Extra

It's happening now in Berkeley. A funny, clunky, three-leg legislation race about poverty on a collision course. 

First you have the city's Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Homelessness, which may have started with diverse voices but quickly devolved into something disdained by the very people about to be impacted by the Subcommittee's (surprise!) new sidewalk laws headed for the council in February and which may convert the new BART Plaza into a year-long conflict zone. It's now a sprinkle of council voices and city staff most of whom still think homelessness can be ticketed away. 

Second, you have the Commission on Homelessness, which consistently reflects common sense and best practices: bathrooms, wash stations, safe camping places, and trash pickup for groups of people with literally nowhere else to go. Commissioner Carol Marasovic, invited to present the Commission's recommendations to the Berkeley City Council on January 23rd, 2018, remained amused and upbeat as she was outflanked by city representatives at her table insisting that they were already doing those things, or were about to get around to it. The Commission on Homelessness's recommendations were passed on in favor of a companion report by the city recommending that the city was almost there anyway. 

Third, you have an array of outside pressures: the lawsuit by First They Came for the Homeless, with U.S. District Judge William Alsup allowing the group to broaden their complaint against the City of Berkeley if the city attempts to enforce or threatens to enforce a state law during the housing shortage; the actions of nearby cities including Oakland in recognizing the necessity of bathrooms, wash stations, medical assistance, campgrounds, and trash pickup for people in need; a growing Hepatitis C outbreak; a visit by a United Nations (UN) representative for an upcoming international report on the treatment of people forced to live outside on the streets. 

The battle over who gets to use the sidewalks is even more fascinating given that the City of Berkeley has joined other municipalities in creating "public-private partnerships" in public spaces governed uneasily by commercial restaurants and cafes. Did your path to the post office just get narrowed by permanent or semi-permanent tables and chairs? Do neighboring businesses now routinely put out permit-free tables and chairs cluttering and obstructing access through commercial areas? Can someone who doesn't buy anything sit down? 

No one can miss these comical phenomena. But somehow the sidewalk laws being unveiled by the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Homelessness are tailored toward making it difficult for people, not merchants who routinely try to capitalize on their proximity to a public sidewalk. 

The next move should be to send the new sidewalk rules proposal from the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Homelessness to relevant commissions. Skipping this step will guarantee conflict and ensure misunderstanding, not to mention legal challenges. The UN rep was clear; while other countries organize to attend and assist people in need, US cities, and California in particular, have build an ineffective mountain of confusing ordinances -3 feet from here and 5 feet from there plus sunset laws requiring careful attendance as to whether it is 7 am or 6 am, idiocy designed to trap and catch people who circle the courts or the drain depending on their health and stamina.

We're better than this as a city. There are a few voices on the council who share community concerns about the city's and the Downtown Berkeley Association's (DBA) decades of discrimination. But the oversight the DBA needs is still missing, something that should be a no-brainer after all the court cases and discriminatory legislation born in their back rooms, often with the council's help.

An informal overture to the DBA, which is being given a contract to control BART Plaza, to enlist their cooperation with a small group of community members tasked to clarify policy and field complaints could still come from commissions and councilmembers. The DBA's current promotions are highly selective; entire festivals are left out of their ad campaigns, which makes no sense even from a business angle. But still there is currently no independent group to whom one can raise the issue. 

Filtering these decisions through DBA CEO John Caner, who plunked his friend's strange bear sculpture down in a public plaza because he could is a good example of how even art can be used to reinforce cliques and conventions of discrimination instead of our city's commitments to inclusion and innovation. It's especially bewildering in a city with so many arts and civil rights groups working tirelessly to recognize institutional discrimination and affirm the need to include more diversity, more history, and more avenues to inclusion. Our arts and our legislation benefit wildly from the embrace of brilliant, if unexpected, community voices. 

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Caption: First They Came for the Homeless's lawsuit survived a legal challenge and is being allowed to broaden its complaint against the City of Berkeley by U.S. District Judge William Alsup.