Is the Downtown Area Plan of Berkeley-the area around downtown Shattuck-an attempt to develop office spaces, hotel rooms for corporate business and condos for the well to do at the expense of the lower income of our city who keep getting pushed out due to the rising rents caused by gentrification? Will DAPAC's plan be at the expense of the sense of community inclduing its progressive activist values that Berkeley is known before? Is it a way to disregard Berkeley General Plan's commitment to create 6,200 affordable housing units in Berkeley? How many jobs will be created for local lower-income /houseless indiviudals when the massive amount of construction called for under the plan commences? Will the downtown plan seek to drive the houseless and the struggling working class out of the public commons? Come to the workshop and ask these questions.
The workshop will be held this Saturday October 20th 10am-1pm at the Berkeley High School Library at Allston & Milvia.
Also on the same day this Saturday Oct. 20th from noon to 3pm in west Oakland there will be a discussion on gentrification at the West Oakland Senior Center at 1724 Adeline, near 18th with city councilmember Nancy Nadel and others.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Public Commons for Everyone public meeting
Now that the city council passed a revised version of the Public Commons for Everyone initiative proposed by Mayor Tom Bates back in June and a new outside public consultant-Lauren Lempert-has been hired to develop a more complete PCEI by November 20th she is now actively soliciting input from community stakeholders now she has called a public meeting for this coming Saturday September 29th from 10am to 1pm.
The initiative according to the city manager's plan seeks to ensure everyone feels welcome and safe in the city's common areas. Initially unveiled in March many homeless advocates and others concerned about those on streets were alarmed by its language. At the city council meeting then I successfully got several people from the streets including six street youths to show up concerned about the plan to ban sidewalk sitting on Telegraph and Shattuck who held up signs that got on the local tv news. A small but determined group of advocates were able to argue successfully against the more onerous parts of the initiative.
The mayor dropped the ban to sitting on the sidewalks which means on 3 different times I have been successful in organizing against that(the last times were in 1998 and under Measure O from 1994 to 1996). We also got the city council the need for public bathrooms particularly at night because the initiative called for laws against public urination and defecation which the council passed in June before those bathrooms were opened or their hours expanded to 24-7. Since the initiative was proposed police targeting of those without homes sleeping outside or those sitting on the sidewalks has been considerably stepped up using present laws but more situations not legally sanctioned such as telling people they can't sit on the sidewalk or sparechange.
I am seeking to work with Copwatch, Osha Neumann and the Homeless Action Center to try increase documentation and legal resistance I have been successfully able to do in previous years. About two weeks ago there was a sweep of people sleeping between Shattuck and campus. In early summer there was a visible dearth of street people on Telegraph but now as people come back from Santa Rita or John George and the police harassment seems to let up to more normal levels I find there is quite few street people about.
A key part of the ordinance language being proposed I am concerned with involved taking away the 2 warnings people are allowed for lodging(647j) and basically the essential call under the Homeless Human and Civil Rights Resolution that sleeping outside would be the police's lowest priority. After sending many of those being cited by the police for sleeping outside mostly after the HHCRR was passed in April 2001 to the Suitcase Clinic and the East Bay Community Law Center where these citations and police incidents were amply documented the EBCLC lawyer Tirien Steinbach released documented proving what we in the BOSS Community Organizing Team were saying.
This report was presented to the Police Review Commission that recommended an area in a city park be open at night(all city parks now have curfew laws in place from 10am to 6pm so sleeping in the parks can get you a trespassing ticket) and for all sleep infractions people get a warning. The city council did not act on these recommendations. The Berkeley police complain that being required to give warnings ties their hands and inhibits them from citing folks. As long as there is way too inadequate availability of housing and shelter giving the police this removal of warnings results in a basic criminalization of the human need to sleep.
Sleep deprivation is a commonly used form of torture. Many homeless already stay up at night for fear of the police---and yes criminal elements that prey on them which the police too seldomly protect them from. The police say they need their hands untied to go after problematic street behavior but the reality is despite all their claims to the contrary is many of those whose main crime is being houseless get routinely swept up, forced to move on and in effect em0tionally brutalized by letting police to go after people sleeping without checks. Many of the officers avoid doing this, will only do so if ordered to but there is always a few "cowboys'' often with a demeaning sense of humor who seem to relish making people sleeping outside get up, pounding their shoes with batons.
