December 21st: HOMELESS PERSONS’ MEMORIAL DAY

Defend the lives of people who are homeless.

HOMELESS PERSONS’ MEMORIAL DAY
December 21st
The Peak of Winter. The Longest Night of the Year.

Homeless people die from systemic violence.

Homeless people die from illnesses that affect everyone, frequently without healthcare.

Homeless people die when government policies deprive them of everything.

Homeless people die from exposure, unprotected from the heat and cold.

Homeless people die at the hands of police and civilians, in unprovoked hate crimes.

Helathcare is a human right.

Housing is a human right.

Physical safety is a human right.

Sleep is a human right.

Remember our neighbors and friends who have died without homes.

Remember why they died.

Dec ‘09 PEOPLE PROJECT Statement

PEOPLE PROJECT insists on DIGNITY for all houseless and poor people.


PEOPLE PROJECT demands an end to state harassment, theft, ticketing, abuse, intimidation, and arrest of houseless people for Living or for simply performing life-sustaining activity -such as sleep.


PEOPLE PROJECT trusts in the creativity, resourcefulness, and skills of the people to take care of ourselves. We know that, if allowed the space for a campground (without government/police interference) we can meet concrete needs and create a sanctuary where dignity and human rights of ALL are respected. Given the deliberate campaign of cruelty, disappearance and deprivation by local government against houseless people, we insist that a sizeable piece of city or county property be immediately relinquished to us so that we can cultivate a safe sleep and community space.

Tom Sebourn’s Letter to Eureka Govn’t. About Tarp Shelter

My Letter To The Mayor Of Eureka and the City Council

The Honorable Mayor and Council members, I am writing to inform you of my deep disappointment in closing the Tarp City at the City Hall parking lot on Sunday night. It was 25 degrees at my house that night. How could you choose to kick these people out of the City Hall parking lot on such a cold night? Your decision to allow the EPD to solve our homeless problem is a travesty. What if someone dies of exposure? What about the parking lot that you had said would be looked into for the homeless? You didn’t do your job and so the homeless came to you. They camped on your doorstep and you turned them away in sub freezing temperatures and made the police out to be the bad guys. What is your solution? Lock everyone up? What will that cost?

Kicking the preverbal can down the street to the Eureka Police Department shows your lack of compassion and lack of ideas. If all of the homeless are breaking the law by sleeping in their cars or on sidewalks, are you willing to arrest all of them and provide shelter and food in the jail? Is this the solution? I pray not. It is neither cost effective nor is it humanitarian thing to do.

I suggest you come up with a plan and come up with one soon, before someone dies of exposure.

I don’t live in Eureka so I haven’t been very critical or the way you run your city, but I do work there. I assure you that you now have my full attention and I look to see some progress soon on this issue or I will do my best to call all of you out for your lack of compassion, sense of duty and ineptitude.

Tom Sebourn, speaking for myself and those that have no one else to turn to.
Posted by Tom Sebourn at 8:22 PM
Labels: Homeless Camp Parking Lot Eureka, Homeless In Eureka Kicked To The Curb, Letter To Eureka Mayor and City Council,Local, Tarp City Eureka

http://tomsebourn.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-letter-to-mayor-of-eureka-and-city.html

One Letter About City Hall Tarp Shelter, written Dec 7th

I have spent some time recently at the People Project Tarp shelter; it has been both frightening, heartbreaking and inspiring. Frightening to be exposed to the cold weather and the cold hearts of a few people and cops who yell and harrass. Heartbreaking to have to confront chronic poverty and desperation. Inspiring to see the people insist that food, clothing and shelter are a human right and to break the monopoly the state holds over human services.

The Eureka City Council came to the decision to criminalize the safe sleep zone during closed session, and the barricades and threats of arrest appeared shortly thereafter.

A rather large number of police agents – about 20 cops according to the word on the street- came to arrest a single individual who they perceive as the “ringleader.” Their thinking is that if they take the “leader,” then the shelter will dissolve. But they are wrong, because the need for shelter and the collective will of the people is greater than any individual. So the People Project encampment offers a teachable moment in civil disobedience, non-violent direct action in addition to an analysis of the criminalization of poverty that occurs on a local level and in the context of a national crisis of capital.

The people will continue to gather at city hall, primarily to insist on food, clothing and shelter, secondarily to make transparent the city’s obscenely classist behavior and the contradictions of state-sponsored care. All supportive actions do not necessarily include arrestable behavior – the houseless folks and their allies could use spare blankets or a warm meal. can you provide this?

However a there will absolutely be opportunities for civil disobedience in solidarity with those people who don’t have a choice whether to disobey or not, they simply want to exist and have a night’s rest.

Please call the Eureka City Council to let them know that you are aware of their dishonorable governance regarding the People Project shelter.

There will be a candlelight vigil at Eureka City Hall at 5:30 PM tonight.

EUREKA POLICE SURROUNDS SELF-SUFFICIENT SHELTER AT CITY HALL

Press Release Dec., 7, 09′

for immediate release contact 445-8733

Eureka police crackdown and close self managing shelter providing food and safe sleeping for those without homes

Police last night surrounded, made arrests then tore down the month old tent shelter complex set up at the Eureka City Hall, Humboldt Co., Calif., under siege by the Eureka Council, warning this weekend they would not tolerate this safe haven much longer.This encampment has fulfilled the immediate needs of people without homes, who daily face harsher weather conditions of night cold and/or rains. They’re a people neither permitted on private or public lands. Where are they to go?

Among us are older folks, including numbers of vets, some handicapped with broken bodies, folks terribly stressed by their lives, those who’ve lost jobs, mothers and fathers, and many young, with all kinds of professional, academic and hard working backgrounds, all appreciative of a safe haven and still intent upon not just survival, but making a life.

We ask everyone who hears this message to help by reaching the Eureka City Council and other City officials in demanding real answers be offered to meet these immediate needs.

Eureka City Council members: One message for all 707- 441-4172

In talking with one city official Sunday, it was made clear we would be raided soon, and they ‘asked our cooperation’ in finding another place. We know of none, as surely as they do… precisely why we have been there. The threat of arrest and worse already drove most back to the streets for the night.

Warning signs of arrest and barricades were posted Friday around the City Hall parking lots where the encampment has set up each evening, providing home cooked food, and fresh bedding..and in the morning dismantled and gone before business begins. Police have been more obvious, cruising by often, one stopping to ticket or arrest some of the homeless on the sidewalk adjacent to the camping site for J walking or miscellaneous charges.

Police had originally and publicly stated if the encampment did not interfere with business, it was not their problem. The encampment has been open to all, turning no one away who needed a meal, but making clear to all that to stay and use the shelter, meant no drinking or drugs while there and monitored throughout the night.

City officials have asked what we want and been told:
1) People without homes need to have a safe space to sleep and cover themselves against
the weather, called “camping” by the city and criminalized.
2) People be given the right to manage such a space, without city oversight or police
involvement.
3) City ordinances, which criminalize rest or sleep be eliminated, which are in direct
violation of the 8th Amendment to our Constitution… and thus resolving police enforcement.
of harassing, ticketing, confiscation of personal property and worse.
4) Lastly that it be recognized that the cities present position of planning and developing procedures for the future will obviously meet only a mere fraction of the critical need, regardless of when they finally take effect, while none of such city planning meets the immediate needs of the great many people without homes.

These same officials asked if we were prepared to manage a space provided for those without homes and were told; “Of course”, just as we’ve done for the past month at the doors of City Hall.

The ambivalence of city authorities and the community is an ongoing dilemma. On one hand great enthusiasm and benevolence by certain people, churches, the city and even official police endorsement for providing food and clothing during the day, but with nightfall, the city and police turning against their presence, sending the wrong message to the community at large, of city sponsored prejudice through enforcement of their illegal ordinances.

This direct action confronts a massive crisis situation faced by numerous cities, towns and counties throughout the U.S., being added to daily by economics and lost jobs.The times are so similar to what people faced in the Great Depression, the Hooverville’s and Grapes of Wrath, our own folk lore, our history as a people for everyone’s acknowledgement and understanding, but not if being ignored. Your neighbors and /or someone’s neighbors are losing their home every day…some having to find their way in the streets. Why this departure from our common sense and good will toward anyone’s financial crisis leading to even greater deprivations and mental stress?

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much;
but whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

This action has been a direct confrontation with city authorities over their long standing and aggressive treatment of people without homes, promoting community prejudice and hostility towards their already vulnerable and oppressed situation…. an unresolved human rights issue which ought never have been ignored nor postponed so long

Join PEOPLE PROJECT in the continuation of this crucial work.

Serving food, 6pm @ City hall tonight

We’re serving food at 6pm @ City hall tonight (Wednesday).
We’re setting up a temporary shelter tonight as well
Donations of sleeping bags, tarps, tents, blankets, warm clothes. etc still needed

It’s constitutionally protected to demonstrate on city hall against any law or city ordinance and the city has to provide accommodations for those activities to occur. Closing the parking lot without providing accommodations to exercise our first amendment rights violates these laws. The DA or California Attorney General is mandated to prosecute the city if they violate our rights.

If you have not been following the news here are some resources below.
Letter To The Mayor Of Eureka and the City Council
http://tomsebourn.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-letter-to-mayor-of-eureka-and-city.html

Channel 3 news peices
Last Wednesday
http://kiem-tv.com/node/211
Monday
http://kiem-tv.com/node/222

TARP SHELTER on City Hall! Eureka

“This is the only place in Eureka where people can sleep without being harassed by police.”

Tonight houseless people will, for the 13th consecutive night, be sleeping on the asphalt parking lot of Eureka’s City Hall. There is no other place to sleep in Eureka, free of charge, without being harassed or at high risk of abuse, ticketing, jail, or theft by the police. PEOPLE PROJECT has set up a tarp shelter and has been collecting donations of sleeping bags, mats, and warm gear for people who come through needing warmth and safety. Over the past 12

Spread the word

nights at the tarp shelter on City Hall, rains have come, and the wind and cold have been ever-present. People using and maintaining the tarp shelter rely on a cooperative effort throughout the night to make sure that everyone there has a spot to sleep, warm gear, water, and something to eat. People work together each night to set the tarps up, and each morning to break them down for the day. Folks needing a place to sleep show up at all hours of the night.

PEOPLE PROJECT has long acknowledged that the City of Eureka and County of Humboldt have little to no interest in assuring that its poor and/or houseless residents are sheltered and safe despite government rhetoric claiming concern for “affordable housing” and “homeless services” and in spite of government-sought grants to provide such basic life-sustaining resources. Currently, the City of Eureka and the County of Humboldt are defendants in a lawsuit brought by PEOPLE PROJECT participants for civil rights violations against houseless people. [See http://peopleproject.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/people-project-lawsuit-to-end-the-politics-of-cruelty/]

Being that there is a deliberate policy of cruelty and criminalization against houseless people- a policy which includes physical and emotional abuse and deprivation of sleep by police- we know that there are several fronts on which we must continue to struggle:

While we organize together to expose and stop abuse against houseless community members by police, civilians, and businesses;

While we speak out about government plans, policies, and language that perpetuate low-intensity war against poor and houseless people;

While we fight in the courts to end the regular incarceration and other unconstitutional treatment of houseless people;

While we attempt to keep the only long term free meals from being shut down by the gentrifying forces of Humboldt County, and;

While we endure the deception and oppressive actions of agencies and individuals who chase grant money and job positions related to “homeless services”, but only trash and exploit houseless people in the process…
We must keep each other alive and protected, and attempt to restore and keep our dignity intact.

Signs displayed around the tarp shelter : “All Power to the People”, “Houseless People Are Hunted for Sleeping! Speak Out,” “Safe Sleeping Space,” “Dignity and Respect for All”

The PEOPLE PROJECT tarp shelter does not wait for grant money; it does not rely on paid employees and administrative costs; it does not force religion on participants; and it does not dictate what people should or should not be doing with their lives. The PEOPLE PROJECT tarp shelter is a grass roots, cooperative way of meeting an immediate need- shelter from the storm.

Please contact PEOPLE PROJECT either through phone, email, or a night visit to the tarp shelter at City Hall. PEOPLE PROJECT also has daytime meetings every Tuesday at Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community [PARC]. There is an ongoing need for sleeping gear, warm socks, jackets and sweaters, money for duct tape and other supplies, and volunteers to help throughout the nights.

Email: peopleproject@riseup.net

Phone: (707) 442-7465 [number at PARC, Peoples' Action for Rights and Community]

See the PEOPLE PROJECT blog http://peopleproject.wordpress.com/
for more info about weekly meetings

Short quiet videos
Video: from first morning

Video: Safe Sleep Zone

Video: ALL Power To The People

Flier
Tarp Shelter

MEETINGS IN EUREKA!!

It’s about time again…open and active weekly PEOPLE PROJECT meetings!

PEOPLE PROJECT met consistently for about 3 yrs in Arcata, but will start back up at this time in Eureka. It would be great to hear from you about what times and days you like for such gatherings/meetings.

For now, meetings will be Tuesdays at 1:30 pm at Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community [PARC].

PEOPLE PROJECT focuses on houseless and poor peoples’ rights & building dignified community. Direct Action, sharing, and open dialogue are central to this grass-roots ‘project’.

PEOPLE PROJECT gatherings are SAFE SPACES to discuss issues facing ‘houseless’ people in our community. One long-term goal of PEOPLE PROJECT is to have a people-run, eco-sustainable campground in an effort to create a dignified, safe, community space for houseless and traveling people, a human rights sanctuary! In addition, PEOPLE PROJECT works to safeguard against police and other harassment, always fighting for human rights. PEOPLE PROJECT is a grassroots effort, concept and group emphasizing the POWER OF THE PEOPLE, Power From The Streets! Food is shared and welcomed at PEOPLE PROJECT spaces.

For the past year and a half, PEOPLE PROJECT has kept a community breakfast going in Eureka- every Tuesday and Friday- “Good Morning Neighbors!” Breakfast!!

PEOPLE PROJECT will be working with People for a Human Rights Sanctuary to get a campground (human rights sanctuary) going in Eureka. Also, we will likely become an affiliate or member organization with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign who has been, for years, organizing across color lines for economic rights- using encampments, housing takeovers, cultural and political education, marches, etc.

New energy is encouraged and welcomed at PEOPLE PROJECT spaces. We emphasize the importance of listening, encountering each other in a dignified way, and organizing from a place of power!

POOR PEOPLE’S MARCH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, SEPTEMBER 12TH!

POOR PEOPLE’S MARCH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, SEPTEMBER 12TH!

Words from People For a Human Rights Sanctuary

Update From Redwood Curtain CopWatch; Police Beat Houseless Man To Death

Since Redwood Curtain CopWatch learned of the Thursday August 9th death of Martin “Fred” Cotton II, we have spoken with many witnesses and other community members regarding the events leading to Martin’s death. Immediately after the Sheriff’s Department sent a press release (on the afternoon of August 10th), local papers wrote ‘stories’ simply parroting the police account and criminalizing Martin. People’s reports to Redwood Curtain CopWatch and to ACLU members share many common threads; facts and perspectives that stand out starkly against the police account.

Martin was pepper sprayed and then beaten severely by the Eureka Police Department [EPD]; a sack was thrown over his head and he was taken to jail. There, we believe he was further beat by Sheriff’s and possibly also EPD officers. The man next to the cell where Martin died witnessed officers dragging Martin, who was hooded and handcuffed, into a cell. Multiple officers (but no medical staff) then went into the cell. After 15 minutes of intense thumping and moaning coming from the cell, the officers exited, and no further noise came from the cell. The man in the adjacent cell was soon released. According to the Sheriff’s Dept, Martin died two hours after booking.

Martin, known to be manic-depressive, was involved in a confrontation at the Eureka Rescue Mission on Aug. 9th, just weeks before his 27th birthday. Rescue Mission staff called the police, who arrived after Martin, unarmed, had already been ejected from the Mission. The EPD officers, whose names continue to be withheld by EPD, immediately pepper sprayed Martin, kicked him, beat him with night sticks, and punched him with fists—for up to 20 minutes by many accounts. EPD pummeled Martin all over his body, including heavily attacking his kidney area and his legs while he was face down on the concrete. Each witness with whom we have separately and independently spoken regarding the attack by EPD has said at least five officers inflicted the beating, with several more present at the scene. Not one such witness observed Martin threatening or attacking the police. Many people present explicitly stated that Martin never reached for an officer’s baton. All witnesses have expressed trauma at watching what they explained as an unwarranted, long-lasting, and deadly beating.

