Defend those without homes! campaign page [link]
2013-12 "Eureka city makes choice for Houseless residents: Religious Re-education, or Death!" [link]
201-11-29 "Houseless resident in Eureka, CA, terrorized by Eureka Sergeant Rodrigo Reyna-Sanchez on Thanksgiving's eve" [link]
2013-05-04 "PLEASE BE WITNESS: Cops to CLEAR Peoples' Camps Thurs 5/9":
Thursday (May 9th), the Cops plan to go behind Bayshore Mall and CLEAR out the camps of people who have no other place to go.
Please be part of a strong COPWATCH & PUBLIC PRESENCE.
These raids are unacceptable. And they are NOT "clean-ups." (When someone cleans her house, that is very different than being forcefully evicted and thrown onto the streets).
These raids amount to systematic human rights violations.
Even if we cannot stop the police raids, YOUR presence can prevent violent abuse and theft by the police against people merely trying to reside SOMEWHERE.
We don't know what time(s) the police will raid. We need to prepare to take shifts and have a way to contact more people to come bear witness, beginning early Thursday morning through. Before Thursday, if we get any tips of a particular time the cops can be expected, I will send an email. Let's organize this now.
In preparation, please bring any or all of the following: Cameras, good hearts, observant eyes, cell phones, snacks, water, courage and solidarity.
2013-04-21 "City to Bayshore Mall homeless: It's time to move on; occupants brace for cleanup, 38 encampments targeted"
by Kaci Poor "The Times-Standard" [http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_23073699/city-bayshore-mall-homeless-its-time-move-occupants]:
Clad in a jacket and fleece pajama pants, 43-year-old Roni scanned the secluded encampment behind Eureka's Bayshore Mall that she, her husband and their 21-year-old son have called home since summer.
”We feel that if we keep clean, don't start fires, don't start trouble and stay quiet that we will be left alone,” said Roni, who, like many of the homeless individuals the Times-Standard interviewed Saturday, declined to provide her last name. “We don't want attention. We just need time to get ourselves up and going again.”
Roni said her husband -- the pair aren't officially married, she said, but have been together for seven years -- just got a new job, and she is expecting her disability payments to start coming through.
”We are just waiting for all of that to get us up and going,” she said. “We need time, we have nowhere else to go.”
The time Roni said she and her family desperately need may soon be up.
In the coming weeks, workers are expected to conduct a cleanup sweep, targeting an estimated 38 encampments in the area directly behind the mall. City officials and law enforcement officers have already started documenting conditions and informing the more than 100 people living in the patchwork tarp and tent structures -- including Roni and her family -- that they will have to pack up their belongings and move on.
The city's main motivation for clearing out the area, Chief Building Official Brian Gerving said, is the environmental damage being caused by the campers, and the resulting public safety risk.
”The current estimate for the homeless population in our city hovers right around 2,500 people,” Gerving said. “If there are 100 people back there that we are dealing with, that's not a very significant portion. But in terms of problems in that area ... I think the issues there are very disproportionate.”
Humboldt Bay Fire Battalion Chief Ed Laidlaw said public safety is a huge concern behind the mall -- both to the occupants and to first responders.
”We've had incidents where firefighters have literally had to walk in front of an apparatus and clear away debris placed on the path to gain access to an area,” he said. “This is done purposely to impede access.”
Laidlaw said he has seen the number of calls for service, especially fire calls, accelerate in the past three or so months.
”To be honest, the general public is scared to go down there because of the conditions,” he said. “Our intent is to clean it up, not just to force people out.”
Laidlaw said the large volume of trash -- including propane tanks, human waste and batteries -- found at the campsites is also a hazard to the environment.
”A portion of the property down there that is being camped on is intended for vegetation growth, to offset the mall property,” Laidlaw said. “The individuals that have chosen to take up residence there are impacting that significantly. Even the open areas, outside the remediation site, is public land. That means no camping.”
Eureka City Attorney Cyndy Day-Wilson said the city has made several efforts to clean up the area in the past. This time will be different, she said.
”This is the first time we are trying to come up with a long-term management plan to help prevent this from becoming an issue again, or at least as quickly,” she said.
In addition to the planned cleanup, Gerving said the city is working closely with different service providers to assist the area's homeless. The city plans to eventually cut back vegetation from the forested area so officers and other security personnel can better monitor and discourage camping. Gerving said the city plans to operate within the constraints of state Department of Fish and Wildlife and Coastal Commission regulations.
Gerving couldn't provide an estimated total cost for the cleanup -- which he said will be split between the city and mall -- but he said it would number in the thousands of dollars.
Torie, a homeless woman who has lived behind the mall for the past three years with her boyfriend, said while she is slowly packing up her camp, she is skeptical of the city's plans.
”Oh, cleaning everything out is not going to stop them,” she said. “They'll just move on to the next open spot. Where else will they go?”
Torie said she understands the city's concerns and she can see the large volume of trash left by other homeless individuals in the area. But she doesn't buy the city's claim that there are alternatives.
Torie said many of the campers are like herself: They have a partner or a dog who they don't want to leave.
”You know, the city has been saying forever that they want to help us out, that they have all of these options, but then we try to go to these shelters and you know what? They won't let us live together unless we are married and they won't let us keep our dogs,” she said. “That's really not an option.”
Sheila Heflin, another homeless woman who has been living in the area with her three dogs since the summer, said the city will never be able to root out all of the illegal campers. The simple reason, she said, is because there isn't anywhere else for them.
”You know where I will go when they tell me to leave?” she said. “Right into a new bush.”
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Community Justice campaigns against Human Rights abuse in Fresno
Reverend Floyd D. Harris Jr. and his Ministry [link]
2013-04-20 "Civil Rights Groups & Pastors Rallies against Police Brutality"[http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/21/18735625.php]:
Reverend Floyd D. Harris Jr., National President of The National Network in Action, a civil and human rights organization, with The Mexican-American Political Association, The Fresno Brown Berets, and New Light for New Life Church of God, together held a community rally against police brutality, harassment, racial profiling, excessive force & deadly force.
On a Sunday evening over 100 People gathered at the corner of Arthur & Strother where Mr. Jerel Stanfield was shot in the head, leg, and in the back, on Easter Sunday. The African America community came out to receive information on Cop Watch and Know Your Rights When Confronted by Police. Civil Right leader Rev. Floyd D. Harris Jr. said, "when Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer can laugh in a press conference while former city council member Jerry Duncan who was planning to run for Mayor of Fresno who said, “ Make no mistake about they are Terrorist (making reference to “ Black People “). They are much like terrorist like those people in Iraq who are blowing up innocent people". On August 29, 2007 Chief Jerry Dyer said he was launching Operation West Side with a simple approach to eliminate black gangs which means to MURDER them (http://www.youtube.com/watchv=nhnR8zlCjDM).
Rev. Harris said it’s business as usually with Fresno Police Department giving our kids a hot dog and a bounce house, pat them on head at the age of 5 years old, and then shoot them in the head or back when they get older. Rev. Harris said the black community has a constitutional right and human right to protest against police brutality, harassment, racial profiling, excessive force & deadly force. Pastor Paul Mc Coy from New Light for New Life Church of God said the solution is not just for our community but we must set the example for all community so we can hold each other accountable. We as a community and a neighborhood must understand what goes on, has a direct relationship with our daily behavior. The bible tells us “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4v6). Where there is an absent of knowledge, destruction will fill the void. We destroy ourselves as well as those who live outside our neighborhoods, will destroy us.
Gloria Hernandez educated those gathered on the amounts of money we are losing as tax payers defending Chief Dyer while many city jobs are being lost or contracted out to private industries. The discrimination complaint filed by two deputy chiefs was settled prior to going to trial. The two deputy chiefs and their attorney won $100,000 while we the taxpayer paid Dyer’s Hollywood contracted attorney over $800.000 to quietly settle this case. If Dyer is not a racist or anti-woman or anti elderly cops then why did he not go to a jury trial? Gloria expressed concern that there are too many ongoing cases that the city quietly settles prior to going to court and the Department has 28 repeat shooters who feel free to kill because they carry a badge. (See Color lines online magazine April 2010.) Juan Avitia, National President of the Mexican-American Political Association (MAPA), supported the rally & made the point that police dressed up in ski masks & carrying military assault weapons descended into west Fresno armed with what appears to be a "tank" and ready for war. This is something never done in the more upscale parts of town. In addition, Avitia noted that the police continuously justify their actions with the defense that a suspect was "appearing to reach in his pants for what might have been a gun". Yet in the latest shooting the young black male was shot in the back. A young Mexican male also suffered on the east side of Fresno in 2012.
During the event on Sunday, black men and community members walked up to the microphone and said they saw everything that happen yet the Fresno Bee and the TV Stations are not printing the truth because they never talk to us and there is two sides to a story. The citizens are outraged at the Fresno Police Department in how they brought danger and a hostile environment to a quiet community on Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is a historical day for African Americans and many others, faiths and family to enjoy. However, on this particular Easter Sunday, people were placed in the middle of gun fire by the Fresno Police Department who tried to execute Mr. Jerel Stanfield by shooting him in the head, leg, and in the back. In addition, chief Jerry Dyer appears to have over-reacted to "threat" to his officers by "gang members" and has launched an all out war on the community, including arming his officers in a paramilitary manner & terrorizing black & brown people under the claim that his officers were threatened.
The Fresno Police Department has a history of shooting and killing many people of color who have been unarmed. As to the latest situation, there were children who were playing and witnessed the Fresno Police shoot Mr. Stanfield in the head and past out. There was no counseling services offered to the children and family who witnessed this plan of execute by the Fresno Police. This history includes the deliberate hunting & killing of Joaquin Figueroa in 2006, a disturbing assassination by Fresno police officers that haunts our community to this day. Why do Fresno Police Shoot at citizens who have not shot at them? Why did the Fresno Police and the local Fresno Government call Black males and the Black community in Fresno a "Terrorist"? The Fresno Police Department does not have the right to be the JUDGE, JURY, AND EXECUTIONER
There will be a Copwatch and Know Your Right When Confronted By Police Officers April 20, 2013 at New Light For New Life Church of God 1106 W. Woodward Fresno, Ca 93706 Contact: Rev. Floyd D. Harris Jr (559) 213-5886 or Juan Avitia ( 559 ) 977 - 42476
Fresno PD street tank
2013-04-14 "Community Rally Against Fresno Police Brutality"
Sunday, 7:00pm
Location: Corner of Arthur & Strother (West Fresno)
Contact: Rev. Floyd D. Harris Jr (559) 213-5886, or Juan Avitia (559) 977-4247
Reverend Floyd D. Harris Jr., National President of The National Network in Action, a civil and human rights organization, with MAPA, and The Fresno Brown Berets, will be having a community rally against police brutality, harassment, racial profiling, excessive force & deadly force.
