Homeless folks in Santa Monica could quickly be prohibited from sleeping outdoor as town considers altering its anti-camping ordinance to adjust to a latest U.S. Supreme Courtroom ruling on the contentious subject.
The prevailing ordinance prohibits tents and makeshift shelters on public property. The revised ordinance would additionally prohibit town’s unsheltered residents from utilizing blankets, pillows and bedrolls whereas sleeping outdoors, exemptions that had been added in 2022 to adjust to a courtroom of appeals ruling.
Santa Monica officers had been anticipated to debate the proposed ordinance together with different suggestions throughout Tuesday evening’s Metropolis Council assembly, however officers postponed the merchandise to be mentioned probably as early as subsequent week.
Homeless folks have lengthy been drawn to Santa Monica, specifically to its promenade and seashores the place vacationers collect. They’ve been blamed for a number of headline-grabbing crimes.
Final summer season, a person who gave the impression to be homeless assaulted Mayor Phil Brock on the Third Road Promenade. Brock was a council member on the time of the assault. This previous Could, a homeless man assaulted three folks on the identical road, stabbing a minimum of two German vacationers. The next month, Santa Monica police arrested a homeless man who attacked three folks on the seashore, together with an aged lady and a 17-year-old lady.
There are 774 folks experiencing homelessness in Santa Monica, a 6% drop from 826 in 2023, in keeping with town’s latest homeless depend. No less than 62% of the unhoused inhabitants lives outdoor.
Tuesday’s proposed ordinance drew dozens of residents to the Santa Monica council chamber, a few of them addressing the merchandise in the beginning of the assembly.
Wade Kelly, a resident, advised the council throughout public remark that he disagreed with town’s plan to ban folks from sleeping outdoor and straight addressed the mayor over it.
“You don’t stand for human rights,” Kelly advised him.
Brock didn’t hesitate to reply again to his remarks.
“I am beholden to my residents, I am beholden to our business interests and I’m beholden to the people who need compassion on our street,” he stated. “The question is, is [it] compassion to let people lay in our streets and die — I tend to say that’s neglect, not compassion.”
Some residents wrote to elected officers expressing their disapproval of the proposed ordinance; amongst them was resident Patricia Meyer.
“To simultaneously deny an unhoused person a blanket and an alternative place to sleep is both mean and absurd,” she wrote.
Kathleen Sheldon, a longtime resident, additionally wrote to officers, saying that stopping folks from sleeping outdoors wouldn’t make the homeless downside disappear.
“It will simply expose desperate people with nowhere to go to even more inhumane conditions, further jeopardizing their health and safety and quite possibly their lives,” she wrote. “Please do not give in to the loudest and most hateful voices in our community. Instead, withdraw these cruel and counterproductive proposals and do what is best for our city.”
The proposed ordinance that was to be thought-about Tuesday evening stems from a July Metropolis Council assembly by which Mayor Professional Tem Lana Negrete and Councilmember Oscar de la Torre requested metropolis employees to “evaluate and provide options to amend the city’s municipal code” to be able to adjust to the latest U.S. Supreme Courtroom ruling.
In June, the nation’s excessive courtroom overturned a ruling by the U.S. ninth Circuit Courtroom of Appeals, often called the Grant Go determination. That ruling stated that tenting and sleeping ordinances violate the eighth Modification by constituting merciless and strange punishment for individuals who had no different place to go.
The Supreme Courtroom ruling to overturn the Grant Go determination meant cities and counties had been free to ban folks from sleeping or tenting on public property, even when there was no accessible place to go.
Shortly after that call, Gov. Gavin Newsom directed state companies to start clearing homeless encampments from state lands; he urged cities and counties to do the identical and threatened to take cash away from cities and counties that didn’t make progress in clearing homeless camp websites.
Final week, town of Lengthy Seaside started imposing its anti-camping legal guidelines by giving police full discretion to concern citations and make arrests when vital. Metropolis officers additionally sought to clear homeless encampments that posed a risk to public well being and security and prevented folks from accessing libraries, parks and seashores. Authorities have additionally focused encampments the place folks had been immune to companies.
In Los Angeles, elected officers stated the governor’s order didn’t change something of their strategy to clearing encampments.
Though it’s unclear what elected officers plan to do in Santa Monica, metropolis employees have additionally offered them with different suggestions, together with taking no motion. Town’s anti-camping legislation presently prohibits tents and makeshift shelters on public property however does enable folks to make use of blankets and pillows whereas sleeping.
Workers additionally advisable that town may wait and observe how different cities are approaching homeless encampments amid the Supreme Courtroom ruling.
Tuesday’s controversial proposal additionally got here on the identical evening that metropolis officers had been contemplating buying a business constructing on the 1400 block of Wilshire Boulevard for use for a everlasting supportive housing undertaking.
Many residents who stay across the proposed website confirmed as much as communicate out towards the undertaking saying it could make their neighborhood extra harmful and fewer interesting to customers whereas impacting companies.
“We must do something to assist the unhoused,” Mary Stewart, an condominium proprietor, advised the council. “This will actually not do much of anything but substantially damage the neighborhood for no benefit to anyone.”
She and most of the different residents stated they’d be okay with the undertaking so long as the tenants had been low-income seniors.
George Guttman echoed that sentiment, but in addition made a further suggestion to metropolis leaders.
“If you’re going to do low-income housing, hopefully you can put families there so they can go to our great school system.”
