Berkeley Declares an Official Shelter Crisis
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/berkeley-declares-an-official-shelter-crisis/
The Berkeley City Council officially affirmed — in the quietest way possible — that Berkeley has a shelter crisis at its council meeting on Tuesday, January 19, 2016. Councilmember Laurie Capitelli requested that “Declare a Homeless Shelter Crisis in Berkeley,” an action calendar item, be added to the consent calendar instead, the place where non-controversial items can be grouped together for quick passage without the need for changes or discussion. There were no objections.
The item had come from Kriss Worthington’s office and had been booted from meeting to meeting since before the holidays. Worthington is one of the few on the Berkeley City Council who has consistently responded to the need for low-income housing and resisted the criminalization of poverty in the many years he has represented District 7, the southside of the UC campus.
Perhaps the critical mass of people shivering in doorways, behind dumpsters, under freeway overpasses and in parks has finally stuffed a sock in the “we do enough for the homeless” song Mayor Tom Bates usually sings in the face of any suggestion that Berkeley should do more.
Most of the Berkeley City Council loves that song, a song also sung by other city councils which flutter their fans over the common refrain that doing anything more should wait until there’s a “regional” approach to housing, and federal or state funding is made available, etc. It tempts the creative among us to draw a comic of a ragged guy shivering on the street corner holding a sign that says, “Waiting for a regional approach to homelessness. PLEASE HELP.”
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