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Japanese Homeless Go to Fukushima

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NOTE BY NORSE:  In this story, the scandal is homelessness as a jobs-and-housing crisis that allows for the exploitation of workers.  Contrast Santa Cruz where local bigots inveigh against the homeless as lazy, crazy, druggies, or exploiters.   And in the last year, thanks to Take-Over-Santa-Cruz infiltration and lobbying, the Task Farce Stimulating Public Hysteria (or Task Force on “Public Safety” as it calls itself), the homeless are being rebranded as criminals for survival behavior that would be perfectly legal inside a house (sleeping, sitting, drinking alcohol).

On Pacific Avenue,Mayor Rattlesnake Robinson’s Raiders have begun to strike. SCPD’s CSO Barnett has already driven away Kate the scarfmakker and jewelerymakers David and Crystal with harassment and threats of ticketing.  Struggling to squeeze themselves within the new Sidewalk Constriction Ordinances passed to discourage and thin out street performers, they were nonetheless confronted in hostile manner by Barnett and his yellow-jacketed Hostle-patility Patrol minions.  The ticket fine would have been in the hundreds of dollars.  Driving crafts people to panhandling, Barnett is apparently presenting a foretaste of Rattlesnake’s New Year’s gift to struggling poor people.  They have discovered old laws that, they say, prohibit selling or displaying for donation crafts more than 5 times in a six month period under the previously unused ordinance MC 5.04.080(11) which otherwise requires a “peddler” to pay $72 a day for a license.  Display for donation has not been criminalized…up to now.It’s ironic that a decade ago when an earlier group of City Council homeless-ophobes, confronted with increasing complaints about police abuse and selective enforcement (and hearings by the City’s then-active Citizens Police Review Board)–passed laws expanding forbidden-to-sit zones to cover 95% of the sidewalk for sitters and panhandlers.  Street performers and vendors tried to separate themselves from the “riffraff” and were only banned from 75% of the sidewalk.  But the wheel spins, and having come for the homeless and the beggers, the authorities went after street performers and artists last fall…and now vendors.  Solidarity with the riff-raff is not such a bad idea, after all.

In Santa Cruz some liberals are proposing that homeless “prove their worth” by doing shit work (similar to what folks on welfare are required to do in terms of seeking non-existent jobs).  What’s needed, of course, is broader solidarity between workers, renters, homeless people, and unemployed folks.  Otherwise they slice folks off, one group at a time.

Special report – Japan’s homeless recruited for murky Fukushima clean-up

By Mari Saito and Antoni Slodkowski

SENDAI, Japan Mon Dec 30, 2013 11:04am IST

(Reuters) – Seiji Sasa hits the train station in this northern Japanese city before dawn most mornings to prowl for homeless men.

He isn’t a social worker. He’s a recruiter. The men in Sendai Station are potential laborers that Sasa can dispatch to contractors in Japan’s nuclear disaster zone for a bounty of $100 a head.

“This is how labor recruiters like me come in every day,” Sasa says, as he strides past men sleeping on cardboard and clutching at their coats against the early winter cold.

It’s also how Japan finds people willing to accept minimum wage for one of the most undesirable jobs in the industrialized world: working on the $35 billion, taxpayer-funded effort to clean up radioactive fallout across an area of northern Japan larger than Hong Kong.

Almost three years ago, a massive earthquake and tsunami leveled villages across Japan’s northeast coast and set off multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Today, the most ambitious radiation clean-up ever attempted is running behind schedule. The effort is being dogged by both a lack of oversight and a shortage of workers, according to a Reuters analysis of contracts and interviews with dozens of those involved.

In January, October and November, Japanese gangsters were arrested on charges of infiltrating construction giant Obayashi Corp’s(1802.T) network of decontamination subcontractors and illegally sending workers to the government-funded project.

In the October case, homeless men were rounded up at Sendai’s train station by Sasa, then put to work clearing radioactive soil and debris in Fukushima City for less than minimum wage, according to police and accounts of those involved. The men reported up through a chain of three other companies to Obayashi, Japan’s second-largest construction company.

Obayashi, which is one of more than 20 major contractors involved in government-funded radiation removal projects, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. But the spate of arrests has shown that members of Japan’s three largest criminal syndicates – Yamaguchi-gumi, Sumiyoshi-kai and Inagawa-kai – had set up black-market recruiting agencies under Obayashi.

“We are taking it very seriously that these incidents keep happening one after another,” said Junichi Ichikawa, a spokesman for Obayashi. He said the company tightened its scrutiny of its lower-tier subcontractors in order to shut out gangsters, known as the yakuza. “There were elements of what we had been doing that did not go far enough.”

OVERSIGHT LEFT TO TOP CONTRACTORS

Part of the problem in monitoring taxpayer money in Fukushima is the sheer number of companies involved in decontamination, extending from the

major contractors at the top to tiny subcontractors many layers below them. The total number has not been announced. But in the 10 most contaminated towns and a highway that runs north past the gates of the wrecked plant in Fukushima, Reuters found 733 companies were performing work for the Ministry of Environment, according to partial contract terms released by the ministry in August under Japan’s information disclosure law.

Reuters found 56 subcontractors listed on environment ministry contracts worth a total of $2.5 billion in the most radiated areas of Fukushima that would have been barred from traditional public works because they had not been vetted by the construction ministry.

The 2011 law that regulates decontamination put control under the environment ministry, the largest spending program ever managed by the 10-year-old agency. The same law also effectively loosened controls on bidders, making it possible for firms to win radiation removal contracts without the basic disclosure and certification required for participating in public works such as road construction.

Reuters also found five firms working for the Ministry of Environment that could not be identified. They had no construction ministry registration, no listed phone number or website, and Reuters could not find a basic corporate registration disclosing ownership. There was also no record of the firms in the database of Japan’s largest credit research firm, Teikoku Databank.

“As a general matter, in cases like this, we would have to start by looking at whether a company like this is real,” said Shigenobu Abe, a researcher at Teikoku Databank. “After that, it would be necessary to look at whether this is an active company and at the background of its executive and directors.”

Responsibility for monitoring the hiring, safety records and suitability of hundreds of small firms involved in Fukushima’s decontamination rests with the top contractors, including Kajima Corp(1812.T), Taisei Corp(1801.T) and Shimizu Corp(1803.T), officials said.

“In reality, major contractors manage each work site,” said Hide Motonaga, deputy director of the radiation clean-up division of the environment ministry.

But, as a practical matter, many of the construction companies involved in the clean-up say it is impossible to monitor what is happening on the ground because of the multiple layers of contracts for each job that keep the top contractors removed from those doing the work.

“If you started looking at every single person, the project wouldn’t move forward. You wouldn’t get a tenth of the people you need,” said Yukio Suganuma, president of Aisogo Service, a construction company that was hired in 2012 to clean up radioactive fallout from streets in the town of Tamura.

The sprawl of small firms working in Fukushima is an unintended consequence of Japan’s legacy of tight labor-market regulations combined with the aging population’s deepening shortage of workers. Japan’s construction companies cannot afford to keep a large payroll and dispatching temporary workers to construction sites is prohibited. As a result, smaller firms step into the gap, promising workers in exchange for a cut of their wages.

Below these official subcontractors, a shadowy network of gangsters and illegal brokers who hire homeless men has also become active in Fukushima. Ministry of Environment contracts in the most radioactive areas of Fukushima prefecture are particularly lucrative because the government pays an additional $100 in hazard allowance per day for each worker.

Takayoshi Igarashi, a lawyer and professor at Hosei University, said the initial rush to find companies for decontamination was understandable in the immediate aftermath of the disaster when the priority was emergency response. But he said the government now needs to tighten its scrutiny to prevent a range of abuses, including bid rigging.

“There are many unknown entities getting involved in decontamination projects,” said Igarashi, a former advisor to ex-Prime Minister Naoto Kan. “There needs to be a thorough check on what companies are working on what, and when. I think it’s probably completely lawless if the top

contractors are not thoroughly checking.”

The Ministry of Environment announced on Thursday that work on the most contaminated sites would take two to three years longer than the original March 2014 deadline. That means many of the more than 60,000 who lived in the area before the disaster will remain unable to return home until six years after the disaster.

Earlier this month, Abe, who pledged his government would “take full responsibility for the rebirth of Fukushima” boosted the budget for decontamination to $35 billion, including funds to create a facility to store radioactive soil and other waste near the wrecked nuclear plant.
To read this story in a PDF, click link.reuters.com/duv65v

Graphics
Web of contractors link.reuters.com/wet65v
Recruiting the homeless link.reuters.com/cem65v
Skimming wages link.reuters.com/dem65v

‘DON’T ASK QUESTIONS’

Japan has always had a gray market of day labor centered in Tokyo and Osaka. A small army of day laborers was employed to build the stadiums and parks for the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. But over the past year, Sendai, the biggest city in the disaster zone, has emerged as a hiring hub for homeless men. Many work clearing rubble left behind by the 2011 tsunami and cleaning up radioactive hotspots by removing topsoil, cutting grass and scrubbing down houses around the destroyed nuclear plant, workers and city officials say.

Seiji Sasa, 67, a broad-shouldered former wrestling promoter, was photographed by undercover police recruiting homeless men at the Sendai train station to work in the nuclear cleanup. The workers were then handed off through a chain of companies reporting up to Obayashi, as part of a $1.4 million contract to decontaminate roads in Fukushima, police say.

“I don’t ask questions; that’s not my job,” Sasa said in an interview with Reuters. “I just find people and send them to work. I send them and get money in exchange. That’s it. I don’t get involved in what happens after that.”

Only a third of the money allocated for wages by Obayashi’s top contractor made it to the workers Sasa had found. The rest was skimmed by middlemen, police say. After deductions for food and lodging, that left workers with an hourly rate of about $6, just below the minimum wage equal to about $6.50 per hour in Fukushima, according to wage data provided by police. Some of the homeless men ended up in debt after fees for food and housing were deducted, police say.

Sasa was arrested in November and released without being charged. Police were after his client, Mitsunori Nishimura, a local Inagawa-kai gangster. Nishimura housed workers in cramped dorms on the edge of Sendai and skimmed an estimated $10,000 of public funding intended for their wages each month, police say.

Nishimura, who could not be reached for comment, was arrested and paid a $2,500 fine. Nishimura is widely known in Sendai. Seiryu Home, a shelter funded by the city, had sent other homeless men to work for him on recovery jobs after the 2011 disaster.

“He seemed like such a nice guy,” said Yota Iozawa, a shelter manager. “It was bad luck. I can’t investigate everything about every company.”
In the incident that prompted his arrest, Nishimura placed his workers with Shinei Clean, a company with about 15 employees based on a winding farm road south of Sendai. Police turned up there to arrest Shinei’s president, Toshiaki Osada, after a search of his office, according to Tatsuya Shoji, who is both Osada’s nephew and a company manager. Shinei had sent dump trucks to sort debris from the disaster. “Everyone is involved in sending workers,” said Shoji. “I guess we just happened to get caught this time.”

