The homeless: Pawns in the war on OWS?

A death at Occupy NOLA leaves protesters questioning the motives behind the city's closure of a nearby tent city

A homeless man sets up a tent at Occupy Seattle on Oct. 5, 2011  (Credit: AP/Ted S. Warren)

Topics: AlterNet , Occupy Wall Street , Homelessness , New Orleans

Beneath the veneer of New Orleans’ vibrant culture lies a history of tragedy. From the yellow fever outbreaks of the 19th century, the many catastrophic storms that have visited the city, the violence of the Civil War and Reconstruction, to the vast social dysfunction of contemporary New Orleans, this is a city that has known adversity throughout. It is sadly fitting, then, that Occupy NOLA is one of the few occupations to have witnessed a death at the encampment. Last week, 53-year-old Ronald Dean Howell, known as “Curly” or “Old School” to friends, was found dead in his tent. The coroner’s chief investigator, John Gagliano, stated that the cause of death was “complications from alcohol abuse.” According to other occupiers, the man was homeless, and likely relocated from another tent city at Calliope Street and the Pontchartrain Expressway, which was closed by authorities on Oct. 27.

Occupiers throughout the country have naturally found themselves sharing space with local homeless populations: the most vulnerable and marginalized of the 99 percent. This has been particularly pronounced in New Orleans, which continues to struggle with an acute homeless problem stemming from the devastation of the city’s housing stock during Hurricane Katrina. According to data provided by UNITY of Greater New Orleans, the city’s largest homeless nonprofit coalition, the homeless rate remains 70 percent higher than prestorm levels, with nearly 10,000 people lacking some form of permanent shelter. Many of these suffer from serious mental and physical illnesses, including high levels of alcohol and drug abuse. Howell’s story is typical, and his death would probably have gone largely unnoticed had it not occurred in the midst of this burgeoning movement. Instead, his passing has served to illuminate the systemic problem of homelessness in New Orleans, while also raising suspicions about the city’s motivation in closing down his previous home on Calliope Street.

In post-Katrina New Orleans, affordable housing has become a serious issue. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, four of the most recognized public housing sites were demolished: Lafitte, St. Bernard, B.W. Cooper and C.J. Peete. This came on the heels of contentious debate in the city council, which voted unanimously in favor of the demolition despite vocal opposition from community members. According to the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), these units were replaced by mixed income housing, each managed by various private developers.

Meanwhile, the general housing stock was devastated by the storm. According to HUD, 75,000 units were destroyed, and 45,000 remain abandoned today. The diminished supply has naturally resulted in increased rents across the board. In the same HUD report, the median cost of housing in New Orleans increased 33.2 percent, from $662 in 2004 to $882 in 2009 (adjusted for inflation). Meanwhile, the rate for the most affordable housing has risen dramatically. According to Linda Gonzalez, the Director of New Orleans Mission, a nonprofit providing services for the homeless, “basic apartments cost about $250 before the storm and are now up to $500 to $700 depending on what area of the city.” This is confirmed by data from the HUD report that shows the number of units available in the $300-600 range has fallen from 66,300 in 2004 to 19,300 in 2009. Affordable rents have greatly dissipated in the city, while wages have stagnated as part of the larger, national trend. In response to the HUD report, UNITY Executive Director Martha Kegel was then quoted as saying : “We have more unaffordable rent than even New York City. That’s because we have very high rent and we have very, very low income.”

As such, the homeless population has grown so rapidly that “tent cities” have become a relatively common occurrence. The Occupy NOLA encampment, located at Duncan Plaza, is not the first of its kind. In 2007, a homeless camp took shape in the same location, eventually growing to include 249 individuals, according to UNITY. That encampment was ultimately closed by the city, beginning Nov. 21 of that year. Then-Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration worked with the nonprofit community, including UNITY, to relocate these people to a mixture of hotels or apartments. A similar encampment at Claiborne and Canal with about 150 individuals was broken up in similar fashion the following July. In both cases, the nonprofit community was provided prior notice and allowed to make assessments of the physical and mental health of people at the encampment.

