A bill to propose in the California Legislature prohibits the cities and counties of the fine or arrested a homeless person for sleeping or camping on the street, a legislative committee listens at the end of this month.
The bill is partly in response to a ruling of the United States Supreme Court last year that allowed local jurisdictions to prohibit the camps of homeless, even if a city or county does not reinforce.
Related: Controversial Proposal to cite and judge the homeless people who reject the refuge divides the residents of San José
According to the Law of Rest de Própose, local governments would still be allowed to clear camps; They would simply be allowed a fine or judge a person simply for living in the streets, penalties sen. Sasha Renée Pérez said he would only make it difficult for some to get up from the lack of housing.
Its legislation proposes, SB 634, would prohibit a state agency or local jurisdiction to impose civil or criminal sanctions on a homeless person for “any act immediately relationship with homeless, homeless homeless, homeless, homeless without home, homeless homeless homeless without home. Domain, without domain, without water domain or food or offering other services.
Pérez, D-Pasadena, said people should not be criminalized for not being able to pay a roof on their heads.
“What we are trying to get here is to prevent people from being notified or in jail for not having a home,” Pérez said, added that people should not be criminalized by the biological need for sleeping.
“If you can’t afford to live anywhere, if you can’t afford housing, a hotel still needs to sleep,” he said.
Pérez said that foling or arresting someone for being homeless does not work because the person can afford to pay the fine and, as a result, can obtain additional rates, could quickly get out, leaving the most indebted person.
In addition, he said, arresting a person could make an appointment be lost with a service provider to request homes or other services.
Related: Fremont puts the controversial prohibition of camping as defenders of Sue for his repeal
Fines and justices “not only are not a solution”, but exacerbate the homeless crisis, he said.
More than 300,000 people by bicycle through the lack of housing in California in 2024, however, the State only had 76,000 shelter beds and 79,000 permanent support housing units, according to the invoice.
Center for the City of the Center, a provider of legal services in Skid Row in Los Angeles who attend to people who experience homeless people, is a sponsor of the bill.
The representatives of the organization said Monday that when a homeless person is a decoration, the unpaid fine can remain in their record, which makes the application difficult for an apartment and can deepen the poverty cycle.
The approach, they said, should be to build affordable homes and provide more services to those in need, not create additional challenges for poor people or for those who help them. (They said that provisions were added to the bill that protect people who help people homeless, in response to the recent decision of the Fremont City Council to make it a strange “help” and “abet” to someone erecting a camp for homeless people).
“We are here to fight poverty, not the poor people,” said the companion of the city center law, Ishvaku Vashishtha.
But, he said, “after passing the subsidies, we saw the open flood doors to allow mitigation to experience with varied ways of criminalizing poverty.”
When the Supreme Court issued its decision on the case of the subsidy pass last summer and gave permission to local jurisdictions to enforce the anti -patmping laws and people of tickets to sleep in public, it caused mixed reviews of officials in southern California.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, and the Los Angeles County Supervisor, Lindsay Horvath, who presided over the Board of Supervisors at that time, condemned the decision, saying that he criminalizes the lack of housing. Neinder The City or the County would punish people for camping, they said.
On the other hand, the leaders of several cities in Orange County praised the judicial ruling.
Newport Beach officials recently described the decision of the subsidy pass “The biggest game change for the city when it comes to dealing with homeless people.”
Two years ago, Mayor Joe Stapleton said Newport Beach had 94 homeless; That number has now been reduced to 11.
“There is no compassion for leaving these people on the streets,” said Stapleton, and added that the city is spending more than $ 4 million a year for resources, tools, services, temporary homes and permanent housing solutions to get people out of the streets.
At first, there may have been resistance to Newport Beach’s anti -film law, said Stapleton, but since then the city has had news of several people thanking that he forced them to obtain the services they needed to get out of the streets.
At the time of the decision of the subsidy pass, the city of San Bernardino was in a litigation to allegedly throw the belongings of the homeless residents duration of the clear camp clear.
But in September, the city and the ACLU Foundation in southern California agreed an agreement that demanded that the city adopt a policy to avoid the destruction of the sweeps of the homeless residents of residents and provide reasonable.
Almost immediately after, San Bernardino begged the cleaning camps of his parks, starting with Perris Hill Park, with mixed results, according to the old residents of those camps.
San Bernardino has also assigned another $ 1.4 million to house homeless residents, with more expenses potentially on the way.
Pérez, who served in the Council of the City of Alhambra before being chosen for the state legislature, said that Alhambra is not a fine or judging people for not having homes, but offers refuge and services.
The problem is deeply personal for Pérez, whose cousin died while living in the streets of Nevada in 2019. His aunt, who was also homeless and confined to a wheelchair towards the end of his life, died the following year. And Pérez has other family members who still live in the streets.
“There are solutions that local muticipios can make them really focus on services, in homes without having to go to these extreme measures” of fines and judgments, Pérez said.
Its bill is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Local Government Committee on Wednesday, April 23. Legislators in southern California who sit in that committee include Sens. María Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles; Steve Choi, R-Sur; and Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta.
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