California cities crack down on homeless encampments

I’m Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters Capitol reporter, and I’m subbing for Lynn today.

For five years, California officials responding to the homelessness crisis had to work around one big restriction imposed by the federal courts: Because they didn’t have enough shelter beds, cities generally couldn’t make homeless camps illegal. 

It made getting people to leave encampments complicated and often flawed, and city leaders and housed residents complained it led to sprawling health and safety concerns. But advocates and legal experts said the restriction forced cities to actually try to figure out how to offer suitable alternative housing — rather than forcing unhoused residents to choose between criminal citations and sleeping on an airport tarmac.

That’s changing dramatically. As CalMatters’ homelessness reporter Marisa Kendall writes, we’re entering an era of zero tolerance.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that restriction on cities, greenlighting local bans on homeless camps. Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of numerous California Democratic leaders who had asked for such a decision, followed up with an executive order encouraging local governments to clear camps. 

Since then, Marisa reports that dozens of California cities and counties are considering or have already passed new bans on sleeping in public spaces, or are making existing bans even stricter — whether or not they have enough shelter beds. It could lead to more fines, citations and arrests.

San Joaquin County, for example, is considering forcing unhoused residents to move along from where they’re sleeping every hour. 

• Supervisor Tom Patti: “We’re going to have zero tolerance. We’re going to have definitive enforcement.”

Nearly two-thirds of the 186,000 Californians who are homeless are “unsheltered,” meaning they sleep outside. The total homeless population is up 8% since 2022, according to an exclusive CalMatters analysis.

The encampment bans are happening across the state, and span conservative-leaning and Democratic-run cities. For more on whether it could make a difference in the homelessness crisis, read Marisa’s story.

More on homelessness and housing: CalMatters has detailed and updated looks at why housing is so expensive in California and why homelessness is so persistent. 

During the drought in 2014, as farmers pumped more water and household wells in the San Joaquin Valley ran dry, California enacted a landmark law requiring local authorities to curb groundwater depletion to sustainable levels. Ten years in, is it working?

Change has been slow. New wells continue to go in the ground. Growers and landowners are seeing the value of their farms dropping, and the industry is starting to shift away from water-guzzling crops such as alfalfa and nut trees. Two thousand household wells still ran dry over the last three years. And the state wants to see local agencies acting with more urgency.

That tension was the focus of a CalMatters panel Thursday, moderated by CalMatters water reporter Rachel Becker.

The law, said Tulare Irrigation District general manager Aaron Fukuda, was a shock to farm owners used to “unfettered” groundwater rights.

• Fukuda: “If you can imagine that family sitting at a dinner table with a business plan about how their future looks, that future now is going to be diminished based upon its water supply.”

For the first time, the state this year penalized local agencies for failing to rein in growers’ overpumping, placing Kings County water managers on probation. That includes imposing fees on growers and requiring them to monitor their wells.

“Our only economic driver is the agricultural industry,” said Kings County Farm Bureau executive director Dusty Ference, whose group won a temporary halt to enforcement in court. “That’s why we’re challenging things so hard …to comply with the law, but do so in a way and at a pace that doesn’t decimate an industry.”

Self-Help Enterprises senior community development specialist Jasmine Rivera praised the law for giving disadvantaged communities more say in local water usage plans. Water managers in critically overdrafted basins have until 2040 to get pumping down to sustainable levels.

• E. Joaquin Esquivel, chairperson of the State Water Resources Control Board: “We’ve seen how quickly we get back into drought conditions …And the question is, do we have the luxury of the many years in order to get a handle on this?”

If you missed the panel, you can watch it here.

CalMatters events: On Sept. 19, CalMatters economy reporter Levi Sumagaysay will interview California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. Register here to attend at our Sacramento offices or virtually.

Gov. Newsom on Thursday signed a new law bumping up criminal penalties for large-scale thefts, targeting the high-profile “smash and grab” store robberies that have become a centerpiece of a recent movement pushing for California to get tougher on crime. 

The measure, authored by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, requires harsher sentences when suspects steal or damage property worth more than $50,000 in the course of committing a felony. 

It’s the latest action by the state’s Democratic leaders in response to growing voter frustrations and Republican scorn over retail theft. Reported shoplifting and commercial burglaries rose last year faster than in any other year since at least 2000. Last month Newsom signed a package of crime bills that, among other things, make it easier to group multiple theft charges together so they can be charged as a felony. 

The issue has divided Democrats, who previously united behind reducing incarceration. Some Democrats are joining police, prosecutors and business groups to support Proposition 36, which would reclassify some drug and theft crimes as felonies after voters passed a measure ten years ago that reduced some of them to misdemeanors. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and other Democratic elected officials held an event Thursday on behalf of the “Yes on 36” campaign. 

• In other criminal justice news: People released from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation are supposed to get $200 to help them readjust to life outside. But not everybody gets the full amount of their “gate money,” and some people are released with nothing, California Local News fellow Cayla Mihalovich reports. Now, ex-prisoners are suing the state over it. Read more about where the money is going in Cayla’s story.

In the 1970s, the federal government passed a law aiming to keep Native American youth with their tribes and relatives and out of foster care. CalMatters justice intern Shaanth Nanguneri and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on Shaanth’s story about how a recent California court ruling strengthens that requirement. Watch the segment, part of our partnership with PBS SoCal.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.