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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Hopeful homeless in search of a 'safe ground'
by Dunia Hamza , published on July 22, 2010 at 8:25 PM
Storyline: SafeGround Sacramento
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Sacramento’s homeless are still searching for safe ground after the tent city was taken down in April 2009.
On Tuesday, homeless camper and SafeGround movement leader John Kraintz, Sacramento civil rights lawyer Mark Merin, State Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg and activists from nonprofit organizations around Sacarmento marched from Friendship Park to Cesar Chavez Park in celebration of the SafeGround Movement.
They were joined by homeless men and women as they marched, sang, danced and spoke on behalf of the homeless.
Using a microphone, which echoed through speakers around the stage, musicians and speakers were heard loud and clear by the crowd of more than 100.
“People came together on Tuesday to celebrate the conclusion of a year, to celebrate life and a common goal, and to demonstrate to the city of Sacramento that we are a coherent force,” Merin said.
SafeGround Sacramento is a nonprofit homeless rights and advocacy organization founded by homeless people working to establish a safe and legal place for Sacramento’s homeless to stay and sleep.
Last August, Mayor Kevin Johnson camped out with Sacramento’s homeless community in efforts to find a legal place for homeless people to reside.
A month later, Johnson launched a plan to find 2,400 housing units for homeless people during the next three years.
Almost a year after Johnson’s camping with them, homeless people like Kraintz are hopeful, but still waiting.
“This is a movement for homeless people, by homeless people,” Krainitz said. “SafeGround is many things at this point; it’s a social justice movement trying to find equality for all people, it is a camping gear supply store for people that don't have anything and need to sleep outside.”
Food Not Bombs served tofu, salad, fruit salad, chocolate cake and iced tea and the line for food stretched across the park. Many local bands and musicians, such as Pinkie and the Blind Resistance, had the crowd dancing and singing along to their classical rock tunes and modern blues.
Since April 2009, advocates have been trying to move away from the notion of a “tent city.”
“We have been fighting to acquire and develop a piece of land that we can use, for about 60 homeless people hopefully, so that they can have a place to go at a time when the county has pretty much cut off all their shelters and there are only a few beds left,” Kraintz said.
Sacramento’s “camping ordinance” has made it illegal for anyone to camp on public property. At least 1,200 men, women and children sleep outdoors in Sacramento. More on this information can be found on the SafeGround website. (SafeGround)
Both Merin and Kraintz expressed a similar thought about the progress SafeGround has made in the past year.
“The principle progress made is in the organization of the participants, establishing a nonprofit organization and gaining respect and recognition from members of the community,” Merin said.
Kraintz added, “In the beginning of the movement, they started out to find a place where homeless people can go. What we have learned is that we are building a community, and that is something that is really lacking.”
Although SafeGround members are hopeful, locating land has proved to be a challenge. The proposed pilot site has yet to be determined, according to Merin.
It will take up to a year, hundreds of thousands of dollars, compliance with zoning laws and public support to get the project done.
“We need to think outside of the box in an economy that has been severely taxed,” Merin said.
Loaves & Fishes is one of the three nonprofit organizations supporting SafeGround.
“Once we get support of the city, county and neighbors to help find an adequate piece of land, we are going to be the biggest model for the nation by showing a way of providing a need for the homeless,” said Loaves & Fishes’ executive director, Sister Libby Fernandez.
SafeGround has received a $25,000 grant from Catholic Healthcare West and has been promised a $50,000 grant for development from HomeAid Sacramento.
Steinberg took the stage as the celebration drew to a close.
The crowd cheered as Steinberg advocated for combating homelessness.
“This is a human rights issue, and it begins with SafeGround,” he said. “It beings with everyone having their own little sliver or slice of safe ground to be able to create a new beginning.”
“I’m very proud to be here with you as we fight all kinds of demons over at the State Capitol. Being out here with you is grounding for me.”
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This is not correct in my neighborhood.
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SafeGround, is a term that I came up with over a year and a half ago, putting together the two words, bolding, italicizing, and capitalizing the S and G, and using this word this term in this way so as to keep my vision and definition of it from being changed, please go to my Internet Domain of http://www.SafeGround.org and find out more, by the way, SafeGround.org was created before safegroundsac.org.
