Sacramento Homeless blog

Reno's Tent City Joan Burke, Advocacy Director at Loaves & Fishes (and maybe/probably an officer or board member of SafeGround), has sent out a mass-mailed email telling Fishes & Loaves supporters that SafeGround needs land. In her email, Burke included a link to an online pdf file: " Request for Proposal for Land Development / SafeGround Sacramento, Inc / April 2, 2010 ." The document calls for a search to identify potential sites for a homeless encampment or community of cottages in Sacramento County. SafeGround, Sac, wants from two to five acres to accommodate 60 to 100 adults in fifty to eighty cabins or sleeping cottages. It is believed that the new push for a safe ground encampment or cottage site comes as a result of a recent event: The acceptance of a legal 100-person homeless campground by city officials in Reno, Nevada. The encampment, there, is downtown and in public view. The second half of a March 27 article in the Reno Gazette-Journal , d...

Just a quick note and a link to a report issued this very month by the National Coalition on the Homeless called " Tent Cities in America: A Pacific Coast Report ." A chapter on Safe Ground is on page 36.  A picture from Tent City from last spring, here, is on the title page of the report. I haven't read it carefully, but ― sigh ― it looks like the usual balderdash crapola, a donation grab parading aroung as an objective article.  For all the people listed early in the report, this is probably another job of paper-thin journalism, reporting as fact what the homeless-help industry in Sacramento says, glowingly, about its wonderful send-us-a-check self. Ooop.  Like I said or mean to say:  Stay tuned in the days ahead for an in-depth report in SacHo about the Nat'l Coalition report.

I received an email, today, from Joan Burke, Director of Advocacy, of Loaves & Fishes, signed by both Ms. Burke and attorney Mark Merin. The gist of it is this paragraph that was in bold in the center of the text: We are asking owners of empty lots, parking lots and any other unused space to permit homeless campers to pitch tents on their property for ONE NIGHT. The “campers” will clean up the property and leave it in better condition than they found it; a porta-potty will be provided. The “campers” will then move to the next property owner’s property where they will pitch their tents, again, for ONE NIGHT. By having homeless campers be constantly on the move in a rotation of camping sites, they don't break the anti-camping ordinance. Unhappily, this is perhaps the only way left for unsheltered homeless people to stay within the law. [Shelter space is tight! Unconscionably, the police rousted campsites throughout the city on the 11th just before the big storm, putting people...

Before the 10:00 AM rally at City Hall that the "Safe Ground movement" had planned for this morning, Sister Libby [CEO of Loaves & Fishes ] came up to me and I asked if Cathleen Williams is still a part of the "movement." Libby nodded and said "yes," or "oh, yes" in a strong, certain way. "Shouldn't she not be?" I asked. "I've been reading your blog," said Libby, politely. "I don't think that she's communistic. Communion is part of the movement." As she was walking away, I asked Libby if she believed People's Tribune was communist. There was no response, or perhaps Libby didn't hear me. I didn't stay, but later, maybe fifteen minutes after 10AM, I saw the crowd of people, numbering perhaps 100, maybe more, marching around City Hall, chanting repeatedly "What do we want? Safe Ground! When do we want it? Now!" They settled in, where they had been, in an area between the two bu...

The police have ordered campers on property belonging to attorney Mark Merin to leave, due to complaints from homeowners in the neighborhood. Almost as quickly as it was arranged for homeless people to make use of the property on C Street, near 13th St., the police have ordered the campers to leave. This news comes from an article in the Sacramento Bee , dated August 22, titled, " Sacramento police order campers to leave homeless 'safe ground.' " The article tells us, "Area leaders are discussing establishing a larger-scale "safe ground" that would offer services such as garbage pickup and social support." An obvious alternate site for homeless campers to pitch their tents, where neighbors are very very unlikely to object, is ground on the Loaves & Fishes facility where a building was recently razed. It is noted that Merin and the so-called "safe ground movement" leaders continue to foster confusion in their use of their ter...

