| As Cops Handcuff Artists on Pacific, Freedom SleepOut #41 Raises Its Sleepy Head | |
| Date | Tuesday April 19 |
| Time | 5:00 PM – 9:00 AM |
| Location Details | |
| Bricked area next to the sidewalk in front of City Hall Courtyard across from the main library. The event begins around 5 PM with a prior flyer-and-feed prologue from Food Not Bombs. Keith McHenry will be reminding City Hall that “we’re still here” and “the abuses have not gone away.” | |
| Event Type | Protest |
| Contact Name | Toby Nixon (posted by Norse) |
| Email Address | tobynixon [at] gms.com |
| Phone Number | 408-582-4152 |
| Address | |
| BACK TO THE BRICKS In spite of internal disputes, activists will return to City Hall today (Tuesday 4-19) to challenge impervious and abusive City Hall authority backing the endless low-intensity War Against the Homeless. Instead the homeless remain outside–the target of police, security guards, and NIMBY’s who use them. They are free, even encouraged, to harass those without shelter under the City’s Sleeping Ban (MC 6.36.010a), the “Closed Spaces” ordinance (MC 13.04.011), and other laws designed to make Santa Cruz a “less welcoming place” to the poor. More info at http://freedomsleepers.org/ Even if you have no intention of ever going in the shelter, signing up is a good idea (and has to be renewed ever three days by phone). Citations given under MC 6.36 must be automatically dismissed by the City Attorney short of court according to MC 6.36.055. Section A of that law also states ” A person shall not be in violation of this chapter if, at the time of his or her citation for a violation of this chapter, either: the winter shelter at the Santa Cruz National Guard Armory is filled to capacity; or the person is currently on the waiting list for shelter service through one of the shelter programs offered by the Homeless Services Center or the River Street Shelter in Santa Cruz.” EARLIER READ AND FEED Food and flyers will be available earlier in the afternoon with Food Not Bombs organizer Keith McHenry and local FNBers. There’s no regular City Council meeting until April 26th when the Vanish the Vendors ordinance will reappear [See http://www.indybay.org/ Scott Collins, Assistant City Manager and one of the movers and shakers of the proposed VtV law, has not yet responded to questions about the law or agreed to meet. BUMRUSHING BLUE BRACKET ARTISTS Meanwhile last Saturday, two street artists were arrested and hauled away in handcuffs after refusing to sign their citations, as they had previously done in the past. [See “Pigs Repress Free Speech on Pacific” at http://www.indybay.org/ Alex Skeleton and Joff had previously won a trial against being “outside the blue boxes” [the bracketed and/or dotted areas on Pacific Ave. that “allow” artist activity]. They have been displaying and selling their artwork downtown for the last 9 months with no threats of citation recently. For more extensive background: http://www.indybay.org/ More info at http://freedomsleepers.org/ SUPPORT THE RIGHT TO SLEEP, THE RIGHT TO USE PUBLIC SPACE, AND THE RIGHT TO BASIC DIGNITY FOR EVERYONE. KEEP THE PRESSURE ON CITY HALL. THE RIGHT TO SLEEP IS THE RIGHT TO LIVE. |
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Category Archives: HOT ISSUES
“Vanish the Vendors” Law at City Hall Tuesday; Sleep-Out #40 Tuesday Night
https://www.indybay.org/
| Title: | Wheelchair Chris Memorial, Council’s “Vanish the Vendors” Law, and Freedom Sleep-Out #40 |
| START DATE: | Tuesday April 12 |
| TIME: | 12:00 PM – 12:00 PM |
| Location Details: | |
| Creepy Ole City Hall and Its Surrounding Grounds and Sidewalks and at times in the cold chambers of the Council Meeting area as well. |
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| Event Type: | Protest |
| Contact Name | Zav |
| Email Address | zhershfield [at] gmail.com |
| Phone Number | |
| Address | |
