Tag Archives: Aid

Four Flyers for Homeless Self-Defense in Santa Cruz

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http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/15/18735243.php

Four Flyers For Homeless Self-Defense
by Robert Norse ( rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com )
Monday Apr 15th, 2013 8:55 PM

The flyers are largely self-explanatory and suggest a number of avenues for self-defense for homeless people in Santa Cruz. Now that even the much-criticized and fractional Armory Winter Shelter program has ended. homeless people face not only police harassment during the day in parks, on the beaches, and downtown, but also at night under the city’s Sleeping Ban and possibly the state code 647e. HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) meets Wednesday at the regular time to continue discussing immediate survival camp prospects, copwatch, and thugwatch.

(Click on the link above for the flyers).

[SCPEL] Homelessness forum April 24 please come

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Santa Cruz Forums on Community Safety & Compassion
 
 

 

2nd Forum:  Homelessness and our Home Town
When:  Wednesday, April 24 at 7 PM
What:  Speakers and opportunity for Q&A
*Rev. Steve Defields-Gambrel, The Circle Church
*Susan Brutschy, President, Applied Survey Research, Homeless Census
*Christine Sippl, Program Manager, Homeless Persons Health Project
*Felipe Ponce, personal story
*Danny Contreras, personal story
Where:  Santa Cruz High School Theater
415 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz
 
————————————————————————————————————————————————————
All Welcome!   Admission free.  
Donations welcome for hall rental.  FMI or childcare: contact 831-423-1626
 
 
Cosponsored by:

Resource Center for Nonviolence, NAACP Santa Cruz Branch, United Way of Santa Cruz County, Charter for Compassion, Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center, Homeless Services Center, Women’s Health Center, Community Action Board, The Circle Church, First Congregational Church of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Friends Meeting, Peoples’ Democratic Club, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

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

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

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

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

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Project Homeless Connect–Bus Passes

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

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

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

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

Church as Shelter of Last Resort in Hawaii

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NOTES BY NORSE:  Attempts by churches in Santa Cruz to protect and shelter homeless people have been mixed.  The Interfaith Satellite Shelter Program–which operated from 1988 through 2010 (or thereabouts) involved busing homeless people to  different churches every  night and its height served 40-80 people.  Since Santa Cruz has a homeless population of 1500-2000 and a law that makes homeless people  criminal who sleep either outside or in a vehicle in the city limits–this had limited effect in combatting the fear and insecurity homeless people felt at night.   The ISSP  ended because of “transportation costs”, as I understand it.
A new program spearheaded by Calvary Episcopal Church is housing about 20 people each night in a variety of churches.  A Sanctuary Campground proposal is being hammered out by Brent Adams and others at the same time as there is rising hysteria against homeless people in a political “anti-crime” wave mounted by Take Back Santa Cruz, The Clean Team, and other “clean up our town” groups.
The Coral St. Open Air Shelter (1993-5)–a tolerated campground at River St. and Highway 1–was shut down by pressure from the Citizens Committee for the Homeless, and then-Mayor Mike Rotkin.  Rotkin also moved against Father Mike Marini’s Holy Cross Shelter subsequently in the summer of 1996 by (according to the recollection of Becky Johnson) inciting the neighbors against the shelter.  Under his leadership (with Cynthia Mathews a loyal second), the Sherry Conable/Barbara Riverwomon State Parks Sanctuary proposal for the homeless-under which homeless would be bused to state parks to  camp–was
vetoed.
Religious leaders, who were otherwise reactionary, have also played a role in standing up for homeless people by sheltering them in their church.  See, for instance, http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/066.Rev.%2520Drake%2520Wins%2520A%2520Moral%2520Victory=10-97.pdf .

Kalihi church puts faith in action to help homeless

Posted: Feb 25, 2013 7:22 PM PST Updated: Feb 25, 2013 10:57 PM PST

By Jim Mendoza – bio | email
 http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/21348165/kalihi-church-houses-homeless

KALIHI, OAHU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Kaleo and Russell Pakele and their two-year-old daughter live in one of the tents alongside the sanctuary of Hawaii Cedar Church in Kalihi.

