San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill has denied reports saying
he is using taxpayer money to buy bus tickets to ship homeless
people to surrounding cities.
Hollister – San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill has denied reports saying he is using taxpayer money to buy bus tickets to ship homeless people to surrounding cities.
Earlier this week, TV news station KSBW reported Hill’s deputies were buying bus tickets to send the homeless to shelters in Salinas and Santa Cruz. Hill said the department had purchased bus tickets for homeless people 30 years ago and that his comments were taken out of context.
“We do not bus people. We did not bus people out of here and that’s the bottom line,” Hill said. “I don’t care what (they said). I’m telling you the truth.”
KSBW news director Lawton Dodd said the station has their sources but would not say who told them the information.
“We stand by our story,” Dodd said.
Hill said he had no idea where the station got the information.
“We don’t even have a bus service. Show me the bus. It just didn’t happen,” he said. “Why would any of my deputies buy them a bus ticket? They say, there’s the sidewalk, hit it. See you later.”
Hill said the story stemmed from a raid deputies conducted of a homeless camp on private property at the base of Park Hill a couple months ago.
He said when he was interviewed three weeks ago he spoke specifically about homeless people going back to that piece of private property, and that the news cast took his comments out of context when it was aired Tuesday.
KSBW quoted Hill as saying, “there’s no more warm and fuzzy on this issue. I’m not going to provide them with vouchers, I’m not going to try to find them a place to live. It’s either get out or they’re going to go to my jail, period, that’s it.”
Hill said he isn’t concentrating on moving the homeless out of the county, but that his deputies have and will pick up transients traveling through the county and give them a ride to the county line.
“Police have been doing it since the time of Ali Baba,” he said. “The policeman pulls up on his camel and hauls the guy off to another country.”
San Benito County Supervisor Reb Monaco said he had no knowledge of homeless people being bussed out of the county. Homeless advocate Marley Holte also said he’d never heard of anything like that happening.
Supervisor Pat Loe could not be reached for comment and Supervisor Ruth Kesler did not return phone calls Wednesday or Thursday.
Santa Cruz Vice Mayor Mike Rotkin said he asked groups that catered to the homeless in Santa Cruz if they’d heard of any people coming in from San Benito courtesy of deputy-bought bus tickets.
“There was no indication of it going on. I think we would have heard something – people don’t keep stuff like that secret,” Rotkin said. “I do question whether it’s going on.”
But Salinas City Councilwoman Maria Giuriato, who is involved with the city’s Homeless Coalition, said one homeless man arrived at a Salinas soup kitchen Thursday from Hollister.
“He said, ‘They sent me over here,'” Giuriato said. “How he got here I can’t tell you because we don’t even know.”
Giuriato said counselors at the soup kitchen had not finished talking to the man and assessing his situation, but were more concerned about getting him something to eat and a warm shower.
“The homeless population is not an easy population to deal with – sometimes people won’t talk,” she said. “And remember, sometimes you don’t get real information.”
Erin Musgrave covers public safety for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected]
