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Tag: Homelessness in California

Homeless: Modesto Council Rejects Safe Ground

At a special meeting of the Modesto City Council on Friday, October 20, Councilmembers rejected a motion to direct staff to study safe sleeping sites for managing homelessness. The vote was four to three. Approximately 100 people turned out for the event, and public support for the proposal was overwhelming. As Councilmember Eric Alvarez noted, […]

Homeless: Gavin Newsom Chooses Cruelty

Gavin Newsom has doubled down on his failed policy of sweeps and criminalization as the state’s primary tactics for coping with homelessness. Late last month, California’s Governor called for the United States Supreme Court to overrule decisions that have protected homeless people’s rights to sleep in public spaces when no other options are available. Newsom […]

Councilmembers Propose Homeless Management Action Plan

Three Modesto City Councilmembers have submitted a “Safe Ground Homeless Vision” to City Manager Joe Lopez, Mayor Sue Zwahlen, and fellow Councilmembers Rosa Escutia-Braaton, Jeremiah Williams and David Wright. Brief and pragmatic, the plan is intended to reduce, “impacts and public health and safety concerns of unregulated encampments on local businesses and residents.” “We need […]

Stanislaus Sheriff Supports Safe Sleeping for Homeless

During an early September interview with the Modesto Bee, Stanislaus County Sheriff Jeff Dirkse voiced strong support for safe camping for homeless people. “(With safe camping), outreach folks can actually solve problems because we’re condensing them into camps where they can interact with them” said Dirkse. “So, yeah, I fully support it — it’s a […]

No Relief for Low-Income, Unhoused Valley Residents

A couple of Saturdays ago, a man and a woman lay on the grass beside each other in the deep shade of the First United Methodist Church in downtown Modesto. A shopping cart filled with their belongings was parked on the sidewalk nearby.  I saw them as I was walking to the library that afternoon, […]

Series of Violent Assaults Terrorize Modesto’s Homeless

Beginning in mid-August, a wave of violent assaults has terrorized homeless people near Modesto’s Yosemite Avenue and Riverside Drive. Most attacks occurred while people were sleeping. At least one involved assault with a large board, most likely a 2×4. Because of their reluctance to report crimes against them, it’s difficult to assess accurately how many […]

Stanislaus Supervisors to Study Sleeping Plan for Homeless

“Christy Chavez would be alive today if we had safe sleeping for homeless people,” said Lynelle Solomon last Monday, July 31. “All she was looking for was a place to lay her head.” Solomon was referring to the death of 27-year- old Christine Chavez on July  8 in Modesto’s Beard Brook Park. Though the cause […]

Homelessness and Work: A Few Hard Facts

Despite voluminous facts to the contrary, the conventional wisdom still holds that homelessness is a choice. The popular view is that people choose homelessness to avoid the burdens of rent, car payments and honest work in favor of drugs, sloth and moral turpitude. No one has suggested that work itself might be part of the […]

Gruesome Death of Unhoused Woman may have Saved a Life

Even though she was at a public meeting, Lynelle Solomon couldn’t hold back tears. Solomon was listening to public comments at a meeting of the Modesto City Council on July 11 when she heard a homeless advocate describe a grisly death by mowing machine at a park near Modesto’s Airport District, where Solomon has done […]

Homeless Crisis Deepens with Summer Heat

As I waited for a downtown Modesto bus one day in late April I saw a woman pushing a shopping cart jammed with her belongings.  The woman was still young and athletic-looking, but weather-worn from living on the streets. Nonetheless, she carried herself with a weary gracefulness as she wheeled her cart up off the […]