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Subject: Santa Cruz City Hall vs. Camp Paradise: Story for Street
Spirit
(American Friends Service Committee street
newspaper)
Camp Paradise vs. City Hall
Self-help
Campground Prepares Peaceful Resistance to Police Closure
by Becky
Johnson and Robert Norse Story for June 2001 Street
Spirit
6-26-01
They didnıt know what else to do. They were on
the streets of Santa Cruz,
trying to quit drugs, and most had jail
records. The local shelter was
inadequate or full. Many of them lived
in an area long since abandoned by
private property owners, the Army
Corps of Engineers, and the City of
Santa Cruz. Directly across from
Salz Leathers, Inc. a tannery (one of
Santa Cruzı oldest and most
polluting businesses), and behind a cemetery
along a garbage-strewn
riverbank near the Highway One overpass, this small
group of homeless
people decided to make themselves a home.
"Iıve lived along the
banks of the San Lorenzo River off and on since
1984. This is my home,"
says Camp Paradise founder, Larry Templeton.
Cemetery workers say they
havenıt seen a Parks and Recreation employee or
a Public Works employee
cleaning up trash there in twenty years. Area
residents rarely took a
walk along the shimmering river under the Sycamore
trees. It was too
dangerous.
Santa Cruz County Coronerıs office reports indicate that
a
disproportionate number of homeless people have lost their lives due
to
overdose or violence in the area of the San Lorenzo River and the
Highway
One Bridge. Down and out alcoholics inhabited the bushes and
broken
bottles, old couches, mattresses, junk food papers, and signs of
human
defecation were everywhere.
"We decided to clean up our
home," Larry explains. "We bought our own
garbage bags and using all
volunteer labor, we began to clean up the
riverbank." He takes a drag
on a cigarette, his eyes squinting from under
the brim of his baseball
cap. Blue light shines down on him through the
blue tarp canopy
stretched above him. All around him, neatly organized are
bicycle
parts, tools, and a workbench.
This past winter, they put up the
blue canopy and 3 or 4 tents were
pitched below. They felt safety in
numbers, and since they were all trying
to quit drinking or doing
drugs, they helped to keep each other sober. "I
came here in October of
2000," said Danny "Cookie" Blair, who is unrivaled
as the camp cook.
Kay and Donald came about that time, too." Outside of
the blue canopy,
they built a river-rock firepit for cooking. As they
cleared the trash
away from their tents, they planted vegetable gardens.
More people
joined them. Each began to improve the camp in the way they
were most
suited. Joseph built a footbridge over an eroded section of the
path.
To keep it from washing out again, he built a goldfish pond. The
paths
from the nearest street were widened and smoothed out so Camp
Paradise
resident, Kay, who uses a wheelchair could come and go. She holds
down
the camp regularly, watching over things. Her husband, Donald, works
in
the bike shop.
For weeks at a time, nearly 20 bags of garbage
showed up next to the
garbage receptacle along the river levee bike
path. One day last April, a
Parks and Recreation worker walked down the
river to see where all the
bags of garbage were coming from. "When he
got here he was amazed,"
reports Cookie. "He couldnıt believe all the
garbage weıd cleaned up."
"The place was starting to look real pretty,"
Larry says with obvious
pleasure. "He told us to keep on doing what we
were doing, and that was
it."
Larry points to a gate in a 6-ft.
chain link fence next to the cemetery.
"See that gate?" he says. "The
garbage here was piled higher than that
gate. We pulled a truck up to
this gate from the cemetery and loaded up
all the trash. It weighed in
at 4800 lbs. at the landfill and that was
just one of our clean-up
efforts."
Mayor Tim Fitzmaurice, got word of the camp from City
Parks and Rec.
workers and came to visit the camp in May. "He looked
around and said it
was real nice here," said Joda. One of the campers,
has AIDS and uses
medical marijuana. When the mayor arrived, he saw his
five tiny plants in
little pots. "Put those out of sight," Mayor
Fitzmaurice advised. "He said
heıd try to get us a dumpster and a
port-o-potty," added Kay, "but we
never heard from him
again."