| CITY COUNCIL WITH NO VANISH THE VENDORS LAW High-visibility Homeless Highlander Keith McHenry says he’ll be setting up a literature and petitioning table at City Hall at noon.Item #22 on the Afternoon Agenda–coming up sometime between 3:30 and 4:30 (perhaps) is the “Vanish the Vendors” Law. It severely restricts tabling and performance space for all non-commercial purposes downtown. It reduces the number of spaces from the 63 promised by staff when Councilwoman Comstock’s original “sweep away the homeless clutter” law was passed in 2013. Now the staff report suggests 25 will be the limit allowed. The law bans dogs at tables. It BANS ALL VENDING AND OTHER SERVICES (such as massaging, hair wrapping, fortune telling, etc.). Not only selling, but distribution for donation, or display. Staff report, proposed law, current law, and correspondence–go to http://scsire.cityofsantacruz. EXEMPTIONS BUT FOR FOOD NOT BOMBS ? Instead of specifying where one can set up tables (“display devices”), it leaves this decision to future action by City Council. For the past two years, staff made the decisions behind closed doors, without public input, showing a, rigid and gentrified aesthetic hostile to street culture. Depending on where the backroom big boys decide to set up the “exempt” zones, Food Not Bombs sidewalk meals COULD BE CURTAILED OR SIMPLY BANNED. Staff bureaucrats will decide where the 25 exempt zones will be located. Heading this group is Assistant to the Assistant City Manager Scott Collins, who refused to retract “Freedom Sleepers leave a mess” false claims months ago, and then took Keith to court for publicly denouncing him. E-mail citycouncil [at] cityofsantacruz.com with your reaction to this latest “Roust the Riffraff” law. And then start thinking of ways to resist it, since the outcome is likely a done deal. Why address profound income inequality, no rent control and renter protection, and the most elementary survival rights for those without shelter? Instead weeks after the Winter Armory Shelter has closed with 100 of 1000–2000 houseless on the street, City Council will be further researching “Tiny Homes” instead of designating emergency campgrounds as nearby San Jose’s City Council has moved to do. CHRIS BEZORE MEMORIAL Further background: http://www.indybay.org/ SLEEP-OUT TO SPEND A 40TH NIGHT Troublemaker Toby–on survival vacation will be available Wednesday morning for input and outburst at the Sub Rosa Cafe (703 Pacific) at 10 AM where he will scheme with others on the future of the Freedom Sleepers. The regular HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) meeting willl begin at 11 AM. Free coffee for those with the stomach for it |
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Another Tuesday, Another SleepOut: Freedom SleepOut #39 at City Hall
| Title: | Chow Down in the Afternoon; Bed Down at Night at Freedom SleepOut #39 |
| START DATE: | Tuesday April 05 |
| TIME: | 5:00 PM – 5:00 AM |
| Location Details: | |
| In and Around Santa Cruz City Hall at 809 Center St. and on the sidewalk across from the main library | |
| Event Type: | Protest |
| Contact Name | Toby Nixon (posted by Norse) |
| Email Address | tobynixon [at] gms.com |
| Phone Number | 408-582-4152 |
| Address | |
| ON THE MENU The 39th weekly sidewalk sleepout in front of City Hall also includes a cook-out. Food Not Bombs will be serving vegies and other vegan yumyum’s from beneath its pavilion, waving to passing pedestrians, council members and staff during the late afternoon. Troublemaker Toby Nixon, the “no leaders” leader of the Triple A Freedom Sleepers will likely have some carnivore-pleasing items to sizzle on his portable stove. Jumbogumbo Joe Schultz is rumored to be providing coffee and additional edibles. MORE EXTENSIVE BENZORE MEMORIAL APRIL 12 WHY SHOW UP AT ALL? EARLIER REPORTS AND RELATED CAMPAIGNS Earlier reports on the Freedom Sleeper Sleep-Out’s and related subjects can be found by going to http://www.indybay.org/ The Give a Shit campaign to demand opening of the Public Bathrooms at City Hall at night will be further discussed and prepped at the Wednesday HUFF meeting at Sub Rosa 11 AM Wednesday April 6th. Freedom Sleepers will scheme for next week’s adventures at 10;30 AM at the Sub Rosa on April 6th. |
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Freedom Sleeper Dies; Activists Celebrate His Memory with Food and Sleep at Sleep-Out #38
https://www.indybay.org/
| Title: | BBQ with the Banbusters: Freedom Sleep-Out #38 Sizzles Into Sight |
| START DATE: | Tuesday March 29 |
| TIME: | 5:00 PM – 5:00 AM |
| Location Details: | |
| In the supposedly public area outside City Hall near the Center St. sidewalk across from the main library. | |
| Event Type: | Protest |
| Contact Name | Toby Nixon (posted by Norse) |
| Email Address | tobynixon [at] gms.com |
| Phone Number | 408-582-4152 |
| Address | |
