Lawsuit seeks to stop Sacramento cops, deputies from clearing homeless camps amid coronavirus
Homeless activists Wednesday filed a lawsuit alleging Sacramento police and sheriff’s deputies have been clearing encampments during the coronavirus pandemic, despite federal guidelines and a new Sacramento County order that camps not be cleared.
The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, seeks a court order to stop police from clearing encampments, which activists call “sweeps.” It also seeks court orders that would require officials to place more homeless in motel rooms and provide more toilets and hand washing stations at encampments to prevent an outbreak among the vulnerable population.
The lawsuit was filed by the Sacramento Homeless Union, Sacramento Solidarity of Unhoused Persons (SacSOUP) and eight homeless people. It names the city, county, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn, Sacramento County Board of Supervisors Chair Phil Serna, Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, Sacramento County Department of Health Services and its officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye as defendants.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Tess Deterding said the office is not proactively clearing encampments, but when issues arise, deputies are “continuing to serve business owners and property owners in keeping encampments off their private property.”
The city declined comment on the lawsuit because the city has not yet been served with it, city spokesman Tim Swanson said. Other defendants named in the suit had not responded to emails seeking comment.
As of Tuesday night, 480 homeless people were staying in trailers and motel rooms the county acquired for coronavirus response, while 86 units were empty, county spokeswoman Janna Haynes said. Nonprofit Goodwill Industries, tasked with motel intake, has the ability to get 20 to 25 homeless people into the motels per day, Haynes said.
A coronavirus response team of county, city and nonprofit officials have placed 49 toilets and 56 handwashing stations at encampments and other areas where homeless frequent, the team reported. They have also moved 30 families into permanent housing and provided more than 31,000 meals to encampments.
CDC: Don’t clear homeless camps
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on March 22 released guidelines including the following directive: “Unless individual housing units are available, do not clear encampments during community spread of COVID-19. Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers. This increases the potential for infectious disease spread.”
Police continued to direct homeless people to move from several downtown locations, The Sacramento Bee reported at the time.
On May 22, the county issued an updated public health order, which says the CDC guidance should be “strictly followed.”
“Do not cite, clear, or relocate encampments, or cars, RV’s, and trailers used as shelter during community spread of COVID-19,” the county order reads. “Clearing encampments causes people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers, increasing the potential for infectious disease spread.”
County health officials issued the order after the Sacramento Homeless Union met and provided video evidence of police clearing encampments to county health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson, the lawsuit said. The county order states there is an exception for camps that pose an “imminent and significant public safety hazard,” such as large excavated areas of levees.
The court order is needed, the lawsuit says, because police are violating the new county rules. For example, police Sunday told about 150 people they had to leave a camp on Roseville Road, the lawsuit alleges.
In addition, Sacramento police went to City Hall on Tuesday morning and told homeless who had slept there the previous night to leave, as they do every weekday morning, which the lawsuit alleges is a violation. City officials do not consider the homeless who sleep outside City Hall at night to be an “encampment” subject to the CDC and county orders.
“The City of Sacramento does not allow encampments to develop outside of City Hall,” Swanson said in a statement. “The City’s ordinance, which allows people to shelter outside of City Hall at night but keeps the facility safe and accessible for anyone who needs to use it during operating hours, remains in effect.”
County officials have not yet said whether clearing camps from City Hall violates the new county order.
“We are in discussions with the city on policy in light of our most recent public health order and CDC guidance on homeless encampments,” Haynes said in an email. “City Hall officials do allow for sleeping on premise at night and on weekends, when it is closed. However, City Hall is a unique circumstance, as it is a functioning business during the day, with a need for access to the building and its services, which is why campers are requested to move during the day and return after hours.”
Homeless say sweeps continue
The union has collected signed statements from nearly 100 homeless people describing sweeps, the lawsuit said. Among them is Roberta Susan Lockwood, who sleeps outside City Hall and has not been offered a motel room, despite being 65 years old, the lawsuit alleges.
A January 2019 count estimated 5,570 homeless people are living in the county, mostly sleeping outdoors. Officials have recently estimated there are more than 3,800 homeless people living at 80 encampments countywide.
Anthony Prince, an attorney for the Sacramento Homeless Union who filed the lawsuit, criticized the county for leaving motel rooms empty.
“At this time less than 10 percent (of the county’s homeless) are in hotel rooms ... that is disgraceful,” Prince said during a news conference outside the courthouse Wednesday. “There are rooms sitting empty that have been paid for with federal and state monies and homeless people are not being placed in those safe quarantined individual locations.”
The lawsuit is calling for a court order to require officials to increase those services dramatically. It also alleges the city and county have placed homeless in a “state-created danger” in violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
