It took 18 days for the City of Berkeley to decide they could no longer tolerate an organized and visible resistance to the City Council’s utter failure to do anything for a growing homeless population in need of shelter, storage and a place to shit.
Eighteen days after a protest Occupation appeared on the grounds of Old City Hall beginning on the eve of a City Council meeting where the first reading of anti-homeless ordinances were voted, and three days after a second reading where these ordinances were enacted into law, large numbers of Berkeley Police, firefighters and publics works employees appeared in the early morning hours of December 4th and started evicting the homeless from the tents that composed Liberty City, as the protest Occupation had been named by its residents.
Mike Zint (left), of First They Came for the Homeless, one of the organizers of the protest, was the last to be removed – in handcuffs – as he repeatedly asserted his right to Occupy the commons, his 1st Amendment right to protest and to demand a redress of grievances. He and two others were arrested for “lodging” but were cited and released the same day.
The story of Liberty City can be found in the posts on the First They Came for the Homeless Facebook page, and a synopsis up through day 11 was put together here.
The City of Berkeley had sixty people they could have helped, but, instead, chose to hurt. Each of the Occupiers was in need of permanent housing and the City of Berkeley could have offered it to them – if it had any to offer, which it does not. Each of them is in need of some place to store some of there possessions. Berkeley could have offered them storage lockers – if it had any to offer, which it does not. Each of the protesters would have been happy to be able to use a twenty-four/seven, well-appointed, warm public restroom facility – Berkeley has none of those either.
Instead, Berkeley dispersed a group of people who were feeding, clothing and otherwise supporting themselves, putting them back onto the street where mutual aid would be hard to come by; where each person would be left to fend for themselves in the cold and wet. The best Berkeley would offer was space in a homeless shelter – miles away in Oakland!
In eighteen days some of Berkeley’s homeless demonstrated that they could do a far, far better job of taking care of themselves than the City is able to achieve – if only they would be allowed to. After eighteen days, the City of Berkeley could no longer tolerate this demonstration of competence. They had to manufacture the usual lame excuses to remove the latest symbol of Berkeley’s failure to act over decades.
Berkeley may be criminalizing the actions of the homeless, but in truth the tables are reversed – it is Berkeley that is acting the criminal.
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