The citizens are outraged at the Fresno Police Department in how they brought danger and a hostile environment to a quiet community on Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is a historical day for African Americans and many others, faiths and family to enjoy. However, on this particular Easter Sunday, people were placed
in the middle of gun fire by the Fresno Police Department who tried to execute Mr. Jerel Stanfield by shooting him in the head, leg, and in the back. In addition, chief Jerry Dyer appears to have over-reacted to "threat" to his officers by "gang members" and has launched an all out war on the community, including arming his officers in a paramilitary manner & terrorizing back & brown people under the claim that his officers were threatened.
The Fresno Police Department has a history of shooting and killing many people of color who have been unarmed. As to the latest situation, there were children who were playing and witnessed the Fresno Police shoot Mr. Stanfield in the head and past out. There was no counseling services offered to the children and family who witnessed this plan of execute by the Fresno Police. This history includes the deliberate hunting & killing of Joaquin Figueroa in 2006, a disturbing assassination by Fresno police officers that haunts our community to this day.
Why do Fresno Police Shoot at citizens who have not shot at them? Why did the Fresno Police and the local Fresno Government call Black males and the Black community in Fresno a "Terrorist"? The Fresno Police Department does not have the right to be the JUDGE, JURY, AND EXECUTIONER!
[signed]
* National Network In Action
* The Mexican-American Political Association (MAPA)
* The Fresno Brown Berets
2013-04-15 "SW Fresno Community Rallies Against Police Brutality"
by KSEE News [http://www.ksee24.com/news/ARTHUR-OIS-RALLY-SUN-202963971.html]:
Members of the New Light For New Life Church of God, the Mexican American Political Association, and the Fresno Brown Berets stood together.
They expressed outrage over the actions of police on Easter Sunday.
Officers chased and shot Jerel Stanfield, who was suspected of murder.
He survived, but protesters say he suffered gunshot wounds to the head, back and leg.
They say the shooting was excessive and put several people in danger.
Fresno Police reacted to gang threats, after the shooting and conducted several raids...
Protesters are also upset about that, calling it harrassment.
Organizers are now planning a series of meetings for what they call "cop watch training."
Those meetings will begin next weekend at New Light For New Life Church.
2013-04-13 "Southwest Fresno residents protest police shooting"
by Angel Moreno from "The Fresno Bee" [http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/04/14/3258201/southwest-fresno-residents-protest.html]:
About 60 people gathered in southwest Fresno on Sunday to protest what they say was police brutality, racial profiling and excessive force by Fresno officers in the shooting of a gang member two weeks ago.
On March 31, officers crashed the SUV of Jerel Stanfield near Arthur and Strother avenues and shot him in his head and back when he began to run away, witnesses said.
A man who identified himself as the victim's cousin, but who declined to give his name, said Stanfield, 24, never was a threat to officers and didn't deserve to be shot.
Right after the shooting, Police Chief Jerry Dyer said officers opened fire when Stanfield, who was wanted in a recent homicide, appeared to arm himself while fleeing. Police said they found a gun on him.
In the wake of the shooting, the department said its officers were being threatened by gang members, and it doubled patrols in some neighborhoods.
Neighbors said officers engaged in racial profiling of southwest Fresno residents.
Community leaders, neighbors and Stanfield's mother and relatives, gathered near the scene of the Easter Sunday shooting to protest and tell their side of the story, said the Rev. Floyd Harris Jr., of the New Light for New Life Church of God.
Stanfield's mother, Chantal Lewis, was at the protest but did not speak.
Pastor Paul McCoy told the crowd that the solution to the area's problems isn't in the hands of Fresno police, but in the hands of the community. The community can end the violence that plagues it, he said.
"It starts with us and when it starts with us we have the power to finish it," McCoy said.
2013-04-14 "Fresno residents rally against Fresno PD"
by Mariana Jacob from "ABC-30; KFSN-TV/DT" [http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=9064822]:
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Dozens of people are protesting what they call excessive force by the Fresno Police Department.
They rallied at the scene of an officer-involved shooting that injured Jerel Stanfield on Easter Sunday.
About 75 people gathered near the corner where an officer-involved shooting took place two weeks ago. Many who attended the rally came prepared with signs and angry words targeted at police. "This is a wakeup call to this community here to hold each other accountable," said Revered Floyd Harris Jr.
24 year old Jerel Stanfield's mother was at the rally but would not talk to us on camera following the advice of her attorney. Other family members did tell us Stanfield is now in the county jail but they believe he needs more medical care at a hospital following brain surgery. "He's in pain that's the only thing he does say when he does talk, it's murmured," said his sister Jasmin.
Witnesses who didn't want to appear on camera told us they say he was shot while running away in the back of the head on March 31st. Fresno police officers were not available for comment but hours after the shooting, Chief Jerry Dyer had this to say, "At some point the suspect according to the officers made some type of movement that officers believed he was arming himself. The officers did fire the weapons at the suspect and when they were detaining him they did locate a handgun on him."
Organizers say they're hoping to put an end to what they see as racial profiling and police brutality.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp is a snitch trap
Defend those without homes! campaign page [link]
Santa Cruz is attacking houseless people [link]
2013-04-18 "Statement from The Revolutionary Tendency Regarding Sanctuary Camp and Ending Homelessness"
by Steven Argue [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/18/18735434.php]:
Legalize the Right of the Poor to Sleep!
For Human and Environmental Needs, Not Profit!
Here is an interesting video on homelessness in Santa Cruz which includes a proposal for a a safe camp for the homeless to sleep at night. Currently, it is illegal for the homeless in Santa Cruz to sleep at night. The video claims to be the beginning of the discussion. Actually, the discussion has been going on for a long time now. The video also calls for the "ideal" being a sanctuary camp in Santa Cruz with good relations with "law enforcement". Unfortunately, the reality is that the police, and their bosses on the City Council, see the homeless as the enemy and treat them as criminals. It is an illusion to think that suddenly those in power will stop treating the poor as enemies. It is extremely likely that a new camp will face similar repression and a repeat of the hateful propaganda in the corporate media that all other homeless camps have faced in the past.
The Revolutionary Tendency supports the right of the homeless to sleep at night without the violence and harassment of the police, vigilantes, and courts. This will include the defense of this new attempt at an organized camp for the homeless, whatever the reaction of the corporate media and repressive government.
Yet, to truly solve questions of homelessness will take the overthrow of the capitalist system and the smashing of the repressive capitalist state. The nationalization of the banks alone will free up enough unused housing to put everyone in a home. The socialist abolition of rent will make keeping a roof over our heads much easier and end the near feudal relations many of us have with our landlords who collect an extremely high percentage of our wages. Our socialized planned economy will completely eliminate unemployment by maintaining and expanding all work that is socially useful, regardless of profit. Socialized healthcare will end the debt and homelessness suffered by some people for simply becoming ill. Socialized healthcare will also include free non-religious based drug and alcohol treatment for all who want it. In addition, all who are too disabled to work will easily be provided for in a society that puts human needs over the extreme and obscene profits of a few greedy capitalists.
Legalize the Right of the Poor to Sleep!
For Human and Environmental Needs, Not Profit!
Join the Revolutionary Tendency
-Steven Argue, for the Revolutionary Tendency
2013-04-16 "Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp to the RESCUE"
comment from "Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp" [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/15/18735243.php?show_comments=1#comments]:
Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp Video
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tBWhgjXrKaY]
It is important to distinguish a Sanctuary Camp from a Protest Camp.
A Protest Camp: seeks to call attention to the illegality of a situation ( in this case the sleeping ban ) and puts campers in direct contact with law enforcement. A Protest Camp is usually inflicted AT a community and space is "taken" or "occupied."
A Sanctuary Camp: exists with the tacit support of the community. It benefits everyone inside and outside the camp by providing a safe place to be, sleep and keep personal items. Often land and/or other elements of the camp are made possible by creating relationship with citizen groups or the city government.
Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp is excited to begin this conversation with our community. All over the country Sanctuary Camps are proving that neighborhoods are safer and homeless begin to heal their situations with these models. Join in the conversation.
Everyone agrees that the problems facing our community around homelessness are unacceptable.
We've seen our natural areas fouled and our communities are inundated with homeless folks with no place to sleep at night. Firstly, it is important to establish that it is illegal to sleep outside after 11pm in Santa Cruz. On April 6th, what little shelter there is will be closing and we'll be seeing an increase to some of the problems we're already seeing. To make matters worse, the 30 bed shelter at the Homeless Services Center has been closed indefinitely to the general homeless population.
We hear that Santa Cruz County spends $2,000,000 dealing with the various aspects of homelessness each year and yet more than 90% of those folks are forced to sleep outside in our community each night. Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp is an evidence based smart solution to this growing problem.
We're seeing that Sanctuary Camps across the country are proving successful. For pennies on the dollar, they provide a safe place to sleep and keep personal belongings during the daytime. This year we've seen our natural areas fouled by garbage, syringes and excrement. There have been fire hazards in the woods. People often sleep in doorways and under bushes of our residential, business and tourist areas.
Homeless people often fall prey to folks who steal from and abuse them.
Homeless people have lost their property (bedding, medications, personal effects) during the homeless sweeps that took place in our county's wooded areas. The SCPD took officers from other patrols for more than 3 months last summer ticketing more than 300 people with no measurable effect other than to make life infinitely harder on folks already struggling to survive.
The daily struggle to clean oneself, keep clothes, bedding and personal belongings clean and safe, show up in time for food service or to acquire food and basic necessities and to find a safe place to sleep can be an all day task. Add to this the problems of mental illness, addiction, trauma etc. and we begin to see that the patterns of homelessness are quite difficult to escape. The basic illegality of homelessness and the scorn of the community makes this situation impossible.
We're excited to share a new solution with our community. We've seen examples all over the country that communities are safer and cleaner and homeless people are better able to move up and out of homelessness with the Sanctuary Camp model.
Please invite us to make a presentation to you, your group or organization about how we can improve life for everyone by simply providing a safe place for people to be. There are many possibilities within this one concept and we'd like to share them with you. [https://www.facebook.com/santacruzsanctuary]
Santa Cruz is attacking houseless people [link]
2013-04-18 "Statement from The Revolutionary Tendency Regarding Sanctuary Camp and Ending Homelessness"
by Steven Argue [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/18/18735434.php]:
Legalize the Right of the Poor to Sleep!
For Human and Environmental Needs, Not Profit!
Here is an interesting video on homelessness in Santa Cruz which includes a proposal for a a safe camp for the homeless to sleep at night. Currently, it is illegal for the homeless in Santa Cruz to sleep at night. The video claims to be the beginning of the discussion. Actually, the discussion has been going on for a long time now. The video also calls for the "ideal" being a sanctuary camp in Santa Cruz with good relations with "law enforcement". Unfortunately, the reality is that the police, and their bosses on the City Council, see the homeless as the enemy and treat them as criminals. It is an illusion to think that suddenly those in power will stop treating the poor as enemies. It is extremely likely that a new camp will face similar repression and a repeat of the hateful propaganda in the corporate media that all other homeless camps have faced in the past.
