In fairness to the City Council, I’m sure they felt they had to do something about the city’s homeless problem. Unfortunately, I don’t think what they did do will make any difference—and I’ll explain the exact problem in a second.
What the city did was pass an ordinance that revised the “camping” regulations which prohibits: “camping, occupying camp facilities, or using camp paraphernalia on designated public and private property.”
Those who are found in violation will now receive a misdemeanor.
The council was quick to push back against the notion that they were criminalizing homelessness, but it is difficult to come to a different conclusion.
The Grants Pass case which came down last June by the US Supreme Court ruled that the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, did not violate the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment when enforcing camping ordinances.
The main change is that the Court “overturned an early decision by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which barred cities from enforcing camping ordinances in most public and private areas whenever the number of unsheltered people in a jurisdiction exceeds the number of ‘practically available” shelter beds,’” Davis’ City Staff report noted.
Councilmember Will Arnold said on Wednesday that he felt like after the Boise decision (the 9th Circuit ruling), “we had no options… all we had were carrots.”
He said, what the Supreme Court decision last summer changed is “now we need to recognize that a balanced approach, the Boise decision was unbalanced and that we should achieve greater balance.”
He said, “This is not, in my opinion, this is not an overreaction. This is not the pendulum swinging in the full other direction. But this is instead recalibrating to maybe the balance that should have been there the whole time where it was not for what I think was sort of a, well-meaning, but bad decision on the Boise decision.”
That’s an interesting framing, but basically Councilmember Arnold is saying it is all right for the city of Davis to clear encampments even when there are not sufficient shelters for people to sleep in.
That’s the only change that the Supreme Court made. Before Grants Pass, a city had to have a place for homeless to go in order to clear their encampment. Now they don’t.
Forget for a minute about the criminalization of being homeless or at least the criminalization of being a homeless person without a shelter—if you don’t have a shelter for someone, where are they going to go?
Councilmember Gloria Partida acknowledged that this is “a very complicated issue.”
She said, “I understand that we don’t want to criminalize homelessness. Absolutely not. I think that is important, and I absolutely agree that this is something that we’ve brought upon ourselves.”
Partida linked it to the housing crisis, stating, “We’ve refused to build housing. We have made it so difficult for people to get social services. We’ve made it so difficult for people to access just some of the basic needs that are out there.”
I agree with Partida that we have brought this on ourselves, but she is kidding herself if she does not believe that the lettering of that ordinance doesn’t criminalize homelessness.
I’m sorry, that’s what this does. If you prohibit camping in a public place under threat of jail, that is criminalization.
I think Will Arnold had it exactly backwards—the Boise decision had the balance, it forced the city to have a place to put someone up before you cleared their possessions and forced them to move or be imprisoned. We have lost that balance.
Last summer, Disability Rights California (DRC), said, “The constitution should protect all of us from the arbitrary power of the state, regardless of our status as members of a particular group.”
The DRC said it supports Justice Maria Sotomayor’s dissent that recognizes how “those with a history of mental health conditions… are at greater risk of homelessness” and where “less than five percent of housing in the United States is accessible for moderate mobility disabilities.”
DRC added, “Grants Pass will harm people across disabilities, especially Black, Native American and LGBTQIA2S+ individuals, survivors of domestic violence, and veterans,” adding, “Instead of correcting the failed policies that lead to houselessness, elected officials now have one more tool to support efforts to conserve and institutionalize unhoused persons.”
Criminalization is not a solution to homelessness, said the DRC, arguing, “Sweeping individuals away denies their humanity. It traps people in cycles of poverty and institutionalization.”
Credit to Vice Mayor Bapu Vaitla and Councilmember Donna Neville for voting against the ordinance for the very reason that the ordinance was ultimately criminalizing sleeping outside.
“Charging people with misdemeanors, setting a court date for which they may not appear, fines that they probably can’t pay, a criminal record, medical needs being shuttled into the criminal justice system, I just don’t think that’s how we address this problem, I think it’s going to get worse,” Councilmember Vaitla said.
The cost of jailing someone in Yolo County runs around $80,000 to $100,000 per year. Jails right now represent the largest mental health facilities in most counties—and yet are ill-equipped to address the needs of chronically mentally ill people.
The best solution: permanent supportive housing.
In 2023, the Terner Center at Berkeley, pushed “Permanent Support Housing as a Solution to Homelessness.”
It found: “Expanding the supply of PSH is a critical step toward addressing California’s homelessness crisis. Evaluations of PSH have found that the model helps to promote housing stability and reduces the costs associated with hospital and institutional care.
