Written by William Hale
The city of San Diego will be clamping down on homeless encampments throughout the week. Since the pandemic, the city has not enforced illegal lodging and encroachment laws, but that is set to change with the embrace of “progressive enforcement.”
Homeless people will be offered shelter up to four times by an outreach program (non-law enforcement), but refusing to move past this point will make homeless people subject to arrest.
While few disagree that cleaning up encampments and getting people off the streets is ultimately a positive development, some do take issue with the city’s progressive enforcement model. Homeless advocate Michael McConnell told ABC 10 that “once you put a criminal record on somebody it makes it that much harder to get out of homelessness…so it works against what you are trying to accomplish.”
However, many San Diego business owners are delighted with the news. Karen Anderson Thatcher’s plant nursery business in the Midway District has been surrounded by an ever growing homeless population. Thatcher suggests that homeless people not following the rules of the road, along with wandering around her nursery has pushed customers away from her business.
“We don’t know how to deal with these people when they come in and it’s very difficult,” said Thatcher.
If there is a lack of sheltered units available for the homeless, then the city says progressive enforcement will stop. But San Diegans should look to San Francisco as an example of unacceptable homeless policy — a viral video surfaced this week of a man telling a bay area reporter that he moved to SF because the city pays him to be homeless.
Photo Cred: Associated Press
