As homeless numbers continue to rise throughout the state, most of California’s leaders have followed Governor Gavin Newsom’s lead towards criminalizing the poorest among us. The default tactic of sweeps — chasing homeless people from one place to another — remains the most favored method of dealing with people on the streets, in the parks and alleys, and along waterways and freeway margins even while homeless numbers throughout the state show no signs of diminishing. ed
Lynelle Solomon was furious. She’d just learned that her friends Joe and Diana had been cited for illegal camping in a Modesto park. Earlier this month, The two homeless people she’d been providing food and comfort while they waited for supportive housing were told to move on at 3am after police found them sleeping in Roosevelt Park.
It didn’t matter that after seven years on the streets, Solomon had helped Joe and Diana find an apartment and they were just waiting for the paperwork to be completed. It didn’t matter that Joe was 70 years old and had stomach cancer. At 3am, the couple were forced to gather up their belongings and try to find another place to lay their heads.
“Why can’t they let people like Joe and Diana at least have a safe place to sleep,” said Solomon later. “They pick up their trash, they’re not hurting anyone and they’re not using illegal drugs. They’ve done everything right trying to get housing and yet the police won’t leave them alone.”
In her role as a volunteer outreach worker, Lynelle Solomon had been the guiding force for doing “everything right” while getting Joe and Diana onto the waiting list for supportive housing. Too often, doing everything right isn’t enough. Like many people on fixed incomes, Joe and Diana had lost their apartment when the rent went up. Statistically, they’re included in the fastest-growing cohort of homeless people: seniors and the elderly.
Also like many people, Joe and Diana had tried living in congregate shelters and preferred camping out, even with all the problems. Traditional shelters were never meant for long-term stays, and Joe and Diana discovered that finding housing was a years-long ordeal. They also experienced harassment and theft in shelters.
For a long time, they found sleeping places where they could be close to rest rooms and relatively safe from the nighttime predators and thieves who are a routine threat for people on the streets. Then the City of Modesto began its “accountability” tactic for managing homelessness.
Accountability turned out to be a ramped-up version of sweeps, the favored statewide tactic for managing homelessness. The fundamental flaw? Sweeps just move homeless people from one place to another.
Joe and Diana found themselves bouncing from their favored location at Roosevelt Park to other less attractive spots and back again. Then they learned Solomon had gotten them on the list for supportive housing.
Lynelle Solomon is a volunteer outreach worker for Stanislaus Homeless Advocacy and Resource Enterprise (SHARE). Working with government agencies and law enforcement, SHARE helps fill the gaps in local systems of care by providing assessments, making referrals, and sometimes providing short-term stays in motel rooms.
Since Joe and Diana were only a short time away from housing, neither wanted to chance going to a motel for a few days only to find themselves back on the streets with nowhere to go. Solomon brought them food and clothing and learned their stories, then grew frustrated that there was no place for them to sleep while they waited for the paperwork to be done for their apartment.
“Diana and Joe were cited for illegal camping,” said Solomon. “It’s ridiculous to harass old and sick people for sleeping when they have nowhere to go.”
Ridiculous as it may be, criminalizing homelessness seems to be the motive behind Governor Gavin Newsom’s latest attempts to legalize sweeps of homeless camps. Newsom has recently joined an effort to overturn the 9th Circuit Appeals Court (Martin vs Boise) ruling that bars forcing homeless people to move from public places when there’s nowhere else to go.
Lawsuits have become the latest strategy in the state’s failed attempts to control homelessness. Last month, Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho filed a lawsuit against the City of Sacramento for failure to manage its growing homeless population.
“The city is at a breaking point,” said Ho, citing failures to enforce ordinances against unlawful camping and blocking sidewalks. Sacramento isn’t the only city “at a breaking point.” Throughout the state, cities have been plagued by growing homeless populations they can neither control nor manage. The primary problem is that the default tactic for managing homelessness, from Governor Newsom on down, has been sweeps that do nothing to alleviate the problem. They just move people from one place to another.
In the City of Modesto, sweeps will be the focus of an upcoming homeless workshop. Three Modesto City Councilmembers have put forth a proposition to allow safe sleeping sites for homeless people. The upcoming workshop, scheduled for October 20 in downtown Modesto and billed as a “Special City Council Meeting,” will feature arguments for and against safe sleeping sites for the unhoused.
In a recent statement via text message, Modesto City Councilmember Eric Alvarez wrote:
“A significant proportion of the unsheltered population have mental health or drug addiction challenges…They need proper medication and they need treatment…safe ground provides a safe place and a one-stop shop for service care providers.”