The most recent closure, however, has diverted from this practice. While City Hall spokesman Ryan Berni stated that all of the “usual groups were included in the process,” some relevant organizations say they were not involved. Linda Gonzales, director of New Orleans Mission, which is just across the street from the Calliope encampment, says she was not given any prior notification. When asked if this was unusual, she replied “Yes. They typically call and let us know when they are going to do a sweep. I guess they just didn’t need us.” Meanwhile, Mike Miller, lead outreach worker at UNITY, said “We weren’t involved with the Calliope closing, and the plans did not meet our standards for humanitarian enclosures.” He says they were only given a few days’ notice, and that the city actually fenced off the camp a day prior to the announced closure date.

Miller further explained that his team was unable to make appropriate evaluations prior to the closing. “We knew it was coming. Were we given a specific date? No. We were not given an opportunity to assess the physical and mental health of the individuals at the encampment.” When asked about the city’s claim that the vast majority of the population was provided some form of temporary or permanent housing, he responded “Whatever their numbers are, I take it with a grain of salt. I don’t believe it because we are dealing with the same faces.” He emphasized that the city was essentially just “rearranging the problem” rather than solving it. “By shifting people around, you lose people: the sickest of the sick.”

Given the city’s diversion from the norm in closing this camp, some Occupy protesters have grown suspicious that the city maliciously intended to use the homeless as pawns to help destabilize their movement. Nia, who is integrally involved with the movement, said: “It would be utterly ridiculous to not think of the possibility that this was done with that intent.” While she emphasized that the group has welcomed the homeless population to the camp, she also explained that much of the group’s organizing capacity has been exhausted by attempting to meet their needs: providing food and tents, dealing with security issues, and trying to integrate them into the movement. Furthermore, she points to a potentially coordinated effort of authorities throughout the country to destabilize these movements by displacing homeless communities to the Occupy encampments. She said: “People have been coming here from throughout the country saying they have had the same exact experience with long term homeless (in their occupations).”

City officials, meanwhile, deny such machinations. When asked why the Calliope encampment was closed, mayor’s office spokesman Berni said: “Anytime there is a large encampment, there is a risk to public health and safety. What we did underneath the expressway was a lengthy process, in ensuring the necessary housing and vouchers to help people get back on their feet.” When asked if he thought that anyone from the Calliope encampment may have relocated to Occupy NOLA at Duncan Plaza, he was willing to admit that “some people” probably did.

However, the scene at the camp suggests the effect was probably more pronounced. What began as a few dozen people has grown to over 100 permanent campers, the vast majority of whom are homeless. On the increase in homeless numbers since the Calliope closure, Nia said: “There was an immediate slight increase. Then, a bunch of people were given hotel vouchers, which was fine, until they ran out and they came here.” Another Occupy NOLA organizer, Dehlia Labarre, corroborated the hotel voucher story, saying “We have reports of a number of people who were given a week-long voucher and then ended up here when it expired.” Berni, meanwhile, denied any knowledge about expired vouchers.

Adding to peoples’ suspicions has been the overly compliant nature of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) with regards to the encampment. Only one arrest has been made thus far at the site, and that was of a “machete wielding transient” that NOPD public information officer Frank Robertson said “had nothing to do with Occupy NOLA.” He explained that there have been no further reports of violence or noise complaints. When asked if they have any plans to close it down, he refused comment. However, he did admit that the police have “undercover officers in the area of the camp.” This rather surprising admission suggests that the NOPD may be focused on covert means of destabilizing the movement, rather than facing the scrutiny that would come with overt confrontation a la New York, Chicago and Oakland.

