Tag Archives: Homeless

As Greece Rounds Up Migrants, Official Says ‘Invasion’ Imperils National Stability

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By NIKI KITSANTONIS
NY Times: August 6, 2012

Angelos Tzortzinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Immigrants being detained in central Athens on Sunday. About 6,000 people were held in a police operation over the weekend.

 

 

ATHENS — A vast police operation here aimed at identifying illegal immigrants found that, of 6,000 people detained over the weekend, 1,400 did not have proper documentation, leading the minister of public order to say that Greece was suffering an “unprecedented invasion” that was threatening the stability of the debt-racked nation.

The minister, Nikos Dendias, defended the mass detentions, saying that a failure to curb a relentless flow of immigrants into Greece would lead the country, which is surviving on foreign loans, to collapse. “Our social fabric is at risk of unraveling,” Mr. Dendias told a private television channel, Skai. “The immigration problem is perhaps even greater than the financial one.”

He said he would resign if he was obstructed. “There would be no point in me staying on,” he said. That appeared to be a warning to left-wing opposition parties, one of which called the operation a pogrom.

About 4,500 officers conducted raids on streets and in run-down apartment blocks in central Athens, a police spokesman said, calling the sweep one of the largest ever by the force. Eighty-eight Pakistanis were flown back home on a chartered flight on Sunday, said the spokesman, who spoke on the standard ground rules of anonymity. He said more deportations were expected in the coming days.

With its position on the southeastern flank of the European Union, Greece has long been the most common transit country for impoverished migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. But the global economic malaise and the revolutions of the Arab Spring have sharply increased the flow of migrants, and the government has been calling for more help from the European Union.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras promised to crack down on illegal immigration in campaigning before the general elections in June, which his conservative New Democracy party won by a small margin, followed by Syriza, the party that denounced the weekend operation. But no mass efforts had been made before that, fueling the fury of ascendant right-wing groups.

Last week, the authorities decided to transfer hundreds of officers to Greece’s land border with Turkey, a popular route for smugglers sneaking migrants from Africa and Asia into the country for a fee. Many of those officers have been moved to border guard duty from the security details of politicians as part of an overhaul of the force. The reinforcements were sent amid fears of an increased influx of refugees from Syria, where political tumult has devolved into civil war.

The growing population of immigrants in Greece — about 800,000 are registered, and an estimated 350,000 or more are in the country illegally — adds to the anxieties of many Greeks, who are seeing the government’s once-generous social spending evaporate. They complain that the foreign residents are depriving them of jobs and threatening the national identity.

Such frustrations have been exploited politically, notably by Golden Dawn, a far-right group that has been widely linked to a rising number of apparently racially motivated assaults but vehemently denies being a neo-Nazi group. Once obscure, it drew 7 percent of the vote in the June elections.

The party has called for the immediate deportation of all immigrants and has accused Mr. Samaras of reneging on his pre-election promises to curb illegal immigration. The party has won public support through a range of initiatives, including the distribution of free food, but only for those who can show Greek identity cards.

Man slugs officer during arrest

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Cathy Kelly

Santa Cruz Sentinel:   08/05/2012

A 42-year-old transient was arrested Saturday morning after he became belligerent with a police officer who contacted him for smoking in a non-smoking area near the wharf and then slugged the officer, police said.

Nicholas O’Donnell was arrested about 9 a.m. near Beach Street and Pacific Avenue, Lt. Bernie Escalante said.

When an officer contacted O’Donnell about smoking, the officer noticed that O’Donnell had slurred speech and other signs of intoxication, Escalante said.

O’Donnell became verbally abusive and told the officer he had better call for back-up and then punched him in the face, Escalante said.

O’Donnell was booked on suspicion of public intoxication, resisting arrest and battering a peace officer, Escalante said.

It is his ninth arrest for public intoxication since March, Escalante said.

Pajaro Rescue Mission celebrates 50th anniversary with expansion

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By Donna Jones
Santa Cruz Sentinel, 07/23/2012

PAJARO — George Muro hit bottom three years ago.

