Fresno’s backward response to homelessness on clear display with new trespass law | Opinion
For an elected body that likes to brand itself as progressive, the Fresno City Council sure gets things backward.
A couple weeks ago — as soon as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Supreme Court gave the nod — council members were quick to outlaw sleeping or camping in public spaces.
But this same group of individuals waited years — the loudest and least progressive of them since 2017 — to finally get around to doing something about people who trespass and disrupt private businesses.
Make that make sense.
Hint: It doesn’t.
Small business owners who’ve felt powerless when faced with individuals who, in the words of Councilmember Garry Bredefeld, “abuse their property, harass their customers, in essence trespass, specifically when they’re asked to leave and they don’t” are probably wondering what took so long.
Here’s what the rest of us should be thinking: If Fresno’s elected officials had addressed this issue some time ago, specifically targeted the subset of the homeless population that engages in this behavior, the larger, more sweeping ban may have been unnecessary.
Perhaps there would’ve been less need, or at least justification, for making it against the law to sleep in a public park, on a city sidewalk or next to a government building.
Council members and City Attorney Andrew Janz framed the ordinance, unanimously approved during Thursday’s meeting and set to take effect in mid-October, as closing a legal “loophole” in the trespassing laws.
But, really, it was their collective realization the homeless camping ban to be rolled out one month prior didn’t cover problem vagrants who disrupt private businesses otherwise open to the public.
The same problem they didn’t tackle for years.
State trespassing law
California already has criminal trespass laws as defined by Section 602 of the state penal code. Specifically subset (k), which prohibits “entering any lands, whether unenclosed or enclosed by fence, for the purpose of injuring any property or property rights or with the intention of interfering with, obstructing, or injuring any lawful business or occupation … .”
So why does Fresno need its own ordinance? In a separate interview, Janz said that particular subset of the penal code is extremely difficult to prove in court because prosecutors “have to get in the head” of the defendant and show beyond a reasonable doubt they acted with willful intent.
Fresno’s ordinance is written to skirt that legal entanglement, Janz said. It also transfers the responsibility of adjudicating misdemeanor trespassing from the Fresno County District Attorney to the City Attorney, where the cases will receive more attention.
“The DA is not prioritizing low-level crimes,” Janz added.
How successfully the city punishes trespassers remains to be seen. Officials are surely aware there aren’t enough beds in the county jail to house misdemeanor offenders. Certainly not enough to put someone away for a year.
So that leaves the maximum $1,000 fine, which is equally perplexing. If a homeless person had the ability to come up with a thousand bucks, they probably wouldn’t be homeless — much less spending their days scaring off someone’s potential customers.
I agree with the seven council members that business owners should not have to put up with those who threaten their economic livelihoods or interfere with people’s freedom to shop. (My main concern is the ordinance will be used to evict people from public spaces who look disheveled but are otherwise minding their own business and not bothering anyone.)
In fact, it’s a lot easier for me to mentally rationalize the enforcement of trespassing on private property during business hours than the 24/7 ban on sleeping and camping on public property enacted by the same individuals a few weeks prior.
My hunch is most of the city council, deep down in their policy-happy hearts, would feel similarly.
Acting so swiftly to ban one activity while waiting years to do anything about the other amounts to nothing less than a backward response to the homeless crisis by this supposedly progressive body. That should be plain for all to see.
This story was originally published September 1, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
