Anarchistcook’s Weblog

Hundreds more people are expected to find themselves living outside in Santa Cruz in coming months.

by Keith McHenry

Santa Cruz City and County officials are struggling to find a legal means to remove the unhoused from sight while not offending their liberal base at the same time. In an attempt to circumvent the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that sweeps are an unconstitutional violation of the Eighth amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment they have spent the last year formulating their “Temporary Outdoor Living Ordinance” (TOLO) set to be revisited by City Council on Tuesday, April 13. As it currently stands people can set up a tent, tarps, blankets and other survival gear from the hours of 8 pm to 8 am on the sidewalks of Mission, Ocean, Water and Soquel Streets and in industrial areas of Seabright, Harvey West and Mission extension.

Using the same ploy that the City Manager used to mobilize West Side opposition against any humane solution, tagging Drew Glover with a Depot Park Safe Sleeping Zone, they have mobilized the East side against their already cruel ordinance.

It is not clear yet what the city and county plan to do as hundreds of people a month find themselves living outside. Local shelters are closing and people will soon be forced from the few provided hotels, sending several hundred into the doorways and along the highways. The city also plans to sweep San Lorenzo Park including the Benchlands temporary managed camp as soon as the COVID emergency is over. Newsom says that will be in June.

In the April 5th article in Lookout, “COVID-spawned budget woes will force shutdown of River Street homeless shelter next month” county supervisor Coonerty expresses, “the bigger issue the county will have to solve soon is what to do with hundreds of people in shelters that were expanded during the pandemic — but where federal funding is expected to wind down as the virus-induced crisis begins to ebb this summer and fall”.

“I think we have 650 people in shelter for COVID, mostly in motels and others, and you know that funding is disappearing and so in terms of what we’re worried about that continues to be the major issue,” he said.

Adding to the crisis resulting from an end to these marginal accommodations for those unhoused the moratoriums on evictions will end soon causing millions of Americans into cramped apartments doubling up with family and friends or even more likely, out into the streets seeking shelter in  cars or tents. So far there is no plan to pay the back rent or mortgages of nearly 40 million families. That $1,400 check if it ever arrives will do little to slow this crisis. Money allocated for rent assistance has been difficult or impossible for many to access.

If local officials have any plan at all I worry that it includes shipping everyone to a large managed camp in an unincorporated area of the county.

An October 10, 2020, article in the Sentinel says “Vice Mayor Donna Meyers, however, called Santa Cruz’s situation “dire,” citing the concentration of 53% of the county’s homeless services located in a city with 23% of the county population. City Manager Martín Bernal, citing the armory shelter, the county’s Emeline Center complex and the city’s largest homeless shelter at Housing Matters on Coral Street, said community members are concerned, asking that future resources be located elsewhere in the county.”

When Fred Keeley was facilitator of the city’s “Community Advisory Committee on Homelessness” he asked several of us if we supported a mega Navigation Center, “five or six times larger” than the current Housing Matters site.

THE EVICTION CRISIS

NPR reports on April, 7, 2021, ”We’ve had a failure of leadership that’s going to result in tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Texans becoming homeless in relatively short order,” says Mark Melton, who heads up a pro bono team of 175 volunteer lawyers in Dallas.”

“On paper, landlords could still face hefty fines and jail time for violating the CDC rules on evictions. But Melton says in reality there has been virtually no enforcement for landlords who violate the CDC order. He expects a significant number of landlords will now push ahead with evictions.”

“I think we just stepped off a cliff that we really didn’t want to step off,” Melton says.”

As is the case in most states rental assistance is difficult if not impossible to get in South Carolina. Rebecca Liebson writes in the State, “Since the moratorium went into effect, according to court records at least 50,000 evictions have been filed across five of the state’s most populous counties — Richland, Lexington, Horry, Greenville and Charleston.”

