Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that California cities and counties need “to take urgent action” to remove homeless encampments from public spaces is the highest level of endorsement for a proven failure of a tactic.

It’s also a stunning example of Newsom’s ability to turn the blame of statewide failures away from himself and his administration. But more about that shortly.

Newsom on Monday called upon cities and counties to utilize a model ordinance from his office that recommends cities and counties ban “persistent” encampments and those that block sidewalks, and require local officials to make “every reasonable effort” to offer shelter and identify resources for homeless people before clearing encampments.

It’s a move that is sure to find support among Californians frustrated by homelessness. But it is the wrong move.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, of the nation’s 771,500 people experiencing homelessness, more than 187,000 are in California. Of those 187,000, at least two-thirds are unsheltered, accounting for almost half of the country’s unsheltered population.

We understand the public frustration and we share it, but the underlying issues of a lack of housing and treatment for homeless people will remain no matter how often communities move them about.

Last year, the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, after Newsom signed a similar order that required California officials to clear homeless encampments on state property, wrote that “thousands of low-income Californians are now subject to even greater rates of harassment, arrests, and fines — simply because they have nowhere else to go.”

Harsh laws do nothing to help

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in Grant’s Pass v. Johnson, a handful of California municipalities, including the Bay Area cities of San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco, have cracked down on encampments, choosing to fine or even jail those who resist services. Across the country, since the Grants Pass decision, nearly 150 cities in 32 states have banned camping in public, even when there is no available indoor shelter.

Sacramento has city ordinances similar to the governor’s directive already in place: A sidewalk ordinance, recently updated in 2022, classified blocking sidewalks as a misdemeanor; and Sacramento’s “unlawful camping ordinance” prohibits camping, occupying facilities or using camping paraphernalia on public or private property.

But all these ordinances have done is ramp up fines and citations for people who cannot afford to pay. According to Bee reporting, Sacramento police gave out 543 citations from August 2023 through December 2024 — but counted just 30 citations in the prior 17 months.

The Bee recently interviewed a penniless woman living on Sacramento’s streets who owes more than $300 to the city that she cannot pay back. A misdemeanor charge for a failure to pay could destroy any chance she has of finding housing.

“What are the tickets helping?” Theresa Rivera, 45, told The Bee. “It’s not helping the city because I can’t afford to pay it. It’s not helping us because it’s affecting us getting housing.”

And this is the penalizing program Newsom wants to implement statewide?

Does moving encampments work?

Moving homeless people from encampments in public places works in very specific circumstances, and often only if the effort is done for human safety. A recent undertaking in Fresno is one example of such an effort.

When Jerry Dyer took over as Fresno’s new mayor in 2021, the first thing he worked on was relocating homeless people from camping alongside the three freeways that run through the city.

At that time, approximately 700 people were camping along Highways 41, 180 and 168. The initial phase of what Dyer called Project Off-ramp was focused on about 250 people in the downtown area where the three highways meet in a series of on-and-off-ramps.

“We want to stay away from any type of enforcement, citations,” Dyer said at the announcement of Project Off-ramp. “We want to establish a rapport, get those individuals to voluntarily go to these (housing) locations.”

Dyer added that “the reality is people don’t have a right to live on the freeway. It’s unsafe.”

Three people camping on freeway embankments were struck by vehicles and killed in the months before Dyer began his operation. In addition, there were 618 fires along Fresno freeways in 2020 that required responses by the Fresno Fire Department.

People who moved off freeways were given the option to take shelter at Fresno motels that were converted into housing for homeless people. Mental health services and counseling for problems like substance abuse were also made available.

The result was that later that year, freeways were cleared of encampments, improving safety for both drivers and unhoused people.

Always someone else’s problem

Californians are sick of the buck being passed.

When Newsom was the mayor of San Francisco, he blamed the state for not helping his city with homelessness. Now that he is governor, it’s time to play the blame game again, in the opposite direction.

Creating stringent laws surrounding the problem of homelessness has already been tried. It is neither humane nor helpful, in most cases, to move a homeless encampment without a viable option to which those people can remove themselves.

Sweeping encampments causes many harms. Moving people severs relationships forged with mobile health teams and other health care providers, which has been shown to cause higher rates of hospitalizations and death among homeless people.

In cases where the encampment’s location is dangerous to both the surrounding community and the homeless community, there is already the legal ability to move it with respect and care. Newsom’s order will authorize cities to move encampments dangerously, with no plan for where those living there should go.

That is not humane. That is not Californian.

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