The Revolutionary Tendency supports the right of the homeless to sleep at night without the violence and harassment of the police, vigilantes, and courts. This will include the defense of this new attempt at an organized camp for the homeless, whatever the reaction of the corporate media and repressive government.
Yet, to truly solve questions of homelessness will take the overthrow of the capitalist system and the smashing of the repressive capitalist state. The nationalization of the banks alone will free up enough unused housing to put everyone in a home. The socialist abolition of rent will make keeping a roof over our heads much easier and end the near feudal relations many of us have with our landlords who collect an extremely high percentage of our wages. Our socialized planned economy will completely eliminate unemployment by maintaining and expanding all work that is socially useful, regardless of profit. Socialized healthcare will end the debt and homelessness suffered by some people for simply becoming ill. Socialized healthcare will also include free non-religious based drug and alcohol treatment for all who want it. In addition, all who are too disabled to work will easily be provided for in a society that puts human needs over the extreme and obscene profits of a few greedy capitalists.
Legalize the Right of the Poor to Sleep!
For Human and Environmental Needs, Not Profit!
Join the Revolutionary Tendency
-Steven Argue, for the Revolutionary Tendency
2013-04-16 "Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp to the RESCUE"
comment from "Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp" [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/15/18735243.php?show_comments=1#comments]:
Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp Video
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tBWhgjXrKaY]
It is important to distinguish a Sanctuary Camp from a Protest Camp.
A Protest Camp: seeks to call attention to the illegality of a situation ( in this case the sleeping ban ) and puts campers in direct contact with law enforcement. A Protest Camp is usually inflicted AT a community and space is "taken" or "occupied."
A Sanctuary Camp: exists with the tacit support of the community. It benefits everyone inside and outside the camp by providing a safe place to be, sleep and keep personal items. Often land and/or other elements of the camp are made possible by creating relationship with citizen groups or the city government.
Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp is excited to begin this conversation with our community. All over the country Sanctuary Camps are proving that neighborhoods are safer and homeless begin to heal their situations with these models. Join in the conversation.
Everyone agrees that the problems facing our community around homelessness are unacceptable.
We've seen our natural areas fouled and our communities are inundated with homeless folks with no place to sleep at night. Firstly, it is important to establish that it is illegal to sleep outside after 11pm in Santa Cruz. On April 6th, what little shelter there is will be closing and we'll be seeing an increase to some of the problems we're already seeing. To make matters worse, the 30 bed shelter at the Homeless Services Center has been closed indefinitely to the general homeless population.
We hear that Santa Cruz County spends $2,000,000 dealing with the various aspects of homelessness each year and yet more than 90% of those folks are forced to sleep outside in our community each night. Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp is an evidence based smart solution to this growing problem.
We're seeing that Sanctuary Camps across the country are proving successful. For pennies on the dollar, they provide a safe place to sleep and keep personal belongings during the daytime. This year we've seen our natural areas fouled by garbage, syringes and excrement. There have been fire hazards in the woods. People often sleep in doorways and under bushes of our residential, business and tourist areas.
Homeless people often fall prey to folks who steal from and abuse them.
Homeless people have lost their property (bedding, medications, personal effects) during the homeless sweeps that took place in our county's wooded areas. The SCPD took officers from other patrols for more than 3 months last summer ticketing more than 300 people with no measurable effect other than to make life infinitely harder on folks already struggling to survive.
The daily struggle to clean oneself, keep clothes, bedding and personal belongings clean and safe, show up in time for food service or to acquire food and basic necessities and to find a safe place to sleep can be an all day task. Add to this the problems of mental illness, addiction, trauma etc. and we begin to see that the patterns of homelessness are quite difficult to escape. The basic illegality of homelessness and the scorn of the community makes this situation impossible.
We're excited to share a new solution with our community. We've seen examples all over the country that communities are safer and cleaner and homeless people are better able to move up and out of homelessness with the Sanctuary Camp model.
Please invite us to make a presentation to you, your group or organization about how we can improve life for everyone by simply providing a safe place for people to be. There are many possibilities within this one concept and we'd like to share them with you. [https://www.facebook.com/santacruzsanctuary]
Santa Cruz HUFF does what Santa Cruz Homeless Services won't
Defend those without homes! campaign page [link]
Santa Cruz is attacking houseless people [link]
2013-04-18 "Since the Homeless (Lack of) Services doesn't have them..."
by Robert Norse
...here's the HUFF receipt! We thoughtfully provided it to HLOSC yesterday to document the fact that the group we brought over to Coral St. to register was on the Waiting List. Hence their camping tickets, if they were given any, would be dismissed prior to court (even without having to mount a Necessity Defense).
Activists and homeless sleepers should note that police can still charge people under PC 647e, the state "anti-lodging"" law (actually being used by sheriff and police as an anti-protest or anti-loitering law in the last few years). However, the documentation that one is on the Waiting List is also a good basis for mounting an affirmative Necessity Defense if D.A. Bob Lee wants to take any such charges through to jury trial.
Hopefully such trials would have a better outcome than those of the Peace Camp 2010 activists, who got screwed thanks to testimony from Executive Director Monica Martinez and others that there were a few spare beds (for the 1000+ homeless outside). The Jones decision--which I'm told by San Luis Obispo attorney Stu Jenkins is still federal legal precedent in spite of being depublished--held in L.A. that one doesn't have to establish there were no beds that night or that one even tried to get one, if it was common knowledge that finding such a bed was highly unlikely given the chronic shelter emergency.
I should add I don't recommend these programs or shelters, as Razor Ray seems to imply. Rather I suggest this Waiting List approach as both a protest strategy and to protect yourself legally as a homeless person who has to sleep at night who's completely uninvolved in protest. Given the legal system the way it is, this approach is my suggestion.
I suggest bringing a copy of the receipt template with you to the HLOSC, and then making a second copy for yourself (so that you can give one to the cop). The cop may not (and probably will not) initially stop ticketing, but in future legal action it will become clear that police ticketing in the face of these receipts is a form of harassment since tickets are to be automatically dismissed under MC 6.36.055.
Santa Cruz Forums on Community Safety & Compassion
2nd Forum: Homelessness and our Home Town
When: Wednesday, April 24 at 7 PM
Where: Santa Cruz High School Theater [415 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz]
All Welcome! Admission free.
Donations welcome for hall rental. FMI or childcare: contact 831-423-1626
What: Speakers and opportunity for Q&A
*Rev. Steve Defields-Gambrel, The Circle Church
*Susan Brutschy, President, Applied Survey Research, Homeless Census
*Christine Sippl, Program Manager, Homeless Persons Health Project
*Felipe Ponce, personal story
*Danny Contreras, personal story
Cosponsored by:
Resource Center for Nonviolence, NAACP Santa Cruz Branch, United Way of Santa Cruz County, Charter for Compassion, Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center, Homeless Services Center, Women’s Health Center, Community Action Board, The Circle Church, First Congregational Church of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Friends Meeting, Peoples’ Democratic Club, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Santa Cruz is attacking houseless people [link]
2013-04-18 "Since the Homeless (Lack of) Services doesn't have them..."
by Robert Norse
...here's the HUFF receipt! We thoughtfully provided it to HLOSC yesterday to document the fact that the group we brought over to Coral St. to register was on the Waiting List. Hence their camping tickets, if they were given any, would be dismissed prior to court (even without having to mount a Necessity Defense).
Activists and homeless sleepers should note that police can still charge people under PC 647e, the state "anti-lodging"" law (actually being used by sheriff and police as an anti-protest or anti-loitering law in the last few years). However, the documentation that one is on the Waiting List is also a good basis for mounting an affirmative Necessity Defense if D.A. Bob Lee wants to take any such charges through to jury trial.
Hopefully such trials would have a better outcome than those of the Peace Camp 2010 activists, who got screwed thanks to testimony from Executive Director Monica Martinez and others that there were a few spare beds (for the 1000+ homeless outside). The Jones decision--which I'm told by San Luis Obispo attorney Stu Jenkins is still federal legal precedent in spite of being depublished--held in L.A. that one doesn't have to establish there were no beds that night or that one even tried to get one, if it was common knowledge that finding such a bed was highly unlikely given the chronic shelter emergency.
I should add I don't recommend these programs or shelters, as Razor Ray seems to imply. Rather I suggest this Waiting List approach as both a protest strategy and to protect yourself legally as a homeless person who has to sleep at night who's completely uninvolved in protest. Given the legal system the way it is, this approach is my suggestion.
I suggest bringing a copy of the receipt template with you to the HLOSC, and then making a second copy for yourself (so that you can give one to the cop). The cop may not (and probably will not) initially stop ticketing, but in future legal action it will become clear that police ticketing in the face of these receipts is a form of harassment since tickets are to be automatically dismissed under MC 6.36.055.
Santa Cruz Forums on Community Safety & Compassion
2nd Forum: Homelessness and our Home Town
When: Wednesday, April 24 at 7 PM
Where: Santa Cruz High School Theater [415 Walnut Ave., Santa Cruz]
All Welcome! Admission free.
Donations welcome for hall rental. FMI or childcare: contact 831-423-1626
What: Speakers and opportunity for Q&A
*Rev. Steve Defields-Gambrel, The Circle Church
*Susan Brutschy, President, Applied Survey Research, Homeless Census
*Christine Sippl, Program Manager, Homeless Persons Health Project
*Felipe Ponce, personal story
*Danny Contreras, personal story
Cosponsored by:
Resource Center for Nonviolence, NAACP Santa Cruz Branch, United Way of Santa Cruz County, Charter for Compassion, Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center, Homeless Services Center, Women’s Health Center, Community Action Board, The Circle Church, First Congregational Church of Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Friends Meeting, Peoples’ Democratic Club, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Santa Cruz Council Members threatening to restrict & destroy any homeless services that exist
Defend those without homes! campaign page [link]
Santa Cruz is attacking houseless people [link]
2013-04-16 "Pamela Comstock TBSC and further criminalization of homelessness"
Comment by HalJ:
I was reading an article the GoodTimes of SC had http://www.gtweekly.com/index.php/good-times-cover-stories/4701-the-reality-of-crime.html. For a local media account it's a reasonably well balanced summary of various forces and perception and history of crime in Santa Cruz.
In the article, Pamela Comstock, SC Councilwoman and TBSC co-founder shared her vision of the cause and solution to reducing crime in SC.
The cause? Too many liberals and liberal ideas in Santa Cruz. The solution? Deny homeless people services if they are arrested or EVEN CITED for an infraction.
That's right, from the article:
Comstock suggests a solution: create a contract that stipulates that if a person is accessing homeless services in the city, they must agree to not get arrested or cited for infractions. If they fail to abide by the terms, then they will no longer be eligible for the services. “This would change the perception that Santa Cruz is a haven for the homeless and that 'homeless' equals 'criminal,'” she says.
For a group, Take Back Santa Cruz TBSC that claims not to be against the homeless, I don't know how much more anti-homeless you can get than Pamela Comstock's so-called solution.
