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Indybay Feature

Safe Sleeping Zone at Freedom SleepOut #14? Why not make it official!

Date:
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Time:
3:00 PM - 3:00 AM
Event Type:
Protest
Organizer/Author:
Keith McHenry (posting by Norse)
Email:
Phone:
575-770-3377
Location Details:
809 Center St.--In and Around City Hall During and After the Tuesday City Council Meeting

The actual time will be Tuesday afternoon, evening, and Wednesday morning--with coffee to be available in the morning.

WHY FREEDOM SLEEPOUT #14
For more than 3 months, Freedom Sleepers have held weekly food-sharing and sleeper protection to mobilize the community to end the City's institutional hate crime of criminalizing homeless people if they fall asleep at night or seek to protect themselves with camping gear.

In a City with 1000-2000 homeless (and a County with far more), the Comstock-Mathews Santa Cruz City Council majority has declined to reopen closed shelter space and kept sleeping for the poor at night a crime--in vehicles or outside.

Repression against protesters and city-wide citations and stay-away orders against homeless sleepers continues in spite of Department of Justice statements that such behavior is unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment (Bell v. Boise Statement of Interest).

The threat of HUD funding cut off for cities that don't decriminalize homelessness may have some impact, but even liberal Councilmembers have remained silent instead of inspiring support to end Santa Cruz's Legacy of Shame.

WE URGE COUNCIL TO OFFICIALLY DECLARE THE SIDEWALKS AROUND CITY HALL A SAFE SLEEPING ZONE

IT'S ALREADY HAPPENING
The 14th Weekly Freedom Sleep-Out will invite the community and City Council to declare the sidewalks around and near City Hall "Safe Sleeping Zones".

Perhaps to avoid a blatant record of repression around the specific MC 6.36 which criminalizes homeless survival sleeping at night, police have notably given out no citations for camping or sleeping at the protest.

They have ticketed for "being in a park after closing hours', 'jaywalking', "failure to sign a ticket", and other such harassment "crimes". But almost without exception folks sleeping on the sidewalk have not been cited.

This has led Freedom Sleepers to invite the Community and City Council to officially declare the sidewalks around City Hall a "Safe (from Citations) Sleeping Area"--since no such area currently exists for hundreds and hundreds of people.

We invite housed (and unhoused) folks to join us Tuesday night in solidarity, to witness, and to document the proposed Safe Sleeping Zone.

CITY COUNCIL'S ABOMINABLE AFTERNOON AGENDA
City Council's afternoon agenda impacting folks outside includes Preparation for the Winter Storm Event--El Nino (Item #11); Banning RV's From Parking in Any Spots the City Engineer Cares to Designate (#12), & Endorsing Rental Profiteering in the Summer (#13).

Around 5 PM those who oppose discrimination against the houseless outside are invited to bring sleeping bags and signs and speak about the issue during the Oral Communications session.

DRIVING THE POOR FROM THE PARKS
During the evening session,the City's Parks Master Plan Study Session is up. It includes reference to "illegal" activities (i.e. the visible presence of poor people at night, homeless gathering day or night, smoking, drinking, yelling) See "Safety and Illegal Activities" at http://scsire.cityofsantacruz.com/sirepub/cache/2/ls4iafvlsinbqldrspddipdc/428205310122015120017953.PDF (p. 4) .

Here the apprehensions and prejudices of middle-class NIMBY's are being raised as a new "public safety" standard, as done by the hand-picked Citizens Public Safety Task Force of 2013. There Deputy-Chief Steve Clark portrayed citations given to homeless people for sleeping, being in a park after dark, and smoking as constituting a "crime wave".

Dannettee Shoemaker, Parks and Recreation boss, used similar scare tactics to push through the first-in-the-state No-Court-Necessary Stay-Away laws in 2013 and 2014, which ban poor people from the parks without court appeal, trial, or even formal charge. These unprecedented powers are proposed to remain permanent.


MORE SCARE STORIES TO BOOST PROPERTY VALUES
Building on the Needlemania hysteria of those years, the report validates the Hyper-Drug Warrior mindset that prompted City Council to destroy the City's Needle Exchange program behind closed doors in 2013--providing real estate agents and property owners dramatic pretexts to clear away the poor and gentrify the area.

