|
by Kaponda
Like a barge on water, the quaint abode plodded
along the narrow, city road. In tandem with the
seasoned vehicle that slogged ahead, it signaled the
last vestige of free will. Its eyes pored in every
direction in search of a piece of parcel on which to
rest. Even an old-fashioned drive-in would provide
sufficient relief to cool its engines.
But the signs posted on most of the streets -- "No
Parking Between 2:00 PM to 6:00 AM" -- represented
the disdain which most residents of China Basin have
towards homes on wheels. Neither will Officer
Swiatco, the code enforcement officer who represents
the San Francisco Police Department at the Bayview
station, show any compassion for this mobile home
in distress. A tacit contract has been put out on
vehicles used for sleeping or camping in California.
Officer Swiatco of the San Francisco Police
Department has been turned loose by the Bayview
Station in San Francisco on vehicles that are used as
homes. He aggressively pursues any vehicle which
exceeds the 72-hour parking law, or that fails to
display the proper registration. Swiatco, however, is
a puppet, dangling from a strategically vast
conspiracy of economics.
Invoking the time-honored proverb, "The love of
money is the root of all evil", these words could have
been written just for planners and developers in
Silicon Valley and other "growing" areas of
California. Not too long ago, inexpensive trailer
courts and mobile home parks were sprawled along
cities from Sunnyvale to Los Gatos. But the real
estate boom in California has curbed the growth of
these mobile home communities. Developers are
literally snatching the ground from underneath
vehicularly housed residents' wheels.
An article in the San Jose Mercury, dated Thursday,
June 1, 2000, by Laura Kurtzman, states the
deplorable extent to which developers will push for
the love of money. According to Kurtzman's article, a
91-year-old woman, Antonia Telles, a former migrant
worker who lives on $830 a month from her late
husband's Social Security, was given an eviction
notice after having resided for 50 years at the
Campbell Trailer Court in Campbell, California. To
further accentuate the evil visited upon her in the form
of the notice to vacate, according to Kurtman's
article, Ms. Telles' space is beside the cemetery plot
of her deceased husband.
In Los Gatos, Doug McNelly, owner of Los Gatos Mobile
Home Park, admits that it would be very difficult for a
person to find other housing in the California runaway real
estate market. McNelly has put a moratorium on renting
spaces and has negotiated the buyout of every mobile home
resident on his property. He has cleared the way, along
with the hopes and aspirations of many poor people whose
only resort is to find housing in mobile home parks, to sell
his land to a developer, Barry Swenson. Again, both
McNelly and Swenson will probably earn huge amounts of
money in view of the real estate boom in California. But
their financial gains will displace poor and low-income
people throughout Silicon Valley, because most cities are
not creating space for vehicularly housed residents. Santa
Cruz, however, is an exception.
As of May 23, 2000, the first reading of legislation to
decriminalize sleeping in vehicles or outdoors at night was
approved by the Santa Cruz City Council. For years, Santa
Cruz had had a draconian sleeping ban. According to the
June edition of the Street Spirit, in an article written by
Robert Norse of Homeless United for Friendship and
Freedom (HUFF), so severe was the Sleeping Ban,
"...that the City1s own Interfaith Satellite Shelter Program
(ISSP), which has had homeless people sleeping on the
floors of churches for 13 years, is itself illegal in the City
(since churches are not considered domiciles under the
law)."
The recently approved proposed legislation is the product
of a combination of aggressive protests by Campaign to
End the Sleeping Ban (CESB) and bold actions by HUFF.
According to Norse's article, the new law, if sanctioned at
the second reading, scheduled for June13, 2000, "would
throw out entirely the Blanket Ban, which now bars
covering up with blankets at night...". It would also
"...establish legal areas to which the police could direct
homeless sleepers, giving everyone (in theory) a legal
place to sleep within City limits. For those without
vehicles, that would be on thin strips of pavement unless
private property owners granted them access to industrial
lots. Private property owners would be freed for the first
time in 22 years to allow sleeping anywhere on their
property, provided the activity does not create a public
nuisance or violate zoning laws."
The cause of the vehicularly housed was taken on by
activists such as Robert Norse, Becky Johnson of HUFF
and David Silva of CESB. These individuals
single-heartedly committed themselves to the struggle
against the injustice thrust upon one-third of the homeless
population in the City of Santa Cruz. They braved the
mean-spirited attitudes of the people and leadership of
Santa Cruz to gain this historic victory. |
