UPDATE: Advocates to attend Tuesday City Council meeting… “wearing trash bags to signify the only protection from the elements the city has left to hundreds of human beings who spent Monday night huddled under the overpasses in East Village. Our message: Stop treating human beings like garbage!”
You have to wonder what they were thinking in city hall. On Monday morning the police department conducted a sweep of sidewalk homeless encampments as a major winter storm bore down on San Diego.
The “environmental” staff showed up on 17th and Imperial around 5:30am – took anything unattended – just when people were waking up and had gone up to Neil Good Day Center to go to the bathroom. So their stuff was considered Discarded Debris.When activist David Ross got there around 8am – after stopping at the Bargain market to buy 100 large black trash bags, people were all huddled under the Imperial St bridge. They had lost everything.
A severe thunderstorm warning for the entire San Diego County coastline was issued as the second in a series of El Niño storms swept through the region. The promise of below-normal temperatures combined with driving rain and gusty winds meant being outside was going to be a miserable experience.
It’s not like this weather forecast was any secret. None-the-less, in the hours leading up to the first round of torrential rail and hail, the San Diego Police Department were busy confiscating tarps, tents and other makeshift shelters erected by homeless people on the periphery of downtown.
The impending bad weather apparently wasn’t seen as an obstacle to enforcing bright green notices posted last week warning of “Cleanup and Property Removal.” The problem is/was that there was no place else for the humans targeted by this purge to go.
Activist/SDFP Columnist Jeeni Criscenzo posted the following:
This morning, just before the torrential rain and hail hit downtown, the San Diego Police Department, under the direction of Mayor Falconer, removed the tarps and tents and whatever pathetic coverings human beings had put together to say out of the rain. What kind of heartless animals would order this and what spineless cruel snakes would carry out these orders? There is nothing they can say that will justify this outrage. And if we, the citizens of San Diego let this pass, we are as guilty as they are.
Homeless advocates in San Diego are giving serious consideration to showing up Tuesday at City Hall wearing plastic trash bags — “San Diego’s answer to Emergency shelter”– for the city council session slated to begin at 10am. Among the items up for consideration: “Declaring a continued state of emergency to exist due to the imminent risk of flooding caused by El Niño, pursuant to California Government Code Section 8630…”
UPDATE: Via a Press Release from Homeless to Housed:
Instead of taking the action needed to provide sufficient and appropriate emergency shelter for the hundreds of homeless human beings with no place to live, the city has been engaged in futile sweeps that involve confiscation of the few possessions these people have and dismantling their makeshift attempts to protect themselves from the cold and rain. The action on Monday morning clearly went beyond what decent citizens will tolerate–leaving human beings, including the sick and elderly, with absolutely no protection from the wind and rain that followed soon after the early morning sweep.
These outraged citizens will be attending the San Diego City Council meeting at 10 AM – wearing trash bags to signify the only protection from the elements the city has left to hundreds of human beings who spent Monday night huddled under the overpasses in East Village. Our message: Stop treating human beings like garbage!
Following the Non-agenda Public Comments, there will be a press conference in the Covered area west of City Hall on C Street., Lori Saldaña, former CA Assemblyperson and San Diego mayoral candidate and Jeeni Criscenzo, president of Amikas and part of the Homeless to Housed Coalition, will make a statement and witnesses to the action will be available to talk to the press.
A Public Records Request will be filed with the Mayor’s office, asking who requested and authorized these actions and what city resources and budget were involved. Photos show six or more police vehicles at just one of the encampments.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available. Photos courtesy of Homeless News San Diego.
Doug Porter
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What can we do? – Call the Mayor for starters – 619-236-6330. Look at the number of police cars and police officers who were participating in this travesty and demand to know why they have all of these extra resources to put into this crime against humanity? We pay them to protect us from crime, not to perpetrate crime. Cut the funds to the SDPD if they have so much excess for this. The officers who perpetrated this criminal attack on poor homeless people should be charged with the crime. Military courts have long held that military members are accountable for their actions even while following orders — if the order was illegal. What the SDPD did today is illegal – an attack against the most basic rights of human beings, under our constitution and the International Bill of Human Rights.
The police do as they are told by the powers that be, and most likely this came from complaints by residents and businesses in the area. They fall back on the Municipal Code and the State of Emergency due to El Nino. This gives them the legal right to clear the sidewalks of anything that could cause drainage problems. Oddly enough, it does not seem to cover emergency housing during the El Nino. So, it was not illegal. But, that does not mean it was right. If you leave trash on the sidewalk in my neighborhood, the city comes around to clean it up. They do have that legal right, which was expanded due to El Nino. This is really about what is morally right and how we deal with the issues as a society. Residents on that street will argue that their rights are being infringed upon by having people camp on the sidewalk in front of their homes. This comes down to sacrificing one group over another, which seems to be the way we handle issues. We need to work together to solve these problems while being mindful of the rights of all members of society. That is a fine line, but it is key to finding a permanent solution.
