by Richard Cipian –
by Richard Cipian – According to the United Nations and the United States constitution every citizen in America and throughout the world has a right to warm shelter as well as food and health care. Access to shelter is an integral ingredient to ensuring good health and well being for all.
According to federal law, it is against the constitution to regulate any church providing a faith based service if the ministry is not impacting the external neighborhood. City of Davis staff reports do not show an empirical link between centralization of homeless services in the 5th street neighborhood and an adverse impact on the surrounding residential area. The city council has moved to regulate homeless ministries sponsored by Davis Community Church due to residential opposition to the homeless in their residential area. This is a travesty because these residents have no justified reason for complaining.
Most of the studies in America find an increase in petty crimes associated with surviving on the street though no increase in violent criminal violations. The press reports find no crime associations if shelter programs and services are ran effectively and are supervised.
As for crime in the D Street neighborhood; I took a look at staff reports for the city’s Open Container Policy and it seems that violations for having a Open Container at Central Park are the same in 2002 as they are in 2007 with most of the folks who are cited being students on Picnic Day- like 65-75 % of citations. Between 12 and 14% of citations are homeless people drinking in the park.
The staff report even says that the students are more likely to be cited by the Open Container Policy then transients. We can use these numbers to show that Central Park as well as other parks like N Street park in Davis have had their issues with alcohol but there is no association with centralization of services at 5th and D.
A staff report from November 2008 shows that centralization of services has had a minimal impact on the residential area at best.
Restricting homeless based services for the homeless may indirectly impact students as well. There is a small but resident population of students that are homeless and that do attend UC Davis. If a church is restricted in being able to provide services for the homeless, students may be impacted in the future.
Therefore, I am personally extending an invitation for students and others concerned to attend Tuesday’s city council meeting at 6:30pm at the Davis City Council Chambers. Look below for more background information. I am also including a letter to the Davis Enterprise written from the residents just to show the position from the opposition just to be fair to all sides.
In the future we will approach the ASUCD for a resolution if the city of Davis does not rethink its plans about modifying the MOU to a cap size of 35 taking into account that there is a good system in place to make sure that a program runs smoothly and there is not an adverse impact for a neighborhood.
As an alternative the city of Davis has presented a plan whereas homeless people who arrive at a church ministry site that is at its maximum capacity is sent out to Woodland or forced to pursue a hotel voucher for shelter. There is a vacancy in these other services but let’s be realistic some homeless people will not travel a far distant to get shelter especially with all the other demands they face i.e. with being homeless. Besides most of the homeless grew up in Davis. They are our own and we should do our best to help them instead of kicking them out of our community just like the rich Davis sites would like to see.
I haven’t followed this recent issue very closely. But I understand that there was a 4-1 city council vote in favor of restricting homeless services. Is there someone here who could summarize the arguments in the CC discussion on that issue, and perhaps why the CC council members voted the way they did?
I personally know of homeless people attacking Davis residents downtown. The police say that they can’t do anything unless there is a witness. One Davis resident has had to put cameras outside the house to present video evidence to the Police so that they can stop a homeless guy from stalking her. This guy grabbed a woman at night, held her for nearly an hour while praying for her salvation. When she finally got lose, the police couldn’t even arrest the homeless guy. It is not safe for single women to walk downtown alone after dark. It was safe before the homeless shelter was provided at the Community Church. Some of the homeless people living downtown have served time in jail for assault. They have been involved in further assault incidents after they are released. The Church homeless shelter is bringing hardened criminals to live on our streets.
Where is the background information?
The homeless people that I have personally witnessed in Davis are a bunch of smelly criminals that I would love to see out of this town.
I have seen them sell crack in the men’s bathroom by the children’s park. I have seen then defecating in front of stores downtown. I have seen them assault passers-by to the park area. I have seen their collection of stolen bikes. The neighbors have a VERY valid reason to want these bums and vagrants out of their neighborhood.
