NOTE BY NORSE: The Jacksonville FL Times-Union has collected some of its stories about homeless people and the oppressive laws they face at http://jacksonville.com/special/homeless/index.html . Two of these Continue reading
Author Archives: huffsantacruz
Monterey Court Retaliates Against 62-Year Old Homeless Woman
NOTE BY NORSE: Sunny Fawcett’s struggle to be left alone by police was described in an earlier HUFF e-mail at http://huffsantacruz.org/wordpress/attacking-the- whistleblowers-in-monterey/
Calling Out CruzioWorks Crapola
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/08/16/18741655.php
Picketline at CruzioWorks to Address Broader Homeless Discrimination Issue
by Robert Norse
Friday Aug 16th, 2013 12:40 AM
Friday Aug 16th, 2013 12:40 AM
Last Saturday Occupy Santa Cruz and its Homeless Justice Working Group resolution proposed and endorsed a picket against CruzioWorks discriminatory termination of a signed and paid-for contract to use the group’s 24-hour workspace. Building on this decision, HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) decided the following Wednesday to broaden the scope of the picketing and protest Friday.
The protest will collect and document accounts of discrimination against homeless people at the nearby library, in public spaces downtown, and at downtown businesses. The picket’s focus Friday is still the Dan Madison case. He was abruptly and unlawfully terminated without any specific reason several hours after paying, apparently on the instigation of a co-tenant in the building.
The anonymous woman was made nervous by the sight of Dan’s son, Gryphon, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, minding two bikes loaded with their possessions in the CruzioWorks parking lot which she felt “encouraged junkies.”
BACKGROUND OF REPRESSION
Police & sheriffs reportedly continue to sweep homeless campsites, seizing homeless property and destroying it in violation of state law and the state and federal Constitutions.
Police & sheriffs reportedly continue to sweep homeless campsites, seizing homeless property and destroying it in violation of state law and the state and federal Constitutions.
At the last Friday CruzioWorks protest on 8-9, Mystaya Magawa an older woman in tears, reported losing her job and then her health care and her job in Bakersfield. A cancer & MS patient newly arrived in Santa Cruz and homeless with her teen-aged daughter, she described how Starbucks made her leave the coffeeshop after buying coffee because she had her backpack with her. How unlike Bakersfield, police made her stand up when resting on the sidewalk. How she was told it was illegal to cover-up with a blanket at night outside. (Listen to Mystaya’s account in the last five minutes of the audio file at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/
Hate cartoons in the Sentinel by de Cinzo portraying homeless people as needle-strewing fly-ridden bums while the Mayor creates a phony “Public Security” Citizens Task Force. The group, meeting at a police department ever eager to have new “tools” like the Sleeping Ban, Stop-and-Frisk, the end of needle exchange, curfews, triple-fine zones, and other policestate-heavy measures, is headed by a Boardwalk publicist and a homeless-hostile ex-Cop.
The pre-fabricated agenda excluding most public testimony justifiles a NIMBY crackdown on the limited services homeless people currently get. The ambitious and smiley-faced Homeless (Lack of) Services Center director Monica Martinez backs the measures while denying homeless clients the documentation they need to avert harassment citations for sleeping and covering up with blankets–as the Paul Lee loft closes down to any newcomers for three months.
City Council and the Board of Supervisors have squandered over $100,000 to fund a “Security Gate” out at the Homeless (Lack of ) Services Center to pander to the paranoia and homeless-get-out agenda of groups like the Santa Cruz Neighbors, the Downtown Association, and Take Back Santa Cruz. (Some activists intend to denounce the waste at Oral Communications 9 AM at the Board meeting Tuesday 8-20 on the 5th Floor of the County Building).
Instead of pointing out that crime has not risen in Santa Cruz for decades–other than smaller property crimes like bike theft– liberals nervously pander to the “Safety” myth that hysteria hotheads preaching, endlessly harping on the atypical killings of Shannon Collins, Butchie Baker, and Elizabeth Baker. This kind of political cowardice and opportunism is similar to the Obama regime’s signing on to the foreign wars, the war on terror, domestic surveillance, and the heightened attacks on whistleblowers.
THE MADISON CASE
It is this myth that seems to have prompted the complaint against Dan Madison by a still unidentified tenant for simply having a homeless son standing next to a bike filled with homeless possessions. Worse, and more telling, the “liberal” CruzioWorks management had no problem in summarily denying Madison’s 24-hour service (violating a 30-day notice requirement) without even giving him a hearing.
Nearly a week has passed and Madison’s e-mail requesting a clear explanation from CruzioWorks has gone unanswered (See http://www.indybay.org/
Attempts by Cruzio’s customers to get a straight answer have also failed (http://www.indybay.org/
If we patronize businesses that bill themselves as liberals but actually take their marching orders from NIMBY bigots, if we accept their succumbing to the myth that homeless people are a “Public Safety” danger, we enter a truly dangerous time.
