“I said what is it, it’s homes not handcuffs!" Kamaar Taliaferro shouted. "It’s homes not handcuffs! It’s homes not handcuffs!”
Outside of Pittsfield City Hall, the Berkshire NAACP Political Action Committee Chair led fellow demonstrators in a chant against Mayor Peter Marchetti’s ongoing effort to outlaw unhoused residents from camping in Berkshire County’s urban hub.
“This is the coalition that has come together to push back against this cowardly, against this anachronistic ordinance that the mayor has put on the table because he's ran out of any ideas to address the issue of homelessness,” Taliaferro told WAMC.
While Marchetti has framed the issue as one to do with public health and safety, activists have spent months loudly decrying the measure as a war on the community’s most vulnerable.
“So, what has the mayor turned to?" Taliaferro continued. "He's turned to fascism. He's turned to using the law in a discriminatory manner to scapegoat a subpopulation- At who’s behest?”
Taliaferro referred to Berkshire Eagle reporting in which the mayor said some downtown business owners are threatening to leave.
“I say, let them walk," he said. "If they don't want to commit to the type of Pittsfield that lifts up the values that I know everybody shares, if they want to commit to the type of Pittsfield that would see our homeless neighbors put in Berkshire County House of Corrections, which is 30% Black in a county that's only 4% Black, a homeless population that's, I guess it was 60% Black in a community that's 9% Black- If that's what our business owners on North Street want to stand on, I say they have no place in our community anymore.”
Inside council chambers, a tense, two-hour public comment session unfolded before the Ordinance and Rules subcommittee took up discussion of the ban. While the overwhelming majority of speakers were vociferously opposed to it, a handful of attendees defended it.
“Last time I spoke in front of a committee like this, I was branded cruel, heartless, evil, fascist business owner and only caring about myself and money," said business owner David Tierney. "You can believe what you like, but we've been here, invested in this city, since the 1800s. I was born here, I was raised here, I was educated here, I moved back here. I've lived here my entire life, and I've only worked in Pittsfield.”
Tierney lives in the city’s affluent suburbs to the west of downtown.
“Why is the business community bearing all the burden of this issue while the social services and the police receive millions of taxpayer dollars?" he asked. "If you truly believe the drug addicted are not the problem and you think that that it's a good thing to let them sleep in our doorways, please walk in our shoes. Take the drug addicted home where you have invested all your money, where your livelihood is. Let them sleep on your porch. Let them use your sidewalk as a toilet. Let them leave dirty needles in your bushes. Let them steal your stuff. Let them have sex behind your garage, in front of the neighbor's kids, because this is all what is happening on North Street.”
Joseph Daigneault identified himself as a homeless Pittsfielder who has faced drug addiction.
“Some of us, we have no choice," he said. "You guys lock up bathrooms, we can't use a facility anywhere, then we get arrested for using bathroom on the streets. What are we supposed to do? There's no place for us to charge our phones. There's no humanity left for us. So, when we act like animals, it's because you guys, it's because the community as a whole portrays us that way. We are umbrellaed as one person. Yes, there are homeless people that are drug addicts. Yes, there's homeless people that cause problems on North Street. Yes, that is true. But there's also homeless people that try to do the right thing, that try every day everything to get back to where they were.”
When the council finally took up the ordinance, members quickly moved to eliminate its most controversial aspects, including language that criminalized camping in public or assisting those who are, and language that placed a three-day limit on camping on private property.
“I'll go as far as you know, any person causing, permitting, aiding, abetting, concealing a violation of this chapter, just removing that," said City Council President and At-Large Councilor Peter White. "So really, just removing that criminalization.”
Councilors also requested the city re-evaluate its fine structure that would be attached to the new law, asking that the default $300 first offense fee be replaced with a written warning before moving up to a $50 fine.
“I'm very happy that we are talking about taking criminal penalties off the table, but I really would like to explore the idea of, you can't get blood from a stone," said Ward 7 City Councilor Rhonda Serre. "Why are you imposing civil penalties on people that have no resources?”
Marchetti said he was happy to accept the revisions, and noted that his administration was continuing to oversee a housing push started by his predecessor.
“I will provide credit to former Mayor Tyer, or Linda Clairmont at this stage of the game- But for the record, there is currently $54.8 million of construction of housing happening in the city of Pittsfield, from transitional housing to market rate housing that will produce by the end of this year 112 units of housing.”
The committee tabled the ordinance pending further revision by the Marchetti administration, and expects to take it up again on July 28th.