While I have definitely been an active advocate for more substance abuse and mental health services I am concerned this will be "offerred" in a coercive manner that violates patient rights and force people into recovery programs who are not addicts. 12 step programs and mental health recovery programs work for those who accept they need that kind of assistance yes after "hitting bottom" but too often with combined with law enforcement and the courts represent another way to punish the homeless as "undeserving poor" and remove from the streets the visible manifestation of the sort of abject poverty.
I believe society needs uncomfortable reminders of on a daily basis. There are real instances of inappropriate street behavior that call for some kind of intervention. I think the idea of having a peer street outreach behavior speak to them before the police acts is good, support crisis intervention training for the police to better to deal with those in mental crisis and community policing. I think with the money generated by the parking fees is an opportunity to provide positive incentives to change street behavior, help people get off the streets.
The initiative according to the city manager's plan seeks to ensure everyone feels welcome and safe in the city's common areas. Initially unveiled in March many homeless advocates and others concerned about those on streets were alarmed by its language. At the city council meeting then I successfully got several people from the streets including six street youths to show up concerned about the plan to ban sidewalk sitting on Telegraph and Shattuck who held up signs that got on the local tv news. A small but determined group of advocates were able to argue successfully against the more onerous parts of the initiative.
The mayor dropped the ban to sitting on the sidewalks which means on 3 different times I have been successful in organizing against that(the last times were in 1998 and under Measure O from 1994 to 1996). We also got the city council the need for public bathrooms particularly at night because the initiative called for laws against public urination and defecation which the council passed in June before those bathrooms were opened or their hours expanded to 24-7. Since the initiative was proposed police targeting of those without homes sleeping outside or those sitting on the sidewalks has been considerably stepped up using present laws but more situations not legally sanctioned such as telling people they can't sit on the sidewalk or sparechange.
I am seeking to work with Copwatch, Osha Neumann and the Homeless Action Center to try increase documentation and legal resistance I have been successfully able to do in previous years. About two weeks ago there was a sweep of people sleeping between Shattuck and campus. In early summer there was a visible dearth of street people on Telegraph but now as people come back from Santa Rita or John George and the police harassment seems to let up to more normal levels I find there is quite few street people about.
A key part of the ordinance language being proposed I am concerned with involved taking away the 2 warnings people are allowed for lodging(647j) and basically the essential call under the Homeless Human and Civil Rights Resolution that sleeping outside would be the police's lowest priority. After sending many of those being cited by the police for sleeping outside mostly after the HHCRR was passed in April 2001 to the Suitcase Clinic and the East Bay Community Law Center where these citations and police incidents were amply documented the EBCLC lawyer Tirien Steinbach released documented proving what we in the BOSS Community Organizing Team were saying.
This report was presented to the Police Review Commission that recommended an area in a city park be open at night(all city parks now have curfew laws in place from 10am to 6pm so sleeping in the parks can get you a trespassing ticket) and for all sleep infractions people get a warning. The city council did not act on these recommendations. The Berkeley police complain that being required to give warnings ties their hands and inhibits them from citing folks. As long as there is way too inadequate availability of housing and shelter giving the police this removal of warnings results in a basic criminalization of the human need to sleep.
Sleep deprivation is a commonly used form of torture. Many homeless already stay up at night for fear of the police---and yes criminal elements that prey on them which the police too seldomly protect them from. The police say they need their hands untied to go after problematic street behavior but the reality is despite all their claims to the contrary is many of those whose main crime is being houseless get routinely swept up, forced to move on and in effect em0tionally brutalized by letting police to go after people sleeping without checks. Many of the officers avoid doing this, will only do so if ordered to but there is always a few "cowboys'' often with a demeaning sense of humor who seem to relish making people sleeping outside get up, pounding their shoes with batons.
