In abstract
Many California cities cracked down on homeless encampments after a Supreme Court docket ruling gave them the inexperienced gentle to arrest individuals.
2024 was the yr California cracked down on homeless encampments.
Fed up with tents taking over sidewalks, parks and vacant tons, officers all through the state ramped up efforts to take away camps – typically even resorting to arresting individuals for unlawful tenting.
The largest shift got here in June with the Grants Move v. Johnson Supreme Court docket ruling, which supplies cities new authority to arrest, cite and tremendous individuals for sleeping outdoors in public locations – even when there isn’t a shelter out there. Gov. Gavin Newsom rapidly adopted the ruling with an order of his personal: He demanded state companies clear homeless encampments, and urged cities to do the identical or danger shedding out on state funding.
California cities have been fast to react. A bit of greater than two months after the courtroom ruling, greater than two dozen cities and counties had handed or proposed new ordinances banning tenting, or up to date present ordinances to make them extra punitive. Unhoused Californians, in addition to the activists who combat for his or her rights, informed CalMatters that sweeps had change into extra frequent and extra aggressive.
As they ramped up sweeps, California cities used completely different methods to relocate individuals displaced from homeless encampments. San Diego moved lots of of individuals into sanctioned encampments. Los Angeles put individuals up in resorts.
2024 additionally was the yr the place everybody promised better accountability. An April audit discovered the state fails to trace how a lot it spends on homelessness and which state-funded packages are profitable. Following that scathing report, Newsom added new guidelines requiring cities and counties to raised monitor outcomes when spending state homelessness {dollars}. He additionally promised to ramp up enforcement towards cities and counties that don’t do their half, and in November, his administration sued the town of Norwalk for placing a moratorium on the development of latest homeless shelters .
In the meantime, CalMatters crunched new knowledge to point out California’s homeless inhabitants elevated to practically 186,000 individuals in 2024 – up 8% from 2022.
2025 outlook
One factor to look at for within the upcoming yr will likely be how the brand new administration below President-elect Donald Trump handles homelessness on the federal degree. Homeless service suppliers all through California depend on federal grants, and a few operators fear their funding might get reduce.
However there’s one concern the place Trump and Newsom are extra aligned than you may suppose: and that’s methods to deal with homeless encampments. Trump has promised to sort out encampments by working with states to ban city tenting and arrest individuals who don’t comply. However many cities in California already began doing that this yr, and Newsom has urged native officers to crack down.
