Cynthia Mathews: Scrooge for the Season 2010

Cynthia Mathews speaks at a community forum on behalf of public safety with Chief Howard Skerry looking on.

by Becky Johnson
December 23, 2010


Santa Cruz, Ca. -- Cynthia Mathews, former member of the Santa Cruz City Council and former Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz is considered liberal and progressive. Yet she strongly supports anti-homeless legislation such as the Sleeping Ban (MC 6.36.010 section a) and initiated the "Move-Along" Law (MC 5.43.020 section two) which criminalizes political tables and street musicians after only 1 hour on a public sidewalk. Now she is going after the Calvary Episcopal Ministry, known locally as the Little Red Church, for reaching out to homeless people and youth with food, coffee, and spiritual assembly.

Mathews wrote a letter on City letterhead stationery April 5, 2010, and accused the church of allowing "the on-going presence of known criminals and drug dealers on church property." She attached her "evidence": a record of service calls from the Santa Cruz Police Department documenting "nearly 100 calls in just over one year" which she claimed is "utterly disproportional to other locations in the City." But is it?

Against over 85,000 annual 'calls for service' documented by the police, do 100 'calls for service" over a period of more than a year truly indicate serious problems or simply document calls by nearby NIMBY businesses and neighbors? And considering the record collected is for 532 Center St, aren't all calls for the across the street Farmers Market and the Drum Circle included in this total?

Nowhere in the letter does Mathews reveal that she owns the house across the street. Nowhere does she reveal her general disgust at the presence of homeless people and her own attempts to drive them from both private property and public spaces.

In a Santa Cruz Sentinel article dated June 7, 2009, church attendance is reported to have dropped over the controversy. However, Audrey Nickel, a member of the Calvary congregation reports that as inaccurate. "

"I’ve been a parishioner at Calvary for 11 years. I’m at the 10:30 service

Cynthia Mathews owns and rents the former home of Hollywood actress, Zazu Pitts on Lincoln St.

approximately 50 weeks out of the year. My husband, as a lay Eucharistic minister, is one of the people who is responsible for keeping track of the number of people in the pews. And I can tell you that our average Sunday attendance is UP since Fr. Joel came to us."

Kevin McArgel also defends Father Joel Miller from the disgruntled members of the congregation who are complaining.

"I've met these “accusers” who have brought these ridiculous charges upon him and can say they are just that: RIDICULOUS. These very few individuals expect some kind of environment of very traditional behavior on behalf of those who come for guidance whether or not its some kind of simple compassion or just some sustenance like a little food."

Cynthia Mathews, who works closely with the Downtown Association, police, and the Downtown Management Corporation, laments Calvary's homeless outreach services claiming they indicate " ..a lack of buy-in by Church leadership to the collaborative problem-solving effort" which for Mathews means, fewer services, fewer hours when homeless people or street kids are allowed on the property, and trespass charges for those who remain on church property.

Father Joel Miller, Rector, Calvary Episcopal Church, Santa Cruz, Ca. Photo courtesy of Metro Santa Cruz

Father Joel defended his mission by referring to New Testament texts.

"In the gospel we’re told that Jesus sits down to eat with sinners and tax collectors. The worst people!” says Miller in a soft and nasal voice as he saunters between the well-worn pews. “So what we see is that Jesus loves people, he loves his neighbors, includes them and embraces them. That’s what we try to do here."

Local news reports paint Fr. Joel as going it alone with his ministry to the poor and homeless. But that is contradicted by former vestry member, Scott Galloway. He reports that Ronee Curry, a volunteer who had been managing a Monday Night Coffee House at the Elm Street Mission had been asked to relocate. Ronee approached Fr. Joel Miller of Calvary Episcopal Church, and Fr. Miller invited her to address the Calvary Vestry with her request to relocate her Monday Night “Coffee House” ministry to Calvary. Fr. Miller supported Ronee’s proposal, but the vote of the Vestry in favor of bringing Ronee and her program to Calvary was nearly unanimous. "

By June of 2009, Father Joel had already capitulated to pressure from Mathews and the City to allow police on the property to enforce 'no trespassing' laws effectively ending the use of the property as a place where young and homeless people could be.

Yet, this was not enough for Mathews.

