Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., and San Francisco Mayor London Breed drew rare ire from progressive organizations over their stance on homeless encampments in the city.
A recent Ninth Circuit District Court ruling in Grants Pass, Oregon upheld the decision to invalidate local anti-camping ordinance that prohibited homeless people from sleeping on public property.
In response to this decision, Newsom filed an amicus brief to ask for a review of the case by the U.S. Supreme Court to provide “clarification” to local and state government’s abilities in combating the homelessness crisis.
“These courts have stretched Martin’s reasonable limit into an unsurmountable roadblock, preventing cities and towns from imposing commonsense time and place restrictions to keep streets safe and to move those experiencing homelessness into shelter,” Newsom’s amicus brief states. “California’s elected officials who seek in good faith to improve what often appears to be an intractable crisis have found themselves without options, forced to abandon efforts to make the spaces occupied by unhoused people safer.”
Breed has also insisted that despite the ruling, the city will be committed to offering shelters for homeless people while enforcing laws for people who refuse shelter.
“Our commitment is clear. We will: Work to bring people indoors. Continue to offer shelter and house people. Enforce our laws when these offers are refused,” Breed wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter on Monday. “People who have been offered available shelter should not be allowed to remain out camping on our streets.”
Civil law and homeless advocates, however, criticized these responses as unnecessarily attacking unhoused individuals.
“Instead of seeking to punish people simply because they cannot afford the limited housing in California, the governor, and elected officials at all levels should focus their attention on policy solutions such as building more affordable housing, providing subsidies to those who are at risk of losing their housing, and investing in holistic services,” the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area said in a statement.
“Citing and arresting people who don’t have any choice in being homeless is a huge waste of resources and exacerbates homelessness, and both Newsom and Breed seem to be advocating for punishing people because they can’t afford rent,” Coalition on Homelessness Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach told the LA Times.
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Breed has previously attacked the “homeless coalition” for handing out tents rather than helping homeless people off the streets.
“The homeless coalition has held San Francisco hostage for decades. It is time for their reign to end,” Breed said in August.
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In June, a report from Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) at the University of California, San Francisco found that nearly one-third of the nation’s homelessness population was in California. Of the people surveyed, two-thirds reported mental health issues.
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