New SC homeless law over 1st hurdle

SANTA CRUZ >> The Santa Cruz City Council took the first of two needed votes Tuesday toward reinstating an overhauled city law that would restrict when, where and how people without homes sleep outdoors.

“It’s not by mistake that we’ve ended up here. It’s unfortunate, it’s unacceptable as a nation that we are in this place,” Councilwoman Martine Watkins said of the national trend toward increasing homelessness. “This is not the kind of policies that we enjoy making, but it’s also our responsibility as policymakers to take ownership over some of these issues in our community.”

The proposed new “Temporary Outdoor Living” law, passed shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday in a 5-2 vote, primarily differs from its decadesold no-camping ordinance predecessor, currently suspended, in that it allows limited single-night options for overnight tent encampments, under certain conditions, from an hour before sunset until 7 a.m. A second and final reading of the ordinance will occur at the next council meeting and could be effective 30 days after, but the law’s daytime camping restrictions would not be enforced until the city sponsors or arranges for the sponsorship of an unsheltered persons’ storage program within the city.

Former Santa Cruz Mayor Don Lane, who led an unsuccessful council minority effort to remove the word “sleep” from the language of the prior no-camping city ordinance in March 2016, weighed in on the new law this week with a post titled “Something for everyone … not to like” on his personal blog.

“There really is something in the proposal to alarm people in every corner of the political boxing ring known as Santa Cruz,” Lane wrote of the Temporary Outdoor Living law. “Perhaps this is an indication that it really is a decent effort at trying to balance a lot of needs and concerns.”

In a presentation to the council, city Planning, Community Development and Homeless Response Director Lee Butler showed a city map combining areas both firmly and potentially prohibited for overnight sleeping under the ordinance.

“Yes, this looks like a large portion of the city and it is a large portion of the city,” Butler told the council.

Councilman Justin Cummings,

late in the meeting, asked city officials to clarify where people can sleep and if those locations will have easy access to bathrooms, refuse disposal and storage facilities. His request to slow the ordinance’s forward progress to allow the council to explore these issues, as well as to answer the question of where unsheltered people will go during daylight hours, went unheeded by the council majority.

Butler said open spaces more than 75 feet from trails in Moore Creek, Pogonip, DeLaveaga Park and Arana Gulch — except where sensitive habitat or safety issues have been identified — and along but not blocking city sidewalks not in the downtown or San Lorenzo River levee.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, in a letter to the City Council, condemned the “increased regulations targeting unhoused individuals” in the city, according to a statement signed by ACLU Foundation of Northern California’s Racial and Economic Justice Program Director Brandon Greene and ACLU Santa Cruz Chapter Chairman Peter Gelblum.

“Prior attempts by the City of Santa Cruz to manage unsheltered homelessness, via ordinances targeting a ban on sleeping in public, has been deemed unconstitutional and ineffective,” the ACLU letter reads, in part. “Today’s ordinance is similarly problematic in that it will fail to address and mitigate the environmental and social impact of encampments that city leaders are touting to be the reason behind this ordinance.”

Santa Cruz Police Chief Andy Mills, in a presentation to the council, said the ordinance’s requirement that people pack up their camps each night would prevent “entrenchment” of larger homeless camps. He added that his department’s enforcement efforts would initially focus on gaining compliance in the city’s downtown, parks and beaches. The ordinance’s escalation from a citation to a misdemeanor crime for a second offense within 30 days was a necessary consequence in order to gain traction, Mills said.

“The goal is not to criminalize homelessness, but to gain compliance when possible,” Mills said.

Joy Schendledecker with the mutual-aid group Sanitation for the People highlighted the benefits of having known encampment locations for such reasons as supply deliveries, outreach services, medical visits, community building and rest and recovery.

“Preventing entrenchment prevents stability,” Schendledecker said. “And we know that people benefit from stability on so many levels.”

Zeenat Hassan, a staff attorney with nonprofit advocacy group Disability Rights California, urged the council in a letter to withdraw the ordinance in its entirety.

“The City’s proposed anti-camping ordinance will not reduce homelessness,” Hassan’s letter reads. “Instead, it creates new ways for unhoused persons to encounter the criminal justice system, strengthening the relationship between poverty and incarceration. It requires the frequent movement of large numbers of people, making it more difficult for individuals to maintain stability and connect to service providers.”

Butler, along with Mills and Parks and Recreation Director Tony Elliot, stressed that the ordinance was designed to supplement existing city efforts to address homelessness, not to itself solve the issue. Butler gave a nod to what he described as hundreds of pages of emailed public comment on the proposed ordinance by recommending a series of related modifications to the ordinance.

Carol Polhamus of the Westside Neighbors group told the council Tuesday that residents did not want overnight sleeping to be allowed in city residential neighborhoods, a request later honored by the council.

“We want an equitable approach so that the needs of the 2,000 homeless are balanced fairly against the needs of the 63,000 other residents in our city,” Polhamus said. “We support this ordinance as a step forward toward restoring that balance.”

Earlier Tuesday, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors approved a request by Fifth District Supervisor Bruce McPherson and Third District Supervisor Ryan Coonerty to send a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom similar to one sent last week by the city, urging the state’s involvement in an ongoing large city homeless encampment near the intersection of Highways 1 and 9.