Osada, who could not be reached for comment, was fined about $5,000. Shinei was also fined about $5,000.

‘RUN BY GANGS’

The trail from Shinei led police to a slightly larger neighboring company with about 30 employees, Fujisai Couken. Fujisai says it was under pressure from a larger contractor, Raito Kogyo, to provide workers for Fukushima. Kenichi Sayama, Fujisai’s general manger, said his company only made about $10 per day per worker it outsourced. When the job appeared to be going too slowly, Fujisai asked Shinei for more help and they turned to Nishimura.
A Fujisai manager, Fuminori Hayashi, was arrested and paid a $5,000 fine, police said. Fujisai also paid a $5,000 fine.

“If you don’t get involved (with gangs), you’re not going to get enough workers,” said Sayama, Fujisai’s general manager. “The construction industry is 90 percent run by gangs.”

Raito Kogyo(1926.T), a top-tier subcontractor to Obayashi, has about 300 workers in decontamination projects around Fukushima and owns subsidiaries in both Japan and the United States. Raito agreed that the project faced a shortage of workers but said it had been deceived. Raito said it was unaware of a shadow contractor under Fujisai tied to organized crime.

“We can only check on lower-tier subcontractors if they are honest with us,” said Tomoyuki Yamane, head of marketing for Raito. Raito and Obayashi were not accused of any wrongdoing and were not penalized.

Other firms receiving government contracts in the decontamination zone have hired homeless men from Sasa, including Shuto Kogyo, a firm based in Himeji, western Japan.

“He sends people in, but they don’t stick around for long,” said Fujiko Kaneda, 70, who runs Shuto with her son, Seiki Shuto. “He gathers people in front of the station and sends them to our dorm.”

Kaneda invested about $600,000 to cash in on the reconstruction boom. Shuto converted an abandoned roadhouse north of Sendai into a dorm to house workers on reconstruction jobs such as clearing tsunami debris. The company also won two contracts awarded by the Ministry of Environment to clean up two of the most heavily contaminated townships.

Kaneda had been arrested in 2009 along with her son, Seiki, for charging illegally high interest rates on loans to pensioners. Kaneda signed an admission of guilt for police, a document she says she did not understand, and paid a fine of $8,000. Seiki was given a sentence of two years prison time suspended for four years and paid a $20,000 fine, according to police. Seiki declined to comment.

UNPAID WAGE CLAIMS

In Fukushima, Shuto has faced at least two claims with local labor regulators over unpaid wages, according to Kaneda. In a separate case, a 55-year-old homeless man reported being paid the equivalent of $10 for a full month of work at Shuto. The worker’s paystub, reviewed by Reuters, showed charges for food, accommodation and laundry were docked from his monthly pay equivalent to about $1,500, leaving him with $10 at the end of the August.

The man turned up broke and homeless at Sendai Station in October after working for Shuto, but disappeared soon afterwards, according to Yasuhiro Aoki, a Baptist pastor and homeless advocate.

Kaneda confirmed the man had worked for her but said she treats her workers fairly. She said Shuto Kogyo pays workers at least $80 for a day’s work while docking the equivalent of $35 for food. Many of her workers end up borrowing from her to make ends meet, she said. One of them had owed her $20,000 before beginning work in Fukushima, she says. The balance has come down recently, but then he borrowed another $2,000 for the year-end

holidays.

“He will never be able to pay me back,” she said.

The problem of workers running themselves into debt is widespread. “Many homeless people are just put into dormitories, and the fees for lodging and food are automatically docked from their wages,” said Aoki, the pastor. “Then at the end of the month, they’re left with no pay at all.”
Shizuya Nishiyama, 57, says he briefly worked for Shuto clearing rubble. He now sleeps on a cardboard box in Sendai Station. He says he left after a dispute over wages, one of several he has had with construction firms, including two handling decontamination jobs.

Nishiyama’s first employer in Sendai offered him $90 a day for his first job clearing tsunami debris. But he was made to pay as much as $50 a day for food and lodging. He also was not paid on the days he was unable to work. On those days, though, he would still be charged for room and board. He decided he was better off living on the street than going into debt.

“We’re an easy target for recruiters,” Nishiyama said. “We turn up here with all our bags, wheeling them around and we’re easy to spot. They say to us, are you looking for work? Are you hungry? And if we haven’t eaten, they offer to find us a job.”

(Reporting by Mari Saito and Antoni Slodkowski, additional reporting by Elena Johansson, Michio Kohno, Yoko Matsudaira, Fumika Inoue, Ruairidh Villar, Sophie Knight; writing by Kevin Krolicki; editing by Bill Tarrant)

San Jose Encampments in a Super-Rich Community

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NOTES BY NORSE:  The winter (summer, spring, and fall) destruction of survival encampments has become a growth industry in Santa Cruz under Mayors Bryant and Robinson–with persistent, arbitrary, and destructive raids on the privacy, property, and well-being of those outside with no shelter.

         The pretexts are age-old:  environmental protection (but not the human environment), public health (but let’s not build any 24 hour bathrooms), drug “crimes” (how’s the prohibition war going for you?), and, the latest and most trumpeted but least substantial–“public safety” (gee, Martha, all those police calls and tickets for sleeping, sitting, and being in a park after dark–they’re willfully violating laws that our police department advised the  City Council to make!…and creating…a crime wave!).
The growing number of homeless people are a symptom of housing, jobs, war priority, and bankster fraud, it’s become easier and more profitable to discover or attribute flaws, faults, and failings in homeless people themselves to explain away rent profiteering, job flight overseas, and a bloated corrupt and overpriced  health care system.    But let’s just call them drunks, addicts, crazies, and lazies.  Sort of what’s always been done when you wish to dismiss legitimate basic survival demands and sub-humanize folks.
The city can’t even see its way clear to two decent mass meals for homeless people per year (Thanksgiving and Xmas).  Food Not Bombs has stepped in to feed on the sidewalk near the main post office today.   Nor has there been any official provision for warming centers as the temperatures drop.

  Hard Times USA

The Jungle: Thousands of Homeless People Live in Shantytowns at the Epicenter of High-Tech, Super-Rich Silicon Valley

Residents of Silicon Valley’s largest homeless encampment illustrate the widening divide between the nation’s haves and have-nots.
Photo Credit: Evelyn Nieves
December 15, 2013  |

By mid-morning on Thursday, the sun was shining hard enough to dry wet blankets and the residents of the Jungle began surfacing, letting each other know they were still alive.
Six straight nights of freezing temperatures had tested their tenacity, not to mention their tarps and tents. It was so cold that the raccoons that raid the trash bins every night disappeared, a first. Ditto the crows, squirrels and feral cats. Life in the Jungle, 75 wooded acres off Interstate 101 in San Jose that comprises Silicon Valley’s largest homeless encampment, came to a standstill.

Click to enlarge.
Photo: The entrance to the Jungle. 

With the hard ground thawing, the Jungle looked as if spring had sprung. People strolled the dirt paths, rode their bikes and walked their dogs. Everyone in the Jungle—200 men and women, give or take—looked ready to celebrate surviving the earliest, coldest cold snap on record.
“We were lucky,” said Troy Feid, a former carpenter, squinting into the bright sky. “Not everyone was.”

Click to enlarge.

Photo: Troy Feid, a former carpenter who suffers from depression, has lived in the Jungle on and off for six years. He ended up homeless after he lost his job when he went to jail for nearly a year for owning a motorcycle he didn’t know was stolen. Now he lives in an elaborate encampment he built out of scrounged wood and plastic with his cat, Baby.

Four homeless men in Silicon Valley did not make it through the season’s first bout of sub-freezing temperatures. Over the last two weeks, three of them froze to death on the streets of San Jose, not far from the Jungle.
That people live and die on the streets of Silicon Valley is no news to the poor, of course. With more than 6,500 tech companies in all, Santa Clara County is home to the biggest stars in the tech universe, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, eBay and Apple. But the land of high-tech milk and honey is also a prime example of the widening divide between the nation’s haves and have-nots.
For all its stock-option millionaires, the San Jose/Santa Clara County region (pop. 1.8 million) also has the nation’s fifth largest population of homeless (after New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and San Diego), according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The main culprits? Budget cuts that have frayed the safety net and sky-high housing costs. These days, a three-bedroom, one-bath starter home in San Jose, the county seat and one of its most affordable cities, costs a cool million. Rents for a two-bedroom apartment go from $2,000 to $5,000 a month, and those on the low-end are scarce.
While homelessness remains off the radar of the Silicon Valley titans, it keeps getting worse, up 20 percent in two years. More than 7,600 people sleep on the streets every night. Dozens of encampments dot the landscape, and thousands of people live in temporary quarters—shelters, motels, friends’ homes. Several private and public organizations in Santa Clara County are dedicated to helping the unhoused receive medical care, supplies and assistance in finding shelter. But funds and available units to move homeless people into permanent housing are meager.
For now, emergency shelters remain the only immediate option for those on the streets. But shelters prohibit pets and loads of possessions. Most people in the Jungle have both.

Click to enlarge.
 Photo: The Jungle is a place of many signs. Signs mark people‘s territories, give instructions as to where to put trash for pickup (the city picks up trash placed in trash bags it provides Jungle residents), welcome visitors, or more often, warn them away.

In fact, calling the Jungle an encampment hardly describes it. A shantytown of tents and shacks made from doors, tarps and whatever else people could find, the Jungle sits on county land along Coyote Creek just below street level from Story Road, a commercial hub anchored by a Walmart.

“I rode my bike to the hospital,” she said. “The doctors told me I was very lucky.”

Click to enlarge.
Photo: Yolanda Gutierrez, 39, recently suffered a stroke. She rode her bicycle to the hospital, where doctors told her she was lucky to be alive. She has lived in the Jungle for about a year and is trying to get out.

“Lucky” is a word residents of the Jungle seem to use a lot. Jose, a 46-year-old handyman, has asked for his last name not to be used because it “might embarrass his family.” He said he considers himself lucky for the encampment he shares with his 90-pound pitbull puppy, Rocky, and a bunch of chickens that tend to wander through the Jungle. Always poor, he said, he chose to move to the Jungle after quarreling with a roommate. Like so many others here, he has designed a space that feels more permanent than not. A cactus garden adorns the front of his camp, and he has created different rooms out of found objects. Even Rocky has his own house, with his own twin-sized mattress.
“He eats better than I do,” Jose said, adding kibble to Rocky’s bowl.

Click to enlarge.
Photo: Jose is teaching himself how to play a keyboard.

Residents of the Jungle have no shortage of food. Church groups from all over San Jose come on Sundays. A month ago, a handful of co-workers from a local LED light company began showing up on Tuesdays with food and supplies. Last Tuesday, they brought a U-Haul truck full of sleeping bags they bought after collecting donations from friends and others who heard about their treks to the Jungle. Individuals show up to give out food and blankets as well.

Click to enlarge.
Photo: Birdman and his Blue Amazon, Natasha. Birdman, a San Jose native, spiraled into homelessness after spending five years in prison for trying to build a homemade gun. He has lived in the Jungle for three years.

