Category Archives: Mainstream Media

Albany Homeless Driven to Nowhere

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NOTES BY NORSE:  As here and elsewhere, an unholy coalition of gentrification gents, NIMBY’s, homeless-o-phobes, “public safety” flimflam hysterics, and (strangely) environmentalists are pushing or backing the deportation-to-nowhere of homeless folks, who haven’t created any notable problems (and certainly less than when they are dumped and dispersed).  In Santa Cruz, this takes the form of Clean-Up’s, a Public Safety Task Farce, a collection of tightening restrictions on the use of public spaces for everyone, & a neighborhood siege mentality targeting homeless survival camping as the Menace of the Month.

                   The first two stories are from the Berkeley Daily Planet, an on-line paper at www.berkeleydailyplanet.com .  The third an earlier one from the S.F. Chronicle.
Laying waste to the primitive hovels and tents of poor homeless people is billed in the mainscream newspapers as garbage disposal, drug dealer seizure, and public security enhancement. ( See http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_24168246/illegal-camp-cleanup-slated-carbonera-creek-property-santa  &  www.santacruzsentinel.com/copsandcourts/ci_24429612/deputies-clean-out-corralitos-creek-homeless-campsite  ).

The Sierra Club and the Albany Bulb

By Lydia Gans
Thursday October 24, 2013 – 08:17:00 PM
The backlash against the Sierra Club for joining with Citizens for East Shore Parks in lobbying to incorporate the Bulb into East Shore State Park is not surprising. The San Francisco Bay Chapter, in the May issue of their newspaper, the Yodeler, states the rationale for their action. It gives a very troubling image of the group. The story is titled “Changing the Albany Bulb – creating a bright spot on the East Bay Shoreline”. Apparently in order to “create a bright spot” the first step requires evicting the people who are camping there, people for whom the Bulb is their home. Why is this Sierra Club chapter participating in evicting people? The mission of the Sierra Club is the maintenance and protection of the environment for the enjoyment of the people. It does not mean only certain people, only the“right kind” of people.In going over some of the Bulb history, the Yodeler article says; “In the 1990’s people started camping illegally on the Bulb, and in 1999 the city and the Park District removed that camper population, but the land was again left unprotected …” From what, or from whom did the land need to be protected? From people who cared for it as their home, who planted trees, made trails, worked at mitigating rebar and concrete hazards on the site?

Protected from people who created works of art out of found materials, set up and operated a free lending library?

Over the years the police occasionally sent homeless people from the streets out to the Bulb but otherwise the city of Albany pretty much ignored the camp. Some churches and community organizations and local citizens who enjoyed the place regularly brought food and supplies to the campers. The Sierra Club never took an interest in them. Other than contract with Berkeley Food And Housing Project to provide “Outreach and Engagement” the city has done nothing for the campers. Albany has no homeless shelters and apparently little or no affordable housing – only one of the 60 or so campers has been housed.

One might ask the question, why now? Why do the Sierra Club and Citizens for East Shore Parks demand the Bulb incorporated into the Park at this time? The Bulb juts out from the shoreline and would not be an integral part of the Park nor would any section of the Bay trail go through the Bulb. With a few amenities such as toilets and running water and possibly some help in getting rid of the rebar and concrete it could continue to serve as a campground – at least until Albany can provide proper housing for homeless.

Albany Landfill Evictions Affect Berkeley

By Daniel J. McMullan III
Thursday October 24, 2013 – 08:28:00 PM
In 1999 I was asked by some of the then long time residents of the Albany landfill to come out to the bulb and advocate for those who were being evicted, some them after living there for over 10 years or more.At the time the City of Albany had no services whatsoever for the homeless and their only design, that became very clear by the end, was to dump their homeless problem on the City of Berkeley. The residents of the landfill then as they are today came from places all over the state and country.

I watched the City of Berkeley spend 100’s of thousands if not millions of dollars on the people they ejected from the landfill, most of whom eventually died on our streets. With the help of a non-profit they paid a nominal $13,000 they shifted their responsibility to their homeless to Berkeley.

Now they are in the process of doing it again. In the 14 years since the last big dump upon our City, Albany has done nothing. Still not a single penny has been spent on any program or plan to deal with its homeless.(Unless you want to count the very recent plan to put it’s responsibilities on the backs of the Berkeley taxpayer)

To keep the heat off themselves they permitted their homeless to occupy the landfill again but now they want to pull another people dump at our expense. Every item in their plan is the same except that this time instead of employing conservation corps members to tear out the foliage. They have employed goats. I like goats and to use these noble creatures to serve their hateful plan is very disturbing.

Albany has already hired a willing Berkeley non-profit to do their fakery. And the rest of their non-plan is rolling along. I ask the Mayor and City council to direct the City attorney to put a stop to this in and by any and all means available to us.

We have been hard at work with our own responsibilities,The Homeless Task Force, the revitalization of our SRO’s and creating movement in that system among many, many other things.) And now Albany wants to throw another 70+ people on our streets and into our programs and services?

Albany has one plan. One Action

Dump all its problem’s and expenses on us, on Berkeley.

Time to flip switch at Albany Bulb park, city says

Carolyn Jones
Published 5:21 pm, Monday, September 9, 2013
  • A view of the bay from inside the Castle, a piece of conceptual art that was built by an Albany Bulb resident. Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The Chronicle
    A view of the bay from inside the Castle, a piece of conceptual art that was built by an Albany Bulb resident. Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The Chronicle

For more Albany Bulb Art go to http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Time-to-flip-switch-at-Albany-Bulb-park-city-says-4800115.php

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Albany’s version of People’s Park appears headed for a showdown next month when police begin rousting 60 to 70 homeless people who’ve taken up residence at a long-neglected shoreline park.The City Council recently voted to begin enforcing no-camping laws at the Albany Bulb, a 31-acre former landfill that juts into San Francisco Bay just north of Golden Gate Fields racetrack.

But some of the homeless, a few of whom have camped there for decades, pledge to resist any relocation efforts. Affordable housing in the Bay Area is scarce, far too expensive and potentially too far away or unsafe, they said.

In short, Albany is their home, and they want to stay there, they said.

“It’s frustrating, aggravating, scary,” said Katherine Cody, 60, who’s lived at the Bulb for about two years. “I’m comfortable here. I feel safe here. Rainy season is coming – I don’t know where I’ll go except the streets of Albany.”

The Bulb, named after its shape, is comprised of old concrete, rebar, dirt and other debris from the construction of East Bay highways. Since the landfill closed in 1984, it’s evolved into a somewhat more natural setting, with a beach and dense acacia, broom, eucalyptus and other plants.

Decades ago, artists began colonizing the Bulb as a sort of outdoor studio not unlike the old Emeryville mudflats, leaving anonymous works of all shapes, sizes and quality. Some works have endured and others have disintegrated over the years.

In the 1980s, homeless people also started moving in, taking advantage of the relative quiet and million-dollar bay views. Some have semipermanent homes, with generators, sturdy wooden walls and even multiple stories.

The Bulb is also a favorite among dog walkers, who enjoy the informal off-leash rules, beach and relatively wild environment. Some have noted it’s one of the only shoreline parks that’s not manicured or developed with paved paths.

Part of state park

In the mid-1980s, the Bulb became one of the original pieces of the Eastshore State Park, envisioned as a continuous strip of bayside greenery stretching from Oakland to Richmond and linked by the Bay Trail.

Most of the park is completed. But the Bulb remains as woolly as ever, due in part to complications with the Regional Water Quality Control Board over seepage.

Those issues are finally resolved, and last spring the city began moving ahead with plans to clean up the Bulb and turn it over to the East Bay Regional Park District and California State Parks to incorporate into the Eastshore State Park.

Relocating the homeless is an important part of that transition, said Robert Cheasty, a former Albany mayor who’s president of Citizens for East Shore Parks, a nonprofit.

“Thousands of people have worked for three or four decades to turn this area into a usable shoreline park,” he said. “We cannot break the faith of all these people just to allow a small group to essentially privatize public land.”

Helping the homeless

To ease the transition for the homeless, the city has spent $60,000 on a contract with Berkeley Food and Housing Project, a nonprofit, to help the Bulb campers find homes, counseling and other services.

The anticamping enforcement should have come months, if not years, ago, said City Councilwoman Peggy Thomsen.

“It’s a safety issue and a health issue, and we need an end point,” she said. “A lot of people are afraid to go out there. We need to worry about the safety not just of regular park users but the inhabitants as well.”

That’s little comfort to the homeless, who say they’re safer there than they would be at a shelter or at affordable housing in sketchy areas.

“Everyone’s stressed,” Cody said. “We don’t know where we’re going to go. It’s very discouraging.”

 

Hope and Positive Reporting: A Rare Commodity in the Media

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NOTES BY NORSE:  The two stories below come as a welcome but unusual respite from the flood of anti-homeless propaganda, police vitriol, and drug war dirt used to smear those outside locally.  A long series of interesting and spirited comments unlike the usual troll detritus on the Sentinel website follows the article profiling the Felton homeless folks at  http://pressbanner.com/view/full_story/23916689/article-The-experience-of-the-homeless-in-Felton?instance=home_news_bullets#cb_post_comment_23916689   There you can read “Take Back Santa Cruz”–Felton-style bigots getting corrected by the homeless people they are smearing.  Quite provocative.  A little favorable publicity can go a long way.

