Advocate frustrated with city’s response to calls for new policies
Blog note: this article references a grand jury report.
A leading advocate for the homeless says he and others may pursue a class-action lawsuit against the city of Eureka if they can’t find common ground over local homeless policies and law enforcement practices.
Numerous homeless people in Eureka have come together with stories of alleged harassment and misconduct by local police. At a meeting next Monday, the individuals will consult with attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union’s Northern California chapter to discuss steps forward.
Vernon Price, a leading advocate for the homeless, says he approached the Eureka City Council on multiple occasions to discuss how to improve the local homeless population’s quality of life instead of criminalizing the problem.
“That has been blatantly ignored, so we’re moving forward with the ACLU,” Price said.
The group has support from the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission, which has advocated for addressing policies surrounding homelessness. Jim Glover, the commission’s chair, said the meeting next week is a long time coming.
“We’ve been working for a while to get the ACLU’s attention regarding people who have charged that they are being criminalized simply for being homeless people,” Glover said.
Monday’s meeting won’t be open to the public, since Price and others want to give attendees a chance to speak freely without too many people or possible authority figures in the room.
A grand jury report on the county’s homeless enforcement policies released last month documents what the jury called a “counterproductive” use of taxpayer dollars to keep homeless people from camping in certain areas or sleeping on sidewalks near commercial sites.
Price hopes a number of personal anecdotes between homeless individuals and police will compel two senior ACLU attorneys — who will attend via video conference — to offer legal advice and take up the group’s cause.
One of the group’s testimonies is of a 62-year-old woman who, while living legally in her vehicle in Eureka, allegedly had “all of her possessions and personal belongings taken” by police for “sleeping in a public place.” The police also allegedly took her vehicle.
The group has several similar anecdotes ready to go, but Glover hopes the accounts are rooted more in facts than emotion. The ACLU potentially taking up the group’s cause depends on the effectiveness of the testimony, he said.
“The more factual it is and the more evidence they can provide that they were criminalized,” Glover said, “that’s what’s going to speak to the lawyers.”
“Of course, there’s two sides to every story,” he continued, “but this is an opportunity for people to tell their story, unfiltered by the (Human Rights Commission) or anyone else, directly to lawyers who deal with this kind of problem all the time.”
Eureka Police Chief Steve Watson emphasized the subjective nature of personal anecdotes, noting that he wouldn’t be able to respond to any individual case or generic allegations without more research. But the group’s rhetoric isn’t anything new, he said.
“I know that there are members of the homeless community — and the advocates and activists — who believe any enforcement is too much enforcement,” Watson said. “And they erroneously equate any enforcement of existing local or state laws with criminalizing the state of being homeless.”
Watson said responding to the “innumerous” public complaints about homeless people isn’t law enforcement’s “preferred tool,” but the ultimate answer isn’t to “further erode” the department’s tools in maintaining order.
“Instead, we need solutions that will reduce the need for enforcement,” he said. “So we’re just as desperate for solutions as anyone else.”
Price mentioned repeatedly the Eureka City Council has ignored his attempts to start a conversation about common-sense homelessness policies. One of the few times he’s interacted with a council member was when Kim Bergel, the Ward 5 representative, took him up an offer to spend 48 hours as a homeless person.
Bergel later posted about the experience on social media, saying she was “traumatized” after less than a day living on the streets. But when it comes to the group’s grievances, she said there’s likely “more to the story.”
“It’s on our radar,” she said of the council, “but I don’t see our laws as being that way. I feel like our police department, myself personally and other council members have actually worked with people and supported them into different decisions that get them the help they need.”
She added that the stories of criminalization are “not fun to hear” but she opts to ask herself: “Is there a better question that can be asked? Is that both sides of the story?”
Price, meanwhile, had been residing in Arcata, but by the end of the month he will again be homeless. The excessive price of transportation to Eureka has prompted him to go back to the Eureka Rescue Mission.
It’s a “money-saving” move, he said, and a need to be actively present in Eureka to help the city’s homeless move forward — Monday’s meeting being a start.
August 6, 2019
Eureka Times Standard
By Shomik Mukherjee
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