The Jungle has its own volunteers, who collect donations—mostly food—from local businesses and dole them out. City and county officials say the Jungle has had its share of crime, including a murder last year. Fights break out. But the Jungle has peacekeepers, too; self-appointed mediators who broker truces, or if deemed necessary, ask troublemakers to leave.
“Most people are okay,” said Troy Feid, who regularly allows his neighbors to use a camp shower he has hooked up in the elaborate camp he shares with his cat, Baby. Feid, who suffers from depression, manages a smile when he gives a tour of his home, a warren of tidy rooms. “I’ve got plans for this place,” he said. “I just hope we last the winter here.”
Winter remains weeks away. But for a little while, the weather will be kind enough.
Photos by Evelyn Nieves.

TO MAKE AND READ COMMENTS GO TO:

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-usa/jungle-thousands-homeless-people-live-shantytowns-epicenter-high-tech-super-rich?page=0%2C2

The Hungarian Regime Takes a Cue from the City of Santa Cruz–Bans Sleeping Outside

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NOTES BY NORSE:  Looks like Take Over Santa Cruz*–has its friends and allies in Hungary.   A similar  attack on recycling fouled the air at City Council last month in a preliminary “investigation” of the two recycling centers (which found nothing) and passage of measures to heighten scrutiny, encourage the state legislature to empower local bigots to move recycling to out-of-town areas and ban new ones.   The Santa Cruz [Homeless] Sleeping Ban has been in place for decades and its enforcement is now on the upswing.   Similar to Sundown Town laws that drove blacks out of town in the mid-West (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_towns ), Santa Cruz’s MC 6.36.010a is an absurd, costly, and arbitrary “tool” used by police to drive the homeless (and often disabled) out of town.

                            As Sgt. Le Moss reportedly said to David the Street Performer, when he phoned in to file a complaint that Officer Aguilar and others were harassing him on the street a week ago, “why don’t you just leave town?”.  Le Moss is the sergeant who broke the arm of a vehicular-housed woman in her 60’s some years ago for which the city paid out settlement money, but retained the assaulter on the force (See “60 Year Old Homeless Wolman Says Police Broke Her Arm”  at https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/10/18498341.php ).  So far David has not received a call back from the SCPD (though he reports the harassment has stopped.
Meanwhile as temperatures in Santa Cruz dip again towards freezing, Mayor Rattlesnake Robinson may be attending the Homeless Death Memorial today (10:30 AM at 115 Coral St.), but she hasn’t opened up any public buildings to prevent death by hypothermia.  Brent Adams’ Sanctuary Camp/Warming Center group (https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/12/12/18747693.php?show_comments=1#18747702) will meet again Sunday the 22nd to see if its letter-writing campaign has opened up any doors.  There are rumblings of an emergency gathering on the nights of predicted freezing with tents and heaters, but so far nothing tangible has taken shape.  Some that warmth seekers ignore the newly-posted “No Loitering” signs in the (supposedly public) Metro Transit Center.    Frosty times ahead.*A rebranding of the Take Back Santa Cruz’s name in the interests of truth in advertising.

‘They Want Scapegoats’:Hungary Cracks Down on Homelessness

By Keno Verseck

Photo Gallery: Hungary's Tough New Law on Homelessness Photos
AFP

The conservative Hungarian government has repeatedly targeted the homeless with its recent policies. Now a new ban on sleeping outdoors is drawing outrage and accusations of scapegoating.


Has she ever resorted to begging? No, that would be undignified. “I have never done that,” says Zsuzsanna Lakatos indignantly. The 58-year-old Hungarian woman has been homeless for two decades. She lives with her husband Bertalan on the outskirts of Budapest in a tiny dilapidated building they have fixed up, and the couple earns money doing odd jobs such as renovations, gardening and helping people move.

ANZEIGE

A large source of their income used to come from collecting discarded household items, which they would clean, repair and resell at markets. But now they’ve become more cautious, thanks to the trash law that has been in place since January in Hungary.

According to the regulations, large discarded items in public places are the property of those officially in charge of their removal. Those who are unauthorized to do so face fines and jail time — a rule that targets the many homeless trash collectors in the country.

But now things have gotten even worse for Hungary’s homeless. On Monday evening, the parliament in Budapest passed a law banning the homeless from sleeping outdoors around certain public places, though the law’s criteria remains vague. The law applies to all of Hungary’s World Heritage Sites, as well as any other homeless-free zones designated by local city authorities. Those who violate the ban face fines, community service and even jail time for repeat offenses.




Not Enough Shelters

The new law is actually an amendment to one passed last year that was subsequently struck down by the Constitutional Court. To avoid another rejection by the court, the national conservative government under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán passed an amendment to the Hungarian constitution earlier this year that makes it difficult to declare the law unconstitutional again.

A number of Hungarian human rights organizations are now protesting the new law, calling on the country’s president, János Áder, not to sign it. “The criminalization of the homeless violates basic rights and is unacceptable,” declared a joint statement by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU), the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and seven other civil groups.

“The new law basically makes homelessness a punishable offense,” says Tessza Udvarhelyi ofThe City Is for All, an initiative that champions the rights of the homeless. “Many don’t know what to do now. The government has promised that all homeless people will be accommodated in shelters, but there are no spaces available in the shelters.”

According to estimates by aid organizations, between 10,000 and 15,000 homeless people live in the capital of Budapest, a city of some 2 million. But there is lodging in shelters for only about 6,000.

Gábor Iványi, a prominent Methodist pastor who has been ministering to the homeless for some two decades, says his soup kitchen and homeless shelter at a church in Budapest’s 8th district are frequently overflowing. “The new law against the homeless is deeply un-Christian, as is the approach by officials,” he says. “They are constantly sending patrols to the shelter and harassing people, even when they are simply waiting for food.”
Government representatives reject such criticism. “It is sheer nonsense to call it the criminalization of the homeless,” says Gergely Pröhle, a senior Foreign Ministry official. “We just don’t want the homeless to live in certain public places that are heavily visited by tourists, and that is totally legitimate.”




Distracting from Other Issues

Tessza Udvarhelyi disagrees. She says that the policies are part of a wider hostility toward the poor by Orbán’s government. “They need scapegoats to distract from the poor social situation in the country, and therefore use the poorest of the poor, the homeless, Roma and refugees,” she says. While past governments have also taken aim at the homeless, their approach was not as systematic, she adds.

“Before the Constitutional Court ruled last year that the law against homelessness was unconstitutional, it was valid for eight months,” says Udvarhelyi, “and in these eight months the equivalent of €130,000 in fines were imposed against 2,000 homeless people in Budapest. With this, policy on homelessness took on quite a new quality.”

The Lakatos moved from eastern Hungary to Budapest in 1992. Zsuzsanna Lakatos had worked as a bookkeeper at a steel combine in the city of Miskolc. Her husband had been a day laborer on a farm. In 1991 they both found themselves unemployed and then homeless. They now live on a private estate on the southwestern outskirts of Budapest. The owner of the land has allowed them to repair the ruins of an old building and live in it. This way they are not as vulnerable to the police, who have long been clearing the homeless out of huts and camps in many public wastelands, even on the outskirts of the Hungarian capital.

But despite the relative privilege of their living situation compared to other homeless people, the Lakatos are afraid. In recent years they’ve been increasingly subjected to police checks. Sometimes Bertalan, who is Roma, is insulted as a “dirty gypsy.”

“I hope we don’t face any fines or prison sentences,” says Zsuzsanna. “When the new law comes into force, we will do our best to go underground.” Isn’t that exactly what the government wants? “Yes,” she answers.



To make or read comments and to see more photos, go to http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/new-hungarian-law-discriminates-against-homeless-a-925822.html .

Associated Press

By PABLO GORONDI January 17, 2013 6:33 AM
In this photo taken early morning Friday, Jan. 11, 2013, homeless women sleep with their teddy-bears in a shelter called 'The Heated Street' in Budapest, Hungary. Hungary considers constitutional change to allow authorities to force homeless off the streets. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)
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BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Homeless men and women huddle on street corners amid Budapest’s majestic domed palaces, shivering under old blankets and cardboard boxes in frigid winter weather.

It’s an image that critics say Prime Minister Viktor Orban doesn’t want the world to see. And if he has his way, the homeless could be fined and even jailed for sleeping outside — even though some of the country’s homeless shelters are already overflowing and short of beds.

 

Orban’s punitive ideas for the homeless have set him up for his latest clash with the constitutional court and civil rights groups as he tries to reshape the country in a conservative image by centralizing power. Since winning power in 2010, Orban and his party have undermined independent institutions and democratic standards in a nation that was once an icon of democratic struggle for throwing off communism in 1989.

Now Orban is carrying out an informal referendum at town hall meetings around the country to gauge support for a constitutional amendment that would enshrine punishments for the homeless in the charter itself.
Hungary’s homeless policy has revived accusations by human rights groups that Orban’s ruling Fidesz party cares little about the country’s disadvantaged. In just one recent controversy, one of the party’s founding members, journalist Zsolt Bayer wrote in a newspaper column that many of the country’s Gypsies, or Roma — an impoverished minority that faces entrenched discrimination — “are animals” and “unfit for coexistence.”
Fidesz refused to distance itself from the column, saying it understood citizens’ anger about crimes committed by Roma and called on those demanding Bayer’s expulsion from the party “to refrain from standing on the side of the criminals.”

View gallery

In this photo taken early morning Friday, Jan. 11, …

In this photo taken early morning Friday, Jan. 11, 2013, a homeless man sleeps on the floor in a she …

 

The homeless issue has been brewing for several years. At the end of 2011, Orban’s ruling right-wing Fidesz party used its overwhelming parliamentary majority to make the punitive regulations first introduced earlier that year by the Fidesz-backed mayor of Budapest — including fines of up to $650 for repeat offenders and the threat of up to 60 days in jail — applicable nationwide.
“This is a method to demoralize or intimidate us,” said Gyula Balog, 53, who has been homeless for nearly 20 years. “No one was jailed but quite a few had to pay fines. It’s frivolous to fine those who have nothing.”

At the time, even the United Nations expressed concerns, saying the obligation to provide shelter “cannot serve as an excuse for the criminalization or forced detention of homeless persons.”
“By a wave of the legislative pen, the Hungarian Parliament has labeled tens of thousands of homeless people in Hungary as potential criminals,” said a statement from two U.N. human rights experts. “Moreover, the law has a discriminatory impact on those living in poverty.”
At least 1,500 homeless are believed to be currently living rough in Budapest, even as temperatures are expected to remain below freezing in coming days and dozens of homeless are found frozen to death each year on the streets.