Homeless turn overnight California bus route into ‘Hotel 22’

By Mark Emmons, San Jose Mercury News
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_24433523/homeless-turn-overnight-california-bus-route-into-hotel

Posted:   11/01/2013 07:43:43 AM PDT

People wait to board the No. 22 VTA bus at about 1:20 a.m. morning, October 25. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

ABOARD VTA BUS 22 — Sylvia Hernandez bundled up with extra clothing from her small pull cart and prepared to join the other dozen people trying to doze on the bumpy ride between East San Jose and Palo Alto, Calif. It’s still early, she said. Just wait.

“Later, it will completely be full of homeless people,” Hernandez said.

By midnight, the transformation from public bus into “Hotel 22”³ was well under way — and among the growing number of no-place-to-call-home riders was a father and his 10-year-old daughter.

“We don’t have a place to stay,” said the man, who wouldn’t give their names, but said they had spent nights this way for five months. “From early evening to morning, we’re on the bus.”

Line 22, the only bus route that runs 24 hours in the Santa Clara (Calif.) Valley Transportation Authority system, becomes an unofficial shelter each night, a mobile testament both to the resourcefulness of the region’s homeless and the agonizing challenge of finding shelter in pricey Silicon Valley.

Weary riders can start at the Eastridge Transit Center and travel for two-plus hours to the end point at the Palo Alto Transit Center. There, they wait for a return bus, and then maybe make the round trip again. Somehow, they manage to nod off despite the herky-jerky motion and lights coming on with each stop as an automated voice announces the location.

“The bus says to me that people are so desperate that they will ride it all night,” said Jenny Niklaus, the CEO of the nonprofit EHC LifeBuilders. “Think about it: We are in such a state of crisis that people are eager to ride a bus, and it’s been that way for years.”

One early morning last week, an older woman, who would identify herself only as Angel, said being a Hotel 22 rider comes down to simple survival skills.

“The bus,” she said, “is safety.”

The complex problem of homelessness is a hot-button issue in Silicon Valley at a time when the high-tech economy continues to fuel the expensive
home and rental markets — widening the divide between haves and have-nots.

A 2012 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report highlighted how the South Bay has become a front line to the homeless quandary not only here in the Bay Area, but nationally as well. It found that San Jose and Santa Clara County had the nation’s highest percentage of unsheltered homeless as well as the third-highest number of chronically homeless.

Using data from another census, conducted in January, it was estimated that 19,063 people in the county would experience homelessness this year. The survey found that 27 percent of homeless said they had been turned away from an emergency shelter in the previous 30 days — usually because of a lack of beds.“There are 5,000 homeless on any given night, and we just don’t have enough housing for all of them,” said Ray Bramson, San Jose’s homelessness response team manager.

That explains Hotel 22.

The line is VTA’s longest and busiest route, ferrying about 20 percent of the system’s overall bus ridership. In the overnight hours, three buses make the meandering trip that runs from East San Jose, through downtown, onto the El Camino Real corridor into Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View and finally Palo Alto — before heading back.

VTA officials make clear that homeless have just as much right to ride as anyone as long as they obey the rules such as no smoking, eating or drinking.

“We serve the public, and that includes anybody who has the need for transportation and has the ability to pay,” said Greta Helm, the VTA’s chief external affairs officer. “If people present a valid fare, there’s no reason to dispute them boarding.”

A one-way fare costs $2, but monthly passes can be purchased for $70, and VTA also has a program offering some free, quarterly transit passes to homeless and those in risk of losing their housing. So the Hotel 22 is a relative bargain in high-cost Silicon Valley.

As night stretched into early morning last week, late-shift workers and club-hoppers who mostly stared at their smartphones thinned out. They largely were replaced by people using the bus to catch some sleep rather than reach a destination. More were men than women, and the ages of all tended to skew older.

“This bus has all kinds of names, like Hotel 22 or some just call it ‘Life on the 22,’ ” said Tony Velgara, a bus operator. “These usually are nice people, but they’re just dealing with hard times. They’re just like anybody else.”

Hernandez, 52, sat near the front where she could stay close to her cart containing possessions. Hernandez said she has been homeless two years since losing her disability compensation, splitting nights between what she described as “benches” and Bay Area public transportation.

“People think it’s easy finding a place to stay, but in a bad economy, it’s very difficult to even get into a shelter,” Hernandez added. “And the winter shelters aren’t going to be opening for another month, and it’s going to begin to rain soon.”

When passengers disembarked in Palo Alto, they only had to wait a few minutes before climbing on a San Jose-bound bus. On this trip, the father slept sitting up in a back corner. His daughter was lying over three seats, covered in a blanket, a backpack serving as a pillow.

The father was uncomfortable revealing details about their lives. But he did say that he’s 40, has been unemployed and that he and his daughter, who is in fifth grade, are on a family shelter waiting list.

“She’s managing, much better than I ever expected,” the father said after waking her as the bus reached Eastridge at about 1:45 a.m. “I have no idea how she’s doing it. This is one of her best years so far in school.”

The girl, acting like a Hotel 22 veteran, had joined a large group of people gathering for another journey toward Palo Alto — a mixture of newcomers and those who had made the previous round trip.

“Daddy, the bus is coming!” she shouted in a voice both urgent and tired.

As it left the station, the Hotel 22 nearly was full.

“In the morning,” the father had said before boarding, “she’ll get on the bus for school.”

The experience of the homeless in Felton
Jeffrey Scofield, Rob Ropes, Jonney Hughes, and Linda Miller discuss their experiences living homeless in Felton. Joe Shreve/Press-Banner

Jeffrey Scofield, Rob Ropes, Jonney Hughes, and Linda Miller discuss their experiences living homeless in Felton. Joe Shreve/Press-Banner

The topic of homelessness in Felton is not exactly a new one, but in the past several months, it has become something of a hot topic as local community groups and organizations have made a priority of addressing the environmental and societal concerns associated with homelessness and homeless encampments.

In the wake of some extensive coverage of the efforts of the political and community organizations, a group of homeless agreed to meet with the Press-Banner on Tuesday, Oct. 8 to share their own experiences of being homeless in Felton.

“I never dreamed I’d be homeless,” said Jonney Hughes, a woman in her early fifties who described herself as being retired and on disability. “There’s all kinds of reasons people are out here.”

Hughes said that she found herself without a home in 2003, when she was suddenly widowed.

For the next five years, she said, she camped in many different places in the Santa Cruz Mountains and found herself accepted into what she described as a tight-knit family of fellow homeless people.

“They took care of me,” Hughes said. “You just don’t have any of the things you need to have, so everybody looks out for everybody.”

Hughes said that while she has lived in a fifth-wheel camper since 2008, she still maintains regular ties with her homeless friends.

“I still come here every day,” she said. “I love these people.”

Linda Miller, 54, originally hails from Virginia, but has lived in the Felton area for the past 9 years, living with her boyfriend, Rob Ropes, in his recreational vehicle — parking it wherever he can find a safe place.

Miller, a retired nursing assistant, said that she is currently on disability and found herself homeless 20 years ago in the wake of a messy divorce.

David Paul, an unemployed woodworker, has camped in the Felton wilderness since early August. He said he had been living with his brother — who has a home in the area — for several months after moving from Colorado in search of work.

While he has not been homeless in the area as long as the others, it is not his first time being homeless, either.

“I’ve done it before in Colorado,” he said. “I’ve gone through this before.”
 
‘One of these days, they could be right where we’re at.’
All of the homeless people interviewed said that they are all too aware of the spotlight cast on them, and negative reputation associated with them, in recent months.

Many said that they feel as though they are being unfairly assigned blame for issues raised by the community — such as littering, drug abuse, and aggressive panhandling.

Often, they said, issues arise when mentally ill people from local treatment facilities are mistaken for homeless people, or new — often younger — homeless people come to the area and do not understand the rules followed by the established homeless community.

“We try to police our own people,” Hughes said. “You’ve got a lot more younger (homeless), and it’s up to the older ones to teach the younger ones.”

Ropes said that most of the homeless in the area are just trying to eke out a living, and described the idea of drug abuse as “ludicrous.”

Ari Stines, a younger homeless man agreed.

“Most of the people who can afford drugs are in downtown (Santa Cruz),” he said.

Hughes said that, as far as littering goes, recycling is often the primary source of income for homeless people, and they “recycle everything they can get a hold of.”

Ropes, who has to frequently move his recreational vehicle due to lack of a legal place to park it, said he is often harassed — even when the RV was parked at an auto shop with a work order invoice attached to it.

“We don’t do drugs, we don’t panhandle, and we don’t beg,” Ropes said. “All I want to do is be left alone.”

While Paul acknowledged that a few bad apples occasionally appear, he said that most homeless people are just trying to make the most of a bad situation and the spotlight falls on the homeless because “you’re so much in the open here.”

“The people that are willing to help themselves aren’t the problem,” Paul said. “(The ones that aren’t), they just get to a point where they just go underground.”

Miller said that she was often upset by what she sees as a lack of communication and understanding between the homeless and the community.
“It really upsets me,” she said. “One of these days, they could be right where we’re at.”

‘I wish we could find a place’
The reality of the situation in Felton, Hughes said, is that with crackdowns on camping on private property, such as the closure of the Felton Meadow property by Mount Hermon, have concentrated the homeless into a few places.

“The bottom line is, where do they want the homeless to go?” she said.

Paul, who is a member of the Felton Reboot group working to clean up downtown Felton, said that he and other homeless were trying to get involved in dialogue with community members.

“Some of us are trying to do some outreach,” he said. “We’re trying to put our best foot forward.”

He said that the homeless needed to acknowledge the community’s concerns as much as vice versa.

“They have valid concerns,” Paul said. “You can’t discount people — otherwise, it’s just a wall between us.”