“God brought us to this place,” Kaleo said.

Since December, the Pakeles have been staying on the church’s property, along with about 40 other homeless people.

“I believe everybody needs a second chance. That’s why I call this program that we’re running, ‘A Second Time Around,'” pastor Henry Baxter said.

The church feeds them, and lets them use the showers and bathrooms. There are rules to follow. You either have an outside job or do church chores.

“The rules are very important in our lives. Discipline and rules,” said Antonio Hernandez, who lives with his wife and young child in the tent next door to the Pakele’s.

“Their labor is working in the parking area, the grounds, in the kitchen, the dining room, in the church itself,” Baxter said.

The church offers some job training. Adults pay about $100 a month per person to cover utilities. Pakele said that teaches them responsibility.

“It is a stepping stone for me from here to transition out,” Kaleo Pakele said.

In March, the church starts a new program. Some of the homeless will plant and harvest vegetables at the church’s farm in Waianae.

“We’ll actually be paying them $8 an hour, more than the minimum wage. They’ll only be working four hours a day, but that will be something to get them started,” Baxter said.

Most of the homeless living at the church were on drugs. Baxter said there is counseling and consequences.

“We have drug testing,” he said. “We have zero tolerance on drugs and alcohol.”

Violators are evicted.

Baxter estimates 120 families have been helped in three years, and half are now in housing.

Olympia Activists Respond to Shelter Closing. What Will Santa Cruz Activists Do?

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Breaking News: Homeless Shelter by Olympia Artesian Well

Yesterday · · Taken at Olympia Artesian Well.
Press Release for March 1st, 2013 Re: OMJP (Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace) organizes in response to the homeless crisis—hosts a Homeless Solidarity Rally & Community Pizza Party, builds an emergency shelter, and installs Olympia’s only 24 hour public restroom at the downtown artesian well. Attention! Our community is in crisis and the Mayor of Olympia has insisted that we not let it go to waste. On March 1st the Sacred Heart and Saint Michael’s men’s shelters will be closed for the season. The county-funded cold weather shelter at the Salvation Army is only sporadically open at best, and it too will soon be closed. Though shelter is a human right, there are hundreds of unsheltered houseless people in Thurston County. In response to this crisis, we have constructed an emergency shelter and installed Olympia’s only 24-hour public restroom at the downtown artesian well. It is our intention to maintain these facilities as a service to the community until an adequate alternative can be arranged. Furthermore, we draw attention to the fact that in January of this year, the Olympia City Council, with the sole exception of council member Jim Cooper, voted in favor of a reactionary ordinance which banned camping and camping related paraphernalia such as blankets from all city-owned public property. The criminalization of homelessness is a national worst-practice model which negatively impacts not only homeless persons, but also service providers, the criminal justice system, and the broader community. Olympia’s anti-homeless ordinances violate standards of fairness and raise moral questions about community values, priorities, and social and economic justice. They dehumanize the homeless, damage their health, and create even greater barriers to housing. These ordinances are a threat to the general health of the Olympia community and must be repealed.

Responding to the Destruction of Homeless Survival Camps in Santa Cruz

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“Less is More” Leslie responds to an anti-homeless article from the Boulder Creek Bulletin  titled “Local Environment Gets Impacted by Homeless in SLV [San Lorenzo Valley]; Law Enforcement Sweeps Shanti Towns & Encampments”.

The original article is posted at http://www.mountainbulletin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Issue_2_Vol_2_BC_Bulletin.pdf  (pp. 1 & 3).

Leslie’s reaction:


What Kind of Community Do We Have?

Perusing the very local newspaper produced in Boulder Creek, my ire was aroused by a top of the page headline on the trash produced by “the homeless” in the community.  I am moved to ask, “What kind of community do we have here in the San Lorenzo Valley?  Does it only care about trash, or does it care about people?”

I want to try to tell my homeless neighbors up in the redwood forest here that they are not alone.  Not everyone wants them to disappear without a trace.  In my small circle of acquaintances in town, one had a family living in a motor home in their back yard, and another was helping his son “get back on his feet” after a car accident by having him live on his property in a small outbuilding.  We have folks who need a little help, and we have compassionate community members helping them by offering them a place to sleep at night.  We have church and community programs helping in organized programs as well.