View gallery

In this photo taken early morning Friday, Jan. 11, …

In this photo taken early morning Friday, Jan. 11, 2013, a homeless man sleeps on a mattress in a sh …

 

In the winter, many head to the warmest spots they can find, usually the entrance halls of subway stations, sometimes quietly holding out a paper cup for money from passersby or by selling street newspapers.
Authorities recently inaugurated two more shelters in the capital and the government spent 8.5 billion forints ($38.4 million, €28.9 billion) on the homeless in 2012, with a similar figure planned this year. But some of the most popular refuges, like the “Heated Street” run by the Hungarian Evangelical Brotherhood, are full far beyond capacity, with many people sleeping on mats on the floor.
The issue of the fines re-emerged in November when the constitutional court struck down the punishments, saying homelessness was a social issue that should not be handled as a criminal matter.
There are no exact figures on the number of homeless in Hungary, but the U.N. last year put the figure at between 30,000 and 35,000. A survey carried out each year on Feb. 3 in Budapest and the larger Hungarian cities by NGOs, counted 8,641 in 2012, up from 7,199 in 2011.

Many cities across the United States also ban activities such as “urban camping,” panhandling, “lodging” outdoors and similar actions, often resulting in fines or jail time for offenders.
The Hungarian government argues that it is simply acting out of concern for the dozens of homeless people who freeze to death every year, implying that fines are meant to push the displaced to seek refuge in warm shelters.
“There are more places in heated shelters than there are homeless living in Hungary,” Orban said last month in Parliament. “So no one … is forced to survive winter under the open sky.”
But social workers and the homeless themselves accuse the government of caring only about the country’s image.
“They simply want to clean up the areas frequented by tourists,” said Balog, speaking outside the department store where he sold Commodore 64 computers during communism, before losing his job and family because of his alcoholism.

Comment at http://news.yahoo.com/hungary-homeless-face-winter-fear-return-fines-074819834.html

Palo Alto Vehicle Habitation Law suspended; 9th Circuit Spanks L.A. City Attorney

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NOTES BY NORSE:  The audio of the 9th Circuit Court hearing which punches the L.A. City attorney in the chops in the case of Cheyenne Desertrain, et al v. City of Los Angeles, et al,   can be heard at http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/media/view.php?pk_id=0000012040  It’s a rare opportunity to hear the slitherings, slippings, and slidings of a city attorney directly challenged–not by the defense lawyer Carol Sobel, but by the actual judges themselves who pin the tail squarely on the donkey by clarifying the specifically anti-homeless focus on the enforcement actions.

                Santa Cruz has used a variety of devices to muffle, buffer, and mask the anti-homeless intent–in the process creating potential criminalization for everyone in the interests of appearing impartial.  So it’s not just panhandlers, but anyone with a sign who faces a ticket and potentially jail for standing on a median or roundabout with any kind of sign (including a constitutionally protected sign).  The night-time curfews in the parks, around the library, at the City Hall complex, and around the police station are designed to frighten homeless people away, but also impact everyone, particularly political protesters.    The infamous only-in-Santa-Cruz (at the time of passage in 2003) “Move Along-Every-Hour” law targeted seated panhandlers, but had to be framed more generally so that it took in political protesters, voter registrars, musicians, performers, and anyone with a “display device.”
This year, the cover for homeless-o-phobia is “public safety” with anyone who challenges security thugs in the parks (1 day stay away or up to 1 year in jail).  The notorious Sidewalk Shrinkage law which expanded the 14′ forbidden-to-sit zones “protecting” benches, buildings, crosswalks, kiosks, phone  booths, sculptures, trash compactors, and trash cans (to name only some of the new sacred items) does seem to be a broader aesthetic attack on performers of all sorts (Morgami the colorful accordionist and Mr. Twister the balloon clown excepted–though that’s not written into the law).  However since many of those performing, displaying artwork, or showing crafts are unhoused or poor people struggling to make it, the intent of the law is pretty clear.
The expansion of smoking bans this year and in prior years to cover situations when people aren’t complaining is another example–homeless people smoke at about 3 to 4 times the rate of housed people.  Most recently, the new Public Assembly Constriction laws, requiring costs for street closures and permits for smaller numbers of people, makes it more difficult for poor people and spontaneous protests.   Many of which have been homeless-themed in the past, considering the City’s abhorrent Sleeping and Blanket Bans (as well as its other laws and practices targeting the visible poor outside).
Meanwhile Palo Alto activists are rightly celebrating the City’s delay in enforcing the “live in van, go on the lam” law, but the majority of those outside there have no such luxury.  Laws passed shortly after the vehicle habitation ban criminalized being around community centers at night–the traditional sleeping spots of many ground sleepers.  When I asked Palo Alto activist Chuck Jagoda if action against that law was on the activist agenda, he said no.
In Santa Cruz, some are organizing to address the lack of warming centers on cold weather winter days–and good for them for doing so!–but the broader and deeper issue is the destruction of homeless campsites, the seizure and trashing of homeless property, and the reduction of homeless people to the status of trash–that goes on 365 days a year here.

 http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/12/17/car-camping-ban-put-to-bed-for-a-year

Car-camping ban suspended for a year

Legal concerns prompt Palo Alto to delay enforcement of controversial law

by Gennady Sheyner / Palo Alto Weekly

 

Faced with citizen anxieties, threatened lawsuits and a pending court case in southern California, Palo Alto officials agreed on Monday to delay for a year the city’s deeply controversial ban on vehicle habitation.

 

 

The City Council voted unanimously to approve a staff recommendation to delay enforcement of the ban, which the council officially adopted on Sept. 19 and which was scheduled to kick off in February.

 

 

The ban, which was prompted by a swell of car campers at Cubberley Community Center and in a section of College Terrace, was adopted despite heated opposition from homeless advocates and members from the faith community. Last month, a coalition of attorneys led by Carrie LeRoy announced its intention to sue the city over the ban and requested a meeting with City Attorney Molly Stump to discuss their concerns. LeRoy argued in a Nov. 15 letter to the city that the ban is too broad and too punitive, that it violates the U.S. Constitution and that it would effectively criminalize homelessness.

 

 

“Enforcement of the VHO (vehicle habitation ordinance) will exacerbate serious health issues and disabilities prevalent among Plaintiffs, who will be forced out of their vehicles or Palo Alto altogether to avoid criminal liability,” LeRoy wrote.

 

 

The council’s decision on Monday to delay the ban squashes the controversy for at least a year. In a memo released last week, City Manager James Keene pointed to a case currently going through the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. That case, Cheyenne Destertrain v. City of Los Angeles, revolves around the issue of vehicle habitation. The appeals court has recently heard the arguments in this case and staff believes its decision “may provide further clarification regarding legal requirements governing ordinances prohibiting vehicle habitation.”

 

 

The letter also noted that the council has already taken another step to address the transformation of Cubberley into what officials often refer to as an “ad hoc homeless shelter.” In August, the council adopted a new law ordering that all community centers, including Cubberley, be closed between 10:30 p.m. and sunrise. Thus, the lawyers contended, the new law serves no legitimate purpose.

 

 

In the memo, Keene pointed to the Los Angeles case and noted “some members of the public have questions regarding the scope of the ordinance, which suggests that an additional period of outreach and review would be beneficial.”

 

 

The council approved the delay unanimously as part of its “consent calendar,” with no discussion or argument. The only people who spoke out on the issue were a handful of public speakers who opposed the ban. One speaker, Lois Salo, urged officials to go a step further and rescind the ban. Others said they were pleased to see the prohibition delayed, even if it’s just for a year. Edie Keating from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto was among them.

 

 

“Many members of the community appreciate your willingness to keep this open for up to a year,” Keating told the council. “There will be a need to find a solution so that we aren’t in the same place at some future point in time. Many people are already talking about what the possible solutions could be.”

Will Santa Cruz Anti-Homeless Bureaucrats Read the Writing on the Wall? [1 Attachment]

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[Attachment(s)from Robert included below]

 

NOTES BY NORSE:  Palo Alto–faced with massive activist organizing and lawsuits–is now about to hold off on its attempt to run homeless vehicle dwellers out of town.  They still have in place ordinances to drive away those without vehicles from unused community centers and parks at night.  The enclosed attachment describes the latest retreat by the gentrification gurus in the face of the likely L.A. 9th Circuit Court hearing d
Santa Cruz for decades (since 1978) has enforced its “sleep in a vehicle at night, get hassled and fined” law in spite of repeatedly-declared Housing Emergencies by the City Council.  A pittance of relief was made in 1995 by “allowing” churches to shelter three vehicles of sleepers, in 1999 by “allowing” businesses and non-profits to shelter two vehicles of sleepers and in 2010 by asserting that all Sleeping Ban citations (including vehicles) would be dismissed for those on the waiting lists of the HLOSC–the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center and/or the River St. Shelter.  All of this was done in response to activist pressure where many people risked fines and jail to bring this to public view.
Yet the bucks-and-bigotry-backked riptide against poor people outside has swept forward.  Over the same period, the use of “permit parking” restrictions banning vehicles at night without permits was used to drive away homeless vehicles (explicitly).  “Loitering” in public parking lots was made a crime–in spite of constitutional findings back in the Larson case in the 80’s that barres such anti-homeless laws (a special gift of Supervisorial candidate Ryan Coonerty when he was Council member).  The harsh and erroneous demonization of homeless people (in spite of rhetorical “concern”) along with sweeps and crackdowns by the Rotkin, Lane, Bryant, and now Robinson City Councils with no meaningful expansion of shelter space has further heightened the emergency.
Local activists and attorneys failed to effectively mount a legal challenge using arguments like those that overturned the L.A. law against sleeping and sitting in L.A. in the Jones decision and subsequent settlement.  Local ACLU remaining deafeningly silent in spite of repeated pleas to supposed homeless sympathizers on their Board of Directors Steve Pleich.
Still, the waves in Los Angeles and Palo Alto coming on the heels of homeless hypothermia centers are a wake-up call to activists who have in the past used winter weather and Xmas sentiments to expose the toxic abuses.  Charity drives aren’t enough.  Should protests take place in places like the Metro Center (where reportedly ‘No Loitering” signs have recently been posted) to open up warming centers at night?  We’ll see.
Thanks to Palo Alto activists Tony Ciampi  and Chuck Jagoda for forwarding  the attachment and article.

Looks like Palo Alto will be staying  the VHO.  See Attachment.http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-78447865/

 

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Jae C. Hong / Associated Press

A federal appeals court panel appeared skeptical about a Los Angeles city ordinance that bans people from living in their car. Above, a homeless resident pushes a cart along a downtown street.

By Gale Holland

December 5, 2013, 5:35 p.m.

A federal appeals court on Thursday appeared to be leaning toward striking down a Los Angeles city ban on homeless people living in their cars or recreational vehicles on public streets and in parking lots.A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, meeting in Pasadena, seemed to embrace arguments from civil rights attorney Carol Sobel that the criminal law was unconstitutionally vague.

“It’s very hard to figure out what you’re talking about,” Judge Marsha Berzon told the lawyer for the city.

The city’s ordinance dates back to 1983, but came under fire in 2010 when a special Los Angeles police task force, responding to neighborhood complaints, began aggressive enforcement in Venice.

A group of homeless car dwellers filed suit in 2011 challenging the law. U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner dismissed the suit, and the plaintiffs appealed.

Unlike other cities, which bar sleeping in vehicles or overnight parking, Los Angeles prohibits using cars as “living quarters” both overnight and “day-by-day, or otherwise.”

