Long Beach Becomes Latest City Clearing Out Homeless Encampments

Long Beach officials confirmed over the weekend that they would be complying with Governor Gavin Newsom’s homeless encampment removal executive order issued last month and would begin removing homeless encampments across the city this week, becoming the latest city in the state to begin clearing out encampments.

Since the beginning of the summer, the situation over homeless encampments across California has changed drastically. Before June, only a few cities, such as Los Angeles and San Diego, had encampment bans in the books. Those cities also faced lawsuits over them from homeless advocates, making enforcement difficult. However, in late June, the Supreme Court passed City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, virtually removing most legal challenges against encampments overnight. Multiple cities in the state soon announced plans to remove encampments, including the former long-time encampment haven of San Francisco.

Governor Newsom also stepped up state efforts following the ruling, issuing an executive order to allow for the removal of encampments. When some city officials balked at the order, Newsom then doubled down earlier this month and said that state funding would be pulled from any city or county who weren’t doing enough to clear encampments and put people into shelter. With cities now facing the loss of state funds, many quickly began formulating plans for such encampment removals. Last week, the city of Long Beach sent out a memo stating that that they intended to comply.  Over the weekend, the City of Long Beach confirmed that encampment removals this week, becoming the latest large California city to comply with the order.

According to the memo, homeless people can begin being cited and removed from encampments should they refuse to leave and refuse outreach programs. While most will be sent through city departments such as Health and Human Services, homeless people who have been found to commit additional crimes will be handled by police. While police will have discretion over where they remove encampments, focus areas will be in public areas such as parks, beaches, and libraries. The memo also specifically cited the Supreme Court decision and Newsom’s orders as reasons for the removals.

“Police officers responding to calls for service will now have the discretion to enforce ordinances restricting camping or sleeping in public places,” read the memo. “If police respond to a camping violation and find a homeless person has committed additional crimes this will be addressed through arrests or citations in accordance with local, state, and federal law.”

Long Beach to begin encampment removals

“We fully understand how sensitive this is for our residents and also the urgency of some of the chronic encampments, so we took our time,” said Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson on Monday.

With Long Beach joining other large cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco in enacting encampment removals, as well as other recent actions of homeless removal such as San Francisco’s Journey Home busing program, homeless experts said that many cities will likely be following them soon.

“Long Beach was the first to announce encampment removals while citing Newsom’s order while doing so,” explained Mark Wagner, a Philadelphia-based researcher on homelessness, to the Globe on Monday. “The fear of losing funding is very real, especially during this time when many cities are both cash strapped and facing huge homeless problems. And Long Beach, you know, big city. A lot of other cities will see them complying and go in too.

“Where the homeless will go is another problem. Shelter and housing space might fill up quickly because of this, and homeless people who don’t want to be in a shelter will try and find non-public places to go. The goal of Newsom’s order was to get everyone sheltered, but that is not going to be the reality. As we’ve seen from other encampment removals, it mostly just forces homeless people to continue circulating around. But now, officials can say ‘we offered you shelter and services and you refused them. We asked nicely. But now we have the laws behind us so we don’t have to ask nicely the second time around’.

“Many cities are going to follow now, especially if Long Beach goes without a hitch. Expect other cities soon, especially in the Bay and SoCal, to follow.”

More city-wide encampment removals are expected to be announced soon.