Ropes said that he, and others, have paid rent to down-on-their-luck homeowners who are willing to let homeless camp on their property, but that always comes with the fear of bringing a red tag down from the county.

“I paid $10,000 for this RV,” he said. “I have some money; I’d be happy to pay rent.”

Hughes, who herself lives in a fifth-wheel trailer, said that one day, she’d like to see a place set aside for homeless people to camp, and not put homeowners at risk by renting to homeless.

“We’re worried we’re going to get (the homeowners) in trouble,” Hughes said. “I wish I could find a place where homeless could go.”

Homeless Encampments in Fresno–the Mainstream Media & the Advocate Response

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Fresno Bee Editorial

October 24, 2013
http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/10/23/3568717/editorial-illegal-camps-are-cleared.html

EDITORIAL: Illegal camps are cleared, but Fresno homeless need shelter
City should set up temporary camp for those awaiting housing.
Evidence of the gaping hole in Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin’s plan to deal with rampant homelessness can be seen all over the city.
Homeless people are living behind businesses, along freeways and on the San Joaquin River bottom. Some are squatting in vacant homes and garages. During the day, they panhandle for cash and congregate near parking-lot recycling centers, where they turn in cans, bottles and cardboard for money.
The Swearengin administration is doing the right thing by clearing out the illegal homeless encampments downtown. These encampments were unsanitary and unsafe and created intolerable conditions for nearby residents and businesses.
The mayor’s goal of helping the homeless gain independence through “housing first” is also laudable. This strategy provides immediate housing to individuals for stability and then attempts to treat the causes that put them on the streets.
Swearengin deserves credit, too, for launching Fresno First Steps Home, which provides funding to nonprofits and agencies helping the homeless.
But there’s a fatal flaw in her homeless plan: housing is expensive and limited, and Fresno has an estimated 4,000 homeless. With the closing of the illegal encampments, most of them are left with nowhere to go but the street.
We recognize the city’s stressed finances. But skilled leadership can move mountains at bargain rates. The mayor should assemble a team of city staff, homeless advocates and community leaders to set up a temporary emergency camp.
The camp should have rules, toilets, wash areas and security. It must be fenced and located in an area without adjacent businesses and homes. Most of all, it should be temporary.
Long term, Fresno needs a permanent, dormitory-style place for homeless waiting to transition into housing.
San Antonio, Texas, for example, has the 37-acre Haven for Hope, a nonprofit facility that can house up to 1,500 men, women and children.
Haven for Hope’s greatest asset perhaps is its more than 80 federal, state and community partnerships.
It will require that kind of teamwork in Fresno to successfully address our homeless problem.


THE ADVOCATE RESPONSE

To: FresnoHomelessAdvocates@yahoogroups.com
From: MikeRhodes@comcast.net
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 21:54:47 -0700
Subject: [FresnoHomelessAdvocates] Responding to The Fresno Bee editorial

The Fresno Bee printed an editorial (see below) about the homeless in this morning’s paper.  Several people have asked me what I thought about it.
What I liked about the Fresno Bee editorial was that it made a strong statement about the need to do something for the thousands of homeless people who are living on the streets right now.  The mayor’s narrative is that homeless encampments are bad and that she wants to put people into housing.  That is a nice and simple message that plays well in the media, but the problem is that there is a huge gap between destroying the encampments and when homeless people get a voucher and into an apartment.  This is something that I have been talking about for years.  While I find it hard to believe that the mayor thinks that you can destroy homeless peoples shelters and then VIOLA, they are all in housing, that is what she is saying.  The Bee just called her out on her faulty logic.  I get that she is trying to be “positive,” but there is such a huge disconnect between what she is saying and reality, people can’t help but notice.
Aside from The Bee’s acknowledgment that this GAP exists, I did not like the analysis or the solutions they offer.  For example, they wrote “The Swearengin administration is doing the right thing by clearing out the illegal homeless encampments downtown.”  I disagree.  The homeless encampment they destroyed yesterday was a calm place with a stable group of people who looked out for each other.  The owner of the land did not mind that the homeless were there, but was coerced into having them removed, rather than be fined by the City of Fresno for the clean up.  At least that is what the owner told the people who lived there.  The Grain Silo encampment was just a poor neighborhood that homeless people lived in because they could not afford to live somewhere else.  The camp provided protection from predators and there was always someone around to look after a neighbors property if a resident left for a while.  Without having neighbors you can trust, people are more vulnerable.  How is it better for a woman to live alone out in the open or under an oleander bush, without neighbors to protect her?  Homeless encampments provide protection and stability for people who find themselves in very difficult circumstances.
Also, having thousands of people displaced from the encampments in the downtown area is going to be a problem for the health and safety of everyone.  At least when people lived in these encampments we could provide them with portable toilets and trash bins.  That is no longer the case.  Where do you think all of that waste is going to end up now?
The Bee’s solution is to put homeless people into a big encampment that “must be fenced and located in an area without adjacent businesses and homes.”  Great!  First City Hall tells people that the homeless are criminals, they destroy their shelters, take their property and now they want to put them in a concentration camp in some remote location?  This has been done before and the outcome is not good.
The answer is decentralized safe and legal places for the homeless to live.  Homeless advocates wrote a proposal to do this in January 2012.  A copy of that proposal is also below.
Mike Rhodes
Editor
Community Alliance Newspaper
PO Box 5077
Fresno Ca 93755
(559) 978-4502 (cell)
editor@fresnoalliance.com
www.fresnoalliance.com
***

PROPOSAL FOR SAFE AND LEGAL HOMELESS ENCAMPMENTS IN FRESNO

The Need
The City of Fresno allowed homeless encampments to exist and grow for several years but in the past couple of months has cleared out all the major encampments in the city. This dislocation has resulted in thousands of homeless people in Fresno having no safe and legal place to live.
Existing shelters cannot house all of the homeless who are now sleeping on sidewalks and other locations not intended for human habitation. As temperatures dipped below freezing in late December, one woman died as she slept on the sidewalk outside of the Poverello House. Many others are sick with pneumonia and other illnesses related to their exposure to the cold weather.
The cost to city and county government, if we allow the situation to continue as it currently exists, will be enormous. The price of providing emergency medical care and hospitalization would be dramatically reduced if we redirected those dollars to provide the homeless with a safe and legal place to live.
Although the city’s goal of decent, affordable and permanent housing for everyone is a good goal, we all know that it cannot be achieved anytime soon. Therefore, there will be homeless people who do not make it into a shelter and have no place to sleep. It is with those people in mind, and there are currently thousands of them in the City of Fresno, that this proposal is intended to assist.
Safe and Legal Campsites
The fastest and easiest way to dramatically improve life for the homeless would be to allow them to construct shelters and provide them with basic public services. With shelters like tents, the homeless can get out of the rain and stay considerably warmer than if they have no protection from the rain, wind and cold.
These encampments will exist on public and private land. The City of Fresno could determine which property it owns that will be used for these encampments. The city will allow encampments to be developed, through a conditional use permit, for any owner of property who wanted to use his/her land for that purpose. The city will work with other state, federal or county governmental entities to facilitate the use of the land for encampments.
Initially, Phase I of this proposal seeks to allow the establishment of encampments at existing sites, with limited development of infrastructure. A longer-term project will see some infrastructure put into place to better serve the needs of the homeless residents.
These campsites will be self-governing and not overseen by any social service agency or government entity. The residents will be like any other group of people living in a small neighborhood. They will be provided with drinking water, portable toilets and trash pickup. Those services could be paid for by the city, county, community groups, churches, and/or individuals.
The individuals living in these safe and legal homeless encampments will be responsible for maintaining the campsite. No illegal activity will be permitted in the camp. If there are legal problems, they will be handled in the same way as they are in any other neighborhood in Fresno.
These campsites will be distributed throughout the city and consist of no more than 100 residents per encampment. The purpose of the multiple locations is an acknowledgment that homeless people live throughout the community, and the intention is to equitably distribute the encampments throughout the city as much as possible. The purpose of limiting each camp to 100 people or less is to avoid concentrating the homeless in one location and impacting any single area with a high density of homeless people.
Possible campsites include vacant lots, churches, parks and unused government property.
Phase I of this proposal will start immediately and utilize the areas where the homeless are already living. Phase I will allow the homeless to construct simple structures (tents and tarps) and live in them until something better is available. This will take away the stigma of living illegally and being told to “move on,” when there is nowhere better to move on to. This decriminalization of poverty is an important first step in allowing people to live with dignity and respect.
Phase I will provide every group of 10 or more homeless people living together with basic public services (drinking water, toilets, and trash service). Providing the homeless with these services will not only dramatically improve their lives but also clean up our. Having access to drinking water should be a service provided to every citizen of this community, whether rich or poor.
Phase II, which will take a couple of months to start, will seek new locations for the homeless encampments. These new locations will have improved infrastructure and might be associated with a church or a community group, or they could be independent and located on property owned by someone who allows the encampment on his/her property.
The range of shelters in Phase II might include tents, wooden buildings, modified tool sheds and other structures deemed appropriate by the residents. Although residents in the Phase II development might stay for a while, none of these encampments is intended to be permanent. The goal is to work with the residents, address any issues they have that are holding them back and get them into decent and affordable housing as soon as possible.
The primary goal of phase one and two of this project is to improve the lives of the homeless while saving taxpayers money and improving public safety.  By stabilizing and improving their lives, it will improve their chances of getting a job and/or getting the help they need from social service agencies. That assistance ranges from health services, mental health services, alcohol or drug addiction treatment, job training or getting a better education. Being in a stable location will help the homeless get the assistance they need.
A cost-benefit analysis of this proposal would show that it will save the taxpayers money. Our streets, businesses and residential neighborhoods will benefit by providing homeless people with basic public services. Homeless people will benefit by improved living conditions, better contact with social service agencies and ultimately getting into a house.
Phase III, We recognize that there is both an independent and resourceful spirit among homeless people. A portion of the population will never be served by traditional housing. Additionally, many homeless individuals posses underutilized construction skills or the capacity to learn those skills.
In Phase III we would like to identify location(s) suitable for the development of permanent self sustaining communities that are being designed by architect Arthur Dyson and the non-profit organization, Eco-Village. At an location agreeable to the residents and the jurisdictions, an Eco-Village will be planned for phased development. Residents that will work on the site will establish a temporary camp on site. Through sweat equity and volunteers labor the shared facilities (bathrooms, kitchen, community space, etc.) and individual dwellings will be built and occupied by the residents.
The work will be guided by tradesmen and trained professionals.
Alternatively, the City or County may determine an existing unused public facility that it desires to convert for use as shelter. Like with the Eco-Village, a temporary camp will be located on site and homeless individuals will work on the adaptation of the facility for shelter. In turn they will gain skills and earn equity in the final product.
Additional suggestions are to establish true 24/7 Emergency Shelter for up to 30 days, following acquiring federal funding for Emergency Shelter and Services.  Development of transitional housing for up to 2 years.  We also support a permanent housing development utilizing existing and foreclosed homes in Fresno and the new affordable housing being developed as part of Housing First.

