Testing the Waters for Another Koffee Klatch  

by Robert Norse (rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com)
Tuesday Apr 5th, 2022 9:45 PM  

With the increased sweeps against those outside in Santa Cruz, HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) is checking out unhoused and sympathizer support for a regular daytime presence at City Council offices to lobby the Council for some fundamental policy changes.The regular gathering would include coffee and munchables as we seek to speak to the unspeakable.  

Download PDF (640.7KB) 

On Tuesday, April 5, HUFF tabled at the Food-Not-Bombs meal downtown to sample opinion for the latest proposed protest lobbying effort to educate and press City Council to end the ongoing homeless sweeps.

The three flyers describe the reasons for the Koffee Klatch and some of the background which has prompted it.

Results of the poll will be released in the near future.


An earlier Koffee Klatch raised the issue of the Sleeping Ban back in 2000.
See “Still Waiting for Justice” at
http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/2001-1-still-waiting-for-justice-001.jpg
http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/2001-1-still-waiting-for-justice-002.jpg &
http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/2001-1-still-waiting-for-justice-003.jpg

A follow-up story: “Homeless Activists Banned From SC City Hall ” at
http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/2001-4-homeless-activists-banned-from-sc-city-hall-001.jpg &
http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/2001-4-homeless-activists-banned-from-sc-city-hall-002.jpg .

Final chapter: “City’s Suit Dismissed Against The Koffee Klatch 3” at http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/153.City‘s%20Suit%20Dismissed%20Against%20The%20Koffee%20Klatch%203=7-2000.pdf &
http://www.huffsantacruz.org/StreetSpiritSantaCruz/154.Suit%20Dismissed(cont.)=7-2000.pdf 

The Three Flyers

Link Up, Speak Out,

Stop the Sweeps 

Where did the money go?

Have a cup of coffee and a pastry with us at City Hall.

Ask the City Council and Its Staff What the Hell is Going on?

Tell the Deaf-to-Compassion Bureaucrats the Score! 

Coming Soon 

Koffee Klatch at City Kouncil 

• What gives?  Group Encampments & Single Survival Campers now face “Move to the Benchlands” orders from SCPD & Cal-Trans.  Yet the Benchlands is scheduled to be “cleared” this summer, according to the March 3 report to City Council from City Manager Matt Huffaker . 