While I have definitely been an active advocate for more substance abuse and mental health services I am concerned this will be "offerred" in a coercive manner that violates patient rights and force people into recovery programs who are not addicts. 12 step programs and mental health recovery programs work for those who accept they need that kind of assistance yes after "hitting bottom" but too often with combined with law enforcement and the courts represent another way to punish the homeless as "undeserving poor" and remove from the streets the visible manifestation of the sort of abject poverty.
I believe society needs uncomfortable reminders of on a daily basis. There are real instances of inappropriate street behavior that call for some kind of intervention. I think the idea of having a peer street outreach behavior speak to them before the police acts is good, support crisis intervention training for the police to better to deal with those in mental crisis and community policing. I think with the money generated by the parking fees is an opportunity to provide positive incentives to change street behavior, help people get off the streets.
Monday, September 10, 2007
People's Park Peace Rally 9/15
As a result of discussions a core of People's Park activists including Michael Delacouer, Terri Compost, myself, Charles Garry, Arthur, Yukon Hannibal and others have worked with other progressives opposed to the present war policies of the Bush administration, its attack on the constitution and waste of $400 billion in taxpayer dollars while key social needs like homelessness and poverty and ecological damage are far from adequately funded we have decided to hold a community peace rally in People's Park this coming Saturday September 15th from one to five pm.
We will have speakers, music, tables and at 2pm have several concurrent group discussions on pressing community topics such as one on poverty and homelessness which I will be leading. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Daniel Ellsberg(on the stopping war on Iran and on the need for impeachment), Michael Lerner, Berkeley city council members Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring, Barbara Lubin of the Middle Eastern Children's Alliance, Dave Hilliard from the Black Panthers, Bill Simpich speaking for Iraqi Moratorium, Allan Jackson on War & Katrina, Bud Hazelkorn for Impeachbush-cheney.com, Not in Our Name and the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste will be speaking and musically the Funky Nixons, All My Pretty Ones, Beatbeat Whisper, park activist Max Ventura, Steven Strauss & Will Scarlet will be performing.
We felt strongly motivated to counter the bad anti-homeless attacks on the park, the threats to the trees/the green open space in People's Park and to lift the energy of the park from what has been a degeneration into negative behaviors such as hardcore drug use, theft and violence that occurs in the park(much like many other urban parks) by strengthening its roots in radical progressive values which though weaker than it was in earlier years such as 1969 or 1991 still continue in the park. We felt that in the face of the MK Think public process paid for by UC Berkeley to "redesign" People's Park we needed an event to reconnect People's Park to the radical progressive values on a larger level again.
This event does seem to be doing this successfully. This follows a small but spiritually positive People's Park Solidarity Day Yukon Hannibal and myself held Sat. Aug. 25th to bring up the spirits of daily park users many of them homeless. The September 15th event is also in solidarity with the Save the Oaks coalition and the Phoenix Coalition-a coalition of more radical UC Berkeley student organizations seeking to unify against the university's attempts to once again stop free speech activities on campus which has been meeting in People's Park and inviting older activists such as myself to join their discussions. -Michael Diehl, BOSS Community Organizing Team
We will have speakers, music, tables and at 2pm have several concurrent group discussions on pressing community topics such as one on poverty and homelessness which I will be leading. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Daniel Ellsberg(on the stopping war on Iran and on the need for impeachment), Michael Lerner, Berkeley city council members Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring, Barbara Lubin of the Middle Eastern Children's Alliance, Dave Hilliard from the Black Panthers, Bill Simpich speaking for Iraqi Moratorium, Allan Jackson on War & Katrina, Bud Hazelkorn for Impeachbush-cheney.com, Not in Our Name and the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste will be speaking and musically the Funky Nixons, All My Pretty Ones, Beatbeat Whisper, park activist Max Ventura, Steven Strauss & Will Scarlet will be performing.
We felt strongly motivated to counter the bad anti-homeless attacks on the park, the threats to the trees/the green open space in People's Park and to lift the energy of the park from what has been a degeneration into negative behaviors such as hardcore drug use, theft and violence that occurs in the park(much like many other urban parks) by strengthening its roots in radical progressive values which though weaker than it was in earlier years such as 1969 or 1991 still continue in the park. We felt that in the face of the MK Think public process paid for by UC Berkeley to "redesign" People's Park we needed an event to reconnect People's Park to the radical progressive values on a larger level again.