His marriage had fallen apart. He had lost the custodial job he had held for 12 years at a school district in Tracy. He was drinking and using drugs.

That’s when his daughter told him only one thing could save him: God.

Muro, 47, heeded that advice and reclaimed his life at the Pajaro Rescue Mission, which provides food and shelter to the homeless and, for those who want to seize it, the chance to change their lives. Sitting in the mission’s dining room Monday, Muro clutched a Bible and quoted scripture from memory. During his nearly three years at the mission, he’s found sobriety, reconnected with his family and rediscovered his faith.

He’s also close to obtaining the equivalent of a high school diploma, a huge accomplishment for a man who arrived at the mission with the math skills of a second-grader and in such an addled condition that he could barely string a sentence together, let alone read a book.

“If it wasn’t for this place, there’s no telling where I’d be,” said Muro.

The mission, which serves men and is managed by the faith-based nonprofit, Teen Challenge Monterey Bay, will mark its 50th anniversary at a community celebration Aug. 25. But as leaders prepare for the party, they’re also working to expand the shelter’s capacity by almost 50 percent to fill an anticipated gap in homeless services when the Salvation Army closes its Watsonville shelters Aug. 15.

The Salvation Army announced in June it could no longer afford to operate two shelters for men and one for women and children near its Union Street headquarters. The shelters serve about 60 people, including about 40 men.

Chuck Allen, the former board president for the Pajaro Valley Salvation Army, said he hopes to go to the organization’s regional board with a proposal to hand over management of the men’s shelters to the mission by the end of the month. He also helps to raise $100,000 in the community to support the effort.

But Mike Borden, Teen Challenge’s executive director, said Pajaro Rescue Mission will find a way to provide for the men regardless. It’s an opportunity to impact 40 more lives, he said.

“We will take that up,” Borden said. “We don’t turn anyone away.”

On a tour of the mission Monday, Teen Challenge leaders laid out a plan to increase the number of cots set up nightly in the mission chapel. They’ll put more cots in the dining room, if necessary, Borden said.

They also are seeking donation of two vans so they can transport men to the mission from the Salvation Army, which will continue to serve meals.

They’ll also open the Teen Challenge recovery program to men seeking sobriety. The program, which provides beds in dorms upstairs in the two-story mission, requires clients without a high school diploma to go back to school, and it provides training for jobs in construction, culinary arts and landscaping.

“We’re able to offer something more than a bed,” Borden said. “We’re offering a chance to open the door and change their lives.”

Good Samaritan talks man down from Morrissey bridge, police say

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Cathy Kelly – Santa Cruz Sentinel
Posted:   07/22/2012

SANTA CRUZ – Police got a call about 6:30 a.m. that a man was on the Morrissey Boulevard bridge over Highway 1, apparently planning to kill himself, Santa Cruz police said.

When officers arrived, they found that a passerby had seen the man on the railing and stopped and was able to talk him out of jumping, police said. The man had planned to leap off the bridge into the path of a large truck, officers said.

The 47-year-old man, described as a transient, was taken to Dominican Hospital, police said.

One-Way Relationship

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City funds bus tickets out of Santa Cruz for homeless people

Dan Woo

Good Times, 17 July 2012

Up to 375 homeless people could be riding buses home courtesy of the City of Santa Cruz by this time next year. This is the hoped-for result of $25,000 the city council devoted to the Homeward Bound Project when they approved the city’s new budget at their June 26 meeting. The council used the name of an existing program run by the Homeless Services Center (HSC), which has helped about 75 people per year leave the area since 2006, according to HSC Director Monica Martinez. The effort has been funded by private donations.

The city funds will boost HSC’s coffers for bus tickets to $15,000, while also providing $10,000 to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department and $5,000 to Downtown Outreach Workers (DOWs) for the same purpose.

Martinez says these bus tickets home are one of the most sought-after services at the center. “We could probably spend as much as anyone would allocate for this,” she says of the demand. “Our current funding depletes very quickly.”

