Two Bay Area cities are going in different directions in battling encampments, as a Fairfax woman just won a delay on the clearing of her own encampment, while Fremont just passed a law that activists fear could illegalize handing cash or food to the homeless.
Many California cities are still struggling to interpret the new powers given to them by the Supreme Court’s summer Johnson v. Grants Pass decision that allows cities to ban public camping, even if the city cannot provide alternative shelter. Up in Marin County’s Fairfax, an unsheltered woman just won the right to keep her own encampment going while the courts sort out a lawsuit she filed herself. While in the East Bay city of Fremont, a new law just passed at the city council that makes it a crime to “aid or abet” homelessness, which some fear would make it a crime to give encampment residents cash, food, or even a bottle of water.
The Marin County encampment in Fairfax is at Peri Park, it’s seen in this Marin Independent Journal article as being decked with furniture and a mini-kitchen, and it reportedly has five or six people residents. Fairfax has a law saying people cannot be in the city’s parks at night without “sufficient police protection or adult supervision.” The encampment residents applied for a permit to be there at night, arguing that they are “adult supervision” since they are all adults.
The permit was denied, so encampment resident Shaylee Koontz sued the city in federal court as a form of appealing that decision. And the Bay Area News Group reports the court has granted her an injunction on the clearing of the camp until that lawsuit is resolved.
“In the meantime, in accordance with the Court’s direction, no enforcement of the anti-camping ordinance against the encampment near the [Contratti Park] ballfield will take place prior to the March 18 hearing,” the City of Fairfax said in an announcement. “The Town remains committed to addressing this matter with care, balancing legal obligations, community needs, and the well-being of all Fairfax residents.”
As noted, that hearing is scheduled March 18, and legal proceedings will continue who-knows-how long after that. But for now, that encampment stays intact.
Meanwhile, in Fremont, Cal Matters reported last week that the city council was voting on an ordinance that would make it a crime to participate in “causing, permitting, aiding, abetting or concealing” an encampment. Violators could get a $1,000 fine and six months in jail, in what is believed to be the first such ordinance in the state. And some support groups worry that would criminalize giving people food, cash, or water.
Well, KTVU reports the measure passed 6-1 on Tuesday night. And it’s drawn national attention that this could criminalize the work of charities or outreach groups.
"You can give food, you can give water, a tent, you can help people. The only thing you can’t do is, you can’t build tree houses on creeks,” Fremont Mayor Raj Salwan explained to KTVU. "You can’t build large structures which can be a fire hazard. They’re not safe for the community, and they’re also not safe for our unhoused individuals."
That said, councilmembers weren’t so sure, and say they may revisit the language of the ordinance if they’re uncomfortable with its implementation.
Though as Sister Elaine Sanchez of Fremont’s Sisters of the Holy Family told Cal Matters, “I figure if I’m going to be arrested for something, it’s going to be for doing something that I feel is helping people in need.”
Image: Homeless tents in the park. - stock photo (Getty Images)