This event does seem to be doing this successfully. This follows a small but spiritually positive People's Park Solidarity Day Yukon Hannibal and myself held Sat. Aug. 25th to bring up the spirits of daily park users many of them homeless. The September 15th event is also in solidarity with the Save the Oaks coalition and the Phoenix Coalition-a coalition of more radical UC Berkeley student organizations seeking to unify against the university's attempts to once again stop free speech activities on campus which has been meeting in People's Park and inviting older activists such as myself to join their discussions. -Michael Diehl, BOSS Community Organizing Team
Monday, June 4, 2007
important city council meetings(budget, public commons)
STOP HOMELESS SERVICE CUTS IN BERKELEY
(PUBLIC COMMONS FOR EVERYONE?)
June is a busy month for homeless advocates in Berkeley. At the city council meeting on May 22nd thanks to city councilman Darryl Moore proposed budget cuts to the Catholic Workers breakfast program were restored but cuts to the B.O.S.S. programs at the Harrison St. family shelter and at the Multi-Agency Services Center($9,000) as well as the mental health client run Berkeley drop-in center($20,ooo) and the Berkeley Food and Housing Project quarter meal program and other services due to cuts made on the federal level passed on to the city remain in the proposed city budget.
There will be a public hearing to speak out against these cuts on Tuesday June 19th(council meeting starts at 7pm) and then the budget is voted on the following Tuesday evening. At the next city council meeting on June 12th Mayor Tom Bates will probably try again to pass his revised plans around his Public Commons for Everyone that he was not successful in passing at the May 22nd meeting when he lost quorum at 11:15pm.
This putting the agenda item until last did not work in his favor. Council member Laurie Capitelli strongly spoke to the need for all night bathrooms before they criminalize public urination and defecation and getting shelter beds for everyone whether they want or not. Councilwoman Linda Maio identified as a swing vote came out strongly and said she would vote against any plan to criminalize sidewalk sitting or sleeping on the sidewalk after 10pm which the mayor's talk of revoking the 647j lodging warnings before an arrest could be made that we of the Community Organizing Team and over 150 homeless people back in April 2001. If people do get arrested or cited under either of these situations Osha Neumann of Community Defense Inc. will again challenge that under the necessity defense as was done under the public defender in the Berkeley case of Ken Moshesh as well as by David Ritchie for Rabbit at the Albany land fill and in other California cities.
Presently there is activity to organize some kind of public protest probably before the city council meeting on the 12th to protest the social control of street behavior proposed under the Public Commons for Everyone initiative. As it is it does look we have rather successfully push back any implementation of the initiative until November except the hiring of a public consultant to come up with a revised plan. As a member of the Berkeley Mental Health Commission I am helping spearhead a meeting of the 3 city commissions(Mental Health, Homeless, Public Welfare and Community Action) with the mayor where commission members get to ask the mayor specific questions about the Public Commons for Everyone initiative which the mayor has agreed to come to.
-Michael Diehl
Monday, May 21, 2007
No Bus for Sacramento for Mental Health Advocacy Day - May 23, 2007
Dear Folks,
The Berkeley Mental Health coordinator for the AB2034 program called me to tell me that the city attorney has said Berkeley Mental Health can not use the Social Services Transit bus to get folks up to Sacramento on Wednesday May 23, 2007 for the Mental Health Advocacy Day.
Governor Schwarzenegger with the support of California Director of Mental Health Steve Mayberg has called for cutting the funding for AB2034 that has provided funding to get 100 mentally health clients ("seriously mental ill") off the streets of Berkeley and into housing with intensive services integration team (full services partnerships). Their argument now with the passage of Proposition 63 the coming implementation of the Mental Health Services Act can supplant the funding for this housing.
While the city MHSA plan has increased the amount of those categorized as seriously mentally ill and some may be helped by the county MHSA full service partnership plans (Homeless Outreach Services Team, Forensic Assertive Community Treatment etc.) who can be housed who might otherwise be without housing these are other clients and does not come close to replacing the loss of housing Berkeley now provides under AB2034.
