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51 | Written Communication woman was screaming profanities at the children. Our community is a young community, with many first time home buyers who came to Alameda to start their families. There are nearly 100 young children who live here. These families thought Alameda was safe, and they chose to make one of the biggest investments of their lives in choosing to plant roots here. Instead, our community is becoming unlivable and without a change, some residents may face serious financial harm as their property values plummet. We are trying hard to build a healthy and vibrant community but hope is waning. We need help from our city government desperately. By all accounts, APD has indicated that these particular individuals would not go to a shelter even if beds were available (though I recognize that is not the case for all homeless). Clearly they have had every offer of support extended to them from Operation Dignity, etc, and they have chosen THIS life. I am not a lawyer but I am trying hard to understand the legal angles here. While I understand that the 9th Circuit's ruling is the reason that APD no longer believes they can force these homeless to move off of city property or our parks, I have additional questions. 1. Are the homeless allowed to select any real estate that appeals to them or does the City have the ability to find more suitable city property for them to camp on? With the number of parks and parcels of public land in Alameda, I don't think it is fair or reasonable to burden one park or neighborhood with all of this blight and terror. My recommendation is that these homeless individuals should rotate to all parts of Alameda, equitably and fairly. There are well over a dozen parks in Alameda. What prevents us from requiring the homeless encampment to move to a new park or public space each month? That way, the residents nearby will know that they have to bear the disturbances for only a month each year and we can all equally share in this as a community. The community has recently demonstrated great compassion for the homeless with the "Yes" vote on Measure A, so I am confident that all parts of Alameda would welcome the opportunity to share fairly in this. 2. What are our rights as law-abiding, tax-paying property owners in Alameda? Can you recommend any particular law sections that we should be exploring to help us understand our rights? The California constitution and bill of rights are fairly vague on this, so I'm hoping to understand this better. I suppose our HOA or a group of residents could hire our own legal counsel to explore options here, but we certainly would prefer that as a last resort, and we hope that the City government can assist in protecting our rights as they do the rights of these individuals. Incidentally, the Alameda Landing community pays significantly MORE in taxes than any other community in Alameda due to special CFD's for infrastructure AND city services but I know that doesn't give us any extra anything, other than sting and disappointment from this problem. 3. Based on what you're hearing, do you expect a Supreme Court challenge to this ruling? 4. If shelter beds are available and the homeless refuse to go, then what? 5. Why would a community invest in parks if they can't be used and enjoyed for the purposes they were created for? Without resolution on this issue, perhaps the city should consider selling off parks for private development where laws around trespassing |