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Sacramento County to propose rules limiting where homeless can camp, supervisor says

Wrestling with a growing homelessness crisis, Sacramento County officials are working on an ordinance that would limit where unhoused residents could camp in the unincorporated area.

Although specific ordinance language is still being drafted, the proposal would prohibit camping near “sensitive infrastructure,” which could include flood-control facilities and highway overpasses, and near sites the county creates to house homeless residents, such as tiny home communities, Supervisor Rich Desmond said in an interview last week.

Desmond outlined the efforts in an email news bulletin to constituents last week.

With the ordinance still in the early stages, how far exactly camping would be outlawed from sensitive infrastructure is not yet known. Desmond said it would be “just far enough” to where a potential camp wouldn’t be able to interfere with the structure or an entrance to access it.

The Sacramento City Council, for instance, passed an ordinance in 2020 that bans camping within 25 feet of riverfront levees in the city. The move aimed to protect the city’s infrastructure and prevent serious wildfires and floods.

Sacramento’s ‘balancing act’

Another component of the proposed county ordinance would deal with the area surrounding potential county-created spaces for homeless residents. The county, Desmond said, has been “desperately trying to find sites” where individuals experiencing homelessness can stay in a safe, sanitary location with access to services that help them “get back on their feet.”

The thinking: prohibiting camping around those sites – which could include anything from safe parking zones to tiny home communities – would help make for a safer environment for the homeless tenants and alleviate potential concerns from nearby neighbors.

“We need to be able to make sure that wherever we put a site, it doesn’t become a bigger problem for the surrounding community,” Desmond said. “And I think what history has shown with some sites is that if you set up a shelter somewhere and there ends up being more camping on the streets or in the neighborhood surrounding that site.”

The proposed rules, he said, “would make it more likely that the site is going to succeed.”

“If folks know they can go in there and there’s not going to be the issue with other campers right outside the site where you, at times, let’s be honest, you see some criminal activity going on,” Desmond said. “I think it is counterproductive when we’re trying to incentivize people to go into sites to have sites that are surrounded by other camping.”

The proposed ordinance is expected to come before supervisors within the next month or two, according to a county spokeswoman.

Dealing with the homelessness crisis is “a difficult balancing act,” Desmond said. Getting unhoused residents into safer spaces is just the first step, he added, and doesn’t mean the county will stop efforts to develop more transitional permanent supportive housing and behavioral health treatment.

“I certainly see the suffering of these people and I’ve talked to so many folks out there camping in our streets and the situation they’re in,” Desmond said. “But I also see the struggles that are occurring among our business community and among people in their neighborhoods… It’s such a tough issue.”

Homeless enforcement

But to homeless advocates the proposed rules would make life even harder for a population that already struggles.

Homeless residents are camping where they are to survive, said Joe Smith, advocacy director for Sacramento Loaves and Fishes. Oftentimes, areas around public infrastructure are the only spaces around that aren’t near houses, business or other commonly traveled spots.

“It offers some kind of a buffer zone away from humanity where they can camp in peace,” said Smith who experienced homelessness himself for five and a half years.

Although he understands why the camping prohibition near sites housing homeless residents is being proposed, Smith said he still thinks “it stinks.” A good operator of such a site can take care of any potential issues without an ordinance having to be in place, he said.

“But I also understand that the community’s got a lot of concerns and fears,” Smith added.

Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, said what constitutes critical infrastructure needs to be “defined really well rather than some sort of broad sweeping ordinance.”

Communities around the country are “constantly trying to figure out ways to get around or circumvent” a 2018 federal court decision, known as Martin v. Boise, that prohibits local governments from citing homeless people for camping on public property unless a shelter bed is available.

“This is just another attempt to do that,” Erlenbusch said.