Health, Housing, & Public Services News

On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives took to the streets to demand that their lives and safety become a priority, and that gun violence comes to an end. Northern California is marched in solidarity. The national mission statement declared: March For Our Lives is created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings that has become all too familiar. In the tragic wake of the seventeen lives brutally cut short in Florida, politicians are telling us that now is not the time to talk about guns. March For Our Lives believes the time is now.

Movement for Housing Justice writes: Renters and community - Come out to the city council meeting next Tuesday to defend the rent freeze! Right now the city isn't enforcing our badly needed short term freeze on rents and eviction protections. They expect renters to take landlords to court to enforce the law if our rents are increased unfairly or we are unjustly evicted. They say it's a budgeting issue but we know that this is an issue of priorities. Let's remind the city council that 60% percent of Santa Cruz is renters. Our housing rights are non negotiable!

On March 8, protesters gathered in front of Visa headquarters in Foster City. They called on the credit card company to block sales of assault weapons. Shortly after they delivered 150,000 signatures on a petition to company representatives, VISA issued a statement to the press saying “We do not believe Visa should be in the position of setting restrictions on the sale of lawful goods and services." Protestors returned to renew their demands one week later.

A sticker carrying imagery encouraging violence against houseless people and drug addicted people was recently found on a crosswalk button in downtown Santa Cruz. The sticker reads "Street Cleaner: Santa Cruz Meth Head Cleansing Project – Santa Cruz" and is marked with the hashtag #131stickers. It depicts a silhouette of a skinny person wearing a backpack, with a cigarette in their mouth, an open hand stretched out, and a “Tweaker” flag hanging out of the backpack. Laid over the image of this person are the crosshairs of a telescopic rifle sight.

On March 10, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and other housing activists kicked off the campaign in the Bay Area for the Affordable Housing Act — a proposed ballot initiative that that will give cities and counties the power to adopt rent control measures necessary to address California's housing affordability crisis by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. For the November 2018 ballot, the deadline for collection of 585,000 signatures statewide is May.

After a decline during the Great Recession, bottled water sales are back and bigger than ever — even eclipsing soda sales for the first time in 2016. But people buying bottled water might not be aware that it’s nearly 2,000 times more expensive than tap water and four times more expensive than regular-grade gasoline. In its latest report on the impacts of the bottled water industry, Food & Water Watch looks at the industry’s predatory marketing, the extraction of communities’ water resources, and the powerhouse lobbying of bottled water corporations.

Bob M writes: In the wake of the Stoneman Douglas shooting, the high school students at that school and across the country are calling for a walkout on March 24 and again on April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting in 1999. The students are calling for national leaders to listen to them, but as of yet they do not have demands other than getting AR-15s "out of the hands of people who should not have them." Many radicals still hold strong to the important point that de-arming must start with the cops and military, and not take away self-defense from oppressed communities.

Maria Anderson is one of many tenants facing eviction from eight units in two apartment buildings at 2661 and 2651 Fresno Street in Capitola. The buildings were sold to a house flipper registered in Morgan Hill. The buyer — Charity Homes, LLC — is owned by John Francisco Paiva who, according to a 2014 press release from the San Jose Real Estate Investment Club, is a former executive with Cisco Systems and has acted as the full time president of Charity Rehabbers, LLC since 2013. Soon after the purchase cleared, each apartment in the two buildings received 60-day eviction notices.

The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty released a report, Tent City USA: The Growth of America’s Homeless Encampments and How Communities are Responding, reviewing the rapid growth of homeless people living in tents across the United States over the past decade, as measured by documentation in media reports. Research showed a 1,342 percent increase in homeless encampments reported between 2007 and 2017, with at least one encampment reported in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. As encampments become increasingly common, local governments have enacted laws to prohibit living in tents.

Frances Moore, affectionately known by those around her as Aunti Frances, is a beloved Black disabled activist, elder, Black Panther and community leader who has lived in North Oakland/South Berkeley her entire life. She now faces a no-fault eviction at the hands of Natalia Morphy and Morphy’s parents, who are exploiting a notorious loophole in Oakland renter protections for their own personal gain. The attempts to evict Aunti Frances signal that Oakland’s redevelopment is moving forward without care and consideration for its longtime residents and community members. A court support breakfast rally will be held on Wednesday, February 21.

A broad-based coalition of community organizations and activists is championing a renter protection ballot initiative for the City of Santa Cruz on the November ballot. The initiative includes rent stabilization, eviction protections, and the formation of an elected “Rent Board” which will handle the regulation of rent prices and evictions. The rent control campaign kickoff will begin with a party at the Resource Center for Nonviolence on Sunday, February 11.

Approximately 4.4 million gallons of untreated wastewater flowed into the waters of Monterey Bay through an ocean outfall discharge pipe 2.5 miles offshore, the result of an “equipment control failure” at the Monterey One Water Regional Treatment Plant in Marina on January 19 and 20. In response, the Monterey County Health Department issued beach closures from Moss Landing to Stillwater Cove. All Monterey County Beaches have been posted with a rain advisory due to the current weather. The public is advised not to have ocean water contact for three days after the rain event on January 22. The department warns that contact with contaminated water may cause gastroenteritis and other waterborne illnesses.

For the fourth year in a row, the Anti Police-Terror Project has called for 96 Hours of action over the King Day Weekend. From Friday, January 12 through Monday, January 15, people will take to the streets in a series of direct actions, vigils, rallies and film screenings. The weekend concludes with the Reclaiming Kings Radical Legacy March on Monday beginning at 14th and Broadway. Friday's actions address State-Sponsored Violence; Saturday's confront the Housing crisis; Sunday's focus on Indigenous/International Solidarity; and Monday, "We reclaim the Radical legacy of MLK."

According to a report by the Urban Displacement Project of UC Berkeley, between 2013 and 2015 the pace of gentrification and displacement in Northern California accelerated most quickly in Oakland’s low-income neighborhoods. Skyrocketing rents reveal the need for strong rent control and just cause eviction protections in Oakland and throughout the Bay Area. According to the New York Times, Oakland’s median rent during 2016 was among the highest in the nation, just short of the median rent in Manhattan. During August of 2017, the average market rate rent for a one bedroom unit was $2,400 per month in Oakland, but since then according to Zillow the current median rent in Oakland is up to $3,000 per month.