October 26, 2010

Cohn said he has heard a lot over the past few months about Safe Ground, but that that can’t be the focus right now.

“Our top priority at the moment has to be what we’re doing with winter shelters,” he said, reiterating Fong’s point.

“Sanctioning camping out there is just not a policy that’s right for the city,” said Councilman Kevin McCarty.

Councilwomen Sandy Sheedy and Bonnie Pannell agreed, arguing against revoking the no-camping ordinance.

“I just don’t see a safe ground opportunity here,” Sheedy said. “We need to start thinking outside the box on where to put people.”

Mayor Kevin Johnson said that any form of a proposal by Safe Ground would only be one piece of a larger solution of transitional housing as the region’s governments work toward the ultimate goal of finding permanent housing for the area’s 2,800 homeless.

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   [{“Sanctioning camping out there is just not a policy that’s right for the city,” said Councilman Kevin McCarty.}]

???????????????????????????

Not right for the city?

What is the 'CITY', but that of the home of the People, all
of the People, for their protection and rights under the laws
of the Federal and State within which they reside.

It is not a Private Corporation or such, and not open to a select
few or many to determine what is, 'GOOD', for just them.

People are hurting, suffering, and dying in the, 'city', because
they have no place to sleep, be, or live without the 'city',
having the police being forced to take actions against them,
for camping, so that they may, sleep, live, and try to exist.

Have they not heard of Human Rights?

? ~ What is right for the City ~ ?

National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day

Objective: The event raises awareness about the
high personal cost of homelessness with
vigils in memory of those who have died while homeless.

12/21/2010

The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck

"They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat."

"The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it."

"It ain't that big. The whole United States ain't that big. It ain't that big. It ain't big enough. There ain't room enough for you an' me, for your kind an' my kind, for rich and poor together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat."

"And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact:

 When property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.”

"How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him- he has known a fear beyond every other.”

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage...”

The costs of Life, Liberty, Spirit, Integrity, Trust and .....

SafeGround

Homelessness is an emergency, to the homeless and to society at large,
all across America, from Sacramento to the New York Island!

American citizens, find themselves homeless, because of many different reasons,
for many, it may be for decisions they have made and/or decisions that their
government representatives have made, such as going to war, in so many places
and for sometimes questionable reasons, as well as, at times, failing to do their
fiduciary responsibility of the oversight and regulating of corporations, banks, and
NGO's, which as a result, has left in its wake, a crumbling American infrastructure,
in which many companies have had to close and so many American people have
been put out of a job, a livelihood, a way of life.

So now so many of these Americans find themselves homeless, indigent, and
some with a number of medical conditions, in need of shelter, and trying to
get their American way of life back, while being hassled by local ordinances,
that do not even allow them a safe park to sleep in and stay, when there are
no other shelters with room for them, let alone better accommodations
being clearly offered by the Government for them to take advantage of.

Yes, these, our Brothers, Sisters, Fathers, Mothers and Children have to at times
pick up whatever meager belongings that they may have and find a new, nightly
spot, to lay down and sleep, hoping that they are not harmed, let alone be sleeping
in an area that might not be legal, where they may be dealt with, (seemingly to
many of the homeless, by the Orwellian and/or Draconian Municipalities),
by the Municipalities, policing authority, and its orders.

So, as I have studied these many issues of homelessness, law, governance, and
many other related things, I have come to the thinking that it is an
unalienable Right for our American homeless to be allowed at the very least a,
(SafeGround), a land area, to sleep and be on, until they can improve their situation.

Dear Americans, it goes much deeper, it goes to the heart of what Americas founders so eloquently expressed, and articulated in Americas Preamble to its Declaration of Independence of 1776, when Thomas Jefferson, penned these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

So, I say that in America, in California, such as in the County of Sacramento, in the City of Sacramento, there should be, SafeGround, a land area, such as a public park, or the like, at a minimum, a safety net, a Safe Ground area and/or areas for the homeless to sleep and be, until they may improve their situation, (And not a City/Sacramento, 'mean-spirited' so called law, that makes it a crime to sleep/camp for more then one night in the same place.), this taking into account that they would not want to be there, if a better shelter situation was afforded to them.

Dear fellow Americans, does it not serve us all, to provide a SafeGround for the homeless, instead of having them scattered across the City and/or County in legal and/or not legal areas, in a much more likely harms way, (then in a SafeGround area), for all of us. The resources, monies, expenses for police, emergency care, and security for all of us is much higher, besides this being a sick, twisted, morally reprehensible action and/or inaction that affects us all by the politicians who allow this and, We the People who also allow this to continue without a safety net for the homeless in these economically and politically strange times, yes, a safety net, a minimal type of protection for the homeless, with the lack of other shelter being not available because they are over-capacitated or whatever, yes indeed, the need and the Right that is unalienable for Americans, who find themselves homeless, for reasons that are not illegal, must be provided at the very least a, SafeGround.

