Comment: The homeless in Sacramento are actually our domestic refugees, a reflection of the homeless in Amerika and an example of the plight of homeless refugees suffering on a global scale. We are living under an unjust fascist administration, spearheaded by Fuhrer Bush, that can spend nearly a trillion tax-dollars in Iraq-nam in the Middle East. We should be creating homes for the homeless, providing survival programs for the people and helping people to help themselves. What good is a government that does not govern wisely with compassion and help its own people survive?
The homeless will not just go away no matter where you shift them. The issues of the homeless are a harsh example of the survival issues facing millions of poor oppressed people in Amerika. Help the homeless!
The homeless will not just go away no matter where you shift them. The issues of the homeless are a harsh example of the survival issues facing millions of poor oppressed people in Amerika. Help the homeless!
For Liberty and Justice for All!
Peter S. Lopez, Humane Being
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com
Sacramento, California
++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++
Nov 7, 2007 4:03 am US/PacificHomeless Could Get New Home in Posh Neighborhood
(CBS) SACRAMENTO A group of homeless people evicted from a vacant lot earlier this week are being offered a new place to live.
On Monday, police began ticketing people camped out on Union Pacific property on North B Street in Sacramento.
Now, one of Sacramento's best known bail bondsmen, Leonard Padilla, is offerering to let the homeless move onto property he owns in the Natomas area. Padilla is offering 60 acres of empty land near Del Paso Road and El Centro.
The problem is that the land is in the middle of a developing community surrounded by homes and businesses. People living near by are not happpy at all with this prospect. City officials say they are looking into whether or not Padilla is breaking any City ordinances by allowing the homeless to live on this land.
On Monday, police began ticketing people camped out on Union Pacific property on North B Street in Sacramento.
Now, one of Sacramento's best known bail bondsmen, Leonard Padilla, is offerering to let the homeless move onto property he owns in the Natomas area. Padilla is offering 60 acres of empty land near Del Paso Road and El Centro.
The problem is that the land is in the middle of a developing community surrounded by homes and businesses. People living near by are not happpy at all with this prospect. City officials say they are looking into whether or not Padilla is breaking any City ordinances by allowing the homeless to live on this land.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
City orders homeless to abandon tent city
By Jocelyn Wiener - jwiener@sacbee.com
Last Updated 1:48 pm PST Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1
Irunmole Ibabatunde, 80, holds up a letter ordering homeless people to vacate Union Pacific railroad property near 7th and B streets in Sacramento. Advocates for the homeless say the ban on illegal camping is unfair, since affordable housing and homeless shelter space are in short supply. Paul Kitagaki Jr. / pkitagaki@sacbee.com
Residents of an informal tent city that has cropped up on a vacant field along North B Street in recent months are packing up their campsites this weekend, saying city and railroad police have threatened them with citation and loss of their belongings if they do not leave by early Monday morning.
About 60 tents remained in the dusty Union Pacific lot Saturday morning; homeless campers said some of their neighbors already had moved on in search of new sites.
Advocates for the homeless – and the homeless themselves – say enforcement of the city's illegal-camping ordinance is unfair in the face of an affordable housing shortage and inadequate shelters.
"All the shelters have wait lists," said 30-year-old Terri Jennings, who had come to the field with her husband a few days earlier after being run off another spot. "They're hurting more homeless than they're helping out here."
Mark Merin, an attorney who filed a lawsuit in August challenging the city's and county's illegal-camping laws, said Sacramento should consider the example of the city of Los Angeles.
In April 2006, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that citing people for illegal camping when the city was so short on shelter beds amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment." Los Angeles currently has a moratorium on such citations.
Merin said he asked Union Pacific to allow the homeless to stay – and to provide portable toilets.
"If there's no other place for our homeless guests to go, a tent city seems to be a temporary solution," said Sister Libby Fernandez, director of Loaves & Fishes, one of three organizational plaintiffs named in the lawsuit.
