Defund the Police; Refund the Community

Join us at the Defund the Police - ReFund the Community March from the Clock Tower to City Hall this Tuesday. to protest the cruel city organized campaign against those who live outside.

At 7:30 PM, the Community Advisory Committee on Homelessness (CACH) Co-Chair and City staff will present their report. It plans to do little other than criminalize the unhoused and continue to take people's vehicular homes. It is on the same agenda as are negotiations to increase the budget of the police and a funding two more CSO's to enforce anti-tobacco laws.

The Tuesday City Council meeting is, as usual, only accessible by zoom and phone, effectively excluding poorer people and the unhoused. Unlike the Board of Supervisors who actually open their chamber to the public, the City Council has refused to use the Civic to do so, though that would allow for safe spacing.

The CACH committee was formed during the meeting to evict more than 200 unhoused people from behind Ross into the doorways and parks of Santa Cruz.

Input from the homeless community into this report was not possible as the meetings were scheduled when people who live outside were not able to participate.

One of the few CACH members who was homeless was kicked out of the River Street Camp because he was late as a result of attending the CACH meeting. This camp was set up in preparation for the Ross Camp eviction.

Susie O'Hara, Assistant to the City Manager, lied to a Federal Judge claiming that everyone at the Ross Camp would get shelter or housing knowing that was not true. She will be giving the report Tuesday night. The City Council report on homelessness issued in 2017 claimed the police spent over $14 million to arrest and torment the homeless.

The city just made a sweep of the Benchlands driving at least 100 people into the parks and doorways. The CDC guidelines says that sweeps of homeless camps is a danger to the community. The city is also ticketing and towing vehicular homes at a stunning rate as thousands of more people are facing homelessness in our county.