Basic Rules:
1. No violence.
2. No theft.
3. No illegal substances.
4. No disruptive behavior.
5. Everyone must contribute to the operation,
improvements and maintenance of the SafeGround/Village.

It is the Right of the People
to alter
or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
' With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Following the Peasants' Revolt, British constables (cops) were authorized under a 1383 statute to collar (arrest) vagabonds (homeless) and force them to show support; if they could not, the penalty was gaol (jail).Vagabonds (homeless) could be sentenced to the stocks for three days and nights; in 1530, whipping was added. The presumption was that vagabonds (homeless) were unlicensed beggars. In 1547, a bill was passed that subjected vagrants (homeless) to some of the more extreme provisions of the criminal law, namely two years servitude and branding with a "V" as the penalty for the first offense and death for the second. Large numbers of vagabonds (homeless) were among the convicts (homeless jailed, just for being homeless, forcibly mixed in with convicts as per the laws at that time) transported to the American colonies in the 18th century.

 · { '(Sacramento homeless) News - Google News Feed' } ·
 

Obama Administration Unveils National Strategic Plan
to Prevent and End Homelessness

June 22, 2010

“The culmination of more than a decade’s work
in communities across the country, this plan reflects
President Obama’s belief that no one should experience homelessness
-- no one should be without a safe, stable place to call home,” Donovan said.
“We believe we can and will achieve that.”

SafeGround.org the Internet site of which I am the founder of, does hereby beseech, request, and demand, that the Federal Council Proposed Plans to End Homelessness, incorporate within those plans to end Homelessness, that you are referring to, what is referred to by many Homeless people, and that is what is called, SafeGround.

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SafeGround, (SafeGround is a legally recognized land area(s) for use by, 'The People', Homeless in need of it.), and these SafeGround land areas should be as free of regulations and government oversight as possible. As an example, if a homeless family with three children went to one of these SafeGround land areas because of economic hardship as an example, and put up a tent and lived there, the Federal, State, and Local Governance of them should not be much different if any then if they were living in a house that they owned on their own property. Please go to http://www.SafeGround.org for more information and feel free to contact me.

Question #9, on 2010 ~ : 'Do you think Sacramento’s homeless population should be offered safe ground a legally sanctioned area with cottages or tents where the homeless can stay, leave their belongings and be able to access services?'
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Answer:
"Yes."
 
"Mayor Johnson should be ashamed of himself
for what he has done to our homeless population."

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Poverty is not a crime!
 
Howard Zinn
 
Speaks Out, on the
 
 
Sleeping Ban / Camping Law

"I think we should
interrupt the sleep
of people who pass such laws!"

*Howard Zinn 10/25/1997*

Speaking in response to the Santa Cruz
Camping Law/Sleeping Ban

At an event sponsored by the Resource Center for Nonviolence.

Since cruel and unusual punishment is presented in the U.S. Constitution as a description of how the government cannot treat persons, the court required proof that the homeless who couldn’t get into shelters truly were being arrested for nothing more than their presence on the ground.

As a result of this case, the police agreed not to charge the homeless under any ordinance for living and or sleeping on public land, unless they were also engaged in crimes such as theft, drug use, or other illegal acts beyond merely being outside sleeping on the ground or living there as a result of inadequate and or lack of public shelters.

SHAME!!!!!

If a ball of fire dropped out of the sky and had people without a home and place to sleep in Sacramento, those people would have a park or some place made available to them within hours if not minutes, so as to be able to put down a sleeping bag to sleep and legally be able to exist, and for more then 1 day, and without fear of being forced to JAIL, or humiliated by having the hired enforces of so called law, police, force them to stand in front of their sleeping bag or tent for so called needed evidence, (a picture for government databases), of being in violation of law, as was done in Sacramento.

So called law, put forward by the powers that be, vis-à-vis, Sacramento City Hall, and not directly approved or voted on by the people of Sacramento.

/

Day, after week, after month after year
and still no, ‘SafeGround’,
not even a 30 day temporary, 'SafeGround', until something better is done?

>

SafeGround.org

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As the Sun sets, and night replaces day, in *Sacramento, CA* many homeless people ask, where may I sleep, without the fear of being arrested!

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I’m not a communist, I’m not a capitalist, I’m not a socialist, ain’t no imperialist, I tell you I’m not a terrorist, and I’m not a democrat, sure as hell ain’t no republican, I believe in one Party and its name is, Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!

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I am, I ammmmmmmmmmmmm, I am a preacher and I love my country, because my country is all that I know, I want to be with my family, people who understand me, and I find them everywhere I go, …………….