Pandemic and Pouring Rain Reveal San Diego Shortcomings
The coronavirus epidemic has severely impacted San Diego’s most vulnerable communities, and it appears that local governments, namely the City of San Diego and the County of San Diego are enabling practices amounting to cruel and unusual punishment.
First, a little good news; the social distancing, shutdown of public institutions, and limited business closures appear to be working to limit the impact of the coronavirus. Localities, including San Diego, that imposed these measures early are seeing a reduction in the rate of increase in new cases.
Now, for the rest of the story, which isn’t so good.
The San Diego Union-Tribune has a frankly horrifying story about how San Diego jails are not able to cope with COVID-19.
Christy Boudreau, whose brother is among those incarcerated at the George Bailey jail, said deputies are placing inmates who seem to be sick in the general population with no explanation.
“No one is cleaning or disinfecting the area tables, phones, etc., so it’s putting other people at risk,” said Boudreau, who provided a photo of inmates hoisting a bed sheet painted with the message “We Don’t Deserve 2 Die.”
“These people have families who are scared for their lives,” she said.
https://twitter.com/MyersSD30/status/1249367077883789312?s=20
Boudrea has been rewarded for communicating about the problems by being placed in solitary confinement.
Fifteen inmates have died in San Diego jails this year.
https://twitter.com/kellylynndavis/status/1248013049761431555?s=20
While there has been extensive reporting on conditions at the jail facilities, the promised responses have been nominal. A sadistic philosophy of punishment is the underlying problem, justified by authorities under the premise that inmates are ‘bad’ people.
Many of the people in the county jail have not been convicted of any crime.
San Diego Superior Court has issued a revised bail schedule reducing dozens of misdemeanors to zero bail.
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Much has been made about San Diego’s response to homeless humans since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The city’s homeless tents have been emptied, with residents being moved to the Convention Center. Some advocates have expressed concern about the advisability of cramming so many vulnerable people into one space.
From Fox5 News:
“Bewildering is just one adjective to use to describe putting a thousand souls in an open congregate shelter like this during a public health crisis,” Chris Megison, the founder of the homeless outreach organization Solutions for Change, told Fox News. “It’s a powder keg in there.”
Megison added: “We are all are hoping and praying that nobody dies, but if somebody does die its involuntary manslaughter as far as we’re concerned because this is irresponsible.”
Video from inside the convention center showed rows of military-style cots spaced about 6 feet apart lining the entire width of the main hall’s floor. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that homeless encampments should not be cleared out during the pandemic unless individual housing units are available and that residents of encampments should set up their tents with at least 12 feet of space per individual.
Hotel rooms for homeless people, including those testing positive for COVID 19, are available for quarantine purposes. But the fact remains, despite all the noise, there are not enough spaces to accommodate the local unhoused population.
We’ve just had a week of record-setting rainfall in San Diego, making living on the street even more hazardous than it usually is. But that hasn’t made San Diego’s police department stop enforcement actions aimed at those who can find an overhang or place to pitch a tent.
https://twitter.com/HomelessnessSD/status/1248613718402813962?s=20
Community advocacy groups have urged Mayor Kevin Faulconer and SDPD Chief David Nisleit to order a cessation of police “sweeps,” clearing homeless encampments and suspending the ticketing in sweeps of persons who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness for “quality of life” offenses in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The letters urging consideration for the plight of homeless humans have apparently fallen on deaf ears.
Yet another letter sent this morning from Attorney Genevieve Jones-Wright, executive Director of of Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance (MoGo) addresses the moral failings of the city’s practices, and its failure to comply with existing guidance and emergency orders:
The City’s policy and practice of breaking up existing homeless encampments directly conflicts with the prevention measures spelled out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) to be used as guidelines, which instruct as follows: “Unless individual housing units are available, do not clear encampments during community spread of COVID-19. Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers. This increases the potential for infectious disease spread.”
Simply put, by continuing to conduct sweeps on any scale, the City of San Diego is directly endangering the lives of thousands of San Diego residents, housed and unhoused alike. A moratorium on all sweeps is essential to curb the spread of the virus and to protect against preventable hospitalization and death, as it would significantly minimize the risk of exposure to not only unhoused San Diegans but also to the broader public.
Despite Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-33-20, issued March 19, 2020 which “order[s] all individuals living in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence[,]” San Diego police officers continue to conduct sweeps of persons who are experiencing homelessness moving them from one location to another.
This, without providing any viable, adequate, or even alternative options for shelter for those displaced. The reality is that San Diego is home to many thousands of persons whose current residences are the streets, homeless encampments, parks, under freeway overpasses (even where the City has placed sharp rocks), and by the riverbed.
These locations are the residences of the individuals who live at these sites . Therefore, by breaking up existing encampments, i.e. the residences of unhoused San Diegans, under any pretext and sweeping unsheltered persons from location to location, the City of San Diego is violating California State Executive Order No. N-33-20 and is adversely affecting its goal to “bend the curve and disrupt the spread of the virus.”
San Diego activists Aime Zamudio and Tasha Williamson have been skipping the governmental middlemen and are working to get homeless people in San Diego into hotel rooms.
Via NBC 7 News:
Zamudio said this mission is personal for her because her father experienced homelessness.
"We need to make sure that they are taken care of and they are in hotel rooms and not in big spaces crammed together," said Zamudio.
Zamudio is working with community activist Tasha Williams. They are collecting donations and using that money to book hotel rooms for those in need of a place to shower or rest.
In case you missed the link in the above quote, donations to help out with this effort can be sent here: #HotelVouchers4All
https://twitter.com/ChrisWardD3/status/1249763198321872897?s=20
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Also, FYI
https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1249761333140172802?s=20
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