In doling out these passes, Martinez says the HSC is not simply pushing the issue of homelessness on to other communities. Case managers contact family or friends who are in a position to help the person at their chosen destination. They also explore likely job opportunities that may be waiting when they arrive.

This process is new to the Sheriff’s Department and DOWs, and although the core principles are the same, there are differences to be addressed before the money starts being spent.

One of these distinctions arose when residents outraged by recent violence proposed that homeless inmates at the Santa Cruz County Jail be sent to their former homes upon release. This is impossible in many cases because released inmates are free to go where they please unless the courts bar them from a certain area, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Phil Wowak said in a May Santa Cruz Sentinel article. But with the proper resources to research a person’s destination they could conceivably offer tickets out of town to selected former inmates.

Good Times contacted Sheriff’s Deputy April Skalland for an update on how they are resolving these issues, but received no reply as of this writing.

The DOWs’ role in the program is more similar to the HSC’s, as they often deal with homeless people asking for a way out of Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz City Manager Martin Bernal’s office is currently working out who will oversee the new parts of the program run by the Sheriff’s Department and DOWs to find the most compassionate and effective way to give out the tickets.

City councilmembers Hilary Bryant, Lynn Robinson and Ryan Coonerty are also offering ways to make the program work in the Sheriff’s Department, according to Assistant City Manager Scott Collins.

The $10,000 addition by the city to the HSC’s private funds will result in some oversight of the HSC program, according to Mayor Don Lane, but he expects that to be minimal.

“There is no agreement with the Sheriff’s [Department] or Downtown Outreach [Workers] yet on how it will work,” he says. “It’s easier with the HSC because they have an existing program, so the city manager will just make sure their system is working.”

New York City has a similar program, on which they spend $500,000 each year, according to a New York Times article from July 28, 2009. Social workers there follow up with ticket recipients up to three weeks after a person’s departure and even cover some living expenses while a person gets their life rolling again.

Robert Norse of Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom (HUFF) says that the program isn’t a solution.

“[Homeward Bound] is less about providing services to people and more about getting people out of Santa Cruz that the merchants don’t want here,” says Norse.

Martinez estimates that less than 10 percent of people who receive bus tickets return to Santa Cruz. However, she adds that the only way they would know is if the person returned to their facilities again.

She offers advice that could help the program in all three involved agencies.

“The most important part is understanding their needs and identifying the opportunities at their destination,” she says. “We don’t in any way want to be shipping homelessness around.”

PETA pans S.F. plan on panhandlers, pups

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Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross
SF Chronicle, July 15, 2012

Animal rights activists are offering San Francisco $10,000 to halt its plan to pay panhandlers to take care of unwanted pups, saying the city’s idea is tantamount to playing “Russian roulette” with the pets.

In a sharply worded letter to Mayor Ed Lee, PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – called the paid-pet partner idea “a disastrous plan that will come back to haunt the city.”

Former San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty, now the mayor’s homelessness chief, recently announced the pilot program – dubbed Wonderful Opportunities for Occupants and Fidos, or WOOF – to have panhandlers living in city-funded supportive housing give up begging. In exchange, they would get $50- to $75-a-week stipends to become foster parents for puppies that might otherwise be euthanized at the city’s animal shelter.

“Ultimately we want to see people live purposeful and full lives, and this is a step in the right direction,” Dufty said.

Teresa Chagrin, a rep for PETA’s cruelty investigations department in Norfolk, Va., called the plan “slapdash” and “ill-conceived.”

“Most former panhandlers are financially destitute because of struggles with substance abuse and mental-health issues,” Chagrin wrote to the mayor. “Placing any animal with them is risky at best, (and) it should be out of the question to play Russian roulette with these animals, allowing them to be used as lures or pawns.”

Rather than have San Francisco risk the dogs’ injury or even death by handing them to “troubled people,” Chagrin said, “PETA is willing to put up $10,000” – equal to the private grant being used to launch the effort – if the city will instead institute a program for the down-and-outers that is “100 percent animal-free.”