EPD officers intimidated people attempting to photograph the public incident; one woman trying to take photos on a cell phone was reportedly threatened to put the phone away or it would be taken from her.

Eureka Mission House Manager, Bryan Hall, ordered some of the men who reside at the Mission and were witnessing the brutality to go inside after several minutes of the beating. Bryan, who made the call to police, was the only person from the Mission to attend the so-called Town Hall meeting featuring EPD Chief, Garr Nielsen, on Thursday August 16th. Bryan defended the police and told a very different story than we have heard from all other witnesses. It is our informed belief that the men who stay at the Mission were not allowed to attend the meeting to share their stories. Additionally, many of the witnesses, who already suffer from police harassment and abuse, are fearful of retaliation if they were to step forward.

On the 16th, Chief Nielsen admitted that he had not read a report from the incident, yet since his very first interview on the matter he has insisted, without a doubt, that ‘his’ officers were warranted in their actions. At the same time he has consistently criminalized Martin and justified the killing with speculations of methamphetamine use, even going so far as to blame Martin for his own death. At the Thursday meeting Nielsen spoke of a Sheriffs’ film showing Martin banging his head on the walls of the jail. Nielsen repeatedly expressed relief stemming from his belief that Martin banged his own head to death, rather than being killed by officers. Two days after the meeting, Nielsen admitted that he had not seen such a film. Throughout the “Town Hall” meeting, (actually occurring in a private restaurant owned by the mayor), the chief seemed far more concerned with the EPD public image than with the tragic death of another human being.

Martin is the 6th person killed by the hands and weapons of local police officers (all involving EPD) in the past 2 years. Martin’s death was perhaps the most brutal. Lawsuits have been filed against the City of Eureka by 3 other victim’s families. The District Attorney and the police have, regarding each incident, claimed that the force used by officers was justified. A former cop and 28-year forensic ballistics expert explains,

“…with the thousands of police involved shootings that have occurred, there are few where the officer or department has admitted a mistake or error in judgment; the department usually investigates its own shooting incidents and clears themselves and the officer of any wrongdoing.”

EPD is now using results of a toxicology report to further criminalize Martin and distract from EPD officers’ behavior – behavior that is unacceptable and unwarranted in any circumstances. As the EPD has scrambled to explain the death, the story has changed from methamphetamine overdose, to self-inflicted head injury, to LSD poisoning. This current theory is particularly laughable, considering that there is not a single well documented case of lethal LSD overdose in humans. The reported value of 10.6 ng/ml is within peak blood plasma levels expected to result from common dosage. The coroner’s interpretation of the toxicology report is seriously flawed; it is a thinly veiled attempt to justify murder. Redwood Curtain CopWatch defies coroner Frank Jager to produce any peer reviewed scientific literature validating his claims of LSD’s toxicity.

No officers involved in the deaths of Martin and others have been tested for drug or steroid use.

Although Martin was severely injured from the cruel and undeserved beating, EPD took him directly to jail to die, rather than immediately bringing him to the hospital. Neither Nielsen nor any jail employee (Sheriff’s Dept) has indicated that Martin was seen by medical staff while in their custody, until he was dead. This is unacceptable and adds to the outrage that we feel.

Even if one were to ignore the deadly beating inflicted by police in front of the Mission and accept Neilson’s ‘theory’ that Martin, high on LSD, banged his own head to death, the police would still be responsible; Martin was ‘in their custody’.

Martin was houseless… And he is someone’s son, grandson– and a brother and friend to others. We are tired of community members dying at the hands of police. Killing by EPD cannot be seen as a mistake– it is EPD’s modus operandi, and it must stop.

Redwood Curtain CopWatch believes that as a community we can work towards creating real justice that heals and transforms rather than destroys and erases. Police violence does not make us safe. The police, as a structural component of our society, have not outgrown their long legacy of protecting the rich ‘from the poor’; and have accelerated their practice of further marginalizing the people most trampled by our socio-economic system.

We have experienced, documented, and heard stories about the consistent abuse of people who have mental health issues and of people who are homeless. These targeted populations are integral parts of our neighborhoods and families. (Martin was one of 3.3 million people in the U.S. diagnosed as manic-depressive.) People who are in crisis need help not violence. The police believe they can treat many of us like we are ‘scum’, like we cannot feel pain–our bodies and lives worthless, can be exploited and violently disposed. In contrast, Redwood Curtain CopWatch wants to create grass-roots support networks that respect, nurture, and heal the community; exploring true conflict resolution that has nothing to do with the police.

Please help us imagine creative alternatives to the violence of police. Let’s work towards justice that is nourished by knowing our neighbors, taking care of each other, and relating to each other as dignified human beings.

Please contact Redwood Curtain CopWatch: copwatchRWC@riseup.net (707) 633-4493

Federal Judge Rules: Destruction of homeless residents’ property declared unlawful seizure

Federal Judge Rules City of Fresno Violated the Rights of Homeless Residents
Posted by Mike Rhodes ( MikeRhodes@Comcast.net )
Tuesday May 13th, 2008 6:06 PM

A summary judgment was issued on May 12, 2008 in the lawsuit by homeless people against the City of Fresno. The statement below is from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, two of the law firms representing the plaintiffs in this case. The trial is scheduled to begin on June 10. The photo below is Pam Kincaid, speaking at the Press Conference at Fresno City Hall, announcing the filing of the lawsuit (October 17, 2006).

Federal Judge Rules City of Fresno
Violated the Rights of Homeless Residents

Destruction of property declared unlawful seizure

Fresno – A U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of California has ruled that the City of Fresno’s practice of immediately seizing and destroying the personal possessions of homeless residents violates the constitutional right of every person to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

“The question is no longer whether the City will have to pay damages to class members, but how much,” said attorney Oren Sellstrom of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights. “Given that many homeless people lost everything they owned in these illegal sweeps – including their medicines and items of tremendous sentimental value – we believe the damage award will be significant.”

“The Court’s ruling in this class-action lawsuit makes it clear that our Constitution protects the rights of everybody, rich or poor,” said attorney Michael Risher of the ACLU of Northern California. “It should send a strong message to other cities throughout our country that if they violate the rights of their most vulnerable residents, they will be held accountable.”

Six plaintiffs provided testimony in the case, Kincaid v. City of Fresno, on behalf of the entire class, which includes all homeless people in Fresno who had their property seized and destroyed by the City or by the California Department of Transportation. The case was bought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and the firm of Heller, Ehrman, LLP.

The case was filed in October 2006. The court issued a temporary restraining order against the City of Fresno two days later; in December 2006 it issued a preliminary injunction after hearing evidence from both sides over the course of five days.

During oral argument on April 25, 2008, Judge Oliver W. Wanger declared that, “…the practice of announce, strike, seize [and] destroy immediately is against the law.” (Excerpted from transcript by court reporter.)

Note to reporters and editors: Video footage and photographs of city workers using machinery and dump trucks to destroy the personal property of homeless residents are available on the ACLU-NC’s website, along with the legal documents in the case: http://www.aclunc.org/cases/active_cases/kincaid_v._city_of_fresno.shtml

Synopses of plaintiffs declarations before the Court

Excerpted from declarations found here: http://www.aclunc.org/cases/active_cases/kincaid_v._city_of_fresno.shtml

Lead Plaintiff Pamela Kincaid died in August of 2007. Kincaid occasionally stayed at the only women’s shelter in Fresno, but she suffered from claustrophobia, which made it difficult for her to remain there. When sanitation workers and police officers seized her belongings, Kincaid lost her birth certificate, her address book, photos of her sister, daughter and mother, and a toolbox with tools she used for the recycling and crafts work she does to earn money, among other items.

“Before I became homeless, I used to have a house and a job. I lost both when I developed injuries at work…I hope that someday I will be able to get off the streets and into permanent housing. But the fact that the city keeps taking and destroying my property makes that goal seem that much harder to achieve. I always live with the fear that the city will come and take what few possessions I have left.”
- Declaration before the court in October 2006

Charlene Clay and her husband left their apartment in 2006 because they could not afford the $850 in rent. They were camped on a hill off of G Street when City of Fresno workers destroyed their belongings – including Clay’s teeth, medications, sleeping bags, and personal papers – without warning. A second time, Clay was staying near San Benito and H Streets when police tipped her shopping cart, threw her possessions on the ground, and hauled her cart away.

“The City of Fresno has made it clear to me by destroying my property twice and by the way in which they did that, that because I am a homeless person, I will always be vulnerable to having my property taken and destroyed by City of Fresno workers and police.”

Joanna Garcia was born and raised in Fresno. She lost her job after she was mistakenly implicated in a robbery committed by her husband. She has worked at Holy Cross Women’s Shelter, earning food vouchers. City workers have seized and destroyed her property five times.
“…my belongings and my boyfriend’s belongings were on the grassy strip across the highway from E Street. They were neatly kept. My boyfriend and I had left for the day; I was working at Holy Cross. When we came back that evening, I said to my boyfriend, ‘I can’t see our home.’ All of our belongings were gone, including tents, blankets, personal papers, clothes, my pink bicycle, and irreplaceable pictures of my grandmother and my son.”

Douglas Deatherage, 43, worked part time at a trucking company. He watched as City of Fresno workers threw his belongings into a garbage truck. “My relatively small amount of personal possessions were not bothering anyone and I was ready and willing to move if the City of Fresno workers wanted to clean the area where they were. It was obvious that my property was not abandoned since I was there with it. I was given no opportunity to move my personal property in order to save it from this destruction that morning.”

For more information, contact: Contact: Malik Russell, ACLU-NC, 415.621.2493, x374 Anayma DeFrias, LCCR, 415.543.9444, x223

Homeless Liberation Front in Portland: Encampment

[this post is from May 25, 2008; date changed to keep the post real visible]
These are clips from a longer article and chronology about the scene in Portland, abusive policies against houseless folks… It all sounds very similar wherever you go. Public is Private, Businesses are “the Community”, Sleeping Outdoors is only to be done On Vacation, It’s Not Illegal to BE Houseless, Only to DO ANYTHING if you’re Houseless…

———————————————
…”If nothing else, the weeks-long Homeless Liberation Front protest –which calls for the suspension of Portland’s camping and sidewalk obstruction ordinances – has dragged the debate on homelessness out of the city’s bureaucratic offices and onto the street.
The protest, at first an impromptu showing of five people displaced from under the Burnside Bridge by April’s campsite sweeps, swelled to include more than 100 homeless people and supporters. Their tarps,blankets and protest signs (“Housing is a human right”; “This is a protest, not a camp”)
lined the edge of the sidewalk in front of CityHall.
As the group grew, its organizers worked to maintain order. They formed trash brigades to keep the site clean and assigned security details to watch for theft and drug use. Several protesters were prone to seizures, so lookouts ran to warn them if sirens and lights approached….”

….On May 8, Sisters of the Road announced its withdrawal from the mayor’s Street Access For Everyone work group, which developed the sit-lie ordinance in coordination with plans for new park benches,public restrooms and a homeless day access center. But Sisters’s Associate Director Michael
Buonocore said in a statement that those services “have not been implemented in a timely and adequate manner,”and the sit-lie ordinance has been predominantly enforced against homeless people.
“The sit-lie ordinance has amplified the tragedy of the existing anti-camping ordinance, which also criminalizes those who have nowhereto sleep at night,” Buonocore said. “Between these two laws, it
is effectively illegal to be homeless in Portland.”….

“I’m houseless, not homeless,” Duane Reynolds, one of the loudest protesters, explained to an inquisitive bystander on May 12. “Portland is my home.”
His account of the Burnside Bridge sweep differs from Reese’s [mayor]. He says that while he was in church on April 21, five days before the posted notice said the camp needed to be cleared, his belongings were confiscated by police.
When he tried to reclaim them, he said, he was ping-ponged between the Police Bureau and Parks and Recreation, each of which told him to check with the other. No one had his things.
“That was the final straw to get me here,” he said.
Larry Reynolds, Duane’s older brother, had been camping under the Hawthorne Bridge when he heard by word of mouth that people on the streets were starting to organize themselves. He joined the protest three days in, and he was eventually elected as a spokesperson. He was one of a few
individuals to meet privately with Mayor Potter.
He left the first meeting frustrated that Mayor Potter would not repeal the ordinances, instead deferring to the 10-year plan as evidence that progress was being made.
“Do you know how tired we are?” he said that day. “You can’t sit here, you can’t stand here, you can’t lie here. You can’t cover up, you can’t sleep. You can’t get any rest. We’re midnight nomads, walking around with all our gear on our back, being told that we can’t sleep.”…

Read More…in Street Roots

Eureka “Rescue” Mission Increases Oppression

The Eureka Rescue Mission recently made an announcement during its nightly sermon to the men who sleep there. The Mission told the men that they will be refused a place to sleep at the Mission and will be refused food at St. Vinnie’s “free meal” if they are found sitting anywhere within a two block square radius of the Mission!

A mellow, long-time sitting place for folks is on the sidewalk, not blocking anyone’s passage, a couple of blocks from the free meal. The owner of the business there is friendly with the people who sit there, and has no problem with their presence.

What kind of god does the Mission (and St. Vinnie’s) answer to, depriving people of food or shelter, as punishment for sitting in open air?!

The Mission apparently only wants the men who stay at the shelter to hang out in “the cage” which is the Mission’s day use area. That area looks and acts, more and more, like a cage.

AGAIN! SHAME on the Mission and St. Vinnie’s

Interview on KMUD: Sept 22, 2008

This is about the lawsuit brought by 5 PEOPLE PROJECT folks.

If you want to skip the story before the interview, go to 10 minutes, 13 seconds.

KMUD radio, Sept 22, 2008

Good Morning Neighbors! Breakfast Program

PEOPLE PROJECT’S Good Morning Neighbors! Breakfast Program

This ain’t charity. It’s SURVIVAL!

Every Tuesday and Friday from about 8:20am to 10:45am, there is coffee, herbal tea, hot 7-grain cereal, morning potatoes, and fresh fruit for anyone who wants a good morning lift! [No money involved] Breakfast is on the corner of Fairfield and Hawthorne in Eureka (up the block from the Serenity Inn on Broadway). Sometimes we also share fruit smoothies, nuts, yogurt, peanut butter and jelly, homemade muffins, apple juice and sauce, or cake.

We hope to inspire people to share community breakfast wherever you are. If you’re interested in donating supplies or helping on Tuesdays and/or Friday, please contact us at peopleproject@riseup.net or 707-618-9185. Also, we have alot of set up supplies (including an ez-up canopy for rainy days) if anyone wants to do breakfast on other days of the week at the same spot. Two people is the minimum to prepare and be present throughout breakfast. What a great way to start the day!

PEOPLE PROJECT believes that the power is in the people to take care of each other in generous and creative ways. And that it is vital to connect and learn from the experience of the most oppressed communities.

Veterans' Day 08, a wet morning

PEOPLE PROJECT Lawsuit: One effort to END THE POLITICS OF CRUELTY

Here is the full COMPLAINT, originally filed on June 6, 2008 (amended May 13, 2009), in Federal Court, San Francisco.

LAYWERS NEEDED to assist the pro se plaintiffs!