Campers setting up on the Merin property. Mark Merin, the leading Sacramento attorney for the homeless-help industry, is allowing homeless people to put up their tents on property of his on C Street, between 12th and 14th. According to the article in the Bee which is the source of this news, Merin is leasing the property to "three advocacy organizations [that] are leading the 'safe ground' effort." The organizations are unnamed in the article, but would be Loaves & Fishes, Francis House and SHOC. The "lease" is clearly a means to shield Merin from responsibility for the effort. Merin, and the "advocacy organizations" are set to profit considerably from terms of agreement that will conclude litigation relating to Lehr v Sac'to, a suit that ostensibly exists to compensate homeless people for property that was destroyed by city and county police. In truth, Merin and Loaves & Fishes will be the great beneficiaries from the suit, when ...

I met with an aid with the mayor's office yesterday, whom has recently been assigned responsibilities to understand and try, mightily, to address many of the needs of us homeless people in the city and county. She is a member of the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness, and if I understood correctly, is now the leader/co-ordinator of the committee since Andrew Rosskamm, who had had that role, has returned to Harvard, following the terminus of his fellowship. As regular readers of this blog are aware, I have great concern about what will happen this winter to provide shelter for those who, due to the cold season's many frosty nights, must come indoors to sleep to be safe and well. We need to boost the number of shelter beds in the winter by approximately 200, now that the county is dirt poor and will not be funding VOA's terrible Winter Shelter , also known as Overflow . I am happy to say that the aid I met with was attentive and interested in the concerns I expressed and ...

I spent last night in the non-legal Safe Ground camp in one of its undisclosed locations. Certainly, I was interested in what it is like, and for that reason I wanted to stay there [and to report about my experience in this blog]. But, also, getting shelter space is tight: I had to stay out from the mission on Thursday night and had trouble getting any sleep downtown. So, a very sleepy Tom Armstrong showed up at the secluded site last night at about 6:15pm. My friend who suggested it would be OK for me to appear was sound asleep, so it was kind of weird on my part, I thought, for me to show up as I did. But I was immediately treated kindly, offered good hot food and a sleeping space. There were, maybe, just ten of us there last night. Others who are regularly with the main core of campers had splintered off for the night, going to a cite in Placer county for an event that was planned. I don't want to say too much, since I don't want to 'give away' anything I shouldn...

Mayor Kevin Johnson. Photo from a recent Sacramento Press story. This morning, minutes before 7AM, as I was part of the crowd standing in the North C Street cul-de-sac, waiting for Friendship Park to open, a news van for Fox40 News parked on the street and their news crew began filming. Minutes later, after I'd made my shower reservation in the park, and was leaving the park, headed toward the wash house, I nearly bumped into the mayor who was heading into the park. There was a bit of excitement -- Kevin Johnson's here! Kevin Johnson's here! A little later, clean and fresh smelling, I returned to the park and the mayor was nowhere to be found, but the news van was still parked on North C with its fireman's-ladder-like antenna extending high into the sky. [ Update: HERE'S the report from Channel 40. I note that they call the campground Camp Safety in the headline, but Safe Ground in the report.] [ Further Update : Loaves & Fishes' website has news on the ma...

A World Shelter U‑Dome, the likely tent/abode that will be used if Stepping Stone manifests, beginning in April, 2010. There are two realms of news today relating to places for the Sacramento homeless to sleep. Both have to do with the mayor, Kevin Johnson. And both have to do with the word(s) Safeground / SafeGround / Safe Ground , an idea, or constellation of ideas, that suffers from a bit of a branding problem. The first bit of news is that Mayor Johnson will be spending the night with members of a newly established group of campers called SafeGround , who live in a clandestine encampment that fully disappears every morning. The mayor will be bringing the media with him. Specifically, KTXL Fox40 News will be sending a reporter and film crew. Many other news organizations are likely also to come. The purpose behind the mayor's effort hasn't been stated expressly, but it is believed that the mayor is wanting to demonstrate his concern for this segment of Sacramentans who are...