Stanislaus County Sheriff Jeff Dirkse shares Alvarez’s views about the benefits of safe ground versus the current strategy of sweeps. During a recent interview with the Modesto Bee, Dirkse said:
“It’s a frustrating game of Whac-A-Mole. You deal with it, some may go to jail and it pops up somewhere else. (Safe camping) doesn’t get them out of it but gives them a spot to be homeless for now and it’s not in your backyard or your business or your alley… (With safe camping), outreach folks can actually solve problems because we’re condensing them into camps where they can interact with them. So, yeah, I fully support it — it’s a necessary step.”
Modesto City Councilmembers Nick Bavaro and Chris Ricci, along with Eric Alvarez, also support safe sleeping sites. Bavaro saw firsthand the negative results of sweeps when a county-ordered removal of a homeless camp on Daley Avenue displaced the camp’s residents into Bavaro’s district.
“I get complaints every day about homeless people in the parks, on the sidewalks, behind businesses and homes and along our waterways,” said Bavaro recently. We have some good programs, including the CHAT Team and Camp to Home. Now we need the final piece of the puzzle, which is Streets to Camp.”
Despite support from the sheriff and councilmembers, some city officials have been reluctant to consider safe camping. They cite problems with the Modesto Outdoor Emergency Shelter (MOES) as the chief reasons they’re opposed to safe sites. MOES was a permitted Modesto camp site that was closed down after almost a year in operation. Sheriff Dirkse believes MOES got too big and smaller sites would be easier to manage:
“With MOES, we saw that we got a lot of them out of the community and into a designated spot. But it created its own problems because MOES was far too big.”
One of the elements that continue to be missing from debates about rousting homeless people from one spot to another are the effects sweeps have on people like Joe and Diana, who have been treated like criminals because their fixed income isn’t enough to pay today’s costs of renting. Life on the streets ruins people’s mental and physical health, and puts them at constant risk of injury from those who prey on them. Forcing them away from the few places that offer safety and security only makes things worse.
Eric Alvarez is very aware of the many dangers homeless people face every day:
“In my research and in speaking with my constituents, I have discovered that homeless populations have poorer health and are 3x more likely to die than the similarly aged general population. They are also more likely to be involved in crimes either as a victim or a suspect.”
In fact, homeless people are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than they are perpetrators. According to California Local, “ San Diego County data from 2021 showed that members of the homeless population there were murdered at 19 times the rate of the non-homeless population, and were 27 times more likely to be subjected to attempted murder—as well as 12 times more likely to be assaulted and nine times more likely to be sexually assaulted.”
A large percentage of “crimes” committed by homeless people can be seen as “homeless status offenses,” when people are cited for such routine human behavior as sleeping, sitting or simply existing. These are the crimes for which people like Joe and Diana are routinely punished — loitering, unpermitted camping and trespassing.
The City of Modesto, like the state of California, is at a crucial moment in its history. It can continue to chase homeless people from place to place by breaking up camps and rousting people like Joe and Diana or it can try allowing unhoused people safe places to lay their heads. The one tactic hasn’t worked after years of repeated attempts. The other offers a humane alternative to punishing people whose greatest offense is that they can’t afford today’s exorbitant rents.
It’s a choice between criminalization or civilization and civilized societies don’t push people like Joe and Diana into the dirt and then punish them for being there.
It’s sad when they can turn existing into a crime. Homeless people were once the same as all those who are against them now. The only difference between those who want to criminalize being homeless and an actual homeless person is a paycheck and lack of a support system. Those trying to criminalize homelessness better watch out because it could one day be them on the streets. Never say never.
I was homeless for 1 year and 11 months. It’s some place I never thought I would be but yet I was. Being homeless does really take it’s toll on one’s mental health as well as physical or medical health. It breaks a person down at just the thought of being without shelter and no one is offering to help. Not family. Not friends. As for myself, I had one out of state family member offer to help but I was unwilling to relocate as long as my mom was alive. She was dying from dementia and passed in March 2021. I found housing August 2020.
I don’t understand the program who claims to put the elderly and ill on the priority list and yet people like Joe and Diana are still struggling on the street. That’s ridiculous.
Sad fact though, many of the homeless I know passed shortly before getting their housing or soon after. Heartbreaking.
Prayers for all the homeless on the streets that they find housing and while waiting may an angel watch over them and protect them.
