Tag Archives: Local Police repression

Effort to reduce Santa Cruz homeless camps sees mixed results

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STEPHEN BAXTER – Santa Cruz Sentinel
Posted:   08/29/2012

SANTA CRUZ – Tucked in the bushes near the southbound Highway 17 approach to the Fishhook, 45-year-old Thomas Delfino camped in a tent under a brown tarp on Wednesday.

As cars whooshed by the highway and the sun beat down, Santa Cruz police Sgt. Dan Flippo and three officers confronted Delfino.

A mountain bike lay nearby with its serial numbers and frame painted black – common features of a stolen bike. Two old laptops and four bike wheels were in the tent, surrounded by dirty sheets, empty soda bottles and a stench from a pile of used toilet paper a few steps down the trail.

Delfino, looking sullen, talked to the officers with familiarity. He said he was no longer using heroin, but he still used meth and marijuana.

He said he wanted to stay clean so that he could see his daughter and his girlfriend’s family. “But I got high the other day,” Delfino said, squinting into the sun.

With an outstanding warrant for possession of drug paraphernalia, he was searched, handcuffed and taken to County Jail. Police would later call Caltrans to clear out the camping gear and trash – minus the orange-capped syringe that Flippo found near the tent.

In the nearly seven weeks that Santa Cruz police have cleared out illegal campsites such as Delfino’s around Santa Cruz, Flippo said Wednesday’s find was common.

Most of the people they have contacted had problems with drug and alcohol addiction, yet most of them left after a 72-hour notice.

Police and some residents said the program has made great strides in cleaning up trash in roadside camps, creek beds and other areas. However, police said it might have shifted some illegal campers to areas in Felton and places outside the city.

Some homeless advocates said it was not an overall, long-term solution.

“I think it’s been successful in dealing with the areas that have been heavily impacted” by the homeless, Flippo said. “The emails we’ve been getting have been overwhelmingly positive in terms of sites being cleared. It’s a piece in the puzzle.”

PILOT RESULTS

In early July, Santa Cruz police started the program mainly in response to complaints by residents of trash and safety problems in areas such as the San Lorenzo River levee, Branciforte Creek and Pogonip.

A fire in Pogonip in April also was traced to transients. Environmental concerns grew, police spokesman Zach Friend said at the time.

With help from city public works and Caltrans, police launched a 4-6 week pilot program to clear out the camps and arrest those involved in criminal activity.

As of Aug. 20, police cleared out 54 illegal camps and identified 159 camps. Police typically ticketed people for illegal camping upon first contact, then posted notices that they had to clear everything out in 72 hours.

Authorities found some of the camps were large hangouts for drug users, such as a wooded area near the offramp from Highway 1 to northbound Highway 17, Flippo said.

The train tracks below Bay Street also was a hot spot, where neighbors were annoyed by late-night noise and drug use. At a marsh near Jessie Street and the San Lorenzo River, police said they found a camp with two mattresses that had been used for prostitution.

Camps also were dismantled between Highway 1 and the Santa Cruz Memorial Cemetery at Ocean Street.

“That used to be a go-to spot for a long time,” said officer Ron Inouye, who has been working on the project. “But now, nothing.”

Some police believe the homeless had congregated in wooded areas near Highways 1 and 17 because it’s a convenient spot. They can panhandle for money on Mission, River or Ocean streets, get food from churches and other food pantries, then buy drugs from dealers in the wooded areas.

Their walking or biking radius is only a few miles, Flippo said.

Since the program started, police said the camps have shrunk from large, established campsites such as the one near the Fishhook to smaller, more mobile sites.

Volunteers and city workers also cleared brush along with the campsites at the San Lorenzo River levee, and some say the change in the past month is striking.

However, police said they had heard more reports of homeless in areas in the San Lorenzo Valley. They were starting to work with the Sheriff’s Office on it, Flippo said.

When police approach a camp – often identified by residents’ complaints – they typically ask occupants if they are familiar with shelters such as the Santa Cruz Homeless Services Center on Coral Street.

Flippo said officers carry cards with information about drug and alcohol rehabilitation services, food pantries and other programs.

“We try to explain the services available to them,” Flippo said.

He estimated about one third of the people they’ve contacted in the project used the services, about a third of the people didn’t use them and a third said they didn’t want them. Many of the programs don’t allow drug use, and they are admitted drug users who don’t want to participate, Flippo said.

Others said the shelter is full, which it often is. Or they said they don’t want to go there because of “drama,” Flippo said – often related to the lines and cluster of people.

