Can Sacramento County enforce its new homeless laws? Here’s how agencies are preparing
The Sacramento City Council and Sacramento County Board of Supervisors each passed ordinances this week banning homeless encampments in certain public spaces.
Now it’s up to local law enforcement agencies to determine how to enforce them.
The city’s ordinance prohibits unhoused people from blocking sidewalks and business entrances, while the county passed an edict banning camping along the American River Parkway and Dry Creek Parkway.
Another new county ordinance bars people from camping near critical infrastructure zones such as government buildings, homeless shelters, youth facilities and in wildfire and flood risk zones during inclement weather.
Don’t expect the 2,000-3,000 people living along the American River Parkway to be removed the day the ordinances take effect on Sept. 22.
Sacramento County park rangers and sheriff’s deputies won’t be doing mass sweeps, said Eric Jones, the deputy county executive for public safety and justice. Instead, they’ll focus on the most problematic sites.
“It’s not about sweeps,” Jones said. “The park rangers and/or sheriff’s (office) are not just going to sweep all individuals in encampments out of the parkway.”
“We’re taking a very strategic and humane approach to this,” Jones said. “We’ll probably pick just a couple locations that are the most serious public health concerns or fire hazards in the (American River) Parkway, and prioritize those.”
Camping in the newly prohibited areas now constitutes a misdemeanor offense, which could result in a fine or jail time. But legal enforcement of the ordinances is a last resort, said Jones, who was hired for his newly created position in February after nine years as Stockton’s police chief.
A spokesman for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said it’s too early for him to comment on the new ordinance. Though state and local proposals to outlaw camping on the American River Parkway have been in the works for months, department spokesperson Lt. Rod Grassmann said the ordinances’ exact language needed to be reviewed before a plan could be determined.
“The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors passed this ordinance because they felt it was in the best interest of Sacramento County and the community,” Grassmann wrote in a text message. “The Sheriff’s Office has not even seen the ordinance; it’s much too premature to analyze it or come up with any sort of enforcement plan.”
Incoming sheriff prioritized homelessness
Incoming Sheriff Jim Cooper made homelessness a centerpiece of his campaign for the job. When asked how he might enforce the new ordinances when he takes office, Cooper said he planned “to deal with it and not to shy away from it.”
The plan includes bringing county mental health professionals and nonprofit service providers out when removing campers.
“I don’t need large sweeps to come in and move people. We can do it in a respectful way — respectful but firm,” said Cooper of Elk Grove, a Democratic assemblyman who co-authored a bill earlier this year to ban camping on the American River Parkway.
“We want to help the people that want help out there. It’s unfortunate, it’s tough, but at the same time you have a parkway where crime is pretty significant and a lot of folks are afraid to use the parkway. It’s not a crime to be homeless, but at the same time, you can’t have the issues that are going on,” he said.
Tents on Sacramento sidewalks
Within Sacramento city limits, Department of Community Response personnel will respond first to encampments blocking sidewalks, city spokesman Gregg Fishman said. They’ll explain the ordinance to campers, ask them to move and offer them support services, including property storage, before disposing of whatever debris may be left behind.
If homeless people don’t voluntarily move, officials would call the Sacramento Police Department, Fishman said.
The Police Department did not answer questions about how it would enforce the ordinance, instead issuing a written statement about the department’s overall homelessness response plan.
“Our department recognizes the need for a compassionate response when addressing community complaints regarding persons experiencing homelessness. Officers responding to complaints of this nature assess them to determine the appropriate course of action which can include outreach and/or enforcement,” the statement read.
“The Sacramento Police Department maintains a team of officers called the Impact Team that is dedicated to community concerns regarding homelessness and engages with our homeless community members. Complaints regarding persons experiencing homelessness that are criminal in nature should be referred to the Police Department. Any complaint that is not criminal in nature should be referred to the Department of Community Response,” the police statement continued.
The city ordinance requires that people cleared from sidewalks or business entrances be offered another location to go, unlike both of the county ordinances.
In November, Sacramento residents will see a ballot question called Measure O that would require the city to identify up to 600 new shelter beds within 90 days and also allow police to clear certain encampments. The measure would require the city to provide more shelter beds over time.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg introduced a complementary resolution Tuesday in response to activists’ concerns that the new ordinance might criminalize homelessness. The resolution includes a directive for the police and city attorney to avoid implementing fines and jail time “to the fullest extent practical.”
“The misdemeanor provision is necessary to help the city, starting with the Department of Community Response, to help clear the sidewalks — that’s the purpose of it,” Steinberg said at Tuesday’s city council meeting. “But not to fine or jail people, without taking away the city attorney or police department’s ultimate discretion for those extraordinary circumstances — danger and others — where some other action might be necessary.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2022 at 6:00 AM.