While activists will be encouraging folks to either not patronize CruzioWorks or to demand some explanation for the exclusionary action, we will also be asking homeless people to speak out on abusive practices elsewhere. Such practices include Head Librarian Teresas Landers’s new “no signs in the library” policy directing a homeless person to turn his sign to the wall–the man had a political sign denouncing George H.W. Bush–or leave the library.
Landers also has implemented a “bring your backpack into the library, get kicked out” notice given to Madison a few days ago. Madison also reported a thuggish “wake up or get out” policy by security guards for nodding off in the library.
I’ve also received reports of First Alarm heavies excluding homeless people from the library grounds during daylight hours before the library opens, driving them from the grass at City Hall, and stalking them in San Lorenzo Park (See “First Alarm Security Guards Profile and Stalk San Lorenzo Park Users” at http://www.indybay.org/
Sweeps on the levee, in Harvey West Park (one this morning), and in the Pogonip are on-going and threaten the dignity, health, and safety of the homeless community.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE
Homeless folks and those who wish to oppose this crackdown are invited to join the picket, witness, and/or testify to what they have seen. If you can’t make the protest but have seen particular abuses, please post the details on-line or contact HUFF at 831-423-4833 and leave your account.
Contact Cruzio at 831-459-6301 or office [at] cruzio.com to demand justice for Dan Madison and the homeless community.
To paraphrase Edmund Burke, “All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good folks to do nothing.”
On the other hand, consider this posting by activist Colin Campbell Clyde: http://www.facebook.com/photo.
The choice is ours.
For more background on the case go to http://www.indybay.org/
§
by Robert Norse Friday Aug 16th, 2013 12:40 AM
If you doubt this flyer, contact Cruzio directly and ask them!
Fight Back Against Fear: Picket Santa Cruz CruzioWorks 1 PM 8-16
https://www.indybay.org/
| Title: | Picketing Prejudice at CruzioWorks |
| START DATE: | Friday August 16 |
| TIME: | 1 -3 PM |
| Location Details: | |
| In front of CruzioWorks HQ in Downtown Santa Cruz at Church and Cedar Streets | |
| Event Type: | Protest |
| Contact Name | Robert Norse |
| Email Address | rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com |
| Phone Number | 831-423-4833 |
| Address | 309 Cedar PMB #14B Santa Cruz, CA 95060 |
| Dan Madison, denied 24-hour service after he’d paid for it CruzioWorks on 8-6, has received no response to his written demand that service be restored. (http://www.indybay.org/ HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) has also received no reply or further information from manager James Hackett or anyone else there. No managers and workers appeared to address the issue at an informational tabling and protest outside CruzioWorks 8-9. Steve Schnaar, a Cruzio customer, got a boilerplate response that failed to reassure him. (http://www.indybay.org/ No activists or customers have reported getting any substantive response from Cruzioworks about the “incident” which they claim justified breaking their contract with Dan. They have not described any specifics as to why the management responded to what appears to be a fear-and-prejudice-based stereotyping of Dan and his son Gryphon by a tenant in the building. Meanwhile, AIDS survivor 70-year-old David Silva revealed that he too had been denied services there once he told them he was homeless. A longer description of the background and issues is posted at http://www.indybay.org/ CruzioWorks: 831-459-6301 peggy [at] cruzio.com |
|
Who Is Burning Down the Homeless Camps of Fresno?
Gallery
NOTES FROM NORSE: The climate of darkening discrimination in Santa Cruz has not yet erupted into arson as against
Picket CruzioWorks Friday August 16 at 1 PM in Santa Cruz
PICKET LINE AT CRUZIOWORKS
Homeless people are rousted where they sleep or sit, verbally abused in public places, stolen from by police, & officially criminalized by Mayor Bryant bogus “Public Safety” Task Force.
Now CruzioWorks, pandering to the bigoted fears of another Cruzio tenant, cuts off service for a 24 hour workspace,to Dan Madison, a paying peaceful homeless person.
1 PM FRIDAY AUGUST 16
CEDAR & CHURCH STREETS
Music Poetry Sweets Petitions Strong Words Stout Hearts
Speak Out Say No to the Fog of Fear Suffocating Santa Cruz
More Information; https://www.indybay.org/
COMMENTS
From: Brent Adams
This is a very unacceptable situation that Dan Madison has experienced.
I wonder if picketing is the best first step here.
Have you considered visiting Cruzio to facilitate a mediated conversation about what happened, what went wrong and how to
fix the situation and create understanding?
This “picket” will only make “wrong” a company of longstanding in the community. I assert that nothing good will come of this
picket for the general needs of homeless people and the community in general. A protest like this would be a consideration following
the failed attempts at finding a workable understanding of what happened and ensure access to Mr. Madison and all others.
I encourage HUFF faciltate a conversation with Cruzio to get to the bottom of what happened and to see if understanding
can be created before an attack on this business happens. I’d hate to see another homeless person be used by Robert Norse and HUFF
to attack a local business, the community at large and all hopes of grassroots activism around homeless issues.
