Unauthorized Camping Ban. The 80-page report details the background of the ban, survey results and policy recommendations in the wake of one of the nation’s most severe laws against public homelessness.

The Denver City Council passed the ordinance in May 2012 under pressure from members of the downtown business community who argued that the growing number of homeless camping on the 16th Street Mall and Civic Center Park was impacting business and harming the perception of Denver.
Robinson and DHOL presented their study to the Denver Homeless Commission and held a press conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Denver.

Among the survey’s findings:

  • 59 percent of respondents said it has become more necessary to avoid police after the ban; 4 percent report police being more helpful.
  • 53 percent said they feel less safe in Denver since the ban; 6 percent feel more safe.
  • 79 percent who used to sleep downtown regularly now avoid the area far more; 69 percent said they now seek more hidden places to sleep at night.
  • 50 percent their sleeping habits have been negatively affected.
  • Though there has been a reduction in outdoors sleeping, the decline is minor. Before the ban, 72 percent of survey respondents said they sometimes or always slept outside in Denver, as compared to 64 percent reporting outdoor sleeping after the ban.
  • No arrests have yet taken place under the ordinance, though citing and arresting people for other code violations and moving homeless people along through oral and written warnings are very common.

The statistics reveal a deteriorating quality of life for most of Denver’s homeless since the ban passed. “That’s a key finding,” Robinson said. “There was a reason people were sleeping on 16th Street before (the law). It was safe, well lit and patrolled by police. This law has changed all that.”

Camping ban supporters said the ban would improve the quality of life for the homeless by connecting them with health alternatives. Ban enforcement follows a series of steps: 1) determining if there are other violations that the camper should be cited for; 2) issuing the violator an oral warning to quit covering themselves, and/or to “move along”; 3) issuing a written warning; 4) attempting to connect the homeless person to services before arrest.

However, the latter step of intervention rarely occurs, the study found. Instead, the ordinance criminalizes activities necessary for survival, without providing alternatives.

“They’re just spending their time in constant motion,” Robinson said of the homeless. “Some of them are trying to get into shelters, but 75 percent say they’ve been turned away frequently because of lack of space.”

A shortage of shelter space is especially acute for homeless members of the LGBT community, couples without children, fathers without children and the mentally ill, Robinson said. “We’re 48th in the nation

for not having enough service beds to care for mentally ill homeless persons.”

The report recommends four actions:

  • Space should be designated in Denver that guarantees homeless individuals safe, outdoor places to sleep and engage in other survival activities. This space should be well-lit and accessible to homeless services downtown.
  • Increased funding should be developed for programs that address homelessness, ranging from rapid response services for homeless people in crisis to the development of permanent low-income housing units.
  • Dedicate new revenue streams to the “most under-served unsheltered populations” and to the “most effective” programs in reducing homelessness.
  • Change the camping ban enforcement protocol to emphasize provision of services rather than oral and written warnings to desist from “camping” or to “move along.”

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness has singled out these types of law as being cruel and counterproductive, Robinson said.

“We know there will be hundreds of homeless out there tonight, so we either turn our heads and pretend they’re not there — being forced to make the impossible choice between shelter or criminality — or we admit the reality and find a clean, safe place where our residents can live with us,” he said.


Read or download the full report:
The Denver Camping Ban: A Report from the Streets


View Dr. Tony Robinson’s Presentation to the Denver Homeless Commission on April 2, 2013:
Report from the Streets to the Denver Homeless Commission


Councilmembers Speak at Report Release on April 3, 2013:
Councilwoman Susan Shepherd (District 1) and Councilman Paul López (District 3)


Contact Us:
info@denverhomelessoutloud.org

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Project Homeless Connect–Bus Passes

NOTE FROM NORSE:  Not that I’m a huge fan of the hooplah around the Tuesday 10-4 PM Project Homeless Connect being held at the Civic Auditorium in downtown Santa Cruz.   (The one-day-a-year event seems to serve more as publicity for poverty pimps than anything else)   However it does provide free meals, a once-a-year access to certain services, and a big crowd of folks.  Hence, those up in San Lorenzo Valley might be interested in the following e-mail from a watchful HUFF activist.    HUFF is likely to be tabling at the event.   More about Project Connect from its backers at www.phc-santacruz.org .

To: huffsantacruz@yahoogroups.com
From: foenixhands@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 20:50:43 -0700
Subject: [huffsantacruz] Bus passes in Felton for Project Homeless Connect

Hi folks, I stopped by the Mountain Community Resource office in Felton yesterday and was told there are free bus passes for people to get to the Homeless Connect event next Tuesday. So if you know people up in the mountain towns who need bus passes, send them over there on Monday from 9-noon. They are closed to drop-ins in the afternoon.