| LESS CHATTER, MORE EATS There won’t be another City Council conclave of creepies until April 12th (two weeks from Tuesday). But homeless folks have to sleep every night and continue to receive $158 citations. To bolster weary spirits and nagging appetites, Freedom Sleepers (mainly Toby, Zav, and Pat) have arranged for a barbeque as dusk falls. Bring some food to cook if you’re able. Troublemaker Toby Nixon claims to be a serviceable chef. MORE MEETINGS, MORE TALK The notables conferring are apparently building on hopes that Councilmember David (“no sleep for the homeless”) Terrazas’s proposed “Homeless Study Task Force” to be proposed April 12 is actually more than smoke, mirror, chatter, and pretense. City Council stonewallers created an earlier Homeless Issues Task Force, which came up with all kinds of good recommendations–including the most obvious: repeal the Camping Ordinance until there is adequate shelter. Read it and weep at http://sccounty01.co.santa- It seems a little disingenuous to hook up with a “blame the County” initiative from “shift the responsibility” Terrazas when it’s the City that has the most repressive anti-homeless laws (all of which he voted for). OTHER EFFORTS Other cities like San Jose and Sacramento–under street and legal protest pressure– are seriously considering open air encampments. Salinas activists continue to fight the demolition of the Chinatown encampment (half swept away). Supporter are encouraged to join a nightly protest encampment outside City Hall at 200 Lincoln St. Salinas officials councilmembers themselves have decriminalized nighttime sleeping (even camping with tents), though they’ve harshened the ban against setting down homeless property. ANOTHER CASUALTY OF SANTA CRUZ CRUELTY Activist Abbi Samuels has released a report of her research into Chris’s death, which append to this calendar entry. The absurdly short amount of time when property reclamation fro the anti-homeless sweeps is permitted has never been adequately explained but seems yet another kick in the face to homeless folks with the usual “get out” message. GIVE A SHIT INITIATIVE STILL A PRESSING ISSUE HUFFsters who are still conscious will get together at 11 AM at the Sub Rosa at 703 Pacific to sip coffee and brood over the night’s events. |
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Fighting Back Against Bigotry in Santa Cruz and Salinas: Freedom SleepOut #37 and the Chinatown Resistance
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| The City Hall Courtyard grounds, torn up and ribboned off for “replanting” with much of the rest of the area near the City Council chambers roped off to isolate protesters from their elected “representatives”. That’s until 10 PM or thereabouts when straight-out exclusion from the entire City Hall area to quash protest forces protesters onto that old cold sidewalk in their fight against the Sleeping Ban. |
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| Event Type: | Protest | ||||||
| Contact Name | Toby Nixon (posted by Norse) | ||||||
| Email Address | tobynixon [at] gms.com | ||||||
| Phone Number
FOOD NOT BOMBS TO PROVIDE AFTERNOON FOOD On Wednesday the 23rd at 7 AM, the Chinatown Resistance will gather at 38 Soledad St. with civil disobedience in the air to stop the massive deportation of 200-300 homeless people at what may be the largest and longest City encampment there. RECENT ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
 For More Info and Comments Go to: https://www.indybay.org/
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408-582-4152
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In the Wake of Bigotry: Freedom SleepOut #36
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| Title: | Rage Against City Council Bigotry–Freedom SleepOut #36 |
| START DATE: | Tuesday March 15 |
| TIME: | 5:00 PM – 8:00 AM Wednesday |
| Location Details: | |
| 809 Center St. Outside City Hall and City Council Offices | |
| Event Type: | Protest |
| Contact Name | Toby Nixon (posted by Norse) |
| Email Address | rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com |
| Phone Number | 408-582-4152 |
| Address | |
| A week after City Council enraged and disappointed a room full of activists, Freedom Sleepers resume their regular weekly protest and invite the disenfranchised to join them. If supporters hold fast, there will be coffee in the morning.