Discrimination Done Deal Nears Completion: Task Force for Public Prejudice Slimes On!

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NOTES BY NORSE

The sweep of the lies both in the Sentinel article and in the Task Force’s title is impressive.  Dutifully echoed by Sentinel reporter, even by psuedo-liberals and misguided radicals who try to jump on the “Public Safety” bandwagon, the Task Force is not about Public Safety, but about Public Prejudice–directed almost exclusively at those outside–by necessity or choice and those who come from outside.

“Public Safety” was redefined as “conduct pleasing to arch-conservatives and homeless-haters” from the beginning. Who stacked the group–no homeless or homeless advocates included–though “homeless crime” was clearly the main topic from the getgo.

Things that a privileged housed middle class person consider a “nuisance” is now blasted as a “crime” and “public safety” issue. Deceptive packaging to slip through the poison pill—long championed by those whose priority is property values, gentrification downtown, and a gated community mentality.

By “crime”, the Task Force really means “unsightly behavior by poor people” as well as “drug
prohibition behavior” that has nothing to do with real violence and crime. Hence no research or investigation into rape, assault, white collar crime, and the record of the SCPD and Sheriff in dealing with these issues.

It’s all part of the business/gentry agenda to remove the visible poor and homeless from public areas, and preferably from town entirely. Something similar was done with blacks, Japanese, Chinese, Oakies, …hey, even the Irish, way back when. You criminalize them by defining their survival behavior as “crimes”

(i.e. sleeping at night). You then create penalties. Presto–new crimes! And a new crime wave requiring more police, security guards, rangers, hosts, and jail cells!.

You gasp at the new “crime” statistics thatthen result. Guided by the homeless-ophobic hand of Deputy-Chief Steve Clark. You terrify the community with a manufactured “needle menace”. Then you deepen, strengthen, and legitimize the police state methods being use downtown, along the levee, in the Pogonip, in the parks, and elsewhere as your “solution”.

Ah, yes, then you frighten the phony liberals into killing needle exchange—which heightens illness in the community. You pass more abusive laws that criminalize most street performances, vending, and other progressive street activity downtown. You run to the courts to scream & lie to get 17 days of false imprisonment for Ken Maffei, the flower man falsely accused of stealing posies from the Baker-Butler memorial, when he had a receipt for their purchase in his pocket (See http://www.santacruzsentinel.c….
.
You ignore systematic and regular homeless abuse masquerading as “Clean-up’s” (See http://www.indybay.org/newsite… ) and tacitly encourage police abuse like Officer Vasquez’s send-him-to-the-hospital slamdown of homeless alcoholic Richard Hardy (See http://www.santacruzsentinel.c… ).

Then have Policepoodle Shanna McCord fluff up the coverage by helpfully ignoring real crime and giving phony credibility to this institutionalized hate group.
Take one look at the abusive recommendations they’re making to unwelcome poor & homeless people in Santa Cruz (See http://www.cityofsantacruz.com….

You’ll see endorsement of the worse myths of the Drug Prohibition War (more cops, harsher penalties, less services re-criminalization of marijuana). You’ll see proposed attacks on homeless health, well-being, dignity, and life (no services for those with sitting next to a building tickets, $ to destroy homeless survival camps, cut-backs on basic services like meals).

All  the while, ad rags like the Santa Cruz Weekly feature hate-stoker Analicia Cube on their covers as pinup girl and local hero.  Her critics on Community TV are shut down by new right-wing programming imperatives, justified as “budget adjustments”.

It’s going to be a cold winter under the regency of Rack-em-and-Roust-em Robinson—the next likely Mayor.   Mayor Bryant, Lane, Posner, and the whole City Council cannot escape responsibility for this abomination.    Take Back Santa Cruz has certainly taken back the agenda with its thinly-disguised Class War program. It’s up to the rest of us to Bring Back Santa Cruz.

Deliberations begin for Santa Cruz’s public safety group

By Shanna McCord

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Posted:   10/16/2013 09:33:34 PM PDT

SANTA CRUZ — After several months of studying crime and many quality of life problems, the Public Safety Citizen Task Force got down to business Wednesday with solutions for the City Council to consider.

Task force members said the goal of their draft report is to reduce crime, recidivism and anti-social behaviors seen citywide.
Prevention, education, connection and strategic enforcement are at the heart of the recommendations that were laid out at a meeting led by county Treasurer Fred Keeley, who is not a task force member but is guiding the group through the policy process.
“The task force believes Santa Cruz should no longer tolerate individuals who routinely victimize the community and recommends a re-branding campaign to combat the perception that Santa Cruz is an easy place to commit crime without consequence,” the draft found.
The group scrutinized a draft report, spending four hours combing through words and phrases and debating deletions and additions.
The main prevention initiatives included increased drug treatment funding, expansion of youth programming, truancy enforcement, environmental design and “re-branding” Santa Cruz’s image as a place soft on crime.
Emphasis would be placed along the San Lorenzo River corridor, Harvey West Park, downtown and the Main Beach area because that is where “the vast majority of criminal and nuisance behaviors” take place, the report found.
The group recommends an education campaign to warn parents and children on the dangers of substance abuse because Santa Cruz has “an extremely high rate of substance-related criminal activity and dearth of early education,” the report read.
In addition, more cohesive neighborhoods would help deter crime, task force members said, though they acknowledge that residents can be reluctant to work together.
“Opportunities for action must be made available to neighborhood organizations through funding, collaboration and management assistance,” according to the report.
The task force, which was created earlier this year by Mayor Hilary Bryant in response to a public perception of rising violent crime, has been meeting every other week since May.
The group was designed to allow a community-based solution to ongoing issues such as discarded syringes being found in parks and beaches.
Until Wednesday, the task force has been visited by a panel of experts in the areas of crime, criminal justice, homelessness, social services, drugs and gangs to educate the group.
Speakers have included City Attorney John Barisone, Monica Martinez of the Homeless Services Center, District Attorney Bob Lee, Judge John Salazar, Judge Ari Symons and representatives from the county Health Services Agency.

Portland Activists Struggle

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NOTES BY NORSE:   With the power of the Portland Occupy movement and Street Roots newspaper as well as local homeless organizing behind the movement, Dignity Village and Right 2 Dream Too established themselves as self-run homeless encampments, now praised by city officials (though Right2DreamToo was still being fined for its existence and carrying on nonetheless).

      I think consulting with those who formed these camps would be helpful in understanding the power necessary to effectively push  past City Council and Take Back Santa Cruz/Downtown Business Association/Santa Cruz Neighbors bigotry and fear in the current Sanctuary Camp debate.
Simply being reasonable, making logical arguments, or appealing to city officials just doesn’t do the trick.  As the poisoned hammer of Mayor Bryant’s toxic and misnamed Public Safety Citizens Task Force comes down (see http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=34511for the explicit anti-homeless options being seriously considered).   Appealing to right-wing sensibilities by using anti-homeless stereotypes about a “public safety” problem is also counter-indicated and furthers the rightist agenda of cracking down on homeless people with the cruel and phony “don’t enable” argument.

Right 2 Dream Too: Moving options unclear after Portland City Council again delays vote

Right 2 Dream Too
PORTLAND, OREGON – JULY 23, 2013 – Pamela Dahl, 25, is one of the people at Right 2 Dream Too who is at the security desk at the entrance. She’s walking past some of the 79 sleeping bags they take to the laundry every week. Dahl says, “I used to put my makeup on every day in high school. There are more important things now on the street.” Commissioner Amanda Fritz’s office is negotiating with the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp in Old Town to move from its highly visible location at West Burnside Street and Northwest Fourth Avenue to under the west end of the Broadway Bridge. (Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian)

Brad Schmidt | bschmidt@oregonian.com By Brad Schmidt | bschmidt@oregonian.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on October 15, 2013 at 7:29 PM, updated October 15, 2013 at 11:02 PM

ail
A decision to move the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camphas been delayed for up to 60 days by city officials who said Tuesday they’re leaving negotiations with camp leaders in the hands of Pearl District developers, businesses and residents opposed to the proposal.Tuesday’s setback is the latest for Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who unveiled a plan to move the camp in September as a done deal. Weeks later, it ran into a political buzz saw wielded by influential developer Homer Williams and residents from the plugged-in Pearl District neighborhood association.

