Since the Supreme Court’s decision came down this past June, cities like Oceanside have been making changes to their enforcement of homeless camps.
“This year alone, we’ve had over 1,000 calls for service directly related to encampments,” Oceanside Police Capt. Scott Garrett said.
Earlier this month, Oceanside’s City Council adopted changes that allow police officers to remove homeless encampments from public property regardless of available shelter beds. The new ordinance also reduces the removal notice from larger encampments from 48 hours to 24.
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The changes have worried homeless advocates, including Street Outreach's Sunny Briscoe
“So doing a ban on encampments only makes the issue worse, with pushing people to, like, the deep, dark, less-visible areas of the city,” Briscoe said.
Garrett said the new goal is to use the enforcement opportunity as a tool his officers can leverage.
“We're not looking to criminalize someone who's down on their luck," Garrett said, "but we do recognize that this is a complex issue that does bring about quality-of-life concerns for many of our residents and is evidenced by our call volume,."
Recently, the state awarded the cities of Oceanside and Carlsbad an $11.4 million grant to secure permanent homes for an estimated 200 people living in encampments along the State Route 78 corridor.
Salvador Roman, senior management analyst for Oceanside, said the city will use nearly $3 million of that grant money toward its rapid rehousing program.
“We're bringing on resources that the individuals who are in the encampments have expressed that they want, that they need,” Roman said.
Garrett said the city hopes that when unhoused individuals receive the citations, they are incentivized to connect with case managers and additional support services.
Meanwhile, Briscoe said she wants every unhoused individual to be treated with dignity.
“It's really just about changing the perspective and putting yourself in their shoes and thinking from a compassionate standpoint that this could be your neighbor tomorrow or someone that you care for tomorrow," Briscoe said. "So treat them like a human, not like a number on a paper or a statistic."
Garret said OPD will roll out a department-wide training later this month for patrol officers regarding the new amendments of the ordinance.