Homeless folks at the Red Church and on Pacific Avenue Monday night continued to report citations for sleeping, being driven out into the rain, and regular harassment. RELATED SANTA CRUZ ACTIONS “Push Back” Pat Colby has announced she’ll be at the police station Thursday March 17 at 12:30 PM to help folks reclaim their property from the police. At present, police only allow folks to pick up their seized property 12:30 -2:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This restriction severely impacts unhoused people whose survival gear is confiscated–still a grim occurrence here. HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) will be present at the Project Pollinate day-long event on Saturday the 19th at San Lorenzo park between 11 and 1 PM to help organize resistance to the criminalization of the homeless. HUFF hopes to organize a caravan to Salinas on March 22nd to support the Salinas Union of the Homeless resisting the planned destruction of the Chinatown encampment (see below). HUFF will also be assisting people to call the River St. Shelter at 459-6644 to get on the Waiting List, which immunizes those on the list for three days from camping ticket prosecution. Insider, Silver-Tongued Steve Pleich’s predictions of higher City Council support for the right to sleep proved overly optimistic. He notes that City Councilmember Micah Posner may be introducing a call for City staff to find legal places to park RV’s in town. Several months ago, City Council, under the leadership of Councilmember Richelle Niroyan criminalized homeless RV parking at night. SIGNS OF EARLY SPRING IN THE STRUGGLE In addition, Sacramento housing activist Paula Lomazzi notes on her facebook page that the Justice Department is moving to block local and state fines for poor people in actions arising out of the Ferguson struggle: In Salinas, National Lawyers Guild attorney Anthony Prince has filed a second lawsuit demanding police leave homeless property alone. He has called for making Salinas “the Selma of 2016” recalling the civil rights struggles of the 60’s. Specifically, he wants folks to stand up to a scheduled police raid on the long-standing homeless encampment in Salinas’s Chinatown on March 23, by having a mass rally on the 22nd and sleepout there. See http://www.thecalifornian.com/ For more information, contact Wes White at 831-296-0042 . See the flier below for additional details. |
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by Wes White (posted by Norse)
Monday Mar 14th, 2016 11:27 PM
Sacramento Authorities Bending to Protest Actions in Tent City Fight ?
NOTES BY NORSE: After weeks of protest camping out in front of its City Hall, Sacramento homeless activists have forced change. Sacramento is discussing and its chief newspaper backing a Tent City as interim emergency shelter. The San Jose City Council is doing the same. Salinas activists, attorneys, and homeless residents of their Chinatown encampment have filed two lawsuits and announced a massive resistance campaign to begin March 22nd against gentrification deportation slated by greedy city bureacrats the next morning (HUFF activists may do a caravan–call 831-423-4833 if you’d like to join the resistance). San Francisco supervisors are calling for a State of Emergency there (http://www.inquisitr.com/
Santa Cruz continues to make sleep at night a crime & close off all parks and green belt areas with uniformed ticketeers roaming the area to drive away the poor. Freedom SleepOut #35 will continue its nine month long weekly protest in front of City Hall tomorrow evening (March 15th). See indybay.org/santacruz for more details. Independent activist Dogwood has called for a march from the Town Clock to City Hall beginning at 3 PM on that day. HUFF activists will be discussing further protest and speak-out activity at the Project Pollinate gathering this coming Saturday March 19th at San Lorenzo Park at noon. What’s next here depends on all of us.
