SLO files motion to dismiss homelessness lawsuit, citing safety enforcement
The city of San Luis Obispo has responded to a federal lawsuit filed by a homeless residents and advocates in September, filing a motion in federal court to dismiss the case.
The homeless plaintiffs claims they’re being criminalized for living outdoors or in their vehicles.
In its 24-page motion filed on Dec. 8 and outlined in a news release Tuesday, the city said it hasn’t criminalized homelessness, but rather it has lawfully enforced health, safety and environmental protection ordinances.
“Being homeless is not a crime in San Luis Obispo,” said City Attorney Christine Dietrick. “We share the concerns about the growing homelessness crisis in California, but we believe that we all need to work together to solve the problem.”
Dietrick defended the city’s efforts to help the unhoused while also seeking to ensure safety.
“Our city has spent millions of dollars and untold time and energy on innovative solutions to address the problem within our city limits,” Dietrick said. “We will continue to defend our community’s right to enforce our own conduct-related laws for the health, safety and welfare of our entire community. While some may disagree with our policy choices, case law supports the legality of the city’s ordinances, and the facts reveal that we enforce them with a balance of compassion for people and accountability for harmful conduct.”
The city argues its polices are valid under federal law, including the precedent case of Martin vs. Boise which allows unhoused to camp in public spaces if adequate shelter isn’t available.
The city may “set time, place, and manner regulations that govern where, when, and how homeless individuals may occupy public property,” SLO’s motion said.
The city claims it has properly enforced rules around overnight use of parks, as well as creek and trail areas, and fines it has issued have been in line with laws and aren’t overly excessive, as claimed in the lawsuit.
“Plaintiffs have pled that shelter was in fact available to them, but they have chosen not to utilize it for various personal reasons,” the city’s motion said. “Plaintiffs plead that they have not been permitted to remain in their preferred place of residence, continuously, without interruption, for unlimited periods of time.”
The motion lays out a host of points arguing its case, which will be heard in court on Feb. 14.
Why the lawsuit was filed
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five unhoused people and the homeless nonprofit Hope’s Village of SLO, alleging that the city repeatedly broke up homeless camps, destroyed property, and cited and arrested unhoused individuals.
That’s despite the city “being capable of providing shelter to only a fraction of the city’s unhoused individuals,” according to a news release issued by their attorneys, California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), Public Interest Law Project and the Law Office of Babak Naficy.
The lawsuit also claims SLO’s ordinances prohibit camping and sleeping overnight in vehicles, or in parks after hours.
The plaintiffs contend that although San Luis Obispo does have a shelter — the nonprofit 40 Prado Homeless Services Center — only 124 people of the 482 counted in the 2019 point-in-time homeless census can stay overnight, the lawsuit said.
The capacity at the shelter also has dropped to 70 during the pandemic, their lawsuit said.
Clearing them out of outdoors areas, therefore, is in violation of law that allows homeless to remain in public spaces if no other adequate space exists for being sheltered, they say.
“The city has embarked on a campaign of driving its unsheltered residents out of town — or at least out of sight — violating their constitutional rights,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit claims San Luis Obispo ordinances that prohibit camping or sleeping overnight in vehicles, being in parks or open spaces after hours, and traveling outside designated trails, among other rules, leave unhoused people with nowhere they can live free of harassment.
The lawsuit contends the city routing targets unhoused encampments near the Octagon Barn, along the Bob Jones Trail, and in an area near Prado Road called “The Circle” — where clear-outs have occurred and people have been fined or arrested, or had their possessions taken away from them.
“There is simply no place left for the individual plaintiffs to exist without hiding and without the fear and/or imposition of excessive fines,” the lawsuit said.
City cites structural problem
In its motion, the city argues that homelessness is a statewide, structural problem that has placed governments like SLO’s in “the unenviable position of attempting to devise local solutions.”
“The city has been a leader in these efforts for more than three decades, pioneering progressive programs, partnerships, and affordable housing policies,” the motion notes.
SLO officials cited funding contributed toward the first homeless services center in the county in the 1990s and its expansion in 2018, as well as recent allocations toward a second homeless outreach social services employee and a Mobile Crisis unit. The city also spends $747,285 of its Police Department’s budget on homeless outreach.
Additionally, the city has provided “a wide array of homeless services, including temporary shelter and permanent housing assistance.”
The city cited approximately 300 unsheltered people living in SLO, including the five defendants who claim that they cannot stay at 40 Prado for reasons related to physical and psychological disabilities.
Because of issues cited such as PTSD and inability to stay in congregate settings, the plaintiffs have not tried to obtain shelter with the city, the motion notes.
“Their own pleadings disclose that they have, in fact, lived on public land for lengthy periods of time, and have not regularly or repeatedly pursued or been denied available alternatives to outdoor living,” the lawsuit notes. “The problem is that plaintiffs have established no connection to an unavailability of available shelter and the time, locations and conduct for which they claim to have been cited.”
The city also contends that it has given adequate notice of clear-outs of creek and trail areas, giving unhoused people staying there a chance to move their belongings and seek services.
SLO officials argue that the enforcement of health and safety measures ensures “that public spaces remain safe, accessible, and sanitary.”
“Recent experience in San Luis Obispo and elsewhere in California has shown what happens when this is not done: sprawling tent cities take root and become breeding grounds for crime and environmental hazards that pose serious risks to the safety of both the unhoused individuals who live there and the public at large,” they noted.
Plaintiff’s argument
A plaintiff’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to requests for a comment to the city’s motion but said in its September news release that the city has used “unlawful and cruel practices.”
They cited the Centers for Disease Control guidance for addressing encampments during the pandemic, as well as alleged discrimination for those with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
CDC’s guidance notes: “If individual housing options are not available, allow people who are living unsheltered or in encampments to remain where they are” and “encourage people staying in encampments to set up their tents/sleeping quarters with at least 12 feet x 12 feet of space per individual.”
“The city’s policy and practice of forcibly removing unhoused people, including the individuals plaintiffs, from encampments against CDC guidelines puts them in immediate danger and violates their substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment,” the plaintiff’s filing notes. “... Indoor congregate settings like homeless shelters are places where the disease is disproportionately more likely to spread. Homeless shelters throughout California including 40 Prado have experienced outbreaks of COVID-19.”
They allege Prado’s rules exclude many members of the homeless community (including identification requirements and needed proof they’re not a sex offender).
“Despite the current COVID-19 surge, the dangers it poses to individual and public health, and the prevailing public health guidance regarding COVID-19 and unsheltered homelessness, the city continues to clear homeless encampments, scatter their residents, and push the city’s unsheltered residents from place to place to place,” they wrote.
This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 3:49 PM.
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