Ban on homeless camps approved by Fresno City Council. How will fines, arrests work?
A controversial ban of homeless camping on public property throughout Fresno won preliminary approval from the Fresno City Council on Monday, setting the stage for possible citations, fines and arrests for people who refuse to move and decline offers of shelter or services.
The 7-0 vote came after hours of impassioned – and at times profane – testimony from homeless persons and advocates urging the elected officials to reject the ordinance amendments sponsored by Mayor Jerry Dyer and Councilmembers Garry Bredefeld, Miguel Arias and Tyler Maxwell.
Councilmembers Luiz Chavez, Nelson Esparza, Mike Karbassi and Council President Annalisa Perea joined Bredefeld, Arias and Maxwell in voting yes.
The ordinance will return to the City Council for a final vote on Aug. 15. If approved at that time, it would take effect in mid-September.
“No person may sit, lie, sleep or camp on a public place at any time,” the new ordinance language states. “’Camp’ shall be defined to include, but not limited to, sitting, lying, storing or placing a tent on a public place. ‘Public place’ shall be defined to include, but not be limited to, sidewalks, streets, alleyways or other public space.”
The proposed ordinance, if ultimately approved, prohibits sleeping or camping in any pedestrian or vehicle entrance to public or private property along a public sidewalk. And another provision states that “no person may sit, lie, sleep or camp on a property designated as a sensitive use,” including schools, child-care facilities, parks, libraries, government buildings, warming or cooling centers, or existing homeless shelters.
Violations of the ordinance would be considered a misdemeanor that carries a fine of up to $1,000 or one year in jail.
The ordinance’s sponsors last week said the ban is aimed at the small percentage of homeless people who habitually defy requests from police officers to move their makeshift camps from sidewalks, alleys, parks and other places where they interfere with businesses or harass residents, and who refuse offers of social services or other assistance.
“The people of Fresno have been patient long enough, and their patience has run out,” Dyer said Friday. “They are fed up. We are fed up. And the state of California is fed up with our unsheltered population that is having a negative effect on our communities.”
More than 60 people pleaded with the council to vote, No, on the ordinance, many of whom argued that the measure serves to punish homelessness when many of those who are unsheltered have no choice.
“These are the people who you guys talk about,” Dez Martinez, a homeless advocate, told the council as she gestured to about 80 men, women and children gathered in the council chamber. “They’re here to tell you you’re wrong. They do want help. … You want to criminalize us when we have no other option but to sleep on the street.”
The introduction of the ordinance comes on the heels of two recent developments regarding homeless encampments: a recent Supreme Court decision that civil and criminal penalties for camping in public areas do not represent “cruel and unusual punishment” for homeless individuals under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution; and an executive order issued Thursday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom for state agencies to adopt policies to clear homeless encampments on state property and encouraging local city and county agencies to do the same.
“Just because the Supreme Court decided that it’s not cruel and unusual punishment doesn’t mean it’s suddenly not. Morality does not work that way, …” said Amber Crowell, a sociology professor at California State University, Fresno. “It is sad to me how quickly the city moved to put this ordinance in place after the Supreme Court ruling.”
“We all know there aren’t enough beds or services to actually redirect people to; for the many who are in poor health and have disabilities, this is only making a bad situation worse,” Crowell added. “This ordinance is like slamming your hands on a puzzle and throwing the pieces off the table instead of solving it.”
Emmanuel Agraz-Torres, a policy advocate with the Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability, said that rather than banning homeless camping, “the city should show a higher level of urgency and funding to ensure that shelters are adequately funded with sufficient beds and mental health services.”
Agraz-Torres also said the city must ensure a supply of affordable housing for Fresno residents “instead of hastily creating an ordinance that will only cause more suffering to the unhoused community.”
How will it be enforced?
Dyer, who served as Fresno’s police chief for many years before his retirement and subsequent election as mayor in 2020, estimated that the city’s unsheltered population is about 1,600, most of whom are cooperative when they are approached by police officers from Fresno’s Homeless Assistance Response Team, or HART.
But, he added, “there are people out there today … who are defiant, they refuse to leave when officers ask them to. They are doing things that intentionally disruptive to businesses.”
“They defecate on the front sidewalk in front of businesses, they urinate on businesses, they steal copper wire, they set fires, they break into homes and start fires,” Dyer said. Those problem offenders are the ones that are most likely to face arrest.
“The people we have identified that we will be pursuing with our HART team … are going to be those who are the most defiant; we’re focusing on problematic people,” he said. “And we’re going to be focusing on problematic areas” such as Blackstone Avenue, one of the city’s busiest commercial thoroughfares, and “sensitive” locations including parks, schools and community centers.”
Interim Police Chief Mindy Casto told the council that HART officers have interacted with more than 4,000 people so far in 2024, each time offering services as they are asked to move. “They don’t go out with the intent to make arrests; they go out with the intent to try to keep the peace, answer calls for service and keep the city in the best shape as they can,” she said. “And to offer help.”
But of those people with whom officers come into contact, “only about 6.2% have accepted services,” Casto added. “Everybody’s offered services .... So, I think that tells a story.”
Before any officers, whether with the HART team or the city’s regular patrol officers, begin enforcing the new ordinance, “they’re all going to undergo training outlining what our intent is, which is still to enforce the law with compassion, but with less tolerance toward repeat problem and violent and threatening types of individuals,” she said. “This is going to be a tool for the officers to use when a problem just can’t be solved any other way.”
Dyer said officers will also receive additional training in crisis intervention.
Perea, the council president, said that while the new ordinance aims to provide a measure of accountability for the homeless, she also wants the city to have accountability in its enforcement.
“I just want to be clear that we will continue to offer housing and services as a first step before we just go and arrest someone or fine someone,” she said. Perea called for the Dyer administration to provide an update in the months after the ordinance takes effect to examine its effectiveness – something Dyer said could be provided soon after the start of 2025.
Perea’s request underscores the importance of “crafting a policy that is implementable,” she told The Bee following the vote. “As part of that I want to make sure that what we’re passing is not just words, but actual, enforceable policies.”
“How do we measure success?” Perea said. “What does ‘success’ look like to us? Does it mean a reduction in encampments? Does it mean, to some, that we’re jailing more people? I think we all might have a different definition of what success means.”
“It’s important that we’re intentional about bringing it back and analyzing what the data points to show us when it comes to how the police department implements what we just passed,” she added. That includes before-and-after comparisons of encampment numbers, numbers of arrests and citations, or numbers of people who accept offers of services.
This story was originally published July 29, 2024 at 8:24 PM.
