Features

9 p.m.  

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates arrives at the homeless encampment in Martin Luther King, Jr. Park behind City Hall. He earlier had his first homeless experience, the plain meal you can buy for a quarter at Trinity Church on Bancroft Avenue. Bates paid his quarter and ate his food. 

There are activists and homeless people waiting in the park, but mostly reporters — 15 to 20 of them, all the TV stations, even a stringer from the L.A. Times. 

9:15 

The night begins roughly. Activists greet Bates with a rendition of “He's a Jolly Good Fellow” but a rumble emerges from the gathered homeless. It becomes a rough chant: “F— the Mayor — he ain’t doin’ nothin’.” 

“J.C.,” who operates a Catholic Worker food van in Berkeley, muses as he prepares coffee. “You can always piss on somebody, but it’s a lot better to slap him on the back and give him a push in the right direction. 

“Sometimes, the harder road is the better.” 

9:30  

Bates, not perturbed, is speaking with several homeless people, surrounded by TV cameras, photographers and reporters. Because of the crowd, it’s hard to tell the topic, but it appears to have something to do with funding of homeless services. 

One of the homeless participants, “Jerome,” 55, says afterward, “I don’t feel he really got the gist of the situation.” 

Catcalling has died away. Many of the homeless people, in fact, have gone to sleep. 

Unlike Bates and the activists, who later stretch out openly, the homeless are hard to see. They huddle on benches or behind bushes or up against walls, all bundled in dark blankets or sleeping bags. 

Organizer Bob Mills explains that homeless people come to legalized campsites like this one simply to get a full night’s sleep. Generally, they’re awakened and told to move on by police. 

If the police don’t find them, Mills said, the park sprinklers will at two or three a.m. They’ve gotten him few times.  

9:45 

KTVU, Channel 2, zeros in on Bates and reporter John Sasaki asks: “You’ve been out here five and one-half hours. What have you actually learned?” 

Bates seems to have reached some inward decision. “This is not acceptable,” he says. “We have to do more.” 

9:50 

Boona cheema, director of Berkeley-Oakland Support Services, which organized the campsite, remarks, “He’s getting an awful lot of good press from you guys.” 

Red Szakas says he tries to sleep in the park where the campsite is occurring but is usually wakened every night. 

“I try to hide inside a bush, but I get rousted three or four times a week,” he said. “I’m kept awake two or three hours. You got to shake ‘em. If they tell you to leave the area, they mean it.” 

Yukon Hannibel, dressed in dark clothing, says he’s learned to hide too well to be rousted. “I just hope the mayor will see the need for a permanent homeless campsite,” he said. 

Establishing a site is in fact the main reason for the Bates camp out. Cheema says there’s not enough money to shelter the growing number of homeless and that it is inhumane to torture them with sleep deprivation. 

10:15 

Bates faces his first homeless crisis. There aren’t any bathrooms at the campsite. 

Cheema asks the night City Hall custodian to ask Bates to open City Hall’s public bathrooms. “Otherwise, I’ll go behind a tree. I’m serious,” cheema says. 

10:19 

Bates resolves the crisis, telling the custodian to open the bathrooms. 

11:15 

After talking to his wife, state Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, in Sacramento, Bates crawls into a sleeping bag. He knows the practice of covering one’s head to keep body heat from escaping. He wears a hood and wraps himself in the top of the sleeping bag. The night is cold. 

1:40 a.m. 

Berkeley police roust the campsite. Cheema gives this account: “An officer came at 1:40 and said, ‘What’s going on here?’ Tom stuck his head out and said, ‘I’m the mayor. We have a permit.’ 

“ ‘Well, can I see the permit?’ the officer said. 

“Tom didn’t actually have one and said, ‘Well, we have permission from [City Manager] Weldon [Rucker].’ 

“ ‘Weldon’s the one who keeps telling us to roust you out of here,’ the officer said.”  

The officer left. The sprinklers didn’t go on that night. 

10:10 

There are still so many photographers in the park that some begin taking pictures of each other. Bates poses for numerous group photos. 

“How are you doing?” someone asks. 

“I’m getting a little tired,” Bates says.