The next day a police officer came to the camp and pulled
up four of the
plants. The "nicest" one, he kept in its pot and took
away with him. The
homeless patient argued that as a legitimate medical
marijuana user, he
was entitled to grow 5 plants. The police department
then told some
members of the City Council that the campers were
growing 60 plants by the
river.
Although the vast majority of
residents on nearby Felker St. supported
Camp Paradise, one neighbor
complained. The police came down and placed
notices on all the tents
ordering them to clear out by July 1st or face
arrest. With literally
no place to go, the campers decided to talk to the
press.
Camp
critics like Councilmember Ed Porter later took Camp Paradise to
task
for not remaining "low-profile", but that decision was really made
for
them by the Mayor and the police. The Mayor made promises he didnıt
keep
and then allowed the police to take actions that directly violated
his
commitments.
Larry reports the Mayor has not returned his
phone calls in a month. Toni,
a pregnant mom living at the camp, who
was married in a high-profile
ceremony by Fitzmaurice last year, says
sheıs still waiting to get word
back from the Mayor about the photos of
the event that he promised them.
Instead of waiting for City Council to
make good on Vice-Mayor Christopher
Krohnıs two-year old promises to
set up portapotties in heavily-used
camping zones, Camp Paradise
residents paid for one and installed it as
well as trash
cans.
Ironically, both Porter and Fitzmaurice were elected to City
Council with
Green Party endorsement (Fitzmaurice actually is a Green
Party member
himself), which included a commitment to end the Cityıs
Sleeping Ban
law-those sections of the Camping Ordinance which
criminalize sleeping
from 11 PM to 8:30 AM each night. The police are
threatening to ticket
campers and destroy the campground under another
section of the same law
that these two promised to amend.
Soon
television stations, newspaper writers, and freelance
videographers
were showing up and stories appeared in several major
newspapers.
Bureaucrats were interviewed and the police department
granted interviews
with selected press members. The agencies that now
said they were going to
destroy the campground admitted they had some
appreciation for the
estimated 24 tons of trash removal and habitat
restoral, the drug and
alcohol-free atmosphere they have been able to
maintain, the no-cost
bicycle repair service they have provided to the
local community, and the
complete lack of vandalism to the nearby
cemetery in the months in which
Camp Paradise had come into
being.
"We have to prevent chaos," warned Deputy Chief Jeff Locke
as he explained
why they must ticket, dismantle, and disperse the camp.
Six years ago,
Councilmember Scott Kennedy and other bureaucrats broke
their word to the
last low-income campground in Santa Cruz-the Coral
Street Open Air Shelter
or "Back Forty". Around Xmas 1995, they made
several hundred homeless
people domestic refugees-more than six of whom
ultimately died, denied the
protection of a community and nearby
emergency services.
Speaking about Camp Paradise, Mayor Fitzmaurice
piously intoned."We must
get these people into social services."
Meanwhile, the only local
emergency shelter (capacity: less than 40)
began sending their overflow
down to Camp Paradise. They sent us two
families last night," Larry said.
"One family was a mom, a dad, and
three little kids. Now (four year old)
William will have someone to
play with." Campers no longer cross over the
river for meals,
preferring Cookies legendary "camp stew." "We only use
the Homeless
Services Center [HSC] for showers now," Larry says.
Little wonder
the campers little use the nearby services. The Highway One
Bridge
connecting the HSC homeless "ghetto" with Camp Paradise has
no
pedestrian access. "They say you are exposed for 15 seconds,"
reports
Chris, who has been sober exactly one week. It is a $182.00
ticket to walk
across the bridge. In the last two weeks, Larry
estimates, the HSC has
sent at least 15 people to the camp for
accomodations because the City
could not provide a legal safe sleeping
place for them. And if they found
their own, they would risk ticketing
under the Sleeping Ban if they slept,
ticketing under the Blanket Ban
if they covered up with bedding, and
ticketing under the broader
Camping Ban if they put up a tent for
protection.