March 11, 2016 10:00 PM Sacramento Bee
Let Sacramento’s homeless have their tent city
City-sanctioned camp is worth a try over the summer
Pilot program would help with short-term housing needs
Long-term solutions still need to happen, but will take time
TO FOLLOW THE LINKS AND COMMENTS, GO TO: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/
Pilot program would help with short-term housing needs
Long-term solutions still need to happen, but will take time
TO FOLLOW THE LINKS AND COMMENTS, GO TO: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/
Rows of tents fill an authorized lot at Tent City 5 in the Interbay neighborhood of Seattle. Sacramento officials toured the city-sanctioned homeless camp as they consider whether to authorize a similar one in the capital. Lezlie Sterlinglsterling@sacbee.com
By the Editorial Board
Imagine there were tents on a grassy lot in Oak Park, Meadowview or Del Paso Heights. Dozens of them, pitched for homeless men and women with nowhere else to go.
If such a scenario makes you uneasy, we understand. For years, Sacramento officials have been talking about whether to sanction a homeless encampment. And for just as many years, the idea has been dismissed as inhumane.
Now, though, the inhumanity of homelessness has spread across the city and the county for all to see. Permanent housing, the true solution, remains elusive if not illusory. The idea for a “safe ground” is gaining ground. With other, more traditional solutions still falling short, it’s time for the City Council to stop talking about this and try it – if only for a few months, in a cautious and controlled manner.
We suggest a pilot program for this summer. A permit should be granted for one agreed-upon site that’s big enough to house a few dozen adult campers in tents. Use of drugs and alcohol should be banned inside the camp, but pets should be allowed. Sex offenders and people who are prone to violence also should be banned.
Access to basic amenities such as portable toilets, water and trash collection, would be a must. So should access to services so campers can take advantage of treatment for addiction and mental illness, and get on a list for permanent housing.
To be clear, this isn’t a long-term solution to homelessness in Sacramento. Critics accurately point out that it remains unclear whether these camps actually help get homeless people into permanent housing. The experiment in Seattle, where a large delegation from Sacramento toured its legal camps last month, is ongoing.
But to go a step further and say a camp – even a temporary one – would do nothing but provide a distraction from other, more legitimate methods for solving homelessness is inaccurate.
It’s a stopgap measure that can be put into place quickly and relatively cheaply, and address some shorter-term problems associated with homelessness while the infrastructure for longer-term solutions is put into place.
The way Seattle Mayor Ed Murray put it, the authorized camps in his city are “an answer to nothing except a warm and safer night to some people.” And for homeless people who would otherwise camp outdoors – disconnected from services, risking arrest, getting robbed and even death because there aren’t enough shelters or because mental illness makes it tough to sleep indoors – being warm and safe is indeed something.
In other words, a city-sanctioned camp is far from ideal, but for the time being, necessary. Consider the alternatives.
Last summer, in the midst of another year of drought, homeless campers trying to cook instead set fire to large swaths of the American River Parkway. The blazes were costly to put out and threatened nearby apartment complexes, prompting the county to spend even more money to hire more park rangers to confiscate cooking equipment and break up large campsites amid the dry trees and brush.
That said, people have been camping illegally and in unsafe, disgusting conditions on the parkway for decades – to Sacramento’s ever-lasting shame when Oprah Winfrey singled out the city for it in 2009.
Since then, the city has ramped up its stock of permanent housing with links to social services. But on any given night, there are still about 1,000 people outside in Sacramento County, most of them in the city. Homeless-rights advocates readily tell stories of fruitless efforts to get people into shelters and onto lengthy lists for housing.
