Novato tightens camping rules, enraging advocates for homeless
Novato has repealed a rule that allowed the use of camping gear on public property at night, igniting a new controversy over the city’s approach to homelessness.
The City Council voted unanimously on the action Tuesday amid public opposition to the move. The council called a special meeting to revise municipal code.
“To me it feels like you’re just dismissing people,” Sara McEvoy, who used to be homeless, told the council. “You don’t care what happens to them, you don’t care where they go. They are basically nonexistent to you and you’ve written them off.”
The council’s action involved an ordinance that prohibits camping or camping paraphernalia on public property. The ordinance granted an exception when no shelter beds are available and the camping is involuntary. The exception applied between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.
The council amended the ordinance to cancel the exception. It also adopted an urgency ordinance that made the change effective immediately.
Many residents at the council meeting spoke out against the repeal, stating it will harm those needing camping gear to survive cold nights. The critics urged a more humane approach.
“What happened to democracy and listening to your constituents?” said Jen Mallow, a Novato resident. “If you ban camping, you’re not solving any problem, you’re just shoving it to not in your backyard, putting more pressure on other cities and the county at large.”
“These are our people and we have an obligation to take care of them,” Mallow said. “They went to high school, grew up here.”
Mallow urged the council to find a sanctioned camping area before moving forward with the ordinance.
“These people have a right to care, to dignity,” Mallow said. “It’s the middle of winter, it’s two weeks before Christmas, and you’re talking about banning them as a populace. These are people. It’s not a problem; it’s people.”
The City Council did not ask questions regarding the ordinance at the meeting, and there was no discussion by council members before they voted.
Asked for a comment on the vote later, the members of the council were either unresponsive or declined to comment.
Mallow, a representative of the California Homeless Union, said the city’s action will specifically impact about 40 unhoused people at Hamilton Marsh.
Mike Little, a Novato resident, said the action “seems like a targeted attack.”
“I don’t think you guys actually care about the camping supplies,” Little said. “I think you care about the homeless people and the disabled homeless people there. It’s a targeted attack and I am going to start a line of homeless gear that is not intended for camping.”
The action will not affect the camp at Lee Gerner Park. The city is under a court order not to close the camp while a judge reaches a decision in a pending lawsuit by the California Homeless Union.
Campers represented by the union sued the city in 2021 after it adopted camping restrictions. The parties reached a settlement, but in early November the union filed a motion for enforcement of the agreement, according to the organization’s lead lawyer, Anthony Prince. Prince said the city has not fulfilled its settlement requirements.
“The Novato City Council has acted in a completely irresponsible and undemocratic way in which they passed this measure,” Prince said. “The public needs to know this isn’t just about the homeless, this is about if Novato is a democratic city.”
Prince said the city failed to consult its Housing and Homelessness Committee and the union about the ordinance repeal, which is one of the settlement requirements. Jason Sarris, the committee chair, said the city has suppressed the committee by canceling its meetings, citing staff shortages and the holidays.
“Based on the content of all the agendas, which included a discussion of the proposed camping ordinance changes, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the city manager, and by extension city staff, have no intention of letting the Housing and Homeless Committee to weigh in and advise the City Council on homeless policy,” Sarris said.
Prince said canceling the committee’s meetings effectively limits public input, a constraint that was compounded by the City Council scheduling its special meeting on a day’s notice and not livestreaming it.
“We intend to make a national issue of what’s happened here in Novato,” Prince said.
The city, citing pending litigation, declined to comment on why the repeal was considered at a special meeting, whether the Housing and Homelessness Committee was consulted and why the revision to the municipal code was considered an “urgency ordinance.”
In a statement on behalf of city staff and the council, spokesperson Sherin Olivero said the ordinance change is similar to ones approved or being considered in other jurisdictions.
Olivero also noted the city’s recent partnership with Specialized Assistance For Everyone, a mobile crisis response team of social workers, which offers support for people experiencing mental health emergencies, substance abuse or homelessness.
Prince said he is investigating whether the city violated the Brown Act, the state law on open meetings and government transparency. He said the measure had no urgency and lacked supportive documentation and public input.
Prince said a driving factor behind the city’s move is a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June involving homelessness policy in Grants Pass, Oregon. The 6-3 decision allowed cities to enforce prohibitions on homeless people sleeping on public property even when shelter beds are not available.
“The City Council enacted a measure that is going to increase the risk of harm to hundreds, if not thousands, of its residents by making it criminally punishable to sleep in the city of Novato and to be in possession of items which they call camping paraphernalia but are actually survival items, in the city of Novato,” Prince said.
Robbie Powelson, an advocate for homeless people, filed a lawsuit against Novato on Tuesday claiming the city violated the Brown Act and the ordinance did not constitute an urgent matter.