Winter is Coming - Stop Persecuting the Homeless!

To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the Berkeley City Council

The Peace and Justice Commission wrote you last year on December 7, on the threat that the coming winter posed to homeless Berkeleyans. We pointed out that a homeless man in San Jose had already frozen to death a few days earlier.

A year later, another winter is coming. Recently, four homeless people have died in Berkeley, one outdoors, and three from the accumulated effects of protracted exposure.

As we said last year, the City’s immediate focus must be on saving lives. Shelter capacity was grossly insufficient even before the destruction of the Storm Shelter in a church fire last month. In this shelter emergency, we call again for a halt to the eviction of outdoor occupations and encampments.

Homelessness is a national and international phenomenon. Nowhere in the world is it the appropriate solution to drive the indigent, ill, disabled, families, and seniors from place to place, using legal and police power.

The sight of homeless encampments may be disturbing, but part of what it disturbs is our consciences: that we live in a society that creates millions of homeless nationally and well over a thousand just in Berkeley.

Once again: stop the evictions and the dispersal orders. This is neither radical nor unprecedented; Oakland has sanctioned a tent community at 35th and Peralta. Stop the confiscation of meager belongings, which are often not to be seen again. Instead, supply basic human and hygienic needs such as sanitation, tents, and storage.

Work with homeless leaders, advocates, and service providers to facilitate a safe and secure street situation, while work goes forward on tiny homes, shelter, and permanent housing solutions. In that vein, we urge you to pass item #38a, the Homeless Commission proposal to enable Tiny Homes for homeless people, and item #41, Council Member Arreguin’s five-point proposal for emergency shelter. Berkeley’s residents reject those on the national stage who demonize the poor, people of color, and immigrants, those whose solution is to build walls to divide people. We prefer to build bridges and to lift each other up. Let us show this nation our better way.

Sincerely,

City of Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission

C.f. http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Burgeoning-homeless-camps-stymie-Oakland-leaders-9158463.php