Tag Archives: Anti-Homeless Hysteria

Bike Boycott and Homeless Harassment at City Council

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https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/07/10/18739596.php

A Teapot Tempest or Two at Oral Communications
by Robert Norse ( rnorse3 [at] hotmail.com )
Wednesday Jul 10th, 2013 3:13 AM

Bike Church supporters lined up to urge City Council to end the SCPD’s political boycott of The Bike Church and restore the flow of abandoned and damaged bikes stopped a year and a half ago. Bike Dojo bozo Rob Mills, the new Bike Mafioso who’s the SCPD’s designated dumpsite for bikes, spewed fire and brimstone at critics of his business. I played the infamous Ken Collins video showing Collins poking a homeless man in a sleeping bag as part of a Clean Team “clean up” operation.

COLLINS VIDEO BACK–BRIEFLY– IN PUBLIC EYE

Four months after the actual incident, and two months after it hit You-Tube (via Santa Cruz Patch) and was then removed, I played the Ken Collins video showing the fiery Ken and his Clean Team bigotistas harass a homeless man in a red sleeping bag.

Though the video has been repeatedly removed from You-Tube, it is still posted along with a lengthy story on Santa Cruz Indymedia at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/05/15/18736901.php (“Video of Take Back Santa Cruz-supported Clean Team Harassing Homeless Forced Off Internet”).

Councilmember Comstock responded by denouncing me and attempting to distance her own Take Back Santa Cruz organization (of which she is co-founder) from The Clean Team.

Councilmember Robinson was not there, though reportedly was part of The Clean Team clean-up the day that Collins decided to abuse and denounce the homeless man in the video. She has made no statement on that expedition so far.

A tip of the hat to City Clerk/Administrator Bren Lehr, who assisted me in setting up the video after initially alarming me with requests that I allow “pre-viewing” so Mayor Bryant could “warn parents” to cover their childrens eyes and ears. Something the Council has been pretty good at doing generally regarding its abuses against the homeless.

Videos like this one are vital to show the public what’s really happening beneath the “Public Safety” pontificating and Needle Hysteria of The Clean Team, Take Back Santa Cruz, the SCPD, and associated right-wing groups.

Brent Adams’ video of Officer Vasquez dropping Richard Hardy face-first to the sidewalk in handcuffs is still a shocker (and still unexplained by the ever-evasive SCPD) (See “Use of force investigation not complete in videotaped arrest in Santa Cruz” at http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_23185274/use-force-investigation-not-complete-videotaped-arrest-santa)

SCPD BIKE BOYCOTT TO BE LIFTED? MAYBE.

The main action of the afternoon was a series of Bike Church supporters asking that the Council direct the SCPD to resume distribution of bikes cut off in a right-wing retaliatory move eighteen months ago and stalled by higher-up’s in the SCPD and City Manager’s office (specifically Assistant Manager Tina Shuul).

Bike Church supporters were on their best behavior, making little mention of the hostile and unjustified actions of the SCPD, the failure of Councilmembers Lane and Posner to take strong public action on this issue, or the complicity of the Bike Dojo in signing on to this “punish the lefties” action.

I suspect the decision by the SCPD was taken under cover of the Terrezas, Bryant, Mathews majority. See http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/07/07/18739482.php
(“Help Restore City Youth Bicycle Distributions”) and http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/06/11/18738278.php (“A Year Later, Youth Programs Still Waiting on City Bicycles”).

Steve Schnaar raised the issue nearly a year ago (“City Ends Successful Bicycle Distribution Program in Secret Back-Room Deal”at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/09/03/18720895.php).

Micah Posner claimed victory by noting that (a) the Bike Dojo was no longer receiving bikes from the City, and (b) there was now an open process to apply for that status. The question of why the bikes were stopped in the first place and why this issue was stalled for over a year and a half was “diplomatically” ignored. So apparently the SCPD will suffer no consequences for what appears to be abusive and arbitrary intervention denying distribution of bikes for over 18 months without warning or explanation.

Rob Mills and Paul of the Bike Dojo insisted that they were distributing hundreds of bikes to kids. Mills, however, had no problem with the SCPD’s using his group to steer bikes away from The Bike Church, even though Sandino of Barrios Unidos testified that bikes piled up undistributed over a period of months at the Bike Dojo. Dojo Bozo Mills (who kept insulting activists in a steady stream of invective both during and after the Council meeting) reportedly refused to allow the bikes to be distributed when a Watsonville group tried to wrest them from his clutches. This according to Sandino and Schnaar.

While it’s nice to hear prospects of the bikes being distributed again (Mills insisted the bikes had continued to go out over the last few months)–and potentially via the Bike Church–the failure of Posner, the Bike Church, and the Council to reveal the full extent of SCPD interference here allows them to walk away with clean hands from what seems to me like a rather dirty backroom business.

