San Mateo County OKs policy for homeless

Under the new regulation, which will require a second reading before taking effect, anyone contacted for illegally camping on public property in the unincorporated areas of the county could be charged, but those charges would be eligible for diversion programs offered by Superior Court and jail time would be avoided.

An encampment is defined in the ordinance as a tent, makeshift structure or collection of belongings in a place not meant for habitation and where the person responsible for them plans to stay with no plans to move.

An encampment cannot be dismantled unless the county has shelter available for each person living there but the county is not required under state law to have a bed for all homeless individuals in the county when offering a bed to one before pursuing other measures meant to compel someone into shelter.

The county monitors bed availability daily and will hold beds for 72 hours for individuals once the decision to clear an encampment is made, under the new policy. The county will also photograph and store the belongings of any individual outreach teams contact for up to 90 days at no cost to the individual.

“The hope is it will be a tool to help move individuals into shelter and will give us additional abilities to achieve our goals of reaching functional zero homelessness,” Pine said, referring to the county’s goal of making homelessness rare, brief and never repeated.

While many professionals and advocates said they agreed with the intent of the policy, concerns were also raised. Lisa Maguire, chief defender at San Mateo County Private Defender Program, said the initiative could criminalize people who deny support for many reasons including mental health struggles. 

Bill Freeman with the Northern California chapter or the American Civil Liberties Union also raised concerns about the policy, arguing it implements a policing-first model with no evidence proposed intervention systems are in place. 

“The sticks should not be put in place when the carrots are not even on the drawing board,” Freeman said.

Alternatively, Dr. Brian Greenberg, a physiologist with more than 35 years of experience working in the substance abuse and homelessness arena, said a compassionate court system could be the gentle nudge needed to encourage some into treatment. 

“For decades, addiction, mental illness and homelessness were stigmatized and too often overly criminalized. More recently, the pendulum has swung toward decriminalization and now rightly emphasizes the scaling up of social services and support,” said Greenberg, who’s also vice president of programs and services with the nonprofit LifeMoves and serves on the county’s Healthcare for Homeless Farmworkers Board. “It is important that we give these persons every opportunity using both carrots and gentle pushes to enter shelter and access services.”

Suggestions

The proposal was ultimately approved unanimously but not before supervisors Noelia Corzo and Ray Mueller proposed changes of their own to it. Both asked that staff return with an update on the initiative six months and a year after its implementation.

Mueller also suggested adding language into the ordinance that states the county will conduct a mental health screening before issuing a warning to an encampment resident. Corzo asked that it be clearly stated any belongings confiscated and stored by the county would be done at no cost to the resident who can also retrieve those belongings without paying a fee.

“[Homelessness] is not an easy experience for anyone involved so I don’t take this lightly and I also recognize not doing anything is not working either,” Corzo said, who noted the issue was an important one to her given that her half-brother has struggled with homelessness for years. “I’m not interested in doing nothing. That being said, I do believe that there are some points that could be worked out a little more, a little differently to better support the chance of success for our unhoused neighbors.”

Supreme Court review

How to compel homeless to take services and offers of assistance is now a subject of a case that will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In that case, justices will hear an appeal from the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, that has the backing of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, as well as other Democratic and Republican elected officials who have struggled to deal with homelessness brought on by rising housing costs and income inequality, according to the Associated Press.

The court’s action comes a day after another appellate ruling that blocked anti-camping ordinances in San Francisco. The two rulings, like a 2018 decision from the 9th circuit in a case from Boise, Idaho, found that punishing people for sleeping on the streets when no alternative shelter is available amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Constitution, according to the Associated Press.

Homeless count, county investments

The policy discussion came just days before the county is set to hold its One Day Homeless Count, during which volunteers will set out to count each homeless resident they see to gain an estimate for how many people reside in the county without shelter. The last count, conducted in 2022, found about 1,100 residents were living in tents, on the street, in cars, vans and RVs, or in other places. The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that in 2023, there were 1,859 homeless in the county.

Meanwhile, the county has invested about $150 million into improving its homeless housing infrastructure including purchasing and renovating hotels for permanent and temporary housing and building a new navigation center in Redwood City. 

The sites have added hundreds of individual rooms to the county’s housing stock, giving people access to privacy, safety and flexibility such as the ability to room with a partner or a pet. But many remain hesitant still to accept support after years living without shelter, officials noted. 

“We’re down now to the hard-to-reach population,” County Executive Officer Mike Callagy said. “These folks are drowning and can’t or won’t help themselves. It’s incumbent on us to throw them that life preserver and give them help they need.”