The Winter of Our Discount Tent : Not meaning to make light of the situation, this shirt/joke was found that suits the Sacramento situation fittingly, to a T. From zazzle . Though the August sun shines bright and brilliant, NOW is the time to address an emergency headed our way: Sleep space for the county's homeless during the winter of 2009-2010 needs to be found. Somehow we must find space for about 200 souls from the middle of November, 2009, to the end of March, 2010. The county of Sacramento is beyond flat busted, and is now set to further raid safety-net services to fund ongoing politically-protected functions of government. The city doesn't have as direct a responsibility for the homeless, yet can step it – but in today's economy, little can be expected from the mayor and city council. Still, something has to happen or hundreds of people for a period of a hundred cold dark dank wintry nights will suffer mightily with some getting deathly ill. It is simply a responsi...

A resourceful band of homeless people have identified a plot of ground in Sacramento for the establishment of a campground – a place to live and be in the absence of adequate shelter space or other ways and means to spend the night. There is nothing unusual about this (there are many illicit homeless tent communities in the county), except that these campers have a written compact, regulations and self-governance. And they have named their encampment "Safe Ground," even though it is not sanctioned, as that name implies. I am told that last evening two Sacramento Bee reporters came to the site and spoke with many of the inhabitants. A story in the paper is likely to appear tomorrow morning. [Update: As of the 8/7 issue, there has been no story re the camp in The Bee.] The plot of ground was described to me as being as big as the cul-de-sac area at Loaves & Fishes, from Mercy Clinic to the end of the street, which is, perhaps, 25 yards by 70 yards. I was told the encampmen...

[Psst. This article was written twenty years ago by then Bee staff writer Dale Maharidge (who won a Pulizer Prize in 1990 for a book that was an indictment of the tenant-farming system ). Except for the name of the mayor and others, the article reads like something that could have been written today.] This is starkly so because the police rousted the homeless who were sleeping on the sidewalk in front of Union Gospel Mission last night. -- Tom Jose Chaparro scratched his toe in the dust of the vacant lot and talked bitterly of the city work crew that came last week and leveled his crude shelter – and, he says, destroyed his work tools. "I'm a roofer. I can't work without my tools," said Chaparro, 38, a working homeless man who came to Sacramento from Phoenix, Ariz., two months ago. "I figured I'd work, make some money and get a house." On Tuesday, Legal Services of Northern California met with Mayor Anne Rudin, who apologized to Chaparro. And then Lega...

Hoy-day! What a sweep of vanity comes this way! They dance! they are mad women Like madness is the glory of this life. As this pomp shows to a little oil and root. * ~Wm Shakespeare: homeless Apemantus in The Tragedy of Timon of Athens A World Shelter U-Dome, dubbed a LibbyPod. Loaves and Fishes owns two which were recently donated. Without extras, the pod retails for $2495. The future will show what actually happens, but the rumormill is rife with information on what Loaves is planning for its rally & march on July 1. Some of the scuttlebutt tells us Loaves' brainpower continues at ebb. One rumor, the likeliest to be true, is that Sister Libby is in hope of getting arrested. Last April, when the Oprah-fuelled media blitz was in full-frontal Jerry Springer mode, the Chief-Exhibitionist-Officer of Loaves & Fishes was touting her hopes of getting into a local jail via the backdoor. Here, from an April 6 Bee article , just before Tent City came tumbling down, written by th...

A clock on the homepage of Loaves & Fishes' website counts down the seconds until 10AM on July 1 when a "March for Safe Ground," featuring Papa Roach, will begin at the intersection of 12th & Ahern. "12th & Ahern" is really the parking lot of L&F's Delany Center, according to where a pin is placed in L&F's map of the spot . In the back of the Center, several of us have seen the construction and temporary instalation of pod-like geodesic tent structures made from corrugated polypropylene, dubbed LibbyPods, which are clearly going to play a part in the First of the Month event. [The pods are actually World Shelter U-Domes which retail for $2,495 .] There have previously been Safe Ground events on December 23, 2008 , and on April 21, 2009 . The December event was a march from the Loaves & Fishes facility to Ceasar Chavez Park, downtown, where a rally was held. The April 21 event was a rally at the state capitol. One distinctiv...

