{"id":169766,"date":"2025-08-23T18:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T18:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/169766\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T18:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T18:20:09","slug":"california-cities-lack-unified-response-on-homeless-encampments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/169766\/","title":{"rendered":"California cities lack unified response on homeless encampments"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story<\/a> was originally published by\u00a0CalMatters.\u00a0Sign up<\/a>\u00a0for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

Clearing an encampment<\/a> is one of the most complicated and fraught tasks any California city can take on when responding to homelessness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How they handle that challenge varies widely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CalMatters asked nearly three dozen cities and counties throughout California for copies of their encampment management policies. Responses spanned a wide range, highlighting the lack of a unified strategy to address street homelessness across the state, even as Gov. Gavin Newsom is\u00a0pushing for more cohesive rules<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Diego, for example, has a 10-page policy that spells out everything from when removals can take place (during daylight hours and not if there is a 50% chance of rain) to how much advance warning the city must give camp residents (at least 24 hours) and how to handle personal belongings confiscated during the removal (items must be photographed, logged and stored for 90 days).\u00a0<\/p>\n

But some smaller cities and counties have no rules, or only bare-bones guidelines. Mendocino County has no encampment management policy. The Sheriff\u2019s Office\u2019s 861-page\u00a0manual<\/a>\u00a0includes a little more than two pages on how deputies should interact with homeless individuals. Deputies are \u201cencouraged\u201d to consider referring them to shelter and counseling instead of arresting them for minor crimes. Mendocino County also does not track encampment removals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dismantling an encampment can be devastating for the people who call the camp home, many of whom already have experienced significant trauma while living on the streets. At the same time, cities say they have an obligation to remove camps<\/a> that are dangerous, unsanitary, pose fire risks or are blocking traffic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having a policy in place, so that people living in an encampment know what to expect, can make the process easier on everyone, said Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow for the National Alliance to End Homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cFolks need to know when that trash truck is coming,\u201d he said. \u201cFolks need to know how long they have to be able to move. And when there\u2019s nothing in place at all and folks are just flying by the seat of their pants, that leads to more harm. That leads to more chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

How cities and counties remove camps has become especially important recently, as many places are\u00a0increasing enforcement<\/a>\u00a0after the U.S. Supreme Court last year\u00a0gave them more leeway<\/a>\u00a0to do so. Cities across the state have\u00a0passed new laws<\/a>\u00a0banning encampments, which may or may not include provisions that require the city to give advance warning before clearing a camp, or store people\u2019s possessions.<\/p>\n

Some counties, including Santa Cruz and Monterey, are just now writing encampment policies for the first time, spurred by a recent push from Newsom\u2019s administration. In May, he\u00a0called on cities<\/a>\u00a0to make it illegal to camp for more than three days in one place, while also encouraging them to give people a 48-hour notice before clearing a camp and to store belongings confiscated during a clearing so that their owners can claim them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latest\u00a0application<\/a>\u00a0for state homelessness funding requires cities and counties to submit a link to their encampment policy. If they have no such policy, they are supposed to commit to following the state\u2019s guidance on addressing camps.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both the governor\u2019s office and the Legislature have signaled that the\u00a0next round of funding<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 which won\u2019t come until the 2026-27 budget year \u2014 will require cities and counties to adopt encampment policies in order to qualify.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Governor cannot mandate cities and local jurisdictions to adopt a specific plan or ordinance,\u201d Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for the governor\u2019s office, said in an email. \u201cThat said, the Governor has shared a\u00a0model ordinance<\/a>\u00a0and called on every local government to adopt and implement local policies without delay, backed by billions in state funding and authority\u00a0affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court<\/a>\u00a0last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santa Cruz County recently drafted a policy to govern encampment removals in unincorporated parts of the county (nearly 600 square miles), which is set to go before the board of supervisors next month. Monterey County passed a new policy earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The current process for clearing an encampment in unincorporated Santa Cruz County can be \u201cchaotic,\u201d said Robert Ratner, director of Santa Cruz County Housing for Health. It\u2019s not always clear which agencies should be making the difficult decisions about which camps to clear, when and how.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Typically the Sheriff\u2019s Office makes those calls, Ratner said, but there are many relevant factors that the agency might not know \u2014 such as how many shelter beds are available, or whether the camp is polluting a nearby waterway. The new policy puts the county\u2019s executive office in charge of those tough decisions, and gives guidance on how long to store confiscated property (for at least 90 days) and how to conduct outreach (make a list of all camp residents and record details about their situation that will help connect them with housing and other services).<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, it\u2019s not easy,\u201d Ratner said. \u201cAnd I think this is where the guide is helpful. Because we\u2019re bringing it to the board and they\u2019re agreeing to the principles and then giving that direction to all the staff, so staff aren\u2019t left guessing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But cities and counties, including Santa Cruz, tend to be reluctant to write strict rules they may have trouble following later. It\u2019s hard to promise a shelter bed when you don\u2019t know if one will be available, for example. As a result, many policies offer vague guidelines rather than enforceable decrees. The U.S. Supreme Court last year\u00a0ruled<\/a>\u00a0local governments can ban encampments even if no shelter is available. While some local encampment policies state that cities and counties should try to offer a shelter bed before destroying a camp, few go so far as to require it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is one thing that tends to make encampment policies more binding: when they\u2019re written in court. That often happens after a group of homeless residents sues a city, as happened in San Diego and San Bernardino. When the two sides settle, they may agree on new rules to govern encampment removals in that city, and the city is legally bound to follow them.<\/p>\n