Since it's illegal to sleep in SC after 11pm and there are no shelters open (sans 20 beds) then any homeless person would risk losing access to ANY homeless services if they were merely cited by the police for basically being homeless.
That's just priceless and of course the TBSC mob will probably mobilize with torches and pitchforks in support of such a plan even though it means that without even the benefit of a trial or hearing Pamela Comstock and TBSC wants homeless people to be stripped of any rights and services.
2013-03-16 "Support Homeless Rights and Services--A Response to Councilmembers Robinson and Lane"
NOTE BY NORSE: Rouster-of-the-Wretched Lynn Robinson, until the election of Pamela Comstock, was the most reactionary member of the Santa Cruz City Council. Along with David Terrazas. Cynthia Mathews, and Hillary Bryant, Robinson has faithfully backed or initiated a steady stream of anti-homeless measures increasing criminal penalties for innocent behaviors like sitting on the sidewalk, sleeping outside at night (in a town with no alternatives for most), and peaceful sparechanging.
Last Sunday Robinson flung rhetorical acid at the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center [HLOSC] in a front-page story, attacking its funding, denouncing its management, and smearing its clientele.
For Robinson's rattlebrained roarings go to [www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_22807781/santa-cruz-vice-mayor-activists-question-city-funding].
Joining the gruesome chorus of bigotry orchestrated by Take Back Santa Cruz, Robinson championed further cutbacks in the vital needle exchange program and megaphoned the familiar right-wing merchant myth that Santa Cruz is a magnet for crime, violence, and danger because of its (alleged) tolerance of homeless people, drug abuse, poor people entitlements, and "weirdness".
Santa Cruz, in fact, with the collusion of self-described "liberals" like Don Lane (and former Council member Katherine Beiers) pioneered California anti-homeless laws in 1994 including the Sitting Ban, the Sparechanging Ban, & the Street Performing Ban. (The word "ban" is meant to suggest that police are given such broad prohibition powers that they can restrict, bully, harass, ticket, or arrest whomever they choose doing these activities--which they do.)
Santa Cruz has also instituted Permit Parking, banning the very existence of homeless vehicles (even when homeless aren't in them) during nighttime in hours in many neighborhoods. The City Council passed the notorious Parking Lot Panic law which bans anyone from reading a book, socializing, or--for that matter--changing a baby's diapers in their car in any of the city-owned parking lots. In the last few years, it has leveled nighttime curfews all over the city establishing forbidden zones at such traditionally public areas as City Hall, the Library grounds, the River, the Parks, and elsewhere.
As far as "drug tolerance", the City has crippled the voter-mandated Measure K, supposedly making recreational marijuana use in private for those over 21 the lowest priority, and its rates of marijuana arrests have been rising, not falling. The closed-door City Council putsch that shut down the effective and safe Needle Exchange program on Barson St. with no public debate or announcement was an abject surrender to the hysteria of the Take Back Santa Cruz/Clean Team crowd stoking rising hysteria over the needles found in their clean-up's (a relatively small number--400 over several months compared to the several hundred thousand picked up each year).
Instead of calling for a changed policy that moves away from the useless, costly, crime-producing, and rights-wrecking Drug War, the policy of the City Council is to throw more money at the SCPD. Instead of opening up more needle exchange sites and increasing funding and staff for clean-up's, City Council is buying into the absurd "Just Say No" stupidity once heralded by Nancy Reagan.
Now comes Vice-Mayor Lynn Robinson leading the pack of paranoids, denouncing the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center.
HUFF has harshly and persistently criticized abuses and leadership at the HLOSC. For not providing shelter other than for a fraction of the population. For not advocating for the rights of those outside. For not protecting disabled people from arbitrary decisions by their staff. For caving to anti-homeless bigotry of neighbors with their "no impact" zones (penalizing clients for simply seeking the right to use the public spaces as members of the public rather than as cringing abjects subject to the whims of neighborhood NIMBY's. For closing the center during the day to those who they're supposedly paid to serve. For refusing to replace vital storage lockers. And more.
But the HLOSC does provide two meals a day (unless they exclude you), does offer a (for-pay) mail service, and does provide a pick-up point for Armory Shelter in the winter as well as providing an entry point for other programs.
Council member Don Lane (whom I call satirically Gone Lame) has long been a booster and frequent Board of Directors member of the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center at 115 Coral St. He recently was Mayor and President of the Board of the HLOSC. And Robinson's toxic venom has upset him.
What is his response? Not a forthright "homeless people have rights and needs" statement. It wouldn't be credible to those who closely follow his record (and many don't, because his rhetoric is often impressive). but more to the point, he would actually have to take an unpopular stand in a city where bigotry, bullying, and police-worship is on the rise. That's something I don't remember his ever doing.
So instead he tells nearby businesses that it's their job to ramp up the war against the homeless in the nearby public spaces, not the HLOSC--which--get this--just doesn't have the money. Instead of mobilizing people who have long objected to police, merchant, and resident abuses against poor people outside, instead of championing the obvious--emergency campgrounds, public bathrooms, trash collection, and reform of the HLOSC (to make it more accessible and less a prison camp), he defends the group he's made his turf for the last decade. He attempts to "reason" with the wretched Robinson instead of exposing her libelous anecdotes and self-righteous bigotry. In essence, he is saying that he supports the war against the homeless, but they can't blame the HLOSC for not pursuing it vigorously enough because they don't have the money.
Aside from being fascistic and immoral, this tries to play pattycake with same unrealistic "drive the homeless away" approach. This approach targets the wrong people and institutions. It panders to "compassionate fatigue", "homeless enabling", "street culture = criminal behavior" "hyperpolice/vigilanteeism = increased security" and other all to familiar misleading stereotypes. it appears with the underlying phony distinctions between "our" homeless and the "other" homeless, between "the worthy poor" and "the crazies, druggies, criminals, and bums". The phony focus on needles, the Drug War, homeless camps, trash, are an attempt to vilify the homeless community. Wild exaggerations of conditions that conditions that exist in every city don't lead to more safety for the community and set the stage for an intensifying witchhunt against the homeless community--something Don Lane has watched without comment or objection for the last year.
Access to food, shelter, medical care, and equal treatment is a right we need to enforce. The reactionary fantasy that these exist in abundance in Santa Cruz is ridiculous to anyone who's ever been poor here. In so far as the HLOSC meets these needs and secures these rights, it needs to be supported. In so far as it fails, it needs to be held accountable, reformed, and/or replaced.
---
2013-03-19 "Thoughts on my letter to Lynn Robinson concerning the Homeless Services Center" by Don Lane, City Councilmember for the City of Santa Cruz [http://santacruz.patch.com/blog_posts/thoughts-on-my-letter-to-lynn-robinson-concerning-the-homeless-services-center]:
I have been absent from posting to this blog for many months. Mainly I’ve been trying to cut back to 50 hour work weeks after being at more like 60 hours last year (during my term as mayor). I’ve also been nursing a herniated disk in my neck—which I hope will finally diminish as a problem after spinal surgery next week.
But I have been recently awakened from my slowdown -- first by the horrifying deaths of city police Detectives Baker and Butler --and then further by some of the disturbing reactions that have surfaced in the past few weeks (alongside the amazingly generous outpouring of support for our fallen officers that showed up around our community) in the form of troubling proposals to change some of the community’s policies.
One of these proposals struck me particularly hard because it went right to heart of the primary volunteer work I do, which is to support policies and programs to successfully address homelessness and homeless issues in our community.
This proposal played itself out when the local daily paper got its hands on a letter that my city council colleague, Santa Cruz Vice Mayor Lynn Robinson, wrote to the Executive Director of our local Homeless Services Center, Monica Martinez. As you will see below, her letter did not sit well with me. Though I originally saw the letter on February 27, I set it aside (in spite of my negative reaction to it) in recognition of our need to focus on mourning the deaths of Butch Baker and Elizabeth Butler. However, once the Sentinel reporter spoke to me about the letter (around March 13) and told me he was going to feature it in a newspaper story, I thought it was then appropriate to send a response to Lynn. It was also important for me to respond at that time because, that same week, Lynn also made a formal motion to cut funding for the Homeless Services Center at our city council meeting. And it lso appears that she quietly triggered a document search to see if she could find other ways to do things that I saw as undermining the work of HSC. In other words, Lynn did not just write a letter, she appeared to me to have begun a three-pronged “campaign” against HSC.
I'm sharing it here because many people communicated with me that my letter was referred to in a Sentinel article but it was not printed. They said they wanted to see it.
I don't often send letters like the one below. It is strongly worded and takes a very firm position on the issues involved. For people who know my work in the community, they will recognize that it takes a different tone than my typical tone. I normally try to work in the middle ground of controversial local issues. Though I am not trying to fool myself into believing I am always a neutral player, I usually try to quickly move past my own views to embrace the "controversy" and try to be a voice for bringing the divided participants together. This works for me most of the time. But not always.
There are some issues that cut deeper for me and then I discover my limits. One of those issues is immigration. My only daughter, who my wife and I adopted when she was 10, was born in Mexico and brought to the United States without proper immigration documents when she was a very young child. The rest of her life story is irrelevant to this essay, but the fact that the "group" she belongs to is regularly under attack in the politcal discourse of this country makes me very sensitive on these issues. I want to seek middle ground on immigration issues but I have especially little tolerance for hateful language around immigration issues. So my public comments and actions on this issue tend to be less measured.
My journey into the issue of homeless is a bit less personal but that journey has still been long and deep. I actually got involved about 25 years ago when I was invited to help resolve a conflict between the Downtown community and the City government on one side and a group of good samaritans and political advocates on the other side who were serving a daily meal to homeless individuals in a public space Downtown. (There's a bit more about this story in the letter below.) Suffice it to say that my mediation in this situation led to my assisting the meal-serving group to relocate away from Downtown and to a place where the meal could be served in a more orderly and safe situation.
Through that episode, I met some very caring and committed people and I started to learn more about the lives of local people living on the streets of our community. I got involved in starting the Homeless Community Resource Center and continue to this day in work that brings me into contact with homeless individuals and families and with those who work with those difficult-to-serve populations.
So the issue of homelessness is a big deal for me. I will not pretend that it is not personal after those many years of work. But its not just "personal." It is also something I have spent a lot of time learning about and working on as a community problem in the context of being a city councilmember. It is a problem that everyone in the community recognizes. As an aside, I should note here that I encounter many people who say two things almost simultaneously that I find very puzzling. First they say something like: "Don, why do you spend so much time focusing on homelessness and not focus enough on the rest of us taxpayers who are not homeless and who have important needs, too?" Then they say: "I am so upset about all the problems homelessness and homeless people cause in our community. Why don't you do something about it?" I'm not sure they see the contradiction but I certainly do. And so I continue to work on the issue of homelessness.