From the looks of things, however, PETA is barking up the wrong tree.

Dufty says the city is committed to the two-month pilot, which is scheduled to start early next month, using five dogs and 10 caregivers who have gone through screening.

If it works as he expects, says Dufty, he’ll have proved “it’s great to give both dogs and people a second chance.”

Judged: That convicted car burglar who blew his probation by walking out of Judge Lillian Sing‘s neighborhood court last month in San Francisco and breaking into her car has been slapped with the maximum three-year jail sentence.

Under state sentencing guidelines, Phillip Bernard, 32, will actually serve only eight months, according to prosecutor Omid Talai.

After Bernard pleaded guilty Friday in Superior Court, visiting Santa Clara County Judge Leslie Nichols revoked his probation from a previous car burglary and handed down the new sentence.

Besides the jail term, Bernard – who is homeless – was ordered to pay $250 in restitution for smashing Sing’s car window.

After he was arrested, Bernard allegedly told officers, “I will keep breaking into cars and houses. I will keep doing it and doing it and doing it.”

Not for a while at least.

Hybrid vote: Ranked-choice voting takes another turn at the table Tuesday when San Francisco supervisors decide what changes, if any, they want to put before voters this fall.

The only race under consideration is the mayoral sweepstakes.

Supervisor Mark Farrell is proposing a straight-up September primary, followed by a November runoff.

Board President David Chiu is countering with a hybrid of a ranked-choice primary that would whittle the field down to two – followed by a runoff.

Port play: With the threat of a recall behind her, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is making her move on the city’s Port Commission – bouncing one of the members whose threatened removal had prompted African American activists to start one of the recall efforts.

On Tuesday, the City Council will be asked to replace commission member Margaret Gordon with health care executive Bryan Parker. Gordon’s backers were among those who failed to get a Quan recall on the ballot.

At the same meeting, Quan will also ask that businessman Ces Butner replace Port Commission President Pamela Calloway.

As for the politics: “What you have is two African American men replacing two African American women,” said council President Larry Reid.

And finally: After a contentious meeting with San Francisco officials, Graffeo Coffee owner Luciano Repetto pretty well summed up the reaction of fellow merchants to that plan to tear up a North Beach intersection for a temporary drilling shaft as part of the construction of the Central Subway to Chinatown:

“North Beach gets the shaft – and Chinatown gets the benefits.”

Santa Cruz, county jointly expand mental health outreach program

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By J.M. BROWN –
Santa Cruz Sentinel:  06/28/2012

SANTA CRUZ – With the state shifting greater responsibility for housing inmates to county jails, county and city leaders agreed this week to nearly double the amount of staff assigned to a mental health outreach program targeting downtown.

Officials say pursuing and sustaining treatment is the best way to keep out of trouble people with serious mental illness who also are at risk of committing crime.

“The right place for the mentally ill is not in jail and not in the streets acting out,” said County Supervisor Neal Coonerty, who spearheaded the expansion. “It’s in treatment.”

In adopting the county budget Thursday, the Board of Supervisors approved Coonerty’s request for nearly $275,000 in new funding to expand the MOST program, which stands for Maintaining Ongoing Stability through Treatment. Tuesday, the City Council granted his request to dedicate $80,000.

MOST pairs outreach workers with police to perform crisis intervention and provide ongoing case management for clients. Probation and corrections officials, as well as psychiatrist and a licensed vocation nurse, also are part of the team that will grow in July from 4.75 full-time equivalent employees to 8.5.

The program launched in July 2007 with funding from California Department of Corrections, but the county had to reduce it in 2008 amid the state’s deepening economic crisis. During the program’s first year, the number of total days people identified as mentally ill stayed in jail dropped from about 3,200 to about 150, the county reported.

Coonerty, a member of the county’s mental health advisory board, sought to expand the program after the Legislature last year passed Assembly Bill 109, which redirects many nonviolent offenders away from the overburdened prison system and in to county jails or diversion programs.

