California governor pushes for homeless crackdown in wake of Supreme Court decision

A new executive order from California Gov. Gavin Newsom calls on state agencies to remove homeless encampments, while strongly pushing for local governments to follow suit. Following the order, Newsom issued a stern warning for cities and counties: Clear encampments or risk losing state funding.

The policy stance has caused a stir among homeless advocates and state officials, who say the move criminalizes homelessness and won’t effectively reduce the unhoused population.

“We know that in California, the state really only has capacity to shelter about 39% of the homeless population each night,” said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “there’s literally nowhere else for them to go.”

California’s order, which comes after a Supreme Court ruling this summer made it easier for cities to remove homeless encampments, isn’t the nation’s only strict policy. Kentucky recently criminalized street camping as part of a tough-on-crime bill.

For more on the impact of the high court’s ruling, “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio connected with Oliva. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: This is the law of the land now. Where are unhoused people in California that had been living in encampments, where are they going to go?

Ann Oliva: That’s the question that everybody’s asking. We know that in California, the state really only has capacity to shelter about 39% of the homeless population each night. So a lot of people are staying in encampments not because they want to, it’s because they have to. There’s literally nowhere else for them to go.

Brancaccio: What are some early responses to this shift in the law?

Oliva: I would say that across the board  — from the national organizations who work on this issue day in and day out, all the way down to folks who are providing direct services to people who are experiencing homelessness — across the board, folks are really disappointed, not just about the Grants Pass [Oregon] decision decision coming out of the Supreme Court, but about this executive order coming out of the governor’s office in California. The order itself is problematic because it raises up a flawed model used by the Department of Transportation in California, or Caltrans, that can provide as little as 48 hours’ notice to people in encampments before they’ll be cleared. But they’re really also disappointed in the messaging coming out of the governor’s office that seems to really provide permission for these punitive approaches, and none of it is rooted in evidence.

Brancaccio: People do not choose to be in an encampment like this. If there was a place for people to go, they would go. And so the general policy response — we need more affordable housing built — that’s a long-term solution.

Oliva: It is a long-term solution, but at the end of the day, our elected leaders need to commit to long-term solutions, because this problem wasn’t created overnight and it’s not going to be solved overnight. We need to make sure that we have safe and affordable housing for the people who need it, and we need to have the services available for those who want and need services to address some of their underlying issues, like mental health challenges or employment or substance-use issues. So we need to have all of those things available for folks in the long run, and in the meantime, we need some interim solutions so that we’re keeping people as safe and healthy as possible, and those interim solutions should not include arresting, fining or ticketing people.

Brancaccio: I mean, many experts tell us that while, as you mentioned, substance abuse and mental health are important issues in homelessness, the key overriding issue is the cost of housing in America.

Oliva: That’s right, the evidence is overwhelming on this point. The common denominator amongst all people who are experiencing housing instability, who are at risk of homelessness and who are experiencing homelessness, is the fact that they don’t have a safe, stable and affordable place to live. That is considered the base by which people can make changes in their lives and address different things that they want to address in terms of their goals. But it’s really hard to go get a job when you don’t have a place to lay your head at night.

Brancaccio: I think people listening to this are trying to get their heads around what happens to people who were in encampments. I mean, has this become a criminal justice issue?

Oliva: It could be as people get fined or ticketed or arrested; that does increase the number of people who are in the criminal legal system. And even for people who just get fines, if they had money to pay a fine, they would be staying in a hotel, just to be clear. So what happens is that those fines don’t get paid and they rack up. It impacts somebody’s ability to get an apartment down the road. It impacts their ability to get a job, and often those kinds of things can turn into bench warrants. And it goes from being a civil penalty to being a criminal penalty quite quickly. The reason that fines, tickets and arrests and encampment sweeps don’t work is that the people who are subject to them, it makes their situation much harder rather than easier, and what we expect to see as enforcement increases across the state of California is folks being pushed into communities that don’t actually have the infrastructure to serve them. And all of those things are bad for communities, and they’re bad for people who are experiencing homelessness.

Brancaccio: Now, I don’t want to leave it right there. There is data showing homelessness among military veterans is going in the right direction. Have you seen that at work?

Oliva: The programs that serve veterans who are experiencing homelessness in particular are resourced quite well by the federal government. We have permanent supportive housing. We have other types of more temporary help through the VA, as well as through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. So it follows that when we have really strong leadership on ending veterans’ homelessness, when we have really strong resources at play, at the local community level and at the national level, and when we have smart policies like getting people into permanent housing with the services that they need, that homelessness goes down for those folks. And veterans tend to have a lot of support from many different areas of the government