Providers of homeless services have been promoting a new vision of service for the people that need the most help: permanent supportive housing for those chronic homeless, many of whom have untreated mental health issues or substance dependencies or both.  Many people support this model of providing help, but it is more expensive than another model that homeless advocates are now discussing.  If there were enough community support, either through charities, government, or private entrepreneurship, this community could house people in a campground where trash could be collected, sanitary facilities provided, and a sense of interdependency could be created, with peers helping peers.  Other communities have found that this helps people “get back on their feet.”

Currently, we have many paths leading nowhere.  People sleep in their cars.  People sleep in the woods.  Those who have drawn attention to the problem in creative non-violent political protest have been sent to jail or fined.  A fraction of the homeless population are sheltered at night in the city of Santa Cruz, another fraction in spare bedrooms and backyards all over the county.  The community can do better by coming together, finding those that agree with our project, creating new partnerships amongst those that are already caring for people in need, listening to our critical rivals, and finally by taking action.

Occupy Santa Cruz will be discussing a “Sanctuary Camp” this Saturday in front of the downtown Santa Cruz Post Office.  You may meet at 4 PM for a vegan meal shared by Santa Cruz Food Not Bombs, and stay for the General Assembly at 5:30 PM.  Decisions are made through a consensus process open to all.  I look forward to seeing you there.

NOTE BY NORSE:  A follow-up meeting will be held Tuesday March 5 at noon in Laurel Park next to Louden Nelson Center and another meeting noon Wednesday March 6 at the Sub Rosa Cafe at 703 Pacific Ave.–both locations in downtown Santa Cruz.

HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) meets 2-6 10 AM to noon at the Sub Rosa as well.

Encampments in Operation–Fresno-style

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NOTES FROM NORSE:

The City of Fresno, though also attacking homeless encampments, has also been set back by successful lawsuits.  Plus the sheer volume of homeless people setting up camp in these houseless times because they have to.  In response Mike Rhodes and the Fresno Homeless Alliance has been providing TP and dumpsters as well as servicing to deal with the public health crisis that the City will not.  Santa Cruz activists, contemplating encampments here, might cast an eye Fresno-wise.

To: (lots of folks)
From: MikeRhodes@comcast.net
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 17:01:50 -0800
Subject: [FresnoHomelessAdvocates] We are out of TP

This afternoon I delivered the last 30 rolls of donated toilet paper to the homeless encampments in downtown Fresno.  As you may know, we have seven portable toilets in 4 different encampments and they go through a lot of TP.  I have hired a homeless guy to supply each of the portable toilets with TP each day.  He puts 3 rolls in a locked dispenser and keeps the portable toilets free of clothing and other trash.  It is really working out great, except that now we are completely out of TP. 
If you can help, please drop off packages of TP to my office at the Fresno Center for Nonviolence, 1584 N Van Ness (on the southeast corner of Van Ness and McKinley).  We are open Monday – Friday from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.  You can also call the center at 237-3223 – Richard Gomez is often there before or after regular hours (and weekends) and can let you in to drop off the TP.
Alternatively, you can send a check to The Eco Village Project of Fresno, C/O Mike Rhodes, 4773 N Arthur Ave, Fresno Ca 93705 and we can buy TP in bulk at wholesale prices.  Either way works, but we need to do something soon.
Also, we have placed a couple of large trash bins at 2 of the homeless encampments and that is helping to keep them a lot cleaner.  Again, I’m hiring homeless people to do the difficult work of clearing the garbage from the encampments and putting it into the dumpsters.  This has been going on for a couple of weeks now and you can see a big difference in the encampments where we have located the trash bins.  You can help support this effort by sending a check to the above address.
Mike Rhodes
Editor
Community Alliance Newspaper
PO Box 5077
Fresno Ca 93755
(559) 978-4502 (cell)
(559) 226-3962 (fax)
editor@fresnoalliance.com
www.fresnoalliance.com