Garcetti says L.A. can resume disputed ban on overnight sidewalk sleeping

Eleven years ago, Los Angeles officials agreed to stop arresting people who bed down for the night on streets and sidewalks until the city built more homeless housing.

The deal ended a legal battle with skid row residents and their advocates, who argued that the law trampled on the rights of homeless people who had nowhere else to go.

Now Mayor Eric Garcetti says enough housing has been built to meet the settlement requirements, clearing the way to enforce the law again. But if L.A. starts ticketing people under the contested code, it is likely to kick off a new battle with homeless advocates.

“There is a snowball’s chance in hell that a court will let them enforce that,” said Carol Sobel, Tents line the sidewalks near East 5th and San Pedro streets in Los Angeles’ skid row on Feb. 15.

one of the attorneys who represented skid row residents in Jones vs. City of Los Angeles. “The city will lose in court again.”

Garcetti, who is weighing a presidential run, has faced growing pressure to address the tent cities that sprawl across L.A. sidewalks. This spring, he launched plans to spend at least $20 million on new shelters and

vowed to boost police patrols and cleanups to prevent encampments near those sites.

Those plans have thrust the Jones settlement back into the spotlight. Neighbors worried about the proposed shelters argue the pact makes it impossible to stop people from camping out near the new facilities. Some homeless advocates and activists, in turn, fear the city is gearing up for a crackdown.

At a meeting Monday with the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board, Garcetti said the city would not rush to arrest those sleeping overnight on sidewalks, but called the law “a tool that we have before us, that we can and will use.”

The mayor added that the city would enforce the law only if there was “a place to go,” such as a bed in one of the emergency shelters now being proposed across the city, and would give people time and help with relocating.

His deputy chief of staff, Matt Szabo, said their goal was to not to resume arrests, but to keep neighborhoods clean around the new shelters, which they might be able to accomplish without enforcing the disputed law.