It’s not Just The MPD serving Stupidity At Its Best, But These “PARK RANGERS”??? Straight Up Monkey See Monkey Do! Ask Any Of Them A Question And They Can Never Give You An Answer Only This, “YOU GOTTA ASK MY PARTNER”.. WELL WHERE THE HELL IS YOUR PARTNER AND WHY ISNT HE HERE AND WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE IF YOU CANT ANSWER S###!. And What’s With Them Telling SomeOne They Have 5 Minutes To Get What They Need Because They Are Cleaning Up?! That’s BULLS###! They Dont Even Clean Up! The Trash Is All Over The Park Is Still There After They Take People Personal Belonging. I’ve Seen It With My Own Eyes And Hell Yea You Damn Right I Recorded Everything! It’s Wrong What The Park Ranger Looking Like JOHNNY BRAVO And His Clean Up Team Did.
Those whom you watch over and protect already have an angel!- You.
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Not every homeless person is on drugs. We have not been homeless forever. There is a reason why we’re homeless. All these so called programs that are supposed to help us homeless get into housing,are all bullshit!!! They would rather find a reason to lock us up then to help us with housing to. We don’t like to be woke up by the park rangers and threatened with a citation if we don’t get out of the park. That’s what they do to us. We’re not bothering nobody, just sleeping and waiting on our housing voucher to go through. Even after we got are voucher were still having trouble trying to get into a house. It’s hard to find a house even withthe voucher in are hands.
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There is a Lawyer in Modesto that will defend, for free, this couple on those charges.
His name is Martin Baker. A quick Google search will give his office address and phone number
Waitin’ for when the last shall be first
and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box ‘neath the underpass
–Bruce Springsteen–
So this is why the heightened sales tax was needed, to be able to dispatch at least four police vehicles and at least five of Modesto’s finest police officers to a park named Graceada, on a sunny afternoon, to stand around and chat undisturbed. This is why NIMBY’s do not want to share the space with intruders who they deem unlike themselves, to keep the parks pristeen and unspoiled for postcards or news posts showing MPD hard at work.
How much did that excursion add up to?
Modesto’s City Manager and Council must be feeling like they have at least one unhoused person under tight control. NIMBY’s never know what to expect of a weary person stopping to rest. Tsk! Tsk!
Personally, I am sickened by the entire display of one-upmanship targeted at people whom they have deprived with no place to go, other than jail-like shelters approved by NIMBY’s. Colonialism!!!
That is what this Special City Council Meeting is all about, October 20, 2023, to cow to the NIMBY’s, and beg their pardon, for asking their permission. What happens if enough NIMBYs refuse. Will elected officials override them? Or are the homeless plum out of safe ground, again?
I am fond of Governor Newsom’s phrase: Yes, In God’s Back Yard (YIGBY). He has caught on to who IN REALITY owns the ground beneath all of us, physical structures, parks, and, all such property. Or, at least church property currently. There is the safe ground, so NIMBYs have less to say.
It is NOT man’s to say, elected or not. NIMBY’s heed God’s/Hashem’s mandates.
What stops Joe and Diana from suing Modesto, for criminalizing homelessness? They have their citations as proof, the 9th District Court finding, prior California and other state, stare decisis, and, District Attorney, Ho’s pending law suit to gather language from, in order to file a hefty Unlimited court case. It worked for other homeless people who won the court’s favor. Seek out the California lawyers who prepared the winning case in Chico, CA. That city not only failed to defend itself from it’s wrong doing, but it paid dearly. By the time the few homeless plantiff’s got through with the city, they were forced to accommodate the winners, and, other unhoused persons with housing. See how it can work in
favor of the unhoused?
I say stop begging these NIMBY-types for what the law has already established is yours. Legal precedence is on your side. Modesto has repeatedly broken the law at the expense of the unhoused. Take back your civil rights. Your rights do not belong to elected officials or the NIMBY unelected.
They have repeatedly harmed you. Go for it. Make them Defendants in a legal case against you. They have no meritorious legal defenses. Hurry the government wants to change the law to work in their own favor. I say, “Enough!” Back them the hell up off of you…
Ask Martin Baker if he will not only defend Joe and Diana on the charges stemming from the MPD citation, but is he willing to read up on the Chico case, and other cases, Eric Caine, cited in this post, and, sue Modesto similarly to how eight (8) brave and fedup homeless plaintiffs did in Chico, CA.
Sometimes, a local lawyer fears taking on other locals, especially for the downtrodden. Make certain who ever takes the case is well versed in the applicable laws, and is not the type to back down. Okay to settle out of court YET preferable to settle big, better yet, win big…
There are numerous sites that covered the Chico homeless suit. MoCag could compare notes with the following Chico group:
https://www.standupforchico.com/news/city-of-chico-sued-to-halt-illegal-evictions
Don’t let the above title deter you. It applies…
Dear MoCag members, SHARE, and, Soon Attendees to Oct 20, 2023, Special City Council Meeting, and, Valley Citizen readers,
The following is a second article, of multiple articles, to do with the Chico, CA law suit brought by 8 unhoused individuals, that I suggest, if I may, you read, to see if you can gain pointers of on what to hold out for at the aforementioned Workshop, Oct. 20, 2023, or at any other meetings that come up:
Particular details, as you see, we’re given on how Sweeps we’re to be handled, if any, in order to treat the unhoused with dignity. Do not think any too much to demand. The Chico Police Department were also a named party to the suit.
