Crackdowns on homeless encampments are ramping up in California following the US supreme court’s ruling that cities can fine and jail unhoused people sleeping outside even when there is no shelter available.
In California, home to an estimated 123,000 unsheltered people living in tents, trailers, cars and makeshift shelters, the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, last week issued an executive order calling for the removal of encampments across the state. His order directed state agencies to shutter tent sites on properties in their jurisdictions and urged local municipalities to adopt similar crackdowns.
The city council of Fresno in the Central valley gave initial approval for an ordinance on Monday prohibiting “sitting, lying, sleeping or camping on a public place … at any time”, saying a violation would be a criminal misdemeanor subject to a maximum fine of $1,000 and up to one year in jail.
The San Francisco mayor, London Breed, sent out a memo this week outlining a more aggressive approach to sweeps, saying teams of police officers and public works employees will target encampments on a daily basis and that workers will return to swept sites to force out people who have returned.
The tougher approach has sparked widespread concern from civil rights groups and advocates for unhoused people who argue sweeps and criminalization are costly responses that exacerbate the crisis and fail to get people the help they need, particularly when there is a shortage of appropriate shelter space. During sweeps, unhoused people can lose their belongings, including medications and vital paperwork and end up scattered in hidden locations where they can be more vulnerable and it can be harder for outreach teams and their caseworkers to find them, advocates say.
Officials in Los Angeles have taken a different approach, with the county board of supervisors unanimously supporting a motion on Tuesday affirming that it will not jail people for unhoused camping. “We’re not going to turn our backs. We’re not going to use our jails to somehow incarcerate and criminalize people who are on the street,” said Hilda Solis, the supervisor and motion’s co-author, the LA Times reported.
Governments already had wide latitude to conduct sweeps before the supreme court’s ruling, and some officials in Orange county have said the decision and the governor’s order will not change much about their ongoing efforts to clear camps.
In San Francisco, which has 4,000 shelter beds for an estimated unhoused population of 8,000 people, encampment residents were getting minimal notice about sweeps this week, according to the San Francisco Standard, a local news site that witnessed some of the crackdowns.
The outlet captured one police officer shouting at an unhoused person and citing the mayor and governor while explaining the crackdown, saying, “London Breed, the mayor, Gov Gavin Newsom says no more on the streets, no more encampments. No more. This is what it’s come down to. This is our laws.” The video showed workers grabbing the unhoused person’s tent as the individual tried to hold on to their sleeping bag and other items inside.
Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco, told the Guardian last week that police had become increasingly threatening to unhoused people since the supreme court’s decision, “telling people they don’t have any rights any more.
“We know there’s not enough shelter, there’s not enough housing and we’re not doing enough to prevent people from becoming homeless,” she said. “The reason folks are out there is the high rent and this is up and down the west coast. We know what the cause is and the solution should be directed at that.”
The San Francisco mayor’s office did not immediately respond to an inquiry on Wednesday.