Recent fencing and locks at Grant Avenue Park (not to mention the Homeless Lack of Services Center itself) as "security measures" are an ominous sign of the growing class war being waged against those outside. Increased appropriations for First Alarm and P&R patrols funds and fuels the advancing police state. More policing means more citations justifies a bigger threat justifies more appropriations...and so on.

There is no reference to using any of the Pogonip as vitally needed campground area for those outside.

While there is no specific proposal, the staff report suggests (p. 4.) that one of the "community concerns" which it apparently takes seriously is to "limit food giveaways". Since Parks and Recreation has city-wide authority as far as the City manager may designate not just in parks, this may mean renewed attacks on Food not Bombs-style operations.

LAST WEEK
Last week, police gave out no citations by my reckoning (though there were fewer sleepers), came only once, and made no arrests.

On Saturday, Freedom Sleepers held a dusk Portapotty Parade through the downtown lasting half an hour. It drew active supporters and encouragement from the evening crowds (as well as the occasional heckle). Cries of "Stop arresting the homeless! Sleep is not a crime" were met with smiles, thumbs up, and an occasional new marcher.

IN THE WORKS
At a time to be announced--a showing of the Exodus from the Jungle film documenting the resistance of San Jose urban poor (i.e. unhoused) to the displacement of the largest encampment in the country last fall....along with a KNOW YOUR RIGHTS training for those seeking legal tips to beat back the Sleeping Ban.


JOIN US TUESDAY SHARING FOOD, PRINCIPLES, AND SOLIDARITY TO RESTORE JUSTICE TO SANTA CRUZ !

Editorial Note: The views expressed here are mine and in my view likely shared by many of the Freedom Sleepers. It is not an official statement however.
Added to the calendar on Mon, Oct 12, 2015 1:24AM

Comments (Hide Comments)
The rosy red coth parking meter covers already appeared yesterday along the sides of City Hall, banning parking there (ironically during the most needful time--today's City Council meeting). The point--as indicated in e-mails between city staff departments--to doscourage the weekly peaceful Freedom Sleeper protest. See the official documents authorizing the crackdown at https://www.indybay.org/uploads/2015/09/30/re_parking_restrictions.pdf

Two weeks ago the DDD expanded the "forbidden to assemble" zones outside the City Council chambers created a month before, with expanded "do not cross" ropes and little yellow signs here and there reading "This Area is to be Kept Clear While City Council is in Session MC 13.04.011". And an armed police officer (Sgt. John Bush and others) patrolling the area.

Ironically MC 13,04.011 is the ordinance used to harass, cite, eject, fine, and ban homeless people from parks at night. It is also the law under which Freedom Sleepers have been most frequently cited.

High-ranking, highly-paid, (and highly-rank) city staff heads put out a letter of complaint circulated by Assistant City Manager Tina Shuul on September 1 against the activists saying "We have heard about the vandalism, the threatening and intimidating behaviors, the profanity and level of noise around our offices that has disrupted meetings, interviews and our work, the garbage, the smoking, drug use and drinking, the human waste, the aggressive behavior toward staff...We continue to engage in solutions to curtail these impacts on City Hall and will be stepping up our efforts today. As always if you see illegal activities or feel unsafe, please call 9-1-1 immediately." (See "" at https://www.indybay.org/uploads/2015/09/30/city_hall_safety.pdf).

It's a little unclear how a nighttime protest can have such impacts when all the offices are closed, the bathrooms locked (incidentally), and the staff gone home. It's also a little hard to calculate all the "illegal activites" that have occurred when Public Records Acts have officially requested any police reports and found none.

COURT HEARINGS CONTINUE
Kevin Rothwell and I will be going to court in an hour after being arrested, cuffed, and jailed several months ago for seeking to access the City Council agendas. These agendas, placed in glass cases right outside the City Council chamber doors, are required to be accessible 24 hours a day for 72 hours before each Council or commission meeting. We said we would sign our citations after being taken before a magistrate to force the police to specify what their "probable cause" was for ordering us to leave the agenda area.

We both expect to disqualify Commissioner "Basement Level" Baskett and have a demurrer hearing (which means we feel there's no charge to begin with, hence no need for a trial).

Maxwell Green, a Freedom Sleeper from Monterey prominent in the Sitting Ban protests there on Alvarado St. (See "Sit-Ins Reclaim Public Space in Downtown Monterey" at https://www.indybay.org)/newsitems/2015/08/10/18776004.php will be going into court for his third citation (arraignment) on Friday.

More news as it happens. (Or sometime thereafter)
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