In a landmark 7-0 vote, Stockton’s City Council enacted a sweeping ban this week prohibiting homeless residents from camping on nearly all public property.
City Manager Harry Black summed up the policy to councilmembers in three words before the vote Tuesday evening at City Hall: “cleanup, diversion, enforcement.”
The blanket ban on camping on any public land except campgrounds was added to Stockton’s existing anti-camping law, known as the Critical Infrastructure Ordinance, the ordinance text shows.
The city anti-camping ordinance previously only outlawed camping within 30 feet of utilities, police and fire department buildings, and other areas deemed “critical infrastructure,” according to city code.
Tuesday’s decision also declared a local emergency on homelessness — Stockton’s third in six years — granting Black the power “to take whatever actions are necessary,” including broad contracting and purchasing authority to address homelessness, a draft resolution shows.
Stockton joins San Joaquin County and local governments across the country in passing sweeping new camping bans in recent months.
Broader camping restrictions are legal since the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority held in June that barring camping in cities without enough shelter beds doesn’t count as “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Constitution, according to the majority opinion.
Stockton’s new law may bring greater displacement of the city’s roughly 2,451 unsheltered homeless residents, per this year’s Point in Time Count, many of whom officials have uprooted before.
After the meeting Tuesday night, advocate Jessica Velez said that, in her experience, the city’s efforts to move homeless residents ebb and flow, she said.
Velez founded the homeless services nonprofit Red Rabbit Advocacy, and spent several years homeless in Stockton herself, according to the nonprofit’s website. She described this renewed push to … as unsurprising.
“You want people to get back on their feet, but the constant displacement disrupts that,” Velez said. “They were already doing the displacement, (the new law) just gave them a sense of power.”
The unhoused population in San Joaquin County has more than doubled over the last two years.
The San Joaquin County Continuum of Care released the data from the biennial count this summer, showing the number of county residents experiencing homelessness has gone from 2,319 in 2022 to more than 4,700 in just two years, of which only about 1,200 are staying in an emergency shelter, transitional or temporary housing.
Those living unsheltered in the county have gone from about 1,300 to more than 3,400, according to the count. More than 70% of those living unsheltered in the county call Stockton home.
In contrast, the county only had 1,869 homeless shelter and supportive beds as of August, according to city staff — roughly 2,800 fewer than the homeless population according to the Point-In-Time count.
Shelter projects under construction should add more than 587 beds and 161 housing units, Economic Development Department leader Carrie Wright said at the time.
During weekly outreach missions, homeless residents “typically … don’t want any assistance” getting into shelters, Fire Chief Richard Edwards said when District 1 Councilmember Michele Padilla’s asked if the city tracks how many homeless residents accept services.
It’s a contentious point: advocates including Velez say homeless residents’ widespread rejection of help is a myth. “Anybody that … says they don’t want the help, come with me (on a ridealong),” she said.
No councilmember spoke against the expanded law at Tuesday’s council meeting.
“As a social worker, I’ve seen it all,” Vice Mayor Kimberly Warmsley, who represents the city’s southside, said about homelessness in Stockton before voting to approve the ban. Warmsley hopes nonprofits and other community groups will unite to increase services for homeless residents, she said.
It’s too early to tell how Tuesday’s vote will affect displacement numbers. In addition to the camping ban, Tuesday’s vote instructed city staff to locate organizations that can run safe camping and parking sites for homeless residents.
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