"Gonna be cold and tired for a long time still."
--- Anonymous

By Becky Johnson

October 18, 2004

Santa Cruz, Ca. -- They gathered and tittered, glad-handing any potential voter. Six of the seven candidates for the Santa Cruz City Council met at the Housing Candidates Forum sponsored by the Community Action Board and other pro-housing groups. All questions asked had been prepared in
advance and delivered in advance to each candidate. There were no surprises.

CITY COUNCIL INCUMBANTS

They were all in favor of affordable housing. The four incumbants, Mark Primack, Emily Reilly, Ed Porter, and Scott Kennedy (represented by Vice-Mayor Mike Rotkin) bragged about the many different affordable housing projects they
had helped to create. No one mentioned a net loss of affordable units during their tenure in office.

None of the incumbants mentioned abandoning rent control for the Seniors at DeAnza and hispanic workers at Clear View Court leaving them to lose their life-savings for having made the mistake of purchasing a mobile home in the City limits of
Santa Cruz.

That decision to cut and run in the face of the rapacious Manufactured Home Communities Corp. out of Chicago, eliminated 263 units of affordable
housing from the City forever. The small gains from the Schaeffer Road project and at 1010 Pacific Ave (with 22 to 23 units of affordable housing included) were more than offset by the loss of DeAnza and Clear View Court as
existing affordable housing stock. With no controls, market rate housing had
brought record highs in real estate prices locally, but they were all still willing to brag about their record on affordable housing.

When the over-autocratic sponsors of the forum (not a single question was taken from the audience) finally got to their last question----of which only a portion addressed homelessness and the criminalization of poverty by use
of laws such as the Sleeping Ban, the candidates revealed their positions:

THE NEW CANDIDATES

RYAN COONERTY: "I think the Family Shelter out at River St. is an excellent first step. I am in favor of expanding and growing our programs
which serve homeless people. People have to have shelter and a place to sleep. We must pressure the State government to provide more funding. Regarding the Sleeping Ban. These social service programs which provide services to homeless people require community support. The fastest way to dry up City support for these programs would come when people saw homeless people
camped on their streets. If we lift those bans (the Sleeping Ban and the Blanket Ban) it would cause serious erosion of support and cause
long-term damage to the people it supposed to help in the short term.

TONY MADRIGAL: I've been lucky but I know what it's like to be homeless. I know what its like to go couch-surfing in Santa Cruz. I know what its
like to try to find a place to park your car and sleep in it without being bothered by the police. It's not easy and it's no fun. When I was
sleeping in my car and going to school, I didn't litter and I didn't make noise. I was a good boy. I think that it's true and I think that it is policy that in Santa Cruz if you say you are in favor of lifting the Sleeping Ban, you will be voted out of office. But this is personal to me. That said, I must say that I am open to lifting
the sleeping ban."

ED PORTER: I helped build the Homeless Family Shelter at River Street. We need a year round shelter. The rent on the National Guard Armory is so exorbitant. We are pouring all our money into the armory. Emily Reilly and I have been looking into the Skill Center building at DeLaveaga park as a possible site for a year round shelter. There is some vacant land there too, and we could build a building the size of the armory--- a steel
building----for about $120,000. If we are going to tell them they can't sleep in any location, we have to tell them where to go."

MARK PRIMACK: I have been a member of the Homeless Garden Project for
many years. I have at times provided a safe place to sleep on private
property, and on occasion taken people into my own home. There is no citywide ban on
camping. Every home can put up a tent in their backyard for homeless people. The
people we need to house first are children and families. We cannot do it all with the
government.

EMILY REILLY: A few years back I tried to look and find a place where homeless people could go. Find a place that no one else had found which
was at least 300 feet from a business or residence. What we found were there were little tiny places on the Westside and in the Harvey West district which would just concentrate the problem. I supported making tags which
would identify homeless people sleeping in their vehicles, so that we know who they are and so that they would not be bothered by the police. But
I was approached by a woman living in her van with two children. She said "Please don't target us in this way." She said that she was doing "just
fine slipping under the radar of the police" and her children were attending Bayview Elementary School. What we found is that homelessness
is part of a larger problem that is statewide and even national. There's plenty to go around really. We should never make our choices based on
fear.

