This letter is to bring to your attention our urgent concern that agents representing the City of Santa Cruz continue to enforce laws that injure and prejudice homeless people. The City's Police Department, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and other agencies threaten, cite, and arrest residents under three ill-considered, inconsistently applied, and morally unacceptable laws.

The Sleeping Ban (MC 6.36.010a) forbids sleep between 11 pm and 8:30 am, anywhere in public within the City of Santa Cruz. MC 6.36.010b prohibits covering up with blankets during the same hours. MC 6.36.010c prohibits protecting oneself with a tent or tarp overnight against the elements--even when there is no alternative shelter.

We believe these ordinances to be unconstitutional on their face and as applied, and we are prepared to challenge them in court.

We are planning to file a lawsuit in mid-December. It is particularly important that the homeless community receive some relief in winter, because you have emergency shelter space this winter for less than 160 of the estimated 1500-2000 people experiencing homelessness in Santa Cruz.

We believe your own records will show that most of those cited under these ordinances are homeless. The Homeless Service Center has certified each month that it has had no space in its emergency shelter program (the Interfaith Satellite Shelter Program) throughout the spring, summer, and fall. Yet tickets are relentlessly and repeatedly given out by police and rangers with full knowledge of these intolerable conditions.

City Council-appointed Commissions (the City's Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women in 1998, the Homeless Issues Task Force in 1999) have found that these laws produce needless harm; that they interfere with and sometimes prevent ordinary self-care; and have contributed to ostracism.

Forcing homeless people to hide from law enforcement authorities denies them the relative safety of camping or sleeping together; discourages them from using police services for protection; and makes it more risky to sleep near emergency services. Homeless women are at greater risk for rape.

Hence these laws constitute a barrier to safety and health care access. They have even been cited as a contributing factor in premature deaths of homeless people who have no safe place in which to sleep at night. This year the shortage of flu vaccine increases the risk of illness and negatively affects the general health of the community.

We also note a disturbing trend to increase the criminalization of the homeless in vehicles-by making parking illegal at night in many areas of the city; by redesigning some parking lots during the day (such as those at Lighthouse Field) to exclude camper vehicles; and by a police outreach effort encouraging harassment of homeless people in vehicles and denying police protection for those so harassed by private individuals.

This year's annual "Meanest Cities" report of the National Coalition for the Homeless lists Santa Cruz as being among the 15% of the 179 cities surveyed that have laws that explicitly criminalize sleep.

We need the city to take immediate positive steps to address this situation. Last year more than 45 homeless people in the County died. The assault rate against homeless people, compared with those with homes, is at least three times higher than , according to 1999 SCPD figures. The nearly-completed family shelter will unfortunately serve only a small fraction of the homeless population, families--at a cost of $5.4 million.