EVICTED! First They Came for the Homeless Forcefully Removed from Berkeley Post Office.

Two groups of activists – First They Came for the Homeless and Berkeley Post Office Defenders – have occupied the grounds of the Main Berkeley Post Office continuously since late November, 2014.

For most of that time – from Feb, 2015 to Feb, 2016 – we have been told by the Postal Police, repeatedly, that they had no intention of enforcing trespassing rules against us; yet, this morning they put their hands on sleeping protesters, dragged them from their tents, and confiscated all their belongings.

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The downtown Berkeley Post Office had been ground zero in the fight against the privatization of the United States Postal Service  and the sale of its Post Offices (see a timeline of the multi-year fight here).

One year ago a Federal judge put the kibosh on Postal Service plans to sell the property, and the Occupation become symbolic of the plight of the homeless in Berkeley.  To a determined, small band of previously homeless it was "Home for a year-and-a-half" until this morning.

This is yet another example of Berkeley's total paralysis in the face of homelessness, unless it is eviction by force.  Unable to provide shelter to those who call Berkeley home without a house, called upon to "do something" by its residents with a house, Berkeley's ruling class' only response is to pass laws making it illegal for the homeless to exist in more than two square feet of space, and to squash those who attempt to demonstrate other possibilities ("Liberty City" on the grounds of Old City Hall, a tent city of homeless people protesting the City's new anti-homeless legislation, was eradicted in December, 2015).

In creating circumstances in which Postal Police felt it necessary to remove a 17 month occupation that was harming no one and helping some, and cooperating with the Postal Police in its removal, Berkeley's rulers have demonstrated their unspoken, heartfelt wish:

"Go. Go away. Go anywhere but here."