Most recent press release at top of the page
Humboldt County DA Sued by Homeless Camp Participants

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Humboldt County DA Sued by Homeless Camp Participants

On May 13, 2009, Paul Gallegos and the Humboldt County Office of the District Attorney (DA) were added as defendants in the federal civil rights lawsuit brought by five participants of the 2007 People Project homeless encampment demonstration. The DA’s Office was served with the complaint on Mon. June 8, 2009.
The lawsuit demands accountability for violations of human rights by the police and DA during their April 25, 2007 raid on the encampment in Arcata, California. People Project plaintiffs are demanding that the day and night harassment of homeless people by police be stopped immediately.
The DA’s office is being sued for its involvement in the raid and because it continues to perpetuate the criminalizing of poor people, including those who live without housing. Says plaintiff Kimberly Starr: “Although, in theory, the DA’s office is responsible for prosecuting all crimes, even crimes committed by police; instead, the DA’s practice, historically and to this day, is to be complicit with crimes and violence against houseless people… and demonstrators. On April 25, 2007, agents from the DA’s Office went beyond complicity. They documented and actually participated in false arrests, deprivation of life-sustaining necessities, theft of property, and other abuses against People Project encampment demonstrators.”
People Project plaintiffs and others were exercising their constitutional rights when raided by numerous police and other government employees. The well organized, publicized, and community supported encampment which began on April 21, 2007, highlighted the plight of Northern Humboldt’s houseless population, especially discrimination from local ‘law enforcement.’ The encampment was established on city property as a temporary safe place to sleep, and it publicly drew attention to a crisis situation- that in Arcata there is no “legal” place for the hundreds of houseless people to sleep. The camp was established also to generate dialogue and build support for a free, people run, ecologically-sustainable campground.
During the raid on the encampment, the police seized property, including medications and survival gear, of more than 50 houseless individuals. Recently posted youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWnG1vAJAbE&feature=channel_page) taken by employees of the DA’s Office, show the police confiscating a bag of prescription medications from one houseless demonstrator, Hans Ashbaucher, and brutalizing him. Mr. Ashbaucher, a plaintiff on the lawsuit, suffered a seizure while tightly handcuffed and face down on asphalt; police slammed their knees and legs into his body. The City of Arcata never returned Mr. Ashbacher’s medications.
The police and DA raid on April 25, 2007 brought to the fore ongoing discrimination and human rights violations against houseless people on the North Coast of California. A few months after the raid, Martin Cotton, a houseless man, was beat to death in Eureka (in front of numerous witnesses) by Eureka Police officers, and later Humboldt Sheriff deputies. The Humboldt DA refused to prosecute any of the officers involved in the beatings.
Sara Hamilton of Redwood Curtain CopWatch, who was present throughout much of the 2007 People Project encampment reminds us: “Every day and night police stalk, target, intimidate, and violate the bodies and property of houseless people. As a society, we must refuse to accept that behavior from anyone -and defend houseless people.”
People Project, a cooperation of community members focused on human rights and building dignified community spaces as and with houseless people, knows that this lawsuit is only one step toward ending the persistent government harassment, abuse, and extra-judicial punishment of houseless folks. The People Project lawsuit points out: “…The Defendant City of Arcata has not only failed to provide any shelter or safe space for homeless people to rest, but has been heavy-handed in discouraging and punishing any groups or individuals who attempt to provide or create such spaces.” The lawsuit continues, “Arcata has proven itself to be deaf to all urgings by community to respect homeless peoples’ rights and to cease from day and night harassment, intimidation, and punishment of homeless people for performing or needing to perform life-sustaining activities..” … “whereas the Defendants exhibit no intention of voluntarily changing such unconstitutional pattern and practice, and [we] can exhaust no other options, [we] appeal to th[e] Court to provide declaratory and injunctive relief regarding such discriminatory and inhumane actions by Defendants.”
Rob Hepburn, a Veteran for Peace and People Project supporter alluded to the UN Declaration of Human Rights and asserted, “Not allowing a person to sleep is tantamount to torture.”

PEOPLE PROJECT Sues Local Governments and Police for Violating Free Speech and Human Rights of “Houseless” People

ARCATA, CA (September 2, 2008) A lawsuit regarding ongoing civil rights violations against homeless people on the North Coast of California has been brought against employees and police of City and County government and California Highway Patrol in Humboldt County. Actual and punitive damages, as well as declaratory and injunctive relief, arising from State and Federal claims are demanded by PEOPLE PROJECT Plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in San Francisco’s Federal Court. People Project, a cooperation of community members who are focused on human rights and building dignified community spaces as, with, and for houseless people hopes to prohibit the City of Arcata and other governments throughout Humboldt County from continuing their persistent harassment, abuse, and extra-judicial punishment of houseless people.

The lawsuit arises from the false arrests and other wrongs against Hans K. Ashbaucher, Johnie C. Miller, Kimberly L. Starr, Kristofer Johnson, and Michelle Hernandez – while they were exercising their constitutional rights participating in a well organized, publicized, and community supported encampment. Organized by People Project, the encampment demonstrated the plight of Northern Humboldt County’s houseless population and the ritual discrimination it endures from local ‘law enforcement’ officials. The People Project encampment was established on city property to provide a temporary safe place to sleep and to publicly draw attention to the situation that, in the City of Arcata, there is no “legal” place for the hundreds of houseless people to sleep. The camp was established also to generate dialogue and build support for a free, people run, ecologically-sustainable campground.

The People Project lawsuit points out: “Though the Defendant City of Arcata fails to offer any ‘legal’ housing facilities for people who have no house of their own … City of Arcata persists in criminalizing homeless people who attempt to sleep anywhere outside or even in their own vehicles, and no free campground safe zone exists for the 300 plus homeless people who reside in Arcata (population 17, 000) at any given time. The Defendant City of Arcata forbade churches from allowing people to sleep in cars in their parking lots. The Defendant City of Arcata has not only failed to provide any shelter or safe space for homeless people to rest, but has been heavy-handed in discouraging and punishing any groups or individuals who attempt to provide or create such spaces.” It is these policies that People Project is attempting to change in Arcata and throughout the county.

Several law enforcement agencies were involved in dismantling the People Project encampment in the April 25, 2007 raid (and are thereby subjects of this lawsuit): Arcata Police Department, Humboldt State University Police, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department, Eureka Police Department, California Highway Patrol, and Fortuna Police Department. The combined interagency force dismantled the protest camp using violent tactics on the primarily houseless and entirely non-violent demonstrators. After the police raid, the City of Arcata held the participants’ property, including medications and survival gear, of more than 50 homeless individuals. The City destroyed some items and waited 10 days after the raid to release many un-catalogued items and in some cases, returned property to the wrong people. The Arcata and HSU police harassed encampment demonstrators throughout the next 7 nights; demonstrators had relocated to another Arcata City property after the raid.

The Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office (present at the raid) and the City of Arcata declined to bring criminal charges against the Plaintiffs and the 14 other people who were falsely arrested for participating in the public encampment protest, suggesting the wrongful nature of the raid tactic.

In addition to claims of false arrest, wrongful confiscation, and destruction of personal property and vital medication, the People Project lawsuit states that “Arcata has proven itself to be deaf to all urgings by community to respect homeless peoples’ rights and to cease from day and night harassment, intimidation, and punishment of homeless people for performing or needing to perform life-sustaining activities..” It continues, “…whereas the Defendants exhibit no intention of voluntarily changing such unconstitutional pattern and practice, and [we] can exhaust no other options, [we] appeal to th[e] Court to provide declaratory and injunctive relief regarding such discriminatory and inhumane actions by Defendants.”.

Recently, the City of Fresno, California agreed to a $2.35 million dollar settlement to several homeless people after city employees seized and destroyed their property.

Rob Hepburn, a Veteran for Peace and People Project encampment supporter alluded to the UN Declaration of Human Rights and asserted, “Not allowing a person to sleep is tantamount to torture.”

**Photos from encampment and raid, as well as Complaint filed June, 2008 in U.S. District Court, Northern District, CA available by request.

HOMELESS PERSONS’ MEMORIAL DAY & NIGHT, Dec 21st

Safe Ground Homeless March- Sacramento

On December 23, homeless people and supporters took to the streets of Sacramento to protest oppressive laws and discrimination. Marching through the cold streets of Sacramento they demanded safe ground, the right to live without being arrested, fined, and their property being confiscated. In Sacramento there are more then twelve hundred people who go to sleep under the skies every night.

Homelessness Could Happen To You

YouTube Videos

Watch THIS. Breaking down stereotypes, glimpse at the truth…

Cops Cutting up Tents in St. Petersburg Florida (It Happens EVERYWHERE!)

George Carlin on Homelessness and Golf

The Mayor of Tent City sings about Sarah Palin

EMERGENCY- Need Safe Sleeping Spaces

[originally posted Jan 4th, please read now!]

Cold weather, especially over an extended period of time, takes a heavy toll on the health and well-being of the most vulnerable members in our community.

Recently, a small household in Eureka, made its garage available as a safe sleeping space for people with no shelter. The household and a group of friends (many PEOPLE PROJECT folks) organized the space in response to the dangerous weather and police conditions on the street. It was actually quite simple. Prior to opening the safe sleeping space, we discussed how we thought it would work best. One of the things decided beforehand was that we would make the space available for 11 nights (December 21-31), and would be explicit about that time frame, so that people sleeping there could depend on a stable schedule.

At this time, opening your home or some covered space is imperative. We were so grateful for the garage, and all went well. Being only a temporary situation, we are reaching out to you, asking you to open your garage, yard, or big room for whatever time you decide is possible.
We imagine a rotating emergency sleeping space.

We have found that when a community cooperates and shares in the protection of its most vulnerable members, the result is a vital sense of security experienced by all.

The people who recently shared their garage and those of us who supported and helped coordinate that emergency shelter space are available to talk with you about our experiences. We are eager to assist you in many ways if you are able to open up a sleeping space.

Ways we can assist you include: collecting floor padding, blankets, sleepware, and other necessary warm things (the garage just used had a cement floor); driving folks who need a ride to and from the space; and being present in the sleeping space overnight. The volunteer-run PARC (Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community) in Old Town Eureka fully supports the creation of temporary or permanent dignified community sleeping spaces. PARC is available, for any set-up you may provide, as a phone contact, a donation drop-off, and a dedicated resource for people offering or utilizing a safe shelter.

People can and do freeze to death in cold or wet or windy weather.. here we have all three at once. And the police continue to harass people and ruin their gear in the rain and cold. Please call and/or email if you want to talk about opening a space up yourself. It is freezing at night, and we can make a way through these hard times together.

Please Call PARC: (707) 442-7465

The following are the guidelines that were posted on the inside of the garage. You may have some different ideas for your place. We believe that emphasizing honor, dignity, and relationship makes for a truly “safe space.”

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ WELCOME ///////////////////////////

This is a hate-free space. that means…
NO racism, sexism, homophobia, etc
* please no physical or verbal violence
* smaller room is for women only
* bigger room in is for all

To protect this safe sleeping space…
- no drinking alcohol or doing drugs (including pot) here
- use lights, not candles
- every night, come through front house door when you first arrive;
then use the front gate to go in/out.
- use bathroom in the house (walk in back door, then to right)
- quiet after 9pm, and during cigarette breaks

You are welcome to sleep here…
- every night through the night of Dec 31st.
- Please come in no earlier than 6pm and no later than 10:30pm
-mornings, out by 9am please

Please do not leave your belongings here,
as no-one is here to protect them

Please communicate theses guide-lines with newcomers

If you need anything, please feel free to ask.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////////////////////////////////////

Sheriff Correctional Officer LANE Takes Jail Crews to Destroy Houseless Persons’ Property

Talking with men who have worked on the CalTrans crews while incarcerated at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility [jail],we learn that Correctional Officer LANE (who recently trained another correctional officer for his job running CalTrans crew) regularly destroys the camps and belongings of houseless persons. In addition, LANE has committed other crimes against houseless persons that are truly despicable. Here are some of the accounts:

LANE found a man sleeping in a dumpster near the jail. Lane closed the dumpster and locked it with the man inside.

LANE orders his crews to take belongings of houseless people and throw them in the CalTrans yard where they get thrown in the dumpster.

LANE dismantles and destroys sleeping sites of houseless people. After one such attack in Spring of 2008 while none of the people were at their sleeping spot, Lane found a rotting, maggot-infested deer carcass. Lane dragged the carcass up to the spot where people has been sleeping- and left it there.

While driving southbound on Highway 101 with the Cal Trans jail crew, Lane saw a person sleeping under a tree a safe distance from the road. Lane made a sudden u-turn and stopped. LANE then ripped the mattress out from under the woman who was sleeping, took her belongings, and told her to leave of go to jail. The woman was forced awake to walk down the highway with NOTHING.

LANE commonly tells houseless people: “You’re a worthless piece of shit” and other cruel, derogatory, and hateful comments.

GRUB-N-GRAB: dignified and SHARING space, disrupting social relations based on money, inspiring respect. Grub-n-Grab’s are NO HOAX

These are 3 accounts from the January 6, 2008 Grub-n-Grab.

News from Wabash and UNion (EKA)

Grub and Grab, January 6 2009
Eureka,CA

A Grub and Grab is the creation of our imaginations, where we practice what we preach and live our dreams of community. Without any financial burdens, we reclaim a neighborhood space where we can allow for relationships outside of the state and capital regulations. Simply, it is a place where we share the abundance of our society as well as our individual aspirations. In the heart of this winter season, we bring hot food, drinks and warm clothing for all who have been weathered by the storms. Under large tarps we put up dry tables of countless goods that belong in the hands of those who need it. We know that in the downfall of their economy, we are left to struggle for all necessities. The GNG is one way that we stand together and provide for ourselves. This is not charity, this is beyond solidarity. This is not a one time deal, but an ongoing practice of our values. GNGs have been going on since the summer of ´07. This last GNG has turned out to tell the story of many elements to our situation of crisis. The story of this event will help to clarify our purpose to ourselves and the greater Eureka of what are our intentions

Because the GNG was scheduled for the 24th of December, it must have been perceived as a christmas happening, although it was not specifically that.

The Day

We set up at eight o’clock with hot food and and a warm crowd. There was a sense of accomplishment amongst the crew. Pleasantly, through word of mouth there was about 10 of us setting up, making it easy to set up and unload. Also, we were fresh faces to one another, allowing for making new relationships and connections. Through persistent organizing we pulled a crew together ofof strangers ready to work together at 7 in the morning outside in the rain without compen$ation. But – We were there! We set up at this building that barely looked like a place of worship, it was an old run down church. The church at Wabash and Union is an example of capitalist and bureaucratic process that have lead to neglect and waste. The building stands with broken windows and boarded up doors hardly resembling a church at all. Now it stands with a new story.

People came down Wabash by car, bike and foot to see what was going on. We flew through coffee and potatoes. As the rain came down, people came up to get dry coats. This is very practical – no? We shared conversation with old friends and new acquaintances that came by. There was joy in the air despite the water clouds above. People were pleasant and respectful, not following rules or judicial law, but our own common sense. The children reflected this, happy faces and giggles, there was kid clothes and even toys. Some came for the coffee, and some came to say hi. Some came with carts, and some came with minivans. We were grateful, and our smiles showed it. Aside from th chit chat, we also screened movies with a portable TV. It was place to hang out – and thats what we did, content under the protection of tarps.

While people trickled in and out of the space, some of us went to pass out fliers at Henderson Center. Our fliers were received well except for a group of employees who suggested we leave before security came to throw us out. This seemed strange considering our good intentions, but not surprising policy for a corporation. Upon our return, the PIGZ were at the site serving orders to move from our location prematurely. We had intended to be there another 3 hours. Against our will, we packed our things and hung our tails between our legs, like the dogs they treat us like. I was not ready to leave. I was not ready to be arrested. We packed up three truck loads, and gave thanks for the success we did have.
How come our day of giving was not allowed and the december 24 give away was hailed as a miracle? the ongoing contradictions of the state and property owners is not new to me but still just as outraging!
—————————————————————–

NO HOAX! But a miracle is still a miracle!

The spirit of giving and community empowerment lives on- even sprouts an unexpected branch. What was recently dubbed an internet hoax and cruel prank was actually a very simple slip up. The December 24th Grub-n-Grab, which was called off due to extenuating circumstances around resources and weather, was to be the 7th such event organized and carried out in recent years by PEOPLE PROJECT. It was our hope that as the Craigslist ad had only been posted for a few hours between 12 and 7 am, the risk of anyone showing up was minimal. That it caused anyone inconvenience is regrettable, and we at PEOPLE PROJECT apologize for the miscommunication. That this mishap should generate so positive an experience as to be called a miracle, was an inspiring surprise and we wish we had been privy to the organizing that ensued after we pulled the posting.