Neither business interests nor Right 2 Dream Too leaders would discuss negotiations Tuesday.

Fritz, disappointed that her proposal to relocate the settlement from West Burnside Street to under the Broadway Bridge has been upended and delayed, said Williams’ group hasn’t proposed a real solution since the City Council first postponed its vote on the camp at an Oct. 3 public hearing.

“They haven’t put anything viable on the table,” Fritz said Tuesday, a day before the City Council was scheduled to revisit the issue.


Mayor Charlie Hales, the one who asked Fritz for more time, said he’s hopeful Right 2 Dream Too negotiations will lead to a better solution.

“We believe there’s progress, in terms of additional resources coming to help address the problem, and maybe a better solution than just moving tents from one place to another,” said Hales, declining to provide specifics.

A spokeswoman for Hales defended the city’s decision to leave negotiations to homeless campers and Pearl District leaders. Williams and others wanted time for a solution, K.C. Cowan said, and that’s what the city is providing.

“We will be at the table when there’s something definitive to look at,” she said. “But right now we’re not the group that’s saying, ‘We want an alternative.’”
A little more than a month ago, Fritz called a press conference at City Hall to announce a deal to move Right 2 Dream Too, which sleeps about 70, from its location at Northwest 4th Avenue and Burnside Street to the Pearl District.

Fritz proposed the move hoping to end a lawsuit filed by Right 2 Dream Too, which formed in October 2011. The group sued Portland’s Bureau of Development Services after the cluster of tents was labeled an illegal campsite and racked up fines for code violations.

Fritz, newly tasked with leading the development services bureau, suggested moving the camp from its marquee location in Chinatown to city-owned property underneath a Broadway Bridge onramp. She also proposed dropping the fines.

“I don’t necessarily need anybody else’s approval,” Fritz said at a Sept. 9 news conference, couching her plan as the end of a lawsuit instead of a controversial move. “I certainly have the mayor’s strong support. I’ve briefed each of my colleagues on the second floor about it and have not heard any particular concerns.”

But almost immediately, Williams and Patricia Gardner, president of the Pearl District neighborhood association, threated lawsuits or legal action over zoning rules and long-standing development agreements.

After a 5-hour-plus City Council hearing Oct. 3, where dozens of people – including Williams, whose company donated $15,000 to Hales’ mayoral campaign – spoke against the plan, Portland’s mayor delayed action for two weeks.

Hales on Tuesday said more time is needed and hopes a plan will be returned to City Council “sometime in the next 60 days.” The Pearl District location is still on the table, he said, but there’s a 50-50 chance another option could end up being better.

The proposed site, at Northwest Lovejoy Court, is a block away from a hotel project being developed by Williams and business partner Dike Dame.

Asked about Williams’ efforts, Hales said: “Whenever people bring private money to the table in addition to whatever the public can put on the table, that’s better. I appreciate the citizenship of that offer. Obviously, there’s self-interests involved.”

Cowan later declined to say whether Williams or others have offered money to move campers to shelters or permanent housing.

Williams referred questions to Dame who referred questions to a John Mangan, a spokesman who works with Williams & Dame Development.
Mangan earlier this month helped lead a public relations effort criticizing the city over its lack of public process. On Tuesday, he said he wouldn’t discuss details of the Right 2 Dream Too negotiations.

“We’re really not ready to talk about those,” he said.

It’s also not clear how many meetings have taken place or who has attended. Neither Cowan nor Mangan would provide details. Ibrahim Mubarak, a co-founder of the camp, also declined to talk about negotiations Tuesday.

Fritz said recent considerations involved moving the camp to the Central Eastside, specifically at the Salvation Army property at 200 S.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. But Fritz said the property is no longer available.

Before settling on the Pearl District location, Fritz’s chief-of-staff said, city officials also considered a separate site underneath the Broadway Bridge and one next to the Bud Clark Commons, both of which have contamination issues.

Fritz said she’s agreed to pnly a one-week delay but wouldn’t address late Tuesday what would happen if the proposal doesn’t return to City Council next week. Hales is scheduled to be in China the following week on city business.

With winter approaching, Fritz said she’s unwilling to wait 60 days and has called on Williams and others to step up and find a solution. Cowan, Hales’ spokeswoman, said officials think that will happen “fairly soon.”

“This is really their process,” Cowan said. ” We’re saying, ‘Go. Do. Come back to us when you’ve got something.’

” I know,” she said, ” we can’t let it go on forever.”

— Brad Schmidt

Right 2 Dream Too: Mayor Charlie Hales lauds homeless group, delays vote on move to Pearl District

Possible new camp for Right 2 Dream Too
This city owned lot is still the desired location for Right 2 Dream Too, but Mayor Charlie Hales said he wants to bring worried developers and neighbors to the table. (Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian)

Andrew Theen | atheen@oregonian.com By Andrew Theen | atheen@oregonian.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on October 03, 2013 at 9:24 PM, updated October 04, 2013 at 12:50 PM

Right 2 Dream too

After five hours of public testimony Thursday night, Mayor Charlie Hales had nothing but good things to say about Right 2 Dream Too, the two-year old homeless community at the gate to Portland’s China Town.”This unique community,” Hales said, “Is doing valid work in a special way that no government agency ever thought of.”

But the first public hearing on whether the city can legally move the campers to a city-owned parking lot underneath a Broadway Bridge on-ramp won’t be the last.

Hales said the council should meet with Pearl District residents and prominent business leaders such as developer Homer Williams, who pleaded with the council to have a seat at the table.

“Frankly, I think any elected leader would be crazy to reject an offer like that,” Hales said.

Commissioners will meet again to discuss the fate of R2D2 on Wednesday Oct. 16, where they could make a decision about the legality of the move, or take additional public comment if a compromise or another proposal comes to the table.

“This has been probably the most memorable hearing that I remember,” Commissioner Amanda Fritz said.

Fritz led the charge to bring a settlement to a lawsuit involving R2D2 and its landlord at its current home on a West Burnside Street lot. R2D2 organizers say it offers homeless people a safe, dry and free place to stay off the streets.

Fritz also leads the Bureau of Development Services, which issued the controversial zoning decision last week authorizing moving the tent community to a city parking lot.

At the beginning of the five–hour affair, the council chamber was packed. The standing-room-only crowd spilled into an overflow room, and it was a diverse group. Women in pantsuits sat next to men in blue T-shirts.

Testimony came from residents young and old, including a mother who recited a poem penned by two children. Backers of multimillion dollar residential and commercial developments sat, for hours, in the same room as dozens of homeless people and supporters.

More than 130 people signed up to testify, and the majority of them followed through.

Public comments, from all sides of the issue, drew pockets of applause, cheers, boos and the occasional standing ovation.

By the end of the night, the bulk of the public testimony came from homeless people and supporters.

Earlier, Pearl District residents largely expressed concerns and fear of the uncertainty and might follow if the tent city relocated to their neighborhood.
Concerns ranged from the arrival of more crime, to the effect on property values, to how the move would hurt business bottom lines. One developer said he’s bracing for a 1 percent drop in apartment rentals, which he said could cost $500,000.

Christopher Hanford, co-owner of Davis Street Tavern near the current R2D2 site, said he was “actually thankful the camp is moving.” Handford said his sales “went off a cliff” once the camp opened in 2011.

Homer Williams and Dike Dame, the business partners and juggernaut developers in Portland’s Pearl District, testified together. Dame warned council was “truly on the precipice of a very bad decision.”

“You’re eliminating the use of our brains, you’re eliminating the use of our resources,” Dame said, “By cramming this deal down our throats.”

Ibrahim Mubarak, a co-founder of R2D2, said that Pearl residents were ignorant of how the camp operated. He said a drop in property value could be good.

“Then maybe there’s be some affordable housing,” he said.

Thursday’s meeting was supposed to be about the zoning memo released last Friday by the Bureau of Development Services designating R2D2 as a “community asset.”

The memo stipulated the camp wasn’t subject to building permits, and therefore didn’t have to go through a rigorous design review or land use review process.

Most of the testimony ignored the particulars of that memo.

But Christe White, a prominent land use attorney representing Williams & Dame and others, blasted the council for the “contrived nature” of the document. “The city can’t have it both ways,” White said. Either R2D2 was a mass shelter or it wasn’t; either way it was subject to stringent design reviews.

White said approving the zoning decision “dismantles the social contract” in the city, and would lead to more homeless camps, or rest areas, across the city. She urged the city to amend its code and legitimize the camps “if that’s what you want to do.”

That is what many of the homeless supporters want to do, as they advocated for using vacant lots, buildings and public facilities to house the homeless.
Michael O’Callahan, a co-founder of R2D2, said homeless people are even more vulnerable than other residents. “Let us be safe just like you all are,” he said to Pearl District residents. “R2D2 is a good neighbor.”

Commissioner Steve Novick seemed impressed by R2D2’s organization as well. He tried to assuage the concerns of some homeless advocates about Pearl residents waging a “class war” and being more concerned about their property values than human life.

“I heard more fear than greed,” Novick said. He added there was compelling evidence from Thursday’s testimony that R2D2 residents and supporters feel so strongly about the camp because it is a safe and dry place off the streets.

R2D2 started in October 2011 at the Burnside property owned by Michael Wright and three business partners. Wright said he initially let the group stay as a jab at the city. But the rest area’s presence immediately started racking up fines.

