Anarchistcook’s Weblog

Every day or two another person arrives to our meal in shock. Mostly older single women whose life was towed. This is a death sentence for many. The list of those we lost this year as a result of city policies is crushing.

Maybe the hardest for me this year was the murder of Bob Rees by the city. We were not able to secure a hotel bed before he died of heart attack on the pedestrian bridge above the Benchlands. It took months to secure a place on a church floor to sleep where he could plug in his C-pap machine. Another heartbreaking death directly caused by city council was that of our dear friend Desieire Quintero killed after being evicted from Ross Camp.

Those newly unhoused ask if we can help them get into a shelter but this is not possible in Santa Cruz so we hand them a tent and a tarp and suggest a place to set up. Those first moments when you have to move to your car are bad enough but as the city drains your funds by daily tickets, your home is towed and you are driven to a doorway is even more brutal.

I remember one woman in her late sixties who came stunned to Laurel and Front Streets in early October. After failing to get her into a shelter I gave her the only accommodations we could offer, a three person tent and suggested she seek a patch of ground on the levee or San Lorenzo Park. The next day she returned all smiles. “I found a place under the Soquel bridge,” she announced with pride.

The crisis is so extreme that we have had to start housing people next to our meal now as space is running out. Last week another older woman arrived saying her home was towed. We tried to get her into a shelter but failed so we handed her a tent and blanket and helped her set up in one of the last remaining scraps of land at Lot 27.

Yesterday the police towed another unhoused friends vehicular home. He was frantic as he sat next to his worldly belongings in the rain on a Cedar Street door step.

Food Not Bombs has provided nearly $2,000 in cheap pup tents and tarps for those who have lost everything but their dignity to the intentionally cruel policies of these officials.

Lets be honest, these people are murderers – Donna Meyers, Sonja Brunner, Justin Cummings, Renee Golder, Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, and Martine Watkins.

Call them out for the murders they are by emailing citycouncil@cityofsantacruz.com