• Camping Ban Ready to Rampage  The new camping ban (the CSSO MC 6.36 law) prohibits putting up a tent or laying down a sleeping bag during the night if there is either “an overnight sanctioned sleeping location or available 24/7 sanctioned sheltering location” for 150 people.   The OVO [Oversized Vehicle Ordinance] threatens those in RVs and cars. 
• The new Ban requires carrying your possessions and bedding with you through the day if and when limited storage facilities are “available” if you can’t or won’t use their facilities.  
• New Camping Ban Being Enforced The 3-3 City Manager’s Homeless Quarterly Update & Encampment Management prepared by Homeless Response Manager Larry Imwalle states “Until additional programs are operational, the encampment at the Benchlands in San Lorenzo Park continues to serve as an alternate location for individuals as the CSSO is enforced in other areas of the City, such as recently closed areas at Lot  27 (northeast corner of Laurel and Front Streets) and behind the Santa Cruz Memorial cemetery.  Benchlands…[will be] closed in Summer 2022. ”  [City Council Agenda 3-8] 
• City Authorities are happily violating the Martin v. Boise court decision which supposedly protects those outside, given Santa Cruz’ failure to establish shelter, campground, and storage facilities.  The woefully underfunded and crowded Benchlands has longstanding health and safety problems that the City has ignored.   
• Illegal sweeps have been standard policy as hundreds were driven from the Pogonip, the encampment along Coral St., the “Housing Matters” corner along Hiway 1, the Hells Trail, Camp Paradise, the 2^nd Hells Trail Sweep, the Levee Sweeps, and recent the Branciforte Creek sweep. Huffaker’s expanded emergency powers are a special threat. 
• Camping Ban Enforcement Without the Camping Ban City anti-homeless authorities have long used other laws than the Camping Ban to harass, threaten, and displace those surviving outside such as “blocking the sidewalk”, “closed area”, “public nuisance”, (spurious) “fire danger”, & other pretexts. Bucks for bullying instead of for real services is the true crime. 
• Community and SC Union Support stopped the San Lorenzo Park clearing in the Winter of 2020.  Resistance works if folks organize, do outreach, and educate the community and the neighborhoods. It takes housed and homeless in community to beat back the bureaucrats. 
• Legal and activist action established and fed the Benchlands encampment with little support from the City other than insufficient portapotties, closed bathrooms, fenced off areas, threats to those seeking to escape the winter flooding, one water faucet, and phone charger. 
• City Council and City Staff are betraying even those in the community who want the homeless gone.  The Benchlands was never presented to the community for discussion and input.  There has been no clear accounting of where funding for those outside has actually gone.   Endless promises by former assistant City Manager Susie O’Hara, former City Manager Martin Bernal, and the current crew of Lee Butler, Matt Huffaker and Larry Imwalde have been outrageously optimistic in their claims and inaccessible on the details. 
• Real services that might deescalate or assist folks with disabilities, mental crises, drug recovery are woefully underfunded.  Policing services get extra funding.  
• The City should not be cooperating with the new “Normal” which requires those outside to be grouped under “mentally ill”, “drug abuser”, or “service-resistant” labels to receive basic aid.  Gov. Newsom’s latest “obligation to accept shelter’ and “forced treatment” proposals are an ominous direction that needs to be fought.  Inclusion, not coercion!  
• HUFF opposes City laws (CSSO and OVO) that punish those outside for being homeless. We oppose compulsory treatment and feel existing laws, properly enforced, are adequate to deal with real health and safety concerns.  

Come Demand Real Answers

Huddle at City Hall Until They Provide Them !

Time and Date to be announced.

                                                                                                                                          Flyer by Norse of HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) 423-4833 www.huffsantacruz.org 309 Cedar PMB #14B  Santa Cruz 4-2-22

Koffee Klatch at City Hall ?

Poll for Your Opinion 

Get-together at City Hall (perhaps daily—if enough people are interested) during business hours.  

Perhaps walk there from Food Not Bombs through downtown. 

Try to talk with City Council members and/or Staff about problems outside and grievances. 

Sip coffee while we’re waiting.   

Share concerns with media—if any show up. 

Hang out until those in power start to notice. 

Keep coming back—the problems aren’t going away.   

Confront those responsible for the recent sweeps, misuse of money, and other abuses against the poor outside.  

Tell the real facts to them, the media, and the community from the people being pushed around.

Flyer by HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) www.huffsantacruz.org 309 Cedar PMB #14 B S.C 4-5-22

Koffee Klatch POLL   

• City Manager Huffaker signed a March 3 staff report to the City Council stating the new Camping Ban was now “enforceable” because the Benchlands was adequate shelter in spite of the Martin v. Boise [no tickets without shelter for all] decision.  Police and city workers under his direction have been sweeping other large encampments, dispersing them and directing them to the Benchlands under theat. 
• Huffaker’s Quarterly Update also announces the Benchlands will be “cleared” this summer.  Sources close to Benchland management confirm this deadline.  Benchland residents report being told the eviction deadline is imminent.   All this with no place to go. 
• HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) proposes regular coffee at City Hall during business hours to wait to speak to individual City Council members and Mayor regarding the problems of living outside. 
  