Trauma-trained social workers (SW) and attorneys were to be present to assist the unhoused to make practical decisions, PRIOR to being Sweeper or Cited.
Police had to keep distance, so as to NOT overhear, any communications. And so as NOT to be a more threatening element than they already are.
Demand Trauma-trained SW and attorney have the right to be present prior to criminal citations or charges;
Demand trained Behavioral Assessments need to be performed prior to criminal charges brought [so as to NOT have Modesto penalized $4M for having too many people arrested who are not cognitive enough to understand what they are being charged with]. That is what CA State Hospitals are for, to treat individuals, so as to be able to later face a charge with comprehension. This may seem like getting ahead of Gov. Newsom yet you will learn more soon about this. No reason to NOT be cognitive of ways to protect the interests of the mentally challenged and do our part to prevent our broke city, and, county supervisor, Terry Withrow, from taking on more monetary penalties than necessary. No time like the present to save on penalties.
If you read all articles that turn up when searching “Chico, CA Sued By Homeless,” etc, you may see other crucial demands you can make and get in writing, or, your minds may be jogged to think of others.
I do not apologize for doing my part to ready David to take on Goliath. Thank you for your time and effort ahead of time. May you be blessed for your imputs.
https://chicosol.org/2022/01z-ends-lawsuit-city-chico/
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I thought the park rangers and chat was supposed to help the homeless but they don’t chat picks and chooses who they want to help not every homeless person is on drugs. You can’t trust chat they lie they ask you your name act like they are going to help you but they are not they are running your name to see if you have warrants they lie they take your name run it see if you have warrants if you don’t they just leave don’t say nothing what happened thought you wanted my name because you were going to help me not they are doing all this because they spent all the money there mad because some of the homeless people don’t want to be in a cage like they want to put us in . Why should we be in a cage we are not animals some of us is having a hard time
YES, the Voucher Program cannot help the holder if no rental owners will accept Vouchers. Who in this area is drumming up rental owners willing to take a Voucher? Who in this area is compiling a list of local rental owners with currently available rentals, and rentals with owners WILLING to accept a Voucher?
These Programs, that keep a safety net over the director and staff, so they themselves do not end up homeless, are not all they are leading taxpayers to believe they are. Who is looking into their track record? Someone please do a dive into how capable they have been, towards easing the woe of the unhoused. Tell us what you find. I sincerely hope I am proven wrong.
Most people I have known while possessing a Voucher, were required to seek rentals in other counties, without transportation to get there. The list of rentals they were supplied with was far from up to date. Hundreds of rental seekers are pouring over any lists available. After the rental is rented, many rental owners no longer answer their phone, thus, applicants spend days calling and recalling the same numbers hoping to get an answer. Rental owners do not want to spend their days on the phone saying, “It’s rented”
Talk about a fruitless, frustrating endeavor, for the unhoused to endure. A dive into Programs, most unhoused are waiting on are equally as slow moving and for most intents and purposes are practically useless.
I ask taxpayers: is this where you want your taxes going? To dead-end Programs? Social Service, Programs, are mostly what is known as hurry up and wait ordeals, to enlighten those of you who have not been in those lines. You may think beggars can’t be choosers.
But you who think that way, can choose to deep dive and see yourselves, why it is that poverty stricken, and low wage workers, are still living where you prefer they not live. You, taxpaying citizens have power to insist these Programs exist to get the job done, not dilly dally and shuffle paper. Someone NEEDS to put a fire under them, and they are not listening to the poor unhoused.
I dare you to go stand in Social Service, Programs’ lines to wait and watch how long it can take the average recipients to get from inside the door to back outside again. We used to set up tables and chairs inside and outside to ask how satisfied the recipients are with the service they received. Bring a list of questions to ask and check it off. I used to stand in line and converse with those who waited in line. They were eager to share their side of the story. Collect names of Social Workers who recipients think did a satisfactory job, and, the names of the SWers who recipients weighed in on considered dissatisfactory in their own opinion.
Be proactive to get this Unhoused Show off the road. Do not assume you know the half of what the problems are within the unhoused pipeline. Start placing the blame in the deserving Programs. Thank you for your time.