Homeless Charge It’s ‘Open Season’ in Santa Barbara

In life, Michael Stephenson was just one of the many tramps who camp out in the parks and alleyways of this otherwise prosperous seaside community.

But his brutal murder at the hands of a cadet at Northwestern Preparatory School here on Aug. 4--the second killing of a transient here in nine months--has become a symbol in an ongoing battle between the city’s 2,000 homeless people and many of the 75,000 residents who want to kick them out of town.

On Wednesday, inflamed by a jury verdict of second-degree murder against David Kurtzman, 18, who--allegedly with a companion who will be tried later--slashed Stephenson’s throat while he slept and stabbed him 17 times, a group of street people and their supporters demonstrated in front of City Hall over what they called an “open season” against the homeless here.

More than 30 homeless men and women, some of them holding American flags, stood by as advocate attorneys lashed out against local ordinances that prohibit transients from sleeping in public, harassment by police and the lack of adequate shelter for transients.

“The homeless here are officially viewed as . . . an offensive blight upon the landscape to be swept away and in the same manner that the city bulldozers clear debris from the beaches after a storm,” said Dennis Flanagan, an attorney with the Legal Defense Center of Santa Barbara.

“In order to discourage more homeless from coming to Santa Barbara, and to drive out those already here,” Flanagan added, “the city has dragged its heels every inch of the way to provide assistance, either directly to the homeless or to those private citizens and churches whose sense of humanity stirs them to action.”

Mitch Snyder, a member of the Washington-based advocate group, Community for Creative Non-Violence, drew a wild response from the crowd when he threatened to organize a massive march on Santa Barbara if the city does not end its “barbaric, selfish and ignorant ways” and “dirty little ordinances.”

“We will come in numbers you haven’t seen before,” Snyder warned, “and there aren’t enough police officers in this town or jails to stop us.”

Snyder’s comments erupted into a shouting match with Frank Trinkle, a 29-year-old computer salesman, who railed at him for suggesting that more shelters be built for people who “don’t clean up after themselves.”

“The more shelters they build, the more attractive Santa Barbara will be to homeless across the United States,” said Trinkle, who moved here four months ago. “The solution is that no more people be allowed to come to Santa Barbara.”

Santa Barbara City Councilman Lyle Reynolds, who stood nearby and listened to the speakers, said most of the charges leveled during the demonstration were “ridiculous.”

“The homeless problem across the nation is a disgrace,” he said, “not just in Santa Barbara.” He added that the city’s moves against its street people have been conducted at the request of residents.

Moreover, he blamed Santa Barbara County and state and federal government agencies that have seen their budgets slashed in recent years for the city’s inability to provide more than 100 beds for its thousands of homeless.

“It’s the county that takes care of welfare cases . . . and they haven’t done enough,” he said, amid catcalls and boos from transients who stood nearby.

The controversy over the homeless here is not new. But it reached a fever pitch in December, 1984, after transient Kenneth Burr, 35, was found murdered in his sleeping bag, when city officials seriously considered three proposed ordinances. One, to ban the removal of food from garbage cans, was rejected. But officials approved measures extending a ban on drinking-on-the-streets to cover a park frequented by transients and restricting hours in a small park where the historic Moreton Bay fig tree stands. Five years earlier they had approved an ordinance prohibiting sleeping in parks after dark.

Charges by Officials

Under pressure from residents to make Santa Barbara less comfortable for transients, city officials charged at the time that the homeless were shoplifting, verbally abusing passers-by and generally tarnishing the city’s image.

Now, with the support of attorneys from the Legal Defense Center, the transients of Santa Barbara have launched a bold offensive.

“Two weeks ago we got tired of police handing out tickets for illegal camping,” said Mark Edmonds, 36, an unemployed skin diver’s tender. “So 35 to 40 of us slept on the steps of City Hall for seven days until the mayor would talk to us.”

Meanwhile, Legal Defense Center attorneys orchestrated a move to strike down a Santa Barbara County law denying voting rights to people who do not have addresses. In a major victory, a state appeals court in January sided with the homeless and ordered an end to the voting restriction.

Supreme Court Action

They scored another victory earlier this month when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the city to formally respond to a legal challenge against the ban on sleeping in local parks.

“This city’s response to the homeless is the application of a cruel logic designed to send them packing by making a basic human necessity of sleeping a crime,” Flanagan said. “More than a hundred thousand dollars was wasted in arresting and prosecuting the homeless for the innocent conduct of sleeping at night in the only place, by definition, the homeless can sleep----outside in public.”

Indeed, dozens of transients on Wednesday told of being rousted out of their sleep by police officers and then handed citations carrying fines too steep to pay. A few said they routinely go to jail over these citations.

“It’s getting to be a Matt Dillon kind of thing around here: Get out of town by sunset,” said one young hobo.

“My request to the city is simple,” added David Collier, a lanky, 40-year-old, self-described street person, who arrived here in 1973: “Leave me alone.”