City escalates effort against camping-ban protestors, event attracts variety of supporters

"Where are we supposed to go? After we're run off somewhere, where do we go?" was the question asked by Lisa, a houseless person present in the city hall plaza at this week's recurring Santa Cruz camping ban protest. Santa Cruz's camping ban, present in the law since 1978, makes it illegal for someone to sleep outdoors in the city using any kind of sleeping gear. Blankets, tarps, sleeping bags, and tents are all included in this ban. The protestors here, now in their eighth week of the ongoing demonstration, say that the ban unfairly targets unhoused people and is used to make them unwelcome in Santa Cruz.

And they do feel unwelcome. "It's overwhelming," said Lisa, "there are no basic services for us. I stopped going to work because can't get a shower, don't have anywhere to store my things." It's the loss of basic services like showers and simple meals that started these protests. Earlier this year, budget cuts to the Homeless Services Center on River Street led the to the organization's choice to close down such services to people not living on site. The local chapter of Food Not Bombs - an international activist group that supplies free vegan food to protests and progressive causes - in partnership with the group Homeless United in Freedom and Friendship organized several breakfast servings at the corner of River and Highway 1 to draw public attention, but were unsuccessful in seeing the cuts reversed. Now folks like Lisa are crippled in their ability to work, store their belongings safely, and even keep themselves clean.

The city is certainly not making things easy for this current protest camp. There has been a regular police presence that arrives each night near midnight to ticket people sleeping in the plaza, generally for being in a park after hours or for blocking a sidewalk. This most recent campout saw a visit from fourteen officers of the Santa Cruz Police Department, who wrote out fifteen tickets and made two arrests of protestors who refused to sign their citations. The officers were more aggressive than they have so far been in these protests, yanking blankets and tarps off of sleepers and ticketing without warning. In addition, the city covered parking meters by the city hall plaza and set up three police-rented sets of floodlights that they trained on the protest site. The lights ran on smoky, roaring generators for the entire night. Local activist Steve Pleich recalled these same tactics used by the city during Peace Camp 2010, an earlier protest camp directed against the camping ban.

The protest draws a variety of people from the city. One sleeper, Fred, ticketed earlier in the night for playing amplified music from his own car "without a permit," shared his story wholeheartedly. Fred is a 3 year veteran of the US Army who served in Panama City as an intelligence officer during the Vietnam era and currently lives out of his car with his three dogs. Corwyn is a Saint Bernard, Moustache a terrier mix, and Lukie a Chihuahua mix. Fred credited the dogs with being his best friends and said they save his life every day. He's got an ingrained sense of humor and sarcasm that he said comes from his upbringing in New York, just outside of the Bronx. Fred made a little light of his ticket when told the name of the officer that wrote him up. "Winston," he laughed,"tastes good like a cigarette should!" recalling the advertising slogan. He's got a serious attitude towards the situation of houseless folks like himself though. Recounting his experiences being ticketed or shoved along from a sleep spot, he growled "I want to tell the judge, put on a homeless person's clothes and go to downtown Santa Cruz and you will be absolutely appalled. The police treat you with absolute disrespect."

Another sleeper present was Frank Lopez, who is registered with the housing facilities at the Homeless Services Center, but still came out in support of the protests. Frank has had a long history of involvement in social causes. He was a Brown Beret with the United Farmworkers through the 1960s and participated in protests against Safeway grocery stores, as well as a caravan drive through California to provide food, clothing, and medical supplies to undocumented farmworkers. Also present were a young couple, Adam and Rein, who were actually attracted to the site when they saw the enormous lights. They had no idea the protests had been going on, but stopped on a detour taken to avoid a one-way street. They expressed some concerns that the site was so out of the way, and would have liked to see more people present.

Perhaps all these people will be at the next sleepout, on Tuesday, September 8. The organizers are welcoming food, clothing, sleeping gear, and monetary donations, and encouraging folks to come out and learn more about the challenges facing unhoused people in Santa Cruz.