A ruling by the Supreme Court allowing cities to crack down on illegal camping without necessarily providing shelter to the unhoused has even brought Berkeley's city council around to approving more unfettered encampment sweeps.
In a reflection of just how frustrated city leaders and business owners are throughout the state over the seemingly intractable homelessness situation, Berkeley's notoriously progressive city council passed some legislation Tuesday in an 8-1 vote that will seek to aggressively remove long-standing encampments in the city.
"We’re going to make shelter offers whenever we can. But what we are also saying is we have to balance that with the needs of the surrounding community," said Council Member Rashi Kesarwani after the vote, per the Chronicle. "It’s not safe and not reasonable to not address those immediate health and safety risks."
Kesarwani said the new policy was needed so that the city could "pursue a nuanced approach that takes into account serious fire risk, imminent health hazards."
Council members cited two particularly entrenched encampments in the city, one of which was the subject of a lawsuit, also filed Tuesday, from a coalition of businesses near it.
As the Berkeley Scanner reports, the 37-page complaint was filed by nine businesses that are seeking to get an encampment on Harrison Street near Eighth Street in northwest Berkeley removed. The businesses include Fieldwork Brewing, Boichik Bagels, and Covenant Winery.
"This case is about whether the City of Berkeley, when acting as a landowner, must follow the same nuisance laws that any private landowner must follow, and whether it owes an obligation to its citizens … to maintain its streets and other rights of way free of obstructions so that the public may access and use these public rights for which they pay taxes," attorneys for the businesses write in the complaint.
"It is time for the residents, businesses, and property owners of the City of Berkeley to be heard and for the City and the courts to enforce their rights," they add.
Advocates for the homeless protested outside the city council meeting Tuesday and spoke during a two-hour public-comment session, arguing against encampment sweeps. As advocates have repeatedly argued in San Francisco, encampment removals do nothing to stem the problem of homelessness itself, and without offering housing, most people will either end up camping elsewhere, or end up camping back where they started within a matter of time.
The June Supreme Court ruling came in a case out of Oregon, in which both Republican and Democrat mayors and governors submitted amicus briefs in support of the City of Grants Pass and its ability to cite illegal campers.
The ruling effectively overturned a lower court ruling that had stood for five years which suggested that encampment removals or citations for public sleeping amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and was therefore unconstitutional.
Since the ruling, more "aggressive" encampment sweeps have been ongoing in San Francisco, though in the case of one early August sweep, the tents just returned immediately after the city's sweeping was done.
Previously: Mayor Breed Doubles Down on Just Shipping the Homeless Out of Town, as Encampment Sweeps Ratchet Up
Top image: Photograph provided by businesses in legal complaint against City of Berkeley over Harrison Street encampment.
