Clearing the Coral Street encampment days before the point-in-time count won’t house anyone — it just hides the problem, writes Food Not Bombs founder Keith McHenry. By scattering unhoused people out of sight, the City of Santa Cruz can claim progress while worsening daily survival. McHenry writes that he sees up to 200 people every week in rising meal lines in the city and folks complaining about lost tents and property. If Santa Cruz wants honest data and real solutions, he believes we have to stop mistaking displacement for success.
Opinion from Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Water decides who wins in California – that’s why I wrote my new novel
OPINION: After a decade of research and writing, Santa Cruz author Victoria Tatum is preparing for the release of her second novel, “More Than Any River,” which transforms California’s water wars into a human story rooted in the Central Valley.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Let’s decriminalize mental illness: Santa Cruz doesn’t need a mental health jail
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Chris Clark has floated the idea of a new “mental health jail,” pointing to the high number of incarcerated people on psychiatric medication. But jail is not treatment, and incarceration only deepens trauma and mental illness, write Kasi Tkaczyk and Julia Gratton.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Senate should pass Kayla Hamilton Act to prevent tragedies
In a letter to the editor, a Santa Cruz resident urges the U.S. Senate to pass a law he says will help fix deadly flaws.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Fighting L.A. wildfires broke my heart but prepared me for life outside prison
“When people think of incarcerated people, they often see us as a danger, with our past mistakes magnified,” writes Jose Angel Amezcua, a formerly incarcerated firefighter from Salinas who helped battle the disastrous January 2025 blazes in the Los Angeles area. “Amid the smoke, ash, and destruction of the L.A. fires, people saw us as heroes, recognizing the good we could achieve when given a second chance.”
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Letter to the editor: Police need to be accountable for Flock sharing
In a letter to the editor, a Santa Cruz resident takes issue with how the city’s police chief characterized his department’s interactions with Flock Safety data.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I made Santa Cruz the setting for two chapters of my novel – here’s why
Max Talley, a writer living in Santa Barbara, set two pivotal chapters of his recent book “Peace, Love & Haight” in Santa Cruz. Here, he explains why the Beach Boardwalk and the drive north up Highway 1 figure into his hippie crime novel set in 1969.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Don’t risk our coast again: Say no to offshore drilling in Monterey Bay
OPINION: California learned the hard way that oil drilling and healthy oceans don’t mix, writes Dennis Kelso, a former UC Santa Cruz environmental studies professor who served as Alaska commissioner of environmental conservation during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
No trees, no voice: How the City of Santa Cruz is greenlighting development without the public
After Santa Cruz’s planning commission approved doing away with public hearings for some large affordable housing projects and moved a special zoning area forward, activist Gillian Greensite warns that the public could not only be robbed of its voice but of some of the city’s heritage trees, too.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
We can stop ICE terror: It’s time to organize
The Trump administration governs through fear, particularly in the way it handles immigration, writes UC Santa Cruz researcher Veronica Hamilton. The antidote to terror is organization, she writes — and the time to build it is now.