In abstract
The weird transfer is alarming activists who fear they could possibly be within the ordinance’s crosshairs.
As communities up and down California ban homeless encampments, one Bay Space metropolis is attempting to go a step additional.
The East Bay metropolis of Fremont is ready to vote on a new ordinance that will make it unlawful to camp on any avenue or sidewalk, in any park or on another public property. However, in an obvious California first, it additionally would make anybody “causing, permitting, aiding, abetting or concealing” an unlawful encampment responsible of a misdemeanor – and probably topic to a $1,000 nice and 6 months in jail.
That uncommon prohibition — the most recent in a collection of crackdowns by communities following a Supreme Court docket choice final summer season — has alarmed activists who fear it could possibly be used in opposition to help employees who present providers to folks residing in encampments. Whereas Fremont Mayor Raj Salwan instructed CalMatters that police received’t goal outreach employees handing out meals and clothes, the ordinance doesn’t specify what qualifies as “aiding, abetting or concealing.”
Specialists say the town might implement the identical ordinance in opposition to extraordinary residents in touch with what the ordinance defines as an unlawful homeless encampment.
The broad language has left Vivian Wan, CEO of Abode Companies, “very fearful,” she mentioned. As the town’s major nonprofit homeless providers supplier, Abode commonly sends outreach employees into encampments to assist folks join housing and shelter, move out details about meals pantries and different providers, hand out coats throughout chilly spells, and extra.
“The job’s hard enough,” Wan mentioned. “I can’t imagine doing the hard work that’s both physically and emotionally draining and then also have to be worried about your own legal liability. It’s incredibly frustrating.”
Fremont’s proposed ordinance, which handed an preliminary metropolis council vote 4-2 and is ready for a closing vote on Feb. 11, is a part of a latest statewide pattern towards extra punitive anti-homelessness measures. Final June, the U.S. Supreme Court docket in Grants Go v. Johnson dominated cities can ban tenting on all public property, even when they don’t have any shelter beds accessible. Since then, greater than two dozen California cities and counties have handed new measures banning camps or limiting the place folks can camp, introduced again beforehand unenforced ordinances, or up to date present tenting ordinances to make them extra punitive.
In December, in the course of the first assembly of Fremont’s newly elected Metropolis Council, greater than a dozen folks spoke out in opposition to the proposed tenting ban throughout a prolonged public remark interval, saying it could be immoral to criminalize folks for having no house. Simply three folks spoke in favor of the ordinance, urging council members to take residents’ security into consideration and respect the rights of taxpayers who count on to have the ability to use the general public areas they pay for.
Councilmember Raymond Liu expressed the same opinion earlier than voting in favor of the ordinance.
“I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and tell me that they don’t feel safe using our parks or our libraries because of the amount of encampments nearby,” he mentioned.
In some elements of California, enforcement goes past the individuals who dwell inside an encampment. In September, native journalist Yesica Prado was arrested in Oakland whereas documenting the town’s elimination of a homeless encampment. The yr earlier than, Oakland made it a misdemeanor for somebody to fail to go away a chosen “safe work zone,” which may embrace the realm round an encampment cleanup.
Civil rights watchdogs – and even the feds – have pushed again after they’ve felt cities have gone too far.
Los Angeles’ ordinance banning the storage of personal property in a public space, which is usually used to quote unhoused folks, additionally makes it a misdemeanor to “willfully resist, delay or obstruct” a metropolis worker from taking down a tent or eradicating different property. Final fall, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California despatched a letter to the Los Angeles Police Division accusing their officers of wrongfully threatening L.A. Taco reporter Lexis-Olivier Ray with arrest underneath that ordinance as he documented encampment removals.
“The job’s hard enough. I can’t imagine doing the hard work that’s both physically and emotionally draining and then also have to be worried about your own legal liability. It’s incredibly frustrating.”
Vivian Wan, CEO, Abode providers
The spiritual group Micah’s Method sued in 2023 after the town of Santa Ana banned it from serving meals to unhoused folks. The federal Justice Division weighed in on behalf of Micah’s Method, saying distributing meals could possibly be a protected spiritual train underneath federal civil rights legal guidelines. The case then settled, and the town agreed to permit Micah’s Approach to proceed serving meals.