Deputy City Atty. Blithe Bock told the court that police determined a vehicle was lived in by the “totality of circumstances,” including whether it appeared to be operating.

Drivers were ticketed if police found things in their car such as bottles of urine, clothing and open food that suggested it was a “living quarters,” she said.

“You’re using your car as a living space, you’re using your car as a toilet, you’re using your car as a kitchen,” Bock said.

Sobel said there were no clear standards for what property or items you could keep, or for how long you could rest in your vehicle.

“So you can’t just sit in your car and nod off?” Judge Harry Pregerson asked Bock.

“He was wrapped in a blanket,” Bock responded, referring to one of the plaintiffs.

“What’s wrong with that?” Pregerson said.

Judges also questioned the rationale for the stepped-up enforcement. Bock said it came in response to a spike in crime by young transients and complaints of trash being dumped on neighbors’ property.

“People were coming home and finding refuse on their front lawn,” Bock said.

Sobel suggested that gentrification and tension between new and old residents were the real drivers of the heightened enforcement, and Pregerson seemed to agree.

“Tell me if I’m wrong,” Pregerson told Bock. “You had a task force of police officers who were told their job was to clean up the Venice area of all these homeless people because people in the neighborhood didn’t like it.”

Pregerson also suggested there are better ways to handle homeless people than rousting them from their cars.

“Long Beach treats people differently,” he said. “If they find a family, they take the kids and get them in a facility and make sure they’re enrolled in school…. The next thing they do is try to find housing for them…. Why can’t the city of Los Angeles do that?”

“The situation is heartbreaking,” Bock answered. “But it is a question for legislators.”

“That’s a cop-out,” Pregerson shot back.

After the hearing, Bock said police referred car dwellers to shelters and other services that could help them get off the streets.

“Homelessness is a horrible problem, we’re all aware of that,” she said. “But we have a whole city to take care of.”

A police spokeswoman said the department is continuing to enforce the vehicle habitation ban. Outside court, some of the homeless plaintiffs and their supporters accused the city of trying to drive them out of town.

“They’re intimidating people, driving up and making a lot of noise,” said plaintiff Steve Jacobs, who lives in his SUV in Venice. “There are fewer and fewer RVs there all the time.”

The court is likely to rule on the case in the next few months

Attachment(s) from Robert

1 of 1 File(s)

If you can’t scare ’em out, starve ’em out…

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If you can’t scare ’em out, starve ’em out…
To: HUFF yahoo groups <huffsantacruz@yahoogroups.com

>
Cc: GPerry of the SC Weekly <gperry@santacruzweekly.com>

 

NOTES BY NORSE:  Ironically it was during the Xmas season the attacks on homeless food providers in Santa Cruz escalated.  Mass arrests began in January 1989 in a half-year long struggle that ended with the uniformed food filcher’s giving up and (a) ending–for a time–their attacks on those regularly serving food outdoors to homeless people downtown, and (b) setting up a meal at 115 Coral St. (then a vacant lot and a garage behind the  River St. mini-Shelter).
A year later police raided Las Chorales (or “Lost Charlie’s” as some called it–on Front St. near where the Community Credit Union is now because that restaurant was both feeding the homeless and allowing tem to fall asleep–in the month after the earthquake.  At that time Salvation Army and United Way made a nasty distinction between the pre-earthquake homeless and the post-earthquake homeless, cutting off the former and providing aid to the latter.
Keith McHenry’s recent account of attacks on food servers can be hard on the audio file of my streaming radio show at http://huffsantacruz.org/radio/brb/BB%2012-1-13.mp3(1 hour and 47 minutes into the file).  Keith has written about actions against Food Not Bombs chapters recently at http://www.foodnotbombs.net/fnb_resists.html and at http://anarchistcook.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/the-world-series-of-hunger-the-nationwide-campaign-to-hide-hunger-goes-into-extra-innings/.

Restaurant Forced To Stop Feeding The Homeless After Complaints From Nearby Businesses

By Scott Keyes on December 4, 2013 at 10:30 am

“Restaurant Forced To Stop Feeding The Homeless After Complaints From Nearby Businesses”

Homeless SurveyCREDIT: AP

For years, a small restaurant in western Indiana served a free meal to customers every Thursday. Unsurprisingly, it was a big hit, especially among those who struggle to regularly afford a hot meal. And the number of people needing assistance has “exploded” recently; the number of people served at soup kitchens has nearly doubled in the past year, as the Lafayette Journal and Courier noted in its investigation.

But Buttery Shelf Eatery served, instead of serves, free meals because of persistent complaints from some nearby businesses who did not appreciate the presence of poor people in the area and forced the restaurant to end its free lunches.

Despite the large crowd that showed up to Buttery Shelf Eatery — up to 70 people at a time — there have been relatively few incidents between patrons and no one has been arrested or even had to file a police report.

Ravallette, a volunteer who used to receive free lunches and now helps hand them out, liked the sense of community at the gatherings. “What I liked most about it is that a lot of times, when you go into a public place, you don’t see a representative segment of the community.”

Leading the charge against Buttery Shelf Eatery is Jerry Kalal, a former marine who opened K. Dee’s Coffee and Roasting Co. in 2007 and felt that the free lunches were scaring away customers. He estimated he lost between $500-$800 in weekly sales as a result.

Kalal complained to Buttery Shelf owner Cherrie Buckley, telling her, “You do this little soup kitchen, but you’re closing down all the other businesses.”
Buckley refused as long as she could. Serving the needy and homeless has been an important value in her life for decades, opening a food and clothes pantry for the needy back in 1995.

But Kilal was persistent. He regularly contacted the police to complain about Buttery Shelf patrons, but his claims were deemed specious. Others in the area filed complaints as well. In one instance, someone told police that a couple dozen people were doing drugs behind Buttery Shelf. Unknown to the caller, however, was that police already had an officer watching on the scene who noted that the people “were just standing there waiting for the place to open.”

The most serious violation police ever encountered was patrons blocking traffic, due to the long line to receive a meal.

Finally, after enduring what one supporter described as “bullying” for many months, Buckley decided she had to end the free lunch program.

This story — a mensch (or group of mensches) serves the needy, only to be shut down by the local government or nearby businesses that didn’t want the presence of homeless people — has played out in countless communities. In Los Angeles, the city council is considering a proposal to ban distributing food to homeless people in public because of complaints from neighbors. In Raleigh, a charity that for years had served meals to the needy was threatened with arrest if they continued. In Orlando, police arrested people who violated a city ordinance by feeding the homeless in public.
The problem boils down to the Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome. Nobody wants homeless people to starve, but many segments of society want them to be taken care of elsewhere. Instead of considering poor people a valued part of the community, they’re a “problem” that should be dealt with somewhere out of sight. Of course, everywhere is somebody’s backyard, and so local governments like Columbia end up passing proposals to exile its homeless population as far away from downtown as possible.

For her part, Buckley is distraught over having to cease her bakery’s outreach to the poor. She recently posted on its Facebook page: “We appreciate your support. But it is what it is and most people will not change how they feel. We too hope that one day we will be able to feed the community again.”

(HT: Former ThinkProgress intern Kirsten Gibson.)

MORE COMMENTS AT http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/12/04/3015111/homeless-restaurant-indiana/

 

NOTES BY NORSE:  Ironically it was during the Xmas season the attacks on homeless food providers in Santa Cruz escalated.  Mass arrests began in January 1989 in a half-year long struggle that ended with the uniformed food filcher’s giving up and (a) ending–for a time–their attacks on those regularly serving food outdoors to homeless people downtown, and (b) setting up a meal at 115 Coral St. (then a vacant lot and a garage behind the  River St. mini-Shelter).

                  A year later police raided Las Chorales (or “Lost Charlie’s” as some called it–on Front St. near where the Community Credit Union is now because that restaurant was both feeding the homeless and allowing tem to fall asleep–in the month after the earthquake.  At that time Salvation Army and United Way made a nasty distinction between the pre-earthquake homeless and the post-earthquake homeless, cutting off the former and providing aid to the latter.
Keith McHenry’s recent account of attacks on food servers can be hard on the audio file of my streaming radio show at http://huffsantacruz.org/radio/brb/BB%2012-1-13.mp3(1 hour and 47 minutes into the file).  Keith has written about actions against Food Not Bombs chapters recently at http://www.foodnotbombs.net/fnb_resists.html and at http://anarchistcook.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/the-world-series-of-hunger-the-nationwide-campaign-to-hide-hunger-goes-into-extra-innings/.

Restaurant Forced To Stop Feeding The Homeless After Complaints From Nearby Businesses

By Scott Keyes on December 4, 2013 at 10:30 am

“Restaurant Forced To Stop Feeding The Homeless After Complaints From Nearby Businesses”

Homeless SurveyCREDIT: AP

For years, a small restaurant in western Indiana served a free meal to customers every Thursday. Unsurprisingly, it was a big hit, especially among those who struggle to regularly afford a hot meal. And the number of people needing assistance has “exploded” recently; the number of people served at soup kitchens has nearly doubled in the past year, as the Lafayette Journal and Courier noted in its investigation.

But Buttery Shelf Eatery served, instead of serves, free meals because of persistent complaints from some nearby businesses who did not appreciate the presence of poor people in the area and forced the restaurant to end its free lunches.

Despite the large crowd that showed up to Buttery Shelf Eatery — up to 70 people at a time — there have been relatively few incidents between patrons and no one has been arrested or even had to file a police report.

Ravallette, a volunteer who used to receive free lunches and now helps hand them out, liked the sense of community at the gatherings. “What I liked most about it is that a lot of times, when you go into a public place, you don’t see a representative segment of the community.”

Leading the charge against Buttery Shelf Eatery is Jerry Kalal, a former marine who opened K. Dee’s Coffee and Roasting Co. in 2007 and felt that the free lunches were scaring away customers. He estimated he lost between $500-$800 in weekly sales as a result.

Kalal complained to Buttery Shelf owner Cherrie Buckley, telling her, “You do this little soup kitchen, but you’re closing down all the other businesses.”
Buckley refused as long as she could. Serving the needy and homeless has been an important value in her life for decades, opening a food and clothes pantry for the needy back in 1995.

But Kilal was persistent. He regularly contacted the police to complain about Buttery Shelf patrons, but his claims were deemed specious. Others in the area filed complaints as well. In one instance, someone told police that a couple dozen people were doing drugs behind Buttery Shelf. Unknown to the caller, however, was that police already had an officer watching on the scene who noted that the people “were just standing there waiting for the place to open.”

The most serious violation police ever encountered was patrons blocking traffic, due to the long line to receive a meal.

Finally, after enduring what one supporter described as “bullying” for many months, Buckley decided she had to end the free lunch program.

