Do no harm to homeless

California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered state officials to dismantle homeless encamp­ments across the state. The decision comes weeks after the Supreme Court issued a ruling that allows states to limit the rights of homeless people.

The case, Grants Pass v. Johnson, focused on Grants Pass, Oregon, where the city fined homeless people for sleep­ing on public land. The Su­preme Court ruled in favor of Grants Pass, giving cities and states the green light to fine or arrest homeless people with­out any obligation to address the underlying conditions that made them homeless. This rul­ing will exacerbate a crisis that city governments and residents are desperate to solve.

City governments tend to think of homelessness as a problem to be solved by law en­forcement. A survey of mayors of the 100 largest U.S. cities found that it’s more common for police departments to influence homelessness policy than hous­ing authorities or health agen­cies.

Criminalizing homeless­ness doesn’t help solve it. It’s been tried over and over. Cur­rently, all but two states have anti-homeless laws. Some ban sleeping in public, while others prohibit loitering or sleeping in vehicles.

These laws aren’t working. Penalizing people who are sleep­ing outside because they have nowhere to go leaves them, still, with nowhere to go and worse off than before.

A 2024 survey found that af­ter cities cleared encampments or issued tickets, 76% of home­less people lost ID cards or birth certificates, while 83% of com­munity leaders surveyed said sweeps caused people to end up with criminal records. Lacking ID can make it difficult to ac­cess counseling or medical help, while criminal charges make it harder to get housing or a job.

Forcing homeless people into the criminal justice system is counterproductive, since home­lessness is often a result of poor re-entry infrastructure for the previously incarcerated. In Cal­ifornia, more than 80% of un­sheltered homeless people re­port spending at least one night in jail over the last 6 months, and average 42 contacts with police each year.

Communities should focus on improving re-entry, rather than putting at-risk individuals back in the situations that helped make them homeless.

Making homelessness a crime also costs more than provid­ing housing. One report found that counties in central Florida shelled out $31,065 per home­less person per year to arrest, incarcerate, or hospitalize them. That’s three times more than it would’ve cost to provide those individuals with support­ive housing for the year.

Nationwide, homelessness increased 12% from 2022 to 2023, to the highest rate on re­cord. Yet it isn’t increasing ev­erywhere. In some places, it’s declined nearly to eradication. These communities are tackling homelessness the right way.

In Sacramento County, of­ficials work to collect data on every unsheltered person that includes their name, age, health problems, and history with homelessness. Keeping the data updated monthly will al­low the organizations involved to match people with housing and support services based on their needs and make sure no one falls through the cracks.

The approach is making a dif­ference. According to the coun­ty’s Point-in-Time count, there were 29% fewer people experi­encing homelessness in 2024 compared to 2022.

To solve homelessness, we need to go further. Law enforce­ment can’t build houses. Cit­ies need to roll back ineffective laws that turn our neighbors into criminals — and invest in housing and infrastructure that provides immediate and long-term support to people experi­encing homelessness.

After the Supreme Court ruling, expect more officials to follow in Governor Newsom’s footsteps. Cities must avoid over-policing people who need support the most.

Tinisch Hollins is the executive di­rector of Californians for Safety and Justice.