New State Parks chief addresses challenges in Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz County State Parks has imposed a maximum stay of 30 days per calendar year at any park in the county. This anti-homeless rule applies even when parks are not full. It is unique to Santa Cruz. Perhaps this new State Parks chief can revisit this rule. It has no positive effect but negatively impacts folks who have been forced to camp out by necessity and seek to do so in a legal, organized setting.

State Parks are not housing projects, they are recreational campgrounds. The 30-day limit on county park camping should not be a problem for anyone using the campgrounds as they are intended to be used.

We need more anti-homeless rules, not fewer.

Transients who choose to camp out rather than rent permanent housing do not deserve sympathy.

XANTHIPPE WRITES: "Transients who choose to camp out rather than rent permanent housing do not deserve sympathy."

BECKY: First, they are displaced former residents. Second, if they are prevented from camping legally then they will be forced to camp out illegally. Is that what you want? Don't we want to maximize our use of public campgrounds before we force folks without means to illegally camp? The law is mean-spirited and has no upside.

Please install waterless urinals in all state parks' public bathrooms...
Saves our precious local water!
ps...
You too, CITY OF SANTA CRUZ & CAPITOLA...you should know better!
This makes around as much sense as that $40-$100 (new "plan" cost projection) desal plant (before O&M) that you plan on building in 10 years!
Take a cue from the Port District....they seem on top of it.
Kudos to them.

welcome to santa cruz....you have some great people working for you...but you've got some major issues to take care of re: trespass by mountain bikers, endangered species protection, etc. that need attention asap!

"Displaced former residents" Now Becky has decided where every one of them is from! How does she keep all of that information straight?

...also kudos to your excellent Junior Guards Program and coordinator Ms. Bethany Clealand (sp?)...she's great!

DBS WRITES: ""Displaced former residents" Now Becky has decided where every one of them is from! How does she keep all of that information straight?"

BECKY: I suppose you prefer the term "transient" even when it's applied to someone who was born and raised here? Pretty much every homeless person was once housed. The lost their housing due to an eviction, an illness, a job loss, or just because their wages couldn't keep up with the high cost of housing. They still live here. I also like "displaced former tenants" as a descriptive term to replace pejoratives like bum, hobo, transient, vagrant, tramp, derelict, wino, druggie, drifter, human detritus, etc.

How about calling them "Individuals With Shelter Challenges"?

Not to be catty or anything, but does it seem a little strange that a wildlife biologist, State Park veteran, raised in Half Moon Bay, hasn't been to Big Basin, or Henry Cowell?

Ugg to homeless in State Parks.

I see lots of fires, trash, and all the lovely things we see in the county parks. What a horrible idea.

It's called the Depatment of Parks and Recreation. Not the Department of Parks and Homeless. Regular citizen nice people don't want to camp next to criminal homeless with their warrants and domestic violence issues. In the Winter when the parks go off reservation you can see the old junker motorhomes return and the Rangers are tasked with dealing with transient drunks and drug users. What a nightmare.

MY TAKE WRITES: "Ugg to homeless in State Parks.

I see lots of fires, trash, and all the lovely things we see in the county parks. What a horrible idea."

BECKY: Actually, you would not be able to tell the difference between housed campers and homeless campers. They look and act identical. A television station in San Jose made that same mistake back in 1995. They set up to film some "homeless" campers but accidentally set up in front of some computer geeks on a camping weekend!

LITTLE JOHNNY WRITES: "Regular citizen nice people don't want to camp next to criminal homeless with their warrants and domestic violence issues."

BECKY: Homeless means without housing or a permanent residence. It does NOT mean "criminal" or "drunk" or "drug addicted" or "violent" or "with outstanding warrants" or "smelly" or "dirty" or "perverted" or "violent domestic abusers."