As part of the settlement agreed upon last week, the city waived $20,957 in fines and agreed to move the camp to what’s known as Lot 7, a parking lot owned by the Portland Development Commission beneath the Broadway Bridge’s Lovejoy ramp. Camp advocates agreed to drop a lawsuit against the city in exchange for the settlement.

Commissioner Nick Fish missed the entire meeting for a previously scheduled event. Commissioner Dan Saltzman, the current Housing Bureau manager, slipped out for a Northwest Housing Alternatives event at 7 p.m.

Fritz said she would have preferred to vote Thursday rather than delay the matter. The clock is ticking to reach a final agreement, Fritz said, as the deadline for a use agreement with R2D2, part of the legal settlement agreement released last week, is in 25 days.

Earlier this week, lawyers representing Williams and other Pearl District developers indicated they would initiate arbitration and seek an injunction to stop the move if the council approved the deal on Thursday.

— Andrew Theen

Renters as Well as Vehicle Dwellers are the Target in Palo Alto

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NOTES BY NORSE:  The Santa Cruz City Council sold out its two supposedly “rent-controlled in perpetuity” Mobile Home Parks (De Anza and Clearview Court) a decade ago under similar gentrification pressure.  (The excuse was “costly lawsuits”).  Now those living there have no equity in their homes because when they die or leave, rents will move from affordable to astronomical.
Palo Alto’s recent ban on Vehicle Habitation is another nail in the Gated Community Fence plague that is currently sweeping the country.  In Santa Cruz, Mayor Bryant’s hand-picked coterie of bigot-enablers, the Citizens Task Force on Public Safety has come up with preliminary recommendations explicitly designed to drive homeless people away and intensify the criminalization process here (See http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=34511 ).  For those who want to witness this obscenity in person, go to the Community Room of the police station today (10-16) at 6 PM.  Watch Fred Keeley give his blessing to this toxic nonsense.
HUFF meets today to plan protests against the Shrinking Sidewalks (11 AM Sub Rosa at 703 Pacific in Santa Cruz).  The Street Performers Guild meets 11 AM Saturday 10-19 at India Joze restaurant at 418 Front St..  Sunday’s follow-up  Tour of Shame is slated for the next day 1 PM Sunday 10-20 in front of Forever Twenty-One at Soquel and Pacific.  Speak Out at City Council Tuesday 5 PM 10-22 809 Center St.  The ordinances and possible CD protests begin October 24th.

Silicon Valley Trailer Park Residents Fight To Stay

by

Sunny Palo Alto, Calif., is awash in multimillion-dollar homes, luxury Tesla electric cars and other financial fruits from a digital revolution the city helped spark. The Silicon Valley city is home to Stanford University, at least eight billionaires, and one mobile home park.

Now, Buena Vista Mobile Home Park — one of the largest and one of the few remaining affordable housing options here — is threatened with closure. The owners want to to a developer who plans to build luxury apartments for the high-tech corridor’s growing workforce. The park’s low-income, mostly Latino residents are fighting to stay in their community and to keep their kids in one of California’s best school districts.

The fight shows the less-publicized underbelly of Silicon Valley’s incredible successes: unequal access to education, and the marginalization of some low-income workers.


A Good Education
“Most of us don’t really know where we’d go” if the park closed, says 28-year-old Erika Escalante, who grew up at Buena Vista and now lives in a mobile home there with her husband and 6-year-old son. “With rents in Palo Alto, it’s just impossible,” she says.

Quality public education is the main reason many of the park’s residents are fighting to stay. The Palo Alto schools among more than 1,000 districts in the state, and test scores for all ethnic groups have regularly exceeded statewide averages.

Escalante was the first in her family to graduate from college. Her sister and brother are now following her lead. Escalante’s dad worked as a janitor. She says he moved the family to Buena Vista largely because of the schools.

“He felt like we were getting the best education that he could possibly offer to us,” Escalante says. “I mean, we know that historically Hispanics are kind of disadvantaged. There’s that big education gap. And to be able to have access to that education, I mean, you can’t put a price there. We want to be able to succeed, you know, kind of like that American dream. Education is a big part of that.”


An Airstream To Call Home
Buena Vista is home to more than 400 predominantly low-income residents, more than 80 percent of them Latino.

Ringed with a jumble of potted plants, a silver ’70s-era Airstream trailer has been home to Jennifer Tello for most of her 12 years.

“My mom works cleaning houses, and my dad works construction,” she says. Jennifer’s mom is busy getting food for her baby sister before heading off to work. Jennifer says her parents struggled to find a place in the Bay Area that’s safe, affordable and has quality schools.

“They’re really good schools. My mom works really hard, and so does my dad. Sometimes they don’t have enough time to spend with us. I’m really happy that they’re really hard working. And they encourage me to work hard, so I [could] have a better job,” she says.

The park’s owners, Toufic and Eva Jisser, have petitioned the city of Palo Alto to close shop. They want to sell the land to Prometheus Real Estate Group, which wants to build 180 luxury apartments on the site. “My client has a constitutional right to exit the rental business,” says Margaret Ecker Nanda, the owners’ lawyer. Prometheus officials declined to comment.

Erika Escalante is a program coordinator for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. She grew up in the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park and now lives there with her husband and 6-year-old son, Andre Xavier Bracamontes.
Erika Escalante is a program coordinator for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. She grew up in the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park and now lives there with her husband and 6-year-old son, Andre Xavier Bracamontes.

Eric Westervelt/NPR



The Value Of Diversity
Jennifer Tello attends a nearby middle school. “I don’t want to move and start all over and find new friends,” she says.

The PTA, the school board, and some parents have taken action to back the park’s residents. They’ve offered supportive resolutions, organizing space, and their time. Nancy Krop, a civil rights attorney, is one of those parents. She says diversity, fairness and justice are at stake.

“I want every child to have the opportunity that my son’s going to have — and that I had,” Krop says. These kids at Buena Vista “want the world, and know they need a Palo Alto education to get it.”

Krop says she was attending a City Council meeting when one Buena Vista mother spoke up. “She mentioned that she made a living cleaning other peoples’ houses. And she asked the City Council to please allow her family to keep their home at the mobile home park because she felt that if her daughter went through the Palo Alto schools, her daughter would not grow up to clean other peoples’ homes,” says Krop. “I was really struck by that.”

Krop’s fifth-grade son attends nearby Barron Park Elementary, where 35 percent of the students are Latino and about half the students are learning English. She says the benefits of that diversity are key for her family in a city that is incredibly affluent and still mostly white.

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Second-grade teacher Vickie Boudouris goes over a worksheet in an English-learner summer school class at the Cordova Villa Elementary School in June, in Rancho Cordova, Calif. Under Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget, California schools will receive an additional $3.6 billion this year, with much of it targeted to the neediest students.

May 25, 2012

“My son has gone on play dates to homes where he found out his friend didn’t have a bedroom. His friend sleeps on a couch. He didn’t even know that that was how some kids grow up. You learn what they don’t have; you learn the richness of what they do have too — the strength of their community and culture and heritage,” she says.


Trying To Stop The Sale
The residents are asking the city to help stop the sale. They point out that city planning documents list the mobile home park as a key source of affordable housing and “encourages its preservation.” But ultimately, that may not mean much legally. Palo Alto city attorneys say the mobile home park is not counted as part of a regional affordable housing plan required by the state.

The city has twice rejected the owners’ application to close the park, largely due to incomplete details in its relocation benefits package. “There is recognition of the desire to preserve the park,” says city spokeswoman Claudia Keith. But with soaring private property values in Silicon Valley, she says there may be little the city can do. The park’s residents can appeal any final decision the city makes to an independent hearing officer.

The Buena Vista residents’ group, with help from legal aid and affordable housing organizations, offered to buy the property for $14.5 million. The owners rejected that offer.

The owners’ attorney Margaret Nanda says her client has every right to cash in on booming property values and retire. The owner was offered more than $30 million for the 4.5-acre lot. “He is not a social agency or a nonprofit. He’s a private business operator who wants to sell his property,” she says.

Nanda says her client will compensate tenants fairly under city law, but equivalent quality schools are not part of that package. “There is absolutely no right to a Palo Alto education under the [city] ordinance” for converting a mobile home park, Nanda says. “The ordinance says they are to be relocated to comparable housing. And then the ordinance references a number of things, but education is not one of them.”


‘Squeezed’ By Rising Housing Costs
Amado Padilla, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, has teamed up with the medical school to study the education, housing and health care challenges the Buena Vista residents face. Padilla notes that the residents’ struggle highlights a less-discussed part of the valley’s thriving high-tech economy: It’s driving tremendous job growth, but surging housing prices are forcing more and more working people to the margins.

“Just like police and firemen and also teachers cannot afford to live in Palo Alto, these people could not afford to live in Palo Alto if it were not for places like the mobile park home. Our service workers are getting squeezed in all kinds of directions because of the tech fields in our areas,” Padilla says.

Silicon Valley is particularly hard hit by sky-high housing prices. But the problem is serious across large swaths of America’s most populous state. New research by the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Stanford says that rising housing costs are pushing more families into poverty. According to the center’s new , 22 percent of Californians are in poverty.

At a recent potluck dinner celebrating diversity at the Barron Park school, a few blocks from the mobile home park, kids, parents and teachers ate, talked and heard songs and performances.

It’s clear the Buena Vista residents are not going away silently. With few resources of their own, they are vowing to fight to stay in the community — and schools — that they love.

But this may all come down to the hard reality of money: Buena Vista residents pay about $700 a month in rent. Palo Alto’s average monthly rental is nearly four times that amount. And the average home price here is edging up to nearly $2 million.