Matt Young, a Sacramento police spokesman, said he was unaware of the encampment – which is about a mile from the downtown courthouse.
"The city Police Department is dedicated to working with the homeless to the best of our abilities," he said, adding that private property owners are well within their rights in asking people to leave.
Several homeless people said Saturday that city police officers, in an effort to help, had moved them to the field after they were forced to vacate another spot along the railroad tracks. Originally, they said, there were just a dozen or so campers, but over the months the numbers in the field have swelled.
For the most part, said 41-year-old Will Williams, the site is self-regulating. If people want to vent anger by yelling or getting into fistfights, they may be allowed to do so. But if things get out of hand, others will intervene to calm things down.
"Everybody respects everybody else," he said.
While relatively quiet, the site has no toilets and little trash pickup. Most people say there has been at least one fire – some say it was intentionally set, others say it resulted from a poorly tended barbecue. Certain tents do a steady business in crack and methamphetamine sales. Many people complained that a few troubled people have ruined the situation for the rest of them.
"If somebody around here screws up, we all pay," Williams said.
The residents of the field are a motley crew – disabled veterans, addicts, parolees, people with mental health problems and those – like 30-year-old Andrena Gonzales – who are simply down on their luck.
Gonzales said she lost her job at an AM-PM two years ago after missing a mandatory safety meeting. She's been on the streets for a year and seven months. Her belly is swollen – she and her boyfriend, Jeff Bachelor, are expecting a baby early next year. The couple still didn't know Saturday where they were going to camp next. Bachelor had already stashed two sleeping bags in a locker at Loaves & Fishes in case they lose the rest of their belongings.
Irunmole Ibabatunde, who said he was 80 years old, unfolded a wrinkled copy of a flier handed out by police last Wednesday, telling people to move on. He'd crumpled it in frustration.
Five months ago, Ibabatunde had set up his tent alongside those of a few friends, mostly veterans from Vietnam and the first Iraqi war, waiting for pensions to come through. He said they'd been camping in the field with no real problems. Residents of each cluster of dusty tents kept to themselves. Then somebody came and cut down the trees along North B Street, exposing the encampment.
"Only thing I can do is what they tell me – find a spot," he said. "I don't want to get in no friction with the law."
Around him, his traveling companions were dusting off their sleeping bags, folding up comforters and preparing to move on to another field.
About the writer:
- Call The Bee's Jocelyn Wiener,
(916) 321-1967
.
Lester Washington, 60, will have to pack up his tent and leave the Union Pacific lot by Monday, or risk a citation and seizure of his possessions. Paul Kitagaki Jr. / pkitagaki@sacbee.com
"Only thing I can do is what they tell me - find a spot. I don't want to get in no friction with the law."
-- Irunmole Ibabatunde, who's camped five months in Union Pacific lot Paul Kitagaki Jr. / pkitagaki@sacbee.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Homeless campers defy UP deadline
No one is evicted, but a rep says the railroad is 'monitoring' the scene.
By M.S. Enkoji - menkoji@sacbee.com
Last Updated 12:49 am PST Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1
Eric Hagopian, 39, center, and Pheng Lee, 24, right, were among the homeless people who defied Monday's deadline to leave the Union Pacific lot near Seventh and B streets. Mayor Heather Fargo said the city might offer short-term aid such as motel vouchers or a bus ticket home. Paul Kitagaki Jr. / pkitagaki@sacbee.com
Threatened with trespassing citations, some homeless people camped on Union Pacific Railroad property in northern Sacramento on Monday moved on, but others stood their ground, deeply indignant.
Union Pacific Railroad police had distributed warnings to dozens of homeless people camped on a vacant lot on North B Street owned by the nation's largest railroad. People in the impromptu tent city were told they would be cited and their property confiscated if they didn't leave by early Monday.
"I'll pay the consequences, but I'm not running," said Brenda Wade, who has camped for about a month on the railroad's lot. "This is where I call home."
Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo said a team of advocates and city and county relief workers would visit the site today, offering at least a temporary bridge to help the squatters. Fargo said the help could be anything from motel vouchers to a bus ticket home.
The railroad did not issue citations Monday morning, but is "monitoring" the situation and will "take further action if it's appropriate," said James Barnes, a company spokesman.
A homeless man faces federal charges for allegedly lying during an investigation into the March arson that destroyed a Union Pacific railroad trestle that spanned the American River.
Jose Eduardo Moran-Marques has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. A source close to the investigation has told The Bee that Moran-Marques confided to other homeless people that he had set the fire in retaliation against authorities who harass the homeless.
The property where the homeless set up camp is not adjacent to a railroad and is virtually nothing but flat dirt, but Barnes said the company doesn't want it occupied.
"We don't want them on our property," he said. The company is concerned about liability and local businesses have complained about the encampment, he said.
Advocates and the homeless countered that scattering the homeless is a never-ending cycle.
"Jesus doesn't like this," said Wade, 51, homeless for five years. She has been on a list for federally subsidized housing, which is years long.
On an unseasonably warm afternoon, she collected empty water bottles and shoved them in a cart stacked with her belongings. Recycling brings her a little income. She and her boyfriend had mismatched but neatly spread-out bedding and blankets with two pillows on a worn tarp. They had given up their tent to a pregnant woman in the camp.
One of the campers in their small group had hung a kitchen clock in the flimsy branches of a young palm tree.
A camping friend, Eric Hagopian, 39, sat in an office swivel chair somehow wheeled under the small tree.
"I'm holding ground," he said, though he had collapsed his tent and set up his sleeping gear on a wooden pallet. He was afraid of losing his tent in a raid. His dog, Herra Ann, strained against her leash, growling and barking at passing strangers. Hagopian, who says he is mentally disabled, has applied for federal benefits, but he hasn't gotten any payments yet.
The city and Sacramento County are already being sued over the legality of anti-camping laws involving public property. Sacramento attorney Mark Merin, who filed the lawsuit, said Monday that the threatened sweep is a dead-end solution. He said he asked the railroad to "lighten up" on enforcement and suggested the company provide portable toilets and trash containers.
"Criminalizing the homeless doesn't solve anything," he said.
"I'll say to anyone who will listen: You have 1,000 people a night on the streets in Sacramento. Deal with the problem in some constructive way. Prohibiting them in one place, they'll go somewhere else."
A shelter at Cal Expo will open nightly through the winter on Nov. 19, providing 154 beds. Other year-round shelters fill up fast, and more families are seeking shelter, advocates said.
"It's a shameful thing to have in Sacramento," said Joan Burke, director of advocacy at the homeless agency Loaves & Fishes.
Fargo, who is involved in devising a 10-year city-county plan to end chronic homelessness, said the idea of a legal tent city has been discussed but never pursued because of problems encountered elsewhere. The city is diligently working toward permanent solutions, she said, following a national shift toward getting people in housing first, then getting them connected to help. The reverse, she said, was not always successful in getting people off the street.
Ray Tretheway, the city councilman who represents the area, said he's hearing from people who want the camp cleared and those who advocate for the homeless. "Every side is right a little bit," he said.
Compounding the problem is the spread of new development along the riverbanks and formerly abandoned industrial areas the homeless freely inhabited, Tretheway said. But with that area shrinking by an estimated two-thirds, they could become more visibly concentrated, he added.
"It has us struggling for an answer," he said.
About the writer:
- Call The Bee's M.S. Enkoji,
Brenda Wade, 51, says she has no plans to leave. "I'll pay the consequences, but I'm not running," said Wade. "This is where I call home." Paul Kitagaki Jr. / pkitagaki@sacbee.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Related Links:
Join Up! Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee Yahoo Group
c/s
+++++++++++++++++++++Come Together and Create!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka:Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/
http://www.networkaztlan.com/
C/S
No comments:
Post a Comment