Still Progressive? Berkeley Sticks to New Tough Stance on Homeless Encampments

Advocates for unhoused residents in Berkeley are reckoning with the limits of their famously progressive city’s liberalism after council members Tuesday night dismissed a resolution to oppose the “criminalization of poverty and homelessness.”

The resolution from the city’s Peace and Justice Commission called on Berkeley to rebuke both Gov. Gavin Newsom’s July executive order urging cities to clear encampments and a June Supreme Court decision that granted cities greater power to police homelessness.

Champions of the measure said it would have reined in Berkeley’s newly aggressive approach to policing homelessness, though city officials disagreed with their assessment, arguing existing policy is already consistent with this approach.

The council took no action on the resolution, marking the second time in five months that Berkeley leaders opted not to take a stand against punitive strategies to address homelessness. It followed a resolution this summer from Councilmember Cecilia Lunaparra calling for a similar action that was also scuttled.

For advocates, however, Tuesday’s decision took on new meaning after the election of former President Donald Trump, as several invoked what they expected to be a draconian federal homelessness agenda.

George Lippman, vice chair of the Peace and Justice Commission, which advises the City Council on social justice issues, said the resolution was a “referendum on who we are and our values,” adding the city “should take a moral stance of upholding a stronger standard.”

“That doesn’t end after Election Day,” he said.

In September, Berkeley surprised observers by joining the growing list of cities embracing stronger enforcement tools to crack down on encampments in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling. Some two dozen cities and counties across the state have enacted or begun enforcing anti-camping laws, including San Francisco and Oakland.

Under Berkeley’s new policy, workers will continue to offer shelter “whenever practicable” before closing encampments, but there are now several exceptions. City workers can clear tents and cite and arrest unhoused people if an encampment is determined to be a health or fire hazard, public nuisance, too close to traffic or near a construction zone.

Peter Radu, assistant to the city manager, emphasized that the policy’s exceptions are narrow.

“It’s a high bar,” he said. “We need to get them out of a dangerous situation now, or we need to accommodate some urgent operations or construction schedule now. And sometimes it’s just as simple as asking them and working with them to move across the street to accommodate that while we continue the hard work of getting them connected to resources that will end their homelessness.”

So far, Radu said, the city has twice taken advantage of its new authority to ask people to move without offering shelter: to clear Civic Center Park for a construction project and to remove someone encamped on a center median on University Avenue.

Radu, who manages the division that oversees the city’s homeless response team, said no one was cited or arrested during the operations.

“We’re not interested in criminalizing homelessness,” he said. “We want to end it.”

However, advocates like attorney Andrea Henson argue that the policy’s exceptions are overly broad.

“They’re not narrow exceptions,” she said. “To be in proximity to traffic — every homeless encampment is in proximity to traffic.”

Henson said unhoused residents are rattled by the shift toward more aggressive enforcement at the state and local level, and Trump’s election has only exacerbated that.

“People are really scared,” she said. “They’re very scared because of what’s happening, because of the election, because of the language that they’re hearing.”

She was among those who invoked the incoming federal administration at the City Council meeting and urged leaders to take a stand against it.

“We have a decision to make here in Berkeley, and it’s the same decision that people need to make in this country,” she said. “Either you’re with our new government, which is quickly becoming very fascist … or you take a firm stand. Because the line has been drawn.”