http://tinyurl.com/y9r94vv
No one - not the homeless campers, not their advocates and certainly not their legions of critics - believes safe ground will solve the problem of homelessness. Nor will it end the proliferation of illegal campgrounds that have popped up all over our region.
As Joan Burke, the tireless homeless advocate from Loaves & Fishes, has said repeatedly, the safe ground movement is a response to an emergency, not the usual natural-disaster kind of emergency floods, fires or hurricanes, but a slow-moving series of catastrophes that have driven a sizable number of people from their homes. Granted, some of these "emergencies" are self-inflicted - alcoholism, drug addiction and, yes, laziness and irresponsibility. Others such as mental illness, domestic violence and a collapsing economy are beyond the victim's control.
With winter fast approaching, there are not enough shelter beds for all the homeless in our community who need a safe, sanitary place to spend the night. Because of Sacramento County's financial crisis, supervisors have said they will not reopen the overflow shelter at Cal Expo this winter. The county also is closing half its psychiatric beds. So our safety net for the homeless has big holes.
The safe ground proposal being pushed would not re-create the city's infamous tent city that was featured on Oprah Winfrey's show months ago. Advocates instead have proposed to set up 60 Tuff Sheds, 150-square-foot portable shelters or sleeping cottages, as the safe ground advocates are calling them, arranged like a city block over the 3 1/2-acre site behind the Union Gospel Mission and Volunteers of America homeless shelters on Bannon Street. Each cottage would be sponsored by a private business, church or individual that would paint, furnish and decorate it.
The safe ground area would be limited to single adult men, women and couples. No children. It would have restrooms, showers, a cooking area and a place where people could receive mail.
The village would be self-governing, guided largely by an elected council of elders. All residents would have to sign a pledge: no alcohol, no drugs and no violence.
Leo McFarland, president and CEO of Volunteers of America, has been providing services to the homeless in Sacramento for 33 years. He's no romantic. He has resisted the idea of homeless campgrounds for years but given the magnitude of the homeless problem this winter, he thinks this safe ground proposal makes sense. It's certainly preferable to the floating illegal campgrounds Sacramento police officers Mark Zoulas and Mike Cooper close down every few days. Zoulas and Cooper call safe ground a "great temporary step" but worry it will aide and abet an "unhealthy lifestyle."
McFarland is adamant that won't happen. He says there will be a services component to safe ground, social workers, job counselors and other professionals in place to guide the homeless to jobs, mental health services, drug and alcohol treatment, and ultimately out of homelessness. I believe there ought to be a work requirement as well. People who live at the camp should be required to provide a public service: picking up trash, cleaning public bathrooms, mowing lawns - something to earn their keep.
McFarland reminds anyone who's paying attention that the safe ground site chosen sits behind two existing shelters, is surrounded by a chain-link fence, is near services and far from residential areas. Most significantly, in the '70s and '80s the publicly owned property was a legally sanctioned campground for the homeless.
There is no good answer for Steve Ayers, the local business owner who complains his community already "has accepted more than our fair share of homes and transient services and shelters."
Ayers is right about that, but the homeless and the shelters that serve them predate most of the businesses that only recently have arrived in this newly emerging River District. Many of the homeless were driven from cheap hotels that used to dot Sacramento's downtown. They will continue to live in the River District whether the safe ground proposal is approved or not. Surely it's preferable they live in a legally sanctioned, sanitary, well maintained and well policed campground than sleeping illegally under bridges, in bus shelters and on the doorsteps of businesses such as Ayers'.
If given the go-ahead by the City Council and the Board of Supervisors, the proposed safe ground site could be in operation by November. But it would accommodate only a tiny fraction of the estimated 1,200 people sleeping outside in Sacramento County any given night. To solve the illegal campground problem, more safe ground sites will be needed. But this first one could serve as a model.
If it succeeds, other communities might be willing to consider similar programs.
Safe ground is no panacea to our seemingly intractable homeless problem. But as Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has said, it could be a useful "stepping stone."
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/2227543.html?pageNum=2&mi_pluck_action=page_nav#Comments_Container
Ginger Rutland: Homeless 'safe ground' not quite Eden, but a step
grutland@sacbee.com
Published Sunday, Oct. 04, 2009
Eden - that's what Sacramento's homeless campers and their advocates call the legal campground or "safe ground" they hope to establish in an empty field behind two existing homeless shelters north of downtown.No one - not the homeless campers, not their advocates and certainly not their legions of critics - believes safe ground will solve the problem of homelessness. Nor will it end the proliferation of illegal campgrounds that have popped up all over our region.
