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Friday, July 30, 2010
Safe Ground Now!
by Ryan Kinsel, published on October 22, 2009 at 1:35AM
Storyline: Open 2009
Community Tags: open2009
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The homeless are speaking out against the city’s closure of tent city. On Tuesday, Oct.13, The City Council’s weekly meeting was overrun by homeless people calling for safe ground.The first big storm of the season had just hit the Sacramento area. In fact it was still rainingwhen the meeting was taking place.
The City Council meets every week and anyone can attend. At the beginning of every meeting there is an allotted amount time for citizens to address The City Council. The homeless people of Sacramento did just that.There were about 10 homeless people sitting in the front row and each of them addressed The City Council for 2 minutes each.
Many homeless had taken up residence in an open field north west of downtown Sacramento. It was coined tent city. Recently tent city was closed off and the peoplestaying there were told to move.
The question many of these people had was where can we stay that is safe?
“I have a solution, let us stay in the prison at night, if being homeless is a crime then takeus to prison. We’ll clean up after ourselves, we’ll be nicer than the people you have in there rightnow.” a homeless man said.
Each person who came up to the podium asked for safe ground. One of the youngestpeople involved in the safe ground said he had been in the hospital 3 times in the last week because of complications from living on the street.
“I used to be a farm worker before I was on the street, it floods every 3 years. We’ll beflooded out. You’ll have people dying of frostbite.” another homeless man said.
Even a lady who didn’t intend to talk about the issue of safe ground said, it is our responsibility and we are our brothers keeper.
After the opening comments the city council went back to business as ususal. The first issue to was attendance for the 2008 and 2009 school year. The Attendance Center is a program that was started to help youth that were missing school. The program is working proponents said. Mayor Kevin Johnson wanted to see more proof before he allotted more money to the program.
“The Attendance Center helps reduce crime in the area.” The lead proponent said.
Next time you’re free on a Tuesday afternoon around 6 p.m. you should attend a Sacramento City Council meeting. I was shocked that many of these issues are going on around us. These people aren’t asking for change, they’re asking for a place to stay that is dry. As one of the homeless speakers said, “we’re not animals.”
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I was the first speaker that day. [Hmmm. You didn't mention me.] MY two-minute message was that the city doesn't have a partner for setting up a legal homeless encampment.
As much as I would like, and feel the need for, a legal homeless encampment, there simply is no reliable organization of homeless people nor a homeless-help nonprofit run by grown-ups that can act in concordance with the city to set up a so-called Safe Ground.
I am reluctant ever to use the term "Safe Ground" since, in Orwellian terms, it is "duckspeak" [see http://www.orwelltoday.com/duckspeak.shtml ], since it is used to mean both a LEGAL encampment [like so-called "Eden" that Loaves & Fishes has produced plans for (see sacloaves.org ), and the ILLEGAL encampment that existed on C Street, on Mark Merin's property, rather recently.] "Safe Ground Campaign" is the effort to get a legal homeless encampment, whereas the "Safe Ground Movement" means to end capitalism and retard technology to put America back in the Dark Ages to somehow spur a boon in employment. [Whoopee! We'll all be tilling the soil with our fingers!]
It's all very interesting, but where oh where are the grown-ups that can come together to get something done!???
I have enormous respect for the people with safe ground who followed me up to the podium, and I know that outside City Hall most of them are very thoughtful, mature and compassionate, but I was not impressed by their rants and accusations on Oct 13. They can do better.
As for my message to the City Council, I was extremely nervous and my mouth came disconnected from my brain.
I live downtown and I was unaware that such a problem existed. I thank you for commenting. For my own personal knowledge I will follow all links posted. Thank you.
"Homeless in Eureka get to sleep in cars"
http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_13619950
We also are against practices and laws that unfairly single out homeless people and criminalize them for everyday living and life-sustaining activites.
At Redding California Loaves and Fishes we believe the world is not looking for a better sermon on Christian Love, but a better demonstration of it !
http://www.reddingloavesandfishes.com/
Costa Mantis took full-meeting video of a couple meetings you sponsored, Paula. I wonder how deep the support from the "business community" would be if they heard the left-of-Trotsky rhetoric from the planning committees.
The problem, Paula, is that Safe Ground / SafeGround / safe ground is twelve-faced, giving differing stories dependent on the audience. Very very Orwellian.
Ethel Long-Scott and Paul Bogen, the keynote speakers at the Homeless Power Forum you sponsored called for an American revolution to end capitalism and stop technological advancement. THAT meeting was filmed, Paula. What don't you screen THAT at the office of the Sacramento Press.
I know full well what I'm talking about. It would be madness to allow Eden to be constructed in Sacramento under the aegis of Loaves & Fishes and teeny weeny SHOC.
It is NOT the reputation of homeless people whom I am, somehow, destroying. It is Loaves & Fishes, SHOC and their attorneys who impose radical totalitarian Leftist politics at the base of the "Safe Ground Movement" that undermine and make impossible a legal homeless encampment, which I have always supported. It is you, Paula, who acts to undermine the safety of homeless people in Sacramento.
I CHALLENGE you, Paula, to show unedited film of Long-Scott and Bogen's presentations at the office of the Sacramento Press.
Many private businesses exist because people are motivated by greed, but you don't end greed by ending the right of people to go into business by themselves. The ability to go into business by yourself, or in conjunction with others, is not just a hallmark of freedom; it is the essence of freedom. While many would thrive under a collectivist stucture in society, others would feel confined and be miserable, unable to pursue happiness by expressing their unique talents.
What Green Meme Communitarians, like yourself, Paula, don't appreciate is that making the world into the Utopia that YOU seek, would make most other people especially unhappy. A society has to be stuctured to allow as many people as possible to BREATHE.
Sure, corporations need to be reigned in and regulated like they haven't been since Bush took office, but they need to be allowed to exist, too, such that their efficiencies can bring down prices and provide good-paying jobs.