Zazu Pitts home on Lincoln St. directly across the street from Calvary Episcopal Church

Cynthia Mathews and Ryan Coonerty are heavily associated with the Downtown Association, where along with Ryan's wife, Emily Bernard, they are behind an effort to install old parking meters to collect spare change that would fund middle-class case managers for houseless people. Ryan himself pushed for legal protections for "statues" earlier which would make it a crime for REAL homeless people to beg within 14' of these special "charity" meters.

Coonerty and Bernard's 'Penguins' have already been fully implemented, and stand banning homeless people from sitting or begging within 14' of them in any direction. It's part of Ryan's Downtown beautification by promoting sculptures displayed on public property.

Ryan Coonerty and Emily Bernard in SENTINEL wedding photo published Jan 31, 2010.

On June 5, 2010, Cynthia Mathews wrote her now-infamous Grinchish-Scroogian letter. Failing to acknowledge her own personal involvement on behalf of her own property values directly across the street, her intervention on behalf of her tenant, Rachel Daso, or that she was giving a one-sided account, Mathews sunk to a new low in promoting her anti-homeless agenda. Was the letter prompted by any City Council action? One wonders.

Mathews letter was largely responsible for Calvary Rector Joel Miller being admonished by his Diocese in a rare hearing known as 'Presentment' . He has hired a lawyer and is currently appealing that decision.


Ronee Curry, in order to take pressure off of Father Joel, took to performing her ministry in the streets by handing out food, socks, and handknit "beanies" to homeless people in front of Borders Books, but gained negative notice from current Mayor Ryan Coonerty.

"My feeling is that what they're doing is neither helpful nor compassionate. Instead of encouraging panhandlers and drifters to seek a better life, [they're] helping them subsist in misery," said Ryan Coonerty. Ryan's wife, Emily Bernard is the President of the Downtown Association, and an owner of Dell Williams Jewelry.

Several parishioners rallied to support Fr. Joel.

"Another inaccuracy is the implication that the Episcopal Church as a body brought the charges against Fr. Joel, " Parishioner, Audrey Nickels claims. "Rather, a small group of parishioners, in a highly unorthodox move, got a lawyer and brought charges against him in an ecclesiastical court."

UPDATE JANUARY 19 2011: Voices from the Village has done a show which first aired on January 9th 2011 on Community Television of Santa Cruz County, on this topic. Host, Louis LaFortune interviews Father Joel Miller, Scott Galloway, member of the Calvary Church vestry, Richard Enriques, a formerly homeless man who was helped by Calvary, and Don Lane, currently Vice-Mayor of the Santa Cruz City Council and longtime member of the Board of Directors of the Homeless Services Center. Video of the program can be viewed here.


SOURCES:
"Sculp Tour comes to Santa Cruz" Dec 4, 2008_Lauren Foliart, City on a Hill Press
"Calvary Episcopal seeks balance between serving the homeless and serving congregation"--Genevieve Bookwalter June 7 2009
"Downtown raises ire of City Officials"--Genevieve Bookwalter Dec 22 2009
"Controversial Santa Cruz Priest charged by Church" --Curtis Alexander Sept 14 2010 -- Santa Cruz News
"Bathrobespierre's Broadsides: Civil Rights for the Poor" Free Radio Santa Cruz, Dec 5, 2010
Interview of Ronee Curry by Robert Norse
Auntie Imperial's News & Blog Reviews

Executive Summary: Homeless Deaths in Santa Cruz County 2010

The following is the executive summary of the report on homeless deaths in Santa Cruz County, California. 30 of those who died were homeless at the time of their death. 15 were longtime homeless people who had achieved housing prior to their deaths, for a total of 45 individuals who lost their life while homeless or after experiencing homelessness. For the first time, some of the deaths (4) were attributed to hypothermia. Twenty of those who died while homeless within the city limits of Santa Cruz. Thanks to Matt Nathanson of the HPHP for this documentation. ---Becky Johnson, Editor

2010 Annual Report on Homeless Deaths

Summary of available data on homeless deaths in Santa Cruz County

For the period December 21, 2009 – December 20, 2010

Santa Cruz County Homeless Persons’ Health Project (HPHP)

A program of the County Health Services Agency, Division of Public Health

Background:

In keeping with a tradition established in 1999, once again this year on December 21^st homeless individuals, community and family members, and homeless service providers will come together to honor the lives of those who died while homeless this year. The 2010 Annual Report on Homeless Deaths and our local homeless memorial event represent our community’s twelfth year of collecting data and reporting on homeless deaths across the county.