The Grub-n-Grab is no joke. We have hosted 7 such events in this area over the past 2 years. It all started when People Project members happened upon several truckloads of goods a local church was needing to get rid of. The high spirits that ensued from this first give-away led into conversation about what had made the event unique and special and why it felt so different from the other “institutional” charities we have all experienced in one way or another.
Inspired to affect compassion, sharing, empowerment, and community cooperation; and eager to re-imagine what community could look like, and feel like, PEOPLE PROJECT members carried the dream into action. It was in the spirit of this tradition, that on the 6th of January we rolled up our sleeves to host the event which had not been able to happen on the 24th. Only a little bit sheepish from the spin-off of our mistake and the title of “evil Grinch”, we set up our canopy and tarps and put on a great event. There was hot food, live music, educational videos, children playing, and lots of free stuff picked out. As was so beautifully illustrated in the Miracle on Wabash story, those moved to help were not necessarily coming from a place of affluence and privilege, and the real show of wealth came from the spirit of sharing.
Such is the case consistently in our organizing, where many among us are houseless, and where in working together to create a space where humanity and care are held in priority over material success and profit, the result is the kind of empowerment and community uplift bestowed by the spirit of sharing itself. We hope to join forces with those who rose to the occasion on X-mas day to ensure that this wonderful occurrence does not get buried in the past as a one-time thing. Past experience confines us to the unfortunate expectation that should the “miracle workers” endeavor to act on a continuing grass-roots basis, in collaboration or otherwise, they will be met with many of the frustrations, obstacles and harassment we have and continue to struggle with. However, of course always optimistic, we pray that in this case things may be different.

On Tuesday afternoon, some of the most significant obstacles standing in the way of such ongoing community self-determination were made clear. A property manager, more concerned with what he stands to lose than what he has to give, and a police force, obligated to enforce policy based in social anxiety rather than optimism and hope, put an early end to Tuesday’s Grub-n-Grab. The officers dealt fairly with us and we in turn, though disappointed, complied in the prompt breakdown of the event. Community members scrambled for last minute finds and bites of food as we packed.

The take home message would seem to be that an isolated instance of spontaneous humanity is permissible, but that the ongoing work of lifting each other into a stance of dignity cannot be allowed. Whether this condition stems from class prejudice or from the general cultural anxiety around disparity and issues of social justice, or any number of other possible reasons, it is difficult to say. It may be that this treatment stems from the belief that if our houseless community members are treated with respect, a larger population of dispossessed people will be attracted. Meanwhile, frustration and anger mounts for those of us faced daily with the deterioration of health, dignity, and life of people being pushed into extremes of poverty by a system unwilling to address its problems and which penalizes those who most need help and protection. We would hope that the colossal adversary of poverty and systemic blindness in our communities would be villain enough to rally ongoing response. But if it takes a fictitious evil Grinch to rally folks from the couch cushions, we will gladly show up in costume.

Travis Lathrop,
Peoples Project
————————————

A participant from GRUBNGRAB explains events and feelings (Eureka)

I am excited to have been involved with my first Grub n´ Grab; an ongoing struggle to share with people our intent and compassion. The GNG practices mutual aid with creativity and is acting as a catalyst by pushing for a market-less way to distribute within a very market dependent culture. The GNG allows people to become peers amongst each other; diminishing the ideaś of class, salary, and capital. Autonomy and dignity share this special space with the proles and the elite, while both browse freely amongst the excesses of yesteryear’s forgotten product.
There is another definite symptom of creating such a space. The folks who involve themselves in the event, whether it be browsing for clothing, eating some ´taters or setting up tarps and tables, seem to adopt a sense of respect and responsibility for that space. On Tuesday we turned a beaten up and neglected church into a safe haven from the rain and in some cases the hunger. People who came away from that came away with a sense of respect for the location, us, and other participants.
When the Realtor Ron Queen, arrived his demeanor and attitude were authoritative. Immediatly he proved this to be true by demanding to know who was in charge of the event. Having understood that this space was shared by everyone and we all participated in setting it up and maintaining it, I answered him by acknowledging that fact. After i took a look at who he was barking at, i realized he had been speaking towards(at not to) KRSTNA and CRTNY. As if to let people know who was running the show ´now´. During our confrontation with him we repeatedly tried to talk outside the sphere of capital, and property. He was intent on remaining decided in his favor and ignored our attempts to express our discontent with having to leave after an already successful day of sharing. He informed us that the police were arriving shortly and that we were to break down our tarps and tables, food and clothing, banners and fliers, immediatly. Upon arrival the PIGZ tried to make sense of the situation. Doing what they know best to do, they confirmed the Realtorś claims, identity, and ´supposed´ right to eject us from the property by giving us an hour to break down. Ron Queen, during all this time, stood on the side of the law. Shoulder to shoulder with the two officers he had ordered to remove us. After their departure more folks showed up to ask about the event. Many took clothing as fast as we could break down. As we finished up we realized the hour had passed and still no intervention.
Grub N’Grab is a space that means i can detach myself from capitalism and engage in true community solidarity. Reaching out to those who need us just as much as we need each other. We can attach ourselves to something that is more real and more tangible than the state would ever believe. We have made a collective effort to escape from that which has confined us, and that to me means everything. It means Survival.

p.s. Final analysis: Smash Capitalism; Off Da Pigz, Everything for everyone!

Reno Dismantles Makeshift Homeless Encampment

Reno Dismantles Makeshift Homeless Encampment

By Jeff DeLong • jdelong@rgj.com • January 10, 2009

Crews on Friday dismantled a makeshift encampment set up outside
Reno’s homeless shelter on Record Street, leading to complaints by
some living there that they now have no place to go.

Beginning about 8 a.m., city workers removed tents, sleeping bags,
tarps, slabs of cardboard and other items to be hauled away by dump
trucks.
“I think it’s horrendous,” said Mike Kavanagh, who had been sleeping
at the camp for the past 10 days.
“They just don’t care,” said Kavanagh, 53. “People will have to walk
the streets.”
“We’re cleaning it up, and that’s about it,” Reno Police Sgt. Ray Leal
said as he watched workers dismantle the camp.
Fewer than 10 people slept overnight there Thursday, said Jodi
Royal-Goodwin, Reno’s community reinvestment manager.
“A lot of people were just using it as storage,” she said.
The site is at the same location as a larger “tent city” set up for
the homeless over the summer. The tent city had at one point as many as 160 people living there. The city officially closed the site in
October, but clusters of homeless have continued to sleep there, even
with the arrival of freezing winter temperatures.

City officials posted signs in the area Tuesday warning that all
belongings must be removed by Friday or would be discarded,
Royal-Goodwin said. Camping in the area will no longer be allowed.

The move was necessary because construction of a new day area for the homeless will soon commence at that location and because of unsanitary conditions, Royal-Goodwin said.

Some beds were available at the nearby shelters, she said.

That availability is sharply limited, however. The 158-bed facility
for men was full Friday, while there were 15 openings in the 50-bed
women’s facility, said Christie Holderegger of Volunteers of America,
which operates the Record Street homeless complex. A facility with
apartments for 21 families was expected to be full by today, though
there were two openings for pregnant women or single women with
infants or toddlers, Holderegger said.
The 60-bed men’s shelter at the Reno-Sparks Gospel Mission has also
been filling nightly.
“There are people who will be turned away this evening,” a mission
worker said Friday.
Some of those displaced by the camp’s closure said they are now in a tough spot.
Kari Hartman and her husband Donald Morey, both 44, lived in the tent
city over much of the summer and then left. They returned to the
smaller camp a couple of weeks ago after Morey lost his latest job,
Hartman said.

The couple said they opted to stay at the camp rather than in the
shelters because they would have to sleep separated.

“We had our little camp set up right here,” Hartman said. “We just
don’t want to be separated.”
Hartman said she had no idea where the couple would go Friday night.

“It’s all up in the air,” she said. “If you go to the river, you get
arrested. You go to the parks, you get arrested. They don’t want you
downtown.
“We have no where to go,” Hartman said. ” If we had somewhere to go, we’d be there.”
Elizabeth Dorway, chairwoman of the Reno Area Alliance for the
Homeless, criticized the camp’s closure.
“I just feel this is a safe place for people to be,” Dorway said,
adding that those who stayed there will now probably be “dispersed”
around the city.
“It may have been unsightly, but the people are the real concern,”
Dorway said. “Where are these people going to go now?”

AND A DISCUSSION ON ABOVE TOP SECRET:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread426617/pg1

reply posted on 10-1-2009 @ 10:03 AM by projectvxn

I heard of this first through a friend who frequents St. Vincents for
breakfast every morning. He is homeless. Police actually denied access
to those wanting to claim their property before they took it away in
trucks, in effect depriving of property without due process. Reno gets
below freezing temps at night, and it is an arrestable offense to set
up a tent, sleep in your car, or seek shelter in any way. Most of the
people who are homeless in Northern Nevada are families with children
who have succumb to the current economic crisis. The police have been arresting people, taking and destroying their personal property
without probable cause, due process, or any other legal precedent.

My friend(Who shall remain anonymous) took me down there to see for
myself the hardships faced. I have been homeless in Nevada, and I’ll
tell you, it has gotten worse, not better for those just barely trying
to survive.

The police, according to my source, and my own experience at St.
Vincent’s, told us that the new stadium was going up and that they
“Did not want to have to look at a bunch of dirty bums”. What they
said to the news media, was obviously not reflected in the article.
But it is what they told us, verbatim.

ACLU of Southern CA Suing City of Laguna Beach for Its “No Sleeping” Ordinance- UNCONSTITUTIONAL & DISCRIMINATORY

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on Dec. 23, 2008 against the City of Laguna Beach, its council members and police department on behalf of the homeless people of Laguna Beach. The suit claims that the city’s anti-sleeping ordinances result in an unconstitutional harassment of homeless people. The city’s police illegally conduct ’sweeps’, picking up homeless people from the streets and subjecting them to interrogations in the middle of the night.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, claims the town is engaged in a campaign of harassment against the homeless while providing no year-round city-sponsored shelters. The 21-page complaint focuses on an ordinance that criminalizes sleeping on the street, which ACLU attorneys said is unconstitutional and discriminatory.

Read More…

Harrassment of Houseless People in Southern Humboldt continues

This letter was probably rejected as a Letter to the Editor, so we put it here! Note: People in SoHum (Redway, Garberville) are often picked up, brought almost 2 hours away to Eureka, cited, and released to the street with no way back home and no survival gear that they were carrying. All over the country, benches and anything that allows people to rest for a moment, are disappearing.

The Grinch that stole the picnic table

Oh how cool for the town square to donate the picnic table to the some peoples community park. The real reason is that it is another chapter in the war on the poor. Was anyone in our community contacted to see if they would rather , sit at at a picnic table or a small bench at some people’s town square? People finally had a reasonable place in town to gather without being harassed but, oh no that just couldn’t be. The same merchants that sign petitions to get the police unprecedented power to get folks to move on and who think they are above the law and clouds made that decision. I have seen the kindness and generosity of this community first hand and have seen the dark side also. Backpacks are like yellow stars to the right wing profilers, off to the gulag you go.

As the cops constantly harass folks who live in their rigs or park on our streets a motor home sat along the highway in Richardson grove for months. I guess it sat there because no one was living in it.Ahh what kind and generous times we live in.

How we treat our poor is a direct reflection of us as a community. I know you catch more bees with honey but this just stings me.

Name withheld to protect myself

Homeless Man Gets 15 Years for Stealing (and returning) $100

Homeless man gets 15 years for stealing $100 !!!!

A homeless man robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill. After feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police the next day. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

Isn’t a person realizing the “errors of his/her ways” what the whole so-called justice system claims as its goal?

Here is a link to a photo of Roy Brown

[PEOPLE PROJECT received word of this from SCHAP,
Stop Criminalizing Homeless And Poor,
posted by: "isfonelove" Iolmisha@cs.com, Wed Jan 28, 2009]

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/265402#tab=article&sc=0&local

Homeless man gets 15 years for stealing $100

A homeless man robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill. After feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police the next day. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

Roy Brown, 54, robbed the Capital One bank in Shreveport, Louisiana in December 2007. He approached the teller with one of his hands under his jacket and told her that it was a robbery.

The teller handed Brown three stacks of bill but he only took a single $100 bill and returned the remaining money back to her. He said that he was homeless and hungry and left the bank.

The next day he surrendered to the police voluntarily and told them that his mother didn’t raise him that way.

Brown told the police he needed the money to stay at the detox center and had no other place to stay and was hungry.

In Caddo District Court, he pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison for first degree robbery.

Sleep Deprivation is “Significant Evil” (quotes from 1998 CA court)

“Sleep is a physiological need, not an option for humans. It is common knowledge that loss of sleep produces a host of physical and mental problems (mood irritability, energy drain and low motivation, slow reaction time, inability to concentrate and process information). Certainly, no one would suggest that a groggy truck driver who stops his rig on the side of a road rather than risk falling asleep at the wheel does not act to prevent a significant evil, i.e., harm to himself and others….

‘I mean it doesn’t take an expert to tell us that, to convince a person, that there are ill effects that arise from sleep [deprivation].’

quoted from

In re Eichorn, 69 Cal.App.4th 382 (2000)

It Is Illegal When Police Dispose of Your Possessions!

from Eureka, California:

On this rainy, cold, windy February 10, 2009, a young houseless man told us that the cops saw him sitting on the stoop of a private business.

First, the cops LIED: They told him that they always have the right to search him (even though he is not on probation or parole) because in the past they have found illicit items in his possession.

Then, (after not finding anything illicit) they took ALL of his possessions (backpack, sleeping bag, extra pants, the glove not on his hand) and told him that they were throwing his belongings in the garbage! [That is ILLEGAL!]

No matter what the cops  say, or believe, or decide to mess with or arrest you for, they do not have the right to trash your belongings!

the Politics of Cruelty continue.   Remember COPS LIE.

Tell them, “I do not consent to a search.”

Ask for and remember the cops’ names and badge numbers.

Report your own experiences to Redwood Curtain CopWatch

Phone:  (707)633-4493
Email:  copwatchrwc@riseup.net
Website: http://redwoodcurtaincopwatch.net/report

http://redwoodcurtaincopwatch.net/

Check out this recent successful lawsuit in Fresno.  Cops are breaking the law when they destroy your stuff!

Santa Cruz wants to METER THE BENCHES!

“Aftermath” by Robert Norse Thursday Feb 12th, 2009

The law in its majestic equality “forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” –Anatole France

So it now goes in Progressive Santa Cruz.

At the 7 PM session of City Council, the only item on the evening agenda was the Second and Final Reading of the expansion of the Downtown Ordinance Forbidden Zones, making three infraction ‘crimes” a potential misdemeanor if unattended to, and metering the benches (plus the fluff added by Matthew’s secret Downtown Impro.vement Task Force.

Neither Beiers nor Lane kept their commitments to ask solid questions about the law, though Lane said he encouraged “musicians with complaints” to come to him. Rotkin repeated the same misinformation that there was “no consequence” presently for ignoring or tearing up infraction citations, which required giving the police additional “war against terror” problems (the terror of the panhandler, the sitter, the street performer, the homeless sleeper, and the political tabler).

Rotkin ignored the fact that two instances of any of these crimes within 6 months is currently an automatic misdemeanor unless lowered by the city (which it always does with sleepcrimes in order to stop jury trials, save itself money, and avoid a public defender).

I call him a liar on this issue because I brought the matter to his attention specifically on tape (see http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb090205.mp3).

During this session there was actually more public opposition to the ordinance changes than support. The merchants had hauled out their dog-and-pony show on January 27th and didn’t feel the need to come back. The weather outside was cold and nasty–reflecting the nature of what was being done inside Council chambers. There were less than 20 people in the audience, compared to the estimated 300 that attended the prior meeting. The supporters knew their fix was in.

Mayor Matthews untypically allowed 3 minutes for public comment and gave me 5 minutes for my organizational presentation (she said she’d lost the e-mail requesting it in advance, but accepted my word that I’d sent it).

Joe Schultz served his usual hot spirit-sustaining soup and agreed to do a benefit meal to challenge the ordinances in future. Students from Cabrillo and UCSC agreed to do some organizing against the ordinances for a future protest planned downtown for March.

HUFF will continue to work on what is the real issue for many poor people downtown: fighting back against (legalized) police harassment through a more unified system of documentation, witnessing, public education, and legal jujitsu (the laws that they’ve passed also apply to tourists and customers).

The DIY Copwatch Blog, when we complete it, should be a useful tool to document police, host, ranger, and deputy harassment soon after it happens and provide the data base for seeing just who’s getting cited for “bad behavior”.

“Bad behavior”, of course, now includes sitting in the expanded forbidden sidewalk zones, playing music that a resident objects to, serving free food if that dissatisfies a merchant, sleeping at night if you’re homeless, or having a “bad attitude” towards police demands (“you’re drunk”, “no we don’t have to use a breathalyzer”, “yes we will release you at 3 AM without your property”, “no we don’t have to justify it in court–we dropped the charges”).