And I do it for the entire community- not just for those who are on the street. I do it because my compassion (which has oddly become a bad word among some people in Santa Cruz lately) includes concern for everyone who suffers from the existence of homelessness. That includes just about everyone. Obviously this includes people living in a variety of very difficult situations that share the label "homelessness." And it includes compassion for housed people who have to deal with a variety of challenges including public expense, business disruption, dirtying of public spaces and a variety of things that the legal world euphemistically calls "nuisance" behavior.
The reason I "take sides" at certain moments on this issue is that I have a visceral reaction to scapegoating groups that are vulnerable and groups that do not have much political influence. Since I deal with a lot of people dealing with homelessness, I am particularly senstive when I see them under attack. This does not mean I embrace or excuse bad things that homeless individuals do. And it does not mean that I believe every homeless service program is perfect. It means that I will resist efforts to punish a group for the bad acts of particular individuals in that group. And I will resist efforst to blame people who are making the community better simply because those people are not making the community perfect. And thus I wrote the letter below...
---
Dear Lynn
Thanks for your call on Thursday night… I appreciate that you let me know about your letter to Monica Martinez. As I mentioned, I had asked Monica to forward it to me a couple of weeks ago (soon after you told me about it) and I’ve had a chance to review it quite carefully. I especially appreciated the letter’s clarity expressing your specific concerns… because our recent meeting about these issues did not get to as much specificity as I had hoped.
As I mentioned to you in our phone call, I stepped down from the Board of Directors of HSC in February. I did that in large part because I have been working on a few different projects related to homeless issues and I was spreading myself too thin, especially in combination with my City work and my other employment. I also think it’s important for the community to know that when I speak about issues of homelessness in our community, I am not speaking on behalf of HSC. My focus is moving more and more to larger policy issues and I want to work primarily in that mode.
Having said that, I want to respond to the content of your letter and acknowledge that some of my response is informed by my knowledge about the work of HSC and its neighbor agencies stemming from my past work there.
In your letter, I found it particularly notable how authoritatively you spoke about HSC. This surprised me because of your statements to me at our meeting a couple of weeks ago where you specifically told me that it has been a very long time since you’ve actually visited the homeless programs located on Coral Street. I think this fact is indicates how your strong feelings about HSC are informed more by your personal perspective as to what is going on at the Coral Street “campus” rather than on a truly thorough examination of homelessness and homeless programs in Santa Cruz.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this is your apparent assumption the Homeless Services Center organization is solely responsible for the Coral Street campus. I think you are aware but failed to acknowledge that the Coral Street campus is shared by three organizations: the County Health Department’s Homeless Persons Health Project (HPHP); the Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center’s River Street Shelter; and the Homeless Services Center. Did you know this and chose to single out HSC… or did you forget to include the other organizations in your communications about the Coral Street area? It was particularly noteworthy that your letter described how Paul from HPHP was working with one of the people you had concerns about… and then blamed Monica and HSC (an organization completely separate from HPHP) for the alleged failure of Paul to solve the problem you wish he could solve. (I should also note here that there is probably no single individual in this community who has more constructively addressed the health issues of homeless individuals than Paul, who is a public health nurse with HPHP. You could not have picked a poorer person to single out. His work is exemplary by any standard and until you’ve learned more about the work he does and tried to do the kind of work he does, you would be well-advised to steer clear of mentioning his work in the negative way that you mentioned it.)
Next, I wonder if you are aware of the functions and activities of the Homeless Persons Health Project in general. More than 100 individuals drop into HPHP on a typical day. Did you know, for instance, that if a homeless person in the Santa Cruz area is interested in receiving help with their substance abuse problems, HPHP is the most appropriate place for that person to go for assistance? Since there is no other similar drop-in program designed for homeless persons with this problem, do you have a suggestion for where these persons should be going instead? I understand that you would like these folks to go to some other place in the county for assistance but there is no other such place right now. Soon there will be a new facility for HPHP in South County (which I think we agree will be a positive thing) and there will more of the jurisdictional sharing that you seek. But there will still be many homeless IV drug users in the Santa Cruz area (until there is a sea-change in funding for treatment and a dramatic reduction in the flow of heroin and meth into this area) and they will continue to seek help at the Coral Street clinic of HPHP.
Perhaps the most alarming assumption contained in your letter is the idea that HSC is primarily responsible for every homeless person in the vicinity of Coral Street. I believe this is based on the idea that HSC staff have tried to create a no-impact zone near its Coral Street location. I believe HSC staff has worked seriously toward this within the limited resources it has… because you and others have demanded that HSC take responsibility for this. I have always supported HSC’s effort to do this even though it pulls staff resources away from their primary function of safely serving homeless persons who come to HSC itself for services. However, I have also had reservations about your demand because, though the demand came from representatives from the City, it did not come with any new dollars from any funding source including the City. In fact, HSC’s funding from the City has fallen by about $100,000 during your time on the city council and you have supported that reduction. So, in other words, you want HSC to use funds the City Council has designated for meeting the basic needs of low-income people to patrol city streets and sidewalks and other people’s private property… and you want HSC to take on that extra burden with a lot less money.
I should also note that I had reservations about HSC taking on your demand for a no impact zone because I suspected that HSC did not have the legal authority and powerful tools that would be required to make it effective… thereby setting up HSC for failure and your subsequent criticism. That suspicion was certainly borne out by your letter. And, to add insult to injury, now you have randomly expanded the zone you expect HSC to “police” to an even greater area by throwing in a business on the other side of the Highway and a Costco driveway. I dare say that your placing expectations on locations so detached from the HSC campus made what was originally a dubious demand into an unreasonable one.
Even more to the point, since the “no impact” effort began, HSC staff members have been working very closely with the SCPD to protect the safety of both clients at the Coral Street property and in immediately adjacent areas. I am not aware of any way HSC has not cooperated fully with SCPD. HSC has also worked closely with the First Alarm security staff and, again, I’m not aware of any situation where HSC has not worked cooperatively with First Alarm. I am also not aware of any action you or other city officials have taken to deputize HSC staff to enforce local nuisance behavior and drug laws. If a person outside the property of the homeless programs at Coral Street is seen violating laws, what tools have you provided HSC staff to enforce those laws? I’m pretty sure the answer is that you (and the City in general) have provided the same tool to HSC staff that you have provided to every other community resident… you have given them the phone number to call the police. HSC staff does this on a regular basis just as you have asked. HSC has also continued to deny access to its programs by people who have violated the rules of HSC. (This has been HSC’s practice since long before you got involved.)
I’d like to go a bit further with you on the question of who is responsible for all the problematic behavior that some homeless individuals are involved in around the Harvey West district and the city in general. I’ll start with a bit of history… on two separate occasions I have been approached by key people dealing with Downtown issues asking me to encourage volunteers serving meals on the streets Downtown to stop doing this Downtown. On both occasions, I was able to get those volunteer groups to re-locate their meal programs to the Coral Street facility. This was applauded by both city officials and representatives of private businesses Downtown. In other words, HSC and its partners took on an extra burden at the request of the City because it knew that THE CITY ITSELF HAD THE RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE CONGREGATION OF HOMELESS PEOPLE IN PUBLIC LOCATIONS. That is still the case. Only City officials have the legal responsibility and authority to do this. HSC cannot walk Downtown and do anything to address problematic behavior of homeless persons. This is true in every public location in the city… the river levee, the parks, the Pogonip.
My point here (in the form of a question) is simply this: what are you, Lynn, doing to FULLY address this behavior in public spaces? I know you have tried different approaches and made some inroads but all the things you have proposed and supported have not eliminated this problematic behavior in these public places. Shall we cut funding from the Parks and Rec budget because there are still some homeless individuals perpetrating illegal and problematic behavior in Parks facilities? Shall we cut the Public Works budget because they cannot ensure that there are no homeless people gathering on their sidewalks? Shall we cut the Police budget because they have not eliminated crime among the homeless population? I think you know that we should not…and will not…make these cuts. The only question that remains unclear is this: Shall we cut our salaries because we have not eliminated problem behavior and illegal behavior in public locations entrusted to our care as City Councilmembers? I suspect the answer is “no” because we are both working pretty damned hard on a lot of difficult issues… and we don’t believe in punishing ourselves for our imperfect records… because we are still doing some good work.
I’d like to pose another question on a related topic: Have you been consistent with private property owners who have ongoing behavior problems related to homelessness? The first property that comes to mind is the rail line that runs through Harvey West and the Pogonip. Have you placed expectations on Roaring Camp and Big Trees Railway similar those placed on HSC? You specifically noted problems along the railroad tracks…yet you target HSC for responsibility when problems on the tracks have existed for decades… long before HSC existed. Is there a different standard? If so, what is the basis for that double standard? And if you do contact Roaring Camp in the future and they successfully cleared their railway property of problem behavior by nudging it to the nearby sidewalk, would you then approach them again to demand more because there is a problem NEAR their property? This seem to be how you have treated HSC… will you be taking the same approach with others?
There are properties all around Harvey West and other locations in Santa Cruz that have persistent overnight camping and gatherings of people who are behaving in ways similar to those described in your letter. Have you been putting the same pressure on these businesses and property owners to address these problems? If so, I hope you can fill me on how you are applying that same pressure. (Perhaps you could show me the letters you’ve sent them.) Of course, we all know that those property owners might try to rely on the currently favored approach of blaming HSC for everything (simply because it exists and is doing its job) and using that as an excuse for avoiding their share of responsibility. But legally, that is not how it works. If any property owner is allowing nuisance behavior to persist on his/her property, they are responsible for addressing it. HSC is meeting its responsibility by excluding people who break the rules or the law while on its property—and by calling the police as needed. That is what the City and police have expected of HSC. Now shall we penalize them for doing what we have asked?
At this point, I feel compelled to address the anecdote in your letter that demonstrates how far off the mark I think your entire message is. I refer to your recounting of the tale of the woman with prosthetic legs. Your city government, with your strong support (and my support, as well) has undertaken an ongoing program of cleaning out and removing encampments occupied by homeless individuals in and around our community. This woman was one of the homeless individuals living in that kind of situation who was displaced in one of those cleanups. So an action that you vigorously supported drove this woman into a more visible place in our community (and a more vulnerable situation). It is very troubling that you are blaming HSC because you are now seeing her out there in a visible location. The real question is what are YOU doing to help this woman who you have made more vulnerable by your actions? The answer appears to be that you are demanding that someone else deal with her—while at the same time consistently moving to reduce funding for one of the principal organizations that is trying mightily with limited resources to help her. Since you are a person of great compassion, how do you justify this?
Some of us have been working without any financial support from the City to expedite the 180-180 project in Santa Cruz. The woman with prosthetic legs has been surveyed by the 180-180 project and could possibly be housed through that project. But she won’t be housed sooner because your City (and mine) pushed her into an even more vulnerable situation. She will be housed because HSC and its partners and volunteers and supporters put together the resources - without your help - to make it possible. It is so disappointing to me that you would play the role you have played in making her more vulnerable and then expect someone else to clean up a problem you helped create.
