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Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp Video Presentation |
Endorsement Petition |
Board of Directors |
(Add board member names) |
Founder |
Brent Adams |
Tax ID |
(Please fill in FEIN or Tax ID, if known) |
Established |
Concept introduced to community in 2013 |
Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp is a community organization that hopes to find a piece of property within the county to set up an urban sanctuary camp where homeless people can sleep, camp, and store their belongings legally. The project is currently in the planning stage.
Local Activist Tours Sanctuary Camps
http://www.santacruz.com/news/2014/02/11/local_activist_tours_sanctuary_camps
Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp Gala Dinner Success!
THE GALA DINNER: Santa Cruz dinner event brings homeless sanctuary camp concept to forefront Group looks to host community-wide campout with the homeless
By Jessica A. York
Posted: 03/30/2014 05:10:12 PM PDT
THE PETITION: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/santa-cruz-sanctuary
-IndyBay: Northwest Sanctuary Camp Tour Documentary RELEASED
by Brent Adams
Sunday Feb 9th, 2014 7:52 PM
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/02/09/18750575.php
From Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp's Facebook page:
Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp is excited to begin this conversation with our community. All over the country Sanctuary Camps are proving that neighborhoods are safer and homeless begin to heal their situations with these models. Join in the conversation.
Everyone agrees that the problems facing our community around homelessness are unacceptable.
We've seen our natural areas fouled and our communities are inundated with homeless folks with no place to sleep at night. Firstly, it is important to establish that it is illegal to sleep outside after 11pm in Santa Cruz. On April 6th, what little shelter there is will be closing and we'll be seeing an increase to some of the problems we're already seeing. To make matters worse, the 30 bed shelter at the Homeless Services Center has been closed indefinitely to the general homeless population.
We hear that Santa Cruz County spends $2,000,000 dealing with the various aspects of homelessness each year and yet more than 90% of those folks are forced to sleep outside in our community each night. Santa Cruz Sanctuary Camp is an evidence based smart solution to this growing problem.
We're seeing that Sanctuary Camps across the country are proving successful. For pennies on the dollar, they provide a safe place to sleep and keep personal belongings during the daytime. This year we've seen our natural areas fouled by garbage, syringes and excrement. There have been fire hazards in the woods. People often sleep in doorways and under bushes of our residential, business and tourist areas.
Homeless people often fall prey to folks who steal from and abuse them.
Homeless people have lost their property (bedding, medications, personal effects) during the homeless sweeps that took place in our county's wooded areas. The SCPD took officers from other patrols for more than 3 months last summer ticketing more than 300 people with no measurable effect other than to make life infinitely harder on folks already struggling to survive.
The daily struggle to clean oneself, keep clothes, bedding and personal belongings clean and safe, show up in time for food service or to acquire food and basic necessities and to find a safe place to sleep can be an all day task. Add to this the problems of mental illness, addiction, trauma etc. and we begin to see that the patterns of homelessness are quite difficult to escape. The basic illegality of homelessness and the scorn of the community makes this situation impossible.
We're excited to share a new solution with our community. We've seen examples all over the country that communities are safer and cleaner and homeless people are better able to move up and out of homelessness with the Sanctuary Camp model.
Please invite us to make a presentation to you, your group or organization about how we can improve life for everyone by simply providing a safe place for people to be. There are many possibilities within this one concept and we'd like to share them with you.
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