This is disaster that threatens to undo whatever positive effects on the street the mayor was hoping to accomplish under his Public Commons for Everyone initiative and the countywide Everybody Home he has been part of.
We need help getting folks up to Sacramento Wednesday morning to get there by 10am for the Mental Health Advocacy Day and we need to let the governor and the legislature know this cut to AB2034 is bad. There will be a rally on the West steps of the State Capitol as well as speeches, a picnic lunch, legislative and budget briefings.
I will be at the Berkeley city council late the evening before to hear the mayor's revised version of Public Commons for Everyone after the public hearing on CDBG (community development block grants) where cuts coming from the Bush administration (taking money from poor people here at home so they can kill poor people overseas) has caused the city manager to recommend cuts to homeless programs.
Thank you for your forbearance.
Michael Diehl
BOSS Community Organizing Team
Berkeley-Albany Mental Health Commission
510-472-6192 or adversary359@yahoo.com
The Berkeley Mental Health coordinator for the AB2034 program called me to tell me that the city attorney has said Berkeley Mental Health can not use the Social Services Transit bus to get folks up to Sacramento on Wednesday May 23, 2007 for the Mental Health Advocacy Day.
Governor Schwarzenegger with the support of California Director of Mental Health Steve Mayberg has called for cutting the funding for AB2034 that has provided funding to get 100 mentally health clients ("seriously mental ill") off the streets of Berkeley and into housing with intensive services integration team (full services partnerships). Their argument now with the passage of Proposition 63 the coming implementation of the Mental Health Services Act can supplant the funding for this housing.
While the city MHSA plan has increased the amount of those categorized as seriously mentally ill and some may be helped by the county MHSA full service partnership plans (Homeless Outreach Services Team, Forensic Assertive Community Treatment etc.) who can be housed who might otherwise be without housing these are other clients and does not come close to replacing the loss of housing Berkeley now provides under AB2034.
This is disaster that threatens to undo whatever positive effects on the street the mayor was hoping to accomplish under his Public Commons for Everyone initiative and the countywide Everybody Home he has been part of.
We need help getting folks up to Sacramento Wednesday morning to get there by 10am for the Mental Health Advocacy Day and we need to let the governor and the legislature know this cut to AB2034 is bad. There will be a rally on the West steps of the State Capitol as well as speeches, a picnic lunch, legislative and budget briefings.
I will be at the Berkeley city council late the evening before to hear the mayor's revised version of Public Commons for Everyone after the public hearing on CDBG (community development block grants) where cuts coming from the Bush administration (taking money from poor people here at home so they can kill poor people overseas) has caused the city manager to recommend cuts to homeless programs.
Thank you for your forbearance.
Michael Diehl
BOSS Community Organizing Team
Berkeley-Albany Mental Health Commission
510-472-6192 or adversary359@yahoo.com
Monday, May 7, 2007
May 8th rally(Public Commons/homeless cuts)
Tomorrow at 6pm folks opposed to the mayor's Public Commons for Everyone initiative will be showing up on the front steps of 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way the old city council chambers(across from Civic Center Park). Last week at the council agenda meeting the mayor and the city manager made clear that the latter's recommendations to pass several items related to and response to the mayor's initiative will not be acted on by the city council.
It will be simply a discussion on the issue of problematic street behavior. There is word that despite this assurance there will be an attempt to pass language banning smoking within 20 feet of a store(versus the present 15 feet ban on smoking near the public street entrance of a store) which in addition to the 20 foot ban from bus stops will effectively ban smoking in the shopping area of Telegraph and much of the other commercial shopping districts.
Also still on the table are budget cuts to the Multi-Services Agency Center and the Harrison St. family shelter programs as well as to the Catholic Workers breakfast program. The plan to ban sidewalk sitting(not just long term as the mayor talked about back in March in his initiative but he later strengthened to a full ban on sidewalk sitting in commercial shopping districts) and social services to aid people getting off the streets have been put off until December.
The mayor has talked about passing a fifty cents increase in parking fees to provide funding for a street outreach worker(neither with the police department or Berkeley Mental Health admitting they both have a coercive element inherent in their interventions) who would go and tell people sidewalk sitting is now illegal and to move or a police officer and/or mobile crisis might come and cite them. This outreach person would try to get the person sitting on the street into services(whether Options Recovery or Berkeley Mental Health or a youth services site or what have you).