  Please give your reaction to these demands.  On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the most disagreement, and 5 being the most agreement. 
• an accounting for the millions supposedly spent for “the homeless” over the last few years; _____ 
• (b) give the unhoused a voice on how to spend the millions;_____ 
• (c) end the sweeps of ground sleepers, encampments, and car folks _____ 
• (d) more services in the Benchlands other encampments; ____ 
• (e) results of the housing “successes” of the last few years have been; _____ 
• (f) immediately move funding from the SCPD to real support services._____ 
• (g) redress property loss and police abuses _____ 
• (h) [your suggestions]:___________________________________________  
  
  _____________________________________________________________ 
  
  _____________________________________________________________ 
  
  _____________________________________________________________ 
  
  Flyer by HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) www.huffsantacruz.org 309 Cedar PMB #14 B S.C 4-5-22 

Say NO to Two Wars

The War on the Poor in Santa Cruz 

• Harassment of the Those Whose Only Shelter is Their Vehicle 
• Forced Deportation of Increasing Numbers to the Benchlands 
• Police Contempt for the Rights of the Poor Outside (Martin v. Boise) 
• Wretched Sickness-Producing Lack of Sanitation in the Benchlands 
• Extended “Emergency” and Unaccountable Emergency Powers 

Russia’s Criminal Invasion & the NATO-provoked War  

Threatening Nuclear Holocaust in Ukraine 

• Playing Russian Roulette with the 50 million in the Ukraine 
• NATO’s 20-Year Advance to the Russian Border 
• Massive Propaganda on Both Sides Risking Nuclear Winter 
• Russia’s Escalated Shelling of Ukrainian Cities 
• Ukraine’s Failure to Hold Minsk-mandated Elections 
• Media’s Suicidal Call for a No-Fly Zone Speeding WW III 
  
   
  
  DEMAND RUSSIA OUT OF UKRAINE! 
  
  NATO OUT OF EASTERN EUROPE! 
• 
  
• A NEUTRAL UKRAINE ! 

Rhonda Reyna accused the SCPD of abusive violence & kidnapping against a minor last summer. City Administrator/Clerk Bonnie Bush refused to post the full text of this Claim on the twice-monthly Santa Cruz City Council agenda for its 2-4 meeting, leaving the community in the dark before the upcoming Council meeting. But then, this may have been the whole point. 

HUFF is usually interested in police violence as it affects those outside who are more vulnerable.  However, institutionalized abusive practices which affect the entire community, even more significantly affect the homeless.  For more about this case go to https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/02/15/18847994.php .

Food Not Bombs volunteers and those eating with them could be arrested and our equipment stolen by the property speculators on Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 5 PM from their new location next to University Copy at Cathcart & Pacific.

Their storage area near India Joze is also under threat of seizure.

For more details go to https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/01/18/18847438.php

A new “hearing” for the OVO [Oversized Vehicle Ordinance] will be held on January 12th at 10 AM by the Zoning Administrator to confirm the ouster of “Oversized”, i.e. homeless vehicles, from a large segment of the City. 

Some particulars of the upcoming “hearing” and the last one can be found at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/01/08/18847199.php .  

City staff is urging the Zoning Administrator to authorize and sanctify the reactionary City Council’s latest RV ban (the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance).  This law and the CSSO (Community Services and Standards Ordinance) nails the lid on the coffin of those struggling to survive outside.

The hearing is being zoomed at 10 AM on Wednesday January 5th. Oppose it in writing now and prepare for an appeal!

For more information and to comment, go to https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/01/03/18847069.php

What to Do Next Time the River Floods?

Rains are on the Horizon

The Nearest, Most Obvious, & Most Immediate Sheltering Area is the Upper Park

Yet Police Have Ticketed Those Who Went There To Escape the Flood

Where Can Those Outside Take Their Property and Persons Safely ? 

Speak Up at the In-Person Homeless Memorial for the Dead !  

Tuesday December 21st Laurel/Front 3 PM ! 

