Santa Monica may ban homeless people from using sleeping bags, pillows

Homeless individuals in Santa Monica could quickly be prohibited from sleeping outdoor as the town considers altering its anti-camping ordinance to adjust to a current U.S. Supreme Court docket ruling on the contentious subject.

The prevailing ordinance prohibits tents and makeshift shelters on public property. The revised ordinance would additionally prohibit the town’s unsheltered residents from utilizing blankets, pillows and bedrolls whereas sleeping outdoors, exemptions that have been added in 2022 to adjust to a courtroom of appeals ruling.

Santa Monica officers have 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 individuals have lengthy been drawn to Santa Monica, particularly to its promenade and seashores the place vacationers collect. They’ve been blamed for a number of headline-grabbing crimes.

Final summer time, a person who gave the impression to be homeless assaulted Mayor Phil Brock on the Third Avenue Promenade. Brock was a council member on the time of the assault. This previous Might, a homeless man assaulted three individuals on the identical road, stabbing no less than two German vacationers. The next month, Santa Monica police arrested a homeless man who attacked three individuals on the seashore, together with an aged lady and a 17-year-old woman.

There are 774 individuals experiencing homelessness in Santa Monica, a 6% drop from 826 in 2023, in keeping with the town’s current homeless rely. Not 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 at the beginning of the assembly.

Wade Kelly, a resident, informed the council throughout public remark that he disagreed with the town’s plan to ban individuals from sleeping outdoor and instantly addressed the mayor over it.

“You don’t stand for human rights,” Kelly informed him.

Brock didn’t hesitate to reply again to his remarks.

“I’m beholden to my residents, I’m beholden to our enterprise pursuits and I’m beholden to the individuals who want compassion on our road,” he mentioned. “The query is, is [it] compassion to let individuals lay in our streets and die — I are likely 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 concurrently deny an unhoused individual a blanket and an alternate place to sleep is each imply and absurd,” she wrote.

Kathleen Sheldon, a longtime resident, additionally wrote to officers, saying that stopping individuals from sleeping outdoors wouldn’t make the homeless drawback disappear.

“It should merely expose determined individuals with nowhere to go to much more inhumane circumstances, additional jeopardizing their well being and security and fairly probably their lives,” she wrote. “Please don’t give in to the loudest and most hateful voices in our neighborhood. As an alternative, withdraw these merciless and counterproductive proposals and do what’s finest for our metropolis.”

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 “consider and supply choices to amend the town’s municipal code” as a way to adjust to the current U.S. Supreme Court docket ruling.

In June, the nation’s excessive courtroom overturned a ruling by the U.S. ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals, referred to as the Grant Cross resolution. That ruling mentioned that tenting and sleeping ordinances violate the eighth Modification by constituting merciless and weird punishment for individuals who had no different place to go.

The Supreme Court docket ruling to overturn the Grant Cross resolution meant cities and counties have been free to ban individuals 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, the town of Lengthy Seaside started imposing its anti-camping legal guidelines by giving police full discretion to challenge citations and make arrests when essential. Metropolis officers additionally sought to clear homeless encampments that posed a risk to public well being and security and prevented individuals from accessing libraries, parks and seashores. Authorities have additionally focused encampments the place individuals had been immune to companies.

In Los Angeles, elected officers mentioned the governor’s order didn’t change something of their method 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. The town’s anti-camping legislation at present prohibits tents and makeshift shelters on public property however does enable individuals to make use of blankets and pillows whereas sleeping.

Workers additionally really helpful that the town might wait and observe how different cities are approaching homeless encampments amid the Supreme Court docket ruling.

Tuesday’s controversial proposal additionally got here on the identical evening that metropolis officers have been contemplating buying a industrial constructing on the 1400 block of Wilshire Boulevard for use for a everlasting supportive housing undertaking.

Many residents who reside across the proposed website confirmed as much as communicate out towards the undertaking saying it might make their neighborhood extra harmful and fewer interesting to consumers whereas impacting companies.

“We should do one thing to help the unhoused,” Mary Stewart, an house proprietor, informed the council. “This can truly not do a lot of something however considerably injury the neighborhood for no profit to anybody.”

She and lots of the different residents mentioned they might be okay with the undertaking so long as the tenants have been low-income seniors.

George Guttman echoed that sentiment, but in addition made an extra suggestion to metropolis leaders.

“In case you’re going to do low-income housing, hopefully you possibly can put households there to allow them to go to our nice college system.”