COVID-19 Car Action: April 27, 2020
On April 27th, nearly a dozen Sacramento community organizations joined together to safely and creatively demand bold changes in local and state responses to COVID-19. At least 50 vehicles joined the car protest calling for halts to rent payments, mortgages and incarceration.
“COVID-19 has highlighted what we’ve always known to be true: that we are only as safe as our most vulnerable communities,” said Ibraheem Bangura of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “We demand our public resources go to ensuring public health, which means prioritizing people’s basic needs, including immediate housing.”
“While City and County officials have worked to maintain a deadly status quo, volunteers have worked to build hand-washing stations, feed the hungry, provide services to those being released from jail, and raise money for our hurting families,” said Cathleen Williams of the Sacramento Services Not Sweeps Coalition. “Our local officials should have these same priorities; instead they continue sweeps of encampments and seizure of hand-washing stations and other life-saving property. It’s about time they stop criminalizing poverty and use our public dollars to lift people out of this crisis.”
The action also highlighted demands made by Decarcerate Sacramento and the Anti Police-Terror Project to significantly accelerate early releases and immediately implement COVID-19 protections for incarcerated people. “We celebrate the fact that our jail population has been reduced by 30%, but it’s not nearly enough to prevent an uncontrollable outbreak in our jails,” said Niki Jones of Decarcerate Sacramento. “We demand the County Board of Supervisors continue down the path of reduction, and cancel their newly announced plan to build a new five-story jail tower downtown. Those funds should be redirected to support reentry services and community-based programs that keep people out of jail.”
#CareNotCages
#AnotherWorldIsPossible
#LetThemGo
#FreeThemAllForPublicHealth
#CommunityIsTheCure