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Homeless organizers began sleeping openly in Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Park Sunday night to protest the lack of space where homeless people are allowed to sleep in the city. 

Bob Mills of the East Bay Homeless Union and Michael Diehl of the homeless advocacy group BOSS said they presented Mayor Tom Bates with a flyer announcing the sleep-in Friday while he was speaking at a Veterans’ Day ceremony in the park. 

“He was very unhappy about it, but maybe it was about something else,” Mills said. 

Bates did not return calls seeking comment for this article. 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz walked by the developing illegal campsite Sunday afternoon. He said he didn’t know anything about it and went into the park to discuss the matter of a permit with Mills, who said he did not object to getting a permit as long as it didn’t cost anything. 

“We can’t afford it,” Mills said. “We’re homeless.” 

Organizers said a pledge had been signed by campsite residents, requiring neatness, respect for other residents and prohibiting alcohol or drugs at the campsite. 

Kamlarz said: “I don’t know how long that one’s going to last.” 

A Berkeley policeman arrived at 8:30 p.m. to announce that the park would close at 10 p.m. and that it was illegal to camp there. A number of homeless people who ordinarily sleep discreetly in the park packed up and left. 

“That was a shame,” said Yukon Hannibal of the Berkeley Homeless Union. “(The police) are constantly pursuing homeless people and chasing them off. Last week, they went around and chased them out into the rain.” 

Two policemen drove their police car into the park at 10:30 p.m., accompanied by two people from the Berkeley Mental Health Crisis Intervention program. 

“The police said they were doing their routine jobs and told us we were in the park illegally,” Mills said. “They said they’d be back at 2 or 3 or 4 to tell us the same thing.”  

They returned at 4 a.m. 

About a dozen people slept overnight in the park. Homeless campsites, though, tend to grow rapidly. The last one staged in the park in 2002 lasted two weeks and housed 65 people before it disbanded. 

“These are political protests. There’s no intent to stay,” Mills said. 

In addition to their pledge-of-good-behavior forms, organizers came this time with a proposal, which was presented to City Council members last month. 

“What we want basically is for the city to designate unused parcels of land and give individual homeless people permits to use it,” Mills said. “All these pieces of property that have grass growing and are full of trash, we’ll come in and clean it up.” 

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