"Serna" beds at Sally's for Parkway campers extended through end of April


	Logo of the nonprofit organization SafeGround Sacramento, Inc. -- from their website.

According to an article in today's Sacramento Bee, the 32 "Serna beds" that Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna raised funds for for Safe Ground¹, but were instead, with one exception, taken by other American River Parkway campers, have been extended an additional month, until the end of April.

Funds to extend availability of the beds comes from Kaiser Permanente [$5,000], "Serna's office," and others, the Bee article tells us.

Except for one member of Safe Ground, that organization's members refused the beds when originally made available in midFebruary. The reason given was that the SafeGrounders didn't want to jump the waiting list at Salvation Army, taking the beds from others who had a better claim of entitlement.

Many SafeGrounders were not reluctant to take beds at Union Gospel Mission once their riverside campground was rousted. To my mind, they certainly had every right to use mission beds, but I also think they had every justification to use the "Serna beds," even as I see it as laudable that most didn't.

Many, including myself, believe that Safe Ground's unflagging interest in having an issue to flog in order to raise funds and claim 'victimization' is at least in part reason why the "Serna beds" were refused. Safe Ground is a product of Loaves & Fishes' highly politicized effort of continual protest, and includes many of the same organization characters, including Libby Fernandez [an SGS board member and L&F CEO], David Moss, Mark Merin, and the lawyer without homeless-services portfolio, Cathleen "Cat" Willliams.

In an interview for SeeJaneDo, Fernandez said that "The ability to protest is written into the mission of Loaves and Fishes. Our philosophy is not to emphasize words, but non-violent action. It’s really about social justice. We walk the talk.”

But one woman's "social justice" is for others screwy politics. If Fernandez and her crowd had their way America would quite literally be transformed into a soviet-style nation, stripped of its freedoms.
-------
Footnotes:
1 The term "Safe Ground" or "SafeGround" is used for multiple, often-conflicting purposes by the organization of that name, which is also, more-formally known as "Safe Ground Sacramento." In this article Safe Ground means either the nonprofit organization or the tent encampment that was and often still is on the American Parkway or nearby.

Comments

Sex, Lies and Exegesis

Definition: exegesis [ek-si-jee-sis]: critical explanation or interpretation of a text or portion of a text, especially of the Bible. Painting by He Qi , a prominent artist from China who focuses on Christian themes. This piece is inspired by The Song of Solomon. In his May 21 column, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof stirred up a hornets’ nest. His column wasn’t really a column, it was a quiz, titled “ Religion and Sex Quiz .” The questions and what he provided as the answers were provocative, to say the least. We would later learn, in his follow-up, a post to the Times online in the afternoon of the same day, “ Reader Comments on my Religion Quiz ,” that the information that was used to create the quiz came with the help of Bible scholars, “including Jennifer Knust, whose book inspired [the quiz], and … Mark Jordan of Harvard Divinity School.” Kristof doesn’t name Knust’s book, but a quick googling reveals that it must certainly be Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s...

Loaves & Fishes implicates Buddhism and Jack Kornfield in its June Donations Plea.

The Sukhothai Traimit Golden Buddha was found in a clay-and-plaster overlaid buddha statue in 1959, after laying in wait for 500 years. It's huge and heavy: just under 10 feet tall and weighs 5 1/2 tons. At the beginning of their June newsletter , Loaves and Fishes relates a story, taken from the beginning of renowned Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield's 2008 book The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology . The first part and first chapter in Kornfield's book is "Part I: Who are you really?" and chapter 1 is called "Nobility: Our Original Goodness," which ought to serve as a clue to what the beginning of the book is about, not that that sentiment isn't strewn through-out the chapter, section and book such that what Kornfield is telling us should be crystal clear. Somehow, the not-ready-for-primetime management at Loaves & Fishes have managed to use Kornfield's wise and kindly words in a way that mangles th...

In an act of Collective Punishment, Loaves & Fishes closes its park in the morning on New Year’s Day

Calvin [a "green hat" in Unfriendly Park] makes the argument for continued incompetent management. Hobbes represents me — only, in real life, I don't have that good a coat . In an act of Collective Punishment, Loaves & Fishes closes its park in the morning on New Year’s Day In one respect — and only one — that I can think of, Loaves & Fishes is NOT hypocritical: The management hates the way America is run and wants to turn it into a backward communist country . Consistent with that, Loaves & Fishes’ management runs its facility like a backward communist country. The People’s Republic of Loaves & Fishes. A seemingly minor thing happened on New Year’s Day. A couple of people smoked a joint in Loaves & Fishes’ Friendship Park and one of the park directors, or both of them, determined, at about 10am, that, in retribution, they would punish all the homeless there by closing the park for the day. This is something the managers of the park do all the ...

Sacramento Homeless blog

Search This Blog