San Mateo County considers criminal penalties for homeless people who refuse shelter
Officials hope the proposal will be a model for cities throughout the Peninsula.
San Mateo County is considering a new law that could levy criminal penalties on homeless people who refuse shelter, a proposal officials say they hope can be a model for cities throughout the Peninsula struggling to move people off the street.
On Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors is set to begin discussing the ordinance, which would allow homeless encampment residents on public property in unincorporated areas to be charged with a misdemeanor if they decline two offers of a shelter bed.
County officials said the goal is to help unhoused people indoors and connect them with needed services while mitigating safety hazards posed by homeless camps. The move comes as public frustration is mounting over sprawling encampments in nearly every corner of the Bay Area — despite unprecedented billions of dollars spent to stem the crisis.
“This ordinance is not meant to criminalize homelessness or penalize those who believe there are no other options,” Board President Warren Slocum said in a statement. “Rather, our intent is to encourage our neighbors experiencing homelessness to accept our offers of shelter and support.”
Homeless people turn down beds for a variety of reasons, from health and safety concerns to a reluctance to follow curfews. But most cities and counties in the region also don’t have nearly enough shelter for everyone who needs it.
The unincorporated county — which includes coastal, rural and suburban areas such as the Burlingame Hills area and Pescadero — is home to only about 100 homeless people, a small fraction of the county’s estimated homeless population of more than 1,800 residents. That means the impact of the ordinance would be limited, but the county’s ultimate objective with the legislation is to spur local cities where most homeless people live to approve similar rules.
“The hope is that cities will use this as a model ordinance,” Slocum said in an interview, adding that Redwood City has already reached out. “That’s the real power of this.”
Under growing pressure to confront street homelessness, many California cities, including Oakland, Milpitas, Santa Cruz and Sacramento, have recently enacted new rules restricting encampments on public property when shelter is available. In San Jose, Mayor Matt Mahan is pushing to ban camps near schools and along the Guadalupe River downtown.
Recent federal court rulings require those cities and others across the western U.S. to offer shelter before clearing encampments or enforcing no-camping ordinances. However, after frustrated state and local officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn or modify the mandate, the high court agreed to review it later this year.
Tristia Bauman, an attorney with the nonprofit Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, said that while the county ordinance likely wouldn’t violate those contested rulings, it could still be open to legal challenges if homeless people are forced to part with their possessions or their physical or mental disabilities aren’t accommodated in shelters.
Moreover, she said, enforcing criminal penalties on those living in encampments causes undue trauma for homeless people. And with a lack of shelter space, she added, local officials only end up spending more time pushing camps from one location to another.
“This type of punitive approach to the homeless crisis is a recipe for expensive failure,” she said.
County officials said anyone penalized under the law would be automatically eligible for diversion programs to minimize potential fines and avoid jail time and could have the charges expunged. To boost shelter and housing options, officials pointed to recent efforts to convert five motels into shelters or supportive housing and a 240-unit “navigation center” that opened last year in Redwood City.
But with an estimated 1,092 people living outdoors or in vehicles — a 21% increase since 2019 — officials acknowledge there’s much more work to be done.
“We need to get people stabilized and then get them the care they need,” Slocum said.
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will consider the proposed ordinance before a potential final vote on Jan. 30. If passed, the law would go into effect in early March.