Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) on Monday called on hundreds of cities and counties to ban homeless encampments on sidewalks, bike paths, and other public property, increasing pressure on local governments to follow the state‘s lead.
His office released a model for a local ordinance that municipalities can adopt to make encampments illegal and clear existing ones.
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The template would prohibit camping for more than three days, creating a semipermanent shelter, or camping in a way that blocks sidewalks. It is a very different approach from the traditional liberal one, which has been to emphasize government housing and treatment but not criminalize homelessness.
“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets,” Newsom said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner. “Local leaders asked for resources – we delivered the largest state investment in history. They asked for legal clarity – the courts delivered. Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”
Cities and counties are not forced to pass the ordinance that Newsom is proposing, but the governor is enticing them to do so by releasing $3.3 billion in funding to expand housing and residential treatment facilities for people with severe mental illness and addiction. The governor’s model ordinance also does not specify penalties for camping, so cities will decide how far they want to punish people who violate the law.
About half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless population calls California home. Last year, a record 187,000 people were homeless in the state, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Of those, about two-thirds were living on the streets, in tents, cars, and parks.
The effort to clean up California’s streets and public parks has been ongoing. Encampments line the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, parts of San Jose, and Sacramento, to name a few places.
Residents of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose who recently spoke with the Washington Examiner all echoed the frustration of having homeless people lying on the streets, clogging corners, and doing drugs in the open.
Despite a pledge by new San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie to clean up the city, homeless people, some of whom are addicts and others who have serious mental health problems, are in plain sight in places such as the Tenderloin district. They have indicated they are not going anywhere.
“They are trying to lock us up — it’s not going to work,” Mike Posner, who traveled from Texas to San Francisco at the tail end of the pandemic, told the Washington Examiner. “It’ll never happen here. If it does, I’ll go to LA. Ain’t a problem.”