Things are improving. There’s talk of rearranging space at existing shelters to accommodate more people, and work is being done with landlords to get them to accept more tenants. But these things will take time, and summer is coming.
In the meantime, homeless people, once primarily downtown and in midtown, have started to migrate into surrounding neighborhoods as the city has redoubled its efforts to spruce up the central city. Many of those neighborhoods are the same ones being eyed as potential sites for sanctioned camps: in City Council Districts 2, 5 and 8.
The group Safe Ground Sacramento is pushing for District 5, which covers Oak Park, Curtis Park, Hollywood Park, South Land Park and neighborhoods near Sacramento Executive Airport. For those neighborhoods, the question isn’t whether residents want homeless people milling about. That’s already a fact of life, even for the NIMBYs.
The question is, do those residents want to deal with homeless men and women one on one, particularly those wandering the streets with untreated mental illness and addiction problems? Or do they want to deal with homeless people living in a camp in their neighborhood, where the environment is so controlled that everyone is screened before they are allowed to enter?
There’s also the bigger question of whether those mostly poor neighborhoods should be forced to bear the entire burden of city’s homeless problem. We think not.
Whatever neighborhood the City Council chooses if it authorizes a camp next month, it should take the advice of Seattle Councilman Mike O’Brien and get residents involved early in the process to enlist their help selecting an appropriate site. The result, he told The Sacramento Bee’s Ryan Lillis, has been that many of the business owners who thought a homeless camp would drive away customers now acknowledge their fears “don’t seem to be materializing.”
A collection of tents on a plot a land in some Sacramento neighborhood is not a solution to homelessness. It is an admission that society has failed the thousands of people who have no roof. The notion of a safe ground, flawed though it is, could help and, therefore, it’s worth a try.
Council Crushes Sleeping Ban Reform: Will the Community Fight Back?
To make and read comments go to https://www.indybay.org/
Rumblings of Resistance After the Council Crushes Reform?
by Robert Norse ( rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com )
Sunday Mar 13th, 2016 12:54 PM
Sunday Mar 13th, 2016 12:54 PM
I distributed the following flyers at the March 8th Council Meeting, pretty much expecting that in spite of reasonable argument, strong presentation, and majority testimony, the City Council majority would easily vote down the proposed ordinance changes. It was a disgusting, discouraging, and enraging yet predictable experience. Here are a few notes.
THE SITUATION
I made some earlier comments anticipating the Council voter at http://www.indybay.org/
I analyzed the substance of the Lane proposal and the process by which it was created on a radio show archived at http://www.huffsantacruz.org/
I made some earlier comments anticipating the Council voter at http://www.indybay.org/
I analyzed the substance of the Lane proposal and the process by which it was created on a radio show archived at http://www.huffsantacruz.org/
The entire video of the Council meeting can be found on the City’s website at http://www.cityofsantacruz.
I’ve reviewed in detail (probably too much detail) the Council “discussion” prior to its crushing the Lane proposal 5-2 at http://radiolibre.org/brb/
On the positive side, Lane finally adopted the position that homeless people generally, most homeless activists, religious groups, student organizations, numerous social service agencies, and even timid liberals have held for years: sleeping is a need and a right.
Turning sleeping into a crime permanently hurts the poor. It is fiscally stupid. It does not serve the community’s interests. It embitters/divides us. It also deepens the police state, maintaining (and this is nothing new) a pariah underclass, denied the rights everyone else takes for granted. Nice incentive to keep working shit jobs and paying rent, of course. If you’re not a part of the gentry, move out or get busted for sleeping.
FIGHTING BACK?
Will the community do nothing while unhoused people continue to be treated like dirt to be hosed away? So far–yes. But there are rumblings of mutiny.,
Freedom rider and more recently Freedom Sleeper Phil Posner has called for a real response to the Council’s craziness.