Increased policing and squeezing people into smaller and smaller zones will naturally produce warm relations in the community between police and public. Contributing to a “more welcoming” downtown.

Any real attempt to deal with “bad behavior” by police, including false arrests, overcharging, mis-citing laws, selective enforcement, intrusive surveillence, and special interest security-guard behavior on the (impoverished) public payroll naturally went unnoticed and unmentioned by City Council.

Rude, angry, and abusive behavior on the street, as I’ve mentioned before, is nowhere explicitly dealt with in these changes, nor, largely, in the original downtown ordinances themselves. Nor are the causes and provocations that produce resentment addressed. These are gentrification anti-homeless laws that expand police powers to move people along and punish them for doing what poor people do in public spaces: sit, try to sell their possesions, perform, table for change, and beg.

If a tourist or resident says “you’re a dirty beggar” to a panhandler, that’s “free speech”. If a panhandler says “you’re a callous tightwad”, that’s cause for a citation for “abusive panhandling”

“The poor have to labour in the face of the majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

The new changes go into effect a month from last Tuesday.

Interestingly enough, other cities have defeated these kinds of laws. Most recently Northampton, MASS activists and streetfolks fought back. See http://michaelannland.blogspot.com/2009/02/poverty-is-not-crime-stops-panhandling.html

For more details on the prior Santa Cruz struggle, check out http://www.the-alarm.com/pdf/7-26-02.pdf . The Alarm (2001-2005) published many articles and letters about this struggle. Their archives can be found at http://www.the-alarm.com/pdf/index.html My thanks to Fhar Meiss for his tireless work on this paper.

City of Angels Medical Center busted for recruiting homeless people from Skid Row to get State medical money

Ex-LA hospital exec arrested in alleged med fraud
The Associated Press, Jan 30, 2009

LOS ANGELES—The former co-owner of a hospital was arrested Friday on charges stemming from a scheme to recruit homeless people for unnecessary medical treatment to collect millions of dollars from government health programs.

Robert Bourseau, the 74-year-old former chairman of City of Angels Medical Center, was arrested at his downtown home without incident, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Vince Farhat.

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Bourseau on charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, conspiracy to pay illegal kickbacks to a Skid Row recruiter, and 11 counts of paying kickbacks.

Also named in the indictment was Dante Nicholson, the former vice president of the hospital, and Bourseau’s company that operated City of Angels, Intercare Health Systems, Farhat said.

Nicholson, 51, of Palmdale, will be summoned to an arraignment next month, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Lawyers for the men could not be immediately reached. Messages seeking comment were left at two phone numbers listed for Bourseau, who also has a home in Rancho Mirage. He made an initial court appearance Friday and was detained pending trial, U.S. attorney’s spokesman Thom Mrozek said. An arraignment was scheduled for Monday.

Bourseau and Nicholson each face a maximum of 65 years in prison if convicted of all charges. Intercare could face fines up to $6 million.

The hospital was sold in December to Success Health Systems, and now operates as Silver Lake Medical Center, Farhat said.

The indictment stems from an alleged scheme in which City of Angels officials paid a recruiter $500,000 over three years to round up homeless people from Skid Row with Medicare or Medi-Cal cards and transport them to the hospital.

The “patients,” who were paid $100 or less,

(what?????)
were usually diagnosed with minor ailments, including yeast infections and dehydration, and the government programs were billed for the medical treatment.

Bourseau’s business partner, Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, pleaded guilty last year to bilking Medicare and Medi-Cal of $4.1 million from 2004 to 2007. The recruiter, Estill Mitts, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud. money laundering and tax evasion.

Both men are scheduled to be sentenced later this year.

SEE ANOTHER ARTICLE:
HERE…Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, 64, admitted to paying approximately $493,000 in kickbacks to Estill Mitts, the owner of a skid row-based recruiting storefront facility, and others to recruit homeless patients and take them to the hospital for unnecessary services.

Homeless man beat by two cops in Fresno, Ca (cops caught on camera)

IHSS threatened (In Home Support Services for 81,000 people!)

IHSS threatened – take action

[forwarded from SCHAP- "Stop Criminalizing Homeless and Poor"; One comment regarding this letter is included in the bottom of this post. Please feel free to add your comments, as with every post on this site.]

originally from Laura Rifkin:
PLEASE REMEMBER – This is based on the Governors Proposal; the negotiators are keeping silent.

February 6, 2009

THE GOVERNOR’S PROPOSED BUDGET WOULD ELIMINATE IHSS DOMESTIC SERVICES FOR 81,000 LOW-INCOME SENIORS AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

The In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) Program provides services to low-income seniors and people with disabilities who live in their own
homes to help prevent more costly out-of-home care. Governor Schwarzenegger proposes to eliminate domestic and related services for IHSS recipients who have less severe impairments effective May 1, 2009.

This change would reduce IHSS Program funding by $257.6 million between May 2009 and June 2010 and affect 81,000 vulnerable Californians.

Estimated Impact of Governor’s Proposal To Eliminate Domestic Services for Recipients With Less Severe Impairments in the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS)

Program County – Number of Recipients – Affected Loss of Funds

Alameda 3,320 $13,678,000
Alpine 3 $10,000
Amador 30 $87,000
Butte 630 $2,176,000
Calaveras 50 $182,000
Colusa 30 $55,000
Contra Costa 1,450 $5,495,000
Del Norte 60 $235,000
El Dorado 150 $555,000
Fresno 2,250 $8,359,000
Glenn 70 $243,000
Humboldt 320 $899,000
Imperial 990 $2,288,000
Inyo 20 $53,000
Kern 880 $2,575,000
Kings 320 $882,000
Lake 290 $1,180,000
Lassen 50 $145,000
Los Angeles 34,290 $96,747,000
Madera 300 $776,000
Marin 300 $1,281,000
Mariposa 40 $106,000
Mendocino 260 $868,000
Merced 560 $1,179,000
Modoc 20 $64,000
Mono 5 $25,000
Monterey 640 $2,233,000
Napa 150 $645,000
Nevada 110 $407,000
Orange 3,020 $7,520,000
Placer 330 $1,328,000
Plumas 50 $109,000
Riverside 3,020 $10,571,000
Sacramento 3,850 $16,538,000
San Benito 70 $296,000
San Bernardino 3,560 $11,702,000
San Diego 4,590 $13,448,000
San Francisco 3,700 $14,137,000
San Joaquin 1,280 $3,829,000
San Luis Obispo 310 $1,122,000
San Mateo 540 $2,754,000
Santa Barbara 480 $1,587,000
Santa Clara 3,010 $10,837,000
Santa Cruz 420 $1,655,000
Shasta 490 $1,321,000
Sierra 10 $13,000
Siskiyou 90 $209,000
Solano 540 $2,474,000
Sonoma 870 $3,816,000
Stanislaus 1,130 $2,873,000
Sutter 150 $444,000
Tehama 190 $481,000
Trinity 30 $66,000
Tulare 510 $1,217,000
Tuolumne 70 $100,000
Ventura 650 $2,043,000
Yolo 330 $1,215,000
Yuba 130 $441,000

Total 81,000 $257,574,000

Note: Total number of recipients affected and total loss of funds are Department of Social Services estimates and reflect the Governor’s
proposal to eliminate domestic and related services for IHSS recipients with less severe impairments beginning on May 1, 2009. Estimated loss of funds includes federal, state, and county funds. Estimates of affected recipients are rounded to the nearest 10, except for Alpine and Mono counties, and estimates of loss of funds are rounded to the nearest $1,000. County estimates are based on counties’ share of the IHSS caseload and expenditures in December 2008. County estimates may not sum to totals due to rounding.

Source: CBP analysis of Department of Social Services data

forwarded by:
Laura E. Williams, President
Californians for Disability Rights, Inc.

http://www.disabilityrights-cdr.org/

————————————-
from Frank Z:

“I was an IHSS “social worker” in Ventura County. Their definition of social work does not involve concern for the elderly and disabled clients. Rather, it involves a system of insurmountable caseloads resulting in the least amount of attention to the clients. The approach to this program is to give the clients the LEAST amount of help possible. I remember several home visits with our nurse who was there to “assess” the needs of clients. She mentioned several times that “it’s all about saving the taxpayers a few dollars” as we drove passed the Ronald Reagan library to the assisted living complex to do the assessment. The caretakers are low-paid and mostly immigrants and “low-skilled” workers. The SEIU takes a cut of their check but the caretakers receive no health care or any other benefits that a union is supposed to fight for. The caretakers only get paid for the amount of hours authorized for the clients based on the “assessment” and the social workers are encouraged to give as few hours as possible, thereby creating a natural antagonism between caretakers and social workers. The whole situation left me disillusioned and led to me going back to school, partly because the medical benefits, salary, and retirement weren’t enough to reconcile the hypocrisy of the system. When services are cut, the state’s rhetoric always seems to be, “these are difficult financial times and we need to cut spending…” as if it were an isolated incident. However, in my opinion, it is not a matter of balancing the budget but of the value system of classical liberalism and its neo-liberal manifestation. From the seventeenth century, individuals have argued against what were then called “poor laws” in Europe, insisting that they would limit freedom of hardworking individuals and encourage laziness and drunkenness. This same rhetoric is used today when taxing the super-rich is still denounced as an attack on individual liberty. The philosophy of the welfare system is to make it as difficult and shameful as possible to get assistance and to give the bare minimum.

As long as both our “representatives” and “advocates” accept this framework, then they will continue to quibble over what and how much to give and never be held accountable for their capitalist logic of scarcity.

“Where do I go?” Cops arrest people for EXISTING poor

Recently, copwatchers witnessed 4 (that’s right FOUR) Eureka Police Officers arresting a woman for sitting in a covered bus stop late at night with only a blanket in her hand.

Three vehicles, two of them K-9 units, were there. The officers were: Adam Laird (Badge #40), Kurt Rulofson (new guy), Ed Wilson (Badge #96), and Mike Guy (Badge #63).

The woman asked the officers, “Where do I go?”

She told them “I didn’t do anything.” But, you see, if you sit somewhere in public at night, when you have no other place to go, you get arrested.

After the woman was HANDCUFFED, male officer Rolofson, in the presence of the other cops and 4 copwatchers, searched her. That means he put his hands in her ass pockets and felt all over for… something (found nothing). It happens quite often here in Eureka- male officers searching women.

The woman was CITED and RELEASED LATER THAT NIGHT (or wee hours of the morning). Undoubtedly, she was sent back to the streets (where there is NO legal place to be or sleep) WITHOUT HER BLANKET which was seized by the cops and, as is customary, kept at the Jail until a “business day.”

If the woman wants her blanket (and it hasn’t been destroyed), she has to march up to the Sheriff’s desk on a week day only, show ID, and jump through the hoops to get it back.

http://redwoodcurtaincopwatch.net

Words on Broken Windows philosophy- “decimation of human and civil rights of poor people and communities of color”

POOR Magazine

This is an older article, but still important to read. Anytime you check out POOR Magazine is worthwhile.

Giuliani Time: Just When You Thought You Knew How Evil He Is

A ReVieWfortHeReVoluTion of the documentary ‘Giuliani Time.’

tiny/PNN
Wednesday, December 5, 2007;

“Peddlers, panhandlers and prostitutes, they all need to be cleaned out [of Manhattan].” The first time I heard Rudy Giuliani speak was on a NBC nightly news broadcast. It was 1996. I was living in Oakland, Calif., at the time — 3,000 miles away from Manhattan, where, as mayor, Giuliani was implementing his “clean-up campaign.” But the sting of his speech still scared me.

It was the first time I had heard hygienic metaphors to describe poor people like me who were surviving in an underground street-based economy. Rudy Giuliani had become mayor of New York City on a campaign that constructed a new scapegoat for all of America’s crime problems: “the squeegee man” (aka a person who cleans car windows at stop lights).

Giuliani was emboldened with “the broken window” philosophy, which claimed that if broken windows remain unfixed for a period of time the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

The theory was promoted by the hyperconservative Manhattan Institute and was already litmus tested by N.Y. Police chief Bill Bratten. In his now-infamous statement, Giuliani publicly linked three street-based economies and communities with dirt or trash: They were something to be cleaned up as a means to create the perfect U.S. city.

Under his rule, ridding Manhattan of the newly designated and oxymoronic “quality of life” criminals such as panhandlers, recyclers, window washers (aka squeegee men), sex workers, hot dog peddlers and street artists was the way to have a crime-free, user-friendly, corporate dollar-fueled city.

All of these memories came to me as I watched the little-seen but important documentary Giuliani Time. The two-hour-and-20-minute feature, produced and directed by Kevin Keating, uses a series of in-depth interviews with policy makers, advocates, sociologists and urban planners to reveal how Giuliani’s policies during his reign from 1994-2001 led to extreme and dangerous police empowerment and subsequent decimation of human and civil rights of poor people and communities of color. The film shows how he created a template for criminalization that would be eventually emulated and implemented by mayors across the country — from Atlanta to San Francisco.

The movie begins with a look at Giuliani’s family roots with crime and vice: His uncle Harold was a loan shark out of a bar he ran in Brooklyn and eventually did hard time in Sing Sing. It then follows Giuliani’s ambitious rise from state attorney general to a mayor who appropriated as his own the “quality of life” crime campaign from then-police chief Bratton.

The film shows a somewhat dense series of interviews outlining Giuliani’s draconian strategy of using New York police to attack and manipulate the short-lived mayoral run of David Dinkins.Once he achieved his position as mayor, Giuliani began an onslaught of race-based profiling and harassment of African-American communities in New York by the NYPD.

Simultaneously, he launched a campaign to cut people off welfare en masse, regardless of its impact on poor families, to have homeless people considered criminals, and to have the simple acts of sitting, standing and sleeping outdoors and surviving on a street-based economy designated as crimes.

His welfare policies succeeded in making Giuliani the mayor best known for getting 600,000 welfare recipients off welfare and into a new form of slavery, “workfare.” Workfare, is the hard labor (that isn’t considered real work by the welfare system and most of society for that matter) one must do to get the minimal cash aid distributed by welfare. This includes doing previously union-held jobs like crack-of-dawn street sweeping and public restroom cleaning, and other forms of menial labor, for much less than minimum wage.

As this documentary revealed, Giuliani’s police policies resulted in the specific profiling, abuse and arrest of men of color. The film shows the horrors that resulted from a newly emboldened police force — including the brutalization of Hatian immigrant Abner Louima and the murder of Liberian immigrant Amadou Diallo.

As the daughter of a poor, homeless woman of color who worked on the street to survive in L.A., Oakland and San Francisco, I have felt the direct impact of locally implemented Giuliani-derived criminalizing policies over the last 10 years such as the Business Improvement District (BID), which in San Francisco was based in Union Square but modeled after Giuliani’s BID in Times Square. Each BID includes a squared-off area that is policed by a private police force that cites, harasses and profiles everyone selling, sitting or standing who appears to be “poor.” With the BIDs come the so-called “community courts,” which are courts dedicated to the adjudication of “poverty crimes,” i.e, selling without a license, trespassing, sleeping, urinating and other low-level crimes of poverty.

After viewing this documentary, I became even more terrified of Giuliani’s impact. Rarely has one man so successfully harnessed the hatred and ignorance of the U.S. public for poor people and people of color. And rarely has the connection between race, class, xenophobia and ableism been so clearly played out in legislative actions such as the BIDs, community courts and overall police harassment of poor people that reverberate today in cities across the United States and is referred to by economic justice organizers as the “Manhattanization” of a city.

Quite by accident I was able to witness firsthand the impact of Giulani-like policies in action in Georgia. As a member of a delegation to the U.S. Social Forum, I visited Atlanta. Upon entering one of their business improvement districts, aka a Disney-like mall “town” that included chain stores and restaurants, I was met with a small corporate-logo covered police car filled with “officers” who wore cartoon-like bounty hunter hats. When some of my group and myself attempted to lean against a light pole and make a cell phone call we were asked to move because our leaning created a “perception of loitering.”

As a low-income resident of San Francisco, another one of thousands of U.S. cities following Giuliani’s model for “cleanliness,” I grapple every day with the new science fiction-like world of where to sleep, sit, stand or dwell in a public place as a poor person when all of those things can be a crime. Where, even if you don’t “look homeless,” the mere perception of loitering is a citable offense.

