🚀 go-pugleaf

					THE POOR & THE ENVIRONMENT

	As the Headwaters deal falls through with MAXXAM in Washington 
DC, living conditions for the homeless in Humboldt County (CA)
have worsened substantially these past few months.  Not only 
because of President Clinton's anti-poor legislation, the local 
homeless crisis is also due to: 

		1) State Senator Mike Thompson's anti-homeless Senate 
Bill 39; 

		2) county overspending, to build a multimillion-dollar 
"correctional facility," a multimillion-dollar "Taj Mahal" library, 
and other luxury items in and around Eureka; and 

		3) the City of Eureka's plans to spend tens of millions 
of local, state and federal tax dollars, to dredge and develop 
Humboldt Harbor, into a major port o' call for docking massive 
tourist, military and cargo ships (and generating much more 
serious crime, e.g., gang warfare, illegal arms and drug 
trafficking, along with prostitution, domestic violence and other 
expensive social problems for the area). 

	County supervisors have already pushed local taxpayers into a 
sea of "red ink," to the tune of $5.4 million, for their pet 
projects along the Harbor, so to help "balance the budget," they 
decided to cut another $400,000 of welfare assistance, to the 
poorest of the poor, i.e., the homeless, in this high-unemployment 
area, June 24, 1997. 

	Before this drastic cut, GR recipients were already required 
to work for, or pay back the less-than-$800 per year the County 
loaned each of them, to meet all their human needs.  Mostly 
homeless, these recipients will now receive less than a $700-loan 
per person, divided into three (3) monthly payments, to survive 
on for the entire year. 

	This amounts to less than $2 per day for each GR recipient, 
homeless or not. Most of them are physically and(or) mentally 
impaired individuals who have been cut off---or are being
denied SSI/SSA assistance, and other state and federal aid---due 
to the President's latest across-the-board welfare cuts. 

	By depriving the homeless a lawful means of subsistence, local 
government hopes to force them out of Humboldt County, or to 
commit "crimes" of desperation. The county would rather 
incarcerate local homeless, than to provide them with the 
financial assistance and life-sustaining services they need. 

	Local government can collect around $35,000 per prisoner each 
year---from the state and federal government---to pay for their 
new pink "jail," and a proposed new courthouse, and all the red 
ink it costs, to complete them. 

	Bottom line: 1) the County of Humboldt is forcing taxpayers to 
pay for luxury projects, including the 5.4 million dollars they 
cost in red ink, and 2) the County of Humboldt is forcing 
taxpayers to pay $35,000 or more (per year), for each homeless 
prisoner, instead of the much lower amount it would cost, to help 
each of these indigent citizens out of homelessness, joblessness 
and despair. (The est. $35,000 annual cost, to incarcerate each
homeless person does not include the costs, to the victims of 
violent and property crimes.) 

	Additionally, the County of Humboldt has been working for years 
with other agencies, to evict thousands of homeless off Clam Beach 
and other encampments in the area. The last-standing encampment, 
populated by hundreds of homeless men, women and children for the 
past few decades, is on the South Spit Peninsula, at the mouth of 
Humboldt Harbor near Eureka. 

	In the mid-19th century, white settlers of Humboldt County 
massacred Wiyot Indians---mostly old men, women and children, on 
the South Spit, on Indian Island in the middle of Humboldt Bay, 
and all the way to the Mad River above Eureka---for the same reasons local 
officials now want the homeless off the South Spit. Then, as now,
"insignificant others" were in the way of the powerful logging and 
tourist industries that wanted to develop Humboldt Harbor, as a 
major port o' call for global trade. 

	How ironic that Senator Mike Thompson of St. Helena (CA) went to 
the small Wiyot Tribe of today, to gain support for his 
anti-homeless Senate Bill 39. Thompson's SB 39 was meticulously 
designed---and signed into law by Governor Pete Wilson---so the 
State of California could finish what the County of Humboldt began 
in local court; that is, to evict the hundreds of homeless now 
living on the South Spit, by threat or use of force. The South 
Spit homeless may not suffer the same consequences, as the 
massacred Wiyot Indians in the 19th-century, but they will be 
forced deeper into the Headwaters, further away from public schools, 
hospitals and other life-sustaining services most Americans take 
for granted. 

	To get SB 39 passed, the City of Eureka, County of Humboldt and 
Senator Thompson deviously disguised the anti-homeless bill, as 
pro-environment legislation, to gain liberal support. The real 
environmental destruction these "born-again nature lovers" are all
ignoring on Humboldt Bay is not on the South Spit, but straight 
across the channel---just a few hundred yards from the South Spit 
encampment---on the infamous North Spit Peninsula, where MAXXAM 
pulp mills (Horowitz) pollute the land, air and sea for hundreds
of miles in all directions with virtual impunity. 

	Instead of Congressman Frank Riggs and Senator Thompson working with 
local officials, to stop Horowitz on the North Spit---and in the 
nearby 60,000-acre Headwaters Forest---these elected officials 
complain that  the homeless are "an eyesore" on the South Spit 
that scares tourists away, and that pets owned by some of the 
homeless chase and scare birds away, "on the endangered species 
list." 

	The large campaign contributions received by local, state and 
federal politicians---from logging, tourism and related 
industries---are converted into staunch political support, to
log the ancient 60,000-acre Headwaters Forest, 10 miles south of 
Eureka, and to force thousands of homeless to leave the area. The 
County of Humboldt has no intention of relocating the hundreds of 
homeless men, women and children being forced off the South
Spit by SB 39, even though they were sent there by local agencies, 
in the first place. 

	For decades, the County and other government agencies have been 
sending the homeless to the South Spit, so they could avoid having 
to establish a permanent homeless shelter in Eureka, as urged by 
the past two county grand juries, and the State's Housing &
Community Development Department. Now that millions of tax dollars 
are pouring in from the federal government, the powers that be 
want these homeless "to disappear," out of sight and mind. 

	The County of Humboldt also refuses to open its National Guard 
Armory in Eureka, for emergency homeless shelter, as authorized by 
the State each winter. Now that GR assistance amounts to less than 
$2 per day, hundreds more homeless, most of them disabled and
unemployable, are being forced to leave Humboldt County, to become 
"the problem" of other California counties, or neighboring states 
like Oregon and Nevada. 

	Logging and tourism are multimillion-dollar industries in Humboldt 
County, and that is not bad, in and of itself, but when those who 
stand to profit the most from these industries become so selfish 
that they could not care less, if their poor and homeless neighbors 
lived or died, it is very bad, indeed. Effective Wednesday, June 25, 
1997, the American Homeless and World Homeless Union call for a 
GLOBAL ECONOMIC BOYCOTT OF HUMBOLDT COUNTY, CALIFORNIA (USA). 

	We urge all citizens of good conscience outside Humboldt 
County---who care about the plight of the homeless, and want the 
60,000-acre ancient Headwaters Forest preserved---to honor and 
support this global boycott for homeless rights by not spending 
any money in the County, whatsoever, until further notice. Please 
take the time, to register your support, and your personal reasons 
for supporting this global boycott, to Eureka City Hall, at:
cityhall@eurekawebs.com 

Dr. Ruben Botello, Founder 
AMERICAN HOMELESS SOCIETY
WORLD HOMELESS UNION WORLD HOMELESS UNION
http://www.northcoast.com/~sananda 







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