This story — a mensch (or group of mensches) serves the needy, only to be shut down by the local government or nearby businesses that didn’t want the presence of homeless people — has played out in countless communities. In Los Angeles, the city council is considering a proposal to ban distributing food to homeless people in public because of complaints from neighbors. In Raleigh, a charity that for years had served meals to the needy was threatened with arrest if they continued. In Orlando, police arrested people who violated a city ordinance by feeding the homeless in public.
The problem boils down to the Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome. Nobody wants homeless people to starve, but many segments of society want them to be taken care of elsewhere. Instead of considering poor people a valued part of the community, they’re a “problem” that should be dealt with somewhere out of sight. Of course, everywhere is somebody’s backyard, and so local governments like Columbia end up passing proposals to exile its homeless population as far away from downtown as possible.

For her part, Buckley is distraught over having to cease her bakery’s outreach to the poor. She recently posted on its Facebook page: “We appreciate your support. But it is what it is and most people will not change how they feel. We too hope that one day we will be able to feed the community again.”

(HT: Former ThinkProgress intern Kirsten Gibson.)

MORE COMMENTS AT http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/12/04/3015111/homeless-restaurant-indiana/

Return of the Food Wars: L.A. NIMBY’s and Gentrification Lords Move to Starve Out Homeless

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NOTES BY NORSE:  Santa Cruz food activists, even once-a-week religious groups like that of Pastor Ron’s on Thursday afternoon in front of Forever Twenty-One on Pacific Avenue, have experienced direct pressure from “ban the bums” bureaucrats like Julie Hendee, the City staff succubus who gave us the anti-performer sidewalk shrinking laws.  On October 24th, she scolded and pressured Ron’s street church to eliminate their weekly meal, complaining that its participants left litter in spite of the clean-up efforts of the group.  Ron replied that the sidewalk was the only location his church-without-a-building had.

               The right to serve free food outside has been a struggle in Santa Cruz, ever since Holy Cross’s Peter Carota’s efforts in the Beach Flats in the early 80’s.   Dozens were arrested in the early 90’s for feeding folks at the Town Clock, though the persistence of groups like SWAP (Soup Without a Permit), SLOP (Soup Lovers Outdoor Picnics), and Food Not Bombs ultimately exhausted authorities who tried arrests, injunctions, prosecutions, and jail terms unsuccessfully.  Direct Action got the goods and kept them.  Homeless activism actually created the twice-daily meals out at 115 Coral St.
Will Mayor Lynn Robinson (when she enters office in December) return to the repression that is scarring other cities in the country?   Already the City Council is moving today to implement a harsher Public Assembly bill, requiring permits for marches, with a longer advance time (5 days)  than the Egyptian military regime has recently proposed (3 days). Moving swiftly to “investigate” the imaginary crime of “homeless scavenging”.   City Council meets today at 2 PM to consider this new series of restrictions on Public Assembly  at City Hall.
Robinson’s Revanchists will soon move to rubberstamp the patently phony “Public Safety” recommendations of outgoing Mayor Hillary Bryant’s hand-picked hoedown of homeless haters which defines people sleeping outside as a “crime wave”.   (See the Sentinel’s front-page smear job at http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_24587717/public-safety-task-force-armed-solutions-santa-cruz )
The seminal PeaceCamp2010 protests that provided a homeless encampment for a month in front of the courthouse and then a further 2 month protest  in front of City Hall, prompted City Manager-for-Life Martin Bernal, then-Mayor Coonerty, police Chief Vogel, & Parks and Recreation Czarina Dannettee Shoemaker to impose–with no public discussion or vote–nighttime curfews around the library, city hall, and the police station to deal with the protest/homeless menace.
A year later in  October 2011, the strong Occupy Santa Cruz protests  gave homeless people the shelter and community in the San Lorenzo Encampment that the pathetic Homeless (Lack  of) Services Center could not/  City police responded with military-style violence destroying the encampment on December 8, 2011 and the County with a dusk to dawn (7 PM to 7 AM) curfew around the county building and courthouse with one man given a 2 year sentence for challenging it peacefully with a sign (Gary Johnson–see https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/08/23/18720157.php ).
Food Not Bombs soupslinger Keith McHenry has reported on an upsurge of food fascism throughout the country (seehttp://blog.foodnotbombs.net/effort-to-hide-the-hungry-continues-across-the-united-states/).  Food Not Bombs Santa Cruz continues to provide its weekly spread 4 PM Saturdays in front of the Main Post office in spite of threats from the “Punish-the-Poor” postmaster there.   But Santa Cruz soupsippers need to ready their ladles to ready for a local food fight  as the Take-Back-Santa-Cruz faction entrenches its power in December and moves on with its campaign to rebrand homeless locals, hippie travelers, & visible poor people of all kinds as criminals and sub-humans in an attempt to mobilize community fears against them.

As Homeless Line Up for Food, Los Angeles Weighs Restrictions

NYT  November 25 2013

LOS ANGELES — They began showing up at dusk last week, wandering the streets, slumped in wheelchairs and sitting on sidewalks, paper plates perched on their knees. By 6:30 p.m., more than 100 homeless people had lined up at a barren corner in Hollywood, drawn by free meals handed out from the back of a truck every night by volunteers.

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

The Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition has been serving free meals to the homeless in Los Angeles every night for more than 25 years.

But these days, 27 years after the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition began feeding people in a county that has one of the worst homeless problems in the nation, the charity is under fire, a flashpoint in the national debate over the homeless and the programs that serve them.

 

Facing an uproar from homeowners, two members of the Los Angeles City Council have called for the city to follow the lead of dozens of other communities and ban the feeding of homeless people in public spaces.

 

“If you give out free food on the street with no other services to deal with the collateral damage, you get hundreds of people beginning to squat,” said Alexander Polinsky, an actor who lives two blocks from the bread line. “They are living in my bushes and they are living in my next door neighbor’s crawl spaces. We have a neighborhood which now seems like a mental ward.”

 

Should Los Angeles enact such an ordinance, it would join a roster of more than 30 cities, including Philadelphia, Raleigh, N.C., Seattle and Orlando, Fla., that have adopted or debated some form of legislation intended to restrict the public feeding of the homeless, according to the National Coalition of the Homeless.

 

“Dozens of cities in recent years,” said Jerry Jones, the coalition’s executive director. “It’s a common but misguided tactic to drive homeless people out of downtown areas.”

 

“This is an attempt to make difficult problems disappear,” he said, adding, “It’s both callous and ineffective.”

 

The notion that Los Angeles might join this roster is striking given the breadth of the problem here. Encampments of homeless can be found from downtown to West Hollywood, from the streets of Brentwood to the beaches of Venice. The situation that has stirred no small amount of frustration and embarrassment among civic leaders, now amplified by fears of the hungry and mostly homeless people, who have come to count on these meals.

 

“They are helping human beings,” said Debra Morris, seated in a wheelchair as she ate the evening’s offering of pasta with tomato sauce. “I can barely pay my own rent.”

 

There are now about 53,800 homeless people in Los Angeles County, according to the 2013 Annual Homeless Assessment Report released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development last week, a 27 percent increase over last year. Only New York had a higher homeless population.

 

The problem is particularly severe here because of the temperate climate that makes it easier to live outdoors, cuts in federal spending on the homeless, and a court-ordered effort by California to shrink its prison population, said Mike Arnold, the executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, an agency created by the city and county in 1993.

 

All told, about $82 million in government funds is spent each year on helping homeless here, Mr. Arnold said.


Tom LaBonge, one of the two City Council members who introduced the resolution (the other, also a Democrat, was Mitch O’Farrell), said food lines should be moved indoors, out of consideration to the homeless and neighborhoods. “There are well-intentioned people on both sides,” Mr. LaBonge said.

 

But, he added: “This has overwhelmed what is a residential neighborhood. When dinner is served, everybody comes and it’s kind of a free-for-all.”

 

Ted Landreth, the founder of the food coalition, said his group had fought back community opposition before — it moved to this corner after being ordered out of Plummer Park in West Hollywood in 1990 because of similar complaints — and would do so again.

“The people who want to get rid of us see dollar signs, property values, ahead of pretty much everything else,” he said.

 

”We have stood our ground,” he added. “We are not breaking any law.”

 

Communities that have sought to implement feeding restriction laws have faced strong resistance. In Philadelphia, advocates for the homeless won an injunction in federal court blocking a law there that would have banned food lines in public parks. Even before the court action, religious groups had moved in and began setting up indoor food lines.

 

In many ways the agonies of the national battle over dealing with homelessness are etched into this four-block-square section of Hollywood, where industrial buildings, including the Cemex cement factory, film production facilities and the stately former headquarters of Howard Hughes’s enterprises, sit two blocks up North Sycamore Avenue away from a middle-class neighborhood of Spanish Mission homes. Construction in the area is bustling, reflecting the gentrification that is taking place across this city.

 

The coalition’s truck, a Grumman Kurbmaster, arrives every night at 6:15, drawing as many as 200 people from across the region.

 

The other night, men and women lined up for firsts and, if desired, seconds. Some were quiet and grateful, and a few were loud and agitated. “You all right?” Mr. Landreth asked one man who was shouting to himself.

Just up the street, 75 people filled a living room, anxiously exchanging stories about what many described as a neighborhood under siege, and demanding help from local officials.

 

“You guys have had your fill here — we know that,” Officer Dave Cordova of the Los Angeles Police Department told them. “And the food coalition doesn’t help. Where do all these guys go after they get something to eat?”

 

Peter Nichols, the founder of the Melrose Action Neighborhood Watch, which helped organize the meeting, said there has been a steady increase in complaints about petty crime, loitering, public defecation and people sleeping on sidewalks.

 

“While it sounds good in concept — I’m going to pull up to a curb, I’m going to feed people, I’m going to clean up and I’m going to leave — well, there are not restrooms,” he said. “Can these people get a place to sleep? To clean up? We want there to be after-care provided every day they do the program. But they don’t and they can’t.”

 

What Mr. Landreth described as the most serious threat in its existence — a powerful combination of opposition from homeowners, businesses and city officials — is stirring deep concern among the people who come here to eat most nights.

 

“I know because of the long lines, a lot of times we have trouble and confusion,” said Emerson Tenner, 46, as he waited for a meal. “But there are people here who really need this. A few people act a little crazy. Don’t mess it up for everyone else.”

 

Aaron Lewis, who said he makes his home on the sidewalk by a 7-Eleven on Sunset Boulevard, chalked up opposition to what he described as rising callousness to people in need.

 

“That’s how it is everywhere,” Mr. Lewis said. “People here — it’s their only way to eat. The community doesn’t help us eat.”

Hope and Despair in Palo Alto

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NOTES BY NORSE:  Activists are proceeding on several fronts to defend the rights of vehicularly housed folks up there.  Chuck Jagoda yesterday described on the stream of Free Radio Santa Cruz how Palo Alto activists invited and funded a Santa Barbara social worker involved in the government-run park-and-sleep program down there in hopes of replicating it in Palo Alto.  Attorneys, as can be seen from the press release below, are not waiting for the city to start ticketing homeless people peacefully and harmlessly sleeping in their vehicles, but have llaunched a pre-emptive strike with a demand letter to be followed by a letter.

Jagoda’s account is at
http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb131124.mp3.towards the end of the audio file.