A FEW COMMENTS (for more go to the website):

Native Earthling

I understand exactly why they are doing it. What I don’t understand is that why people feel like they are entitled to live on a piece of land just because they’ve lived there longer over someone else who is willing to exchange his labor for the same resources, but is locked out, because of this squatter mentality.

If you read the article carefully, you’ll notice that none of the trailer park residents “feel like they are entitled” to live on the land.
They’re just trying to keep living there, which you’ve said you can understand. And they’re trying to do it legally.
What I don’t understand is why some folks will support owners and the wealthy when they seek favors from government, but denigrate renters and the poor who do so for their “entitled” “squatter mentality.”

These people pay rent, they are not squatters. There are plenty of examples where long-term renters have been kicked out of their homes because the landlord wants to sell out.

wow I imagine if you lived in a place you pay rent for, take care, and work for every day, you wouldn’t consider yourself a squatter… they are replacing these mobile homes with luxury apartments… they people who live in those apartments are no less squatters than the people who live in those mobile homes… im somewhat convinced you dont yet understand the definition of a squatter

Want to know why the trailer park people have to leave?  The stadium project is expected to open its doors just in time to host the 50th Super Bowl, in 2016, in the heart of the Silicon Valley. The airy, open stadium would have the largest lower bowl in the league, ensuring the 68,500 fans are close to the action.
The construction costs are being paid by $800 million in seat and luxury box sales, along with a 20-year, $220 million naming rights agreement with Levi Strauss and Co. announced in May.

It’s just too bad that this property owner can’t live on 14+ million. I don’t begrudge people profiting, but seriously it would be nice to hear that avarice wasn’t the driver of their motivations.

My four children grew up in Columbia, S.C. in the mid ’80’s and early ’90’s. My husband was a cardiologist and I had the incredible luxury of being a stay-at-home mom. Our elementary school, A.C. Moore, pre-k through 5th grade, was located in a neighborhood that drew kids from three distinct areas. 40% of the students came from affluent white homes, 40% several nearby housing projects, largely African-American and 20%, drawing from the University of South Carolina’s international faculty and grad-student families, spoke English, if at all, as a second language. It was the most culturally rich elementary school in the city, if not the entire state. The principal, Joanne Wilkes, was a loving and gifted leader and the teachers were beyond compare. My children learned things at that school that, much as I would have liked to be able to do, I could never have taught them. They had friends not only of all ethnic backgrounds, but of all levels of special abilities and gifts. A.C. Moore was the best experience in life and diversity and open-mindedness that my four children could have gotten and my heart breaks for those families in Palo Alto whose children stand to lose this experience. It is, whether they know it now or not, changing them into the kinds of people I would want leading this country.

They may have to pay their house keepers and janitors more if they have to drive long distances to get to work. Or they may end up like Branson Missouri where the city had to build low cost housing so people who worked the hospitality and entertainment venues had someplace to live. Many of them were were living in campgrounds before that because they couldn’t afford any of the housing in the area.

Does it really make sense to build affordable housing in the most expensive places in the country? It seems like a extremely poor use of resources.
It makes sense if the rich want maids, store clerks and hairdressers and car mechanics. Or perhaps it would be better if the privileged become more independent and learn to do these things themselves.

It may be an “extremely poor use of resources” as you put it but even the most affluent communities need garbage collectors, nurses, police officers, teachers, construction workers and trades people to service their areas. To expect these service workers to keep getting pushed farther and farther out of the community is unreasonable and eventually will get to the point where it is no longer feasible to commute. Who’s going to do those jobs then? No one unless the wages are raised to a point where these workers can afford to live in that community. Do you really think that a nurse is going to draw $200K salary? God, I wish it were true but it’s never going to happen

That’s not really how it works. Zoning and other local ordinances severely restrict what you can do with your property. In residential areas, height is limited to 35 feet, and houses must have a certain square footage. Setbacks are specified, and in some areas the local government can even specify the style and color of your house.
The owner has the right to sell the property, but the new owners must obey whatever restrictions the local government has placed on what they can do with it, and that will affect the price. If the area is currently zoned as a trailer park, then the new owner will be seeking a change in zoning. Whether or not that is granted is a matter of political influence; the money of the developers vs the political action of those wanting to retain economic and social diversity.
Yes, another approach (or simultaneous approach) is to raise the price difference. Raising an additional 15 million will take some time, though. Letting the developer know that the exemption and permitting process will not sail through is one way of gaining that additional time.
No, there is no trailer parking zoning. There is only residential or commercial. Again, the most efficient use of this plot of land is in developing condos for the engineers who will build the next facebook, not affordable housing units. Why do the trailer park tenants deserve the right to live in Palo Alto more than the hard working engineer who is willing to pay his earned millions for the good school for his children. Since when do “being here earlier” entitle you to that priviledge?

Because that’s just what we really need more than anything, another Facebook. Why is the engineer more hard-working than the cleaning lady? Because his family could afford to put him through college? As to your ‘being here earlier’ comment, I suppose we’d have to ask the Native Americans about that one.
I don’t know. Greed is evil (according to the bible).  The attorney for the owners say they just want to retire. Do you really need $30 million?
Can’t you retire on $14.5 million and give the land to the residents?

Austin OK’s Loaves & Fishes’ Sanctuary Camp; Santa Cruz Moves to Criminalize
To: HUFF yahoo groups <huffsantacruz@yahoogroups.com

>

 

 

NOTE BY NORSE:  Texas more liberal than Santa Cruz–or Austin anyway?   Or at least the social service provider Loaves and Fishes (which also has an affiliate in Sacramento).

Our local monopoly homeless Nanny–the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center is spending it’s money on fences, security gates, “no impact” zone enforcement, & driving away homeless people during the day from “their” Center.  They could be restoring lockers, expanding space and services, & advocating for the rights of homeless people before a bigot-heavy City Council.  The Bryant-Robinson Council has intensified its war on the poor this year with curfews, expanded forbidden zones, increased powers to expel homeless people (anyone actually) from parks and elsewhere,  unprecedented stay-away orders, and new laws that shaft street performers, artists, and vendors (as of October 24th).

Nor have most churches been helpful–though a small number are housing 20 people a night total.

Brent Adams Sanctuary Camp program has been pilloried by the usual tribe of trolls in the Sentinel (See comments after http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/opinion/ci_24297722/steve-schnaar-and-stacey-falls-why-we-need?IADID=Search-www.santacruzsentinel.com-www.santacruzsentinel.com ).

Posted: 5:04 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2013

County approves plans for RV park for homeless

By Farzad Mashhood

American-Statesman Staff

 

Travis County commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved the nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes’ plans for a 27-acre development that would house about 200 chronically homeless people in RVs, small homes and tepees.

The $8 million development, in eastern Travis County, on Hog Eye Road near Decker and Loyola lanes, abuts a pair of subdivisions whose residents have largely opposed the project. Formerly homeless people moving into the development would pay rents of $90 to $375 a month for small homes in a community that would be fenced in and include a medical clinic and a 3-acre garden.

“I’m ecstatic about it. It’s a nine-year dream come true,” said Mobile Loaves & Fishes president Alan Graham.

With the commissioners’ blessing in hand, the project needs only administrative approvals, which officials said could happen within the week.

Graham said his organization still needs to raise more than $2 million as part of the $6 million needed for the first phase of the project. He expects those funds to be raised by the end of the year as many potential donors have been holding out for the commissioners’ approval of the development plans.
Residents could start moving in by the end of 2014 and the development, called Community First Village, could be done by the end of 2015, Graham said.
Neighbors said they were concerned about the safety of living next to a development geared toward homeless people and what it would do to their property values.

With a packed meeting room with more than 50 supporters of the project and about a dozen people from neighborhoods near the planned development, commissioners heard more than two hours of discussion before their vote.

The city of Austin’s zoning and platting commission previously approved the plans in July. The project, outside Austin’s city limits, doesn’t require City Council approval.

The Austin nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes has tried for nearly a decade to create an RV park for homeless people. Some highlights include:

  • 2008: The City Council agrees to lease 11 acres on Harold Court in East Austin to the nonprofit for the project, but backs off when neighbors resoundingly object.
  • 2010: The city eyes 16 acres near the airport for the RV park, but nixes the idea when the Federal Aviation Administration objects.
  • 2010: The city considers using 24 acres near Burnet Road and Braker Lane in North Austin for the project. Neighbors balk, saying a long-term plan for the area calls for dense, urban development, not mobile homes.
  • 2013: Mobile Loaves & Fishes plans the project for 27 acres it owns in eastern Travis County. The project is OK’d by an Austin zoning board in July and county commissioners on Tuesday.

Austin OK’s Loaves & Fishes’ Sanctuary Camp; Santa Cruz Moves to Criminalize

Posted on by

NOTE BY NORSE:  Texas more liberal than Santa Cruz–or Austin anyway?   Or at least the social service provider Loaves and Fishes (which also has an affiliate in Sacramento).

Our local monopoly homeless Nanny–the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center is spending it’s money on fences, security gates, “no impact” zone enforcement, & driving away homeless people during the day from “their” Center.  They could be restoring lockers, expanding space and services, & advocating for the rights of homeless people before a bigot-heavy City Council.  The Bryant-Robinson Council has intensified its war on the poor this year with curfews, expanded forbidden zones, increased powers to expel homeless people (anyone actually) from parks and elsewhere,  unprecedented stay-away orders, and new laws that shaft street performers, artists, and vendors (as of October 24th).

Nor have most churches been helpful–though a small number are housing 20 people a night total.

