PC 2010 was the 3 month long struggle 5 years ago that successfully created the MC 6.36.055 “nullification” provision of the Camping Ordinance. This provision supposedly requires dismissal of all MC 6.36 (camping) tickets if a person is on the waiting list of Homeless (Lack of) Services Center’s Paul Lee Loft and/or that of the Encompass River St. Shelter,. There is no more waiting list at Paul Lee. However River St.’s list can be accessed 24-hours a day at 459-6644, though much of the time it’s an answering machine. However, at least yesterday when one Freedom Sleeper called in to put his name on the Waiting List (so as to get tickets dismissed short of court by the City Attorney), he received a call back confirming he was on the list. So encourage homeless friends to call up and get on the list.
So far mostly MC 13.04.011 (being on the City Hall grounds after 10 PM) have been given out to those daring to exercise their right of peaceful petition and protest there at night. The strategy being used by many Freedom Sleepers is to be on the sidewalks with bags laid out after 10 PM–where for the last month they’ve faced bright klieg lights powered by noisy diesel engines, and–one one occasion–rousting by police “for sidewalk cleaning”. However we’ve generally found no actual camping tickets issued there on Tuesday night, so Freedom Sleepers has decided to declare the area a provisional Safe Sleeping Zone–especially during the day. It is generally legal to sleep on public property–particularly parks and City Hall grounds–during the day (8:30 AM to 11 PM), though abusive First Alarm Security guards, paid by the City, are rousting people there [See “Waking the Freedom Sleepers” at https://www.indybay.org/
Brent Adams has posted a brief video of pre-protest harassment right before Freedom SleepOut #12 on 9-29 at https://www.facebook.com/
| Title: | Freedom Sleepers 13th Community Sleepout |
| START DATE: | Tuesday October 06 |
| TIME: | 5:00 PM – 5:00 AM |
| Location Details: | |
| Santa Cruz City Hall 809 Center Street Santa Cruz, CA |
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| Event Type: | Other |
| Contact Name | Steve Pleich |
| Email Address | spleich [at] gmail.com |
| Phone Number | 831-466-6078 |
| Address | |
| Lucky Thirteen!
Join us for our 13th Community Sleepout! To protest the criminalization of people experiencing homelessness and to work toward the repeal of the camping and sleeping bans! Tuesday, October 6, 2015 5:00pm – Sleepout begins REASONS FOR THE SLEEP-OUT Authorities continue to harass and cite members of the Santa Cruz unhoused community with citations. This is happening even though there is no emergency walk-in shelter for the city’s 1500-2000 homeless; waiting lists are full and generally seem to require a “path to housing”, social worker, and/or disability check. GUIDELINES AND GRUB There will also be a set of proposed guidelines issued at the 6 PM General Assembly Tuesday, suggesting a “quiet for sleepers” and clean-up policy. For articles about past sleepouts and the Freedom Sleepers go to freedomsleepers.org |
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