Meanwhile Santa Cruz’s “Smear the Poor” Sentinel’s headlines for yesterday scream out the fraudulent “Task Force on Public Safety” pre-constructed agenda redefining homeless survival campers as public safety threats. (See http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/santacruz/ci_24587717/public-safety-task-force-armed-solutions-santa-cruz   ).  Strangely enough, the usually toxic stream of comments following the story has some defenders of basic human rights and common sense.  Jump on and provide your own perspective.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, NOVEMBER 17, 2013
COALITION OF PRO BONO LAWYERS TO FILE SUIT TO STOP PALO ALTO FROM
ARRESTING THE HOMELESS FOR LIVING IN VEHICLES: CALLS PALO ALTO LAW “INCREDIBLY HARSH.”

A group pro-bono lawyers from Palo Alto, California has notified the City of Palo Alto that they intend to file suit to prevent enforcement of a new ordinance that they say effectively bans all homeless people from within the city limits. According to the letter, sent by Palo Alto-based attorney Carrie LeRoy, along with co-counsel William Abrams and Paul Johnson, of the Silicon
Valley law firm of King & Spalding, and Stanford Law School professors Juliet Brodie and Michele Dauber, the law criminalizes the homeless in their daily lives and activities and is unconstitutional. The letter also contends that Palo Alto’s ordinance discriminates against the disabled homeless.
The lawyers represent several clients who stand to be arrested and imprisoned if the law goes into effect, according to Abrams. “James and Suzan Russaw are elderly grandparents who need to stay in the area to be near their granddaughter and grandchildren. Mr. Russaw is receiving regular kidney dialysis and needs to be able to drive to his medical appointments. Fred Smith is an elderly man and long-time resident of Palo Alto who, since he lost his job a few years ago, has been unable to afford conventional housing. Since Mr. Smith’s wife passed away and is buried in Palo Alto, where the two resided for most of their lives, he hopes that he will not be forced to leave the city. Mr Smith also needs to sleep in his vehicle rather than outdoors in order to avoid exacerbation of health issues. The Russaws and Mr. Smith are on every affordable housing and shelter bed waiting list in the area, but there is simply insufficient shelter in Palo Alto and Santa Clara County for Palo Alto’s vehicle dwellers.”
The lawyers are contesting the legality of Palo Alto’s Vehicle Habitation Ordinance, which was passed by the City Council on August 5, 2013. The ordinance is one of the broadest bans of its kind, banning all eating, sleeping, and resting in any car within the city limits. “This law is overly broad, and effectively means that the homeless who happen to rent or own a vehicle must leave Palo Alto or risk arrest. They cannot even stop here to eat a sandwich or read a book. This is needlessly draconian,” said Abrams, who noted that a violation of the law carries a possible fine of $1000 and six months in jail. “This is incredibly harsh,” he said.
The pro bono lawyers are working without pay in order to stop the law from being enforced.
“Our clients have done nothing wrong, are not criminals, and do not belong in jail,” said LeRoy. “They need housing, not criminal prosecution.” LeRoy was quick to point out that Palo Alto has no available shelter beds for the homeless. The local Opportunity Center which provides some housing for the homeless currently has a 20 year waiting list. “Santa Clara county in general and Palo Alto in particular have a dramatic shortage of available housing,” according to LeRoy. “It is the height of cruelty to tell people that it is criminal to sleep in your car, but that we have nowhere else for you to go within the entire county.”
The city has also banned overnight use of all city and public parks and facilities. “Palo Alto has been uniquely inhospitable to the homeless and poor,” noted LeRoy.

According to the city, the VHO was passed in order to prevent the homeless from congregating at Cubberley Community Center, a city recreational facility. However, according to LeRoy, there was no need to ban vehicle dwelling everywhere and at anytime in the city. “What about commercial and industrial areas as is permitted in Menlo Park and Mountain View? What is the basis for banning sleeping in areas where there are no homes, parks, or other people at night?” For LeRoy, who grew up in Palo Alto, the question is about the character and values of the city itself. “To me, the question is what kind of town do we want to be? I grew up in this city and have always thought of it as a compassionate, creative, resourceful and inclusive one. It would be one thing for the city to ban vehicle dwelling where it could point to readily-available, conventional housing alternatives. It is wrong, offensive and contrary to the spirit and values of Palo Alto to pass a law that, if enforced, will serve only to punish and injure Palo Alto’s poorest and most vulnerable residents—that is the criminalization of poverty.”

Attachments: Letter to Palo Alto City Attorney Molly Stump; City Staff Report 8-5-13 (Excerpt)
Contact:

William F. Abrams (650) 590-0703  BAbrams@KSlaw.com
Carrie LeRoy, (650) 470-3144 carrie.leroy@skadden.com

Palo Alto Homeless Update - Despondent Husband Found Dead At Don Barr's $25 million dollar Homeless Asylum

---------------------------------------------------- Decaying body found at shelter by Angela Ruggiero, Palo Alto Daily Post Staff Writer Mon Nov 25 2013 The decomposed body of a man who lived at a Palo Alto homeless center was found in his room, and may have been there for weeks. Lonnie Gullett, 63, was a resident of the Opportunity Center at 33 Encina Ave., where homeless people are provided rooms and services.  The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner was called at noon Friday for his body.  The office said his death appears to be from natural causes. Friend and neighbor Lorin Krogh said he had not seen Gullette for several weeks and believes he was dead in his room for a long time. Mila Zelkha, director of strategic relations for the InnVision Shelter Network, which runs the Opportunity Center, said that employees had noticed Gullette had not been around for some time.  Employees decided to check his room on Friday, and found his body. Krogh said that Gullette had been through some bad luck recently after his longtime girlfriend Vivian “Venus” Sarmago, was attacked.  She had been beaten at the center and suffered a traumatic brain injury that nearly killed her.  Michael Rowe Guilford, 46, of San Jose, was arrested in connection with the attack on suspicion of battery and being drunk in public. Gullette spoke to the Post at the time, and said that at first, Venus seemed OK, but was later in a coma after she wouldn't wake up one day.  She was  left Stanford Hospital paralyzed and is currently in a nursing home. Victim once owned his own business Krogh told the Post yesterday that he had known Gullette for at least 10 years.  Gullette had hired Krogh to work with him on a street team to help get homeless people off the street.  Before, Gullette had been a general contractor and owned his own business in Sacramento for 15 years.  After being hospitalized he became seriously ill, and went on disability. “He was a really good guy,” Krough said. “and he was really bummed out about Venus.” Krogh said Gullette had told him “I don't know what to do,” after Venus was left in a vegetative state. Chronic health problems Krogh said that he and Gullette used to drink together years ago, before they turned sober.  Gullette had chronic health problems and used a wheelchair and Krogh said he thinks the cause of his death was natural. Gullette made Post headlines on April 4 when he fell down the embankment of San Fransquito Creek.  Gullette, who used a wheelchair to go long distances,, was able to stand.  He said he had gotten up to relieve himself, but lost his balance and tumbled 39 feet down the side of the creek bed.  Firefighters had to lift him out of the creek, but he was not badly injured. As the firemen began to pack up and leave the creek that day, Gullette pointed to the crown of first responders and said, “That's your tax dollars at work.  Those guys don't get paid enough.”

Palo Alto: Opposition Produces Results–Legal Fightback against Anti-Homeless Bigotry

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NOTES BY NORSE:  Attorneys in Palo Alto previously stepped up to the microphone when the ban was being debated several months ago and warned the city they would take every case, challenge every arrest, and fight the ban.   Since then, activists in Santa Cruz and Palo Alto have urged attorneys to preemptively seek an injunction and not wait until police actually wrote tickets.

The suit is gratifying news to those interested in an immediate and pre-emptive strike to stop the further criminalization of the homeless.  No evidence was presented of car-camper problems except in one area (the Cubberly Community Center) where the city had failed to provide adequate oversight and there the problems were hugely inflated by NIMBY community members concerned with disappearing homeless people from their neighborhood as an aesthetic problem and “perceptual” threat (i.e. no indication of serious crimes but a fear of such).The arguments used supporting the Ban are similar to those used in Santa Cruz before the rise of the “homeless are criminals and a Public Safety menace” Big Lie.  “Why don’t those who support homeless rights, simply provide private space for them?”
“The homeless aren’t parking in front of their homes!”  “Banning the right to sleep is perfectly legal.”   “City Council knows best.”  etc.

Palo Alto activists, lawyers, and attorneys, however, are fighting back unlike Santa Cruz–which sinks more deeply into paranoia, repression, and bigotry.  See the infamous Task Farce for Public Hysteria (aka the Task Force on Public Safety)’s proposed recommendations at http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/index.aspx?page=1924 ).

Mon, Nov 18, 2013, 4:39 pm

Suit threatened over city’s car-camping ban

Coalition of pro bono attorneys argues that Palo Alto’s new ordinance is cruel, unconstitutional

by Gennady Sheyner / Palo Alto Weekly

A group of Palo Alto attorneys is threatening to sue the city over a recently adopted ban on vehicle habitation, a law that they claim effectively criminalizes homelessness and that is far more draconian than car-dwelling restrictions in other jurisdiction. The coalition, led by local attorney Carrie LeRoy, is working pro bono and is representing several homeless residents who will lose the right to live in their cars when the car ban takes effect on Jan. 6. The plaintiffs include James and Suzan Russaw, a couple who the attorneys say wish to stay in the area to be close to their grandchildren. James Russaw, 84, is also receiving regular kidney dialysis and needs to be able to get to his medical appointments, the attorneys said in a letter to City Attorney Molly Stump.

[The text of the letter can be found at http://www.paloaltoonline.com/media/reports/1384880185.pdf ]

Fred Smith, a homeless man who had spoken publicly against the ban, is also a client. At the Aug. 5 meeting, shortly before the council voted 7-2 – with Karen Holman and Marc Berman dissenting – to approve the ban, Smith urged the council to reconsider.
“I recently lost my job, my wife and my house. I now live in an RV in a commercial zone. Please don’t criminalize me,” Smith said, drawing an applause.

LeRoy said in an interview Monday that the list of people represented by the group may further expand as she and her colleagues in the effort proceed with their legal opposition to the ban. Other attorneys involved in challenging the ban are William Abrams and Paul Johnson, both of the firm King & Spalding, Stanford University professors Juliet Brodie and Michele Dauber, Menlo Park-based attorney Jeff Koppelmaa, criminal attorney William Safford and Nick Selby. The group contends that the city’s new ban is far too broad and that staff has misrepresented other cities’ ordinances to the City Council before the vote.
“There were an number of attorneys who expressed real concerns and had deep reservations over whether this was actually a

constitutional ordinance,” LaRoy said.

Abrams, a partner at King & Spalding with a long history of pro bono work and high-profile cases involving civil rights intellectual property, called Palo Alto’s new ordinance “overbroad.” The effect of the law, he said, will be to force homeless individuals who own or lease vehicles to leave Palo Alto or risk arrest. It will target the city’s “invisible” population, he said, people who don’t have any other options for shelter.

