Encouraged by the Supreme Court, California turns to police in homeless crisis

By Daniel Trotta

PALM SPRINGS, California (Reuters) – Palm Springs, long known as a desert playground for Los Angeles' rich and famous, has enacted a series of progressive measures to combat homelessness.

Then in July, the all-Democratic City Council passed a ban on sleeping on public property, expanding police powers to arrest homeless people, underscoring that even liberal cities have lost patience with the ongoing homelessness crisis.

Other cities are even more encouraged by the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court's June 28 decision that camping bans are constitutional.

Since then, 12 California cities or counties have enacted camping bans, while nine others are considering such bans or have already granted preliminary approval, according to the National Homelessness Law Center.

Many of these cities cited the Supreme Court decision when they passed new ordinances to evict homeless people behind closed doors.

Due to skyrocketing rents and an acute housing shortage, there are an estimated 180,000 homeless people in California, even though the state has spent more than $20 billion on housing and homeless programs since the 2018-19 fiscal year.

Margot Kushel, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and co-author of a 2023 report on homelessness in the state, calls the police crackdown counterproductive.

A criminal record reduces a homeless person's chances of getting a job, and the mistrust it creates reduces homeless people's cooperation with police, Kushel said. If they live scattered, they have less access to social workers.

“We need housing. We need subsidies. We need not just affordable housing, but truly affordable housing,” Kushel said.

CAMPING BANS

Palm Springs, a city of 45,000 about 100 miles east of Los Angeles, narrowly exhausted the authority granted to cities in Grants Pass v. Johnson. The new ordinance instead follows an earlier federal court ruling and will prevent law enforcement from enforcing the ban when shelters are at capacity.

The new law will not come into force until 85 temporary housing units are completed later this year.

Palm Springs has a homeless population estimated by advocacy groups at 500. The state had previously implemented rental subsidies for people at risk of losing their homes, allocated a quarter of tax revenue from vacation rentals to affordable housing, and opened a 50-bed homeless shelter in March.

California jurisdictions received further guidance when Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on July 25 directing state agencies to urgently address homeless encampments and urging cities to take a similar stance.

Meanwhile, five local authorities, including the city and county of Los Angeles, have taken action or made statements opposing the police crackdown or have provided approved camping sites, the National Homelessness Law Center said.

Outside California, another 25 cities in 15 states have enacted or are considering camping bans, the center said.

“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”

Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills also believes the police cannot solve the problem and calls for compassion.

But “we need to be able to say as a community and as a country that enough is enough,” Mills said recently on the street as the high temperature reached 43 degrees Celsius. “We needed some kind of leverage to be able to say we are not going to do this in our city.”

Mills said police offer homeless people three options: They can accept help by going to an emergency shelter, accept the city's offer of sending them a free bus, train or plane ticket home where they will be taken in by their family, or go to jail.

At the United Methodist Church, where the social service group Well in the Desert serves 250 free meals a day, a homeless man said homeless people are routinely harassed and he himself has been arrested for pushing a shopping cart and loitering.

“They want us out of sight. That's the end goal,” said 60-year-old Travis Rogers, who said he was left homeless after his only son died of brain cancer five years ago and felt great grief. “I just wish the city council or this new police chief would actually talk to us instead of just passing all these ordinances.”

Eve Garrow, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, says cities that rush to pass laws are in a “race to the bottom.”

“They have no control over the fact that wages have stagnated and house prices have skyrocketed over the last 20 or 30 years,” Garrow said.

Tina Allgood, 53, another church member, said he lives in fear of police as he continues to search for a job and permanent housing.

“Don't be so hard on us,” Allgood said. “You know, don't make us run away from you. Make us run to you.”

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Donna Bryson and Aurora Ellis)