I assume “the human toilet” has finally died or wandered off, but he was the worst, you could literally smell him inside of a building as he stumbled past.
Whatever efforts the city can take to make this place as inhospitable as humanly possible for these bums are a great idea.
[quote]According to the United Nations and the United States constitution every citizen in America and throughout the world has a right to warm shelter as well as food and health care. [/quote] I love people who just make #### up like this and hope know one notices they are bull####ers. Great job.
“Whatever efforts the city can take to make this place as inhospitable as humanly possible for these bums are a great idea.”
I think it is sad that the above comments serve largely as an attack on the homeless population of Davis…and the homeless population everywhere. I sincerely hope that you all are spared the incredible difficulty of ever finding yourselves homeless.
Frankly, I don’t give a !$&#* about what the United Nations says, or whether or not they are accurately quoted above. I grew up here, and so did a good number of the folks who you have seen on our streets. We live in a community, and we have a responsibility to take care of our own. There is so much money in this town; the average Davisite lives in inCREDIBLE luxury.
In this commercially manipulated, socially isolated world, it is difficult to appreciate the spirit behind the term ‘thanksgiving’…but for the love of this community I hope that you all will take a moment to consider it.
[quote]This is a travesty because these residents have no justified reason for complaining.[/quote]
That’s only your personal opinion – do you actually live in that residential area? Have you talked to any of these people to get their view on the issue? Have you asked them why they have complaints? Because if they are complaining there is obviously something wrong, no matter how much you’d like to put the blame on Davis residents. How dare you admonish other people for wanting to live in a clean and safe environment, those residents are completley justified in not wanting a church drawing more homeless people into their neighborhood. The city of Davis has worked hard to keep the city clean and safe, opening the doors of the churches to any and all homeless people may not sound like a huge problem now, but in a few years when the city looks like Berkeley and is trashed from the homeless population you’ll be here posting for the city to do a better job of providing homeless shelters.
Stop taking the typical “Davisites are rich bastards who are too spoiled to deserve anything” mindset and actually do your research before you go spouting biased drivel everywhere.
Wow—If any of you would like to be with some real (as opposed to the imagined ones I read about above) homeless people this evening, we need overnight staff for the interfaith rotating shelter. Maybe if you spend some open-hearted time with some local homeless people over a cup of tea instead of pontificating about them from the comfort of your warm home you can cut through your own fear and theories. My ten year old and I spent the night there the other night and it was nothing but a positive experience.
[quote]My ten year old and I spent the night there the other night and it was nothing but a positive experience. [/quote] Indy, because I am curious and don’t know, perhaps you can answer some questions for me: What percentage of the Davis homeless population would you guess are suffering from mental illness? % with drug/alchohol problems? % with both substance abuse and mental illness? % who had long-term housing recently, but are now homeless due to current bad economy?
Rich,
I can help with those questions. Data isn’t available for Davis specifically for some of those questions, so I’m using the HUD “2008 Homeless Assessment Report to Congress” as well as info from the rotating shelter. I serve as staff for the Interfaith Shelter.
1) The percentage of homeless that suffer from severe mental illness is about 26% nationally. At the rotating shelter, about 1/4 of the guests suffer from some form of mental illness.
2) The percentage of homeless that suffer from chronic addiction is about 37%. That number seems to be about accurate for the rotating shelter.
3) Nationally, approximately two-fifths of those using emergency shelter came from a housed situation. This statistic also seems to be fairly representative of the rotating shelter population.
[u]Some other statistics of interest:[/u]
1) 65-75% of those living homeless are homeless in the jurisdiction in which they grew up (Yolo County Homeless & Poverty Action Coalition)
2) Last year, approximately 18% of those who utilized the rotating shelter were actively employed (many at UC Davis). Tonight (12/16/09), there is 1) a recently disabled Union worker, 2) a construction worker between jobs, 3) a forklift operator…. not to mention a 7 1/2 months pregnant young woman, a grandmother of 11, and a Gulf War veteran.