No Penalty for Poverty - Housing For All

While the federal government continues its efforts to eradicate the social safety net, the cost of housing in Santa Cruz continues to rise, creating an unstable situation locally, and leaving many of our poorest residents without homes. Local action to reduce the cost of housing and provide homes for all is long overdue.

A protest and march calling for a commitment to house all residents will begin on the steps of the County Building at 3:30PM on Tuesday May 9th, continue to the Post Office (which recently fenced its grounds to prevent people without homes from having access) and arrive at City Hall at 5PM in time for oral communication. The County Building is at 701 Ocean Street in downtown Santa Cruz. The City Hall is 809 Center Street.

Activists are calling for local government to take steps to insure that housing is available at a reasonable rate, to provide emergency shelter for the houseless, and to decriminalize sleeping, among other measures.

Sherry (last name withheld to avoid persecution by City officials) has been sleeping at City Hall for a week since the winter shelter closed and left her without a place to be. “At least here,” she says, “I feel a little bit safer. It’s public and there are people around. Plus I like supporting other people who are in the same situation as me.”

Since Max doesn’t have another place to sleep anyway, his choice to sleep at City Hall is tactical, “I want them to see me here in the morning. I want them to see homeless people here until they do something about it.”

Rabbi Philip Posner was a freedom rider who spent 39 days in jail in Mississippi in 1961 as part of the civil rights movement. He views the treatment of the homeless as this generation’s call to conscience “A legal place to sleep is a human right. Criminalizing the homeless amounts to penalizing people for being poor.” Posner and his son Micah plan to sleep out at City Hall after the demonstration in solidarity. They are inviting people with and without homes to bring sleeping bags and join them in the unsanctioned act of sleeping on public property.

For more information contact:
Audrey Simmons: audreysimmons1995 [at] gmail.com. 805 540 8109
Steve Pleich: spleich [at] gmail.com. 831 466 6078
Keith McHenry: keith [at] foodnotbombs.net. 575-770-3377

Press Release by Micah Posner; Posting by Robert Norse