Would the aiding-and-abetting clause in Fremont’s ordinance rise up in courtroom?
“It’s really going to depend on how it’s applied,” mentioned David Loy, authorized director of the First Modification Coalition. The First Modification proper to freedom of expression doesn’t assure somebody a proper to camp in a public place, nor does it assure an individual a proper to “aid and abet” an unlawful camp. However it all comes right down to how the police determine what qualifies as aiding and abetting, Loy mentioned.
Mayor Salwan instructed CalMatters that the town would use the aiding-and-abetting clause in opposition to individuals who assist construct unlawful constructions at encampments.
“Some individuals come kind of like vigilanties,” he mentioned. “They want to start building these structures for the unhoused that are unsafe. Then this provision would come in.”
Police wouldn’t arrest somebody underneath the brand new ordinance merely for giving an unhoused individual a tent, Salwan mentioned.
However what if that activist helps that individual pitch the tent?
“That’s a good question,” Salwan mentioned. “I think we may have to seek clarification from the city attorney.”
CalMatters posed that query to the town lawyer’s workplace. The workplace responded, by way of spokesperson Justin Berton, that an individual who helps somebody arrange a tent could possibly be topic to enforcement.
To Wan and different activists, Salwan’s phrases are hardly reassuring. They concern that it doesn’t matter what the mayor says, the language within the ordinance is so broad that it’s going to give police the flexibility to come back down on activists and help employees at their discretion.
The authorized definition of aiding and abetting is far-reaching, and may apply to anybody who knowingly helps facilitate a criminal offense. Meaning will probably be as much as Fremont police to determine whether or not a person outreach employee at a camp needs to be cited or arrested, mentioned Andrea Henson, an lawyer who serves as government director and authorized counsel for Berkeley nonprofit The place will we Go?
Henson and different consultants interviewed by CalMatters had by no means earlier than come throughout an aiding-and-abetting clause in a California ordinance regulating or banning homeless encampments.
“I think a lot of attorneys who assist and defend the unhoused are watching this,” Henson mentioned. “No one’s seen this.”
Salwan mentioned he’s open to creating the proposed aiding-and-abetting clause extra particular.
“I’m willing to consider tweaks in our language to make sure we address the concerns,” he mentioned.
Amongst Wan’s largest issues is that police will use the proposed ordinance to attempt to stress her outreach employees into disclosing the place encampments are positioned. The very last thing her crew needs to do is assist police displace, cite or arrest their purchasers, Wan mentioned. But when their purchasers imagine that’s a chance, they could cease trusting them and accepting their assist, she mentioned.
“Absolutely not,” Salwan mentioned when requested if that would occur. “We’ve had a great relationship with all of our nonprofits. We’re not trying to get into all that.”
If the ordinance passes, Wan hopes to type an settlement with the town that exempts her employees from the aiding-and-abetting clause.
“I think a lot of attorneys who assist and defend the unhoused are watching this. No one’s seen this.”
Andrea Henson, government director, The place do We Go?
If they will’t, she would contemplate reducing again on outreach. Wan additionally worries the ordinance would make it more durable to recruit new outreach employees – one thing Abode and different nonprofits all through the state already wrestle withdue to the low pay and the grueling and sometimes irritating work.
Eve Garrow, a senior coverage analyst and advocate for the ACLU of Southern California, worries the aiding-and-abetting clause will make it even more durable for unhoused folks to get assist.
“I think it will, if it passes, put a chill on any type of humanitarian aid or help that local residents would otherwise be providing to people who are unhoused and unsheltered,” mentioned Garrow, who was alarmed when she heard in regards to the proposed ordinance from a Fremont resident.
Sister Elaine Sanchez of the Fremont-based Sisters of the Holy Household is adamant that the proposed ordinance received’t cease her from serving to her homeless neighbors.
“I figure if I’m going to be arrested for something,” she mentioned, “it’s going to be for doing something that I feel is helping people in need.”