Now in response to my bringing up the question he also talked about funding a daytime youth drop in center for the street youth to go. Mayor Tom Bates has just recently accepted my invitation made a couple weeks ago to speak at the May is Mental Health Month event on May 19th at 2:45pm at the North Berkeley Senior Center making a brief appearance to speak to the issue of mental health housing with BOSS director boona cheema.
This event is held annually and will be between 2 and 4pm and is sponsored by the Berkeley Mental Health Commission which I am on. The three commissions that the mayor referred the initiative to-the Homeless, Mental Health and Public Welfare Commissions- have written the city council to take no action on May 8th, to have the mayor address the members of the 3 commissions probably in a joint meeting to address their serious concerns about the initiative. I will be meeting with mayoral aide Julie Sinai about the PCEI and this speaking engagement today. The meetings regarding with PCEI talked about in my previous blog with council members Linda Maio, Darryl Moore and Laurie Capitelli went well
-Michael Diehl
It will be simply a discussion on the issue of problematic street behavior. There is word that despite this assurance there will be an attempt to pass language banning smoking within 20 feet of a store(versus the present 15 feet ban on smoking near the public street entrance of a store) which in addition to the 20 foot ban from bus stops will effectively ban smoking in the shopping area of Telegraph and much of the other commercial shopping districts.
Also still on the table are budget cuts to the Multi-Services Agency Center and the Harrison St. family shelter programs as well as to the Catholic Workers breakfast program. The plan to ban sidewalk sitting(not just long term as the mayor talked about back in March in his initiative but he later strengthened to a full ban on sidewalk sitting in commercial shopping districts) and social services to aid people getting off the streets have been put off until December.
The mayor has talked about passing a fifty cents increase in parking fees to provide funding for a street outreach worker(neither with the police department or Berkeley Mental Health admitting they both have a coercive element inherent in their interventions) who would go and tell people sidewalk sitting is now illegal and to move or a police officer and/or mobile crisis might come and cite them. This outreach person would try to get the person sitting on the street into services(whether Options Recovery or Berkeley Mental Health or a youth services site or what have you).
Now in response to my bringing up the question he also talked about funding a daytime youth drop in center for the street youth to go. Mayor Tom Bates has just recently accepted my invitation made a couple weeks ago to speak at the May is Mental Health Month event on May 19th at 2:45pm at the North Berkeley Senior Center making a brief appearance to speak to the issue of mental health housing with BOSS director boona cheema.
This event is held annually and will be between 2 and 4pm and is sponsored by the Berkeley Mental Health Commission which I am on. The three commissions that the mayor referred the initiative to-the Homeless, Mental Health and Public Welfare Commissions- have written the city council to take no action on May 8th, to have the mayor address the members of the 3 commissions probably in a joint meeting to address their serious concerns about the initiative. I will be meeting with mayoral aide Julie Sinai about the PCEI and this speaking engagement today. The meetings regarding with PCEI talked about in my previous blog with council members Linda Maio, Darryl Moore and Laurie Capitelli went well
-Michael Diehl
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Public Commons for Everyone update
About 50 people showed on March 13th regarding the mayor's Public Commons for Everyone. 20 of them many of the directly impacted homeless many of them street youth came earlier before the city council as I asked them to but left before the item was opened up for public comment at 9pm.
A couple of the young women punk rock youth held up signs which got captured by the local tv news cameras and in the Daily Cal. Now a small group(lawyers Osha Neumann of Community Defense Inc. and Jim Chanin of the American Civil Liberties Union, myself(Michael Diehl), Dan McMullan of Disabled People's Outside Project and Lisa Stephens) met last Friday at Osha's office at his behest. We decided to set up meetings with potential swing votes on the Berkeley city council to lobby basically against the punitive aspects of the mayor's initiative we have met with Linda Maio, have set a meeting with Darryl Moore and some of us also will be talking or have talked with Laurie Capitelli, Mayor Tom Bates and Kriss Worthington(who voted against referring the initiative to the city manager and the commissions). We will also be going to the Homeless Commission (meeting Wednesday April 11th at the North Berkeley Senior Center, public comment at 7pm), the Human Welfare commission on Wed. April 18th and the Mental Health Commission on Sat. April 14th between 3 and 4pm(probably at the Berkeley city college).
