Posturing on the Streets

I just had a blog entry posted on Change.org about the SF "Sit/Lie Ordinance" action. Ironically, a number of the SF proponents try to point to Berkeley as an example. Yet, things aren't really that simple, or clear, in Berkeley.

In fact, in recent weeks, I've met with an officer of the Berkeley police command and a city councilman to discuss this issue. I've heard from several sources that there's a similar, or worse, initiative in the works and tried to confirm if this is so. After these personal, one-on-one meetings... it remains unclear.

I've before looked up the actual codes, as I've recounted in previous blog posts here, but have only found that such specific "postural" ordinances are specified during specific hours in one defined area known as "the box" -- an area adjacent to the UC campus, roughly between Shattuck and Telegraph/People's Park areas. The Prime Business Rectangle. Well, okay.

That may be some kind of precedent, but SF's ordinance rallyers appear to be overstating their case and clamoring for a quite more restrictive, even citywide version. That's something else, in practical effect. That's creating law to control people's posture in public places. Ludicrous.

It's starkly a decoy type law, specifically meant to give the police total discretionary enforcement powers, simply to "roust" people if they can't easily nail 'em for what they're actually doing wrong. Apparently, bugged citizens just aren't complaining enough. The cops need such a complaint to act, if they haven't personally witnessed an infraction. Do I sound like I'm detailing what the real "problems" are here? Of course I am.

While this issue's been mounting, and getting increased play in a number of venues and various press, we're also seeing the typical fusing of the matter with "the homeless" targeted and presumed, in particular. THIS is what I must oppose. It's even significantly wrong.

For instance, a recent Chron article had Mayor Newsom crediting the city with suprising success in the "help the homeless" campaigns and programs... announcing how many are no longer on the streets and with no especial reason to expect that those remaining outdoors are the culprits on Haight Street misbehaving. Even some articles have explained that some of these, indeed, are NOT homeless but just "hanging out" there which has long been a Haight phenomena.

Unfortunately, since late last summer and through the Fall, Berkeley cops began to roust people and tell them explicitly that sleeping on sidewalks/parking strips ANYwhere in the city was "no longer going to be allowed at all". Huh? When and how did that happen?

So far, no one can tell me. But I've heard that there may be some effort in the works to not only officially make that be the case, but possibly even worse  yet -- there are those that want to outright outlaw people homeless in Berkeley, except for those that became homeless while living in Berkeley. Now how might someone prove that?