FUTURE WORK

Although homeless advocates said they appreciated the environmental improvements in the project, some wondered about some unintended consequences.

Similar cleanups have happened recently elsewhere in the state, said Peter Connery, vice president of Watsonville-based Applied Survey Research. The firm conducts a homeless census in Santa Cruz County every two years. There were about 2,770 homeless in the county in 2011.

Really, breaking up encampments has gone on “forever in the history of noiselessness,” he said.

“It’s not a strategy. Folks aren’t going away, they’re just moving them around,” Connery said.

When police force them to leave, many people lose their belongings, identification and paperwork that helps them access services, Connery said. Also, if the camps are pushed into the woods in the San Lorenzo Valley, for instance, that could lead to problems there.

“They get put into unfamiliar and more crowded surroundings that could exacerbate mental health problems,” Connery said.

“It’s just tough, and they just don’t have a lot of alternatives. There’s absolutely insufficient resources in Santa Cruz County to make things better,” Connery said.

Flippo countered that the project essentially was a small solution to a larger, more complex problem.

Standing near Delfino’s campsite off Highway 17 on Wednesday, Flippo noted that Delfino had been to several drug treatment programs.

“How many times do you send people to a treatment program? What’s the next step?” And how many victims’ (items) were in that tent?” Flippo asked.

“It may not be good for him,” he said of the program. “But it’s good for the neighborhood.”

More homeless camps cleared in Santa Cruz

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by Stephen Baxter
Santa Cruz Sentinel 08/08/2012

SANTA CRUZ – Santa Cruz police cleared out 15 illegal campsites and arrested 20 people in the fourth week of a program aimed at reducing homeless camps.

Officers also issued 67 tickets for illegal camping and related charges from July 29 to Aug. 4.

Police spokesman Zach Friend said the arrests were mainly for drug charges, including one case of suspected meth sales. Another person was arrested on suspicion of possession of stolen property.

Twenty-nine camps were posted with warnings to vacate, police said.

Resident complaints have fueled the campaign, as well as concerns of poor sanitation, environmental problems and recent fires related to the camps. Friend said many of the camps are hideouts for criminal activity.

Since the project began in July, police have posted 115 notices to leave and dismantled 42 campsites. They also have issued 245 citations and made 70 arrests.

Santa Cruz police ask residents to report illegal campsites by calling 420-5892.

The Homes Of The Homeless

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Joel Hersch — Good Times

08 August 2012

news1-1Santa Cruz police near the end of a campaign to clear out illegal campsites

On a narrow strip of land between Highway 1 and Plymouth Street, Santa Cruz police officers Barnaby Clark, Mike Huynh and Sgt. Dan Flippo fan out as they approach a dingy blue tent with a maroon blanket draped over it.

Huynh draws his gun and holds it ready by his hip as Flippo calls out, “Police! Anybody home?”

No answer.

Flippo pulls back the tent’s flap and carefully peeks inside while Huynh covers him. No one is home.

As the tension eases, Huynh holsters his weapon.

These three officers form the Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD) task force whose mission is to eradicate illegal campsites—which many homeless people call home—that are hidden around the city. By the second week of the 30 to 45-day campaign, many of the camps have already been disbanded, says Flippo, a brawny man who has served 20 years with the SCPD.

“A lot of them have caught wind of this and moved out, farther into the county,” he says.

Even so, the officers are very cautious when making contact with a campsite, always entering one with several officers present.

“We don’t know what’s in there,” Huynh says. “If they’re a drug user, they might think there’s someone coming to steal their stash, so they’re going to protect it.”

Huynh, who is in his sixth year with the SCPD, was involved in a physical altercation at a campsite near the San Lorenzo River Levee the week before our interview and had to call for backup.

“You have to be careful because we’re kind of going into someone’s home,” Flippo says.

news1-2Santa Cruz Police Sgt. Dan Flippo at one of more than 86 illegal campsites the police have indentified so far in their current effort to curb illegal camping. The SCPD, in partnership with the Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation and Public Works Department, began the initiative to crack down on the homeless campsites on July 9 after receiving many new complaints from community members. Neighborhood residents have reported thefts that they think are related to people living at nearby campsites.

In addition to piles of trash left over at the empty encampments, police have also found many stolen bicycle parts. Flippo says homeless campers will often steal bikes, take them apart and sell the pieces to buy drugs.

Fire, sanitation and public safety have also become a growing concern, he says.

When the officers visit a newly reported campsite, they issue a Municipal Code citation and give the campers 72 hours to leave, according to Flippo.