Evidence seems to point to intent by the city to diminish Occupy NOLA. If authorities were genuinely interested in protecting protesters’ First Amendment rights as Berni claims, would the NOPD be deploying undercover patrols? Meanwhile, the concurrent closing of the Calliope camp is suspicious, given the break from past trends and discrepancies in reports from the city and homeless nonprofits. Furthermore, the city’s claim that most of the homeless at that camp were provided alternate housing is contradicted by the reality on the ground at Occupy NOLA, where dozens of tents have sprouted up since that closing.

Malicious intent or not, the reality is that authorities have failed to address the underlying issue of inequality at all levels of government. Decades of conservative orthodoxy, attacks on the social safety net, stagnant wages, and rising education and housing costs have culminated in a level of precariousness unseen in decades. It is hard to envision a more appropriate illustration of this than frustrated youth occupying public space together with the most marginalized members of the population in the “city that care forgot.” While the death of Ronald Dean Howell was probably unavoidable, the tragedy of poverty and homeless can be conquered. By refocusing debate on the needs of the marginalized majority, the Occupy movement has taken a significant step forward in this continued struggle.

OWS is awash with police cameras. We look at the laws that govern the city's right to film peaceful protests

A New York Police Department guard tower looms over the Occupy Wall Street protest encampment at Zuccotti Park in New York  (Credit: Kathy Willens/AP)

On October 15, the day OWS solidarity protests broke out as far away as Australia and Japan, and thousands of people poured into Times Square, a line of NYPD TARU (Technical Assistance Response Unit) officers stood on the street, pointing handheld digital cameras at the protestors jammed behind metal barricades. The SkyWatch tactical platform unit — a “watchtower” with tinted windows like the one that’s loomed over Zuccotti Park for most of the occupation — stood at one corner, its four cameras roving across the crowd. The whole scene unfolded under the NYPD security cameras stationed all over Times Square and in most parts of the city.

Like the massive crowd control arsenal unleashed on OWS — riot gear, smoke bombs, rubber bullets, pepper spray, horses, metal blockades, helicopters, plastic cuffs, and the police motorcycles, cars and vans that clog the streets — the three-tiered surveillance seemed like overkill for an overwhelmingly peaceful movement, where the occasional slur thrown at police is usually shouted down with reminders not to goad cops because they’re part of the 99 percent.

It’s unclear what the NYPD plans to do with footage obtained by TARU. But recording legal protest activity violates the Handschu decree , a set of legal guidelines designed to check the NYPD’s historic tendency to steamroll First Amendment rights. The order emerged from a class-action lawsuit prompted by revelations that the NYPD had spent much of the 20th century and millions of dollars monitoring legal protest activity, an endeavor that generated up to a million files on such dangerous radicals as education reform groups and housing advocates. The Handschu decree prohibits investigations of legal political activity and the collection of data, including images and video of protests, unless a crime has been committed.

The ruling has had a complicated life post-9/11, mutating in response to terrorism fears and authorities’ willingness to exploit them. A judge relaxed the order in 2003 after the NYPD argued it needed more flexibility to deal with terror threats. The department promptly proved its trustworthiness by secretively shooting hundreds of hours of footage of protestors at the Republican National Convention. In 2007 the court ruled that the NYPD had repeatedly violated Handschu and tightened the guidelines, limiting videotaping to cases where there’s specific evidence that a crime has taken place.

An internal department memo sent out in 2007 instructs police to comply with the new order by only rolling the tape when “it reasonably appears that unlawful conduct is about to occur, is occurring, or has occurred during the demonstration.” But Franklin Siegal , a lawyer who has spent years fighting for Handschu in court, tells AlterNet he’s received multiple complaints about police videotaping OWS protesters for no good reason.

“Your photo shouldn’t be taken and made into a record if you’re not engaged in anything illegal. At demonstrations with no illegal activity taking place, cameras shouldn’t be on,” says Siegal.

The NYCLU has called on police commissioner Raymond Kelly to stop surveillance of the protests, citing the cameras pointed at Zuccotti Park and an incident where NYCLU representatives observed TARU members filming a peaceful march.

