The Homeless

[palmspringsbum]

I hear and agree with you weariness of people behaving badkly. Just pointing out that such behavior isn't limited to the homeless. Most homeless are too buy working and tryig to survive to hang out on Pacific and hassle people. I'm not talking about downtown, I'm talking about the problem of houselessness getting worse and needs to be addressed.

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/santa ... O/p12#c232

I never sat on the street and begged for money. I did ask for cigarettes on a couple of occasions. But I was rather discriminating in who I asked, and generally never had to ask more than once or twice to get one. I never stood in front of someone who's hands were full and demanded a cigarette...

...I have snapped, "Can't you see my hands are full?" or "Can't you see I'm busy" a number of times. And then there's the ones that interrupt you while you're having a conversation.

I remember once screaming, "Leave me alone". More than once, actually.

But I knew these people were only the tip of the homeless iceberg, because I knew who the homeless were, and that most of you don't even see the overwhelming majority of them because they never bother anyone.

Somewhere in these topics someone mentioned my statement of 1,000 emergency and transitional beds and not one for medical marijuana patients.

Well, I found the article: http://www.scsextra.com/story.php?sid=43777

Across the county, about 1,300 shelter beds are available, according to the latest estimates. The number includes beds not only for people seeking temporary shelter, but also long-term shelter for people transitioning to permanent housing.

So I was actually 'discounting' my case rather than exaggerating it. As I recall, my math was something like this: About 300 of those 'shelter beds' are one night stands, like the church groups and the armory, and probably includes Page Smith and The Riverstreet Shelter. Which means the rest must be SLEs (Sober Living Environments), which are all essentially faith healing based 'recovery programs'. And they consider medical marijuana patients drug addicts.

Besides the unfairness of it all, one of my concerns is that what services you do have acts as a magnet for exactly the kind of people you don't want, while not just discouraging but actually persecuting the people you actually do want to help and do want around.

And I think I'm in a position to speak with some authority on this issue.

The National Guard Armory near DeLaveaga Park has been one of the county's emergency winter shelters for several years.

The armory, with 100 beds available nightly, opened Nov. 15 and is set to close April 15. The armory's overnight shelter is run by the Homeless Services Center with funding from the county.

Other shelters include:
<ul class=postlist><li>The Pajaro Rescue Mission, for men only.</li>
<li>Interfaith Satellite Shelter Program, a year-round service provided by various churches.</li>
<li>Jesus, Mary and Joseph Home, for women and children only. Requires clean and sober living.</li>
<li>Pajaro Valley Shelter Services, for women and children in transition.</li>
<li>Salvation Army Emergency Shelter in Watsonville.</li>
<li>Page Smith Community House, a transitional center for single adults. Participants are required to save 30 percent of their income.</li>
<li>River Street Shelter, for 32 single adults.</li></ul>

Across the county, about 1,300 shelter beds are available, according to the Community Action Board, a group that works to help people in poverty.

The number includes beds not only for people seeking temporary shelter, but also long-term shelter for people transitioning to permanent housing.

Now I'm trying to remember if it was that Thanksgiving or the one before that I had just bought my computer and had my debts payed off to the point I could accumulate some money to get into a place, having given up on getting a place through 'normal channels'.

And they told me I couldn't go on the church groups and I WOULD HAVE to go to the armory. I had just got the computer and sure as hell didn't intend to leave it in one of their lockers and worry all night about it being there in the morning, nor did I intend to have it ruined while I stood outside the army in the pouring rain as they searched everyone...


Some pertinent articles:
<ul class=postlist><li>Santa Curz shelter puts down-and-out back on their feet - <i>Santa Cruz Sentinel</i> - November 6, 2006 by Shanna McCord.</li>
<li>Dead End Street: Sometimes there is no escape from homelessness - <i>Santa Cruz Sentinel</i> - April 28, 2004.</li>
<li>'Tough love' approach foundation of shelter effort for families - <i>Santa Cruz Sentinel</i> - February 20, 2005 by Shanna McCord</li></ul>

[palmspringsbum]

<table class=posttable align=center><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=http://www.palmspringsbum.org/bin/ticket_2008-08-20.jpg></td></tr></table>

Chris was just starting "The City of New Orleans" and I was going to sit down and listen for a minute when this happened. I'm not sure if he was cited for sitting on the planter or having "an open display device". Nor am I sure I know what "an open display device" is exactly, but evidently that was Chris's crime.

I've been told this is the code section he was cited under:

5.43.020PROHIBITED LOCATIONS.

(1)In order to assure safe, orderly and adequate public access and pedestrian traffic on city streets and sidewalks, no display device shall be placed in any of the following locations in the C-C Community Commercial; C-N Neighborhood Commercial; C-B Commercial Beach; CBD Central Business District; and R-T Tourist Residential zone districts:

(a)Within ten feet of any building entrance or fence or other structure separating private property from the public right-of-way other than cyclone fences between vacant lots and the public right-of-way, or ten feet directly in front of any window. Where any such entrance or window is recessed from the public sidewalk, the ten feet shall be measured from the point at which the building abuts the sidewalk;

(b)Within ten feet of any street corner or intersection;

(c)Within ten feet of any kiosk or mid-block crosswalk;

(d)Within ten feet of any drinking fountain, public telephone or bench;

(e)Within any portion of the sidewalk between the license-area limit line of any sidewalk cafe or other open-air eating establishment and the curb of the sidewalk and in no other location within ten feet of any such license-area limit line; or

(f)Within ten feet of any vending cart.

(2)No person shall allow a display device to remain in the same location on the sidewalk for a period of time exceeding one hour. After one hour the person who placed the display device on the sidewalk shall not place a display device on the sidewalk within 100 feet of the original display device location. After one hour the person who placed the display device shall not place a display device in the original display device location, or within 100 feet of the original display device location, for twenty-four hours.

(3)No person shall be cited under this section unless he or she has first been notified by a public officer or downtown host that he or she is in violation of the prohibition in this section, and thereafter continues the violation.

(Ord. 2002-49 § 1, 2002: Ord. 94-21 § 1, 1994: Ord. 94-13 § 2 (part), 1994).

<a class=postlink href="http://nt2.scbbs.com/cgi-bin/om_isapi.dll?clientID=464328050&advquery=5.43.020&infobase=procode-1&rank=&record={7C84}&softpage=Browse_Frame_Pg42&zz=" target="_blank">Santa Cruz Municiple Code § 5.43.020</a>