“We cannot enforce our way through homelessness it’s not the proper way to address homelessness.” Shawn Takeuchi of the Neighborhood Policing Division acknowledges it’s an imperfect approach to the needs of the 6,500 city residents who are homeless any given night this year. Police say they’re employing a progressive strategy by which city staff and then police offer shelter first and issue a warning, then step up to a misdemeanor charge or even an arrest if an unhoused person continues to camp in a prohibited spot. Though police have also recently ramped up enforcement of an older law banning camps from blocking sidewalks, they say they haven’t yet made an arrest under the new one, instead issuing 85 warnings and four citations in August. Enforcement coincided with a new “Safe Sleeping site” near a city park as a nod to adequate shelter options. The July ban prohibits camping near schools or shelters and in parks regardless of whether there’s shelter available. In San Diego, police have for more than a month been enforcing a controversial new ban on camps on most public property during the day, or when shelter is available. “The city is representing that 4,000 people on the streets are there by choice.” New bans with new tents “The question is, are those people actually voluntarily homeless, did they actually give them a specific offer?” said Zal Shroff, interim legal director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. More than 4,000 people live unsheltered on the streets in San Francisco, while the city has just over 3,000 beds, and notes that not all unoccupied beds are immediately available for someone to be placed. “We are pleased that the 9th Circuit agreed with the City that the preliminary injunction does not apply to those who refuse shelter or those who have a shelter bed and choose to maintain a tent on the street,” City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement.Īn attorney for the plaintiffs, a group of unsheltered San Franciscans and the nonprofit Coalition on Homelessness, said that was always the case - but with shelters often near capacity, the city hasn’t shown it is truly providing adequate offers to those on the streets. In San Francisco, both advocates for the homeless and the city claimed the latest court decision supported their side. Others say it’s an infringement on the rights of unhoused people who, if they refuse shelter because of personal circumstances, will get shuffled around town, lose belongings and contact with social workers, or be pushed to more remote or dangerous places to sleep. Some say the carrot-and-stick approach is too weak a response to flagrant public health and safety concerns on the streets. San Diego in late July began enforcing a ban on camps in most public places during the day other cities that have recently passed camping restrictions include Sacramento, San Rafael and Culver City. Many local governments say they can ban encampments and that they have the alternative shelter options to enforce it.Ĭalling it a necessary form of tough love, they’re cracking down on public camps, pairing an offer of shelter - or a stern prodding toward it - with the threat of arrest or fine. Officials said they haven’t yet decided whether to do that.Ĭalifornia cities have been itching to get around the technical bounds of the Idaho ruling as constituents with homes complain about encampments in public spaces, citing public health and other concerns. The most recent order gave San Francisco officials confirmation that the city can sweep sites and cite residents who are “voluntarily” homeless: those refusing legitimate, adequate shelter offers.
#EUREKA BOISE CRACK#
Last week a three-judge panel of that same court took another crack at the issue - this time declining to lift a temporary order that has, for nine months, halted San Francisco officials from sweeping the city’s homeless camps.
Circuit Court of Appeals, binding on states in the West, did not require cities to set up enough shelter beds for their entire homeless population, but said it would be unconstitutional to criminally penalize people camping in public when they lack “access to adequate temporary shelter.”
The 2018 decision on that Boise, Idaho case by the 9th U.S. The definition is at the heart of debates raging across California in the five years since a federal appeals court ruled that it’s cruel and unusual punishment to evict homeless people from public spaces when they have no other options. Is it one cot among dozens in a congregate shelter? A top bunk for an elderly person? An individual tiny home? A strip of asphalt, without electricity or water, where rows of people can set up their tents? But what, precisely, constitutes “adequate shelter?” Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMattersĬities in the West can’t legally clear encampments unless they can provide adequate alternative shelter to the camp residents. An emergency non-congregate housing site in Chico on Sept.
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