On Tuesday April 24th at the B.O.S.S. Administration office the Berkeley Community Coalition( a coalition of homeless services and other nonprofits) will be meeting to discuss the mayor's initiative. Paul Boden of the Western Regional Action Project will be a special guest and there is a move to link the housing issue to the Public Commons for Everyone issue.
On Tuesday March 13th the Berkeley city council voted 6 to 3 to refer Mayor Tom Bates' "Public Commons for Everyone" proposed initiative to the city manager Phil Kamlarz and city staff as well as to the Berkeley-Albany Mental Health Commission(which I am on and which I have been the chair of) and the Homeless Commission to bring back to council in early May.
The mayor is talking about restrictions to limit/ticket people for sitting on the sidewalk too long. Two earlier efforts to ban sitting on the sidewalk in the city shopping districts were successfully defeated in 1996(where it had been part of Berkeley's Measure O which was overturned in federal court) and again in 1998. I was quite centrally involved in the cmapaigns to stop the implementation of these anti-sidewalking ordinances. The mayor's vagueley worded initiative talks about restricting long time sitting on the sidewalk and only citing those who refuse mental health or substance abuse services in a sort of carrot and stick approach. His proposal makes at this time no budget allocation to provide more money for funding these services.
The mayor did talk about going to the voters to get more funding for providing these services. Advocates such as myself complain that present funding is quite inadequate for the needed mental health and substance abuse counseling and the special needs housing to get people off the streets such in the countywide Everybody Home the mayor has been instrumental in getting the cities of Berkeley and Oakland and the county of Alameda. We argue that without more concrete proposals for funding a signifigant increase in fiscal resources available the mayor initiative provides "compassionate" lip service that justifies the violation of homeless people's civil and human rights(under the UN charter).
As I said then to the city council treatment can not be coerced. This is coupled with the University of California hiring a special consultant for $100,000 to come up with a plan to redesign People's Park so that supposedly everybody feels welcome in what feels like Orwellian 1984 newspeak that seeks to obfuscate the reality of increased coercive measures to remove the unsightly presence of poor and homeless folks from the economically upscale supposedly socially progressive in a way that seems warm and fuzzy to assuage the guilt of bourgeios liberals who want to be able to shop and increase property values without being disturbed by the clear visibility of great poverty on the city streets and in its parks.
If this "Public Commons for Everyone" initiative is indeed passed in May there is already organizing effort to get enough signatures to stop its implementation until it can be voted on by Berkeley voters. Those voters in 1994 did vote for the anti-homeless Measure O with 54% support in part due to the deceptive campaign linked to former mayor Measure O supporters Shirley Dean and Jeffrey Shattuck Leiter(one of the largest business landowners in town)that convinced many voters they were voting for more homeless services.
At the city council meeting on March 13th Jim Chanin who is the local lawyer representative for the American Civil Liberties Union said the ACLU as with Measure O (successfully) plans to go to court to stop this new proposed problematic street behavior ordinance that the mayor did tell voters during his reelection campaign last fall he would push. Already the police are being puahed by city staff and the merchant associations such at the Downtown Business Association, the Chamber of Commerce and the Telegraph Avenue Business Improvement District to cite homeless people with dogs for not having plastic bags required for doggy doo, for illegal posseassion of milk crates and shopping carts and having stuff on the sidewalk as an obstruction to foot traffic on the sidewalk. There will be a need to step Copwatching activity to document and help Osha Neumann's Community Defense Inc. legally challenge these citations.
