Editor: As San Diego prepares – or not – for the second of two substantial rainy storms about to hit the region, and as we enter the weekend of the most celebrated Christian holiday of the year, we hear troubling reports of how the City of San Diego takes the blankets and tents of homeless people.
We received a report of police confiscating the blankets of OB homeless at the beach, we commented recently about Park and Rec crews removing homeless sleeping material from a tree in Robb Field, and below is a post by Anna Daniels who lives in City Heights with an accompanying video of trash workers removing tents and belongings of homeless. (If you cannot view the video, go to the original store at San Diego Free Press.)
Finally, at the end of the article is a petition being circulated calling upon Mayor Faulconer to confront the nightmare of homelessness. They are demanding Emergency Humanitarian Action to stop criminalizing homeless people in San Diego. It would be very Christian of him.
Did You Wake Up this AM in a Warm Home? Thousands of San Diegans Didn’t
By Anna Daniels / San Diego Free Press
The first of two storms expected to move through the San Diego region this week arrived last night with steady moderate rainfall here in City Heights.
It was sixty degrees on the porch at 6:00 am this morning. The cats had taken shelter there and were curled up in loosely strewn bedding. I was still bed warm and savoring the first cup of coffee. Then I remembered this:
Over 140k ppl have now viewed this video of @CityofSanDiego throwing away a homeless person’s tent before the rainstorms hit this week. pic.twitter.com/QMY3KK8Pfp
— Michael McConnell (@HomelessnessSD) December 22, 2016
This is a video of city workers throwing away a homeless person’s tent before the rainstorms hit this week. The bulging bottom of the tent is obviously that person’s belongings. Michael McConnell posted the video and over 140 thousand people have viewed it.
Viewing the video is not good enough. We can do better.
Call to Action!
Women Occupy San Diego is circulating a Change.org petition calling upon Mayor Faulconer to confront the nightmare of homelessness. They are demanding Emergency Humanitarian Action to stop criminalizing homeless people in San Diego. Over 500 people have signed the petition. Have you added your name to it? Have you forwarded it to friends?
There is no guarantee of course that a petition can make a difference. But consider this–what is guaranteed is that some of our neighbors in the streets who have had their only shelter and source of safety destroyed by the city will face another colder, windier storm that is expected to arrive tonight.
Can you imagine that?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s warmer in Florida, give them a bus ticket.
George, we published your comment just to show to readers that people like you exist. Your total lack of compassion and humility is so classic to the political genre that you belong to, that it is actually instructive.
This is horrific! These people have no shame, or conscience. What gives the police or anyone the right to steal from someone who has committed no crime, other than being poor. Rotten fuckers probably attend religious services on Christmas, and don’t give a second thought to what they have done.
Punishing the homeless does nothing to tackle the underlying causes of the problem. It is not a crime to be homeless, but the outrageous tactics being used against some of society’s most vulnerable people should be.
Yet another national American disgrace- shame on US.
Frank, George Zimmerman’s inability to feel compassion for or even understand the plight of members of the community of people who have no roof over their heads, isn’t a fault of character and due in part to an understandable ignorance and fear. To feel compassion, you must be able to see yourself in the position of the sufferer, you must believe they haven’t brought their plight upon themselves and you aren’t the cause. By these standards, Mr. Zimmerman reflects the majority, not just of the relatively well-to-do inhabitants of the peninsula and the residents of condominiums downtown, but also, those of us who live paycheck to paycheck, students and teachers at PLNU and so on, who can’t or don’t want to see themselves in the plight of those who have nothing and who have come to believe people bring their plight on their own heads. We may also suspect that, by omission, we are contributing to their suffering. We can’t feel compassion for others in this condition unless we believe we aren’t to blame and neither are they! Hell, we feel compassion for people in Syria but not enough to compel us to political action. To expect people to be some other way than they are is tantamount to expecting a Rocinante to win at Churchill Downs–ain’t gonna happen.
There are solutions to the problem but it requires the empowerment of those who are suffering and we can’t depend on compassion.
City officials, who ordered the confiscation of property as well as those who chose to follow such irresponsible and possibly illegal orders, acted predictably.