Santa Cruz council approves, pauses homeless ordinance
Series of amendments are on deck to modify the revamped law
SANTA CRUZ >> An overhauled but unfinished city homeless sleeping law was approved early Wednesday morning.
In a 5-2 vote, the Santa Cruz City Council approved the euphemistically dubbed “Temporary Outdoor Living” ordinance, creating a law that will replace the city’s long-standing “camping” law that was suspended in recent years as the result of civil rights lawsuit rulings. However, enforcement of the ordinance, including banning people from sleeping outdoor or setting up their tents and bedding at certain times and locations, will be delayed. The council opted to freeze
implementation of the ordinance until a lengthy series of amendments to the ordinances discussed Tuesday and approved in a 6-1 vote receives two additional readings in coming months.
The approved ordinance also calls for the city to hold off on enacting the ordinance until the mandatory creation of a free storage program, until certain coronavirus pandemic thresholds have been met and until the establishment of managed public sleeping sites for at least 150 people. Transportation services to the storage program will be provided for those in need, under the ordinance, and private entities will be empowered to seek permits to operate managed encampments in any area of the city, if approved.
Existing language bans daytime camping and limits public sleeping in limited zones to overnight hours between an hour before sunset and 7 a.m., expected to be pushed back to an hour after sunrise but no later than 8 a.m. after coming amendments. Other pending amendments include removing encampment allowances along Swanton Boulevard and in open spaces within Delaveaga Park, Pogonip, Arana Gulch and Moore Creek. Narrowly allowed private residential property, faith institution and private business parking lots and sidewalks in city commercial corridors and industrial areas in the far Westside, Harvey West and Seabright neighborhoods would remain available, however.
Councilwoman Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson said that while the evening’s discussion was at times divisive for the community, it also provided the public and council an opportunity to discuss the issue and look at programming options.
“Compassion was brought up a number of times tonight and through the letters,” Kalantari-Johnson said of public comments. “I want to say that doing nothing is not compassion and watching human suffering among those who are unhoused is not compassion and watching the negative impacts to our community members who are housed is not compassion.”
The Santa Cruz City Council approved the ordinance and direction for pending amendments after more than five hours Tuesday. During the ordinance’s first reading Feb. 23, the same discussion stretched seven hours, concluding after 1 a.m. the next morning.
Community weighs in i.
On Tuesday, comments from some 100 people speaking for a minute apiece during a curtailed comment period ranged from supporters with concerns to adamantly opposed critics.
Retired environmental consultant Christina Kobland said she opposed the city’s plans to allow homeless encampments in open spaces.
“It will quite simply destabilize the non-native environment. It will also ruin the watershed,” Kobland said. “It will place these natural areas at high risk of wildfire, which as you know, conjuncture with residential areas within the City of Santa Cruz.”
Bev Prentiss said she lives in a home along the San Lorenzo River levee and supported the ordinance’s passage so that she could feel safe from fire dangers, illegal drug use and the general crime she associated with a nearby homeless encampment.
Chloe Hoke, an environmental scientist, urged the council to put its energy toward life-saving programs for those without shelter and to vote down the ordinance.
“You’re more concerned with protecting the environment from the houseless than protecting the houseless from the environment,” Hoke said. “This ordinance is a performative attempt to sweep optics of poverty out of the public eye with no genuine attempt to address the underlying issue.”
Raphael Sonnenfeld, a member of the city’s former Community Advisory Committee on Homelessness, said he worked for months with a subcommittee to put together ideas to improve or mitigate the negative effects of unsheltered homelessness and found the night’s ordinance to employ a counterproductive approach.
“Not only do I believe this ordinance is unconstitutional and will open the city to further civil liability, but it will not be effective in managing camping in a meaningful way,” Sonnenfeld said. “People will be forced to break the law to meet their needs.”
Earlier Tuesday, the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors discussed a three-year “Housing for a Healthy Santa Cruz: A Strategic Framework for Addressing Homelessness in Santa Cruz County” plan, with a focus on the coming six months. During their meeting, the board agreed to explore a plan to create 120 safe parking and shelter bed slots in the county’s unincorporated areas.
County Human Services Director Randy Morris urged those listening to focus on end outcomes over individual policy steps.
“I believe this community does not think having encampments is the end-goal we want, but we need to realize we have encampments. And so how do we toggle between and deal with the tension of not getting lost and solely focused on what to do with encampments,” Morris said. “What we want is everybody to be housed and healthy, not just living in encampments, or better living in encampments.”