Governor Gavin Newsom once again is exhorting cities and counties to crack down on homeless encampments, this time providing the template for a one-size-fits-all ordinance that local governments could — and should — adopt.
Newsom, widely believed to be nursing presidential ambitions, has spent billions during his administration to address the issue of homelessness, but the results have been largely mixed. Not only have encampments persisted as an abiding reality of urban life in California — home to a quarter of the nation’s homeless population — but state’s inability to track where the money actually went has been a colossal embarrassment.
Newsom is suggesting, among other things, a requirement that homeless encampments be limited to no more than 72 hours in any one location, much the way cars parked on certain streets are. Newsom is not threatening to penalize local governments that decline to comply — as he did several months ago when making similar entreaties — but he has conspicuously mentioned that the state is about to release $3 billion in mental health funds targeting the chronically homeless. Competition for these grants is expected to be intensely competitive; the governor did not have to mention that cities who disagree with a heavier-handed law-enforcement response might find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Newsom stressed that enforcement actions should be undertaken only when there are shelter beds available.
In the City of Santa Barbara, for example, there’s been a significant uptick in the number of temporary, interim, or permanent housing for the homeless in the past few years. Even so, the number of available shelter beds at any given time can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
In the past year alone, City Hall clean-up crews have eradicated 485 encampments throughout the city and another 531 along creeks, waterways, lagoons, and beaches. The city has responded to 508 complaints about encampments — 259 throughout the city and 249 along creeks and waterways. Many of these encampments are reestablished and repopulated shortly after they’ve been cleared.
How many people live at these encampments at any time is unclear, but in last year’s Point-in-Time count, Santa Barbara reported 234 unsheltered individuals. This year’s count results are running late due to a hangup with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which requires these counts be taken in localities receiving federal homeless assistance funding.
One housing option not pursued with much vigor have been the parking lots of state office buildings strewn throughout Santa Barbara. These are vacant at night and would make ideal receptor sites for the Safe Housing Program in which people living in cars are provided safe spaces to park, replete with porta-potties and drive-by nocturnal patrols. Despite efforts by State Senator Monique Limón and Assemblymember Gregg Hart, the state has remained impervious to such requests.