Mayor Bryant continues to violate the Brown Act by denying the public the right to speak on Consent Agenda items. She had no answer to my recent request as to why she is treating members of the public differentially (See “Mayor Cuts Off Comment in Consent Agenda Crackdown; Brown Act Complaint Rejected” at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/06/01/18737797.php). It’s hardly worth the public’s time to show up for the Consent Agenda unless they have an “in” with the City Council to have an item removed as a “favor” from a particular Council member.

However, to her credit, Bryant did allow all the speakers who wanted to speak do so at Oral Communications (when relatively few people were in the room compared to the normal session)–even though this meant spending 40 minutes or more (the usual time is half an hour) and giving each speaker 3 minutes. The Mayor may also have been more sensitive to this issue because an organized group (the Bike Church supporters) was present. Still, I thanked her for it afterwards.

It was all far too genteel to deter any repetition of SCPD/TBSC mischief in the future. And glossy flyers bemoaning the deaths of Butler and Baker were still stacked in piles to remind members of the community about who’s running the show at City Council.

The Problem with All These Homeless People is…

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…they lack homes.   They ain’t got housing.  They have no legal place to operate from with dignity and privacy.  They have been forced–most of them–into a furtive 3rd class citizen existence.   Instead of respect, they get suspicion, blame, and abuse.

NORSE NOTES:  Contrary to the latest Santa Cruz “Public Safety” mythology, it’s not that
…Santa Cruz is a “magnet” with its homeless-hostile laws;
…that the meager services (which really don’t include shelter–except for 5% of the homeless) are too welcoming;
… that the  homeless are addicts, alcoholics, and crazies who would naturally become homeless (the majority of homeless people are women, children, and vets)
… that homeless people “flock” to Santa Cruz because of its reputation for “easy life” (though the climate–like all coastal cities–beats Fresno, and many have roots here or are aware of the continuing cultural residue of a counter-culture here)
…that homeless people are producing a “crime wave”–as Deputy-Chief “Clatterbox” Clark repeatedly pronounces (unless you regard survival sleeping, sitting next to a building, peacefully asking for spare change, or drinking a beer in an out of the way place as being “crimes”–which Clark does; he should know, his SCPD got city Council to define these behaviors as “criminal”.)

I’m hearing that the broader housed and tourist community got a graphic taste of the Police State at 10 PM on July 4th when massive lines of cops began “rolling up” the previously public space.  All for our own security–of course.

Housing, work, and safety net repair for the disabled are the most immediate needs of the homeless population, say I.

HOMELESS Homelessness on the Rise in Monterey County, Census Shows

tent Arvin Temkar

Tent residents of Chinatown in Salinas celebrated Christmas with decorations last year.

Posted: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 6:39 pm | Updated: 10:25 am, Thu Jun 27, 2013.

Sara Rubin

 

An overwhelming majority of Monterey County’s homeless population lives without shelter, and those numbers are on the rise.

That’s according to the 2013 homeless census, conducted in January and presented Tuesday to the Board of Supervisors. The census represents a point-in-time snapshot of homelessness, based on data collected in one day by volunteers, who work on teams led by paid homeless individuals.

The 2013 census reports a 3-percent increase over 2011, bringing the county’s total homeless population to 2,590.

That number almost definitely is lower than the reality, says Glorietta Rowland, an analyst with the county’s Community Action Partnership. That’s because the census is, by its snapshot nature, imprecise.
“It is historically an under-representation of homeless in the community,” Rowland says.

The census estimates over 6,000 individuals experienced homelessness over the course of the past year—that annual estimate is a 58-percent increase from 2011.

In South County in particular, Rowland worries the numbers don’t accurately reflect the homeless population.

“Because we did not have people familiar with South County, the numbers there were very low,” Rowland says. “We know there are more homeless in that area.”

According to the census, there were 99 fewer homeless individuals in Greenfield, and also declines in Gonzales, King City and Soledad.

On the Peninsula and in North County homeless was up, census data shows. Monterey, Seaside and Prunedale all reported increases.

About three-quarters of the individuals surveyed do not live in shelters.

“There is a need for housing,” says Jill Allen, director of Dorothy’s Place in Salinas’ Chinatown.

Dorothy’s converts a day-use room into an emergency shelter each night, called Women Alive, and last year provided sleeping space to 188 women—many of them mentally ill, and many of them seniors, Allen says.

The nonprofit is in the midst of a fundraising push and education effort to “get people talking about better emergency facilities for women, and aging women who are out on the street,” she adds.

About 20 percent of homeless individuals live in families, the census found, though the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definition of homeless doesn’t count families that might be doubling up in houses.

HUD requires all communities that receive federal funds to support homeless services conduct a bi-annual census.

Comment from Brent Adams

So blah blah blah, Robert.

What is HUFF doing about it besides this blah-ing for years on end?
Where in this report is mention of the proposed Sanctuary Camp?
Then endless media stream has begun to ring hollow if you’re not advocating for solutions that are so near at hand.
I encourage you to put your clatterboxing aside and begin putting your energy into helping us create a safe space for real people to sleep and to
keep stuff.  I also encourage you to realize that once that space exists then we’ll also have a real base for organizing around issues of
homelessness and the illegality of sleep.
sincerely,
Brent