The 89th Freedom Sleepers Sleep-out at Santa Cruz City Hall

Join us at the 89th Freedom Sleepers Sleep-out at Santa Cruz City Hall

The Freedom Sleepers will be sleeping out at City Hall once again this Tuesday, March 21, 2017. We will provide free food and sleep out against the sleeping ban where unsheltered people are woken and often ticketed by the police and rangers. Our homeless friends suffer from official disrespect and dehumanization every day. The emergency shelter was closed in July 2015. Homeless people in Santa Cruz have slept more than 600 nights since the Emergency Shelter was closed.

This is the text of the poster distributed at the Freedom Sleepers. Please come by and get your copy.

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.

Based on poem by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). Niemöller was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945. Once freed he regretted he had not done more to speak out against the Nazis.

Under this era of Trump the dehumanization of our homeless neighbors is more dangerous than ever. The Nazi law against homelessness where vagrancy, begging, prostitution, and "work-shyness" (arbeitsscheu), was classified "asocial behavior" as punishable by confinement to concentration camps. Individuals deemed "asocial" had to wear the black triangle. Many black triangle prisoners were either mentally disabled or mentally ill. The homeless were also included, as were alcoholics, the habitually "work-shy" or unemployed, prostitutes, and others including draft resisters and pacifists.

One of those who passed away on the streets of Santa Cruz was our friend Micheal Mears died of hypothermia on February 17, 2017 in Santa Cruz.


Memorial Service for Michael Mears
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
5:30 PM
Santa Cruz City Hall
809 Center St, Santa Cruz, California


Also please join us again this Saturday, March 25th at 3 PM. at the Downtown Post Office to protest the Anti-homeless Fence. Bring signs, coats, shoes, toys, ribbons, toothpaste and toothbrushes, books and anything beautiful or any other helpful item.