Newsom, Legislature seek further crackdown on homeless encampments

As Gov. Gavin Newsom pushes local governments to do more about removing homeless encampments across California, one of the state’s own agencies is being accused of not doing enough to clear illegal campsites, writes CalMatters’ Marisa Kendall.

On Monday the governor issued a “model ordinance” that cities and counties should use to clear encampments. These guidelines include banning persistent camping (or more than three days) in one location, banning encampments that block sidewalks and more. Newsom also said the state would release $3.3 billion to “communities statewide” to combat homelessness. The money comes from the $6.4 billion Proposition 1 that voters narrowly approved in March of last year. 

Though the governor can’t force local governments to adopt the ordinance, his request that they do so follows an executive order he issued last summer directing state agencies, including the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, to remove encampments. The agency is tasked to build and maintain highways, and spent more than $51 million addressing encampments in the 2023-24 fiscal year.

But city officials and staff say Caltrans still takes too long to sweep a camp, at times taking months to respond. In some extreme cases, camps remain for a year or two, said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.

• Mahan: “The longer we allow people to remain encamped along the freeway or along an on and off ramp, the more the encampment becomes established and people come to the location and we get a significant accumulation of waste.”

Because city workers, for the most part, are prohibited from going onto Caltrans property to clear camps themselves, the Legislature is considering a bill that would make it easier for the agency to cooperate with local governments. 

The measure would require Caltrans to hire a liaison to work with cities and counties, and to arrange clear timelines when Caltrans should respond to a city’s request to clear an encampment. It would also allow Caltrans to reimburse cities for when they use their own resources and personnel to clear encampments on Caltrans property. 

The reimbursement provision is particularly popular among city officials: Mahan, for example, said it can cost as much as $100,000 to remove a long-standing encampment.

Read more about Newsom’s new ordinance and the Caltrans bill from Marisa.

In a rare showing of bipartisanship, Democratic and Republican legislators in the Assembly on Monday spoke in support of a bill that would hold social media platforms financially liable up to $1 million for the harms they inflict on young users.

• Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, a Long Beach Democrat and bill author: “Across the aisle and across the world, we all know that these platforms are harmful and addictive. … In fact, some platforms seem to be flagrantly ignoring problems that we have identified by actively rolling back what little safeguards they’ve previously offered.”

The bill is one of several the Legislature is considering to rein in the damage technology companies can cause with their products, including chatbots and other artificial intelligence tools.

During the floor session, lawmakers brought up several examples of dangerous social media content, including bill co-author Assemblymember Joe Patterson, whose neighbor died from a fentanyl overdose in 2020 that was purchased through social media. The Rocklin Republican also cited a CalMatters op-ed about a young daughter developing an eating disorder after being flooded with pro-anorexia social media posts. 

The Assembly passed the bill with 59 “yes” votes on the floor. Though there were no votes in opposition, 20 legislators did not vote, which is the same as voting no.

During the pandemic, the Newsom administration released thousands of people from state prisons as COVID spread through close quarters. 

Now, data obtained and analyzed by CalMatters shows for the first time what happened to some of those former prisoners. 

In total, between April 2020 and December 2021, the corrections department freed about 14,800 people early. Nearly one-third of those prisoners ended up back in prison.

The data shows that: 

• Most prisoners who were released early steered clear of serious crimes that would land them back in prison. 
• Thirty people returned to prison for first- or second-degree murder offenses, representing fewer than 1% of the group. 
• The top three reasons people went back to prison were illegally possessing a gun (14% of all cases), assault (10%), and burglary (9%). Vehicle theft, second-degree robbery and domestic abuse each accounted for about 4% to 5% of offenses. 

Using news reports, press releases, statements from district attorneys and data from the corrections department, CalMatters’ Byrhonda Lyons pieces together the details of what happened to some of the thousands who went back to state prison.

Read more here.