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Bottom line is, that I applaud anyone, any group, or any corporate private charity, that will help the homeless, be it a so called Safe Ground in a park like setting or not, but please do not call it, ‘SafeGround’, as in what I explained it to mean above!
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I as the one and only person to actually more then a year and a half ago, go before the Sacramento City Council to demand that they make available a SafeGround for the homeless, by not only speaking to this point, but submitting this demand, ‘in writing’, as well, and also giving this written material, this demand for SafeGround, to the representatives of the County Board of Supervisors who were in attendance at that meeting as well.
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To make a long story short, as the saying goes, I, (http://www.SafeGround.org), am still trying to get the Government to do what it should be doing, and that is to create SafeGround areas where needed for the homeless, please check out, (http://www.SafeGround.org), for more information.
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We have enough political babble, Orwellian Double Speak, and smoke and mirrors type of games being played with some trying to change one thing to mean something else so as to serve their agenda and/or disenfranchise another’s, we do not need any more of that sort of thing happening, innocently or not.
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Again, I applaud anyone, any group, or any corporate private charity, that will help the homeless, be it a so called Safe Ground in a park like setting or not, but please do not call it, ‘SafeGround’, as in what I explained it to mean above!
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Please note, this is not to be hurtful to anyone or any Corporation like, (‘safeground Sacramento Inc.’/Loaves and Fishes).
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(SafeGround/SafeGround.org)
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I commend the ideal, for this coming winter, particularly and perhaps solely, of having whatever encampment can be made safe and legal that the SafeGrounders want.
But the public needs to know that SafeGround has as the cornerstone of their movement, coming from the lawyers, an effort to overturn the politics of this country, to make it communist, with guaranteed jobs for all, and forcing an end to advancements in technology. A Soviet America with a huge invasive government is what they want. Much money and effort is being taken up by that. At their rally, Tuesday, I passed out fliers - you can see one here: http://sacramentohomeless.blogspot.com/p/safeground-flier.html The links prove my case regarding the abominable politics at the heart of SafeGround.
The "march" on Tuesday was bucked up by Loaves & Fishes closing Friendship Park, with next-to-no warning, and seeing to it that there would be food for the homeless in Chavez Park. The crowd was not all supporters of Safe Ground, but a mass of people, that by carrot and stick, L&F 'manufactured.'
Please also understand that, so far as creating a campground is concerned, SafeGround HAS GOTTEN NOWHERE! Their wild guess, pulled out of a hat, after having accomplished NOTHING is that doing everything to create a campground, starting now, will take a year. Other than raising money on false pretenses, SafeGround's 'accomplishment' is to offend the city council and county supervisors, making the possiblity of a legal campground *less* likely.
Note, too, that last winter the mayor gave the Safe Ground core people hotel rooms for the winter while the rest of us homeless scampered for shelter space and slept outside. One person died downtown when night temperatures dropped to 27 degrees, while the Safe Ground people watched HBO and drank beer.
I love your insight into the real stories behind these trumped up media events. I like the comment "John Kraintz is committed to not working and is, truly, essentially, Loaves & Fishes's poster boy"
I was thinking the same thing. How can a healthy guy like John Kraintz who clearly has some organizational and media skills be out of a job for a year and half.
There are lots of homeless living on the streets who truly do need a hand up and some human charity. And then you get characters like John Kraintz and Mark Merin playing their political charades. Keep it up Tom!
It really is a scandal what all is going on and how the public gets duped by The Media -- very much including Sacramento Press, to the marginal extent that it is Media -- into believing that SafeGround IS the homeless and is fully on the side of Good.
Kraintz is, rather understandably, enjoying all the attention he gets. His head is fully turned by being a local celebrity, of sorts.
Kraintz is certainly talented, but, from all that I see, easily and cheaply manipulated.
Jason Correia
Safe Ground Elder
Homeless Advocate
Looks like a pretty thin 'crowd' - everyone must have been busy stealing from recycling bins.
"Give a man some food from Loaves and Fishes and he eats for a day (or a week or forever) ....."
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