Four Homeless Civil Rights Events (rescheduled)

Santa Cruz is experiencing a crackdown on homeless people, travelers, street artists, and just those seeking to use public spaces without police harassment.

Paranoia around the Drug War is being used to futile a thinly-concealed "Scare 'Em Out of Town" agenda against homeless people--long a target of city laws, police, and rangers.

Restoration of rights and restitution for damages is likely to come only when tenants, students, minorities, the elderly, working folks, and homeless join in a broad coalition to refocus on the white collar crimes of the 1% and the complicity of the 30%.

Steve Pleich, attorney Judy Bari, and MHCAN activist Sarah Leonard are working on filing a class action lawsuit that may stop the regular confiscation and/or destruction of homeless survival gear and personal items.

In a grim and little-noticed follow-up to NIMBY attacks on homeless recyclers, first one and then the only remaining recycling center in city limits has reportedly closed down without public hearing or notice. I am told the nearest one is now in Capitola.

We are seeing food programs driven or pressured indoors to avoid the community seeing visible poverty, prison-like conditions developing at the Homeless Services Center, harsh library regulations to step up the pressure on homeless people there, churches cutting back their programs, and massive over-policing downtown, in the parks, and at the Beach.

Against this ugly darkening picture, activists are working to document the financial and human cost of new Jim Crow laws against the poor, to speak out against them, and to mobilize legal resources to fight back.

4 PM SATURDAY 11-8 ON KSCO Folks can listen in to KSCO at AM 1080 or do so on line. The call-in number is 479-1080. We will be seeking support for strategies legal and streetside to restore basic civil rights to homeless people suffering from the massive increase in ticketing and harassment.

5 PM MONDAY 11-10 on the sidewalk outside THE RED CHURCH (Calvary Episcopal Cedar and Lincoln) Attorney Paul Cook has successfully beat back attempts to shut him down in Baldwin Park in southern California (http://alchemistcook.blogspot.com/, interview at http://radiolibre.org/brb/brb130919.mp3 --29 minutes into the audio file). He will advise people how to file claims against the city and small claims court papers to recover stolen property and rights and expose official abuses.

3 PM TUESDAY 11-18 outside CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS Protest demanding an end to Stay-Away Orders, Performance Pens, Forbidden Zones, and other repressive restrictions on public space in Santa Cruz--particularly those impacting the poor and homeless. Cafe HUFF will serve coffee and brownies. Jumbogumbo Joe Schultz will provide savory hot vegan soup.

5 PM TUESDAY 11-18 at CITY COUNCIL (809 Center St.) Disabled activists will confront City Council and the City Attorney to demand written authorization so they can vend, perform, sit, and sparechange downtown without suffering hundreds of dollars in fines under the "Move every hour for 100'' and begone for 24 hours" law [MC 5.43.020(2)].

Bring friends.