What’s new anti-camping law impact on Fresno homeless? Way more arrests than treatment
The number of homeless people in Fresno arrested since the city implemented its new anti-camping law was 10 times greater than those who took help, according to city figures.
Since Fresno’s code added restrictions to sitting, lying or camping in public places on Sept. 24, Fresno police have arrested 30 people in violation of the new law as of Monday.
Three people cited under the new law agreed to take alternative treatment services related to substance abuse in lieu of arrest during that time span, Mayor Jerry Dyer told The Bee.
The 30 people arrested either denied that they had a problem with substance abuse, refused the treatment offered or otherwise did not qualify for them, the mayor said.
Fresno’s new law banning sleeping or camping in public at the risk of fines or jail time is one of the state’s most aggressive responses to the ongoing homeless crisis. The city’s new law followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that ruled cities don’t have to have open shelter beds available before authorities can arrest someone living on the streets.
City leaders vowed to strictly enforce the new anti-camping ordinance with the hopes that people living on the street facing incarceration would, instead, accept shelter or treatment services.
“They can’t remain where they’re at. (We want to) introduce them into some form of a diversion or treatment program either on the front end, which is in lieu of jail, or through the court system,” Dyer said. “(We’re) getting people in front of a judge so that they can mandate some form of a treatment plan. That’s the overall goal.”
Fresno County adopted its own anti-camping ordinance a week before the city, but a Fresno County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said no one had so far been arrested under that statute. The Fresno Board of Supervisors continues to work out its policies.
Fresno’s new law allows officers to arrest someone if they defy officers’ instructions or are a repeat offender. City leaders said the new law represents a “tough love” approach to public loitering that would place an ultimatum for offenders to either go to jail or accept treatment. City leaders, though, have stressed they only intend to arrest homeless people in more extreme cases.
An examination of Fresno arrest logs show some of those arrested for camping listed other potential charges like possessing a shopping cart outside of a shopping center and removing recyclables from designated bins.
Some of the arrests of the unhoused were also related to outstanding warrants for domestic violence or attempted fraud, records show.
Most of them were no longer in custody, jail records showed this week.
Fresno mayor: Expect arrests to decline
Dyer said the arrests do not tell the whole story of how the new ordinance is working.
The mayor said outreach workers had contact with 799 people who live on the street during the first two weeks the new law went into effect. He said 417 people accepted services of some kind.
The city has had greater success offering services through an outreach worker than a sworn officer with the Homeless Assistance Response Team, a police officer crew typically called HART.
The ordinance is new to Fresno, and city leaders say it will take more time to determine its impact. Dyer said he does not expect the pace of arrests to continue.
“I do believe it will taper off. I just don’t know when we’ll start seeing that tapering off, because there are still some areas that are problematic that we have to deal with that have been in place for a long period of time,” Dyer said.
Most of the areas where police or outreach workers respond to encampments are based on complaints by the public or business owners, and not through routine patrols, he said.
The Fresno-Madera Continuum of Care does a point-in-time count of the unhoused every other year, and the 2023 tally in Fresno found 3,207 people including more than 1,800 unsheltered. The city has 840 beds in emergency homeless shelters.
The city does its own unofficial count quarterly. In June, city staffers counted 1,692 living on the street compared to 1,372 in September, Dyer said. The same count on tents and ramshackle structures used by the unhoused counted 597 and 430, respectively.
Dyer said though homeless counts are not completely accurate, the city needed its own measuring stick., and the same city staffers do the quarterly counts for continuity sake.
He noted the city’s internal count showed a trend downward.
“The intent has never been for us to arrest our way out of this, but to utilize enforcement as one of many tools in trying to address those who are chronically homeless and have a substance abuse disorder that have historically not accepted treatment or services,” Dyer said.
Impact on Fresno’s homeless and business owners
At least five of the people arrested during the two weeks in question were near Shields and West avenues, according to arrest records.
Some business owners in the area say their patience has run short. That includes Debbie Ponce, owner of Shields & West Barber Shop, which has been owned by her family for almost 50 years.
The past three years, Ponce said, have been noticeably different, with more homeless people loitering. That has brought common complaints to the area of human waste up against building walls, broken car windows and aggressive panhandling, she said.
“As a business, it hurts us. There’s people standing nude in public,” she said, adding some homeless people stick to themselves. “There’s others who don’t care. They expect you to give them money. I’m trying my hardest just to pay the bills.”
Crystal Cooper, who identified herself as unhoused, said she was in the area when she saw police arresting more than one person near the Shields and West intersection. The 45-year-old was outside a shuttered 99 Cents Only store with her 6-year-old pit bull-mix, Bubbas, and a couple of other people during the arrests.
“They were just kicking it, sitting there with their stuff,” she said gesturing to the parking lot.
She said she was aware of the new law and was paying attention to see how it unfolded, adding that she tries not to stay in one place too long to avoid unwanted attention from the police.
Cooper said she had a place for about six months last year, but her time there ran out.
“It’s hard, frustrating. Every time you get two steps up, you get knocked down,” Cooper said. “I don’t want to be out here. I’m homeless again, and they want to put me in jail for that?”
This story was originally published October 11, 2024 at 8:06 AM.