It appears to be less than constructive that you would poke around these issues and these programs with such a lack of information and understanding. Do you really think that programs whose funding you have voted to cut should now be taking care of every needy person you see just because you make a phone call? Is this a responsible approach for an elected leader of this community? If and when the woman with prosthetic legs is housed and taken off the street safely, it will be because HSC has been working on this for months and it will happen in spite of your actions.
Your letter and your approach to these issues may end up impressing some people in the community with its “get tough” language and demands now that it seems to be coming to light. However, it will not impress many of us actually trying to help the most vulnerable and impoverished people in our community. If you want to dig in, as you said you will do in your “gardener” mode, I want to encourage you to plant some seeds of intelligent solutions rather than throwing around “enough is enough” language. Anyone in the community can express frustration and say “I’ve had it.” There are plenty of things that I can list around the community that I could say “I’ve had it” about. My view is that leaders move quickly past their frustration to identify thoughtful solutions based on good information. I know you have shown this kind of good leadership on other issues. So I’m looking forward to your thoughtful answers and suggestions that go beyond what I see right now as unfair and misdirected complaints on these Coral Street area issues.
Finally, despite the criticisms contained in this letter, I want to acknowledge how hard you are working on a range of important community safety issues. The community is definitely benefitting by much of your work. I hope you will recognize that I share your desire for a safe community. I simply cannot support particular approaches that are off-target and unfair and inadvertently play into the fear-based demands of some frustrated community members.
I respectfully request that you take the next step in your Coral Street efforts by answering the questions I raised in this letter. The questions may seem rhetorical in nature… but every one of them needs and has a real answer. I hope you will take the time to thoughtfully answer each one. In turn, I would be happy to answer any questions you have for me-- to the best of my ability -- about homeless issues and homeless services.
Thank you for considering my request…and for your continued service to Santa Cruz.
[signed] Don
Santa Cruz is attacking houseless people [link]
2013-04-16 "Pamela Comstock TBSC and further criminalization of homelessness"
Comment by HalJ:
I was reading an article the GoodTimes of SC had http://www.gtweekly.com/index.php/good-times-cover-stories/4701-the-reality-of-crime.html. For a local media account it's a reasonably well balanced summary of various forces and perception and history of crime in Santa Cruz.
In the article, Pamela Comstock, SC Councilwoman and TBSC co-founder shared her vision of the cause and solution to reducing crime in SC.
The cause? Too many liberals and liberal ideas in Santa Cruz. The solution? Deny homeless people services if they are arrested or EVEN CITED for an infraction.
That's right, from the article:
Comstock suggests a solution: create a contract that stipulates that if a person is accessing homeless services in the city, they must agree to not get arrested or cited for infractions. If they fail to abide by the terms, then they will no longer be eligible for the services. “This would change the perception that Santa Cruz is a haven for the homeless and that 'homeless' equals 'criminal,'” she says.
For a group, Take Back Santa Cruz TBSC that claims not to be against the homeless, I don't know how much more anti-homeless you can get than Pamela Comstock's so-called solution.
Since it's illegal to sleep in SC after 11pm and there are no shelters open (sans 20 beds) then any homeless person would risk losing access to ANY homeless services if they were merely cited by the police for basically being homeless.
That's just priceless and of course the TBSC mob will probably mobilize with torches and pitchforks in support of such a plan even though it means that without even the benefit of a trial or hearing Pamela Comstock and TBSC wants homeless people to be stripped of any rights and services.
2013-03-16 "Support Homeless Rights and Services--A Response to Councilmembers Robinson and Lane"
NOTE BY NORSE: Rouster-of-the-Wretched Lynn Robinson, until the election of Pamela Comstock, was the most reactionary member of the Santa Cruz City Council. Along with David Terrazas. Cynthia Mathews, and Hillary Bryant, Robinson has faithfully backed or initiated a steady stream of anti-homeless measures increasing criminal penalties for innocent behaviors like sitting on the sidewalk, sleeping outside at night (in a town with no alternatives for most), and peaceful sparechanging.
Last Sunday Robinson flung rhetorical acid at the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center [HLOSC] in a front-page story, attacking its funding, denouncing its management, and smearing its clientele.
For Robinson's rattlebrained roarings go to [www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_22807781/santa-cruz-vice-mayor-activists-question-city-funding].
Joining the gruesome chorus of bigotry orchestrated by Take Back Santa Cruz, Robinson championed further cutbacks in the vital needle exchange program and megaphoned the familiar right-wing merchant myth that Santa Cruz is a magnet for crime, violence, and danger because of its (alleged) tolerance of homeless people, drug abuse, poor people entitlements, and "weirdness".
Santa Cruz, in fact, with the collusion of self-described "liberals" like Don Lane (and former Council member Katherine Beiers) pioneered California anti-homeless laws in 1994 including the Sitting Ban, the Sparechanging Ban, & the Street Performing Ban. (The word "ban" is meant to suggest that police are given such broad prohibition powers that they can restrict, bully, harass, ticket, or arrest whomever they choose doing these activities--which they do.)
Santa Cruz has also instituted Permit Parking, banning the very existence of homeless vehicles (even when homeless aren't in them) during nighttime in hours in many neighborhoods. The City Council passed the notorious Parking Lot Panic law which bans anyone from reading a book, socializing, or--for that matter--changing a baby's diapers in their car in any of the city-owned parking lots. In the last few years, it has leveled nighttime curfews all over the city establishing forbidden zones at such traditionally public areas as City Hall, the Library grounds, the River, the Parks, and elsewhere.
As far as "drug tolerance", the City has crippled the voter-mandated Measure K, supposedly making recreational marijuana use in private for those over 21 the lowest priority, and its rates of marijuana arrests have been rising, not falling. The closed-door City Council putsch that shut down the effective and safe Needle Exchange program on Barson St. with no public debate or announcement was an abject surrender to the hysteria of the Take Back Santa Cruz/Clean Team crowd stoking rising hysteria over the needles found in their clean-up's (a relatively small number--400 over several months compared to the several hundred thousand picked up each year).
Instead of calling for a changed policy that moves away from the useless, costly, crime-producing, and rights-wrecking Drug War, the policy of the City Council is to throw more money at the SCPD. Instead of opening up more needle exchange sites and increasing funding and staff for clean-up's, City Council is buying into the absurd "Just Say No" stupidity once heralded by Nancy Reagan.
Now comes Vice-Mayor Lynn Robinson leading the pack of paranoids, denouncing the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center.
HUFF has harshly and persistently criticized abuses and leadership at the HLOSC. For not providing shelter other than for a fraction of the population. For not advocating for the rights of those outside. For not protecting disabled people from arbitrary decisions by their staff. For caving to anti-homeless bigotry of neighbors with their "no impact" zones (penalizing clients for simply seeking the right to use the public spaces as members of the public rather than as cringing abjects subject to the whims of neighborhood NIMBY's. For closing the center during the day to those who they're supposedly paid to serve. For refusing to replace vital storage lockers. And more.
But the HLOSC does provide two meals a day (unless they exclude you), does offer a (for-pay) mail service, and does provide a pick-up point for Armory Shelter in the winter as well as providing an entry point for other programs.
Council member Don Lane (whom I call satirically Gone Lame) has long been a booster and frequent Board of Directors member of the Homeless (Lack of) Services Center at 115 Coral St. He recently was Mayor and President of the Board of the HLOSC. And Robinson's toxic venom has upset him.
What is his response? Not a forthright "homeless people have rights and needs" statement. It wouldn't be credible to those who closely follow his record (and many don't, because his rhetoric is often impressive). but more to the point, he would actually have to take an unpopular stand in a city where bigotry, bullying, and police-worship is on the rise. That's something I don't remember his ever doing.
So instead he tells nearby businesses that it's their job to ramp up the war against the homeless in the nearby public spaces, not the HLOSC--which--get this--just doesn't have the money. Instead of mobilizing people who have long objected to police, merchant, and resident abuses against poor people outside, instead of championing the obvious--emergency campgrounds, public bathrooms, trash collection, and reform of the HLOSC (to make it more accessible and less a prison camp), he defends the group he's made his turf for the last decade. He attempts to "reason" with the wretched Robinson instead of exposing her libelous anecdotes and self-righteous bigotry. In essence, he is saying that he supports the war against the homeless, but they can't blame the HLOSC for not pursuing it vigorously enough because they don't have the money.
Aside from being fascistic and immoral, this tries to play pattycake with same unrealistic "drive the homeless away" approach. This approach targets the wrong people and institutions. It panders to "compassionate fatigue", "homeless enabling", "street culture = criminal behavior" "hyperpolice/vigilanteeism = increased security" and other all to familiar misleading stereotypes. it appears with the underlying phony distinctions between "our" homeless and the "other" homeless, between "the worthy poor" and "the crazies, druggies, criminals, and bums". The phony focus on needles, the Drug War, homeless camps, trash, are an attempt to vilify the homeless community. Wild exaggerations of conditions that conditions that exist in every city don't lead to more safety for the community and set the stage for an intensifying witchhunt against the homeless community--something Don Lane has watched without comment or objection for the last year.
Access to food, shelter, medical care, and equal treatment is a right we need to enforce. The reactionary fantasy that these exist in abundance in Santa Cruz is ridiculous to anyone who's ever been poor here. In so far as the HLOSC meets these needs and secures these rights, it needs to be supported. In so far as it fails, it needs to be held accountable, reformed, and/or replaced.
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2013-03-19 "Thoughts on my letter to Lynn Robinson concerning the Homeless Services Center" by Don Lane, City Councilmember for the City of Santa Cruz [http://santacruz.patch.com/blog_posts/thoughts-on-my-letter-to-lynn-robinson-concerning-the-homeless-services-center]:
I have been absent from posting to this blog for many months. Mainly I’ve been trying to cut back to 50 hour work weeks after being at more like 60 hours last year (during my term as mayor). I’ve also been nursing a herniated disk in my neck—which I hope will finally diminish as a problem after spinal surgery next week.
But I have been recently awakened from my slowdown -- first by the horrifying deaths of city police Detectives Baker and Butler --and then further by some of the disturbing reactions that have surfaced in the past few weeks (alongside the amazingly generous outpouring of support for our fallen officers that showed up around our community) in the form of troubling proposals to change some of the community’s policies.
One of these proposals struck me particularly hard because it went right to heart of the primary volunteer work I do, which is to support policies and programs to successfully address homelessness and homeless issues in our community.
This proposal played itself out when the local daily paper got its hands on a letter that my city council colleague, Santa Cruz Vice Mayor Lynn Robinson, wrote to the Executive Director of our local Homeless Services Center, Monica Martinez. As you will see below, her letter did not sit well with me. Though I originally saw the letter on February 27, I set it aside (in spite of my negative reaction to it) in recognition of our need to focus on mourning the deaths of Butch Baker and Elizabeth Butler. However, once the Sentinel reporter spoke to me about the letter (around March 13) and told me he was going to feature it in a newspaper story, I thought it was then appropriate to send a response to Lynn. It was also important for me to respond at that time because, that same week, Lynn also made a formal motion to cut funding for the Homeless Services Center at our city council meeting. And it lso appears that she quietly triggered a document search to see if she could find other ways to do things that I saw as undermining the work of HSC. In other words, Lynn did not just write a letter, she appeared to me to have begun a three-pronged “campaign” against HSC.
