Weekly column by Sharon Byrne

Assembly Rep Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has introduced Assembly Bill 5, the “Homeless Bill of Rights”, titling clearly meant to cow any opposition.

One wonders why the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution isn’t sufficient…but this bill isn’t about homeless rights. It’s about Ammiano’s ego playing at one-upmanship with another state.

Rhode Island passed a Homeless Bill of Rights last year. Theirs basically says cities can’t prosecute homeless individuals more than anyone else for the same violations. According to HUD, Rhode Island hosts 0.2% of the nation’s homeless, the lowest percentage.

As does Guam.

Feel-good gestures are easy when your problem is negligible.

California, by contrast, hosts 1/5th, or 20%, of the US homeless population. New York runs a distant second, with 11%. Our state needs real solutions. Ammiano, termed out next year, provides none. Instead, as his last hurrah, he strikes at cities struggling to maintain some quality of life. Clearly fuming over San Francisco’s no sit/lie law, Ammiano sweepingly equates “quality of life” ordinances with the brutality and oppression of “Jim Crow” laws.

This sort of hyperbolic hysteria is why the rest of the country laughs at California. Remember that South Park episode?

In the past decade, homeless advocacy has shifted from:

Homelessness is a serious problem that must be solved

To:

Homeless have the right to be homeless because they’re homeless!

That circular thinking leaves the homeless…well…

Homeless.

AB 5 calcifies this mental rut. Let them live in parks. Quit trying to get them into shelter and programs. The homeless should have the right to do whatever they want because they’re homeless.

While AB 5 will certainly appease the free-range crowd that abhors requirements entailed by indoor living, preferring to be unfettered in doing as they please, what about those that don’t want to be homeless? How does legislating their right to sleep in a bush represent progress?

California’s climate (meteorological and political) attracts out-of-state homeless, and some create serious problems for locals, whether those locals are housed or not, as Jose Arturo Ortiz Martinez-Gallegos’ letter in the Sentinel last week makes clear:

“We who were born here and are now homeless would like these aggressive outsiders to go away and leave SB forever.”

Amen, Jose. Want to have coffee (my treat), and work together on this?

What’s in AB 5:
(April 30th amended version)

Homeless persons have the right, free from harassment, to:
1. Rest, eat, share food, and panhandle in any public space

2. Inhabit a motor vehicle parked on public property

3. Legal counsel, paid for by the county, for any judicial proceedings.

4. Health and hygiene centers available 24 hours a day, seven days a week

-Law enforcement must compile all statistics on the number of citations, arrests, and other enforcement activities for loitering, sitting or lying down, lodging in public spaces, sleeping, panhandling…and report these annually to the Attorney General.

-Any person whose rights have been violated under this act may enforce those rights in a civil action.

-The court may award appropriate injunctive and declaratory relief…including statutory damages of one thousand dollars ($1,000) per violation, and reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs to a prevailing plaintiff.

Definitions:
(d) “Homeless persons” means those individuals or families who lack or are perceived to lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, or who have a primary nighttime residence in a shelter, on the street, in a vehicle, in an enclosure or structure that is not authorized or fit for human habitation. “Homeless” also means a person whose only residence is a residential hotel or who is residing anywhere without tenancy rights, and families with children staying in a residential hotel whether or not they have tenancy rights.
(e) “Public space” means any property that is owned by any state or local government entity or upon which there is an easement for public use and that is held open to the public, including, but not limited to, plazas, courtyards, parking lots, sidewalks, public transportation, public buildings and parks.
(f) “Rest” means the state of not moving, holding certain postures that include, but are not limited to, sitting, standing, leaning, kneeling, squatting, sleeping, or lying.

Full bill text: CLICK HERE.

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Counties must provide adequate housing so that less than 50 people are on the housing wait list. No penalty is provided in AB 5 for failure, so there’s no incentive either.

AB5 instead penalizes cities, stripping them of their ability to enforce problem behaviors until their county meets the housing test. That’s a kick-in-the-teeth to cities like Santa Barbara and Santa Monica that have successful humanitarian efforts in place to help the homeless. They already work within court-imposed mandates to protect homeless rights. For example, police must store anything that could be personal belongings from encampment clean-outs. Our Restorative Police act as social workers to encourage individuals into Restorative Court, where they are provided with programs, at taxpayer expense, to help them leave homelessness.

AB 5 takes brass knuckles to successful municipal programs that actually help the homeless, but puts forward nothing to replace them.

That is not leadership. It’s puerile, political posturing masquerading as ‘helping the homeless’.

What can you do?
1. Don’t assume others will speak up for you. Call / email your state reps: Hannah-Beth Jackson and Das Williams.

2. Call / email your city council and county supervisors. They can pass resolutions encouraging state reps to vote against AB 5.

3. Write letters to the editor.

Solutions that truly help the homeless would be welcome, but AB 5 just seeks to enshrine homelessness into a permanent state of being.

That’s wrong-headed.