Alex Darocy Photography

On the rain-swept evening of March 8, the Santa Cruz City Council voted 5-2 to re-affirm the city's camping ban, which outlaws sleeping in public with or without bedding, and prohibits sleeping in cars, between the hours of 11pm and 8:30am. Supporters of the "Right to Rest" had hoped the city council would remove references to the word "sleep" from the ordinance, but the majority of council members voted to keep the law exactly as it is presently written. Shortly after the vote concluded, it was business as usual for the Santa Cruz Police Department, whose officers spent the evening issuing citations and targeting homeless people sleeping downtown. SCPD officer Nicholas Kramer issues a camping citation to a man sleeping along Walnut Avenue at 6:45am on March 9, following the city council's vote to re-affirm the camping ban about eight hours earlier A large group of community members spoke to the city council in favor of amending the camping ban (sec...

Community members in support of the farmworkers who grow Driscoll's strawberries organized an informational picket outside of Whole Food Markets in Santa Cruz on February 26. Demonstrators are calling for the boycott of Driscoll's Berries and Sakuma Bros. Berries, as well as Häagen-Dazs brand ice cream. The boycott of Driscoll's has been initiated in response to the poor treatment of the farmworkers who grow the berries in San Quintín, Mexico, as well as at Sakuma Bros. Berry Farm in Burlington, Washington. Michael Gasser, a Santa Cruz based organizer in support of the boycott, has said that the primary demand is for Driscoll's to negotiate a fair contract with the workers' unions, which so far the Watsonville based company has been unwilling to do. Workers in both San Quintín and Washington are calling for an increase in workers wages and benefits, in addition to other demands. In Washington, workers are demanding that no children or youth be allowed in ...

On February 23, the Freedom Sleepers held their 33rd community sleepout at Santa Cruz City Hall. Attendance at the sleepout increased shortly after 3:30 am, following the police sweeps and move-alongs of homeless individuals sleeping at the Main Branch of the Santa Cruz Library and at the Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church, which are located across the street from city hall. At least one individual sleeping outside of the library was issued a citation by police. Those joining the Freedom Sleepers who were displaced by the sweeps were able to sleep until the morning without further intervention from the authorities. Santa Cruz police move-along sleepers at the Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church The front steps of the Prophet Elias Church remained clear of sleepers for the rest of the evening, but the number of sleepers surrounding the library increased following the police sweeps. As soon as the police concluded the sweeps, one person who officers had moved along from the c...

This month the downtown post office in Santa Cruz was cleared by police of what had been a large and regular presence of sleepers at night. The post office had been used as shelter for 6-12 people a night for some time. A homeless man who was sleeping outside of Bookshop Santa Cruz and cited with two other sleepers for trespassing this month said he thought the police were ticketing at increased rate recently to get homeless people to move along before the next rains arrived. SCPD officer Dominique Hohmann places her hand on her gun as she issues a man sleeping outside of Bookshop Santa Cruz a citation. The current enforcement patterns in the City of Santa Cruz are an extension of the homeless sweeps that began in 2012. According to Santa Cruz Police Department statistics, the number of camping ban citations issued by police officers is presently at the same level as when the department dramatically increased enforcement of the ordinance during their widely publicized series of...