A new Institute for Policy Studies report, “The Poor Get Prison,” declares: “A democratic society that purports ‘freedom and justice for all’ can’t coexist with one that profiles, criminalizes and blames poor, black and Latino communities. We need to take collective responsibility for our hostile nation where the poor get prison.”

Gary Johnson was one of thousands of people experiencing homelessness when the sheriffs came to roust him. Now he is sentenced to jail for the crime of being caught asleep in Santa Cruz at night. This “criminal” has been smacked down repeatedly by The Law precisely because he was homeless.

More and more cities turn to curfews, prohibitions on begging, sleeping, or “camping” in response to the visible poverty in their public spaces, despite the fact that criminalization is “the most expensive and least effective” method of addressing homelessness. Jail costs two to three times the cost of supportive housing.

He is not cowed, and will keep protesting the criminalization of homelessness. “What am I supposed to do? If the shelters are full and I got to sleep here, I got to sleep here. It can’t be illegal for me to sleep. It’s highly inhumane. I will fight it.”

The Downtown Berkeley Association and the City Council pushed the anti-homeless laws without even consulting any of the city’s commissions. The DBA requested these measures in a wholehearted attempt to transform Berkeley into one of the most repressive cities in California in targeting poor and homeless citizens.

The DBA’s board is dominated by large property owners who were the primary funders of the failed anti-sitting law campaign in 2012. It takes courage to say no to the merchant association’s short-sighted effort to make homelessness and poverty invisible. Courage is in short supply in the Berkeley City Council.

Gov. Brown’s cutbacks will cause suffering from the cradle to the grave. They will fall with devastating force on the poor, disabled, elderly, students and families with young children.

The Good Friday protest at Livermore Laboratory on April 3 has the theme: "Beyond Nuclear Weapons, Beyond Empire, Beyond Racism." We will remember Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech. David Hartsough will lead the service, followed by the Stations of the Cross. Some will commit nonviolent civil disobedience.

Fort Lauderdale faces a lawsuit by Food Not Bombs for criminalizing food sharing. Laws to criminalize homelessness are “a response to the visibility of homelessness in public spaces,” said Kirsten Clanton of Southern Legal Counsel. “It’s business interests. It’s an effort to sanitize public space, often for tourism and tourist dollars.”

An eye-opening film by a UCB student exposes the degrading conditions and overcrowding in SRO hotels in San Francisco. Many low-income families are caught in slum conditions and live in cramped, unsanitary and dangerous rooms. They endure drug-dealing in hallways and managers who threaten tenants and their visitors.