Like some of the worst and bloodiest horror movies, you want to cringe and look away from Giuliani Time, but hold on to your seat, watch, look and listen carefully, because this man is running for president, and we must act now or his new form of fascism masked as “cleanliness” will be the norm for the entire United States.

Schwarzenegger Sets Up Homeland Security “Camps” for Homeless (and those who will be rounded up later)

Schwarzenegger To Provide Government Camps For Homeless

Shut down and takeover of “tent cities” stokes fears of internment pretext

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, March 26, 2009

Plans to shut down tent cities in California and relocate homeless people to government-run facilities have stoked fears that the move could be a pretext for a wider internment of Americans in the event of a total economic collapse.

“California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said a make-shift tent city for the homeless that sprang up in the capital city of Sacramento will be shut down and its residents allowed to stay at the state fairgrounds,” reports Bloomberg News.

Homeless people will be moved to the the state facility known as Cal-Expo as the Sacramento City Council last night agreed to spend $880,000 to expand homeless programs.

“Together with the local government and volunteers, we are taking a first step to ensure the people living in tent city have a safe place to stay, with fresh water, healthy conditions and access to the services they need,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “And I am committed to working with Mayor Johnson to find a permanent solution for those living in tent city.”

That “permanent solution” has some people worried that many more Americans could be interned against their will in the event of widespread rioting and the implementation of martial law.

Legislation currently working it’s way through Congress mandates the establishment of “national emergency centers” to be located on military installations.

The purpose of such facilities is to provide “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster,” the expansion of which under FEMA is codified under HR 645, otherwise known as the National Emergency Centers Act.

Ominously, the bill states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” an open ended mandate which many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting after a national emergency or total economic collapse.

The issue of containment camps re-gained national attention three years ago when it was announced that Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.

The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps will also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency.”

Source: http://www.prisonplanet.com/schwarzenegger-to-provide-government-camps-for-homeless.html

Excerpts From the Bloomberg News:

Schwarzenegger said he ordered the state facility known as Cal-Expo to be used for three months to serve the 125 tent city residents, some of them displaced by the economic recession. The encampment may be shut down within a month, said Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. …

California, home to one of every eight Americans…

The tent city, which has long existed along the banks of the America River, gained national attention last month when some of its recently homeless residents were featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Modesto Council Wants Cops to Arrest and Search Dumpster Divers

Modesto raises penalty for Dumpster diving
Council members argue overkill versus safety from identity theft

By Adam Ashton, aashton@modbee.com

Beginning in March, Modesto police will be able to arrest people digging through garbage cans under a new ordinance the City Council approved Tuesday night.

The measure passed by a 5-2, vote, with supporters saying it would give police a tool to detain and search Dumpster divers for signs of attempts to commit identity theft.

Police further said it could be used to reduce blight.

Council members Janice Keating and Will O’Bryant voted against the proposal, calling it repetitive to provisions written in Modesto’s municipal code and excessive.

* IN OTHER ACTION

• Launch a search for a contractor to sell the city a security camera system for downtown. The city expects to spend about $400,000 in redevelopment funds on the cameras and equipment that would enable the Police Department to monitor downtown.

“Dumpster diving is not a jail crime,” said O’Bryant, a retired Alameda County sheriff’s detective. “It’s a way for people to survive.”

The ordinance allows police to charge Dumpster divers with a misdemeanor offense, a $500 citation or both. Officers received 105 calls about people scavenging in garbage cans from March to October.

Councilwoman Kristin Olsen pushed for the ordinance, calling it “sheer common sense.”

Her husband was a victim of identity theft after someone recovered financial information he left with a brokerage firm from a commercial garbage bin.

“It takes a lifetime to build and maintain good credit, and only about five minutes to throw it all away,” she said.

More than a dozen residents spoke in favor of the ordinance in the four-hour meeting, citing concerns ranging from identity theft to frustration with spilled containers to health risks.

“I would hate to see one of the kids doing the right thing and picking up a piece of trash and getting a disease,” said Jennifer Fife, 33.Three people who opposed the ordinance called the fears exaggerated.

“Just because someone is going through your garbage does not mean they’re trying to steal your identity,” said Pauline Black, 26.

Keating insisted the city’s municipal code already contains prohibitions against rummaging through someone’s trash.

The code allows the offense to be punished as an infraction with a $100 penalty, although officers would have to demonstrate the garbage was “salvageable” or “recyclable” before enforcing the code.

Keating said she would prefer to amend that code instead of amplifying the penalty to a misdemeanor.

“We don’t have to go from 0 to 80 in one fell swoop,” she said.

But the majority of her colleagues wanted to give police the option of arresting people who don’t respond to citations, or of searching someone. Those choices would not be on the table if Dumpster diving remained an infraction.

Councilman Garrad Marsh, owner of McHenry Bowl, said people rifling through garbage cans can be a nuisance at his business. He was skeptical that the new ordinance would curtail Dumpster diving, but felt it could be helpful.

“It’ll give police another tool they may use,”

he said. “But it will not solve the problem.”

In other business, the council unanimously passed a related ordinance that enhances penalties for drinking alcohol in public parks without a permit.

Like Dumpster diving, drinking in parks is an infraction in Modesto’s municipal code.

The council’s vote designates the offense as a misdemeanor, punishable by $500 citations and time in jail.

Officer John Habermehl said the heightened penalties would allow police to arrest serious alcoholics and steer them to treatment through the courts.

Two laws police could use for the same purpose come up short, he said.

One, a city code, establishes drinking on a public street as a misdemeanor. The effect of that ordinance is to create a “safe haven” in parks, Councilman Dave Lopez said.

The other law, a state code, would require someone to be demonstrably drunk before police could make an arrest. Habermehl said that provision blocks officers from detaining someone after a first or second beer.

Both ordinances require another vote from the council before they can take effect. Those votes typically are procedural, but residents will have another chance to speak about them in about a month.

Bee staff writer Adam Ashton can be reached at ashton@modbee.com or 578-2366.

Missions insist: OUR Religion or You Don’t Get Shelter!

and the State insists too!! Missions are often used by the State as proof of having shelter for houseless people. Ain’t gonna fly.

Inmate Challenges Mission Requisite
He claims having to live at the Eugene Mission violated his rights

By Karen McCowan

The Register-Guard

A Eugene man serving time in a state prison for theft and drug possession has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Lane County parole officers violated his civil rights by requiring him to live at the Eugene Mission after his October 2006 release from prison in another case.

Court records show that Jason Dwain Davies, 32, was most recently convicted June 28, 2008, on two felony counts of possessing methamphetamine and one count of identity theft. They also show that he was sentenced in September 2005 to six months in prison with one-year of post-prison supervision after pleading guilty to identity theft, drug possession and resisting arrest in a July 2005 incident.

According to his federal lawsuit, Lane County violated the U.S. Constitution’s separation of church and state clause by requiring him to reside in a “fundamentally religious facility” while under supervision of parole and probation officers.

He seeks unspecified monetary damages and an injunction barring the county from imposing the same requirement as a condition of remaining at liberty in the future.

Joan Copperwheat, the county’s director of parole and probation services, said she could not comment on an unresolved lawsuit.

In his complaint, filed by attorney Joseph Connelly, Davies alleges that the county cannot legally require someone on post-prison supervision to live at the mission — which provides food and beds to area homeless people — because it requires residents to attend daily gospel services.

Connelly said Davies seeks monetary damages because he was jailed a total of 319 days between December 2006 and March 2008 for refusing to stay at the mission on various occasions. The suit cites his loss of liberty, employment and the ability to visit his daughter.

According to the complaint, parole and probation supervisor Susan McFarland at one point told Davies to “cover his ears during the gospel service if he did not want to listen.”

Copperwheat said the parole and probation department cannot tell people they have to live at the Eugene Mission, but can require them to have a department-approved residence. The only other free living spaces, she said, are the Sponsors post-prison program and some recovery houses for inmates with substance abuse problems. Those places often are full and have waiting lists, she said.

Copperwheat said she could not recall a similar lawsuit regarding the Eugene Mission. But she noted that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2007 that parolees cannot be required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as a condition of their release because the organization contains a religious component.

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/14193646-41/story.csp

Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office Now Defendants in PEOPLE PROJECT Lawsuit

The DA’s office (and Paul Gallegos) have been added to the lawsuit filed by five PEOPLE PROJECT participants demanding accountability for violations of human rights occurring in the police and DA raid on a 2007 homeless encampment in Arcata, CA. The plaintiffs are demanding that the day and night harassment of homeless people by police be stopped immediately.

The DA’s office is being sued because it participated in the raid and continues to perpetuate the criminalizing of poor people, including those who live without housing.

See the FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF FOR VIOLATIONS OF CIVIL RIGHTS (and commission of other wrongs), filed May 13, 2009.

See June 10, 2009 Press Release
Click press release to download June 10, 2009 Press Release

Another Homeless Man, Tim Alcorn, Beat to Death: by teenagers

Memorial service held for murdered Redding homeless man

By Jim Schultz
Saturday, May 2, 2009

Although he was homeless, Timothy Lee Alcorn had many friends and loved ones.

A standing-room-only crowd filled McDonald’s Redding Chapel on Friday to honor him and his family shortly before his cremated remains were interred at Redding Memorial Park.

Alcorn, 48, was found beaten to death on April 20 in a wooded area near the old Masonic Lodge in Redding.

Those entering the chapel for the memorial service Friday morning walked past a collage of photographs that included Alcorn as a boy dressed in his football uniform and as a freshly scrubbed elementary school student with his entire life filled with promise before him.

Another display featured certificates of accomplishment of which Alcorn was proud.

The service included prayers and songs by his family members

Alcorn may have had his faults, but he was a peaceful child of God, said his brother-in-law, David Picciuto, pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ in Modesto, who delivered the eulogy.

“They didn’t take the life of a bum,” he said of three teenagers accused of murdering Alcorn. “They took the life of a prince.”

Saying there is evil everywhere, Picciuto encouraged those at the service to accept Christ and help combat that evil.

“I hope something from this (tragedy) will turn into something beautiful,” he said.

Earlier in the morning, Christian motorcyclists held a brief service near the crime scene before proceeding to the chapel.

Jim Schultz can be reached at 225-8223 or at jschultz@redding.com.
E.W. Scripps Co.

Paul Davis comforts his friend Diane Dillon Friday during Timothy Lee Alcorn’s funeral services at McDonald’s Chapel.

Paul Davis comforts his friend Diane Dillon Friday during Timothy Lee Alcorn’s funeral services at McDonald’s Chapel. “It’s really sad because Tim lived behind Masonic for 10 years…now these newcomers are coming in and we’re kind of scared,” Dillon said, “He was a very kind person.” Davis said he was one of Alcorn’s best friends. Nathan Morgan/Record Searchlight

VIEW PHOTO GALLERY
Paul Davis comforts his friend Diane Dillon Friday during Timothy Lee Alcorn’s funeral services at McDonald’s Chapel. “It’s really sad because Tim lived behind Masonic for 10 years…now these newcomers are coming in and we’re kind of scared,” Dillon said, “He was a very kind person.” Davis said he was one of Alcorn’s best friends.

HERE is the link to the article.

Teens plotted to rob and beat homeless man in murder case, police say

See article HERE

Tent City in Illinois, SAFE HAVEN

Safe Haven: rest for the weary

Posted in CULTURE by Heather Dillon on Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 6:00 am

For years, homeless people have been camping in vacant lots, by the railroad tracks, and in other spots around Champaign. Now, some of those people have decided to band together in community.

Although the idea of a tent community is new to Champaign-Urbana, these sorts of communities have been popping up all over the country and are being compared to the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. Various camps have been reported all along the West Coast — in Washington, Oregon, and California — as well as in places like Athens, Ga.; Reno, Nev.; Nashville, Tenn.; and St. Petersburg, Fla.

Jesse Masengale, 22, is a resident of Safe Haven, the tent community that formed a few weeks ago here in Champaign and has been a popular news topic in recent days. Masengale started camping in the vacant lot adjacent to Champaign’s Catholic Worker House, and before long, people started asking him about it. The community of campers began coming together organically, and then officially organized after an incident with the police on June 8, 2009 (see Incident Report #1).

“The way the police treated us that night really ignited a fire in everybody’s hearts. We were like, ‘Okay, let’s do this,‘“ Masengale said.

From the very beginning, Safe Haven’s standard has been “no riff-raff.“ They expect no drinking, no drugs, no stealing, no violence — no riff-raff. They are attempting to establish a community characterized by safety, authority, and respect.

Safe Haven currently has 10 mutually agreed-upon guidelines that are enforced within the community (based, in part, on the rules established by Dignity Village in Portland, Ore.):

1. No physical violence to self or others is permitted within a one-block radius of the Safe Haven site.
2. No intake of alcohol, drug use, or possession of alcohol, drugs, or drug paraphernalia is permitted within a one-block radius of the Safe Haven site.
3. No theft of others’ property is permitted within a one-block radius of the Safe Haven site.
4. No behavior that disrupts the peace and well-being of the community is permitted within a one-block radius of the Safe Haven site.
5. No possession of stolen property is permitted on the Safe Haven site.
6. No weapons are permitted on the Safe Haven site. Knives of four inches or less are permitted for utility purposes.
7. All members and guests contribute to the upkeep and welfare of Safe Haven and work to become a productive community member.
8. All rules of the host organization must be followed by members and guests of Safe Haven.
9. Members are required to perform seven hours of service per week to the Safe Haven community and/or the host community.
10. No verbal abuse or verbal threats are permitted on the Safe Haven site.

For this group of people, who would normally camp solo around the city, Safe Haven provides an element of law and order. Abby Harmon, 27, a Safe Haven advocate, described the homeless community as a community ruled by might. Imagine if there was no police intervention in your neighborhood and any person stronger than you could come into your house, beat you up, take your possessions, and assume residence in your home. Those camping solo around town experience this often. Another homeless person might beat them up, steal any possessions they have, and take their camping spot.

When camping solo, people are surviving by themselves and will often resort to violence when they feel threatened. Coming together in community takes away some of that individualistic tendency to protect the self at all cost. People start looking out for each other. It also allows the community to develop expectations and to make and enforce rules.

“I don’t think people see a tent community as introducing order, but it is,“ Harmon said.

In opposition to Safe Haven’s ideals of law and order, some people who live in the neighborhood surrounding the Catholic Worker House have expressed safety-related concerns. (If you’re unfamiliar with the neighborhood complaints regarding the Catholic Worker House, check out last Tuesday’s News-Gazette article for an overview.) Masengale and Harmon agreed that some neighbors have legitimate concerns, but pointed out that those concerns are being falsely linked to Safe Haven.

Homelessness is on the rise nationally, as the current state of the economy has led to increased foreclosures and unemployment. As people become increasingly desperate, problems such as theft increase. Neighbors surrounding the Catholic Worker House began noticing problems in the middle of winter, months before Safe Haven began. The beginning of neighborhood problems and the beginning of Safe Haven have been perceived as one and the same, but are actually very separate issues.

“It’s all a misunderstanding,“ Masengale said. “People had legitimate complaints. But once the community started up and once we started policing, problems like drinking on the [Catholic Worker] property stopped almost immediately.“

Safe Haven residents do not have authority to police the entire neighborhood; they can only police their own community. Essentially, Safe Haven cannot control drunkenness, vandalism, and other disruptive behavior that is committed by homeless people who are not residents of the tent community. But within the Safe Haven community, Masengale and Harmon made it clear that residents want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Safe Haven currently has eight members and additional guests. Members participate in weekly meetings, decision making, and policing. Guests, on the other hand, simply stay at Safe Haven temporarily.

“[Safe Haven] has given people something to live for — a place to call home, a place to sit down,“ Masengale said. “Up until now, they’ve been camping wherever they can find a spot, wherever they could lay their heads. But now to have a place to call home … it does something to them.“

———

Over the next few days, Smile Politely will take a closer look at options for homeless people in Champaign-Urbana and Safe Haven’s ideal solution, modeled after Dignity Village in Portland, Ore.

http://www.smilepolitely.com/culture/safe_haven_rest_for_the_weary/

‘Homes Not Handcuffs’ report released

Homes Not Handcuffs
July 13, 2009

LINK TO THE REPORT IS HERE

The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP) and the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) released a report today, Homes Not Handcuffs, tracking a growing trend in U.S. cities – the criminalization of homelessness. The report, available here, focuses on specific city measures from 2007 and 2008 that have targeted homeless persons, such as laws that make it illegal to sleep, eat, or sit in public spaces. The report includes information about 273 cities nationwide.