“Though there’s no way to tell how many of those tenants will ultimately be forced to vacate their homes, date from the Census Bureau  shows that many South Carolinians have serious concerns about losing housing. Nearly 53% of renters said they were very likely or somewhat likely to be forced to leave home due to eviction in the next two months.”

Six people came to me in March and were seeking a safe place to sleep in their car. Sadly like most people they do not qualify for the City’s Safe Parking Program and are likely to have their vehicles confiscated under the crush of tickets they are now being issued.

The Biden administration has not announced the cancellation of rents and mortgages nor are they offering to issue $20,000 checks to everyone who has not been able to pay their housing costs during the past year.

The Eviction Lab at Princeton is warning that as many as 40 million Americans are facing eviction. At the same time a luxury condominium building boom is underway. Poor people are being “Red Lined” from their communities and are forced to seek shelter under bridges, doorways on along highways.

Tragically everyone could be housed. Bay Area business journalist Aaron Glantz’ book “Homewreckers” about the 2007 housing foreclosure crisis he provides evidence that property speculators had a strategy that included parking their money in housing that they intended to leave empty. The current wave of building here in Santa Cruz is also likely to sit vacant. The Pacific and Laurel property was already sold to another out of town investor before any construction had begun.

AMERICA’S VERSON OF GERMANY’S “USELESS EATERS”

I was first confronted by the now common use of language to justify the elimination of the homeless in the fall of 1986 in Massachusetts.

I had a graphic design business in Kenmore Square, Boston and lived in an apartment across the street from my office. The Boston Red Sox were among my Kenmore Square clients. I also volunteered my services to the Kenmore Association, a local civic group organized by local property speculators where they called the people who lived outside in our neighborhood, tramps, vagrants, punks, druggies, transients, vermin, and streetpeople.  

The October 1986 issue of the association’s newsletter included this:

KENMORE NEWS

    “The Security & Maintenance Committee encourages all KA Members to assume an active role in cleaning up Kenmore Square. In order to prevent the attraction of streetpeople (especially the “rough element”, new to Kenmore Square), following guidelines were suggested at the breakfast meeting…

    “Please don’t give free food to these streetpeople.

    “Please lock all dumpsters. Unlocked dumpsters will be cited by the City inspectors and all infractions will be subject to fines. Open dumpsters attract street people looking for collectibles and food.

    “Please refrain from throwing returnable cans and bottles in public trash receptacles. The streetpeople find Kenmore Square a profitable location for collecting on these cans and bottles.”

    “Start calling the police if certain annoyances persist and keep a record of your calls (ie. date, time of day and response time).”

OUR RESPONSE

My wife and I were shocked and responded to the association. 

“As members of the Kenmore Association we object to the dehumanizing statements against those living on our streets made by the Security & Maintenance Committee in the October newsletter.”

    “These people are our neighbors, friends and family and deserve our compassion and support.”

    “Dehumanizing people in this manor smacks of Hitler’s Germany. The association is showing a total disregard for people being people. We urge the Association to support efforts to help our neighbors instead of adopting policing to drive them out of the community.”

    “There is no evidence that their presence is having any impact on business. We should celebrate the unique qualities of Kenmore Square that make it attractive instead of seeking to become a second Newbury Street.”

“Sincerely

Andrea and Keith McHenry

24 hour residents of Kenmore Square”

FEMA CAMPS?

The decades long drum beat of dehumanization maybe coming to its logical conclusion. 

The time is coming where we are either going to turn our gaze away from the inhumane policies of the property speculators and their employees in government or we are going to unite against these plans to drive the unhoused into camps.

Three decades of the dehumanization of those who cannot afford rent has set the foundation for forced removal of America’s “Useless Eaters.”

We better act now or as the poem of from German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller, 

“First they came for the homeless, and I did not speak out —

Because I was not homeless.

Then they came for the Mexicans, and I did not speak out — 

Because I was not a Mexican.

Then they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out — 

Because I was not a Muslim.

Then they came for me —

and there was no one left to speak for me.