SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Tensions are rising in California’s capital metropolis because the Sacramento district lawyer threatened to file fees towards metropolis officers over their dealing with of the homelessness disaster, saying they’re too lenient of their method and are failing to implement the principles.
District Attorney Thien Ho on Monday threatened to press felony fees towards metropolis officers below state public nuisance legal guidelines in the event that they don’t implement a slew of adjustments inside 30 days, together with a daytime tenting ban the place homeless individuals must put their belongings in storage between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.
Ho was elected in 2022 after vowing on the marketing campaign path to deal with the town’s homelessness disaster. He started his public struggle with City Hall officers final month when he launched an investigation into officers’ conduct. Ho mentioned Sacramento metropolis officers are “inconsistent” in imposing guidelines, together with an ordinance to maintain sidewalks away from encampments, leading to “an unprecedented public safety crisis.”
Ho additionally desires the town to clear all 16 encampments inside metropolis’s limits, open 24-hour shelter beds for 1000’s of people that sleep on the streets every evening, give out citations to those that decline shelter, and rent 4 extra metropolis attorneys to implement metropolis guidelines, amongst different issues.
“This local crisis has been made worse by local decisions and indecisions. Therefore, we have taken the first formal step towards litigation against the City of Sacramento,” Ho mentioned in an announcement, calling the checklist of calls for the town’s alternative to deal with the problem.
In response, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg blasted Ho at a information convention Tuesday, saying the district lawyer is politicizing the problem whereas refusing to work with the town. Steinberg mentioned his workplace introduced various proposals to Ho in late July, together with increasing psychological well being and drug courts, and alternate options to misdemeanor fees for homeless people. Ho didn’t reply, Steinberg mentioned.
In an announcement, Steinberg mentioned Ho “deflects responsibility, takes credit for programs the city initiated, lacks basic understanding of existing shelter management system and funding structures, and includes a series of demands that would cripple the city financially.”
Ho’s letter didn’t specify which metropolis officers might face fees.
The dispute between the district lawyer and the town is additional sophisticated by a lawsuit filed by a homeless advocacy group that final week resulted in an order from a federal choose quickly banning the town from clearing homeless encampments throughout excessive warmth.
Ho’s calls for are alarming to some advocates, who mentioned a citywide daytime tenting ban and stricter enforcement of metropolis guidelines would upend the lives of many homeless individuals.
“That might serve to kind of clean the streets and make homelessness less visible, but I don’t think that is actually going to help the folks that are living with being homeless,” mentioned Angela Hassell, govt director of Sacramento Loaves and Fishes. The group offers sizzling meals, bathe and different providers to roughly 10,000 individuals month-to-month.
Chris Herring, assistant professor of sociology on the University of California, Los Angeles, mentioned he’s by no means heard of a district lawyer threatening to sue a metropolis over its response to homeless encampments – and definitely not so publicly.
But he says elected officers have beforehand politicized the problem to stake out coverage variations.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, for instance, threatened to reinstate a public tenting ban that the town of Austin lifted in 2019 below then-Mayor Steve Adler, a Democrat. The two traded barbs that mirrored “the broader culture wars” on the best way to deal with homelessness, Herring mentioned. Voters reinstated the ban in 2021.
More quietly, Herring says, it’s frequent for public businesses and elected officers to press discreetly for encampments to be eliminated. “It’s usually not public because they don’t want to be seen as criminalizing, or even being oppositional, to unhoused people,” he mentioned.
Homeless tent encampments have grown visibly in cities throughout the U.S. however particularly in California, which is residence to almost one-third of unhoused individuals within the nation. In Sacramento, the homeless inhabitants jumped 67% between 2019 and 2022, and most reside outside with out shelter.
Advocates for homeless individuals say they will’t alleviate the disaster with out extra funding in inexpensive housing and providers, and that tenting bans and encampment sweeps unnecessarily traumatize homeless individuals.
But others say encampments are unsanitary and lawless, and block youngsters, seniors and disabled individuals from utilizing public area akin to sidewalks. They say permitting individuals to deteriorate outside is neither humane nor compassionate.
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