Mickey, who preferred not to give her last name, and Will Wilkens, from left, at a homeless encampment along Leet Drive off Hegenberger Road in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, March 28, 2024. Caltrans has agreed to help Oakland clear homeless camps by freeways and the camp will be cleared on April 2. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Under recent federal court rulings, cities throughout the West Coast are expected to offer homeless people shelter or housing before clearing encampments. Bay Area civil rights groups are now urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the mandate in a case set for later this month that advocates worry could free officials to crack down harder on those living on the street.
This week, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area filed a brief with the high court that also accused state and local politicians — including Gov. Gavin Newsom — of throwing their support behind the appeal to deflect responsibility for their struggles solving a deepening homeless crisis.
“This is political theatre,” advocates said in the filing. “Nothing stops California from investing in affordable housing and emergency shelter for thousands of its residents forced to sleep outside.”
The coalition of advocates backing the brief includes the League of Women Voters California, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and recalled former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
Newsom and local officials say federal judges have made addressing homelessness “unworkable” by invoking the rule to block cities and public agencies from clearing unsafe encampments across the state, including in San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco. While those officials largely agree homeless people should be offered shelter, they say the rule is confusing and have asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
“By setting out a clear rule, the Court can empower state and local governments to enact and enforce compassionate policies that will help save lives, strengthen their communities, and ultimately work to stem the tide of this homelessness crisis,” Newsom said earlier this year in a statement that also highlighted efforts to add thousands of shelter beds and supportive housing units statewide.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2023, California had an estimated 181,000 homeless residents, a 6% increase from the year before. More than two-thirds lived outdoors, in vehicles or other places not meant for habitation, the largest share of any state in the country.
On April 22, the court is set to hear arguments in the case, an appeal by Grants Pass, Oregon, seeking to reverse decisions by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that, citing the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, effectively prohibit encampment sweeps if shelter beds aren’t available. A ruling is expected by the end of June.
Advocates, including former San Francisco District Attorney Boudin — who was voted out of office in 2022 amid growing crime concerns and is now executive director of UC Berkeley’s Criminal Law and Justice Center — took particular aim at San Francisco officials who’ve backed the Grants Pass appeal, including Mayor London Breed.
Since late 2022, the city has been under a federal injunction preventing it from sweeping homeless encampments without providing a roof over people’s heads. San Francisco officials, for their part, have maintained they’ve only cleared out encampment residents who’ve turned down shelter. But the appeals court found that San Francisco, like most other big cities across the state, doesn’t have nearly enough shelter beds for everyone on the street.
During a news conference earlier this week, advocates chastised Newsom, Breed and other elected officials for pushing to get the issue before the Supreme Court.
“It is really shocking to me, and it should be shocking to all of us, that we are now in front of the Trump-dominated U.S. Supreme Court on this issue,” said Boudin. “And we’re there in part because California leaders, who are perfectly clear on what the law is and say they agree with it, simply don’t want to take accountability.”
Originally published at Ethan Varian