Homes Not Handcuffs also ranks the top 10 U.S. cities with the worst practices in relation to criminalizing homelessness.

The national ranking is based on a number of factors, including the number of anti-homeless laws in the city, the enforcement of those laws, the general political climate toward homeless people in the city, and the city’s history of criminalization measures.

In addition to the “meanest cities,” the report identifies examples of more constructive approaches to homelessness.

NLCHP and NCH released their last joint report on the topic in 2006. In the 224 cities surveyed in both this report and the 2006 report, there are currently more laws used to target homeless persons, including an 11% increase in laws prohibiting loitering in certain public places and a 7% increase in laws prohibiting “camping” in certain public spaces.

Maria Foscarinis, NLCHP Executive Director, noted, “Homelessness in America is a human rights crisis right here at home. As foreclosures continue and the recession deepens, the crisis is affecting more and more Americans. But while some cities offer a helping hand, too often, as documented in our report, cities adopt unjust laws and practices that punish people simply for being poor and homeless.”

“As a result of the economic crisis, homelessness is on the rise. Instead of helping to prevent homelessness, many cities are criminalizing those who lose their homes by passing ‘quality of life’ laws,” said Michael Stoops, Executive Director at NCH.

While more cities are cracking down on homeless people living in public spaces, the housing and homelessness crisis in the United States has worsened over the past two years, particularly due to the current economic and foreclosure crises. According to a report released last week by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 41.8% of the homeless population was unsheltered between January 2007 and January 2008. Most cities do not have adequate shelter space or affordable housing to meet the need, leaving many homeless persons with no choice but to live in public spaces.

“Criminalizing homelessness is not only an inhumane way of approaching people who are poor and vulnerable, but is counterproductive in dealing with the problem of homelessness,” said Tulin Ozdeger, NLCHP Civil Rights Program Director. “It costs more to jail a person than it does to provide permanent supportive housing.”

The report also includes information about costs studies examining criminalization measures, constitutional challenges to measures that criminalize homelessness, how criminalization measures violate human rights law, as well as constructive alternatives to criminalization.

*** The report recommends that cities adopt constructive measures, such as developing innovative strategies to allocate more city funds for permanent housing, job training and services for homeless people. In addition, NLCHP and NCH recommend that the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, recently charged by Congress with developing such alternatives, urge cities to stop criminalizing homelessness and adopt such constructive measures instead.

Top Ten Meanest Cities:

1. Los Angeles, CA

2. St. Petersburg. FL

3. Orlando, FL

4. Atlanta, GA

5. Gainesville, FL

6. Kalamazoo, MI

7. San Francisco, CA

8. Honolulu, HI

9. Bradenton, FL

10. Berkeley, CA

Building A Tent City in NYC-A Call For Support!!!

HOMELESS TENT CITY!
One Hundred Homeless and Allies
Grilling Food, Playing Music, Taking Back The Land

115TH AND MADISON AVENUE
COME SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!
Bring food, hang out, share company…

At 11am EST, July 23 Picture The Homeless and allies installed a tent city
in a vacant bank-owned lot at 115th and Madison Ave. 100 people are in the
lot, enjoying corn, beans, bread, fruit, and music by the Welfare Poets.
Police are on the scene, but everything’s calm. We have a casita, a stage,
barbeque grills, banners, signs, cardboard shovels and pick-axes, and tent
structures!

As the foreclosure crisis festers, Bloomberg and the banks fail us. Across
the street from the tent city is public housing, where families are doubled
and tripled up. Over-crowded apartments, the shelter industrial complex, or
sleep on the streets – we need better options.

From Miami to Sacramento to now here in NYC homeless people aren’t waiting
around. Come show your support! 115th and Madison, we’ll be here as long as
we can.

Carlos (Rico)

A Place To Call Home!/ El Lugar A Donde Estar En Casa!

NYC Encampment 2009

Everyone deserves a place to be, and sing, and love....

THEY SAY GENTRIFY, WE SAY OCCUPY!

Vacant Lots. Vacant Homes. House the Homeless. House the Poor!

Terrenos Desocupados. Casas Desocupadas. Alojen Los Sintechos. Alojen Los Pobres!

Support the NYC Tent City!

Unlock the Heart of the City

Sharing is SURVIVAL

VIDEO from NYC Vacant Lot Takeover & Tent City!!

Sent by Carlos…

Here is a video of the courageous and unified teamwork that still resonates in local corners and has sparked more interest for change in others.

http://www.videonewslive.com/view/358119/the_homeless_creates_tent_city_in_new_york

Enjoy!

Cotton Day, August 9th: Remember Martin. Protest the Police Violence That Stole His Life.

from Redwood Curtain CopWatch:

As we continue to meet people, people who have been beaten, bruised, bloodied, deprived, robbed, and verbally abused by police- people who are living on the street- sometimes beat while sleeping- we know that not enough of us are organizing to protect, collectively struggling to keep the police from hurting our friends and neighbors. The City and people of Eureka MUST not forget Martin Cotton. Every one of the officers who fatally beat Martin in front of the Eureka Mission remains on the police force…on the streets… armed… and continuing their campaign of violence against poor people- with complete impunity. Officers in the jail continue to severely abuse people behind closed and locked doors- where no one outside can hear or see. The jailers continue to refuse medical care- even to dying prisoners. Please come out on Sunday, August 9th- “Cotton Day.”

Cotton Day, August 9th: Remember Martin. Protest the Police Violence That Stole His Life.

Sunday August 9,2009 at 12:30pm

Join us on Sunday, August 9th for the two year memorial anniversary of Martin “Fred” Cotton II. Martin was beat to death by Eureka Police and Humboldt County Sheriff’s in 2007, and WE WILL NOT BE SILENT.

Meet at the Gazebo in Old Town Eureka at 12:30pm. Gather and march with us in memory and protest. We will begin marching at 1:30pm. Please feel free to express yourself thoughout the day.

If you can’t make it to the gathering and march, be sure to remind people of Martin Cotton- wherever you are.

Read The Death of Martin Frederick Cotton II See last year’s Resistance and Remembrance flier

“Cotton Day” Song of Remembrance for Martin Cotton II

Click the link below to hear a song for Martin Cotton by Two Smooth Stones. Martin Cotton was killed by Eureka Police on August 9th, 2007. Join us this Sunday August 9th in Remembrance of Martin Cotton and Resistance of the injustice system that took his life.

Cotton Day Song.

Redwood Curtain CopWatch: (707) 633-4493
copwatchrwc@riseup.net
redwoodcurtaincopwatch.net

Please pass this message on…

Mainstream Op-Ed from NY Times: Criminalization of Poor People

The New York Times OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor? By BARBARA EHRENREICH August 8, 2009

IT’S too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.” In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually been intensifying as the recession generates ever more poverty. So concludes a new study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with ticketing and arrests for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering or carrying an open container of alcohol. The report lists America’s 10 “meanest” cities — the largest of which are Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Francisco — but new contestants are springing up every day. The City Council in Grand Junction, Colo., has been considering a ban on begging, and at the end of June, Tempe,
Ariz., carried out a four-day crackdown on the indigent. How do you know when someone is indigent? As a Las Vegas statute puts it, “An indigent person is a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive” public assistance.

That could be me before the blow-drying and eyeliner, and it’s definitely Al Szekely at any time of day. A grizzled 62-year-old, he inhabits a wheelchair and is often found on G Street in Washington —the city that is ultimately responsible for the bullet he took in the spine in Fu Bai, Vietnam, in 1972. He had been enjoying the luxury of an indoor bed until last December, when the police swept through the shelter in the middle of the night looking for men with outstanding warrants. It turned out that Mr. Szekely, who is an ordained minister and does not drink, do drugs or curse in front of ladies, did indeed have a warrant — for not appearing in court to face a charge of “criminal trespassing” (for sleeping on a sidewalk in a Washington suburb). So he was dragged out of the shelter and put in jail. “Can you imagine?” asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate (himself a shelter resident) who introduced me to Mr. Szekely. “They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless.” The viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be breathtaking. A few years ago, a group called Food Not Bombs started handing out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, and several members of the group were arrested. A federal judge just overturned the anti-sharing law in Orlando, Fla., but the city is appealing. And now Middletown, Conn., is cracking down on food sharing.

If poverty tends to criminalize people, it is also true that criminalization inexorably impoverishes them. Scott Lovell, another homeless man I interviewed in Washington, earned his record by committing a significant crime — by participating in the armed robbery of a steakhouse when he was 15. Although Mr. Lovell dresses and speaks more like a summer tourist from Ohio than a felon, his criminal record has made it extremely difficult for him to find a job. For Al Szekely, the arrest for trespassing meant a further descent down the circles of hell. While in jail, he lost his slot in the shelter and now sleeps outside the Verizon Center sports arena, where the big problem, in addition to the security guards, is mosquitoes. His stick-thin arms are covered with pink crusty sores, which he treats with a regimen of frantic scratching. For the not-yet-homeless, there are two main paths to criminalization — one involving debt, and the other skin color. Anyone of any color or pre-recession financial status can fall into debt, and although we pride ourselves on the abolition of debtors’ prison, in at least one state, Texas, people who can’t afford to pay their traffic fines may be made to “sit out their tickets” in jail. Often the path to legal trouble begins when one of your creditors has a court issue a summons for you, which you fail to honor for one reason or another. (Maybe your address has changed or you never received it.) Now you’re in contempt of court. Or suppose you miss a payment and, before you realize it, your car insurance lapses; then you’re stopped for something like a broken headlight. Depending on the state, you may have your car impounded or face a steep fine — again, exposing you to a possible summons. “There’s just no end to it once the cycle starts,” said Robert Solomon of Yale Law School. “It just keeps accelerating.”

By far the most reliable way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong-color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor encounters racial profiling, but for decades whole communities have been effectively “profiled” for the suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor, thanks to the “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” theory of policing popularized by Rudy Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York City, and his police chief William Bratton. Flick a cigarette in a heavily patrolled community of color and you’re littering; wear the wrong color T-shirt and you’re displaying gang allegiance. Just strolling around in a dodgy neighborhood can mark you as a potential suspect, according to “Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice,” an eye-opening new book by Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor in Washington. If you seem at all evasive, which I suppose is like looking “overly anxious” in an airport, Mr. Butler writes, the police “can force you to stop just to investigate why you don’t want to talk to them.” And don’t get grumpy about it or you could be “resisting arrest.” There’s no minimum age for being sucked into what the Children’s Defense Fund calls “the cradle-to-prison pipeline.” In New York City, a teenager caught in public housing without an ID —say, while visiting a friend or relative —can be charged with criminal trespassing and wind up in juvenile detention, Mishi Faruqee, thedirector of youth justice programs for the Children’s Defense Fund of New York, told me. In just the past few months, a growing number of cities have taken to ticketing and sometimes handcuffing teenagers found on the streets during school hours. In Los Angeles, the fine for truancy is $250; in Dallas, it can be as much as $500 — crushing amounts for people living near the poverty level. According to the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, an advocacy group, 12,000 students were ticketed for truancy in 2008.

Why does the Bus Riders Union care? Because it estimates that 80 percent of the “truants,” especially those who are black or Latino, are merely late for school, thanks to the way that over-filled buses whiz by them without stopping. I met people in Los Angeles who told me they keep their children home if there’s the slightest chance of their being late. It’s an ingenious anti-truancy policy that discourages parents from sending their youngsters to school. The pattern is to curtail financing for services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement: starve school and public transportation budgets, then make truancy illegal. Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Be sure to harass street vendors when there are few other opportunities for employment. The experience of the poor, and especially poor minorities, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks. And if you should make the mistake of trying to escape via a brief marijuana-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too. One result is our staggering level of incarceration, the highest in the world. Today the same number of Americans — 2.3 million — reside in prison as in public housing. Meanwhile, the public housing that remains has become ever more prison like, with residents subjected to drug testing and random police sweeps. The safety net, or what’s left of it, has been transformed into a dragnet. Some of the community organizers I’ve talked to around the country think they know why “zero tolerance” policing has ratcheted up since the recession began. Leonardo Vilchis of the Union de Vecinos, a community organization in Los Angeles, suspects that “poor people have become a source of revenue” for recession-starved cities, and that the police can always find a violation leading to a fine. If so, this is a singularly demented fund-raising strategy. At a Congressional hearing in June, the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers testified about the pervasive “overcriminalization of crimes that are not a risk to public safety,” like sleeping in a cardboard box or jumping turnstiles, which leads to expensively clogged courts and prisons.

A Pew Center study released in March found states spending a record $51.7 billion on corrections, an amount that the center judged, with an excess of moderation, to be “too much.” But will it be enough — the collision of rising prison populations that we can’t afford and the criminalization of poverty — to force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment? With the number of people in poverty increasing (some estimates suggest it’s up to 45 million to 50 million, from 37 million in 2007) several states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty — for example, by sending drug offenders to treatment rather than jail, shortening probation and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missed court appointments. But others are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes” but also charging prisoners for their room and board — assuring that they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt. Maybe we can’t afford the measures that would begin to alleviate America’s growing poverty — affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation and so forth. I would argue otherwise, but for now I’d be content with a consensus that, if we can’t afford to truly help the poor, neither can we afford to go on tormenting them.

Bodies Showing Up On Beach, In Parks, Along RR Tracks, In ‘Heart’ of Business District, Steps From Four-Star Restaurants and Boutique Hotels

In Santa Barbara, little concern over rising body count
——————–

Deaths of the destitute in this ritzy city come in a variety of ways, including homicide. Little is being done about it.

Steve Lopez

August 14 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez14-2009aug14,0,2386784.column

From Santa Barbara — It may be picturesque, but this upscale village of red-tile roofs and stunning seascapes is sending a huge number of lost souls to the county morgue. Bodies show up on the beach, in parks, along railroad tracks and in the heart of the business district, steps from four-star restaurants and boutique hotels.

Sometimes it’s murder. Usually it’s a case of used-up bodies giving out under the swaying palms.

Santa Barbara County social worker Ken Williams is trying to build support for services for the upscale city’s homeless population, including getting justice for homeless victims of homicide.

“We just had another one,” Santa Barbara County social worker Ken Williams told me Thursday morning. “He was probably in his 50s and played steel guitar on State Street by the museum. They found his body yesterday.”

That was No. 18 for the year, said Williams, the same number of homeless deaths the city saw in all of 2008.

Santa Monica, with roughly the same population as Santa Barbara, averaged about 14 homeless deaths a year between 2000 and 2007. Los Angeles averaged 170 a year over that same period, which sounds like a lot. But it’s a far lower rate per capita than the one Santa Barbara has had the last two years.

Williams, a Vietnam vet with a gray ponytail and gentle manner, takes each and every homeless death in Santa Barbara to heart, entering the names of the deceased in a journal. Williams has been doing outreach for 30 years, so he usually knew the victims and tried to get help for them before it was too late.

For months, Williams has sent me updates on the body count, trying to raise the level of alarm over what has been a relatively quiet phenomenon with no known cause. Maybe it’s just a blip. Maybe it’s that more people are on the streets because of the economy or because they were driven out of surrounding communities.

John Buttny, who runs Bringing Our Community Home, said the city of Santa Barbara has made some progress in getting homeless people into service programs rather than jail. But he and Williams both say there’s a shortage of resources, and they’ve seen more women and children on the streets of late. All but one of the several hotels that used to offer lodging to the indigent have been shut down or gone upscale, and there’s not nearly enough in place for those with chronic mental illness.

But those frustrations don’t seem to defeat Williams.

“He’s one of those people who keep doing,” said Chuck Blitz, a friend of Williams who donates to local social causes and has turned his living room wall into a memorial, inscribing the names of Santa Barbara’s homeless victims on white bricks. “There are other people who are as pure, but they don’t have Ken’s empathy.”

Or his quiet rage.

“It’s more likely that the man who was burned last week was set on fire,” he wrote to me in May, the prose all the more powerful for its understatement. “Also, the coroner moved up the autopsy of the wheelchair-bound man who died — which was likely a murder. Doing my rounds on Friday I ran across four other homeless people who had been beaten — looking like a youth street gang.”

