On May 12, Governor Gavin Newsom urged local governments across California to aggressively close encampments, releasing a model ordinance that cities and counties can adopt to prohibit and clear camps, and ban public camping in one spot for more than three nights. See the Governor’s press release.
Edie Irons, Director of Communications and spokesperson for All Home, made the following statement to the San Jose Mercury News, which printed part of it in their story the same day:
“Most Californians, and all the jurisdictions in the Bay Area we work with, share the goals of resolving encampments without criminalizing people with nowhere else to go—but the reality on the ground makes that incredibly difficult.
“It’s true that CA is doing more than ever to address homelessness, and it’s those State investments of focus and resources that are blunting the rate of growth of homelessness here. That’s the solution that works—not encampment policies that are too often weaponized against people experiencing homelessness.
“The fact is that right now in most of California, there aren’t nearly enough safe, decent shelters or housing options for people to move into off the streets. The resources from Prop 1 touted in today’s announcement were already expected, and in the best circumstances would take months or years to yield more shelter or housing capacity.
“For a move like this to rapidly reduce unsheltered homelessness, we’d need a blitz of resources, quick building, and innovation beyond what we saw during the pandemic, while also doing much more to prevent people from being pushed into homelessness. Without that groundwork, banning encampments won’t create the results we all want—but it will cause additional trauma and hardship for people who are already struggling just to survive each day.”
