Supervisors OK ban on homeless camps
The Kern County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an ordinance that bans camping in many public areas on Tuesday.
Billed as one aspect of a new package to combat homelessness, the ordinance strengthens the county’s ability to remove encampments from places such as public parks, riverbeds and beneath freeway overpasses. It will be combined with $8.3 million in federal funding that will fund expanded homeless outreach and mental health services in the metro Bakersfield area over four years.
Local homeless service providers have largely signed off on the package, saying that it addresses many gaps in the system. However, community advocates spoke out strongly against the ordinance during Tuesday’s meeting, saying it further marginalizes an already vulnerable population.
“These people will still be in front of people’s businesses. They will still be in parks, they will still be in these places, it will just now be an extra burden on top of the burden they are already facing,” Megan Russell said during the meeting. “I do feel sick discussing it because I cannot believe that this is something that would be discussed today.”
In addition to prohibiting camping in public places like sidewalks, the ordinance prohibits camping within 500 feet of a school or library. It also establishes a process for removing property from encampments and storing it for 90 days.
A “safe” camping area will be established near the M Street Navigation Center for individuals who are displaced from their current locations.
The county will fund two rapid response teams to enforce the ordinance, and officials say those impacted will be offered places to stay in local shelters. But efforts to mitigate homelessness do not
stop with the ordinance.
The county plans to install mental health professionals with Bakersfield Police Department officers in new units known as co-response teams. Added resources will be sent to the county’s mobile evaluation teams, who respond to mental health crises. Thirdly, the county plans to boost the Relational Outreach and Engagement Model team, which focuses on individuals who are homeless and resistant to treatment.
The entire package has garnered support from the county’s homeless service providers, some of whom were initially leery of the ordinance for its potential to “criminalize” homelessness.
“The county has very clearly worked very, very hard developing a strong program that addresses a whole number, and a host, of gaps that we have when it comes to addressing homelessness in those who are unsheltered,” said Anna Laven, executive director of the Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative. “An ordinance alone obviously just moves people around. The benefit, though, of what the county is really striving for, and I would say it follows with what we’ve been seeing at the city as well, is essentially this: when you have those wrap-around services, when you are looking at addressing all of the gaps that we have, we know that we can be particularly successful.”
The emotional meeting was halted for around 10 minutes at one point after Board Chairman Phillip Peters requested two members of the public be removed from the Board Chambers after one spoke longer than the two-minute time limit during public comments and another objected to the removal. Sheriff’s deputies escorted the speakers from the chambers.
One of those speakers, Riddhi Patel, told The Californian the removal showed the county refuses to listen to community members with whom they disagree.
“Members of the public should not be removed from the public comment process simply for going over time or worrying about other members of the public,” she wrote in a text to The Californian. “This is simply a tool of the state to render the process inaccessible for the community members they deem ‘paid actors.’”
The cost of not doing anything weighed heavily on Supervisor Mike Maggard, who initiated the process that led to the ordinance.
“While I am respectful of, and acknowledge the concerns that others have, that this may be harmful to people, I think it is much more harmful to people and inhumane for us to do nothing,” he said during the meeting. “This ordinance is one in a whole continuum of efforts on our part to do something, particularly for the mentally ill and the addicted.”
The ordinance will go into effect in 30 days.