After high court ruling, L.A. County supervisors to reaffirm policy against jailing homeless people

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to take up a proposal Tuesday reaffirming its policy against criminalizing homelessness — the latest response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing enforcement of anticamping laws.

The five-member board is set to consider a motion clarifying that county’s jails “will not be used to hold people arrested due to enforcement of anti-camping ordinances” — an approach that is already in effect, according to Constance Farrell, spokesperson for County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.

The motion, co-authored by Horvath and County Supervisor Hilda Solis, calls for the county to distribute its encampment resolution guidelines, which emphasize a “care first” approach based on offers of shelter, to cities and other local jurisdictions.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, heads of the county’s Homeless Initiative and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, and elected officials from several smaller cities are expected to speak at the hearing.

The motion also calls for the newly formed Los Angeles County Executive Committee for Regional Homeless Alignment, which was established to craft a unified response to the homelessness crisis, to work with cities in “minimizing disparate impact” of the Supreme Court ruling. That committee is chaired by Supervisor Kathryn Barger and includes Bass, Horvath, Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, Monrovia Mayor Becky A. Shevlin and city council members from Redondo Beach and Palmdale.

“Our homelessness and housing crisis is regional, and will only be solved with a coordinated, unified response, and resources for housing and services,” the motion said.

Horvath and Solis introduced the motion in response to the June Supreme Court ruling that upheld laws adopted by the city of Grants Pass, Ore., that imposed criminal penalties for sleeping in public spaces. The 6-3 ruling cleared the way for cities to resume enforcing laws that had been blocked by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which declared unconstitutional a set of local ordinances barring homeless people from sleeping in certain public areas when there was an insufficient number of shelter beds.

Horvath and Solis have called the ruling “unconscionable,” saying in their motion that cities across the country are already seizing the opportunity to establish anticamping ordinances.” They pointed to a recent ordinance adopted by Palm Springs in Riverside County that “grants police new power to arrest people who build encampments or sleep in public areas.”

Though L.A. County’s protocols primarily apply to unincorporated areas, several cities have cooperated with its Pathway Home program, which moves people out of encampments and into temporary housing. This year, the county has committed more than $120 Million to Pathway Home.

The board hearing and expected vote come less than a week after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order requiring state agencies to remove homeless encampments in their jurisdictions and urging cities to follow suit.

Critics on the left and right said the order seemed aimed at shoring up the governor’s national profile on an issue on which he is vulnerable. Experts also expressed doubts that it would have a significant impact.

“I don’t think it’s really going to change what people see on the streets every day,” said Democratic political consultant Andrew Acosta.