Santa Cruz Homeless Update (fwd)
Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Fri, 19 Nov 1999 19:03:51 -0800 (PST)
FWD Thu, 18 Nov 1999 02:51:09 -0800
From: Becky Johnson and Robert Norse <wmnofstl@cruzio.com>
Subject: Santa Cruz Homeless Update
Homeless Man Dead in River; Homeless Rights Dead at City Council
Modified Letter to City on a Hill by Robert Norse and Becky Johnson 11-16-99
"Why Can't the Homeless Get Any Sleep?" asks Greg Waits in CHP 11-11.
Because the Santa Cruz City Council, pressured by powerful conservative
interest groups like the Santa Cruz Police Department, the Downtown
Neighborhood Association, the Downtown Business Association, and the
Harvey West Association, won't let them. All of them favor keeping outdoor
sleeping a $54 crime.
The Homeless Issues Task Force spoke at City Council 11/8 asking for
complete Repeal of the entire Camping Ordinance (not just the Sleeping and
Blanket Ban sections, but the whole law). They asked that homeless people
be hired for the HITF and paid a living wage. They urged the immediate
establishment of safe vehicular park-to-sleep zones and an end to
Not-In-My-Backyard "No Parking" areas being proposed to drive away
vehicular residents in areas like Almar Avenue and Harvey West. They
supported Rent Stabilization. They demanded the City Attorney Barisone
refund overcharged sleepcrime fines, foisted upon homeless people because
of Barisone's negligence in getting the new Sleeping Ban law to the courts
when it passed last March. Don't expect the Beiers-dominated City Council
to act quickly (or at all) in what the city itself describes as a "shelter
emergency."
The Beiers' Council's refusal to designate safe legal sleeping zones for
Santa Cruz's 500-1500 homeless people in the industrial areas is simple
criminal negligence. It's the kind of myopic neglect that killed Wray
Stitt, whose body was found floating in the river on November 9th. Stitt
walked into a meeting of Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom at the
Homeless Services Center last June bleeding from his arm where he'd been
caned by "trollbusters" in Harvey West Park. Homeless Services Center
staff persuaded Stitt to file a formal police complaint - which, of
course, produced no arrests.
With no legal places to sleep, trollbusting - the sport-beating of
homeless people that has sent many to the hospital - has flourished.
Homeless people know too well the SCPD's history of malign neglect. Not
only are homeless cases buried, but they are intentionally misclassified
to conceal the reality of these hate crimes. Sgt.Clark reported in the
November 10th Sentinel that Stitt was "too well dressed to be homeless" -
a characterization that enraged those who knew Stitt in the homeless
community. Stitt has lived here 18 years and many cops knew him as
homeless. An alcoholic, Stitt was reportedly well-known to Clark and other
police officers, not just for the June beating report, but for past
complaints. The SCPD regularly dismisses violence against the homeless
concerns. Chief Belcher himself has denied what others clearly see as a
hate-crime pattern of anti-homeless. Last year his officers falsely
announced in the Sentinel that the homeless man who committed suicide by
hanging himself from a bridge over the San Lorenzo River was "an
auto-erotic death" - a claim contradicted by the coroners report. Clark
and Belcher's misstatements trivialize Stitt's death and divert attention
from the SCPD's failure to address the torrent of beatings against the
homeless (25-35 assaults since January).
Was Stitt killed by persons unknown? Is the San Lorenzo River deep enough
near the Benchlands for a person to drown? Or did he just drown in an
alcoholic stupor because there were no legal places for him to go at
night? Whatever the case, why isn't City Council moving to set up "safe
sleeping zones"?
City Council has derailed the independent investigation into the May 22nd
police disturbance. It won't order cops to testify or to make the final
report public. If Council covers for Belcher here, what hope do homeless
people have to be taken seriously in their complaints? How many more
deaths and beatings do we need? When will we force the Council take time
out from business-oriented holiday hoopla to deal with the real human
emergency? And will we demand the poor be raised from falsified stats on
the obituary page to full citizens with the right to live and the right to
sleep ? Want to give the City Council some sleepless nights? Call
423-HUFF.
HUFF meets every Tuesday 1 p.m. at the Rhizone 224 Walnut St.
Join the BOYCOTT BIGOTRY BRIGADE to set up safe sleep zones.
Remember Wray Stitts ! Prepare for Holiday Protests Downtown!
Flyer by HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) 831-423-4833
wmnofstl@cruzio.com 309 Cedar PMB #14B S.C. 95060 11-17-99
(end of original message)
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