The Freedom Sleepers protest is addressing the heart of my concern, which is the violation of the civil, constitutional, and human rights of people who are homeless and have nowhere to sleep. While this is a national problem that is growing rapidly, Santa Cruz, according to the “No Safe Place” report by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, is a top offender in passing extremely damaging laws that criminalize homeless people for doing what they must to survive. “A whopping 83% of homeless people in the Santa Cruz area are without housing or shelter options, yet the city criminalizes camping in public, sitting or lying down on public sidewalks, and sleeping in vehicles” (NLCHP, 8). Additionally, the Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury has proclaimed that the City of Santa Cruz is failing at providing adequate emergency shelter for its poorest and most vulnerable populations.
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Currently, there is no emergency shelter available in Santa Cruz and every night homeless individuals are being woken up, ticketed for sleeping, and told to move along – sometimes multiple times in one night. The Department of Justice has released a statement stating that criminalizing homeless people for sleeping is a violation of the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The federal government agrees that criminalizing the act of sleeping in the only space available to people experiencing homelessness constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. In spite of this federal recognition, the Santa Cruz City Council remains unmoved and nonresponsive in their transgressions against the homeless community with an increase in targeting, harassing, and ticketing of homeless individuals.
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This cruel and unusual punishment of the homeless is costing the taxpayers millions more than it would to provide housing and social service assistance. The homeless are receiving hundreds of tickets and are often targeted and ticketed multiple times in one night. Many of them accumulate a massive cache of tickets that they have no resources or means to pay. One homeless individual I spoke with accumulated over 30 tickets during a two-month period this past summer. The city can also issue cumulative stay-away orders that prohibit people from returning to the citation area for 24-hours, a week, a month, and a year, effectively chasing homeless individuals around the county, separating them from already tenuous community support networks and increasing their experience of instability and confusion. These methods are frivolous, with little to no oversight or protection for individuals’ rights, and work only to create an abusive system that costs taxpayers money, exacerbates the already desperate problem of being homeless, and does not improve anyone’s situation. In another area of the country with a similar picture of homelessness, a case study done by NLCHP showed that $149 million could be saved over the next decade in central Florida by providing housing rather than criminalizing people who are homeless (NLCHP, 30).
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Activists, community leaders, concerned citizens and the unhoused individuals being exploited have banded together and formed the Freedom Sleepers movement. Participants are actively protesting at Santa Cruz City Council meetings and sleeping out at city hall every week to protest the targeting of people trying to get a good night’s sleep. Freedom Sleepers are challenging the City Council to provide a safe and legal place to sleep at night in Santa Cruz for people who have no homes or shelter access and ask for an immediate moratorium on the ticketing of homeless people for sleeping.