The Riverside Press-Enterprise
CITY PLAN TARGETS RIVERBED CAMPS
Goal is to end homeless living in wilderness areas, to reduce fire threat and get people into housing
Riverside leaders are poised to launch an accelerated, multipronged $5.8 million campaign to persuade homeless people to abandon tents in the Santa Ana River bed and move into housing, and clean up their camps.
The centerpiece of the plan is the significant expansion of a team of police officers, outreach workers and others formed three years ago to talk to homeless people throughout the Inland Empire’s largest city and offer them shelter and services.
The plan would start in July with the new budget year. It coincides with the writing of an ordinance that would bar camping in environmentally sensitive wilderness areas of the city. A Riverside City Council committee is set to discuss ideas for the ordinance in June.
City officials say they will be careful to stay in line with a Boise, Idaho, case ruling that barred cities from citing people for camping in public places when no shelter beds are available.
The campaign also comes at a time when residents and business owners are increasingly voicing concerns about assaults, vandalism and aggressive panhandling by homeless people. Also, many were alarmed by the stabbing death of a woman in the west Riverside neighborhood of La Sierra in April 2021 by a woman police said was homeless.
“lt’s reached a boiling point,” Riverside City Council Member Jim Perry said Friday. “It’s out of control. And community members are asking, ‘Who is going to stand up for us?’”
City officials say the plan is a holistic approach that also looks out for the interests of those without a roof over their heads. “For some, there is a fear that we are just policing the homeless,” Council Member Erin Edwards said. “That’s not what the … team is. This is a comprehensive plan to address a humanitarian crisis.”
Officials say the city’s wilderness areas — the river bed, Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park, Hole Lake and other arroyos — aren’t suitable for human habitation.
Edwards said living in the river bed is dangerous, exposing people to potential floods, fires and pollution, and it increases the risk of blazes breaking out in an area overgrown with vegetation and prone to wildfire.
Those fires pose a threat to people living in houses close to the river, Perry said.
Camping next to the river also is viewed as a threat to
the environment, a city report states. Besides reducing the threat of contamination, the report said, the dismantling and cleanup of camps would clear the way for cutting overgrown vegetation and removing invasive, nonnative plants to curb fires.
Some local advocates for homeless people generally expressed support for the plan.
“If they can get people the care they need and get them into housing, then I’m all for it,” said Rev. Erin Thomas, co-pastor at Riverside’s Calvary Presbyterian Church, which provides hot meals once a week for people who are in need.
What the city is building upon is a public safety and engagement team, or PSET, that started in spring 2019. Police Capt. Chris Wagner, who oversees the team, said the existing group operates seven days a week, 10 hours a day, from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., and is spread throughout the city.
Riverside intends to create a wildland public safety and engagement team that would focus exclusively on wilderness areas such as the river. With a budget of $5.8 million — $3.2 million for staffing and $2.6 million for vehicles, fuel, equipment, cleanup services and mental health beds — the team would work 20 hours a day, seven days a week — early morning to late at night — in the wildland areas.
“It will probably take several months to get a team up and running,” Wagner said, noting that training and background checks to fill law enforcement positions takes months.
He said the team will be anchored by 16 police officers, two police sergeants, eight outreach workers and two fire captains. The plan calls for maintaining those positions for two years, then gradually scaling down the team’s size with the expectation that, over time, there would be fewer camps.
The cost is projected at $5.8 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and $4.6 million in fiscal year 2023-24.
Wagner said the team would rely on four offroad vehicles that seat four people each and are capable of navigating the rough riverbed terrain, which includes “some quicksand spots.” The vehicle purchase would include four trailers necessary to haul the vehicles — which “are not street legal” — from the Police Department’s hangar at Riverside Municipal Airport to a launching point near the river, he said.
Edwards said the city is making a big investment up front with the belief that a “full-court press” strategy will “have the most success” against a daunting problem. In recent months, she said, the city has identified 49 encampments and talked to people at 47 of them.
“I’m very hopeful,” she said. “Here’s why: Because we’re working together as a region on this issue.”
Edwards said Riverside is coordinating with the county and officials from several neighboring cities, including Jurupa Valley, Norco and Corona.
Edwards said she’s also hopeful because, in visits to the river to date, 70% of people interviewed said they would accept housing if it were available.
Edwards introduced a similar initiative to move people out of the river and curb wildfires a year and a half ago.
“This proposal builds on what I was working in December of 2020,” she said.
In addition, the city would deploy eight police officers and others on a new urban engagement team that would work primarily with homeless people in urban areas of the city, Wagner said.
Wagner said the plan also builds on the success of the original engagement team, which in 2021 made more than 6,000 contacts with homeless people, persuaded 750 people to accept services, made 554 arrests, issued 337 citations, towed 49 vehicles and hauled away almost 550 tons of trash.
Kent Tuohino, pastor at Riverside’s Trinity Lutheran Church, which helps provide meals and showers to people without homes, said he hopes the program will be successful. He said it will be crucial for the city to provide an adequate level of services and housing for the homeless moving out of the river bed, or else they will simply move back.
And, he said, the city will have to continue to closely monitor the river area to prevent other people from setting up camps there.
“It’s not a one-anddone kind of deal,” Tuohino said. “You clear out an encampment and there will be more people who will very likely move into that area.”