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CREATED:20150616T032300Z
DESCRIPTION:Berkeley’s new anti-poor laws come to the Berkeley City Council on 
 Tuesday, June 30, 2015. That’s the bad news. The City Council can 
 squabble over the wording, suggest amendments, or even vote them down, but 
 several weeks ago, on March 17, they voted for this set of anti-homeless 
 laws by a 6-3 majority, and indicated their willingness to make it a crime 
 to use a blanket between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., to panhandle near a 
 parking meter, and even to put down one’s belongings on or near a 
 planter. \n\nThese restrictions target poor and homeless people. No one 
 else struggles with carrying belongings and bedding with them wherever they 
 go. No one else risks committing a crime by resting or covering up with an 
 outlawed blanket. No one else risks losing everything they own if they even 
 use a bathroom for a moment. \n\nInstead of addressing the need for shelter 
 beds, low-income housing, public campgrounds, a moratorium on luxury 
 housing, and storage space for victims of skyrocketing evictions, the City 
 Council majority might, at its meeting on June 30, add to Berkeley’s 
 embarrassingly massive edifice of already existing anti-poor laws. \n\nWe 
 can stop them. We did it decade after decade in the 1980s, the 1990s, and 
 most recently, in the 2012 election when a ridiculous anti-sitting law went 
 down to resounding defeat by Berkeley voters, a measure that had been 
 “sweetened” with promises of funding for various charities and 
 non-profits. But Berkeley citizens were not fooled. \n\nLet’s stop them 
 now. The best way to stop them is at the Berkeley City Council meeting on 
 June 30. While an overwhelming majority of speakers at the council meeting 
 on March 17 strongly opposed this battery of anti-homeless laws, the few 
 voices that spoke in support of the new anti-poor laws all cited behavior 
 which is already illegal: assault, drug use, smoke-free violations, etc. 
 The City Council majority knows this. It is struggling to find the backbone 
 to tell its wealthy campaign donors that pointlessly hassling the poor is 
 not its top priority, but it can’t quite find the strength. \n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/06/15/18773562.php
SUMMARY:Stop the Anti-Poor Laws in Berkeley - City Council Meeting
LOCATION:Berkeley City Council Chambers, 2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/06/15/18773562.php
DTSTART:20150701T020000Z
DTEND:20150701T040000Z
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