-Michael Diehl
adversary359@yahoo.com
510-472-6192
A couple of the young women punk rock youth held up signs which got captured by the local tv news cameras and in the Daily Cal. Now a small group(lawyers Osha Neumann of Community Defense Inc. and Jim Chanin of the American Civil Liberties Union, myself(Michael Diehl), Dan McMullan of Disabled People's Outside Project and Lisa Stephens) met last Friday at Osha's office at his behest. We decided to set up meetings with potential swing votes on the Berkeley city council to lobby basically against the punitive aspects of the mayor's initiative we have met with Linda Maio, have set a meeting with Darryl Moore and some of us also will be talking or have talked with Laurie Capitelli, Mayor Tom Bates and Kriss Worthington(who voted against referring the initiative to the city manager and the commissions). We will also be going to the Homeless Commission (meeting Wednesday April 11th at the North Berkeley Senior Center, public comment at 7pm), the Human Welfare commission on Wed. April 18th and the Mental Health Commission on Sat. April 14th between 3 and 4pm(probably at the Berkeley city college).
On Tuesday April 24th at the B.O.S.S. Administration office the Berkeley Community Coalition( a coalition of homeless services and other nonprofits) will be meeting to discuss the mayor's initiative. Paul Boden of the Western Regional Action Project will be a special guest and there is a move to link the housing issue to the Public Commons for Everyone issue.
On Tuesday March 13th the Berkeley city council voted 6 to 3 to refer Mayor Tom Bates' "Public Commons for Everyone" proposed initiative to the city manager Phil Kamlarz and city staff as well as to the Berkeley-Albany Mental Health Commission(which I am on and which I have been the chair of) and the Homeless Commission to bring back to council in early May.
The mayor is talking about restrictions to limit/ticket people for sitting on the sidewalk too long. Two earlier efforts to ban sitting on the sidewalk in the city shopping districts were successfully defeated in 1996(where it had been part of Berkeley's Measure O which was overturned in federal court) and again in 1998. I was quite centrally involved in the cmapaigns to stop the implementation of these anti-sidewalking ordinances. The mayor's vagueley worded initiative talks about restricting long time sitting on the sidewalk and only citing those who refuse mental health or substance abuse services in a sort of carrot and stick approach. His proposal makes at this time no budget allocation to provide more money for funding these services.
The mayor did talk about going to the voters to get more funding for providing these services. Advocates such as myself complain that present funding is quite inadequate for the needed mental health and substance abuse counseling and the special needs housing to get people off the streets such in the countywide Everybody Home the mayor has been instrumental in getting the cities of Berkeley and Oakland and the county of Alameda. We argue that without more concrete proposals for funding a signifigant increase in fiscal resources available the mayor initiative provides "compassionate" lip service that justifies the violation of homeless people's civil and human rights(under the UN charter).
As I said then to the city council treatment can not be coerced. This is coupled with the University of California hiring a special consultant for $100,000 to come up with a plan to redesign People's Park so that supposedly everybody feels welcome in what feels like Orwellian 1984 newspeak that seeks to obfuscate the reality of increased coercive measures to remove the unsightly presence of poor and homeless folks from the economically upscale supposedly socially progressive in a way that seems warm and fuzzy to assuage the guilt of bourgeios liberals who want to be able to shop and increase property values without being disturbed by the clear visibility of great poverty on the city streets and in its parks.
If this "Public Commons for Everyone" initiative is indeed passed in May there is already organizing effort to get enough signatures to stop its implementation until it can be voted on by Berkeley voters. Those voters in 1994 did vote for the anti-homeless Measure O with 54% support in part due to the deceptive campaign linked to former mayor Measure O supporters Shirley Dean and Jeffrey Shattuck Leiter(one of the largest business landowners in town)that convinced many voters they were voting for more homeless services.
At the city council meeting on March 13th Jim Chanin who is the local lawyer representative for the American Civil Liberties Union said the ACLU as with Measure O (successfully) plans to go to court to stop this new proposed problematic street behavior ordinance that the mayor did tell voters during his reelection campaign last fall he would push. Already the police are being puahed by city staff and the merchant associations such at the Downtown Business Association, the Chamber of Commerce and the Telegraph Avenue Business Improvement District to cite homeless people with dogs for not having plastic bags required for doggy doo, for illegal posseassion of milk crates and shopping carts and having stuff on the sidewalk as an obstruction to foot traffic on the sidewalk. There will be a need to step Copwatching activity to document and help Osha Neumann's Community Defense Inc. legally challenge these citations.
-Michael Diehl
adversary359@yahoo.com
510-472-6192
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