Beds and rumours of beds. From what I understand, both the A Street shelter and the Bannon Street shelter that are currently being administered by Volunteers of America are going to be funded beyond June 30. At least one of the facilities, according to what I've heard unofficially, will be operated by Salvation Army beginning on July 1. Winter shelter , which is also currently being administered by Volunteers of America is not set to continue beyond June 30. This is not surprising; the shelter has always been seasonal, and as it is it will be in operation nine days into summer. Never before, so far as I can tell from a search of Sacramento Bee articles in years past, has the facility ever been in operation past March 31 ... until this year. A problem remaining is what additional shelter will there be in the winter of 2009-2010. Winter shelter is not only not getting its current operation extended, it's not yet funded for next winter. As many know, Winter shelter [also known ...

There will be a meeting of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors at 9:30, tomorrow, Thursday, to discuss matters relating to Human Assistance and Health And Human Services, in context of the 2009-2010 county budget gap of $180 million. The meeting will be at 700 H Street Suite 1450; Sacramento, CA 95814 [ map ] [ agenda ]. Funding for General Assistance, Mather Community Campus, Homeless Shelters, and Primary Care are important topics of the meeting, which will allow members of the public to address the board for several minutes, each. It is expected that many homeless-aid and -advocacy people will be at the meeting to give their points of view, pressing for restoration of funding (or to find funding in forthcoming stimulus monies) for programs that are scheduled to end or be significantly cut on July 1. It is expected that many homeless people will be at the meeting and that many will address the board, as well. Of prime interest is the shelter situation beginning on July 1. Wint...

In its June 22, 2009, issue, one of our country's major political magazines, The Nation , deftly looks back at Sacramento's Tent City in a lengthy piece " Tales of Tent City ," while tangentially musing about tent encampments and homelessness, generally, and assessing the near future of homelessness in California. With reflective time since the tarps were rolled up like scrolls, The Nation has done one thing almost every other media source has failed at: getting the facts mostly right. Here, one paragraph that says the most: In the end, Sacramento dealt with its Tent City with more compassion than can usually be expected. "If they had a great big rug they could sweep us under somewhere, they would," predicted Karen Hersh, and she was right. The broom, fortunately, came in the form of temporary fixes, not arrests. The city scrambled to raise money for forty additional units of subsidized housing (few of which were ready before Tent City was cleared) and fifty...

The county of Sacramento reports that there is a $187 million projected budget gap that needs to be closed for its upcoming fiscal year, which begins on July 1. To close the gap, the head of the county Department of Human Assistance has proposed closing three VOA-run shelters which provide beds for between 122 and 346 people , (dependent on when in the year you count the beds). This shelter-closing thing is a sudden, huge threat to the security, life-experience and opportunity to escape the homeless trap for hundreds. After the media buzz of Feb+Mar+Apr and the city's response, for there, now, to be threat of a massive backslide, by the county, in services made available to the homeless community is traumatising. Quickly, efforts must be made to forestall or reduce the county's cuts to fund shelters. And, ideas need to emerge of other means to keep homeless people from being pushed onto the street at night. Bruce Wagstaff, the DHA director who proposed the cutbacks, suggeste...

"[T]hose who argued for or against the tent city relied on the sort of simplistic explanations and quick-fix remedies that trivialize the causes and minimize the consequences of homelessness." wrote Robert V. Tobin, the president and CEO of the transitional-housing organization Cottage Housing , in a opinion piece published two days ago in Inside Politics Daily . The title given the piece is " Sacramento's Homeless Camp: More Fiction Than Fact ." Fiction v. Fact counterpoints within his piece read thus: FICTION: Sacramento's tent city emerged in recent months as the economy declined. FACT: People have lived along the American River since the Gold Rush; homeless people have camped there for decades. FICTION: Parents and kids were driven from their homes and into shanties. FACT: There were no children living in the encampment. FICTION: Tent residents were recession refugees new to the homeless scene. FACT: The local homeless policy director said 90 perc...