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Indybay Feature

Freedom Sleepers #94 - Sleep-out to end the sleeping ban

sm_freedom_sleepers_93_library.jpg
Date:
Tuesday, May 02, 2017
Time:
3:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Event Type:
Protest
Organizer/Author:
Keith McHenry
Email:
Phone:
575-770-3377
Location Details:
Santa Cruz City Hall - 809 Center Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060

CITY CONSIDERS TAKING MORE MEASURES AGAINST THE HOMELESS

The City of Santa Cruz is considering a number of new policies that would impact local homeless people. Not only has there been an effort by a handful of property owners and their allies at City Hall to end the Food Not Bombs meals outside the downtown Post Office but there are also reports that officials may implement a number of new restrictions and architectural changes to make the lives of those without housing more painful.

Right now more than 20 people sleep out each night in protest to the sleeping ban. The Survival Sleepers as they are called started they're nightly protest when the Winter Shelter closed.

The city is also considering removing the benches outside the library and stationing two or more police officers at City Hall. Many homeless people sit on those benches both during the day and after the library is closed.

The Freedom Sleepers are seeking funds to station a portable toilet outside City Hall as part of the campaign to defend the rights of those living outside.

One unhoused person, Greg Mercado, died of complications from an old surgery at the corner of Church and Center Streets twelve hours after the police kicked him out from the City Hall grounds and gave him a ticket for being in a park after hours.

The City Manager of Santa Cruz appears to have powers outside the democratic process. City staff claim the complaints and new policies originate from the City Manager’s office. His office is seeking to generate complaints against the homeless and has been lobbying city employees to complain to their union to provide justification for these new measures. Thankfully many employees do not agree with his efforts.

Writing for the DOJ, Civil Rights Division Attorney Sharon Brett noted in the Statement of Interest in the case, Bell v. City of Boise, “When adequate shelter space exists, individuals have a choice about whether or not to sleep in public. However, when adequate shelter space does not exist, there is no meaningful distinction between the status of being homeless and the conduct of sleeping in public. Sleeping is a life-sustaining activity — i.e., it must occur at some time in some place. If a person literally has nowhere else to go, then enforcement of the anti-camping ordinance against that person criminalizes her for being homeless.”

The Statement from the Department of Justice concluded: “Thus, criminalizing homelessness is both unconstitutional and misguided public policy, leading to worse outcomes for people who are homeless and for their communities. If the Court finds that it is impossible for homeless individuals to secure shelter space on some nights because no beds are available, no shelter meets their disability needs or they have exceeded the maximum stay limitations, then the Court should also find that enforcement of the ordinances under those circumstances criminalizes the status of being homeless and violates the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.”

Please sign and share our petition. We also invite you to join the Freedom Sleepers sleep-out Tuesday, May 2nd and participate in the Housing for All Protest on Tuesday, May 9th. The Freedom Sleepers ask you bring a blanket or sleeping bag to public comment at the City Council Chambers after the May 9th march from the County Building to the downtown Post Office anti-homeless fence ending at City Hall. Santa Cruz can end the sleeping ban and provide housing for all.
Added to the calendar on Mon, May 1, 2017 9:32AM
§37 People Out Sleeping
by Freedom Sleepers
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There were at least 37 people protesting at Santa Cruz City Hall on the night of Tuesday, May 2 - 3, 2017 against the polices and practices carried out by the city and it's police of torture through sleep deprivation.

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Robert Norse
Glad to get the latest.

Perhaps we can begin to gather more regular reports on the Survival Sleepers as well--those that sleep at City Hall every night.
by Pat Colby
Nighty I and others video tape the multiple unnecessary raids on the sleeping unhoused on the city hall sidewalks protected by the city's own zoning laws. In the meantime housed drunk drivers, drug dealers, drivers going wrong way down Locust and underage drinking goes ignored by the SCPD. While sleeping folks impose no harm to others the dangers to public safety are ignored and not confronted. DUI driving has long been studied to kill and harm innocents. Why are they not the priority to SCPD. Why are victimless acts such as "sleeping in public" treated as the most serious crime? People need to speak up, stand up and demand the city and police stop wasting tax payers' money on bigoted petty agenda of the loud mouthed minority.
by Razer Ray
sm_sleeper1.jpg
These guys were camped on Pacific the other sunny morning at 7 AM. No tickets. This morning there was a group camped at the corner of the Red Church at Lincoln. No tickets. I don't know why you continue to insist there's people being harassed for sleeping in public when it's quite obviously NOT the case Pat Colby.

