Rosewater Limited Liability Company

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Rosewater Limited Liability Company is a homeless advocacy organization founded in Cleveland, Ohio in the late nineties by Clark David "Cody" Campbell. Its original manifesto stated that the organization's mission was to "liberate" abandoned buildings for use by the homeless.

In December 1999, Campbell, acting as senior vice president of Rosewater, led vegetarian activist group "Food Not Bombs" in a protest on public square against the then Cleveland Mayor Michael Reed White's "sweeping the streets" policy.^[1]

Mayor White had instituted a policy in unison with other big city mayors, most notably, then Mayor, Rudolph William Louis Giuliani of New York City,^[2] of discreet removal of homeless from the streets to public shelters.

Homeless advocates claimed this to be part of a larger plan to "sweep the streets" of the homeless during the holiday shopping season. City officials countered that the policy intended to promote strong economic development, improve city public image and safety, and provide humanitarian assistance to the poor and homeless.

As part of this policy, homeless people sleeping in public were approached by police officers, and provided with maps to the new city shelter. If the homeless refused, they were encouraged to move. Failure to cooperate with this policy resulted in several arrests.

This brought Mayor White, and the city, into a legal dispute with the American Civil Liberties Union,^[3] who represented the homeless in a series of lawsuits filed against the city intending to end the "sweeping the streets" policy, and to prevent further arrests.^[4]^[5]

The explanation given by the ACLU was that the homeless in Cleveland frequently sleep on public sidewalks; they are crisscrossed by underground steam pipes supplying heat to area businesses. The thermal service manholes become heated, hot enough to burn, with steam occasionally escaping from cracks. The concrete sidewalk around the manholes can become quite warm. These areas are known colloquially as "steamers," and are popular places for the homeless to sleep when it is cold. As a result, many of the homeless refused shelter, and continued sleeping on the street.

Furthermore, according to the homeless, the available shelters were subject to overcrowding, inadequate staffing, and a lack security, resulting in possible threats to property, health, or safety.

In a show of support for the homeless, on December 22, 1999, Rosewater's Campbell enlisted the help of "Food not Bombs" to erect a tent city on public square to protest of the Mayor's policies.

Campbell, a Vietnam era veteran and former marine, had frequently advocated against the shelters, preferring a variant of legalized squatting, which he referred to as the "requisitioning of abandoned buildings." He actively promoted an independent lifestyle for the nation's homeless, pursuing a program of self-sufficiency, against a policy of public assistance and shelters.

Later that night, Mayor White visited the site of the protest on public square. He surveyed the motley erection of tents from the his vantage point at Stouffer's Hotel, located across the street, in the Terminal Tower complex. He talked to reporters and appeared on television in an effort to reassure the public, and maintain calm. After Mayor White had left the downtown demonstration, police stormed the square and arrested all present.^[6]

The exposure and public sympathy brought about in tandem by the initial arrests coupled with the ACLU response, and the tent protest with its arrests, helped to sway public opinion, and lead to cessation of the unpopular "sweeping the streets" policy.^[7]

Rosewater, since November 2008, has been registered with the state of Ohio as a not for profit limited liability company.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, April 27, 2013. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.