SANTA CRUZ, CA — I was arrested while setting up for our daily meal in the garage during the torrents of rain in the atmospheric river of December 27th, and spent 11 hours in jail on two misdemeanor charges and ordered to arraignment on January 30, 2023. When I arrived at court that morning I found that my name was not on the docket so I went up to the District Attorney’s Office to make sure I didn’t have court that morning. The woman at the counter looked up my name. She said the December case was not being prosecuted but that I did have a second case from March 2020.
She kindly wrote out the charges on a notepad and slipped sheets to me under the plexiglass window. Her text read:
22S – 07279 DCL 20S – 01888 PR 518 a – extortion induced by wrongful use of force 472 – counterfeit seal 532A – false financial statement 182A – conspiracy to commit a crime 120275 – violation to comply with shelter in place.
What a shock it was to learn that I was under investigation on felony charges for the crime of buying hotel rooms for nearly 200 of our unhoused neighbors during the early days of the lockdowns in March 2020.
When the COVID lockdowns started, California Governor Newsom announced that millions of dollars would be provided to place the homeless in hotels but the City of Santa Cruz chose to place the unhoused in fenced in triage cages on the asphalt of seven downtown parking lots. Santa Cruz Mayor Cummings begged me to help the City lure people into their triage pens but I told him I would not destroy my reputation by endorsing such a degrading plan.
Apparently the City doesn’t believe our homeless are worthy of a hotel bed even during a “deadly” pandemic. So to highlight their inhumane treatment of the homeless with a hint of hope that I could embarrass them to act with decency I rented hotel rooms on Ocean Street for nearly 200 people using money from an award honoring my work and the sale of my farm in New Mexico.
I have been volunteering with Food Not Bombs since 1980. We are an all-volunteer movement that shares vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1000 cities in at least 65 countries. We are not a charity and are dedicated to taking nonviolent direct action to change society so no one is forced to live on the streets or needs to seek food at a soup kitchen.
The local group has been sharing seven to ten five-gallon hotel trays of hot food every day since March 14, 2020. We have also been providing hundreds of dollars worth of pup tents, tarps and sleeping bags each month. If we have the resources we help repair and register vehicular homes to aid in their escape from the tow truck, connect missing family members and help people navigate the social service and legal system.
The police have stepped up their campaign of pushing people from place to place at a time when there are no shelter spaces available. A friend of the homeless community, Blake, was found dead of hypothermia outside the entrance to Housing Matters on January 25th. My friend Greg shared that he took the last tent space at Overlook, the city camp next to the already full Armory Shelter. I gave the last of our supply of tents and tarps to one of our unhoused volunteers who lost everything during this terror of sweeps.
The State [of California] is set to add even more hardships on the homeless with it’s Senate Bill 31 prohibit a person from sitting, lying, sleeping, or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property upon any street, sidewalk, or other public right-of-way within 1000 feet of a sensitive area.”
The actions of government officials suggests they view the homeless as rodents or “useless eaters” to be eradicated. I have several friends who lived in the internment camps of Europe during World War II who tell me that they are distressed at what they are now witnessing. What does the District Attorney expect to find? That I paid nearly $20,000 of my own money to provide a warm bed and hot shower to the cold and tired homeless? Instead of providing housing, Santa Cruz officials are spending our money on pushing the homeless out of doorways and garages into the rain, towing peoples vehicular homes while investigating those of us who are actually supporting our unhoused community.
Contact Information: Email: menu@foodnotbombs.net. Website: www.foodnotbombs.net / Mailing address: Keith McHenry, PO Box 422 Santa Cruz, CA 95061.
Keith McHenry is co-founder of Food Not Bombs.
