Do Fresno leaders have video of homeless dumping by outsiders? If so, make it public | Opinion
Pics or it didn’t happen.
Fresno’s millennial-majority city council is surely familiar with that particular Internet populist mantra. Which is a crisper way of saying: Show us visual evidence, so we can believe and validate what you did or said.
Unfortunately, council members aren’t providing that sort of proof while proposing a ban on neighboring communities dumping their homeless in Fresno.
They’re asking us to take their word for it – even though video of one such instance is said to have recently circulated among city leaders.
During Thursday’s meeting, Fresno City Council President Mike Karbassi and newly installed Councilmember Nick Richardson co-introduced an ordinance that would make it a misdemeanor for any “law enforcement officer, agent or employee of a county, city, or any other governmental entity” to “transport and drop-off” people in Fresno that don’t have a “fixed, regular or adequate residence.” (Certain exceptions are made.)
The Anti-Human Transportation and Abandonment Act requires a council second vote, planned for the Feb. 13 meeting, before it can be formally adopted.
Karbassi, during a Wednesday press conference, described an “onslaught” of unhoused people coming into Pinedale over the last six months “that aren’t from the community.”
“We’ve done a really good job of providing wrap-around services and quality solutions for those that want to accept services,” Karbassi said. “When you do that you become more attractive, unfortunately, to other municipalities who want to shoo the problem away.”
In a separate interview, Councilmember Miguel Arias accused several nearby cities and outside agencies of this practice – including the one with the shared border.
“Clovis police pick up homeless people where the street signs are brown and transport them to where they’re green,” Arias said. “They’ve been doing it for years.”
In response, Clovis police spokesperson Ty Wood said his department “can confidently say it is not involved in illegally dropping off unhoused individuals outside of our city limits” aside from one incident in 2024 when an officer drove a person to the Rescue Mission at their request.
Homeless dumping stories
Stories about homeless dumping are becoming increasingly common in California. Last fall, Santa Cruz passed a similar ordinance after that city’s mayor accused two Hanford police officers of driving a disabled homeless woman 200 miles and leaving her in front of a shelter without making any previous arrangements.
Similar instances also popped up last year in San Francisco (involving police from San Rafael) and Los Angeles (involving police from Burbank).
In those occurrences, however, there was video footage of homeless-looking people exiting marked police cars. Visual evidence that may not tell the whole story, but at least provides a launching off point for further scrutiny.
Fresno city leaders aren’t giving us anything concrete. Rather, we get anecdotes, accusations and stiff warnings. Shouldn’t a city ordinance of this nature, even one designed to be preventative, require steadier firmament?
In a time when nearly everyone, people with roofs over their heads and those living on the streets, carries a camera in their pockets you’d think someone would have witnessed out-of-town law enforcement dumping unhoused people in Fresno and posted the photos or video on social media.
From what I’ve been told, such documentation does exist. There is said to be a video clip, taken last year and circulated among city leaders, of a Madera County Sheriff’s deputy dropping off a homeless-looking individual on Herndon Avenue.
Dyer ‘aware’ of video
Dyer told me he was made aware of such a video but didn’t personally view it, and that he instructed the former police chief to contact the Madera sheriff’s and “let them know that is not a practice we want our agencies involved in.”
“I don’t think (homeless dumping) is widespread yet,” Dyer added. “This ordinance helps to keep it that way.”
If the video does exist, city leaders should make it available for public scrutiny while trying to enact an ordinance that targets fellow public servants in neighboring cities and agencies. This is a time for disclosure, not the avoidance of feather-ruffling. Give us proof – it only strengthens your case.
By virtue of being the largest city in the region, Fresno is naturally the largest hub of homeless services. Poverello House, the Fresno Mission and just about every emergency shelter and provider is situated within the city limits.
Trouble is, those facilities are already overwhelmed. There are no empty beds. So when homeless people are dropped off on Santa Clara Street or anywhere else in town, it only adds to the problem.
Fresno hasn’t come close to solving homelessness, but at least city leaders are trying. Those in neighboring municipalities cannot say the same – Clovis has zero emergency shelters – so I understand the desire to ensure resources devoted to the unhoused are reserved for people who aren’t transported from out of town.
Just don’t rely on vague accusations and anecdotes if there is actual visual evidence depicting such contemptible activity. Pics or it didn’t happen, as younger generations say.