SCOTT KENNEDY: (Kennedy was in the mideast so he asked Vice-Mayor Mike Rotkin to appear as his representative) ROTKIN: Homelessness is the most
intractable and insoluable problem that our government confronts. We've heard a lot of great ideas such as a year-round shelter. I think the City is conducting itself the best that it can. We don't want to be the only city in the
country that says C'mon down and sleep outside. At one time, our City did more than any other
community to provide services for homeless people. We have an estimated 1500 - 3000
homeless people in the City of Santa Cruz. Not all of them are on the streets, but a
significant percentage is. Currently we are arresting about 1 person a day for camping.

WRITE-IN CANDIDATES: ROBERT NORSE AND CORAL BRUNE

After surveying the paltry field of candidates, Robert Norse and Coral Brune
registered with the City Clerk as write-in candidates. That means anyone can vote for
them by writing in their names on their ballot and be sure their vote will count.

HUFF asked Robert Norse and Coral Brune to answer the same question the other candidates answered at the Housing Forum. Here are their responses.

ROBERT NORSE: "One obvious housing issue severely affecting working people in
Santa Cruz that was missing from the entire discussion was Rent control and eviction
protection. In the last year, the current City Council (spearheaded by Kennedy) destroyed mobile home rent control at De Anza and Clearview Court, violating long-established promises to the tenants of "rent control in perpetuity". Porter dissented in the case of De Anza, but took no strong stand backing a referendum that would
have turned back the City Council sell-out.

"HUFF activists, concerned primarily with immediate pain reduction, have called for an immediate suspension of the Sleeping, Blanket, and Camping Bans until there is shelter or housing for people to use as well as the
opening of emergency campgrounds and carparks to give people a safe if temporary shelter. The current Family Shelter, while commendable for the
minority of 27 families that it will house is costly and does not address the majority of homeless people.

"Other proposals HUFF has suggested include a real estate speculation tax and a close examination of some measures that San Francisco progressives have proposed to deal with the spiraling housing costs."

CORAL BRUNE: "Santa Cruz can provide a Safe Zone where people in need of basic services, such as a place to sleep, healthcare, and hygiene can
get helped. We need to eliminate ordinances that punish. Some ideas would be to allow encampments, Hoovervilles, and use existing hotel rooms. Human dignity needs to be preserveed so we need to allow homeless people to lie down and sleep without fear of reprisal. A compassionate society is based on how it treats its most vulnerable."


WHAT SHOULD VOTERS CONSIDER RE: HOMELESS POLICIES?

HUFF advocates, though at the forum had no opportunity to raise our issues. Had we been allowed to speak, we would have asked what is the cost of a Sleeping ticket to the city? The National Coalition on Homelessness has reported that a simple citation costs a city about $1000 per citation in police, court, and jail costs.

If Rotkin is right, the City/County are paying $30,000 a month to incarcerate homeless people for the "crime" of sleeping when they have no other shelter options available.

HUFF would have liked to have asked Emily Reilly why she decided that those "few places" she had found that were far enough away from businesses and residences needed to be posted with "NO PARKING" signs from 5AM to 7AM daily. Did she mean to displace the same people who she had only a year or two earlier sought to create a refuge for in those same locations? Does she now think the solution is to threaten them with expensive parking tickets and the threat of towing their vehicles which hold everything they own in life?

HUFF would have had words with Ryan Coonerty with his false logic that if we allow homeless people to sleep at night, the community would turn on
them. In Florida, following the Pottinger decision, the camping ordinances were lifted unless the police had a shelter space to offer a homeless individual. With a more visible presence of homeless people, the citizens of Florida actually INCREASED their contributions to homeless services.

HUFF praises Tony Madrigal for his principled stand which he believes may cost him his chance at getting elected. Madrigal understands the cruelty of the Sleeping Ban and how it just kicks people when they are down. We urge him to focus on the fiscal costs to criminalization of homelessness as a rathole for public funds. We urge all council members to redirect these
enforcement costs into affordable housing, and other services for homeless people.