As Joan Burke, the tireless homeless advocate from Loaves & Fishes, has said repeatedly, the safe ground movement is a response to an emergency, not the usual natural-disaster kind of emergency floods, fires or hurricanes, but a slow-moving series of catastrophes that have driven a sizable number of people from their homes. Granted, some of these "emergencies" are self-inflicted - alcoholism, drug addiction and, yes, laziness and irresponsibility. Others such as mental illness, domestic violence and a collapsing economy are beyond the victim's control.
With winter fast approaching, there are not enough shelter beds for all the homeless in our community who need a safe, sanitary place to spend the night. Because of Sacramento County's financial crisis, supervisors have said they will not reopen the overflow shelter at Cal Expo this winter. The county also is closing half its psychiatric beds. So our safety net for the homeless has big holes.
The safe ground proposal being pushed would not re-create the city's infamous tent city that was featured on Oprah Winfrey's show months ago. Advocates instead have proposed to set up 60 Tuff Sheds, 150-square-foot portable shelters or sleeping cottages, as the safe ground advocates are calling them, arranged like a city block over the 3 1/2-acre site behind the Union Gospel Mission and Volunteers of America homeless shelters on Bannon Street. Each cottage would be sponsored by a private business, church or individual that would paint, furnish and decorate it.
The safe ground area would be limited to single adult men, women and couples. No children. It would have restrooms, showers, a cooking area and a place where people could receive mail.
The village would be self-governing, guided largely by an elected council of elders. All residents would have to sign a pledge: no alcohol, no drugs and no violence.
Leo McFarland, president and CEO of Volunteers of America, has been providing services to the homeless in Sacramento for 33 years. He's no romantic. He has resisted the idea of homeless campgrounds for years but given the magnitude of the homeless problem this winter, he thinks this safe ground proposal makes sense. It's certainly preferable to the floating illegal campgrounds Sacramento police officers Mark Zoulas and Mike Cooper close down every few days. Zoulas and Cooper call safe ground a "great temporary step" but worry it will aide and abet an "unhealthy lifestyle."
McFarland is adamant that won't happen. He says there will be a services component to safe ground, social workers, job counselors and other professionals in place to guide the homeless to jobs, mental health services, drug and alcohol treatment, and ultimately out of homelessness. I believe there ought to be a work requirement as well. People who live at the camp should be required to provide a public service: picking up trash, cleaning public bathrooms, mowing lawns - something to earn their keep.
McFarland reminds anyone who's paying attention that the safe ground site chosen sits behind two existing shelters, is surrounded by a chain-link fence, is near services and far from residential areas. Most significantly, in the '70s and '80s the publicly owned property was a legally sanctioned campground for the homeless.
There is no good answer for Steve Ayers, the local business owner who complains his community already "has accepted more than our fair share of homes and transient services and shelters."
Ayers is right about that, but the homeless and the shelters that serve them predate most of the businesses that only recently have arrived in this newly emerging River District. Many of the homeless were driven from cheap hotels that used to dot Sacramento's downtown. They will continue to live in the River District whether the safe ground proposal is approved or not. Surely it's preferable they live in a legally sanctioned, sanitary, well maintained and well policed campground than sleeping illegally under bridges, in bus shelters and on the doorsteps of businesses such as Ayers'.
If given the go-ahead by the City Council and the Board of Supervisors, the proposed safe ground site could be in operation by November. But it would accommodate only a tiny fraction of the estimated 1,200 people sleeping outside in Sacramento County any given night. To solve the illegal campground problem, more safe ground sites will be needed. But this first one could serve as a model.
If it succeeds, other communities might be willing to consider similar programs.
Safe ground is no panacea to our seemingly intractable homeless problem. But as Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has said, it could be a useful "stepping stone."
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/2227543.html?pageNum=2&mi_pluck_action=page_nav#Comments_Container
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Comment: Homeless refugees are a magnified reflection of the many social ills and misplaced priorities of the larger society and its ruling elites. There is no traditional social safety net anymore. Those days are long gone. What we have is life asserting itself, struggling to survive and finding basic survival itself with one's sanity intact a constant daily war in a world that is inhumane in so many ways.
The 'homeless problem' is a multi-dimensional social issue that needs to be addressed on different levels in different ways. There is no one single simple solution. It requires an array of social services designed to treat the whole human being to become a functional responsible adult able to participate in and contribute to all of us in order to bring about a better more humane world. Keep your eye on the big picture!
Education for Liberation! Venceremos Unidos!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
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Come Together! Join Up! Seize the Time!
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