The Latest in the Ongoing Saga of the Cubberley Campers

There have been recent developments in the ongoing story of habitation at the Cubberley Community Center in Palo Alto.
People who have no room, apartment, or house to live in presently are camping in their vehicles and on the ground at Cubberley Community.  In the Great Depression of the 30s people lived in camps called "Hoovervilles," named after the Stanford and U.S. President Herbert Hoover who was in office when the Depression began.  Decades before the word "homeless" was coined by the Reagan Administration, poor people were camped along San Francisquito Creek, the border between Palo Alto and Menlo Park.
Those campers have long since been evicted.  Other measures like Palo Alto's Sit/Lie ordinance, the closing of single room occupancy (SRO) hotels along University Avenue and cheap motels along El Camino, a set of rules adopted recently by the City Council, and the still-being-discussed-but not-voted-on ordinance that would make it illegal to live in or out of one's vehicle are more nails in the coffin of those too poor to pay rent.
"No one wants to criminalize poverty"--just go to City Council meetings and you will hear that refrain.  But you also hear "we're not trying to cure poverty" and "we'll always have the poor with us."  What you don't hear is the strong desire to place poor people out of sight so they can be out of mind and not remind people how close I am to being poor also.  You have to listen hard and read between lines like the complaints about Cubberley campers.
Every so often you read in The Post, The Daily News, and other papers about more people crowding into Cubberley and complaints from the local community.  I've looked into those complaints.  From correspondence with the president of the Green Meadow Association I learned that the complaints are about defecation, urination, and messy cars and vans parked in the parking lot.
Here's what I found out about those matters:
1) The bathrooms at Cubberley have signs on them saying that they are to be open on weekend nights.  It turns out that rule is only observed when a custodian is working who is sympathetic to those who live there.  When the other guy is working, he's not so sympathetic and the doors remain locked.
2)  The cars that are parked semi-permanently in the lot at Cubberley belong to local residents AND unsheltered folk, one of whom agreed to clean up his messy van but so far hasn't.
3) The Green Mountain Association members who have complaints are unwilling to discuss them.  I have requested such a discussion several times and have yet to receive a response.

And now, two nights ago, police came and told people who've been living in peace and good order at Cubberley for years that they have three days to move out.

A direct inquiry at the Cubberley Administrator's office late Friday afternoon resulted in no information.  No one knew anything about the police sweep of Thursday night. 
Inquiries will continue Monday at the Palo Alto Police Department.
And those reports of more people crowding into Cubberley?  Not true.   The numbers of car and ground campers have actually decreased since the winter.
I would like all those who believe it's a good idea to expel people from Cubberley where they think these people should go.  Would it be any improvement for anyone if the campers had one less place to park and went onto residential streets to park their vehicles?  How does expelling them help ANYone?
When a person suffers the frightening indignity of having no conventional shelter any more--because of loss of job, foreclosure, fear of continued abuse, or to help finance your kid's education, or because you're allergic to common building materials in conventional homes--losing that vehicle you live in/out of, not to mention all the work clothes, tools, important documents, food stuffs, and implements of one's life is just one more devastating blow and one more step on the way to utter hopelessness.
And keeping unhousesd people out of your field of vision won't really help keep poverty from your life.  All it does is feed the false notion that you can actually insulate yourself from houselessness if you're mean enough to those already poor.  You can't.  It could happen to you and in the next few years probably will--to someone you know or are related to.  
The people who are poor today once lived in nice houses like many people are doing right now.  We never thought we'd be this poor.  When/if you get here, it would be nice if there were enough resources for you.  

And think how very frustrating it would be to need to live in your vehicle, to want desperately to live in your vehicle--and then realize that you can't--because when this issue came up. you did nothing to stop the unjust, counter productive, and unnecessary eviction of poor people for no good reason.