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Scottish Charity Register No. SC043760

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War on Californian homeless

May 18 2009
What‘s happening in Berkeley may ring some bells with our readers Berkeley, California, USA, has few similarities with London, but what's happening with its homeless populace may ring bells with our readers and shows what might happen on London's streets as 2012 approaches... On 12th June, the city council voted to order the police to carry out a clean sweep of its homeless population. Mayor Tom Bates and merchants have teamed up to get tough on the homeless in an effort to bring more business to the city. The latest proposals - cynically called 'The Public Commons for Everyone Initiative' (for everyone except the homeless, advocates say) - are an assortment of incoherent and wacky punitive measures that are meant to harass the homeless out of the city of Berkeley. Further anti-homeless proposals scheduled to be put to the vote in the autumn include: strict enforcement of laws against noise disturbances such as yelling; parking a bicycle against a window or on a parking meter; smoking near buildings; unauthorized possession of a milk crate or shopping cart; obstructing or restricting use of the sidewalk; reducing warning provisions for sitting or lying down on sidewalks, littering or hitching animals to fixed objects; increased fines for using the great outdoors as a lavatory; public drunkenness or drug abuse; and anything else that city officials can dream up as an excuse to run the homeless out of town. The People's Park bathroom, which is frequented by the homeless, closes at 10 pm, and all other public restrooms in the city close at the same time as most businesses, leaving the homeless without facilities throughout the night.
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