• The City’s token annual memorial will only be held on zoom this year 10 AM – 12:30 PM Tuesday December 21^st.  Watch it at  https://bit.ly/31IfbY2. 
• Food Not Bombs, the Santa Cruz Homeless Union, and HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) will be holding its own remembrance ceremony for those who’ve died this year on Tuesday December 21^st 3 PM at the encampment and meal area.  We’ll also discuss possible responses to the next flood. 
• In December 2020, housed & unhoused peacefully refused to leave the park.  How many would be willing to repeat this resistance while filing for a life-saving Injunction as happened a year ago ? 
• Can the broader community repeat the successful resistance & Injunction of 12-28 & 12-29?  Do Benchlands residents and Community members support this strategy understanding the risk of arrest?

HUFF has received and posted yesterday’s hearing temporarily proeventing the trashing off the Pajaro River campsites near Watsonville protecting scores of people.   

It can be accessed at https://www1.huffsantacruz.org/lost/Pajaro%20River%20TRO%20Hearing.mp3 on the HUFF website. 

Van Keulen said she’d be issuing a ruling on whether to dissolve the TRO, to continue it, or to create a Preliminary Injunction within a day or two.  

There will be more commentary on the issue on  Thursday’s show–which will be available to hear at http://www.huffsantacruz.org/Lostshows.html at 6 p.m. on 11-25.  Background of the Pajaro river struggle can be found in the two most recent shows also  at that website.
Monike Tone, President of the Watsonville/Pajaronian Homeless Union can be reached at  villenair831@gmail.com .

ALERT:  Monike Tone of the Pajaro River Chapter of the California Homeless Union is appealing to the community members to join her and the many survival campers on the Pajaro River off south of Watsonville, threatened with forceable eviction and destruction of their homes (tents and other structures) 7 AM Wednesday November 17th.

They were served with a notice on the 10th, given no shelter options–as is required by the Martin v. Boise decision–and expect to be confronted with armed force tomorrow morning. 

Monike met with several dozen residents earlier today and told me she and others have decided to stand fast and decline to be bullied out of their homes–as RV dwellers in Marina were last Friday.

Attorney Anthony Prince of the California Homeless Union is reportedly working to secure an Injunction as he and Alicia Kuhl did in December 2020 for the San Lorenzo Survival Campers.  Prince has been able to secure Injunctions in other cities such as Sausalito and Novato.

She invites and urges those interested in joining the resistance–either as participants or observers–to come to the Valero gas station at San Juan and Porter Streets in Royal Oaks.  Those with questions are welcome to call her at 831-707-5562.

I will be playing several interviews with Monike on my 6 p.m. Thursday show, a preview of which should soon be available this evening at http://www.huffsantacruz.org/Lostshows.html

In mid-July Attorney Anthony Prince of the California Homeless Union successfully applied for a restraining order to stop enforcement of a thinly-disguised anti-homeless Novato city Camping ban designed to work around the Martin v. Boise decision. Perhaps activists in Santa Cruz can take similar action, long promised by the Santa Cruz Homeless Union, either with or without an attorney.
WHY AND HOW
To assist and inspire any would-be legal eagles and/or simply lay activists interested in following in successful footsteps, here’s both Prince’s application for the court Injunction as well as the Court’s positive response in Novato. Hard work by S.C. Homeless Union president and workers in large part compiled the evidence. Long-time Court survivor Keith McHenry of the allied Food Not Bombs organization has repeatedly suggested that the legal arguments, gleaned from prior applications could be mustered fairly quickly. This is something ordinary mortals could do without relying on cowed or overworked attorneys.

THE DOCUMENTS
Prince’s Application for a Restraining Order: file:///C:/Users/Robert/Downloads/516121476-California-Homeless-Union-et-al-v-City-of-Novato-et-al-complaint(1).pdf [put this link in your browser to see the full document]

The Court order: https://www.scribd.com/document/516120708/Novato-camping-restrictions-temporary-restraining-order

BACKGROUND STORIES
Attached are several stories giving background (from an establishment perspective of the Novato City Council’s conniving against Camp Compassion and the unhoused folks in that town: from the Marin Independent Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle. For completeness and amusement, I add the Novato and Police Chief’s statements as well.

FOR THE FULL STORIES & TO COMMENT, GO TO https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2021/07/24/18843907.php