Brent Adams Sanctuary Camp program has been pilloried by the usual tribe of trolls in the Sentinel (See comments after http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/opinion/ci_24297722/steve-schnaar-and-stacey-falls-why-we-need?IADID=Search-www.santacruzsentinel.com-www.santacruzsentinel.com ).

Posted: 5:04 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2013

County approves plans for RV park for homeless

By Farzad Mashhood

American-Statesman Staff

 

Travis County commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved the nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes’ plans for a 27-acre development that would house about 200 chronically homeless people in RVs, small homes and tepees.

The $8 million development, in eastern Travis County, on Hog Eye Road near Decker and Loyola lanes, abuts a pair of subdivisions whose residents have largely opposed the project. Formerly homeless people moving into the development would pay rents of $90 to $375 a month for small homes in a community that would be fenced in and include a medical clinic and a 3-acre garden.

“I’m ecstatic about it. It’s a nine-year dream come true,” said Mobile Loaves & Fishes president Alan Graham.

With the commissioners’ blessing in hand, the project needs only administrative approvals, which officials said could happen within the week.

Graham said his organization still needs to raise more than $2 million as part of the $6 million needed for the first phase of the project. He expects those funds to be raised by the end of the year as many potential donors have been holding out for the commissioners’ approval of the development plans.
Residents could start moving in by the end of 2014 and the development, called Community First Village, could be done by the end of 2015, Graham said.
Neighbors said they were concerned about the safety of living next to a development geared toward homeless people and what it would do to their property values.

With a packed meeting room with more than 50 supporters of the project and about a dozen people from neighborhoods near the planned development, commissioners heard more than two hours of discussion before their vote.

The city of Austin’s zoning and platting commission previously approved the plans in July. The project, outside Austin’s city limits, doesn’t require City Council approval.

The Austin nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes has tried for nearly a decade to create an RV park for homeless people. Some highlights include:

  • 2008: The City Council agrees to lease 11 acres on Harold Court in East Austin to the nonprofit for the project, but backs off when neighbors resoundingly object.
  • 2010: The city eyes 16 acres near the airport for the RV park, but nixes the idea when the Federal Aviation Administration objects.
  • 2010: The city considers using 24 acres near Burnet Road and Braker Lane in North Austin for the project. Neighbors balk, saying a long-term plan for the area calls for dense, urban development, not mobile homes.
  • 2013: Mobile Loaves & Fishes plans the project for 27 acres it owns in eastern Travis County. The project is OK’d by an Austin zoning board in July and county commissioners on Tuesday.

ACLU in the Sentinel: The Charade Continues

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http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_24253770/santa-cruz-countys-aclu-chapter-celebrates-50-years

What a laugh. The Santa Cruz ACLU has shown an impressive, persistent, and oppressive indifference to civil and human rights violations in Santa Cruz. This is particularly true around the “liberal” Santa Cruz City Council’s institutionalized abuse of the rights of homeless people.

In the hands of politicians like Mike Rotkin and like-minded constitution-clippers like Chair Peter Gelblum, it’s a no-win game for the poor outside. Even abuses roundly condemned by other ACLU’s like the Sleeping Ban & the Downtown Ordinances receive no public criticism and are buried “for study” when they are brought up.

Rotkin was a frequent advocate of the Sleeping Ban when he was Mayor as well as a supporter of the Sitting Ban (even going to San Francisco to push for its version). That he could be such a power in the local ACLU tells the story.

More of a fund-raising machine for national causes (many of which are worthy if often classist), the local ACLU preens itself while police steal homeless property, destroy homeless camps, and harass homeless people all around the town.

Promising activists like Steve Pleich, once enmeshed in the power structure of the ACLU as he struggles to accumulate offices and titles, become silent and accommodating of bigotry pimps like Councilmember Pamela Comstock and Lynn Robinson.

The ACLU won’t even defend the right of its own petitioners in the parking lot next to Trader Joe’s, who’ve been cited or driven away for giving out literature.

Santa Cruz needs a real civil rights organization.

For more details on the sad story see:

“Earlier E-Mails to the ACLU on Denial of Civil Liberties to the Santa Cruz
Homeless” at http://www.indybay.org/newsite….
“Local ACLU Rides…er…Hides Again” at
https://www.indybay.org/newsit…
“ACLU Chair Closes Monthly Boad of Directors Meeting, Homeless Issues Off
the Agenda” at http://www.indybay.org/newsite…
For Pleich’s own copycat censorship of issues on his website, see “Open Letter to Steve Pleich of Citizens for a Better Santa Cruz” at https://www.indybay.org/newsit…

Portland Sanctuary Expanding?

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Tent city planned in fancy Portland neighborhood

By STEVEN DUBOIS, Associated Press
Updated 10:36 am, Sunday, October 6, 2013
  • In this Oct. 4, 2013, photo, a person walks by the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp in Portland, Ore. Opponents of a city plan to put 100 people under a century-old bridge in the Pearl District are carefully choosing their words when complaining about the prospect of new, down-on-their-luck neighbors. Rather than express concern for their financial investments, they have criticized the city's expedited process and worried for the welfare of those willing to live in a parking lot under the west ramp of the Broadway Bridge. Photo: Don Ryan
    In this Oct. 4, 2013, photo, a person walks by the Right 2 Dream Too homeless camp in Portland, Ore. Opponents of a city plan to put 100 people under a century-old bridge in the Pearl District are carefully choosing their words when complaining about the prospect of new, down-on-their-luck neighbors. Rather than express concern for their financial investments, they have criticized the city’s expedited process and worried for the welfare of those willing to live in a parking lot under the west ramp of the Broadway Bridge. Photo: Don Ryan

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — One of the toniest areas of Portland might soon be home to a tent city.
If this were another town, the owners and developers of high-end homes and condominiums would scream to high heaven about diminished property values.

But this is Portland, where the citizens try their best to be tolerant of everything except intolerance — and gluten.

Opponents of a city plan to put 100 people under a century-old bridge in the Pearl District are carefully choosing their words when complaining about the prospect of new, down-on-their-luck neighbors. Rather than express concern for their financial investments, they have criticized the city’s expedited process and worried for the welfare of those willing to live in a parking lot under the west ramp of the Broadway Bridge.


Tiffany Sweitzer, the president of Hoyt Street Properties, a realty and development firm that — over the course of 15 years — has helped transform a dying industrial area into a sparkling urban neighborhood, said “throwing a bunch of people under a bridge” should not be the city’s solution to helping the estimated 2,000 residents who sleep outside each night.
“It’s embarrassing, because that is not how you would treat anybody,” she said.

Mayor Charlie Hales and city commissioners plan to decide Oct. 16 whether to move the camp to the Pearl District from its current home near the entrance to Chinatown. If approved, a coalition of property owners promises to sue.

The camp known as Right 2 Dream Too was established in October 2011 during the Occupy Portland movement. Four years earlier, the city forced an adult bookstore to close because of code violations. The building was later demolished and the lot remained empty for three years until the aggrieved owner allowed the homeless to lease the property for $1 a year.

Each night for two years, roughly 100 people have slept on prime downtown real estate — in tents shielded from passers-by with a barrier of old, colorful doors fashioned into an artsy wall. During that time, landowner Michael Wright racked up more than $20,000 in fines because of violations associated with operating a campsite without a permit. He responded with a lawsuit.

To extract Portland from this mess, city Commissioner Amanda Fritz brokered a deal in which the fines would be waived, the lawsuit dropped and the homeless campers sent to the Pearl District. It all happened in a matter of weeks, angering homeowners and developers who say the city was so desperate to settle Wright’s lawsuit that it bypassed zoning laws.
Fritz, a former psychiatric nurse, acknowledged that the camp is not the ideal answer to homelessness. She said there is not enough money to provide housing to all, and Right 2 Dream Too has provided a much safer alternative than the street.
“It’s been an option that’s been better than nothing,” she said.

Scores of people spoke for and against the proposal at a recent five-hour hearing. Though some older women testified their safety would be jeopardized, most Pearl District residents completely ignored quality-of-life and financial issues and repeatedly griped that the city did the deal in secret and delegitimized the zoning code. Not everyone in the neighborhood is rich, they added, and the fight has been unfairly cast as the greedy against the homeless, or “us against them.”

“It’s a sad, confrontational, divisive atmosphere because communication was intentionally closed,” said Julie Young, a retired social worker who lives in the Pearl.

Besides condominiums and the low-income apartments for older residents, there are businesses nearby and a Marriott is scheduled to open next year. Those who have spoken to the potential financial impact of Right 2 Dream Too say hotel guests won’t want to stay near a shantytown and commercial rents could fall by more than 15 percent.

Ziba Design spent $20 million to build its headquarters in the Pearl District. Its real estate adviser, Greg Close of Wyse Investment Services, said in a phone interview that his client represents a large Chinese apparel manufacturer that is considering Portland.

“What does my client tell the executive of that manufacturer when it asks: ‘How can we trust you, Ziba, with our brand when we come to Portland and see you invested $20 million next to a homeless camp?'”

Homeless people, meanwhile, ask their prospective neighbors to give them a chance. Right 2 Dream Too (or R2D2) has an excellent safety record, and supporters say the camp — they call it a rest area — has helped people get back on their feet and into permanent housing.

“We’re not there to bring property values down,” said Ibrahim Mubarak, the R2D2 leader. “We’re there to get people from sleeping on your sidewalk. We’re there to stop people from sleeping in the doorways. We’re there to stop the drug dealing. We’re there to stop the drug use by our friends.”

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Tent-city-planned-in-fancy-Portland-neighborhood-4873496.php