Safe Ground Now!

2009-10-22T08:35:02Z

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.”

Open 2009

Safe Ground Now!