SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered agencies to remove homeless encampments on state land and urged local officials to follow suit, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping in public spaces.
“In the past, the courts have denied the ability for local government, including the state, to clean up many of these encampments,” Newsom said in a Facebook video discussing his executive order. “ … We have now no excuse with the Supreme Court decision.”
California is home to more than 180,000 unhoused people — nearly a third of the country’s total — and almost 70 percent of them live without shelter outside, a larger share than in any other state, according to federal statistics.
Under Newsom’s order, state agencies — including parks and transportation workers — must prioritize clearing encampments that pose safety risks, such as those along waterways. Newsom urged cities and counties to adopt similar policies.
“It’s time to move with urgency at the local level to clean up these sites,” Newsom said Thursday.
Newsom, a Democrat with national aspirations, has like other politicians in the state been dogged by complaints over homelessness. He has in turn tangled with leaders of the state’s largest cities over efforts to clear encampments.
“No more excuses,” Newsom posted on X. “… It’s time for locals to do their job.”
Newsom’s executive order cannot force localities to act, although he could withhold state money until they comply. It could spark a standoff between his administration and some of the state’s largest cities and counties, also run by Democrats, where homeless encampments are largely concentrated.
On Thursday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass balked at Newsom’s order, noting that an annual count of the city’s unhoused showed their ranks had decreased 10 percent.
“For the first time in years, unsheltered homelessness has decreased in Los Angeles because of a comprehensive approach that leads with housing and services, not criminalization,” Bass said in a statement condemning the clearing of encampments.
Newsom has expended both political capital and billions in state funding trying to solve the crisis that has only seemed to deepen, and he was part of an unusual coalition of liberal and conservative state leaders who urged the Supreme Court to make it easier for localities to dismantle homeless encampments.
Responding to those entreaties, the Supreme Court ruled last month that cities may ban homeless residents from sleeping outside, a sweeping decision that broke along ideological lines and rejected the argument that regulations against camping violate the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause of the Eighth Amendment.
In the case, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the court’s conservative majority cleared the way for regulations that penalize people for sleeping in public spaces such as parks and streets, even when a community lacks indoor shelter and its unhoused residents have nowhere else to go.
Advocates for the unhoused and some local officials warned the ruling would have a devastating impact on some of the nation’s most vulnerable residents. Instead of solving the problem, they argued, the decision criminalized homelessness and would only exacerbate the crisis.
But some California mayors, like London Breed of San Francisco, have taken a more aggressive stance, promising to begin clearing encampments in coming weeks.
“San Francisco is already doing what the Governor is calling for, with efforts well underway since long before the Grants Pass ruling,” Breed posted on X Thursday. “We’ve made significant investments in shelter and housing, and consistent daily outreach continues to offer services and support. This proactive approach has led to a five-year low in our street tent count.”
Breed wrote that she expects the Ninth Circuit court to lift an injunction next week that has limited the city’s response.
“More needs to be done to ensure our streets are safe and clean,” Breed wrote. “As we wait for this final step from the courts, our outreach work hasn’t slowed. Our teams are going out every day to bring people indoors and clean up encampments.”
In Los Angeles, the epicenter of the epidemic, Bass warned cities against using the Supreme Court ruling as a pretext to “arrest their way out of this problem or hide the homelessness crisis in neighboring cities or in jail.”
“Strategies that just move people along from one neighborhood to the next or give citations instead of housing do not work,” Bass said.
Jim Sullivan, an economics professor at Notre Dame who studies poverty and homelessness, agreed.
“Clearing encampments is not going to reduce homelessness. It’s shifting it around,” Sullivan said. “The presence of encampments speaks to the need for more efforts to both prevent and reduce homelessness.”
Research shows that the two most effective ways to prevent and reduce homelessness are emergency financial assistance and permanent supportive housing, which includes services to help with substance abuse or other issues, Sullivan said. While such approaches are expensive, he said, they’re more effective than clearing encampments because “if you’re not providing a path to housing stability for those who are homeless, you’re just moving the issue around.”
Hennessy-Fiske reported from Houston.