I'm sharing it here because many people communicated with me that my letter was referred to in a Sentinel article but it was not printed. They said they wanted to see it.
I don't often send letters like the one below. It is strongly worded and takes a very firm position on the issues involved. For people who know my work in the community, they will recognize that it takes a different tone than my typical tone. I normally try to work in the middle ground of controversial local issues. Though I am not trying to fool myself into believing I am always a neutral player, I usually try to quickly move past my own views to embrace the "controversy" and try to be a voice for bringing the divided participants together. This works for me most of the time. But not always.
There are some issues that cut deeper for me and then I discover my limits. One of those issues is immigration. My only daughter, who my wife and I adopted when she was 10, was born in Mexico and brought to the United States without proper immigration documents when she was a very young child. The rest of her life story is irrelevant to this essay, but the fact that the "group" she belongs to is regularly under attack in the politcal discourse of this country makes me very sensitive on these issues. I want to seek middle ground on immigration issues but I have especially little tolerance for hateful language around immigration issues. So my public comments and actions on this issue tend to be less measured.
My journey into the issue of homeless is a bit less personal but that journey has still been long and deep. I actually got involved about 25 years ago when I was invited to help resolve a conflict between the Downtown community and the City government on one side and a group of good samaritans and political advocates on the other side who were serving a daily meal to homeless individuals in a public space Downtown. (There's a bit more about this story in the letter below.) Suffice it to say that my mediation in this situation led to my assisting the meal-serving group to relocate away from Downtown and to a place where the meal could be served in a more orderly and safe situation.
Through that episode, I met some very caring and committed people and I started to learn more about the lives of local people living on the streets of our community. I got involved in starting the Homeless Community Resource Center and continue to this day in work that brings me into contact with homeless individuals and families and with those who work with those difficult-to-serve populations.
So the issue of homelessness is a big deal for me. I will not pretend that it is not personal after those many years of work. But its not just "personal." It is also something I have spent a lot of time learning about and working on as a community problem in the context of being a city councilmember. It is a problem that everyone in the community recognizes. As an aside, I should note here that I encounter many people who say two things almost simultaneously that I find very puzzling. First they say something like: "Don, why do you spend so much time focusing on homelessness and not focus enough on the rest of us taxpayers who are not homeless and who have important needs, too?" Then they say: "I am so upset about all the problems homelessness and homeless people cause in our community. Why don't you do something about it?" I'm not sure they see the contradiction but I certainly do. And so I continue to work on the issue of homelessness.
And I do it for the entire community- not just for those who are on the street. I do it because my compassion (which has oddly become a bad word among some people in Santa Cruz lately) includes concern for everyone who suffers from the existence of homelessness. That includes just about everyone. Obviously this includes people living in a variety of very difficult situations that share the label "homelessness." And it includes compassion for housed people who have to deal with a variety of challenges including public expense, business disruption, dirtying of public spaces and a variety of things that the legal world euphemistically calls "nuisance" behavior.
The reason I "take sides" at certain moments on this issue is that I have a visceral reaction to scapegoating groups that are vulnerable and groups that do not have much political influence. Since I deal with a lot of people dealing with homelessness, I am particularly senstive when I see them under attack. This does not mean I embrace or excuse bad things that homeless individuals do. And it does not mean that I believe every homeless service program is perfect. It means that I will resist efforts to punish a group for the bad acts of particular individuals in that group. And I will resist efforst to blame people who are making the community better simply because those people are not making the community perfect. And thus I wrote the letter below...
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Dear Lynn
Thanks for your call on Thursday night… I appreciate that you let me know about your letter to Monica Martinez. As I mentioned, I had asked Monica to forward it to me a couple of weeks ago (soon after you told me about it) and I’ve had a chance to review it quite carefully. I especially appreciated the letter’s clarity expressing your specific concerns… because our recent meeting about these issues did not get to as much specificity as I had hoped.
As I mentioned to you in our phone call, I stepped down from the Board of Directors of HSC in February. I did that in large part because I have been working on a few different projects related to homeless issues and I was spreading myself too thin, especially in combination with my City work and my other employment. I also think it’s important for the community to know that when I speak about issues of homelessness in our community, I am not speaking on behalf of HSC. My focus is moving more and more to larger policy issues and I want to work primarily in that mode.
Having said that, I want to respond to the content of your letter and acknowledge that some of my response is informed by my knowledge about the work of HSC and its neighbor agencies stemming from my past work there.
In your letter, I found it particularly notable how authoritatively you spoke about HSC. This surprised me because of your statements to me at our meeting a couple of weeks ago where you specifically told me that it has been a very long time since you’ve actually visited the homeless programs located on Coral Street. I think this fact is indicates how your strong feelings about HSC are informed more by your personal perspective as to what is going on at the Coral Street “campus” rather than on a truly thorough examination of homelessness and homeless programs in Santa Cruz.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this is your apparent assumption the Homeless Services Center organization is solely responsible for the Coral Street campus. I think you are aware but failed to acknowledge that the Coral Street campus is shared by three organizations: the County Health Department’s Homeless Persons Health Project (HPHP); the Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center’s River Street Shelter; and the Homeless Services Center. Did you know this and chose to single out HSC… or did you forget to include the other organizations in your communications about the Coral Street area? It was particularly noteworthy that your letter described how Paul from HPHP was working with one of the people you had concerns about… and then blamed Monica and HSC (an organization completely separate from HPHP) for the alleged failure of Paul to solve the problem you wish he could solve. (I should also note here that there is probably no single individual in this community who has more constructively addressed the health issues of homeless individuals than Paul, who is a public health nurse with HPHP. You could not have picked a poorer person to single out. His work is exemplary by any standard and until you’ve learned more about the work he does and tried to do the kind of work he does, you would be well-advised to steer clear of mentioning his work in the negative way that you mentioned it.)
Next, I wonder if you are aware of the functions and activities of the Homeless Persons Health Project in general. More than 100 individuals drop into HPHP on a typical day. Did you know, for instance, that if a homeless person in the Santa Cruz area is interested in receiving help with their substance abuse problems, HPHP is the most appropriate place for that person to go for assistance? Since there is no other similar drop-in program designed for homeless persons with this problem, do you have a suggestion for where these persons should be going instead? I understand that you would like these folks to go to some other place in the county for assistance but there is no other such place right now. Soon there will be a new facility for HPHP in South County (which I think we agree will be a positive thing) and there will more of the jurisdictional sharing that you seek. But there will still be many homeless IV drug users in the Santa Cruz area (until there is a sea-change in funding for treatment and a dramatic reduction in the flow of heroin and meth into this area) and they will continue to seek help at the Coral Street clinic of HPHP.
Perhaps the most alarming assumption contained in your letter is the idea that HSC is primarily responsible for every homeless person in the vicinity of Coral Street. I believe this is based on the idea that HSC staff have tried to create a no-impact zone near its Coral Street location. I believe HSC staff has worked seriously toward this within the limited resources it has… because you and others have demanded that HSC take responsibility for this. I have always supported HSC’s effort to do this even though it pulls staff resources away from their primary function of safely serving homeless persons who come to HSC itself for services. However, I have also had reservations about your demand because, though the demand came from representatives from the City, it did not come with any new dollars from any funding source including the City. In fact, HSC’s funding from the City has fallen by about $100,000 during your time on the city council and you have supported that reduction. So, in other words, you want HSC to use funds the City Council has designated for meeting the basic needs of low-income people to patrol city streets and sidewalks and other people’s private property… and you want HSC to take on that extra burden with a lot less money.
I should also note that I had reservations about HSC taking on your demand for a no impact zone because I suspected that HSC did not have the legal authority and powerful tools that would be required to make it effective… thereby setting up HSC for failure and your subsequent criticism. That suspicion was certainly borne out by your letter. And, to add insult to injury, now you have randomly expanded the zone you expect HSC to “police” to an even greater area by throwing in a business on the other side of the Highway and a Costco driveway. I dare say that your placing expectations on locations so detached from the HSC campus made what was originally a dubious demand into an unreasonable one.
Even more to the point, since the “no impact” effort began, HSC staff members have been working very closely with the SCPD to protect the safety of both clients at the Coral Street property and in immediately adjacent areas. I am not aware of any way HSC has not cooperated fully with SCPD. HSC has also worked closely with the First Alarm security staff and, again, I’m not aware of any situation where HSC has not worked cooperatively with First Alarm. I am also not aware of any action you or other city officials have taken to deputize HSC staff to enforce local nuisance behavior and drug laws. If a person outside the property of the homeless programs at Coral Street is seen violating laws, what tools have you provided HSC staff to enforce those laws? I’m pretty sure the answer is that you (and the City in general) have provided the same tool to HSC staff that you have provided to every other community resident… you have given them the phone number to call the police. HSC staff does this on a regular basis just as you have asked. HSC has also continued to deny access to its programs by people who have violated the rules of HSC. (This has been HSC’s practice since long before you got involved.)
I’d like to go a bit further with you on the question of who is responsible for all the problematic behavior that some homeless individuals are involved in around the Harvey West district and the city in general. I’ll start with a bit of history… on two separate occasions I have been approached by key people dealing with Downtown issues asking me to encourage volunteers serving meals on the streets Downtown to stop doing this Downtown. On both occasions, I was able to get those volunteer groups to re-locate their meal programs to the Coral Street facility. This was applauded by both city officials and representatives of private businesses Downtown. In other words, HSC and its partners took on an extra burden at the request of the City because it knew that THE CITY ITSELF HAD THE RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE CONGREGATION OF HOMELESS PEOPLE IN PUBLIC LOCATIONS. That is still the case. Only City officials have the legal responsibility and authority to do this. HSC cannot walk Downtown and do anything to address problematic behavior of homeless persons. This is true in every public location in the city… the river levee, the parks, the Pogonip.
My point here (in the form of a question) is simply this: what are you, Lynn, doing to FULLY address this behavior in public spaces? I know you have tried different approaches and made some inroads but all the things you have proposed and supported have not eliminated this problematic behavior in these public places. Shall we cut funding from the Parks and Rec budget because there are still some homeless individuals perpetrating illegal and problematic behavior in Parks facilities? Shall we cut the Public Works budget because they cannot ensure that there are no homeless people gathering on their sidewalks? Shall we cut the Police budget because they have not eliminated crime among the homeless population? I think you know that we should not…and will not…make these cuts. The only question that remains unclear is this: Shall we cut our salaries because we have not eliminated problem behavior and illegal behavior in public locations entrusted to our care as City Councilmembers? I suspect the answer is “no” because we are both working pretty damned hard on a lot of difficult issues… and we don’t believe in punishing ourselves for our imperfect records… because we are still doing some good work.