“The PSH model, which provides people with housing first, and then offers supportive services—including for mental health and substance use issues, as well as to support their personal development and financial well-being—has seen remarkable success in ending chronic homelessness, even among people facing significant barriers to housing security.”
At the end of the day, throwing someone in jail if you don’t have the services available and don’t have a shelter bed seems to be the very definition of cruel and unusual punishment and, sadly, the Davis City Council last week perpetuated the problem.
How does the data regarding unused shelter beds in yolo change your thoughts?
Under the current law, if there’s available shelter encampments can be cleared. The only thing this changes is if there is no bed.
“That’s an interesting framing, but basically Councilmember Arnold is saying it is all right for the city of Davis to clear encampments even when there are not sufficient shelters for people to sleep in.”
To what degree is a community responsible for the homeless? I think we can almost all agree that we’re responsible for those that have lived in our community that become homeless. But what about transients? How many transients is the community responsible for? Is that number relative to surrounding communities? Is it relative to city population? Is it relative to a city’s income?
“The best solution: permanent supportive housing.”
Again, to what degree do we as a community provide permanent housing? Do we as a community commit funds to house every transient that decides to settle in our community?
“Criminalization is not a solution to homelessness, said the DRC, arguing, “Sweeping individuals away denies their humanity. It traps people in cycles of poverty and institutionalization.” ”
It’s not criminalizing homelessness. It criminalizes excessive loitering. Saying that enforcing loitering laws criminalizes homelessness is like saying giving out speeding tickets criminalizes owning a car.
“Charging people with misdemeanors, setting a court date for which they may not appear, fines that they probably can’t pay, a criminal record, medical needs being shuttled into the criminal justice system,………Jails right now represent the largest mental health facilities in most counties—and yet are ill-equipped to address the needs of chronically mentally ill people.”
I think you provided the answer to your own question. Why criminalize those that excessively loiter? Because the criminal justice system is the only system that has the capability and resources to manage the problem. Now is that ideal or best? No. So yes a better solution needs be created……but in the meantime….Just because it’s not the ideal solution right now doesn’t mean a town needs to shoulder the burden and try to solve the entire problem all by itself. Otherwise it’s like if the feds/state told the city of Oroville to build that dam on it’s own.
“At the end of the day, throwing someone in jail if you don’t have the services available and don’t have a shelter bed seems to be the very definition of cruel and unusual punishment and, sadly, the Davis City Council last week perpetuated the problem.”
There are three scenarios:
1. The community funds services and housing to the homeless and it becomes a significant drain on the already strained local economy. Homeless continue to make their way to Davis because they know they’ll be taken care of.
2. We ship the homeless loiterers off to the middle of nowhere. So they’re not incarcerated but have no access to resources and support.
3. We incarcerate them for now until a state/federal solution is implemented. In the meantime the homeless loiterers get the shelter and services they need without being a problem for everyone else. Is it the loving and caring wholesome solution that is probably needed and wanted? No. It’s the harsh reality that we continue to try to make better.
” I think we can almost all agree that we’re responsible for those that have lived in our community that become homeless. But what about transients? How many transients is the community responsible for?”
Adding to that, to what degree is Davis responsible for providing housing for illegal immigrants?
Keith O
I’m unaware of either the City of Davis or Yolo County paying for housing for illegal immigrants. There is migrant housing which really is a subsidy to local farmers which allows them to keep wages low.
“We incarcerate them for now until a state/federal solution is implemented. ”
You can’t just incarcerated people indefinitely under existing laws. That’s one of the reasons they are doing things like CARE court, but again, they have the beds or the facilities.
I didn’t mean to imply that we would incarcerate loiterers (and trespassing…etc..) indefinitely. I meant arrest and incarcerate them for whatever the existing loitering laws state…..though I would make every offense accumulate into longer incarcerations.
A homeless person that goes about their business is not a problem to the community. Basically as long as they are not a nuisance….they don’t bother us….we don’t bother them. Now this philosophy works on a basic civic level but it doesn’t do anything to fix or mitigate the actual problem. So to some degree, yes there needs to be more solutions to help fix the problem but waiting for them shouldn’t force the community to accept public nuisances.
Keith E
Loitering is based on the principle that someone has somewhere else to go and stay. The homeless don’t have that option. So the analogy does not work.
The costs of incarceration are much higher than the costs of providing services that would mitigate the homelessness. San Francisco did a study a number of years ago that found the annual cost to jail a homeless person was $60k while providing services cost a third of that. Those jail costs are even higher now. How is that fiscally prudent.
Other communities have the same level of homelessness. In Yolo County, surveys show that 75% of the homeless are from our community. This isn’t a transient problem. This is a problem that we are not taking responsibility for the least among us. And its making us worse off by trying to ignore it.