He adds that the work can be frustrating because many of the people living in the camps do not take citations seriously. Many just crumple up the pieces of paper and throw them out, knowing from experience that the court will not issue a bench warrant for an illegal camping infraction.

Santa Cruz City Attorney John Barisone explains that the city adopted an ordinance in 2009 declaring that people who ignore three citations in six months receive a misdemeanor, and the court will issue a warrant for a misdemeanor.

“That will allow the officer to take the person into custody and that person will have to go to court and be arraigned and prosecuted,” Barisone says. “What we’ve learned is that once an individual is arrested and spends a few days in jail, they are immediately aware that there are consequences for their actions, and we either don’t see them again because they change their behavior or they leave town.”

Flippo says that, in reality, the prosecution process is still extremely aggravating. He says even if a perpetrator does go to jail for a few nights, he often runs into them again at other illegal campsites.

“Honestly, there’s not a whole lot of repercussion,” he says. “It’s mostly just an inconvenience for them to have to move their camps.”

Clark says the majority of the people in the camps they have shut down are living this way to distance themselves from law enforcement, engage in criminal activity and feed a drug addiction.

“These are people who are living this lifestyle long-term,” Clark says. “These aren’t people who have been stuck out on the street by circumstance.”

Flippo says he tries to advise homeless campers of resources available for them through the city or county, but that many of them choose not to seek help. Then there are a number of people who cannot utilize resources like soup kitchens because they have caused problems in the past, he says.

After leaving the first site between Highway 1 and Plymouth Street, the officers move on to check out another camp located near The Fishhook, at the point where Highway 1 and Highway 17 diverge. The people at the camp were issued a citation a few days earlier and Flippo wants to make sure they actually left.

Flippo calls the tree-lined space between the two roads “The Triangle.” It was the location of more than 14 campsites the previous week, with anywhere from one to five people living in each.

Seventy-two hours after police issued citations, Cal Trans personnel came in and cleared out the entire area, which Flippo says was covered in human feces and was a major biohazard.

In the middle of the triangle-shaped section of land is an open cement culvert, which Flippo explains flows directly into the ocean.

He motions at it and asks, “Do you surf?”

I say yes.

“Well, trust me,” he says. “Don’t surf the River Mouth. All this flushes down right through there.”

Flippo, who also surfs, has avoided the River Mouth for years because of how much human excrement he discovered was flowing directly into the surf zone.

Despite the task force’s recent efforts, Flippo knows that many of the same people from these campsites will set up new ones in other parts of the county. He has heard there might be a new camp near Dominican Hospital, but that is outside of the SCPD’s jurisdiction.

Some popular campsite hotbeds have included the San Lorenzo River Levee, Pogonip Park, Arana Gulch and Harvey West Park.

While busting campsites, Flippo says that they located some people who had outstanding warrants, including one man camped out in Harvey West who was wanted for three years, a sex offender who had failed to register and another who was in possession of several knives while on a no-weapons probation.

By the third week of the campaign, police identified 86 campsites, issued 178 citations, made 50 arrests and cleared 27 sites, according to Santa Cruz police spokesman Zach Friend. The pilot project will end within the next two weeks, adds Friend, but could be restarted after an evaluation is complete.

Santa Cruz Mayor Don Lane understands the need to put a stop to illegal camping due to the immediate problems it causes, but he says it reinforces his own desire to help provide the homeless with legal places to call home.

One way the city is currently attempting to do this is with its 180/180 campaign, which seeks to permanently house 180 vulnerable homeless people.

Phil Kramer, who is the 180/180 campaign project manager, explains that the camps are, in part, a survival mechanism for homeless people. They offer people living on the streets a sense of community and safety in numbers, he says.

While he understands that the police have to do their job, Kramer says that evicting people from these campsites is very much like going into anyone else’s home and making them leave.

“Where ever it may be, our home is our sanctuary,” he says. “It’s our safe place, and that place is really in the eye of the beholder. Some of us have something with sturdy walls, and a well made roof and in-door plumbing. And other people—the place they call home is much more fragile and much more tenuous.”

UC Santa Cruz teacher and homeless advocate Franklin Williams agrees. “We need to not lose sight of all people’s rights and property protections, not just homeowners and businesses,” Williams says.

Lane says it is not clear cut that these people are trying to avoid society so that they can engage in criminal activity, but rather that they are lacking a place in society.

“My question is, are we helping people who are living in those terrible conditions to find a pathway out, or are we just moving them around?” Lane says. “As a community, if we don’t create some opportunity for these folks to live a different way, they’re going to live on the margins. This will be an improvement for our immediate situation, but as far as changing their lives, I think it will take much more.”