In this weeks Good Times the rubber meets the road. Patrick Dwire investigates how Santa Cruz has been approaching crime within our social services. During a City Council “Homeless Study Session” the community learned the statistics regarding the situation.
Here is a link to that evenings research and information CLICK HERE
The Good Times ran an editorial regarding the situation in Santa Cruz. EDITORIAL
TBSC spokeswoman Analicia Cube is quoted in the article:
Analicia Cube, co-founder of Take Back Santa Cruz (TBSC), Santa Cruz is a “magnet for people to come here and commit crimes.” According to Cube, the message Santa Cruz has sent out around the state has been “if you want cheap, black tar heroin, come to Santa Cruz. And addicts travel here, sometimes hundreds of miles, to get their drugs, and they keep coming and going until they often got stuck here, and then they stay.”
Cube says our message should be that, “We’re a loving, eclectic, open-minded community, but as a community, we will not tolerate or enable criminal activity. People have had it.”
“Everybody in this town deserves a level of safety,” Cube adds, “including homeless people on the street who are preyed upon by criminals.”
She believes TBSC has been mischaracterized as “anti-homeless,” when the real mission of the diverse, grassroots organization is reducing crime.
“I’ve said over and over, it’s about the criminals that hide under the umbrella of homelessness, and making this distinction is critical,” Cube says.
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Take Back Santa Cruz agrees with Mr. Dwire. Drugs are a significant contributor to our problems in Santa Cruz. We as a community have to prioritize funding toward drug and alcohol rehabilitation for those struggling with addiction if we want to achieve our goal of a healthy city.