In an eight-to-one vote on Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, the Berkeley City Council passed a new policy that removed the requirement to provide shelter or housing when sweeping homeless encampments under certain circumstances. Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which declared criminalizing the act of sleeping in public as not violating the 8th amendment, Berkeley, along with many other cities, have taken to updating their policies on homelessness.
Authored by council member Rashi Keserwani, the policy is presented as an answer to the many complaints select districts have been receiving from Berkeley residents living near homeless encampments. The council still claims to prioritize a housing-first initiative, as has been the previous standard. Execution of the new policy only happens when any of the following are found to be true: the Fire Department determines an encampment as a fire hazard or in emergency condition, the Environmental Health Division determines that an encampment poses imminent health hazards, the City determines it to be a public nuisance (as defined in the Berkeley Municipal Code), the encampment is located within dangerous proximity to traffic, the encampment is located where the City has any authorized work to be done, or if it gets in the way of construction o r maintenance activities.
After an encampment has been cleared, city managers are permitted to keep the grounds clear through acts such as “hardscaping (installing barriers) … or citation and arrest, even if a shelter offer cannot be made,” wrote Keserwani in the encampment policy resolution. Despite repeated requests, Kesarwani was unavailable to interview.
Council member Cecilia Lunaparra was the only dissenting voice out of the nine when the meeting to pass was held. “I think that it is an ineffective policy. This policy is intended to regulate and criminalize the people who have nowhere else to go,” Lunaparra said. She expressed concern that this policy will only waste city resources on unhoused people, likely just moving from street to street as a response. “We don’t have enough shelter beds to house all of the people that this policy is planning to displace,” Lunaparra said.
Although Lunaparra was the only council member to oppose, there has been backlash from homeless advocates in the community. Berkeley High School is home to the Advocates for Women’s and Kids’ Empowerment (AWAKE) Club, whose mission is to help homeless people, primarily single moms and domestic abuse victims, through volunteer work. AWAKE president and BHS senior, Anita-Marie Júlca, expressed some disappointment about the policy on behalf of AWAKE.
“We have homeless students, even at BHS,” Júlca said. “There really is nowhere for people to go at that point, and it’ll negatively impact shelters.” Shelter availability fluctuates, however at the time of the council meeting, homeless service coordinator Peter Radu pointed out less than 20 beds were available as of that morning.
In contrast, Ben Bartlett, the City of Berkeley Council Member representing South Berkeley, District three, voiced the local community’s apparent support of the policy, saying that they had been “begging for help for years.” In response to critics of the policy, Bartlett said, “Nothing is perfect. However, this policy does the best job in getting people into treatment who are a danger to themselves and to the community, without putting them in jail.”
When asked about postsweep monitoring and whether help will be provided to those displaced, Bartlett redirected the questions to an unavailable Keserwani. It remains unclear as to how this will directly achieve any of the previous claims. Lunaparra, Júlca, and others have expressed concerns that this will only lead to the continued displacement of unhoused people.
So far, over two dozen cities in California have passed similar policies following the Supreme Court ruling, including San Francisco, Richmond, and San Diego. “We’ve seen more people who are experiencing homelessness on our streets of Berkeley these past few weeks, not surprisingly, because San Francisco and Richmond are sweeping encampments,” Berkeley City Mayor Jesse Arreguín said during the city council meeting. “We have to work together. We cannot be pushing people from city to city.” Arreguín voted yes on the policy.
As Berkeley navigates this policy shift, the city could face challenges in effectively balancing the needs of the unhoused with those of the surrounding community. Although just recently passed, Bartlett added that there is always potential for policies to change. “We always modify everything until it works. We’re Berkeley, we make it work,” Barlett said.