Over the decades – yes, decades – that Santa Cruz has forlornly sought humane and safe solutions to the issues surrounding homelessness, progress has been at best, halting.
The city now finds itself at yet another crossroads, with legal and law enforcement conflicts continuing over the growing encampment at San Lorenzo Park.
The latest dispute is over the city’s intention to clear San Lorenzo Park of homeless campers. But after a Dec. 7 executive order by Santa Cruz City Manager Martin Bernal that directed the park be closed in stages to homeless campers, protesters put a temporary kabosh on those efforts. Then a civil lawsuit was filed by homeless activists who said evicting campers would disperse them throughout the greater community, and increase health risks during the pandemic.
Attorneys for both sides raised the issue of how clearing, or not clearing the camp, could add to the public health coronavirus emergency. The lawyer for the city also has argued that the camp, located at the park throughout the coronavirus pandemic, had swelled to unmanageable size and created a public nuisance.
Federal Judge Susan van Keulen, who presided over a hearing last week, conducted remotely by video teleconference, listened to the arguments from both sides and eventually extended a temporary freeze on clearing the park, while she continues to assess what the next action should be.
The hearing took place as park neighbors have been increasingly vocal about the drug problems and sanitation issues at the park, with many saying they worry about their safety as the camp continues to expand.
Van Keulen seemed to sum up where both the campers and the city find themselves, yet again, saying, “This case arises obviously against the background of long-term issues of a municipality managing its homeless population and it arises in a community known for its passion and its compassion on both sides of the issue.”
She also noted that insufficient alternative shelter beds are available in Santa Cruz County for those sleeping in the park.
What makes this latest conundrum different from previous encampment disputes, including the illegal one behind the Gateway shopping center cleared in 2019, is COVID-19. The pandemic obviously adds more questions about just what the city is supposed to do.
Rather than expect workable directions to come out of court proceedings, both the city and the county, which is the primary agency to distribute available funding to help alleviate these problems, need to come up with a realistic solution, and do so quickly.
Any such solution also needs to recognize that homeless individuals are going to gather where government and nonprofit services are available — which is why encampments are inevitably centered in the downtown/county center areas, relatively near the Homeless Services Center on River Street.
One idea we’d like to see city and county officials explore is opening up large tracts or vacant spaces within a reasonable distance of services, and use such a space for a sanctioned tent camp, for a minimum of two years.
Mandating a relatively long camp shelf life would mean that adequate health and sanitation services could be set up, improved as needed, and regularly maintained.
Providing a centralized, longer-term camp would also ensure that people won’t just move site to site, leaving intolerable messes and health hazards in their wake.
What sites are possible that won’t invite an overwhelming negative reaction from neighbors and surrounding businesses? It would probably be up to the city or county to identify sites, then negotiate with private owners for a lease. But it can be done, and there are sites.
The current non-sanctioned camp is bad news for all concerned: campers, neighbors, law enforcement and government officials who find themselves in a familiar quandary. The park has to be returned to a park and not just surrendered.
At the same time, the compassionate response is to give people a dry place to sleep and set up their camp, and continue efforts to bring them in from the cold reality of homelessness into a better place.
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January 10, 2021 at 08:01PM
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Editorial | Finding solutions to homeless encampments difficult, but not impossible - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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