“This type of surveillance substantially chills protest activity and is unlawful. In light of the mayor’s recognition of the peaceful nature of these protests, we call on you to stop the videotaping of lawful protest,” read the letter .

Another camera has more recently been hoisted above Zuccotti Park, joining the four sitting on top of the tactical platform unit (police claim the cameras are only transmitting a live feed and do not record video). Those cameras are visible, at least. Donna Lieberman, executive director of NYCLU, told AlterNet over the phone that Zuccotti can be seen from any number of NYPD security cameras in the area, both by private cameras attached to businesses that are accessible to police and NYPD security cameras.

A 2005 NYCLU survey found over 4,000 cameras below 14th Street in Manhattan; five times more than they’d tallied in 1998. Lieberman says that number was a lowball because there are so many cameras that NYCLU didn’t have the manpower or the time to count all of them.

Authors of the report warned at the time about a “massive surveillance infrastructure” creeping across the city, unattended by adequate public oversight or outside regulation. Five years later, there’s no exact count of all the cameras in New York, but Lieberman says, “We believe if we were to try to repeat the survey today, we would find that there are so many more cameras. Way beyond our wildest imagination.”

Today that task would be complicated by the roll-out of the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, a plan launched in 2005 to cover the area below Canal Street in video cameras constantly streaming footage that’s analyzed at a centralized location. In 2009 police commissioner Raymond Kelly announced that the Initiative would be expanded to midtown.

In a macabre twist, journalist Pam Martens has discovered that the law enforcement center where much of the camera footage is examined can be accessed by high-level Wall street employees. Martens obtained 2005 correspondence from Commissioner Kelly promising Edward Frost, a then-Goldman Sachs VP, the creation of “a centralized coordination center that will provide space for full-time, on site representation from Goldman Sachs and other stakeholders.”

Martens writes, “According to one person who has toured the center, there are three rows of computer workstations, with approximately two-thirds operated by non-NYPD personnel. The Chief-Leader, the weekly civil service newspaper, identified some of the outside entities that share the space: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange. Others say most of the major Wall Street firms have an on-site representative.”

The surveillance gadgetry available to the NYPD, and apparently to the very finance industry forces that OWS is protesting, is sophisticated. There are license plate readers that can capture license plate numbers and match them to a database. The cameras can be programmed to alert officers to activities like loitering, and people can be followed as they move from camera to camera.

Over the past year, reports have come out suggesting that the NYPD has plans to integrate face recognition technology into the operation.

As the AP reported , “New facial-recognition technologies will soon make it possible to track exactly who is walking down the street,” [Bloomberg] said, adding that he believes “we’re going in that direction.”

The mayor then opined, “As the world gets more dangerous, people are willing to have infringements on their personal freedoms that they would not before.”

At the beginning of the year, local outlets reported that the NYPD was recruiting officers for a new face recognition unit. The NYPD has not replied to repeated requests for comment, so it’s not clear if the face recognition technology is in use, and if so, in what cameras — but a representative of ICX Technologies, the company that builds tactical platform towers like the one stationed at Zuccotti Park, tells AlterNet that the cameras on the tower are compatible with face recognition software.

That would mean an image can be matched up to a mug shot in any criminal database, or any non-criminal database for that matter — including one of the largest public identity databases in the world, Facebook.

Right after 9/11, when airports and cities enthusiastically embraced face recognition, the technology was fairly crude and a lot of the programs were dropped. But in the past 10 years advances in the software — including 3-D imaging and “skinmetrics,” which maps marks and imperfections in the skin of the face — have revived law enforcement and Homeland Security’s interest.

Sophisticated face recognition software, combined with cameras that can track activity all over the city, would be a useful tool if police wished to collect dossiers on people involved in OWS, as they so casually did pre-Handschu.

Whatever the advances in technology, Siegal says that core principals should remain. “Police should not be keeping records about the legal, political, non-criminal activities of anyone.”

Source: http://www.salon.com