In their letter, the attorneys request a meeting with Stump by Dec. 5. Unless the request is met, the letter states, “We will proceed with filing a complaint in court against Defendants on behalf of the Plaintiffs.” The defendants in this case would be the City of Palo Alto, the Palo Alto Police Department and Police Chief Dennis Burns.

The attorneys are challenging an ordinance that the council adopted on Aug. 5 after nearly two years of community meetings, outreach efforts and persistent criticism from the homeless community. The ordinance makes it illegal for individuals to use “a vehicle for a dwelling place” (it makes exception for mobile-home parks and for guests of city residents). The council adopted it largely in response to a growing encampment of homeless residents at the Cubberley Community Center and the resulting increase of police complaints about what city officials dubbed a “de facto homeless shelter.”

According to police data, the number of complaints about Cubberley dwellers had risen from 10 in 2010, to 16 in 2011 and to 39 in 2012. An August staff report noted that in some cases, vehicle dwelling has resulted in “nuisances or more serious disturbance to residents and businesses.” The passed ordinance states that vehicle habitation causes the city to “incur increased costs for policing, maintenance, sanitation, garbage removal and animal control” and that it “creates a risk to the health, safety, and welfare of those persons in the vehicles, as well as the public at large.”

Abrams rejected this argument. The city, he said, already has plenty of ordinances in places for addressing incidents in which people disturb the peace, engage in violent conduct or engage in public drug or alcohol use.

“This is directed toward getting rid of homeless people in Palo Alto,” Abrams told the Weekly.

At the Aug. 5 meeting, Stump told the council that violation of the car-dwelling ordinance would in most cases result in an infraction, though it could be turned into a misdemeanor at the city attorney’s discretion. Staff noted that enforcement would be largely based on complaints. The most severe penalty would be a fine of $1,000, Stump told the council.

Critics contend that this proposed punishment is not only draconian but illegal. In her letter, LeRoy argues that the new ordinance will “cause the poorest and most vulnerable among us to lose the only protection that they have from exposure to the elements and to ensure some measure of personal safety.”

“It cannot be disputed that sleeping in a vehicle affords better protection for homeless persons’ health and safety than living or sleeping outdoors on streets, sidewalks, benches, or the ground,” LeRoy wrote. “Enforcement of VHO (vehicle habitation ordinance) will exacerbate serious health issues and disabilities prevalent among Plaintiffs, who will be forced out of their vehicles or Palo Alto altogether to avoid criminal liability.”

In recommending the vehicle-ban ordinance, staff from the planning department from the city attorneys office cited similar bans in other neighboring jurisdictions and noted that 92 percent of the cities in Santa Clara County (all except Monte Serreno) have restrictions of some sort in place. In San Mateo County, all cities except for Colma, East Palo Alto and Portola Valley regulate vehicle habitation, a report from city staff states. Not having such an ordinance makes Palo Alto a “magnet” for vehicle dwellers, proponents of the ban argued.

Before voting for the ordinance on Aug. 5, Councilman Larry Klein talked about the city’s “obligation to protect our neighborhoods.” He told his colleagues that he had seen dozens of homeless campers during two recent tours of Cubberley.
“The dramatic increase in homeless in Cubberley sleeping in their vehicles shows that we have inadvertently become a magnet,” Klein said. “That has to come to an end.”

The attorneys contend that this argument — other cities have such ordinances and so should Palo Alto – is a misrepresentation. While most cities do indeed have restrictions, Palo Alto’s new law is both broader and more punitive than those elsewhere, LeRoy said. In Mountain View and Menlo Park, for instance, vehicle bans are limited to residential areas (in Menlo Park, this includes 300 feet within a residential zone). In Los Altos, it is illegal to “stop, stand or park a vehicle” for longer than 30 minutes between 2 and 6 a.m., when a notice is posted on the block. Palo Alto’s law, meanwhile, applies to all streets, all the time.
Furthermore, punishment for violating this ordinance in other cities is a parking citation. In Palo Alto, it could potentially be incarceration, LeRoy said. The difference between a parking ticket and possible jail time, is huge, she said. Palo Alto’s ordinance, she argued, effectively makes homelessness a crime.

“Cities across our nation have come up with restrictions that may be directed at homeless residents, but include exceptions so as to avoid punishing homeless residents for involuntary acts necessary to human survival, such as the acts of resting or sleeping,” her letter stated. “The VHO, on the other hand, is one of the most punitive ordinances in the area and it has the effect of criminalizing the status of homelessness.”

In addition to the vehicle-habitation ordinance, the council adopted a separate law on Aug. 19, mandating that all community centers, including Cubberley, be closed between 10:30 p.m. and sunrise.

LeRoy noted in an interview that the council’s ban on overnight parking at Cubberley and other community centers already addressed the major problem that the city was trying to solve in banning vehicle habitation. Given the new restriction on community-center hours, the broader ban on vehicle dwelling wasn’t tailored to address any legitimate concerns, she said.
“If vehicle dwellers can’t be here at night during normal sleeping hours, do you still need to ban vehicle habitation throughout the city?” she asked.

She contended that if the City Council knew that the proposed ordinance goes far beyond those of neighboring cities, it may have been less likely to support the proposed vehicle-habitation ban. She couldn’t say Monday what an acceptable alternative ordinance would be, noting that this might be the subject of settlement discussions.

“I think the effort now is to repeal the vehicle ordinance,” LeRoy said.

Though Stump said on Aug. 5 that violations would only be prosecuted as misdemeanors as a “last resort,” Abrams said the assurance is insufficient. The attorneys may be open at a future date to discuss alternative ordinances, but that’s a “different conversation.” The goal now is to get the recently passed ordinance off the books.

“Now, we have an ordinance that is illegal, that is unconstitutional and that needs to be stricken down,” Abrams said.


Many Posted Comments at http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/11/18/suit-threatened-over-citys-car-camping-ban

 

A sample:

Posted by Phil, a resident of Downtown North on Nov 18, 2013 at 5:10 pm
No worries. Law suit away if you’d like. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz are three of the most open and liberal cities in the country. They have all have overnight camping/parking bans which have all been tested and successfully defended in a civil court. Like I said, no worries. It also leaves me to think how quick one of these attorneys crying foul would be the first to call the police if someone was sleeping in a car in front of their house every night. A perfect example of compassionate and open when convenient. If they’re that concerned, then these attorneys and advocates should open up their personal driveways and homes to give these folks somewhere to sleep.

Posted by boscoli, a resident of Old Palo Alto 22 hours ago
They way I see it, as long as financial institutions are still allowed to sell and trade junk mortgages, as long as not one Wall Street conman has gone to prison, car-camping should not be criminalized. Once the big criminals are punished, I’d be willing to deal with car-camping. Speaking of double standards, how interesting that the already existing leaf-blower ban ordinance isn’t enforced, unrelated of course to the pressure by the manufacturers and landscape contractors, who promised demonstrations and hunger strikes in front of city hall if the ordinance is enforced.
Posted by Very Simple, a resident of Midtown 22 hours ago
If all of these attorneys and others are so concerned, they can open up their own personal property and have the homeless live there. We don’t have that many homeless in Palo Alto that they couldn’t all be accommodated in this easily by a small subset of ban opponents. That’s what real generosity is– giving of yourself to the less fortunate. Not morally preening and harassing the overwhelming majority of residents who don’t want our city turned into an open-air homeless encampment, don’t want the “San Franciscoization” of Palo Alto and are concerned about the safety of say, their kids (as mine do) going to preschool right next to a site of a homeless encampment.
Posted by Retired Teacher, a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis 20 hours ago
I applaud Carrie Leroy and her coalition for challenging this ordinance. This incredibly well-off community with its sky-high home prices and outrageous rents should find ways to help people on the margins, not threaten them with fines and jail. Many of the so-called affordable housing projects are well out of the reach of the homeless–we need more places like 801 Alma. Meanwhile, we should find more humane ways to manage the problems that do often accompany homelessness.
The suggestion that anyone who is concerned about the homeless should take them into their own homes or let them camp out in front of their homes is clearly an attempt to confuse the issue. Taking care of the less fortunate is not just the job for a few concerned people. It’s the responsibility of our entire society, and right now, we’re doing a lousy job of it.
Posted by Enough!, a resident of Greenmeadow 19 hours ago
I’ve had people living in front of my house. It was especially unsettling when my daughter was 2 years old and I couldn’t let her play outside and had to keep the drapes closed because the guy would watch us. More unsettling when we would jugs of undefined liquid on the ground, some knocked over, between his vehicle and the curb. Totally unsettling when we came home once to find the guy having a seizure on our front door steps, with paramedics attending. Disgusting when I had to go out and clean up after both the medics and the homeless person, gloves, needles and booze bottles.
I wouldn’t object if an area with a sort of rest stop with shower and toilets and cameras were to be established.
Meanwhile, the attorney’s who brought the suit are welcome to offer their driveways to anybody they please!
Posted by Concerned Retiree, a resident of Midtown 18 hours ago
Homeless means that these people do not have a home, place to live. Therefore, they are NOT “residents” of Palo Alto and are not entitled to the same rights residents are. They are also not entitled to be a nuisance or a danger to said residents. If these lawyers bringing the suit feel so strongly about the plight of the homeless, they should work with non-profits — the churches for example — which pay no taxes because of their supposed public benefits and services and get them to cooperate in finding a solution.  I do not want a homeless family or persons living on my street and I am glad that the City Council has finally done something to see that this does not happen.
Posted by Elizabeth, a resident of Midtown 18 hours ago
Palo Alto is generally a well-educated community, however there seems to be a significant lack of compassion in evidence. Perhaps it’s time to offer some free classes (open to all ages) on the subject.
All of those who think this ban is fair and wise really need to open their hearts. Sending a check off to some distant place to help others doesn’t buy you freedom from concern for those closer to home.
Get a heart!

Posted by JoAnn, a resident of Ventura 17 hours ago
Another basic human need is elimination. If porta potties were installed in a few commercial (non-residential) areas, the cars would go there. I agree it doesn’t solve the drug/alcohol problems though. A lot of these people were Palo Alto residents until skunked out of their homes by the banksters or just going broke due to divorce, layoffs, etc. They shouldn’t have to skulk away from their home town, too. What I hear about shelters is they are dangerous and people get robbed there. Would all night security help? It might be cheaper to fund. Of course, those with cars would still need a place to park them. I don’t see that the RV’s parked along Park Blvd. hurt anyone. I’ve ridden my scooter there many times and never seen an actual person, nor jugs of urine left at the curb.
Posted by Sensible, a resident of Crescent Park 17 hours ago
A real issue is simply taking a persons shelter, in this case a car, and depriving them of no other option for freedom from harm. If a city blankets a wholesale requirement then it should be at the forefront to provide an equal and opposite opportunity to balance the deprivation of a constitutional right. Even in a government shutdown when employees are deprived of their right to work and pay, they are latter paid what they are entitled to. Now I know that is a horrible example of entitlement for many who don’t like that sort of thing, but this is one of the reasons people all over the world come to enjoy the rights Americans still have…