For thoughts about what you might say and links to lots of solutions that don’t criminalize the act of existing, of being. Meeting is tonight at 5:30 in room 108 of the city-county building.
If you want to send your own email, here are their addresses! Mary Carbine and Tom Hirsch are out on vacation. Mat Covert’s email bounces back for some reason.
plotkinaj@gmail.com
amcclendon97@gmail.com
davymayer@gmail.com
gfrank@foodfightinc.com
district2@cityofmadison.com
mcarbine@visitdowntownmadison.com (lobbyist for the BID)
mjcovert@1kfriends.org
district4@cityofmadison.com
room@chorus.net
tecrabb@gmail.com
tehirsch@gmail.com
Downtown Coordinating Committee Members:
First of all – thank you for all your thoughtful work on the Philosopher’s Stone and coming to a compromise. I’m sorry the Mayor ignored that work.
Second – three minutes is not enough time to testify – and I have a lot of information for you. I apologize for using my blog to distribute the information (see links in email below), but I didn’t want to have to kill several trees to get the information to you.
This bench ordinance is part of criminalizing homelessness. We have ordinances on the books to address bad behaviors. This ordinance punishes “being”. People have the right to live in our city. In order to live you have to sleep. If you are out of days at shelter, where do you sleep? Sleeping for only 4.5 hours a night has detrimental affects – and this ordinance essentially outlaws sleeping and resting that people need to live, to be. I believe the DOJ opinion on these types of ordinances applies to this ordinance as well and we are all wasting our time, and probably tax payer dollars – meantime, we’re not working on real solutions.
We have already provided the mayor with many solutions. He asked some of us to be an advisory group and we came up with that list. I also provided the City-County Liaison a huge handout with reports and information we have for local solutions when they were discussing kicking people off the front porch of the City-County Building in June. A summary of the places to find the local reports and solutions are here. I also did a brief summary of the solutions suggested by the Federal Government – USICH (United State Interagency Council on Homelessness) as alternatives to criminalization.
To me, the answers are obvious. Put money and effort into Housing First and Zero 2016 to get people off the streets. And a DAY CENTER. Looks like we are going into the 5th winter and we will have no solutions, again. Lots of other recommendations in all those documents. I’m partial to the recommendations we gave the mayor, as that was the latest group effort to think through these issues. What I do know is that these banning efforts over the past 5 – 10 years have not been working. Homelessness is increasing and nothing is being solved. And we are wasting time and money.
Good luck in your deliberations this evening. Clearly, I’m urging you to vote against this ordinance. Additionally, anything you can do to help get the business community, police, non-profits, advocates and the people impacted – those without homes, in the same room would be much appreciated. We need to have a conversation with each other – instead of in separate venues. We’re a smart community, we can come up with compassionate solutions. And yes, the mayor can enforce the rules we have, just don’t target a group of people who can’t comply – people need to sit and sleep – these are life sustaining activities that everyone must do – and if you’re homeless, you need a place to do them.Thank you for listening.
Sorry I didn’t have time to get this info to you sooner.