But that can also lead to drawn-out courtroom battles. Chico has been fighting for the past year to\u00a0get out from under<\/a>\u00a0a settlement reached after eight homeless residents sued the city in 2021, claiming its enforcement of anti-camping laws was unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0settlement<\/a>\u00a0set out strict new rules Chico now has to follow before it can clear a homeless encampment. The city must make sure it has enough shelter beds available for everyone who will be displaced from the camp, provide written notice to the plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers more than two weeks ahead of the clearing, provide a seven-day warning to the camp residents and then give another 72-hour warning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Folks need to know when that trash truck is coming.<\/p>\n

Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow, National Alliance to End HomelessnesS<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Advocates for unhoused communities\u00a0say those rules<\/a>, which are stricter than in many other California cities, provide crucial protections for people on the street who are just trying to survive. The city, on the other hand, says following that \u201cmulti-week, burdensome\u201d process before enforcing its camping ordinances is getting in the way of its duty to clear camps in areas prone to wildfires.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City of Chico is prevented from exercising reasonable actions to protect public health and safety (including the transient encampments themselves) from fire danger,\u201d City Manager Mark Sorensen said in an email. \u201cThe city is held hostage by the seven remaining plaintiffs and (their lawyers, Legal Services of Northern California).\u201d<\/p>\n

The city tried last year to get out of the settlement, after the\u00a0U.S. Supreme Court ruled<\/a>\u00a0that cities can make camping illegal even if they don\u2019t have shelter beds available,\u00a0and was shot down<\/a>. Now, the city is\u00a0trying again<\/a>. The parties are expected back in court later this fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Legal battles can also influence how cities handle personal belongings taken from a homeless encampment. San Bernardino, which last year\u00a0settled a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0related to the destruction of unhoused people\u2019s property, must provide camp residents with different-colored bags to differentiate between their property and trash, and give people with disabilities extra time to pack up their belongings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stockton, which cleared more than 200 encampments last year, instead abides by a police department policy that vaguely states officers should \u201cuse reasonable care\u201d with a homeless resident\u2019s property, and avoid destroying it. If the property owner can\u2019t pack it up, \u201cmeasures should be taken\u201d to secure the items.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most jurisdictions lack the resources to respond to all the encampments on their streets, so some have drafted policies that help them prioritize which camps to clear first. Fresno has a detailed metric that ranks encampments based on various risk factors. A camp gets two points if the fire department has had to come out, four points if it\u2019s been the location of a violent crime and one point if a policymaker has asked the city to clear the camp.<\/p>\n

Having such a patchwork of policies across the state makes it harder to solve the problem of homelessness, Ratner said. And while Newsom\u2019s efforts to get cities on the same page seem to be having some effect, tying those rules to state funding is far from a perfect solution, he said. Smaller cities that don\u2019t receive homelessness funds directly from the state have no incentive to adopt rules, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt creates significant inconsistencies,\u201d Ratner said, \u201cand more drama between the jurisdictions.\u201d<\/p>\n

CalMatters <\/a>is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization bringing Californians stories that probe, explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding our leaders accountable.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by\u00a0CalMatters.\u00a0Sign up\u00a0for their newsletters. Clearing an encampment is one of the most complicated…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":169767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,39990,9619,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-169766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-encampment","12":"tag-homeless","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115079467667410775","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}