Tuesday night, 12/13/16, the Berkeley City Council meets. Tent cities, a moratorium on the raids, tiny homes development, and getting rid of some anti homeless laws are on the agenda.
The DBA (downtown business association) is actively organizing against these items. Why is the DBA against human rights? Why do the property owners think they have a say in a persons ability to shelter themselves? (because they only want people in town who can afford these sky high real estate prices) The DBA is privatized taxation without representation (businesses and taxpayers get charged), but only property owners have a say.
We are asking for people to show up at 6pm, old city hall on MLK in Berkeley. We need to stand up to the DBA. We need to stand up for human rights. We need to stand up for those whom the system is torturing and killing.
Let the homeless shelter themselves!
First They Came for the Homeless encampment at Adeline & Oregon, across from Berkeley Bowl
View recent press conference of neighborhood support for First They Came for the Homeless here: http://www.berkeleyemergencyshelter.org/
Press Release by First They Came for the Homeless, Monday, 12/12/16
Berkeley City Council to vote on Emergency Measures to Address Homeless Crisis
where: Old City Hall, 2100 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, Berkeley, CA
when: Tuesday, December 13, 7:00PM
On Friday, Dec. 2, the First They Came for the Homeless tent village was raided by the Berkeley Police Dept. for the ninth time in two months, under orders from the City Manager, Dee Williams-Ridley. As in all previous police raids, tents, sleeping bags and other gear essential to homeless survival were confiscated, and much was discarded by City workers.
First They Came for the Homeless is an advocacy group whose members are, for the most part, homeless, and who are demonstrating the resourcefulness and discipline needed to organize their own lives when emergency services are sorely deficient. Its members have established a peaceful, clean, drug and alcohol free collective in the face of cold temperatures, wind and rain, ongoing police raids, lack of basic resources, and duplicitous city officials.
Our collective entered into dialogues in good faith with the City of Berkeley, who have proved unable to meet the need of sheltering homeless people. A strong proposal from First They Came for the Homeless, Mayor Jesse Arreguin, and housed neighborhood supporters to create an intentional community with a sanctioned location for tents, water, garbage pick-up and sanitation will be considered by Berkeley’s City Council on Tuesday, Dec. 13.
(See Council Action Item 39 here:
But the Downtown Business Association, led by Asst. City Manager Jim Hynes, will attempt to pack the City Council meeting with opponents of these humane measures, in furtherance of a strategy of criminalizing homelessness, as if the disabled and traumatized members of our collective disdain viable housing options.
The City Manager has made false allegations about our conduct, which have been publicized without investigation by a local media outlet. She continues to order police raids, each of which requires extra shifts for approximately twenty BPD officers and ten city workers who are tasked with the confiscation and disposal of our property. We estimate each raid takes upwards of $20,000 out of the City’s budget.
First They Came for the Homeless:
https://www.facebook.com/firsttheycameforthehomeless/
http://www.berkeleyemergencyshelter.org/
Berkeley community groups supporting First They Came for the Homeless:
Tenants Together
Friends of Adeline
Consider The Homeless – http://www.considerthehomeless.org/
Human Welfare and Community Action Commission, CITY OF BERKELEY
Berkeley Rent Board
Cheryl Davila, Berkeley City Council, Dist. 2
berkeley-homeless-heath-census
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