Most of the deaths have been of natural causes, if you can call the ravages of unemployment, addiction, exhaustion and mental decline natural. But whatever the cause, Williams organizes vigils to memorialize the dead, and he sends me links to his columns at Noozhawk.com, a community newspaper.

“What did Gregory Ghan feel when he was set upon by his killers?” Williams wrote in June, imploring the community to demand justice in the cases of homeless victims, just as it would if those murders occurred in the million-dollars-and-up houses on the bluffs. “As a community, we dare not fail them.”

But it’s an uphill battle, Williams told me recently during a tour of his haunts. When it comes to politics and public policy, Santa Barbara’s focus is on development rather than social causes. To many in the business community, the homeless are a nuisance, a deterrent to customers, he said. You’d think that might translate into more support for agencies that do the hard work of drawing people in off the streets and helping them rebuild their lives, but Williams says that hasn’t happened yet.

“Give us the beds,” Williams said, and the problem wouldn’t be so bad.

One stop on our tour was Casa Esperanza, a shelter that has 200 beds but can only use half of them because of arcane government regulations. There, we met Joe Martinez, 59, a former Los Angeles machinist who used to work in manufacturing before it dried up in California. That’s when he moved to Santa Barbara, where he sleeps in parks and on the beach. He said his body has failed him, with an aching back and useless legs, and he’s hoping to stay alive until Social Security kicks in and pays for a roof somewhere.

Williams introduced me to “Mr. Smith,” which isn’t his real name, but he needs protection. Mr. Smith was on the beach with Ross Stiles, 43, the night Stiles had a bottle smashed over his head.

“We were across from Fess Parker,” Smith said, meaning the beachfront hotel. Smith didn’t know his friend had been hit, so he slept through the night and awoke to find Stiles complaining of a headache. When Stiles began drooling and slurring his words, someone called 911, but it was too late.

Stiles was dead.

There are bad guys out there, Joe Martinez said. Predators and thieves, no doubt about it. There are also many like Smith, who fought in Iraq and started using alcohol to blur memories and soften post-traumatic stress.

Williams, who went from enlisted Marine to antiwar protester a generation ago, knew why Mr. Smith refused to come indoors: It meant giving up the bottle. But Williams wouldn’t let it go.

“I finally just told him, ‘You’ve got to come in. That’s it.’ “

Mr. Smith, who finally gave in, has been sober for a month.

Williams showed me two memorials to the dead, one

a sculpture at Casa Esperanza, the other a plaque at the

Salvation Army. Damon, hit head. Ronald, body found on beach. Rose, beaten with tree branch.

“There’s a spiritual quality to people” who are tired and destitute, Williams said. Living in public, they drop all pretense. They appreciate an act of kindness.

Maybe it was Vietnam that made him the soldier he is today, Williams said as we sat in his car outside the Salvation Army. Maybe it was all that senseless dying and suffering.

“Maybe,” he said, “I’m making amends.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com

[Civilian] Attacks on Homeless Bring Push on Hate Crime Laws

WASHINGTON — With economic troubles pushing more people onto the streets in the last few years, law enforcement officials and researchers are seeing a surge in unprovoked attacks against the homeless, and a number of states are considering legislation to treat such assaults as hate crimes.

A homeless couple who are making their life in the flood channels beneath the Las Vegas Strip. Many would rather live there than face the troubles above.

Isaac Brekken for The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/us/08homeless.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Matt O’Brien, who advocates on behalf of the homeless, touring the flood channels. Flash floods may endanger those who stay there, he says, but at least they are safe from violence.

This October, Maryland will become the first state to expand its hate-crime law to add stiffer penalties for attacks on the homeless.

At least five other states are pondering similar steps, the District of Columbia approved such a measure this week, and a like bill was introduced last week in Congress.

A report due out this weekend from the National Coalition for the Homeless documents a rise in violence over the last decade, with at least 880 unprovoked attacks against the homeless at the hands of nonhomeless people, including 244 fatalities. An advance copy was provided to The New York Times.

Sometimes, researchers say, one homeless person attacks another in turf battles or other disputes. But more often, they say, the assailants are outsiders: men or in most cases teenage boys who punch, kick, shoot or set afire people living on the streets, frequently killing them, simply for the sport of it, their victims all but invisible to society.

“A lot of what we see are thrill offenders,” said Brian Levin, a criminologist who runs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

Only Thursday, two homeless men in Hollywood were stabbed to death and a third was wounded in a three-hour spree of separate daylight attacks. The police arrested a 54-year-old local man who they said appeared to have made homeless people his random targets.

Researchers say a combustible mix of factors has added fuel to the problem. Rising unemployment and foreclosures continue to push people into the streets, with some estimates now putting the nationwide number of homeless above one million.

And in cities like Las Vegas, public crackdowns on encampments for the homeless and cutbacks in social services have frequently made street people more visible as targets for would-be assailants.

Further, in the last several years the Internet has seen a proliferation of “bum fight” videos, shot by young men and boys who are seen beating the homeless or who pay transients a few dollars to fight each other.

Indeed, the National Coalition for the Homeless, which works to change government policies and bring people off the streets, says in its new report that 58 percent of assailants implicated in attacks against the homeless in the last 10 years were teenagers.

Michael Stoops, the group’s executive director, said social prejudices were “dehumanizing” the homeless and condoning hostile treatment. He pointed to a blurb titled “Hunt the Homeless” in the current issue of Maxim, a popular men’s magazine. It spotlights a coming “hobo convention” in Iowa and says: “Kill one for fun. We’re 87 percent sure it’s legal.”

With victims wary of going to the police, statistics on the attacks are often incomplete. But surveys show much higher rates of assault, rape and other crimes of violence against the homeless than almost any other group, said Professor Levin, of California State, who worked on the new report.

Recognition of the problem is spurring legislative action.

“More and more, we’re hearing about homeless people being attacked for no other reason than that they’re homeless, and we’ve got to do something about it,” Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Democrat of Texas, said in an interview.

Ms. Johnson introduced a measure in the House last week to make attacks on the homeless a federal hate crime and require the F.B.I. to collect data on it. (The Senate voted last month to expand federal hate crimes to include attacks on gay and transgender victims, another frequent target.)

And in addition to the measures already approved in Maryland and the District of Columbia, proposals to add penalties for attacks on the homeless are under consideration in California, Florida, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas.

The push has lacked any organized support by major civil rights groups. In Florida, which leads the country in assaults on homeless people, groups like the Anti-Defamation League have opposed recognizing those attacks as a hate crime. Opponents argue that homelessness, unlike race or ethnicity, is not a permanent condition and that such a broadening of the law would have the effect of diluting it.

“I hear the same rhetoric all the time,” Ms. Johnson said. “They ask, ‘Why is their life more important than anyone else’s?’ ”

The coalition’s study, which relied on police and news reports but excluded crimes driven by factors like robbery, found 106 documented attacks against the homeless last year.

That was a doubling of levels seen six or seven years ago but a sharp drop from 2007, an apparent improvement that researchers are still trying to explain. The study found 27 fatalities last year, flat relative to the year before. Eight other victims were shot, nine raped and 54 beaten.

In Portland, Ore., twin brothers were charged with five unprovoked attacks against homeless people in a park. One of the victims was a man beaten with his own bike, another a woman pushed down a steep staircase.

In Cleveland, a man leaving a homeless shelter to visit his mother was “savagely beaten by a group of thugs,” the police said.

In Los Angeles, a homeless man who was a neighborhood fixture was doused in gasoline and set on fire.

In Boston, a homeless Army veteran was beaten to death as witnesses near Faneuil Hall reportedly looked on.

And in Jacksonville, N.C., a group of young men fatally stabbed a homeless man behind a shopping strip, cutting open his abdomen with a beer bottle.

In Las Vegas, home to a large population of the homeless, there were no reported killings of any of them last year, but many say hostilities have risen as the city moves to get them out of the parks and off the streets.

Some of the Las Vegas homeless resort to living in a maze of underground flood channels beneath the Strip. There they face flash floods, disease, black widows and dank, pitch-dark conditions, but some tunnel dwellers say life there is better than being harassed and threatened by assailants and the police.

“Out there, anything goes,” said Manny Lang, who has lived in the tunnels for months, recalling the stones and profanities with which a group of teenagers pelted him last winter when he slept above ground. “But in here, nothing’s going to happen to us.”

Their plight is a revealing commentary on the violence facing street people, said Matt O’Brien, a Las Vegas writer who runs an outreach group for the homeless.

“It’s hard to believe that tunnels that can fill a foot per minute with floodwater could be safer than aboveground Vegas,” Mr. O’Brien said, “but many homeless people think they are. No outsider is going to attack you down there in the dark.”

POOR PEOPLE’S MARCH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, September 12th in Eureka!

Gather everyone you know!

Poor Peoples’ March for Human Rights
Saturday, September 12, 2009

March For Safe Shelter, Healthy Food, HealthCare, and Dignity FOR ALL!!

March begins at 14th and Summer (near Food for People)
and ends at Highland Park (Fairfield/Glen and Highland Avenue)

March starts at 10:00am
then….
Speak-Out Celebration with food and music at NOON! at Highland Park

For more info contact:
People for a Human Rights Sanctuary
(707) 444-3155; 442-7465
peopleforahumanrightssanctuary@gmail.com

Download the above flier HERE. It copies real well! Put it everywhere or call People For a Human Rights Sanctuary for copies!

Download the below flier HERE. See you on September 12th!

Support Each Other!

If you would like to help get things together for the March and Celebration or meet with People for a Human Rights Sanctuary, please call (707) 444-3155 or 442-7465; or email peopleforahumanrightssanctuary@gmail.com.

Expose and Eliminate the root causes of civil and human rights abuses…

of people experiencing poverty and homelessness in our communities.

August 2009 from WRAP [Western Regional Advocacy Project]

Click HERE for WRAP’s website!

Greetings!

In this issue you will find an invitation to help us update Without Housing, our great new interactive virtual exhibit Hobos to Street People, and an article about what WRAP is doing to fight back against the criminalization of poverty.

Enjoy and let us know what you think!
WRAP needs your support to update Without Housing report!

The data in Without Housing is now four years old and needs to be updated to remain relevant. An anonymous major donor has covered a large part of the reprinting costs, but we still need funding to update the data, rework content to reflect new developments in DC, add new artwork, carry out a distribution and media plan, and, very importantly, to translate it for a Spanish language version.

Read More…

WRAP Launches Hobos to Street People Virtual Exhibit!

In collaboration with California Exhibition Resources Alliance and Design Action Collective, WRAP has launched Hobos to Street People: Artists Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present.

Like the powerful traveling show put together by WRAP lead artist Art Hazelwood, this virtual exhibit chronicles and contrasts two epochs of mass homelessness through social justice artwork. The Timeline shows federal policies on housing and homelessness from 1929 to 2008.

Read More…

Opportunity for whom?

The notion that local governments can protect downtown business interests from having to witness the realities of poverty by simply criminalizing the presence of poor people harkens back to the days of Jim Crow, Anti-Okie laws, and almshouses.

But from Portlands Sit-Lie law to Berkeleys Public Commons for Everyone to LAs Safer City Initiative to San Franciscos, business-directed, but voter-opposed, homeless court, we are seeing a resurgence of the premise that public space is the purview of the business community, and that the only people that have any right to that space are those seen as potential customers or condo tenants.

Read More…

Sacramento Police Arrest 17 at ‘SAFE GROUND’ Homeless Camp

Comments follow http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2160824.html

Update: Sacramento police arrest 17 at ’safe ground’ homeless camp

By Li Lou and Cynthia Hubert
llou@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Sep. 4, 2009 – 9:05 am
Last Modified: Friday, Sep. 4, 2009 – 1:34 pm

Sacramento police arrested 17 homeless residents at their “safe ground” campsite this morning, including one advocate for the homeless.

Rev. David Moss, a Methodist Minister, was taken into custody along with other campers, charged with illegal camping, Sacramento police Sgt. Norm Leong said.
A press release by Loaves & Fishes early morning claimed Sister Libby Fernandez, executive director of the Loaves & Fishes homeless services group, was arrested together with other campers. But later Sacramento police clarified that she was only detained for a short period when police arrived to search the camp.

Only those who had been previously cited for illegal camping and who police have evidence to show for having camped there for more than 24 hours were taken into custody, police said.

Sacramento police said they were responding to complaints from neighbors, including an elderly man whose house is adjacent to the site. The man, Pedro Hernandez, 71, has told The Bee that campers have insulted him, left trash in the area and generally disrupted his life.

Fernandez said she has slept at the site periodically but never in the presence of officers. She said that she and others plan to continue to occupy the property until the city stops issuing ordinances and establishes a legal camping site with basic services such as running water and garbage pickup.

“They want to stand tall and bring this to court for a solution,” said Fernandez.
“We know that making an arrest is not a solution for the homeless issue,” Leong said. “But we have to enforce the city ordinance, to protect the rights of the neighboring residents and businesses.”

Leong said those who were arrested were taken to the Sacramento County Jail and will be booked and probably released later in the day.

Joan Burke, advocacy director for Loaves and Fishes, was present during the arrests and characterized the scene as “very sad.”

“They are arresting a nun and a minister who are here to help poor people,” Burke said. “They are arresting people whose crime’ is being poor.”

Officers arrived at the campsite about 7:30 a.m.

The action followed a police search early Wednesday, when officers cut a lock, walked onto the C Street property and issued citations for illegal camping. They also seized 32 tents, sleeping bags, cots and other items as evidence. The property is owned by Attorney Mark Merin, who had given permission for campers to live at the site.
Civil rights and religious leaders, business people and others who support the campers were planning their strategy following Wednesday’s citations. One plan is to challenge in court a city ordinance that prevents people from camping in non-designated areas for more than 24 hours at a time.

However, Hernandez, who lives next to the homeless camp, earlier told The Bee that the campers have caused him problems.

“I have had vertigo in the last few days,” said Hernandez in an earlier interview. He suffers from diabetes and heart problems. “My mind is filled with anger and resentment.”
Tuesday morning, he was jarred by the sound of his new neighbors hurling curse words, Hernandez told The Bee. “They yelled vile words,” Hernandez said. “When they saw me, they quieted down.”

Words from PEOPLE FOR A HUMAN RIGHTS SANCTUARY leading up to Sept. 12th March

September 12th
Poor People’s March For Human Rights!
Marching for safe shelter, healthcare, healthy food, and Dignity FOR ALL.

Starts 10am, Eureka- 14th and Summer, next to Food For People: March together through neighborhoods and to Highland Park for a noon picnic, an open speak out, listening and gathering to share and to confront all aspects of poverty.

People For a Human Rights Sanctuary?

We’re a group of very concerned, active, and local residents who have united to address consistently ignored issues of poverty, of certain chronic suffering, and oppression of homeless people- that requires greater focus by everyone. Each day harassed, and with another pending nightfall… the necessity to rest, to sleep… and with no sanctuary.

International Treaties, the U.S. Constitution, courts at every level in this country have established the obvious- that sleep is a human necessity. Also, they’ve established that depriving someone of sleep is cruelty. However, local police, judges, and the public continue to treat homeless people who must live and sleep in public as if they’re committing crimes. In the rare instance that a homeless person has support to challenge, in the local courts, “criminal charges” of sleeping, he or she wins or the case is dismissed.

The public’s belief that homeless people are living outside of the law hardens personal prejudice and adds more conflict to a people already facing painful and critical situations. Homelessness growing, no relief in sight, all of us facing deeper economic woes, lost jobs, state budget cuts, etc.

The illegality of local police and government practices against homeless people is never mentioned in the media nor talked about by officials. It is imperative that all of us who know the truth help bring it to others now, so that these practices of harassment, threatening arrest, physical abuse, and confiscating peoples’ personal property ceases. Such practices cause great stress and injury and allow prejudice to grow. Criminalizing of homeless people must stop.

We have plans to create a well organized and well maintained camp, a human rights sanctuary, with and for homeless people- a prototype for other sanctuaries that may follow. This will take skills and effort from people from all walks of life. We are also being advised by competent legal support. Communities in other cities are busy following this same course.

Tell everyone you know about the March on September 12th . We are open to and encouraged by more folks who would like to share ideas or get involved in any way.

PEOPLE FOR A HUMAN RIGHTS SANCTUARY
444-3155 442-7465
peopleforahumanrightssanctuary@gmail.com