Maybe you ought to actually take a walk downtown at 6 or 7 AM any day of the week and see for yourself,

Show us the vids or it didn't happen.

Show me a (1) people simply sleeping... NOT partying and making noise at 3 am until the cops show up. Not at the "FreedomSleepers" protest, because cops and protest go together (2) ... identifiable people where the (3) cops are evicting them from a (4) spot that does not have a no trespassing order.

There is no sleeping ban. There's a practice of enforcing no trespassing laws. In reality It makes no difference what laws they make up about simply sleeping in public. The DOJ "Fixed" it. The city can mandate everyone wear their underwear on the outside or else get cited, but that doesn't mean they can or would enforce it. The same is true for the raft of ordain-ances (because they ordain them) that constitute the city's so-called "sleeping ban" that got steamrolled by the DOJ statement of intent in Bell v Boise et al
by Pat Colby
I said they got harassed for TRESPASSING not sleeping. That is why I encourage people to stay off the bricks and out of the eves of city hall. I also warn people to stay off the library's false park. Also the civic. If they are in any of these area mentioned above they will be woken up and cited for "TRESPASSING" not sleeping.

If you (as SCPD's PR!) person to see the videos then put up the money for a space at Cruzio so I have access to the internet! I am not hiding anything like you.

Still pulling that "apples" vs. "oranges" BS. Why are you so protective about your buddies at SCPD?
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[Image: 5/3/17, 8:04 am downtown Santa Cruz. A doorway sleeper undisturbed.]

I just showed that text; "If you (as SCPD's PR!) person", to the guy sitting next to me at my favorite coffee shop and we both had a complete ROTF. Thanks! I needed that!

Pat Colby said: "I said they got harassed for TRESPASSING not sleeping."

No you didn't. Read your own copy.

But anyway, don't waste your time, AND ESPECIALLY NOT PEOPLE WITHOUT HOUSING'S TIME , contesting trespassing laws. You'll have no luck whatsoever in ANY Capitalist society.

Also, Let me know when you understand that INSTITUTIONAL SHELTER is only attractive to people who are institutionalized, and that's just a TINY (but quite visible) segment of Homeless people in Santa Cruz that's already receiving almost every penny of federal funds locally.
by Razer Ray
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9:19 AM this morning. A doorway sleeper undisturbed.

There is no 'sleeping ban'. There a lack of housing affordable to people who work here, a contingent now overwhelmed by a larger cohort of people who came here because, if they behaviorally act out, they MIGHT get housed by poverty pimps milking targeted federal funding with codependent 'assistance' from local 'homeless activists'. THOSE FOLKS, such as this gent whom I know personally, are being used in a perception management campaign to coax business owners into complaining more laws and police are needed.
by Interested
As if that letter of intent even matters any more. That ship sailed in January when Obama and Lynch left office. It (the letter) is not binding on Jeff Sessions as the Attorney General. Just like all the consent agreements the DOJ has with law enforcement agencies-Sessions plans to tear those up.
by Eye
On May 9th we march for housing for all, but on May 10 we still gotta eat! Come to 809 Center Street Wednesday morning for a shared breakfast and musical performance by Of The West. If you can bring something to share please do!

Current menu includes: vegetable quiche, bagels, and cut fruit.
by 385
I worked downtown for a number of years. Razer Ray hit it square on the head, he is absolutely right. Get in where you fit in don't sleep at places with trespass letters and you'll be undisturbed all night almost every night. You may be woken up to a meaningless ticket so be it.
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