Nowhere to go
Homeless people at camp behind Lowe’s given trespass notices
Agroup of homeless individuals who camp next to Highway 108 and downhill from the back side of Lowe’s were given trespassing notices Monday morning by Sonora police and told they have to leave by Monday night.
“This is not fair,” Jennifer Harkrader, 37, said Monday afternoon at her and her husband’s camp. “They want us to move, but they’re giving us less than a day. We don’t have cars. We don’t have trucks. We have to try to pack what we can and get out of here in less than 12 hours. A lot of people have been living back here for many years.”
Harkrader showed a yellow Sonora Police Department trespass cease and desist notice dated Monday.
The notice stated it is official and addresses people staying on a piece of land called “Sanguinetti Property.” The notice says effectively immediately, “...you are not permitted to enter or remain upon the private property of business...”
Continuing to trespass at the location is grounds for misdemeanor arrest, punishable by up to six months in jail and/or a fine, the notice stated.
Harkrader said she and her husband, Jonathan David Harkrader, 34, and at least a dozen other people
who live at the same camp were given trespassing notices Monday morning. The others who live there decided to stay out of sight while a news reporter was present.
A few minutes later, a woman named Michelle Anguin, 53, of Sonora, drove up from Highway 108 in a pickup truck. She brought some Mcdonald’s food and drink to share with the Harkraders.
“I came to help them because I don’t want to see anybody go to jail,” Anguin said. “I used to live up here, right at the top of the hill, for about a year. I just got out of here three months ago.”
Anguin said she fortunately entered a program to get off drugs and met a woman in Tuolumne who connected her with an elderly man who was hiring a caretaker, and the job included room and board.
“It’s no comparison” between being homeless and having work and a place
to sleep, Anguin said. “Being out here homeless is hell. Having a job and a place to stay, life is more reasonable.”
Jennifer Harkrader said Anguin has helped her before. Anguin lets Harkrader shower and do laundry at the place where Anguin stays from time to time.
Jonathan David Harkrader said he was born and raised in Sonora and has been living on the streets and homeless since he was 18. Earlier, he described the place he and his wife live below Lowe’s as a hollow, near a creek, and it can be rough when it rains.
“I don’t live in a tent,” he said. “No tent. I live in a shack I made.”
He was shirtless in green pants and he wore a sheath knife on his belt, along with a bluetooth speaker attached to his pants with a metal clip.
“The mayor signed these notices,” he said, “to get me and my wife and the rest of us out. This is wrong. We got signed with a notice, says we’re trespassing.”
Jonathan David Harkrader said he and his wife used to live at Camp Hope, a homeless camp off Stockton Road and south of Mother Lode Fairgrounds.
“Society just doesn’t get it,” he said. “Most of us are homeless, not by choice. If we had facilities to take showers, we would. We live free, we come and go, we don’t answer to anybody. We don’t have to worry about our neighbors calling the cops. If you call the cops out here, you’re going to get beat up.”
The Harkraders took some time paying attention to Lily, a pit mix pup that was born on Halloween and came to them as a gift. Lily stood on her hind legs to say hello to Jonathan David Harkrader.
Jennifer Harkrader said she’s originally from Pismo Beach in San Luis Obispo County and grew up in Battle Mountain, Nevada, on Interstate 80 between Winnemucca and Elko. She lived in Sonora when she was 11 years old and returned when she was 17.
“I left an abusive relationship and my kids were taken from me,” she said. “I lost my house, became homeless, my mother and father died. But the best thing to happen to me is being homeless. By losing everything I had, now I wake up and feel blessed. I have a man who loves me. When we get food, we share it with everybody.”
Jonathan David Harkrader said he doesn’t understand why Sonora Police came to tell him and his wife to leave. He said deputies from the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office came to see them before and told them “we’re fine here, out of sight, out of mind.”.
“We’re not on private property here,” he said. “This is county or state land.”
Jennifer Harkrader said she believes it’s time for her and other homeless individuals to stand up and fight for their rights, to fight against discrimination they face. She said she can’t go to a local shelter any more because she went there more than a decade ago and now she’s on a do-no-return list, even though she successfully completed their program.
Jonathan David Harkrader indicated he doesn’t go for stereotypes of homeless people. At the same time, he said, “It’s like this man. I am my brother’s keeper. I help my fellow man. I help my brothers. If I have it, I give it. My shirt. My shoes.”
Hazel Mitchell with the nonprofit Give Someone a Chance Tuolumne County, who advocates for the homeless and dignity for people in need, said Monday she had not heard about the trespassing notices served on homeless individuals camping below Lowe’s.
“I’m not aware of that,” Mitchell said in a phone interview. “I was down there about a week ago and gave out supplies, like sleeping bags and tarps, because it was cold and it had rained. I gave them COVID kits with masks and hand sanitizer. There were several people there I had not been familiar with. There was no threat to them at the time. I’m not aware of these trespassing notices.”
Mitchell said she knows Jennifer Harkrader, that she’s been homeless a long time, and has been from camp to camp.
“Most of them down there know me, they know they can call me,” Mitchell said. “I have not heard from them.”
Sonora police could not be reached to comment for this story before deadline Monday afternoon.
“We have to leave, we need to pack up what we can, and go,” Jennifer Harkrader said, “but we don’t know where we’re going.”