What will the
Camp do when the police come? One camper said, "There are
eight of us
who will not go, but stay and be arrested." Others are already
making
plans to leave. At the same time, campers from further out in the
wild,
Pogonip greenbelt area are starting to move to Camp Paradise. But
then
anyone who has been there canıt help but be thankful for being is
such
a special place, where the least unlikely people have created the
best
possible model of community. They have demonstrated
ecological
stewardship, shown themselves to be good neighbors, have
created a drug
and alcohol-free atmosphere, have provided free bicycles
and repair to
other homeless people, and have "encouraged" the junkies
and drunks to
take their activities elsewhere.
On June 23rd,
eight days before the Cityıs July 1st deadline, Camp
Paradise held a
barbecue, potluck, and concert throughout the afternoon.
Templeton said
he counted 300 people, even though a conflicting memorial
for long-time
homeless activists Paddy Long and Elizabeth Gipps drew
many
sympathizers to another part of the City.
Meanwhile, the
campers found a lawyer to help them in their negotiations
with the City
and a paralegal to prepare an Injunction that would stop
police from
creating 45 refugees (the size of Camp Paradise as of June
25th). The
Eichorn decision requires courts to allow homeless people to
use the
Necessity Defense when charged with "camping". Since the
shelter
services themselves admitted they were all full, ticketing the
campers
would be frivolous, since the charges would eventually be
thrown out.
Since police have had no difficulty in ticketing other
homeless people in
the area in the same situation, however, an
Injunction would be necessary
to stop this prejudicial
practice.
"These people have turned their lives around, and how to
live together,
and they are a good example for all of us to learn
from," said Attorney,
Paul Sanford. He is currently in negotiations on
behalf of Camp Paradise
with the City and the police. Supporters have
formed Friends of Camp
Paradise and are organizing resistance to
closing the camp. "Our bottom
line is they shouldnıt close the Camp
until they have somewhere for these
people to go to," explained Bernard
Klitzner, recently exonerated in the
Koffee Klatch 3 trial on June
1st.
"This is part of a broader struggle," said activist Jim
Cosner. "The
entire houseless community here [1000-2000 each night] see
Camp Paradise
as a beacon and an example. They need to stand fast and
those of us in
houses need to support them." Authorities, perhaps eager
to divide the
homeless community, have stepped up busts against other
campsites, but
startled by the favorable publicity, have so far left
Camp Paradise
alone-other than regularly threatening them and setting
up new deadlines
for eviction. In another arbitrary show of force
Officer Eric Seiley told
Larry recently that any attempt to play
amplified music during barbecue
would be stopped, even though the
campers agreed to pay for any permits
involved.
The camp Rabbi,
Chayim Levin pays daily visits to the camp. "When the time
comes for
the police to clear this camp, Iım setting my tent up here and
sleeping
with these people. What could the campers do if and when police
throw
them out of Paradise? Homeless people in other urban areas
have
established mobile campsites that move from place to place around
the
City," Dignity Village in Portland and SHARE in Seattle are
self-managed
homeless camps that are clean and sober, like Camp
Paradise They set up
camp and stay there until the City demands they
move on, then find another
spot, all the while gathering supporters,
getting their residents regular
employment, and making the invisible
poor visible so the issue can not be
ducked.
Another proposal is
that campers, if faced with the bulldozers, fold up
their camp and
establish a small "demonstration" camp at City Hall or
downtown where
shoppers pass by. If police tear down the camp and arrest
the campers
there, another tent and another volunteer would take the
arrested
personıs place. The point would be to shame the business
community and
City Council into finally addressing the concerns of the
Cityıs own
$10,000 Homeless Issues Task Force, which over a year ago
unanimously
called for rent control, an end to the entire camping ban in
the
current shelter and housing emergency, and immediate establishment
of
safe and legal places to sleep.
Homeless Issues Task Force
chair Linda Lemaster was upbeat about the camp
but less than optimistic
about the politicians. "Camp Paradise is
wonderful. City Council and
its police continue to kick homeless people
while theyıre down and to
criminalize elementary homeless survival needs.
Perhaps the sight of
children living and playing in a tent outside the
City Hall offices
will wake up those in power. My deeper fear is it will
take strong
court action or more visible homeless deaths to get
them
moving."
To contact Camp Paradise, or to join Friends of
Camp Paradise
Message phone: Larry Templeton at (831) 458-6020 ext 105 |
