Practical steps to help those without homes

Santa Cruz Cares is deeply committed to advocating for long-term solutions that improve the lives of our neighbors living in tents and vehicles. We’ve made numerous public comments to that effect, and offered ideas in our appeal letter to the Planning Commission.

We are not a monolithic block of a few “activists” from leftist groups working to maintain the status quo. We are a diverse, and growing, group of residents from all walks of life and socio-economic backgrounds. Our group is open to working with city officials and neighborhood residents in the creation of services that help those living outside or in vehicles. When the city means to implement cruel and unjust quality-of-life laws, however, fighting the city with protests, appeals, and (as a last resort) lawsuits, can accomplish something: it can help reduce the burdens on some of the most vulnerable people in our community, and it can raise the standard of living for all of us.

We support solutions that meet people where they are and reduce harm while empowering them. These solutions must be implemented without the threat of criminalization, which experts agree is ineffective, expensive, and harmful to the people it targets, as well as the surrounding community. In the spirit of offering suggestions that can help improve things “now,” not 10 or 20 years from now, we would like to name several. We suggest that the city:

• Use some of the $14 million, received from the county to spend on houseless infrastructure, on a local greywater treatment center. Many folks living in vehicles have let us know that the distance they have to travel in order to dump their sewage makes it difficult for them to maintain sanitary conditions for themselves without breaking the bank on gas.

• Provide free garbage, recycling, and greywater pickup for vehicles and encampments located throughout the city. If the city can expand sanitation services to support new apartments and ADUs, they should be able to expand them to support our neighbors living in tents and vehicles.

• Provide public restrooms, open to the public 24/7, and located near encampments and those living in vehicles.

• Provide free electrical outlets for folks to charge their cell phones and other electronics that they rely on.

• Provide free WiFi in public areas.

• Increase its commitment to harm reduction practices including an expansion of sharps disposal kiosks throughout the city.

• Formalize the concept of neighborhood contracts and councils, helping neighborhoods define governing bodies that can develop a set of mutually agreed upon rules for all residents of a neighborhood, including those living in vehicles. The city could then assist in mediating contract disputes, when necessary.

• Locate small-to-medium sized transitional encampments in less-used corners of city parks. Transitional encampments are self-managed using a similar community contract approach to what was described above, and thus scale better than the city’s more common approach of staffing a security person and several nonprofit operators.

• The city’s General Plan says it doesn’t want to convert old motels/hotels into housing, aka Project Homekey. We think this is a big mistake. We believe that the city should embrace Project Homekey and use Gov. Newsom’s latest $50 million push to do acquisition/renovation of old motels/hotels/multifamily homes to house people “now.”

• We appreciate that the city has interest in investing in safe parking, but they should be bolder, making a larger commitment than a temporary program that doesn’t even accommodate 50% of those currently living in their vehicles.

We understand that it’s part of the anti-houseless organizer playbook to claim that those who fight against criminalization have no alternative solutions. It’s not true.