Friends,
Given that we are at over 200 signatures (THANK YOU SO MUCH!), I believe it's important to update you on the state of our work. Yesterday, I spoke with the city council and explained from a quantitative and qualitative perspective, why their proposition is bad. Unfortunately do to technical difficulties, the first part of the council meeting was not recorded, nor was it streamed on YouTube. If you would like to read that speech, I have it linked below.
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UO73tD6j_WtiZ5W7bgs33iSOyrF1Cq9y4S_1rRAfw_w/edit?usp=sharing
Luckily though, we have gained enough momentum with this petition that KSN and KWCH both have reached out to me to learn more about our petition. KWCH's interview has not come out yet, but KSN's interview can be found at the link below:
Link:
https://www.ksn.com/news/homeless-advocates-urge-city-to-not-pass-new-illegal-camping-ordinance/
I feel though, as if some members of the city council have not listened to the data driven approach I have presented to them. So, I will speaking again next Tuesday during public comments when the city council votes. Council member Johnston in particular recently said, "There's not going to be a massive sweep". What needs to be made clear is that no matter how small the sweep, studies have conclusively shown that sweeps do nothing for a city except waste taxpayer money, displace people already burdened by economic injustice, decrease the life expectancy of people experiencing homeless, and increase the likelihood that people affected will die of an overdose. Additionally, I have noticed a lack of comments from council members regarding the fines in their proposal.
I invite anyone who is able to make it to the next city council meeting with me. The meeting will be from 9 AM to Noon at city hall on December 17th. The vote will likely take place between 9:00 AM and 11 AM.
We need to be making decisions about the future of this city based on hard data not vibes.
(Again thank you all so much for the support)
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Sincerely,
Piper Thomas