The Supreme Court conservative majority recently rolled back decades of progressive social policy in its June 28 Grants Pass decision, writes community organizer Joy Schendledecker. The decision, she writes, allows police to displace people more broadly, ignores national and international “evolving standards of decency” and opens the door to more punitive, criminalizing policies against people without housing. Here, she outlines her fears for how it will affect Santa Cruz County.
Joy Schendledecker
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Joy Schendledecker for Santa Cruz City Council District 3: I want to help craft public policy and budgets for maximum well-being
Joy Schendledecker says her entry into electoral politics might seem “surprising or unconventional,” but for her it’s a natural progression from her decades of activism, art and public service.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
2023 storms lesson: Santa Cruz County needs a better, more inclusive emergency response plan
Community organizer and former Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Joy Schendledecker sees a glaring problem with our community’s emergency response system. It is inadequate and does not, she writes, “include anyone explicitly representing the unhoused, non-English-speaking, elder or disabled communities.” She challenges our officials to do better, to learn from past mistakes, and to work more collectively and transparently to help those most in need. All of us, she insists, might one day need these services.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
We are voting for Justin Cummings; Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson’s policies are detrimental to the unhoused
Santa Cruz Cares is against the choices the Santa Cruz City Council has made on dealing with our community’s unhoused. This includes the clearing of the Benchlands encampment and the oversized vehicle ordinance — both of which, its members write, they believe harm the unhoused unfairly and don’t offer viable, lasting or empathetic solutions to their plight. They feel Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson’s record of voting for these policies make her a poor candidate for Santa Cruz County 3rd District Supervisor. They have endorsed Justin Cummings.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Joy Schendledecker for mayor: Santa Cruz needs truly progressive ideas and a mayor who will fight for justice in housing, jobs and the environment
Joy Schendledecker is a community organizer, member of the Santa Cruz chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, co-founder of Santa Cruz Cares and Sanitation for the People, as well as an artist and a mother of two teens. Her leadership skills, she says, are “generally not recognized in our culture” and include grassroots organizing and neighborhood consensus-building and care work for family and community. She believes Santa Cruz needs new ideas and to elect someone who is rooted in the community she represents: the underpaid and overworked, tenants, workers and unions, families, elders, people with disabilities, our LGBTQIA+ community, students and young people.