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It's always complicated. > I've talked with many at a coffee shop (no longer open) over the last half dozen years. The Perg I presume? I spent many days work

It's always complicated. > I've talked with many at a coffee shop (no longer open) over the last half dozen years. The Perg I presume? I spent many days working from that place with my car parked for free in the adjacent now-pay parking lot. Santa Cruz has changed a lot in the last ~6 years. I used to visit regularly from SF, practically every week, when there was still free parking downtown with The Perg and LOGOS used books to patronize. Nowadays there's practically nothing there of interest to me personally, not worth paying parking for, on top of the long drive anyways. The last few times I made the drive down there the high point was the strawberries from Swanton farms en route. It's more than just an assault on the homeless. The city has transformed quite a bit in general. Much of its hippy/artsy/punk culture has diminished and everything is trying to be more sterile and bourgeoisie IMHO. LOGOS and The Perg closing marked the end of an era.

jmspring 8y ago
They marked an end, but on the other end, the enablement of the tweaked out and mentally unstable with catch and release policies also marked an end. The city is in a spiral of it's own creation - lax policies and pretty lax enforcement of violent crime and "hard" drug use (coupled with county policies of no services and releasing them back into the community) are pushing people away from the commercial areas. Residential areas are gentrifying, yes, but with people that are busy somewhere else most of the week (or potentially second homes). At the same time, a vocal minority is insisting, as I mentioned, on solving all the worlds problems without any expectation of rule of law, decency, etc. This isn't sustainable. However, it has engendered a significant non-profit industry base that work towards "solving homeless issues", but there is a lot of overhead, overlap, and little consensus on how to move forward. When there is a request for accountability (for renewal of funding), nearly all of them scream bloody murder because that means rules for them. It's not a healthy community.

jmspring 8y ago

They marked an end, but on the other end, the enablement of the tweaked out and mentally unstable with catch and release policies also marked an end. The city is in a spiral of it's own creation - lax policies and pretty lax enforcement of violent crime and "hard" drug use (coupled with county policies of no services and releasing them back into the community) are pushing people away from the commercial areas. Residential areas are gentrifying, yes, but with people that are busy somewhere else most of the week (or potentially second homes). At the same time, a vocal minority is insisting, as I mentioned, on solving all the worlds problems without any expectation of rule of law, decency, etc. This isn't sustainable. However, it has engendered a significant non-profit industry base that work towards "solving homeless issues", but there is a lot of overhead, overlap, and little consensus on how to move forward. When there is a request for accountability (for renewal of funding), nearly all of them scream bloody murder because that means rules for them. It's not a healthy community.