The law and legality are always the way Republicans frame an issue. Hitler was the law once in Germany, and we all know what happened as a result. The government of the City of San Diego lacks the necessary moral doubt that gives us all a conscience. Moral concerns are what allow us to override laws in favor of the spirit of the law and justice. This City should be accountable to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for creating refugees, and we should go to the United Nations if there is nowhere else to go. Add San Diego to the same list Flint, Michigan is on.
Caren is correct in what she stated, the Police were told they had to do this. When they are told to do something it’s the same as them being given a direct order to do it. Failing to follow a direct order, can lead to then facing displinary actions being taken against them. Anything from being fired to ???
So really then they had no choice but to do as they were told. I seriously believe they wouldn’t have bothered these people other wise. They aren’t without a heart or having compassion for these people who had no where to go.
Put the blane where it belongs on the shoulders of our Mayor and possibly the citizens who complained. But don’t blame our police; since they were only following orders. I have no doubt our police would have rather been taking care of the actual crimes happening in and around our city than doing that!!!
Has anyone started an online petition?
Yes, there is a petition. Look on the SDFP homepage in the right hand column at the top. Under the words “Let us build a prototype of a village of tiny shelters for homeless people in San Diego.” is a link to the petition.
Can’t call now…there is no way I could be civil. This is outrageous and unacceptable. Shame on SDPD and our lovely city officials!
Say…haven’t I read numerous articles over the years about how SDPD is going to receive “better training” to deal with homeless people?
Was “confiscate their shelter when a major storm is coming” part of that training?
Both the City and County of San Diego should be sued based upon ongoing Civil Rights violations and hiding of public funds in the Successor Agency (SA) to the RDA, $28 million Cash in Low Moderate Income Housing Asset Fund (LMIHAF) controlled by Civic San Diego, and the available $100 million in the Mental Health Service Act (MHSA) funds.
Political leadership in this city is Pathetic.
http://tinyurl.com/20160219b
http://tinyurl.com/20160125b
The term “political leadership” in regard to the powers-that-be in San Diego is a complete and total oxymoron. This behavior is disgusting.
Reckon someone should find some of those guys and help them sue the city. Maybe then they could move off the street, AND teach the city government a lesson in the downside of being raging douche sandwiches.
SDPD doesn’t care about human rights they are all about corporatism. They do what they wealthy tell them to do without question. They violate homeless people’s rights, buskers and artists rights and just anyone who has rights in general all for the corporations they protect and serve!
How is it possible that in a country as wealthy as ours, we allow homelessness? Are we really that non-empathic. There was an article in the LA TImes yesterday about 2 young women who took a “selfie” in Silver Lake, and stood almost on top of a homeless person. When will this end? What can we do? This is not acceptable on any level.
Los Angeles just allotted a pile of money to deal with their homeless population, which is expanding. The only problem is, it is business as usual, the code for “scooping up more public money” is “Seeking long term solutions.”
Problem is, they’ve been saying that for years, and the “long term solution” never materializes, while all that lovely public money just sort of disappears into studies and committees and weekend seminars.
San Diego’s growing homeless problem is also evident, but like LA, they choose to ignore it in favor of downtown complexes and some sort of asinine ski lift from Balboa Park to the waterfront. I really hate the city governments San Diego keeps electing! Oddly enough, they’re mostly Republicans for some reason.
Such police action is evidence of the new fascism in our country. It is not so different from Hitler’s police who tormented all kinds of people before it went on a rampage against Jews. I urge everyone to talk to their neighbors about the moral problems of San Diego city government which are affecting every level and department. If you know property owners in the area, confront them on their lack of humanity. We must do what the German people failed to do before it was too late.
Let’s face it. San Diego is a very expensive city. I tried to help a person with a $500/month budget find a place in the western part of the city, but he failed. Only people with incomes (for most people, that means jobs) can afford to live here. How much of our Proposition 13-limited funds must the City spend to assuage the moral outrage expressed here? If the City provides housing for the homeless, many more homeless will come here. Sadly, we face the prospect of even more homeless people if the minimum wage is raised. Granted that we don’t need a ski lift from Balboa Park to the waterfront, but we do need money to keep fixing the potholes in our streets.
that’s BS, people come here that are homeless because of the weather, but many of them become homeless because of the constant raising of the rent. Its rediculous that a 1 bedroom appartment is anywhere from 800 to 2000 a month here depending on the location… and Moral outrage, yeah people are pissed but ya know the cops could have waited one whole day to do this.. or a week considering more rain is due tommorow/.// common sense is all it would have taken, and people wouldn’t be angry.. and the city has plenty of funds for new hotels, new condos, a football stadium and sky gondilas, but not enough to house the homeless? Yeah right, meanwhile city officials continue to embezzle money through things like the centinial program for balboa park that somehow never happend… yet someone got 100 k plus. This cities government is like the countries government, wastes money on things no one needs while ignoring tax payers and constituents needs.