I’d like to pose another question on a related topic: Have you been consistent with private property owners who have ongoing behavior problems related to homelessness? The first property that comes to mind is the rail line that runs through Harvey West and the Pogonip. Have you placed expectations on Roaring Camp and Big Trees Railway similar those placed on HSC? You specifically noted problems along the railroad tracks…yet you target HSC for responsibility when problems on the tracks have existed for decades… long before HSC existed. Is there a different standard? If so, what is the basis for that double standard? And if you do contact Roaring Camp in the future and they successfully cleared their railway property of problem behavior by nudging it to the nearby sidewalk, would you then approach them again to demand more because there is a problem NEAR their property? This seem to be how you have treated HSC… will you be taking the same approach with others?
There are properties all around Harvey West and other locations in Santa Cruz that have persistent overnight camping and gatherings of people who are behaving in ways similar to those described in your letter. Have you been putting the same pressure on these businesses and property owners to address these problems? If so, I hope you can fill me on how you are applying that same pressure. (Perhaps you could show me the letters you’ve sent them.) Of course, we all know that those property owners might try to rely on the currently favored approach of blaming HSC for everything (simply because it exists and is doing its job) and using that as an excuse for avoiding their share of responsibility. But legally, that is not how it works. If any property owner is allowing nuisance behavior to persist on his/her property, they are responsible for addressing it. HSC is meeting its responsibility by excluding people who break the rules or the law while on its property—and by calling the police as needed. That is what the City and police have expected of HSC. Now shall we penalize them for doing what we have asked?
At this point, I feel compelled to address the anecdote in your letter that demonstrates how far off the mark I think your entire message is. I refer to your recounting of the tale of the woman with prosthetic legs. Your city government, with your strong support (and my support, as well) has undertaken an ongoing program of cleaning out and removing encampments occupied by homeless individuals in and around our community. This woman was one of the homeless individuals living in that kind of situation who was displaced in one of those cleanups. So an action that you vigorously supported drove this woman into a more visible place in our community (and a more vulnerable situation). It is very troubling that you are blaming HSC because you are now seeing her out there in a visible location. The real question is what are YOU doing to help this woman who you have made more vulnerable by your actions? The answer appears to be that you are demanding that someone else deal with her—while at the same time consistently moving to reduce funding for one of the principal organizations that is trying mightily with limited resources to help her. Since you are a person of great compassion, how do you justify this?
Some of us have been working without any financial support from the City to expedite the 180-180 project in Santa Cruz. The woman with prosthetic legs has been surveyed by the 180-180 project and could possibly be housed through that project. But she won’t be housed sooner because your City (and mine) pushed her into an even more vulnerable situation. She will be housed because HSC and its partners and volunteers and supporters put together the resources - without your help - to make it possible. It is so disappointing to me that you would play the role you have played in making her more vulnerable and then expect someone else to clean up a problem you helped create.
It appears to be less than constructive that you would poke around these issues and these programs with such a lack of information and understanding. Do you really think that programs whose funding you have voted to cut should now be taking care of every needy person you see just because you make a phone call? Is this a responsible approach for an elected leader of this community? If and when the woman with prosthetic legs is housed and taken off the street safely, it will be because HSC has been working on this for months and it will happen in spite of your actions.
Your letter and your approach to these issues may end up impressing some people in the community with its “get tough” language and demands now that it seems to be coming to light. However, it will not impress many of us actually trying to help the most vulnerable and impoverished people in our community. If you want to dig in, as you said you will do in your “gardener” mode, I want to encourage you to plant some seeds of intelligent solutions rather than throwing around “enough is enough” language. Anyone in the community can express frustration and say “I’ve had it.” There are plenty of things that I can list around the community that I could say “I’ve had it” about. My view is that leaders move quickly past their frustration to identify thoughtful solutions based on good information. I know you have shown this kind of good leadership on other issues. So I’m looking forward to your thoughtful answers and suggestions that go beyond what I see right now as unfair and misdirected complaints on these Coral Street area issues.
Finally, despite the criticisms contained in this letter, I want to acknowledge how hard you are working on a range of important community safety issues. The community is definitely benefitting by much of your work. I hope you will recognize that I share your desire for a safe community. I simply cannot support particular approaches that are off-target and unfair and inadvertently play into the fear-based demands of some frustrated community members.
I respectfully request that you take the next step in your Coral Street efforts by answering the questions I raised in this letter. The questions may seem rhetorical in nature… but every one of them needs and has a real answer. I hope you will take the time to thoughtfully answer each one. In turn, I would be happy to answer any questions you have for me-- to the best of my ability -- about homeless issues and homeless services.
Thank you for considering my request…and for your continued service to Santa Cruz.
[signed] Don
Monday, April 15, 2013
Barbarian Brotherhood (Santa Rosa)
"Santa Rosa Police Warn Of White Supremacist Gang"
2013-04-15 by Susan Kennedy from "CBS SF Bay Area" [http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/04/15/santa-rosa-police-warn-of-white-supremacist-gang/]:
Aaron Joseph Welch (Lake County Sheriff’s Office)
SANTA ROSA (KCBS) – North Bay law enforcement agencies are becoming increasingly concerned about a white supremacist gang which appears to be growing both in terms of size and territory, according to the Santa Rosa Police Department.
The Barbarian Brotherhood is believed to be most deeply rooted in Santa Rosa, thought it appears its membership has extended all over Sonoma County and now includes Lake, Mendocino, Napa and Marin Counties, as well as the state’s prison system, said Santa Rosa Police Dept. Sgt. John Cregan.
“We’ve seen with our gang crimes team a significant increase in their organization, their sophistication, and the crimes that they have been involved in,” said Cregan.
Sgt. Cregaan estimates there are 200 members of the Barbarian Brotherhood, and as the rank and file grows, he believes newer members may attempt violent, racist acts to prove their loyalty to the gang’s higher ups.
“You have older, more sophisticated individuals that are coming together as a group to commit criminal acts and because of that sophistication I think they can really be a lot more dangerous and be a lot more of a threat to the community. And that’s why we’ve particularly given this group so much focus,” said Cregan.
A handful of Barbarian Brotherhood members have been convicted over the years of drug trafficking, illegal gun possession and other crimes. Most recently, a 26-year-old Clearlake man, Aaron Joseph Welch, was sentenced to 15-years in prison in the assault and stabbing of two African American men last August at a Santa Rosa McDonald’s.
Another alleged Barbarian Brotherhood member, 32-year-old Salvatore Bordessa of Windsor, faces 16 years to life in prison if convicted in the assault.
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Comments:
Beacon of Truth:
This story is large on conclusions, short on facts. It seems to be aimed at vilifying whites. I am reminded of the story about the "Aryan Brotherhood" killing prosecutors in Texas - later discredited when it was shown that a former judge, his wife, and a former police officer were actually behind the killings. Can you say "propaganda?"
Artoo45 > Beacon of Truth:
No, it's vilifying white supremacist racists. Is that a problem?
Beacon of Truth > Artoo45:
The problem as I stated initially, is that this story is large on conclusions, short on facts. It is 95% speculation. For example, the sentence beginning “Sgt. Cregaan estimates…” does not lead to the discovery of any true fact. Yet I suspect that the less cognitively gifted (yourself perhaps?) is left with the impression that Sgt. Cregaan’s estimates are fact. If they were fact, it would have been so stated.
Only two individuals – hardly indicative of a crime wave - are mentioned specifically. The rest of the story is conjecture. There have been more black on white assaults (the media calls it a “game”) this month than those reported here.
Yellow journalism is alive and well in America.
Instructions for Homeless Self-Defense
Defend those without homes! campaign page [link]
Santa Cruz is attacking houseless people [link]
2013-04-15 "Four Flyers For Homeless Self-Defense"
by Robert Norse [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/15/18735243.php]:
The flyers are largely self-explanatory and suggest a number of avenues for self-defense for homeless people in Santa Cruz. Now that even the much-criticized and fractional Armory Winter Shelter program has ended. homeless people face not only police harassment during the day in parks, on the beaches, and downtown, but also at night under the city's Sleeping Ban and possibly the state code 647e. HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) meets Wednesday at the regular time to continue discussing immediate survival camp prospects, copwatch, and thugwatch.
Recent confrontations between homeless groups and individuals in groups reportedly identifying themselves as "East Siders", where the latter have assaulted, beaten, and maced the former make the need for homeless people to band together particularly important. Also important is the need to document encounters both for later community education, but also for immediate self-defense. "You're being filmed" can be an important deterent, especially if the signal is being uploaded in real time. Both against police misconduct and vigilante violence.
Community members are invited to help homeless people plan self-defensive strategies at the Sub Rosa Cafe 10 AM Wednesday April 17 at 703 Pacific.
I wrote the "Fight Vigilante and Police Violence" as well as the shorter "Get a Receipt" flyer.
The "Arm the Homeless" flyer was written by a Homes Not Jails member.
The information sheet is provided courtesy of WRAP (Western Regional Advocacy Project).'
Download and distribute. If you need moral support, some of us may be going out to the Homeless Lack of Services Center Wednesday around noon to help those sign up on the waiting list.
Time to Bring Back Santa Cruz--the Santa Cruz that will respect human rights for all!
See our own anti-homeless laws at [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/08/29/18657087.php] ("Deadly Downtown Ordinances--Updated").
Santa Cruz is attacking houseless people [link]
by Robert Norse [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/15/18735243.php]:
The flyers are largely self-explanatory and suggest a number of avenues for self-defense for homeless people in Santa Cruz. Now that even the much-criticized and fractional Armory Winter Shelter program has ended. homeless people face not only police harassment during the day in parks, on the beaches, and downtown, but also at night under the city's Sleeping Ban and possibly the state code 647e. HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) meets Wednesday at the regular time to continue discussing immediate survival camp prospects, copwatch, and thugwatch.
Recent confrontations between homeless groups and individuals in groups reportedly identifying themselves as "East Siders", where the latter have assaulted, beaten, and maced the former make the need for homeless people to band together particularly important. Also important is the need to document encounters both for later community education, but also for immediate self-defense. "You're being filmed" can be an important deterent, especially if the signal is being uploaded in real time. Both against police misconduct and vigilante violence.
Community members are invited to help homeless people plan self-defensive strategies at the Sub Rosa Cafe 10 AM Wednesday April 17 at 703 Pacific.
I wrote the "Fight Vigilante and Police Violence" as well as the shorter "Get a Receipt" flyer.
The "Arm the Homeless" flyer was written by a Homes Not Jails member.
The information sheet is provided courtesy of WRAP (Western Regional Advocacy Project).'
Download and distribute. If you need moral support, some of us may be going out to the Homeless Lack of Services Center Wednesday around noon to help those sign up on the waiting list.
Time to Bring Back Santa Cruz--the Santa Cruz that will respect human rights for all!
See our own anti-homeless laws at [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/08/29/18657087.php] ("Deadly Downtown Ordinances--Updated").
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