You can’t criminalise an end to poverty

Speaking directly to the

Chico City Council has been unavoidable; it’s a matter of conscience. Over the years, the subjects ranged across lack of 24 hour toilets, our city’s orchestrated destruction of the Jesus Center, our punitive laws and policing practices, etc.

Due to Covid, this kind of direct contact was suspended. Then, for a few meetings, in late summer and early fall, the public was allowed to reenter the council chamber.

A very small number of us waited hour after hour, meeting after meeting, for our 180 seconds. We wanted to speak on an agenda item posted and postponed and postponed and postponed — and finally passed, on the night of December 8th: The absorption of the totality of our park rules — all minor infractions — into the Chico Municipal Code, to be enforced as misdemeanors (this means arrest) wherever and whenever deemed desirable.

By the 8th, we were no longer allowed in the chambers. Had we been allowed, my comments, mercifully abbreviated: “Our new council has been elected to hammer on the homeless and make us feel ‘safe.’ I imagine they’ll make a show of it; tonight, further criminalizing a class of people who cannot exist without breaking laws. Maybe this council truly believes more arrests and more criminal justice-style misery will “solve” something. That’s hard to imagine, but whether they believe it or not, we’ll never criminalize our way out of poverty. That is, unless we’re prepared to make destitution a capital crime, as every totalitarian state has done.”

— Patrick Newman, Chico