Another homeless camp relocation

Santa Cruz City Council starts to close the homeless camp near Highway 1 and reopen the River Street Camp near the Tannery. We brief you on what else you should know about the Feb. 12 council meeting: new rules on in-law units, bus passes for all downtown employees, and a new city task force to explore tenant protections.

Below is the transcript of the episode, plus a copy of the in-law unit ordinance that was adopted at the meeting.

Stephen Baxter: Welcome to Santa Cruz Local, where we watch our public institutions and hold power to account. I’m Stephen Baxter. Tuesday night, the Santa Cruz City Council decided to start the closure of a homeless camp near Highway 1 and River Street and move its 200 residents to shelters and another tent camp. Kara Meyberg Guzman has more.
Kara Meyberg Guzman: Since November, dozens of homeless men and women have been camping in tents next to Highway 1 and the San Lorenzo River levee in Santa Cruz. The camp sits between the back wall of a Ross clothing store and the busy highway bridge. The muddy and crowded spot has been unsanctioned, yet the city provided portable bathrooms and handwashing stations. After complaints from neighbors and some public health concerns, the 200 or so campers will have to find other shelter. They will receive notices to vacate now and in the coming weeks.
Here’s Nina Hertel, a resident who spoke against disbanding the camp at Tuesday’s city council meeting.

HERTEL: You may want them to go away.  You want that camp to go away because it’s an eyesore. It’s in a shopping area. There’s a lot of traffic that goes by. Well, these are human beings. Do you think they want to be there?

KMG: The council supported a March 15 deadline for the camp’s closure, with the caveat that the council revisit it at its March 12 meeting to see if it’s still necessary. Here’s Vice Mayor Justin Cummings. He asked the community to help the city find places for new homeless services.

CUMMINGS: This is a big deal for us. People want us to do something about the homeless situation in Santa Cruz, but nobody wants to offer the space in their neighborhoods.

KMG: This isn’t the first time the camp has moved. The camp has bounced around in different places along the river since 2017. It started with rows of tents by the county government building in San Lorenzo Park. The city closed that camp and opened what it called the River Street Camp near the Tannery. When the city closed the River Street Camp in November, the current Highway 1 camp sprung up.

And now, the city is planning to re-open the River Street Camp. Except this time, the cost of running the River Street Camp will be picked up by a one-time grant from the state.
The council is working with Santa Cruz County leaders to approve more potential sites for the homeless at places like the Veterans of Foreign Wars building in Live Oak and the Salvation Army building on Laurel Street in Santa Cruz. That’s a major step, the city council said, because they’ve been trying to get the county to help more with the homeless problem.
One recent count of the homeless in the city of Santa Cruz came to at least 900 people without housing.

SB: There are 3 other quick things you should know about Tuesday’s Santa Cruz City Council meeting:

• The city will spend more than $200,000 on bus passes for each of the 4,000 people who work in downtown Santa Cruz, not just city employees. It’s part of a $500,000 alternative transportation budget that was approved at that meeting.
  
• Second, the council is still considering changing rules for in-law units. Their goal is to make them easier to build and to increase the city’s housing supply. They adopted one set of rules on Tuesday about which lots are eligible for in-law units to be built. The details are on the Santa Cruz Local website. The council also is set to take up another set of rules on in-laws at their Feb. 26 meeting.
  
• Lastly, a new city task force to explore tenant protections is underway. The city will hire an outside consultant from Sacramento to build the group of stakeholders and help define its mission.
  

That’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening to Santa Cruz Local. Be sure to visit our website at santacruzlocal.org. Thanks to Podington Bear at soundofpicture.com for the music. See you next time.