How data on homeless deaths are collected:

Throughout the year, a public health nurse at HPHP maintains a log of deaths occurring among homeless people in Santa Cruz County. The log includes information on confirmed deaths of HPHP clients, as well as confirmed reports of deaths received from other homeless service organizations, medical providers, and friends or family members of those who have died. The log also includes death certificate data compiled by the County Office of Vital Statistics, and data obtained from the County Public Administrator’s office.

The data available from this process most likely under-represent the number of homeless deaths in the county. Housing status at the time of death is neither well documented nor always easily determined. Also, information on likely factors leading to death is imprecise, and is often unknown at the time of death. For the sake of summarizing the information, we have assigned a single primary contributing factor to each death, but in many cases, there are multiple significant factors that have contributed to an individual’s death.

For this reason the data provided in this summary should not be interpreted as a definitive accounting of deaths among the homeless population in our county. Instead, this reflects our best effort at this time to collect and analyze accurate data on homeless deaths in a way that is meaningful to homeless service providers, to friends and family of those who have died, and to people who are housed and homeless in the community at large.

Discussion of 2010 Homeless Deaths:

The total number of deaths reported this year is 30. The total number of homeless deaths reported in 2009 was 47, and the average number of deaths per year over the preceding nine years (2001-2009) was 34. The average age at death for 2010 was 52. This compares to an average age of 49 at death in Santa Cruz County for homeless individuals during the previous nine-year period. The average age of death for all Americans is 78 and this means that homeless people in our community die nearly 30 years earlier than might otherwise be expected.

Major categories of death for homeless individuals this year included heart and lung disease, both acute and chronic (27%), cancer (17%), hypothermia (13%), acute overdose (10%), GI bleeding (10%), trauma (7%), infection (7%) and trauma (7%). We estimate that alcohol and/or other drug addiction was a primary or contributing factor in at least 18 of the 30 (60%) deaths reported this year.

Homelessness causes, complicates and exacerbates serious health problems and it leads to the premature deaths of thousands of people in our communities across our nation every year. This fact is well documented. Research in the U.S. has shown that homeless persons have up to a threefold increase in mortality when compared to the general population, (Hibbs1994). Studies document an average age of death among homeless populations that ranges from 42 to 52 years, while average life expectancy for most Americans is almost 80 (O’Connell, 2005).

About the Memorial:

Our purpose in preparing and distributing this report at this time of year is two-fold; first to honor and mark the passing of all those who were homeless and died in our community during the last year, and second, to document and increase awareness of the serious negative impact of homelessness on the lives of our fellow community members.

Our memorial service includes a reading of the names of the thirty people who were homeless at death and are reflected in our annual report. The names of formerly homeless individuals who were housed at the time of death will also be read. We continue our tradition of creating and displaying homeless memorial flags with the names, ages and year of death for each homeless or previously homeless person who has died since December 21, 1998. This year that twelve-year total will exceed 440 people.

Nearly all of the people who died were personally known to one of us at HPHP or to one of our colleagues at homeless service organizations throughout the county. We are saddened by their deaths. Each person will be missed. We hope that this information will serve to honor the memory of each person, to guide us in our ongoing efforts to improve the health and quality of life for all who experience homelessness, and to recommit ourselves as a community to ending homelessness in Santa Cruz County.

DEATHS AMONG HOMELESS PEOPLE, SANTA CRUZ COUNTY

DECEMBER 21, 2009 - DECEMBER 20. 2010

1) TOTAL NUMBER OF HOMELESS DEATHS: 30

2) GENDER:

Male: 24

Female: 6

3) AGE:

under 21 0

21-30 1

31-40 2

41-50 7

51-60 10

61-70 8

over 70 2

average age at death 52

4) RACE:

White: 26

Hispanic 2

Black: 2

5) LOCATION AT TIME OF DEATH:

Outside/Vehicle/storage Area: 12 Santa Cruz 20

Hospital: 11 Watsonville 7

Nursing Facility 4 San Lorenzo Valley 2

Temporary Residence/Motel 3 North County 1

6) LIKELY MAIN FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO DEATH:

ACUTE SUBSTANCE USE RELATED

- hypothermia/exposure + intoxication 4

- overdose 3

- GI Bleed 3

- cardiac arrhythmia/heart attack 3

- wound infection 1

METABOLIC ILLNESS

- Cancer 5

- cardiopulmonary illnesses 5

- liver/kidney disease 2

- sepsis 1

TRAUMA

- suicide 1

- drowning 1

UNKNOWN: 1