As local leaders, including District Attorney Summer Stephan, rallied behind Proposition 36 last year, opponents of the statewide criminal justice measure warned it would disproportionately impact people of color.
In the months after Proposition 36 took effect, those fears appear to have panned out: Nearly a third of people arrested on Proposition 36 charges in the city of San Diego were Black, a group that makes up just 6 percent of the city’s population per the latest Census data.
San Diego police point to the disproportionate number of Black San Diegans who are homeless downtown, where about a third of arrests have taken place, as one of the potential drivers of the disparity, while Stephan’s office says it’s confident the law is being applied fairly.
Proposition 36 opponents, including County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe, say they saw this coming – and that the arrests will do more harm to communities of color.
Our Lisa Halverstadt and Voice interns Alina Ajaz and Tessa Balc dug into the data.
One Year Later, Mixed Results for Stepped Up Homeless Enforcement
Micah Huff a client of Path’s Case Manager Dawn Contreras in Ocean Beach on June 17, 2025. / Ariana Drehsler for Voice of San Diego
It’s been one year since a landmark Supreme Court decision gave California cities permission to clear homeless encampments even when there’s not enough shelter for people living on the streets.
Our Lisa Halverstadt teamed up with reporters from CalMatters in Sacramento and LAist in Los Angeles to find out how tougher enforcement policies are working out.
They wondered: What happens when police clear encampments and cite homeless people, sometimes again and again?
The answer: It depends.
The situation in San Diego and L.A.: Halverstadt and LAist reporter Aaron Schrank interviewed homeless people who’ve been cited or arrested multiple times in San Diego and L.A.
Homelessness-related citations are up by double-digit percentage points in both cities.
But few of the people cited wound up in shelter, reporters found. Some refused offers. Others wanted off the streets but no shelter was available. Racking up multiple citations sometimes led to arrests, which in turn made it harder to find housing.
Glimmer of hope in the capital. The story was different in Sacramento. There, persistent enforcement ultimately prodded a man who’d been living on the streets for three years to accept placement at a recently built tiny home shelter.
With the help of a case worker, he began clearing the legal morass created by multiple citations and missed court dates. His current goal is signing up for Social Security benefits and securing permanent housing through a state program.
The bottom line: Citations can be a useful tool to persuade homeless people to exit the streets. But the tool only works if shelter is immediately available when people are ready to accept it.
Sacramento Report: Environmentalists Skeptical of Rush to Deregulate
Image via Shutterstock
As housing and energy prices soar in California, state lawmakers are debating a flurry of bills aimed at lowering electricity costs and reducing barriers to building new homes.
Our Deborah Brennan has been following those efforts, including some led by local lawmakers. One common denominator is growing consensus, even among Democrats, that ambitious state environmental laws are part of the problem.
This week, Brennan talked with two San Diego environmental leaders to get their take.
Masada Disenhouse, executive director of SanDiego350, told Brennan she’s worried bills aimed at trimming red tape around housing construction could undermine hardwon environmental gains in a state where previous eras of unchecked development led to sprawl and pollution.
Nicole Capretz, CEO of the San Diego Climate Action Campaign, on the other hand, says she favors legislation that could trim electricity rates, including a bill to prevent power utilities from charging ratepayers for lobbying and advertising, and another that could cut the cost of building new power lines by authorizing public financing for the process.
Also in the Report: Gov. Gavin Newsom goes to court against Fox News.
Read the Sacramento Report here.
Politics Report: ‘You’re Trying to Pull a Fast One’
San Diego County Water Authority meeting in Kearny Mesa on July 27, 2023. / Photo by Ariana Drehsler
We pulled this post from the Politics Report. The Politics Report is available exclusively to Voice of San Diego members. To get access, become a member here and subscribe to the weekly politics newsletter.
One of the questions coming out of the giant settlement the San Diego County Water Authority struck with the Metropolitan Water District is what would happen to the army of attorneys who charged the Water Authority about $20 million over the years of litigation.
In particular, what would happen to Chris Frahm, a partner with Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck, LLP? Frahm was the former chair of the Water Authority and widely considered the engineer of the legal battle the agency waged against its big sister to the north. Her job was the war and the war was over.
Thursday, that question blew up the regular meeting of the Water Authority’s Board of Directors. Now one of the directors is calling for the agency’s general legal counsel to step down.
More politics: On the latest episode of the VOSD Podcast, the crew sits down with San Diego Councilmember Vivian Moreno. Listen to the episode here.
In Other News
- A federal judge signed off on a San Diego housing policy settlement that will concentrate new affordable housing in areas of medium to high income. The settlement stems from a 2019 lawsuit that alleged San Diego unfairly concentrated affordable housing developments in lower income neighborhoods. (Union-Tribune)
- The union representing 230 healthcare workers laid off last week by UC San Diego Health told KPBS on Friday that the layoffs gutted already strained programs at the health system and would result in compromised patient care.
- A judge last week said a whistleblower lawsuit filed by the former finance director of the San Diego Association of Governments can move forward. Former director Lauren Warrem alleged she was fired after she questioned toll collection practices on the South Bay Expressway. SANDAG had tried to force her lawsuit into mediation. (Union-Tribune)
- Military officials announced Friday the San Diego-built USNS Harvey Milk would be renamed the USNS Oscar V. Peterson, after a World War II sailor awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor for saving the lives of 123 shipmates during the Battle of the Coral Sea. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria criticized the renaming, saying denigrated gay people and signals that the military does not value all servicemembers equally. (Axios)
The Morning Report was written by Lisa Halverstadt and Jim Hinch. It was edited by Andrea Sanchez-Villafaña.