10th Annual Homelessness Marathon to Air Tuesday on Free Radio Santa Cruz

The show will preempt the regular programming. It is, like my twice-weekly Bathrobespierre's Broadsides show, a call-in show. Call-in numbers will be announced on the air.

Last month Marathon mainstay Jeremy Alderson visited Santa Cruz to check out the crackdown against our own homeless community (which has intensified exponentially since then). Becky Johnson and I are returning the favor by going to Fresno to host an hour of the 14-hour marathon.

Legal action in federal court in Fresno--like in Los Angeles--has been remarkably successful in forcing a change in city policy towards the right of homeless people to shelter themselves (see City of Fresno Cleans up Homeless Encampment http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/18/ 18365205.php). "Clean Up" means that Fresno actually helped the homeless encampment dispose of its trash, unlike Santa Cruz's policy of treating downtown homeless people like trash and giving ranger Wallace free rein to destroy homeless posessions.

We hope to bring back from Fresno some tips, contacts, and spirit to help further our own planned lawsuit against the Sleeping Ban in Santa Cruz. (As a sidenote, I'll be taking the Santa Cruz City Council into trial in federal court at the end of March for false arrests connected with peace and homeless advocacy--more on this later)

More info about the struggles to set up the Homelessnes Marathon in Fresno can be found in the February 2007 (hard to find) issue of Street Spirit, in the main branch of the Public library, but not yet on line at http://www.thestreetspirit.org .

Another recent story on indybay can be found at http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/08/18359646.php

Tune in, call in, and bring justice to Santa Cruz !

More contacts:

- Jeremy Weir Alderson, Director, Homelessness Marathon, 607-546-2084,
radio [at] lightlink.com

- Mike Rhodes, Editor, Community Alliance, 559-978-4502
mikerhodes&comcast.net

http://www.homelessnessmarathon.org