Ever so lightly,
Raven Playfaire, CMP since 1989, CMT since 1991, Reiki since 2001

Endless Warfare: Santa Cruz Eleven Attorneys Face More Legal Battles Monday 8 AM in Dept 6.. 6

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Attorneys for 4 of the Santa Cruz 11 go to Status & Sanctions Hearing Monday
by Robert Norse
Friday Apr 5th, 2013 4:41 PM

The persecution and prosecution of Gabriella Ripply-Phipps, Brent Adams, Angel Alcantara, and Cameron Laurendeau grinds on Monday 8 AM in Department 6 in Santa Cruz Superior Court. The status hearing will schedule pre-trial motions and the trial itself, now slated for early May, but likely to be postponed because of one of the attorneys has a conflict. Meanwhile attorneys for the four have appealed to a higher court for a Writ to stop the proceedings and throw out the cases in a challenge to Judge Volkman’s dismissal of a 995 Motion last month that itself challenged the forwarding of felony vandalism charges against the 4 to trial. If the trial proceeds, it’s expected to take 2 weeks.

These four defendants are the last of the Santa Cruz Eleven.

INCOMPETENT AND MENDACIOUS D.A. REBEKAH YOUNG–FIRED OR RESIGNED?
Several weeks ago, Bob Lee’s District Attorney’s office revealed that assistant D.A. Rebekah Young, who earned the dubious distinction of being the only D.A. in memory to be sanctioned by the court for misconduct in repeatedly failing to turn over police video and records to attorneys for the eleven defendants. Rumor had it that Young was headed for Texas to resume her career as a reporter in Austin or Dallas.

Some wondered why such a young and inexperienced lawyer was assigned to face eleven attorneys in court in such a high-profile case Considering defendants–if found guilty and given the maximum–could have faced seven years in prison–each. Defendants and their allies expressed both a sense of vindication that Young was gone from the department and apprehension that a more experienced team was likely to be taking over the prosecution.

EVEN TOKEN SANCTION IMPOSITION STALLED BY COLLUSIVE JUDICIARY?
The unprecedented $500 “slap on the wrist” fine leveled against the prosecution for misconduct had neither been paid nor formally appealed after the 60 day period ran out in March. The D.A.’s Office (or Young herself) reportedly asked the Court whether the fine was against her personally or the office of D.A. Bob Lee. No answer was forthcoming, and the time to appeal the sanction ran out after that 60 day period expired.

Scuttlebutt around the Superior Court Clerk’s office had it that the issue might come up at this April 8th hearing. The actual costs to at least two of the attorneys involved ran into the tens of thousands of dollars for the dozen or so hearings and multiple motions and ignored discovery demands. These were disallowed by Judge Burdick in his token fine of Young. He also refused to dismiss the cases as a sanction for the abusive prosecution that has repeatedly concealed or failed to present evidence demanded by the defense (and ordered by the Burdick himself).

NO ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE WITCH HUNTERS, NO VINDICATION FOR THE VICTIMS.
In spite of the fact that seven of the defendants after months of ordeal had their cases dismissed for lack of evidence, though none have yet demanded a factual innocence hearing (which reportedly is nearly impossible to win).

None have filed complaints of misconduct and malfeasance with the Bar Association and/or the Commission on Judicial Performance for the political prosecution and failure to turn over documents in repeated contempt of court orders to do so.

CASES DISMISSED BUT THE CARNIVAL OF CRUELTY CONTINUES:
The Final Four defendants face a possible four year sentence and a “restitution fine” to Wells Fargo Bank of $23,000 or more. There has been no evidence presented in the many hours of hearings that any of the four destroyed or vandalized any property. Rather the tangled theory of the discredited Young was that the mere presence of the four in the building was sufficient evidence of their vandalism under an “aiding and abetting” theory.

FANCIFUL VANDALISM CHARGE
Critics pointed out that though Young had presented some evidence that some were in the building (though no clear evidence that they had refused to leave after being warned), there was no testimony that they “aided and abetted” the trespass action–a requirement for the finding that they were also responsible for the “probable consequence” of felony vandalism by parties unknown.

CRIME OR CLARION CALL TO THE COMMUNITY?
The “trespass” is described by others as a First Amendment activity shared by hundreds as well as a form of direct action whistle-blowing against the acknowledged criminal bankster Wells Fargo, who leased the vacant building for the last 3 1/2 years prior to the occupation and continue to lease the vacant structure.

That building like other vacant banks downtown has become a squat refuge for some of the more desperate or audacious of the city’s homeless population. Santa Cruz has legal shelter for less than 5% of its homeless population two-thirds of the year and a perpetual waiting list. One of the stated objectives of those who actively occupied the building and announced their intentions (none of whom are on trial) was to create a Community Center that might also serve to shelter those in need.

GRIM HISTORY IN DETAIL
For recent history of the case, see “Four Individuals to Stand Trial for 75 River Street Bank Occupation” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/12/18733496.php .

For more of the legal documents involved, see “Santa Cruz Eleven–The Final Four Demand Dismissal of Charges” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/07/18733298.php

For a transcript of the March 11th Hearing which sent the cases forward to trial and the legal papers challenging that misuse of legal power see below.

For a broader perspective of the occupation and subsequent legal history see http://www.thestreetspirit.org/the-santa-cruz-eleven-are-political-scapegoats/ .

A benefit for Food not Bombs August 14th at India Joze 3:30 – 6 PM will also feature speakers from this case.

To view the appeal briefs and transcript of the March 11th Hearing go to
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/05/18734749.php