Activist Elisse C. recently sent out an e-mail asking for folks to gather next Tuesday before Freedom SleepOut #36 on 3-15 at 3 PM.
In other cities like Salinas on March 22nd, middle-class activists and unhoused folks are fighting back: http://www.thecalifornian.com/
Silence gives consent. But do the good liberals and the nervous progressives of Santa Cruz want to take the risks of actively opposing Trumpism in Santa Cruz (in Democratic Party garb, of course).
§Proposed Additions to Lane Changes
by Robert Norse Sunday Mar 13th, 2016 12:54 PM
These changes were circulated a week before the meeting, even though Lane excluded me (and other activists) from his meetings. Lane included the addition of “sleeping bags” to diluted language; Posner added the suggestion that sleeping equipment shall not be used as evidence of camping crime. Needless to say, neither passed. Important to clarify, though, what’s needed. Far more, of course.
§Staff Stonewalling at City Council
by Robert Norse Sunday Mar 13th, 2016 12:54 PM
In spite of multiple requests, the SCPD refused to provide access to the citations they gave under the camping ordinance (specifically holding back race and address). The request was made months ago. Councilmember Posner also declined to make a written request for this information though he made the request verbally to the police chief, I was told. So there’s no documentation that the staff is directly frustrating a relevant and timely request for data that bore directly on the
Council debate.
Council debate.
§Wake Up the Community Conscience
by Robert Norse Sunday Mar 13th, 2016 12:54 PM
An early attempt to recognize, even prior to the Council meeting, that Lane’s proposal was likely to fail. The real issue then is a sustained response, building on the abusive City Council response and, hopefully, public outrage from those watching.
§No Rest in the Right-to-Rest Struggle
by Robert Norse Sunday Mar 13th, 2016 12:54 PM
Salinas the Selma of 2016: Activist Attorney Anthony Prince Urges “Stand in Solidarity March 22nd with Chinatown Residents”
Salinas homeless urged to ‘stand their ground’
Chelcey Adami9:06 p.m. PST March 11, 2016 Salinas Californian
With an approaching date set for the city to begin removing homeless property from encampments, Chinatown homeless and homeless advocates urged others Friday to “stand their ground” when the time comes. The city’s clean-up activities are scheduled to begin on March 23 in the area of Market Way and Bridge Alley, and after that, they will spread to other not-yet-specified areas.
Since the city passed the ordinance allowing the city to remove homeless property, which they say is necessary due to health and safety concerns caused by the growing encampments, a group has protested the move in a federal lawsuit against the city, alleging violations of homeless civil rights and more.
In late February, a judge denied a preliminary injunction filed on behalf of the homeless that would have prevented the city from removing the property.
Anthony Prince, the attorney representing the homeless, said they plan to fight the ruling and also add new defendants to include a number of area homeless service providers who he said have misrepresented how much housing and assistance they could provide homeless who want to leave the encampments. A new judge has been assigned to that case as it continues through mediation. Continue reading
Today’s Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides show at 6 PM features the Sleeping Ban Disgrace and interviews from Roseville & Venice
The show broadcasts at 101.3 FM, streams on the internet at freakradio.org at 6 PM tonight (March 10). It will archive at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/
Coming Up on this edition of Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides Commentary on the City Council’s Affirmation of the Ban on Sleeping, Interviews with Jody of Roseville, Toby of the Freedom Sleepers, and Peggy Lee Kennedy of Venice on the fight to keep open the beaches and piers for the homeless, political activists, and the public generally.
Due to power outages and equipment problems, the usual Sunday morning Bathrobespierre’s Broadsides show was not available at its usual time. The March 6 show intended for broadcast includes interviews with Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry, Berkeley singer and activist Carol Denney on the history of People’s Park, and my analysis of Lane’s Camping Ordinance amendments.
It is now available.
Go to http://www.huffsantacruz.org/