Homeless Sanctuary Crusaders Plan To 'Set Record Straight' at City Council Meeting

Hoping to "bring sanctuary" to the transients of Santa Cruz, the grassroots group, Santa Cruz Sanctuary Village, is being blasted this week by opponents of its plans to erect a homeless encampment. 

Santa Cruz Is About to Make A Horrible Mistake, is the headline from Stab Santa Cruz.

"Santa Cruz needs to face the issue of resident transients in a logical and realistic manner," the author writes. "Creating a camp for just a handful of the 9,000 plus transients will not solve anything." (Story here.) 

And Take Back Santa Cruz, reportedly, also encouraged its supporters to let their opposition to a tent city be known to city and county officials.

Santa Cruz Sanctuary Village advocates, meanwhile, remain undaunted.

"While we are flattered by the attention, we are concerned because the blog-based conversation is full of misinformation and incorrect statistics. We feel it is important to bring some calm rationality to the matter," said Stacey Falls, one of the Sanctuary Village organizers.

Falls said she and fellow advocate Brent Adams will attend Tuesday's Santa Cruz City Council meeting "to set the record straight." 

"We feel it is important to make sure all of our elected officials know that there is a strong base of support for this well-researched, well-thought-out program," she said.

The Stab Santa Cruz encampment critic, however, states in his blog: "There is absolutely no guarantee a transient tent city will reduce crime. If anything, with over 50 percent of transients having some sort of mental health issue, crime will be concentrated in the area of the camp."

To read more abut the Sanctuary Village plans, follow this link on Facebook. Attached to this posting is one of the group's YouTube video's explaining the efforts.