Brent Adams
Homeless-aphobia at CruzioWorks in Santa Cruz
NOTE BY NORSE: The toxic impact of targeting homeless people as a Public Safety Menace seems to have invaded CruzioWorks. The management apparently cut off service to a homeless man and his son several hours after he had paid $300+ for a 24-hour workspace to do computer work. Apparently the cause was some paranoid worker in the building called the police, alarmed at the son’s standing next to the two pack-laden bicycles they had with them.
When HUFF members confronted the Cruzio management, they were unable or unwilling to give any description of a rule violated, of the “incident” they were concerned about, and had nothing to justify their position except that a worker had felt “uncomfortable” (this elevated to a “public safety” concern).
Given the kind of hysteria mounted by Take Back Santa Cruz, Mayor Bryant’s Public Hysteria Citizens Task Farce, the Library’s new Security Guards/Sleeping Ban/No Signs policies, it’s not surprising, but deeply disturbing nonetheless. The mere presence of homeless people in public (and now private spaces even for services paid for) is being viewed with prejudice and suspicion.
I urge people to come up and demand immediate end to this apparent groundless discrimination, prompted by anonymous complaint, or boycott the CruzioWorks. We will be circulating a petition and literature there 1 PM to 3 PM.
https://www.indybay.org/
| Title: | Cruzio Works Bans Homeless Customer: Protest and Informational Picket |
| START DATE: | Friday August 09 |
| TIME: | 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM |
| Location Details: | |
| In front of Cruzio Works HQ in Downtown Santa Cruz at Church and Cedar Streets | |
| Event Type: | Other |
| Contact Name | Robert Norse |
| Email Address | rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com |
| Phone Number | 831-423-4833 |
| Address | 309 Cedar PMB #14B Santa Cruz, CA 95060 |
| The following is Dan Madison’s account of discrimination and contract breach at Cruzio Works.
Dan describes himself as a computer graphics designer with a 19-year old son. Both have disabilities and are homeless. On Monday August 5, Dan Mattison reports he and his son Gryphon paid around $300 for a Cruzio sign-up and a Cruzio Works 24-hour workspace. He advised them that he was homeless and was told there would be no problem. As Dan made financial arrangements, Gryphon watched the bikes, which also held their possessions, as they were temporarily parked in the storage area in the back of the Cruzio building. At some point a woman who later turned out to be someone who worked in the building but not for Cruzio, demanded to know what they were doing there. Dan, went out to speak with her. He explained they were paying customers who had rented a 24-hour space but would be moving the bikes to a city bike storage locker (which he did shortly thereafter). The woman said she’d already called the police and was concerned with “homeless junkies” being attracted to the area and that she had some issues with their being there at all. But her fears were apparently allayed by the fact that Dan was a paying patron of the business. However later when Dan returned to get his key, a Cruzio employee (who refused to give her name or her superior’s name) told Dan that his membership was being revoked because of the woman’s apprehensions which she had read in an e-mail. She would not specify what particular behavior was of concern. This is Dan’s account. He came to a HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) meeting the next day and told us his story. We joined him in going to Cruzio to ask their side of the story. Another woman and an escort again refused to give any specific reason why his membership had been terminated (though she said they would allow him a daytime membership on a “trial basis”). She did mention that they had a “community” there whose “safety” and “comfort” was of primary concern. She would not give any policy or act that suggested there was any violation of a rule that justified either calling the police or terminating his 24-hour membership. HUFF members conferred outside and decided it sounded like anti-homeless discrimination. We will be setting up Cafe HUFF–an informational table with coffee to seek further information and to inform the community of what appears to be a rather sinister kind of backroom bigotry which is impacting a work-seeking homeless person, who has paid his bill. We will be demanding that Cruzio Works restore Dan’s contract, issue a non-discrimination pledge, and further survey folks about their experiences with Cruzio Works. Some HUFF members are pressing for a boycott of Cruzio Works (though not necessarily of Cruzio, the internet service). The recorded interchange between Dan and the Cruzio rep on 8-7 is difficult to hear but somewhat illuminating in that Cruzio refuses to specify what rule was broken, what the complaint by a third party was, and what the “incident” consisted of. INTERVIEW WITH DAN AND HIS SON GRYPHON ON FREE RADIO SANTA CRUZ: http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/ COME CHECK OUT THE PROTEST AND SHARE A CUP OF COFFEE ON FRIDAY TO FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF ! |
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Mellow Protest–But the Homeless Dad and Son Still Denied Service at CruzioWorks
NOTE FROM NORSE: This story is the follow-up to an early tale of anti-homeless (and actually anti-disabled) discrimination at Continue reading
Palo Alto ALERT: City Council Voting Monday to Criminalize Folks Sleeping in Vehicles!
Palo Alto ALERT: City Council Voting Monday to Criminalize Folks Sleeping in Vehicles!
Palo Alto City Council votes on Continue reading
Fighting Lies with Facts and Compassion: the Palo Alto Struggle
NOTES BY NORSE: Two strong articles by homeless activists in Palo Alto correct the misstatements of bigotfriendly authorities and reveal the human dimensions of the proposed attack on the main Continue reading