“With AB 109, jail beds will be at a premium,” Coonerty said.

The MOST expansion also comes seven weeks after a parolee who spent time in corrections facilities for the mentally ill allegedly stabbed a woman to death in broad daylight on Broadway. The man charged with murdering 38-year-old downtown store owner Shannon Collins is due in court Aug. 13 for a preliminary hearing.

“Somebody that is violent belongs in jail, but if someone is breaking rules and doing unlawful things because they are off their meds and acting out mentally, we have a way to wrap them into treatment,” Coonerty said.

County officials say Maintaining Ongoing Stability through Treatment will be able to assist about up to 90 clients on an ongoing basis, rather than the 40 or so served now. While outreach workers and police can identify people needing treatment, jail, probation and court officials also can make referrals to the program.

To pay for the expansion, the county will tap its general fund, as well as state money designed to help counties and jail officials absorb more inmates. The county’s total contribution for the program, including new funds and in-kind support, will be $1 million.

The city’s contribution also will come from its general fund. Santa Cruz has spent $75,000 annually to support the county’s downtown outreach worker, but the money came from redevelopment funding eliminated by the state last year.

City officials say the outreach worker has been critical in connecting mentally ill people with housing, counseling and other services.

“It’s so obvious where the good work that has been done has had a good outcome,” City Councilwoman Lynn Robinson said.

Also Tuesday, the council approved $25,000 in new funding for a major expansion of Homeward Bound, a program that provides bus tickets to homeless people who want to go to another community where they have confirmed support. Operated by the Homeless Services Center, the program is currently funded through a $5,000 anonymous donation.

Local Nonprofits Benefit from CSA Shares

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by Cat Johnson
SC Weekly Jun 20, 2012

To visit the Homeless Garden Project’s Natural Bridges Farm is to step into a simpler world. Just blocks away from the unending flow of traffic on Mission Street and the chaos of downtown Santa Cruz, the farm sits away from it all. Bursting with life, it’s a collage of colors, scents and sounds. Dogs are sunbathing in the dirt; the farm staff and volunteers are bustling around harvesting and weeding, two people are putting together flower bouquets and the wind is coming off the bay at a steady 40 mph. The rows of vegetables, herbs, fruits and flowers seem unaffected by the wind. The humans look windblown, sun-kissed and happy.

I’m at the farm to meet Zac, a lanky 19-year-old with a shy smile and a thoughtful disposition. Part of the Independent Living Program (ILP), a local project that helps young people transition out of foster care into self-sufficiency, Zac is at the farm to pick up the boxes of freshly harvested food that ILP receives on a weekly basis. This week’s share contains fava beans, green garlic, strawberries, red and green leaf lettuce, winter bore kale, atomic red carrots and fresh rosemary. Some of the food will be prepared at the ILP Resource Center. The rest will be given to the young people to take home.

“I’ve never been too much on the organic side until I came here and saw what they were doing,” says Zac, who has also volunteered at the farm. “When you go to other farms you don’t see people walking around and you don’t see the variety of plants. It’s beautiful here.”

Susan Paradise, program manager of the Transition Age Youth Programs, of which ILP is a part, says that when the outfit first started receiving and preparing food from the farm, a lot of the kids didn’t know what the various vegetables even were. But the staff kept serving it, and the kids grew to love it.

“Growing up in foster care, they have so little control over what ends up on their plate,” Paradise says, noting that rates of malnutrition are high in the foster care community. “More often than not, it’s not fresh organic produce. But we have a lot of kids eating kale now. I think that our youth sense that this is special food,” she continues. “There’s a really positive energy around this whole process.”

 

A Healthy Change

ILP is one of four local nonprofits that receive donated Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares from the Homeless Garden Project. The others are the Beach Flats Community Center, Women’s Crisis Support and the Santa Cruz AIDS Project. The flowers from each share are donated to Hospice of Santa Cruz County.

