Newsom wants cities to force homeless Californians to move camp every three days

Gov. Gavin Newsom has a new strategy to eliminate the large, long-standing homeless encampments that have been a thorn in his side throughout his administration: Push cities to make them illegal. 

The governor on Monday called on every local government in the state to adopt ordinances that restrict public camping “without delay.” He provided a hypothetical model ordinance that lays out exactly what he’d like to see banned: Camping in one place for more than three nights in a row, building semi-permanent structures such as make-shift shacks on public property, and blocking streets or sidewalks.

“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets,” Newsom said in a statement. “Local leaders asked for resources — we delivered the largest state investment in history. They asked for legal clarity — the courts delivered. Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”

Newsom instructed cities and counties to copy his proposed ordinance or change it as they see fit. Though nothing about Newsom’s Monday missive would force cities to adopt this camping ordinance or any other, last year he threatened to withhold funding from local governments that don’t do enough to remove encampments. 

Monday’s push comes with the promise of $3.3 billion to address street homelessness and mental health. That money comes from Proposition 1, a $6.4 billion bond that California voters approved in March to pay for treatment beds and permanent housing. Newsom and other state officials were expected to give more details Monday afternoon.

Newsom also warned cities that they should not prohibit camping at all times across the entire city if no shelter beds are available, and that they should “prioritize shelter and services.” He said cities should store belongings confiscated during encampment sweeps and give their owners a chance to claim them. He suggested cities give encampment residents a 48-hour warning before a sweep.

Newsom’s model ordinance would ban all camping — including sleeping with a sleeping bag or blanket — in one place for three days or nights in a row. Unless a city has enough shelter beds or affordable housing to offer their entire homeless population — which is almost never the case — that means people would be forced to pack up their belongings and move at least 200 feet every three days.

The National Health Care for the Homeless Council has found that encampment sweeps can damage residents’ health, sever their connections to services and set them back on their path toward housing. 

Even in cities that have shelter beds available, going to a shelter often requires people to abandon their pets or belongings, or to go without their partner. A CalMatters investigation earlier this year found some shelters throughout California are plagued by violence, poor conditions and little oversight. 

Newsom’s call to ban certain homeless encampments is the latest salvo in his ongoing fight against street camping. The push started last summer, after the U.S. Supreme Court in Grants Pass v. Johnson ruled that cities can make it illegal to camp on all public property, even if there is nowhere else for people to go. That decision overturned six years of legal protections for homeless residents in California and other western states, where cities effectively had to make sure shelter was available before cracking down on camps. 

A month later, Newsom ordered state agencies to adopt policies to clear encampments on their property, and urged local governments to do the same. Since then, more than two dozen California cities and counties have passed new camping bans, resumed enforcing old bans or made existing ordinances more punitive.