Anti-camping law forces Fresno’s homeless to move. With no shelter beds, where do they go?
When the city of Fresno enacted new laws earlier this year to ban camping by the homeless on public and private property, Mayor Jerry Dyer said the intention was to target people who refuse to move along when asked by police or decline offers of shelter or services.
But a gap between the number of available emergency shelter beds and homeless people means that, even if a person complies with an officer’s orders to pack up their belongings and move along, there’s no place for them go except for another location where they remain unsheltered.
The anti-camping laws, which took effect in September, include enforcement provisions — arrests, fines and jail time — that Dyer said would be aimed largely at about the roughly 30% of the city’s unsheltered population who are belligerent, defiant, commit crimes, disrupt businesses and disturb residents.
The most recent estimate of Fresno’s homeless population, from a 2023 count conducted by the Fresno-Madera Continuum of Care, was more than 3,200 people, of whom more than 1,800 were living on the streets.
By contrast, data from the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development shows that the city, between its own efforts and those of charitable nonprofits, has fewer than 1,000 year-round emergency beds. Those beds are almost always full.
There are several hundred year-round emergency beds for victims of domestic violence and their families, as well as winter warming centers and summer cooling centers that the city opens during periods of extreme weather.
What happens to Fresno homeless if shelters are full?
In July, as the camping ban was introduced to the Fresno City Council, Dyer acknowledged the lack of available shelter beds across the city, even after efforts over the past few years to buy, renovate and convert rundown motels into shelters.
“Our number one goal is to place them into a shelter, off the streets and give them the services they need to be productive,” Dyer told The Fresno Bee in July, before the camping ban was introduced to the Fresno City Council. “But we do know there are going to be times when they can get displaced.”
As an example, Dyer cited efforts earlier in his mayoral tenure to clear homeless people from living along freeways running through Fresno. “We had 650 people (living along the freeways) — 80% went to shelters, 20% got displaced,” he said.
But that may not necessarily be a bad thing, Dyer said.
“We know there’s going to be a displacement effect that occurs, and part of that displacement equals disruption,” Dyer said. “And just like when we dealt with the Bulldog (street gang), when you disrupt their lifestyle and arrest them, pretty soon they drop out or they change their lifestyle.”
If the mayor’s estimate is accurate that 20% to 30% of the homeless are the ones causing problems within the city, then that means between 360 and 500 people are most likely to be subject to the ordinance.
But what of the other 1,270 to 1,450 homeless who largely cooperate with authorities? If all of the available emergency shelter beds are filled, where are they to go?
No one, it seems, has an answer for that.
“There are folks out there that we definitely know want shelter and (we) haven’t been able to provide that to them,” Dyer said in September, as the city began to enforce its new ordinance.
He added that while currently there are five to six people each day who rotate out of emergency shelter beds, those are rapidly refilled. “Generally, those numbers are going to grow as we put in a 30-day exit strategy, and you’re going to see more and more beds available in this city for people who are willing to take advantage of services.”
Fresno’s ‘tough love’ approach to homeless
Along with the mayor, City Council members have voiced a similar “tough love” approach to homelessness, regardless of the availability of shelter beds.
“The city doesn’t have a legal obligation to provide people free housing, free utilities and free food for life, …” Council member Miguel Arias said in September. “What I would ask folks for, if you’ve been unsheltered in the city of Fresno … refusing the help that we’ve offered, then you need to go and seek help with your own family, or in another city, because our patience has run out. Our resources are limited, and they’ve also run out.”
In a recent Fresno Bee forum featuring candidates for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, including two sitting City Council members and two current members of the county board, specificity on where the unhoused can go was similarly absent.
The most direct answer was provided by Council member Garry Bredefeld, who defeated incumbent Supervisor Steve Brandau this election for the county’s District 2 seat.
“If they don’t want to be here, they can find a jail cell because we’ll put them in a jail cell if they want to continue to use drugs and they want to continue to violate other people’s rights because it’s against the law,” he said.
Brandau noted that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year cleared the way for local governments to pass anti-camping laws; the city or county “does not have to provide a bed space” for homeless individuals, he added.
“It’s real tough question, because I’m not the guy that says we’re going to solve homelessness in my lifetime,” Brandau said. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it’s government’s role to find a home or a bed for every single person.”
Two candidates for the District 3 seat on the county board also pondered the challenge.
“What we have to do, and we never have enough of, is housing for the homeless,” incumbent Supervisor Sal Quintero said. “Both the city and the county worked hard to try to keep up with it, but it’s been difficult.”
His challenger and eventual winner of the District 3 election, City Council member Luis Chavez, pointed to the city’s efforts using state Project Homekey grants and other funds to purchase old motels and convert them into shelters and transitional housing to create more than 900 beds for the homeless.
“Is that enough? Absolutely not,” said Chavez, who advocated for the city and county to collaborate to address homelessness.
“Imagine what impact we could actually have if the city and county actually pooled their money together and rehab old warehouses, rehab old motels, and brought mental health and substance abuse (services) and affordable housing vouchers,” Chavez said. “I think that’s going to be the crux of the job that we do.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2024 at 10:00 AM.
