Governor calls for removal of those on state property, urges cities to follow suit.
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Thursday requiring state agencies to remove homeless encampments in their jurisdictions and urging cities to follow suit, a gesture that raised alarm among homeless advocates but drew a muted reaction from Los Angeles officials who say they are already doing so.
Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling that lessened restrictions on the enforcement of anti-camping laws, the order said there is “no longer any barrier to local governments utilizing the substantial resources provided by the State, in tandem with federal and local resources, to address encampments with both urgency and humanity, or excuse for not doing so.”
Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath, who had blasted the Supreme Court ruling as “unconscionable,” said she did not see Newsom’s order as requiring anything the county isn’t already doing with its encampment removal program.
“Los Angeles County’s Pathway Home Program is doing exactly what this state order calls for — urgent and humane encampment resolution,” Horvath said. “Los Angeles County is — and has been — all in on doing our part under our homelessness emergency.”
Shayla Myers, a Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles attorney who has sued L.A. repeatedly over its treatment of its homeless population, suggested Newsom was grandstanding.
“Blaming court injunctions that protect our most vulnerable residents is political rhetoric at its worst,” Myers said.
Newsom characterized the proliferation of encampments as a health and safety hazard that requires immediate action.
“We must act with urgency to address dangerous encampments, which subject unsheltered individuals living in them to extreme weather, fires, predatory and criminal activity, and widespread substance use, harming their health, safety and well-being, and which also threaten the safety and viability of nearby businesses and neighborhoods, and undermine the cleanliness and usability of parks, water supplies and other public resources.”
Despite its tone of urgency, the order sets no specific timeline for agencies to remove encampments. Nor does it lay out a program for providing the tens of thousands of new shelter beds and permanent housing that would be needed to accommodate the state’s estimated 181,000 homeless people, 70% of whom are unsheltered.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices upheld the ability of the city of Grants Pass, Ore., to enforce a law that prohibited camping in public places even though the city had no shelter to offer people being forced to leave. The ruling overturned the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco and ruled that it is not “cruel and unusual” punishment for city officials to forbid homeless people from sleeping on the streets or in parks.
Newsom’s order requires state agencies to adopt policies modeled after a California Department of Transportation directive that “prioritizes removal of encampments that pose threats to life, health and safety, while partnering with local governments and nonprofit providers to facilitate offers of shelter and supportive services in advance of removal.”
Encampments judged to pose “imminent threat to life, health, safety or infrastructure” must be addressed immediately, though the directive does not provide a deadline.
Caltrans has cleared 11,000 homeless encampments since 2021 as the agency devotes an increasing amount of its resources to taking down tarp tents and makeshift kitchens alongside and under freeways.
The condition of homeless individuals living near the massive concrete structures, which both cool and protect them from the rain and heat, has become both a health issue and a serious safety concern for Caltrans.
Up and down the state, fires have threatened to compromise hulking concrete freeway structures and put lives in danger.
A pregnant woman living under the 10 Freeway was among more than dozen homeless people who reportedly escaped a massive fire that broke out in November and shut down the freeway for a week.
The Caltrans policy has “mechanisms for providing the people within the encampments care and dignity and the services that they need,” said Newsom’s spokeswoman, Tara Gallegos.
The order expands those efforts to other state-owned properties such as state parks.
Nowsom? Newsom? Worrysom?
The reality of failed radical Socialists politics is facing the entire Dem. Party. They are watching the hard working poor, and middle class rebelling in numbers seldom seen.
They have had it with back breaking taxes and the destruction of social conduct that maintains and encourages honesty.
There you go. Biden did it….Obama planned it and now the Dem’s are trying to excuse felonious actions by the DOJ, SS, and more…….
Let’s make sure encouragement of the lack of incentive to work and achieve.
Slick has been outed by his own party and now he is trying to “fix.” things.