The Homeless Garden Project offers transitional employment and job training through its trainee program. An important part of the program is then distributing the food grown by the trainees to underserved community members. Darrie Ganzhorn, executive director of the Homeless Garden Project, calls it feeding two birds with one worm. (She also calls it feeding two birds with one seed, but admits that dividing one seed sounds a bit like malnourishment.)

Ganzhorn emphasizes the importance of the relationship between CSA members, the farm and the farmers. “It isn’t just a connection to the food,” she says. “It’s a connection to the garden.”

A CSA share, which costs $650, comes out to approximately $20 per week. For boxes of fresh organic fruits and vegetables, this is a good price, but for someone who has to choose between rent and food, it may be out of reach.

For many low-income families, high-calorie, low-cost, low-nutritional-value foods become dietary staples, which contributes to our current national health crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 35.7 percent of American adults and 17 percent of American children are obese.

For Ganzhorn, the solution-oriented way of addressing this crisis is to make fresh foods accessible and help people find ways to incorporate them into their diet. Through its donation program, the Homeless Garden Project gets healthy food into communities that may not have access to it otherwise.

But that costs money, so the Homeless Garden Project relies on donations from the community. From $5 to $1,000 and up, donations go directly to support the trainee and CSA donation programs. A U-Pick farm stand, open every day from 10am to 4pm at the Natural Bridges Farm, also benefits the programs.

With a goal of 15 donated shares this year, the Homeless Garden Project staff would eventually like to have the majority of the farm’s CSA shares going to community organizations.

“Fresh food shouldn’t just be for the wealthy,” says farm supervisor David Stockhausen. “The more the community at large continues to support us, the more we can do for the community. We’re recycling good.”

Before he leaves, Zac points out how much the farm does for everyone involved with it. “I’m just another person who’s affected by it, like so many others,” he says. “You’ve got to give thanks for that.”

Man stabbed at campsite near Highway 17, Highway 1; Santa Cruz Police arrest acquaintance with blood on his hands, clothes

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Cathy Kelly
Santa Cruz Sentinel:   05/25/2012
SANTA CRUZ – A 43-year-old man was stabbed Thursday night at a campsite between Highway 17 and southbound Highway 1, according to Santa Cruz Police.The man received “a few” stab wounds, but they were not considered life-threatening, police spokesman Zach Friend said.He was taken to Dominican Hospital, Friend said.

The victim flagged down a passerby on Ocean Street about 10:45 p.m., saying he had been stabbed, Friend said.

The victim told police that a man he knew stabbed him after the two argued at a campsite where they were staying, according to Friend.

Police arrested Steven Dale Goodwin at the campsite, on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

Goodwin, 58, denied the attack, but had blood on his clothes and hands, Friend said.

Santa Cruz police ask anyone with information to call the anonymous tip line at 420-5995 or leave a tip at www.santacruzpolice.com.

Man stabbed in Santa Cruz early Tuesday morning

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Stephen Baxter – Santa Cruz Sentinel
Posted:   04/03/2012

SANTA CRUZ – A 43-year-old transient man was stabbed in the back during a fight with another transient early Tuesday morning.

Santa Cruz police spokesman Zach Friend said the victim was staying at an illegal campsite behind a building on the 500 block of Front Street.

Randolph Vaden Tolley, 44, went to the campsite and got into a fight with him about 4:30 a.m., Friend said. The victim grabbed a golf club and chased Tolley to Cathcart Street.

Tolley tackled him and stabbed him in the back, police said.

Police found the victim on his side with a stab wound. Tolley stood about 15 feet away holding a folding knife.

The victim was transported to an out-of-county trauma center. He was released from the hospital on Tuesday, according to police.

Tolley was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Friend said. Tolley is being held in County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bail, according to jail records.

“Investigators are working to interview additional witnesses today to build a better picture of what occurred before the stabbing,” Friend said Tuesday.

Santa Cruz police ask anyone with information to call the anonymous tip line at 420-5995 or leave a tip at www.santacruzpolice.com or by the mobile application at http://m.santacruzpolice.com.