Police chief wants stricter encampment laws for Madera parks. ‘Where else can they go?’
In dealing with homelessness in Madera, the police chief wants the City Council to approve new rules that would ban any unauthorized group from congregating in a public park if they make the space “unusable” to others.
Critics say plans like this amount to new discriminatory measures against homeless people and fail to account for the region’s need for more housing and service access. They also point out that some shelters require residents to leave during the day. Those more open to tightening Madera’s anti-encampment rules say it’s OK for the city to create tougher laws to have more control over its public spaces.
Police Chief Giachino Chiaramonte said during last week’s City Council meeting that officers have struggled to deal with groups often consisting of 5 to 10 homeless people who bring their belongings to parks from their encampments. He told The Fresno Bee later that the groups will often leave trash behind, and that “it’s disgusting when it’s done.”
“They’re doing almost like a park takeover,” he said of the groups. “They’ll show up right when the park opens and stay until it closes, and it’s just not a safe feeling for people.”
“I don’t understand why,” said Andrea, 45, a homeless woman who lives in a tent under an overpass near Madera’s Rotary Park. She told The Bee that any group of homeless people that happen to congregate at the park keep to themselves and do not bother other visitors. “When we’re out there, we’re together, but we do our own thing.”
She said homeless people tend to group up in one section of the park, but “we don’t take over the whole park.” Homeless women especially prefer to be with a group for their own safety reasons, she said.
It could be several weeks before the Madera City Council considers the ordinance updates requested by the chief, but Mayor Santos Garcia told The Bee on Friday that a change in the city’s encampment law is inevitable: “There’s no doubt that day will come.”
At the county level, the Sheriff’s Office is still determining whether an anti-encampment ordinance is necessary, spokesperson Kayla Gates said in an email to The Bee: “Our focus remains on offering services and assistance to those in need, and we prioritize connecting individuals with housing and programs. However, when services are refused and individuals continue to violate the law, we will enforce the ordinances, which may include fines or arrests as a last resort.”
The conversation about how to strengthen Madera’s anti-encampment law comes as cities and counties across the San Joaquin Valley are considering changes to how they deal with the homelessness crisis and people living in public areas. This new focus follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from late June that allows local governments to fine and jail people who camp in public areas and have no other shelter. Also, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s issued an executive order in July that directs state agencies to create policies for clearing encampments on state property and also pushes local governments to follow suit.
In Fresno, the City Council and the county’s Board of Supervisors are set to push through heavily-criticized updates to their anti-encampment laws that will allow jail time and fines to be used as punishment. Chiaramonte said his department is studying the actions Fresno’s local elected officials are taking, but said that what works in Fresno may not necessarily be right for Madera.
Fresno and Madera together make up one region in the biennial Point In Time count of homeless residents. The latest count, from January 2023, found 541 homeless people in the city of Madera, with 205 having no shelter at all. Mayor Garcia said it is highly likely those numbers are higher now.
He said he’s withholding judgment about a potential ordinance update until the city’s legal team informs the City Council about what it can legally do. “I don’t want to criminalize folks, put them in jail, take their belongings and dump them in the trash, because we’re not taking care of the underlying problem,” the Madera mayor told The Bee.
Chiaramonte also said last week that “it’s not so much that we’re trying to jail our way out of this.” Rather, the police chief wants to work with the court system to mandate treatment for homeless people, he said. The Madera Police Department also recently launched its Community Response Team to go out and connect homeless people to services.
Over the past eight months, Madera police removed 159 encampments. Enforcement has focused along the Fresno River, which runs east-west through Madera’s north side and has become a hotbed for crime, Chiaramonte said, including assaults, drug and gun sales, and dog attacks, among other issues, and the Madera Fire Department confirmed that 38 fires started there between April and May. Those committing the offenses are often not the homeless people living in the riverbed, said some of the homeless residents interviewed by The Bee.
The city’s current encampment ordinance charges unlawful camping as a misdemeanor, which is punishable with up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. On Friday, Chiaramonte told The Bee that he’s waiting for the Madera city attorney to make recommendations on fines, and that officers do not arrest homeless people unless they refuse to clear encampments (usually they are given a 72-hour notice) or if they become violent.
But Madera’s current ordinance does not cover the groups of homeless people who Chiaramonte said congregate in parks during daytime hours because they’re technically not setting up 24-hour encampments. He said an updated ordinance would not exclusively target groups of homeless people in parks and would also apply to any other groups that don’t have permits and inhibit the “free use of public spaces,” including the Boy Scouts or college students who protest by setting up encampments.
“The goal of our ordinances is not to have disparate treatment towards any individual or any group,” Chiaramonte said. “What we’re doing is trying to find some ways to have practical and protectable ordinances that are useful and help all citizens within this town.”
Alejandro Sanchez, who was formerly homeless and advocates against these types of ordinances in the Fresno-Madera region, said he does not believe the police would treat every group equally under an updated encampment ordinance.
He called the updates Madera’s police chief is seeking “unfair and just morally wrong,” and said the city is using vague language to be able to discriminate against homeless people instead of working harder to increase resource availability.
The primary emergency shelter in Madera County requires residents to leave during the day, according to a homelessness report from last year. The only day center for homeless people in the city of Madera, Hope House, limits services for adults to mornings and focuses on people with mental health needs.
The report also notes that people who are unable to use Hope House “often have no central location to go during the day, no place to receive supportive services.”
“Private property owners already kick them off of their property,” Sanchez said. “If they can’t be on the side of the road, if they can’t be on private property, if they can’t be in the park, where else can they go?”
This story was originally published August 15, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
