Cities Adopt New Policies Prohibiting Camping Following Supreme Court Decision

The city of Hemet earlier this month reimposed its unqualified prohibition on camping and the storage of personal property on public property following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grants Pass case.

“Historically, cities have enjoyed the authority to prohibit camping, which includes sleeping, lying down, putting personal property on public property, such as on city parks, sidewalks [and] flood control channels,” Steven Graham, city attorney, said. “This was upended in 2018.”

In that case, Martin v. City of Boise, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal found that policies prohibiting people from lying down or sleeping on public property violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment when there are not enough shelter beds for those camping on public property.

“This, again, was not consistent with previous case law,” Graham said. “However, it put the brakes on most cities’ ability to enforce their anti-camping ordinances, especially with significant increases in homelessness across the entire state and the large amount of time it takes to get adequate shelter facilities up and running.”

The newly amended ordinance allows law enforcement officers to enforce the prohibition without first having to verify that there is a shelter bed available and that the person is choosing not to go.

“This is not the creation of an anti-homeless ordinance,” Graham said. “Homelessness is not a status that we criminalize, however, the parks of the city are funded by all this should be available to everyone to use and enjoy.”

Indio followed suit, just one week later, approving a new ordinance to replace the city’s current ordinance to better conform with the Grants Pass ruling.

“I’ve talked to our chief and he’s assured me this is really a last resort,” Councilmember Oscar Ortiz said. “This is only reserved for people…when they are defiant, when they’re belligerent. That’s when this would be used.”

For Kath Rogers, staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, even though the stated intent is not to criminalize homelessness, that’s still one of the effects of these ordinances that ban behavior she said is generally only done by people who are unsheltered.

“Banning conduct like sitting down, laying down, sleeping outside, really only affects unhoused people,” she said. “So, in effect, the impact on people is the same as it is if the municipalities were actually banning, you know, being unhoused.

However, Palm Springs took a slightly different approach, modeling its draft ordinance after one adopted by the city of San Diego last summer that creates two separate categories of public property: one where camping and sleeping is always prohibited and the other where camping and sleeping is only prohibited when there is adequate shelter space. 

The ordinance, which City Attorney Jeffrey Ballinger said would not go into effect until the city’s new navigation center transitional housing component is up and running, also establishes a protocol for removing the encampments and storing personal property.

“The city of Palm Springs does not view criminalization of homelessness as a way to solve the homelessness crisis,” he said. “This proposed ordinance is really but one tool that the city of Palm Springs is looking to potentially have in its toolbox of ways to really help address this humanitarian crisis.”

Police Chief Andrew Mills said that the city, through its outreach efforts, has helped more than 100 people find shelter or housing and has been able to reunite more than 40 people with family members across the country. And while he said the city would continue to do this work, it had become clear that the department needed a policy with stronger enforcement language, noting that 24 people experiencing homelessness died this past year in the city.

“What we believe is that this ordinance will allow us the strength to be able to talk with people and help them to understand that there is no other option than them seeking help in the city, that they need to get housing, that they need to listen to our officers or to the social workers when they’re here from the county, to go to the places where they can get help and get housing and get situated,” he said.

And while the Palm Springs ordinance is more permissive, Rogers said it’s still not a policy that the ACLU supports.

“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation out there, including this myth of service resistance, this myth that cities use that people are service resistant, that they don’t want services, that they don’t want housing,” she said. “The data shows that when you offer people dignified services, dignified housing, or interim housing, like motel rooms, they will accept that and that they desperately need and want that.”

She continued on to say that the idea that criminal law enforcement was needed to address the housing crisis was “absurd,” especially when studies show that what’s needed to get folks off the streets is housing.

“All we’re talking about is giving people either citations or arrests for being outside, and so what that does is it puts citations on people’s records, it gives them fines and fees they cannot pay,” she said. “You can’t get blood from a stone.”

For Rogers, one thing she thinks would really benefit cities is talking with the unhoused community to hear from them what they actually need and want.

“I think cities would really benefit from just listening to people and listening to what they need, because they’re more than happy to express that,” she said. “And I’ve learned so much from my clients over the past more than decade. I didn’t know about a lot of the barriers that people face in some of these really undignified shelter situations.”

And while Hemet, Palm Springs and Indio might have been the first in Riverside County to respond to the Supreme Court decision, they will certainly not be the last in adopting ordinances prohibiting camping. 

Jurupa Valley is expected to discuss a similar ordinance at its Aug. 1 meeting after City Attorney Peter Thorson suggested that the council adopt a new ordinance with a blanket prohibition on camping on public property at the July 18 meeting.

“We believe it would be appropriate to adopt such an ordinance because that clarifies that camping on public property is prohibited, and that they can be cleaned up without having to establish that they’re dangerous and unhealthful,” he said. “Although, quite frankly, almost all of them are, so there’s not much distinction there.”

Jurupa Valley Councilmember Chris Barajas said that he had previously pushed for an ordinance to prohibit camping on public property in the city, but after pushback from the ACLU limited the enforcement to only those encampments that were deemed “unsafe or unhealthy or unsanitary.” 

However, with the new Supreme Court ruling, Barajas said he was ready for the council to discuss a new policy with a blanket prohibition.

“Now, I still am going to support that we continue to offer them, as part of these cleanups [and say], ‘Hey, we have services for you, but you can’t be here, you know, we’re not gonna let you stay here no more, we have to move your encampment,’” he said. “We still want to be, they’re still humans.”

Despite the new ordinances, Riverside County Housing and Workforce Solutions Deputy Director Greg Rodriguez said the work the county is doing for unhoused populations won’t change.

“We’re still analyzing the legal opinion, and there’s some other statutes within the state that affect, you know, property rights, but with that being said, we don’t really see it changing our activities as a department,” he said. “We run our homeless services, programming and housing based on the housing first model.”

Deputy Director Tanya Torno also noted that the department would continue to track the data and create as much affordable housing as possible to get people into shelter.

“Our challenge, which is the challenge of every single community across the state, is being able to meet the demand you need for affordable housing, which is the primary cause of homelessness,” she said. “So until we can really … get more [units] up and running, and that will require more resources, the reality is that the challenge of resolving homelessness continues to be one that we’re remaining focused on.”

All three of these ordinances will have to come back before the councils for a second reading and final approval before going into effect.

For those experiencing homelessness or a housing crisis, services are available through the county’s Home Connect program, and specifically the Home Connect Hotline, which can be reached at 1-800-498-8847.

“We’re able to dispatch and coordinate resources Monday through Friday, but we do have it staffed on the weekends and can schedule appointments and coordinate care on an as needed basis,” Torno said.

Unhoused individuals can also email the ACLU’s Dignity for All Project or fill out an intake form on the website for additional resources, including legal help and advocacy.

“Unhoused people still have rights, and we are here to protect those rights, and we intend to do that,” Rogers said. “So, we’re really focused on other rights that unhoused people and all people still have [following the Supreme Court decision], and our work to advance those rights.”