ANYONE can become homeless. Absolutely anyone.(ask those displaced by our recent fires). It doesn't have anything to do with criminal tendencies. It mostly has to do with the gap between low wages and the high cost of housing. It is true that once on the street, the cops target you with tickets and citations so that, in essence, you do become a SLEEP criminal!!

This is where HUFF comes in.

A law against sleeping is an unjust law!
A law against using a blanket at night is a crime against humanity in itself.

www.huffsantacruz.org

Becky Johnson wrote:

"
BECKY:
A law against sleeping is an unjust law!

But there is no law against sleeping. Only an ordinance about where and when you do it. Just like there is no law against drinking alcohol or having sex. There are, however, ordinances about where and when you do it.

I wish you the best. You've inherited an incredibly beautiful, diverse, and challenging area to manage. The budgets are slim, the use is heavy, and the opinions about what to do with our parks is diverse.

My hope is that you'll be able to help us clean up and reclaim the Pogonip and surrounding environs. They've been turned into defacto dumps by some of the campers that have taken up residence in those areas. The Pogonip has become a place where some are afraid to venture because of these concerns.

I know the money is tight, but it's discouraging to see piles of trash and abandoned campsights languish for months and years. Maybe we could put together a shared/volunteer clean-up program?

If you could supply a few dumpsters and let us bring a couple of trucks into the Pogonip for a weekend to haul the stuff out, I bet we could easily get enough volunteers to drag the detritus out of the woods and return the Pogonip to its former glory.

Any takers? I'd be happy to volunteer my time and truck for that kind of a project.

CRAIG WRITES: "But there is no law against sleeping. Only an ordinance about where and when you do it. Just like there is no law against drinking alcohol or having sex. There are, however, ordinances about where and when you do it."

BECKY: If you are homeless (i.e. not living in a house,apartment, or motel) then anywhere within the city limits is illegal for sleeping between 11PM and 8:30AM. I GUESS you could say these are time, place, and manner distinctions. If you mean the TIME is 9.5 hours every night, the PLACE is the entire city, and the manner is the act of closing your eyes and resting--with or without a blanket!!

It is a BAN on the ACT of SLEEPING at night and even worse, it's enforced in a situation in which all the homeless shelters are full.

The law is obscene. Its cruel and unusual punishment. And under Chief Howard Skerry, ticketing is WAY up!

Becky Johnson wrote:

BECKY: If you are homeless (i.e. not living in a house,apartment, or motel) then anywhere within the city limits is illegal for sleeping between 11PM and 8:30AM.

That ordinance does not only apply to people that are homeless. It applies to everyone. You make it sound as if the ordinance only applies to homeless people. People that are housed can get in just as much trouble if they decide to go sleep on the grass in San Lorenzo Park at night, if that is what they want to do.

Becky Johnson wrote:

XANTHIPPE WRITES: "Transients who choose to camp out rather than rent permanent housing do not deserve sympathy."
BECKY: First, they are displaced former residents. Second, if they are prevented from camping legally then they will be forced to camp out illegally. Is that what you want? Don't we want to maximize our use of public campgrounds before we force folks without means to illegally camp? The law is mean-spirited and has no upside.

First...let me re-educate you. The majority are NOT former residents of this county. Been working in volunteer social services in this county for 25yrs and most of those on the streets have "settled" here.
Santa Cruz is VERY tolerant of transients...and I'm not saying that's a bad thing but, in some cases, is causes problems. There are many other better destinations for people in need...but Santa Cruz has the beaches..an attractive nusance.
A very small percentage are actually "former"
residents. Monterey county has the same camping ordinance.

Xanthippe wrote:

State Parks are not housing projects, they are recreational campgrounds. The 30-day limit on county park camping should not be a problem for anyone using the campgrounds as they are intended to be used.
We need more anti-homeless rules, not fewer.
Transients who choose to camp out rather than rent permanent housing do not deserve sympathy.

we need less homelessness, not more homeless rules. those rules only serve to make it more difficult to secure housing.