Fresno city leaders must repeal unconstitutional law limiting access to homeless camps - Fresno Bee
During homeless encampment sweeps in Fresno, city workers show up early in the morning with heavy machinery and rush people to leave the only shelter they have. These sweeps are chaotic and tense. People scramble to protect themselves and stop their precious belongings from being trashed. If advocates, organizers, and witnesses aren’t there, the sweeps can also be life-threatening.
Recently, city workers parked a dump truck just inches from a tent with a woman still inside. An advocate for the unhoused was there and managed to get the truck operator to back off, then helped the woman to calm down and get her into shelter. Had the advocate not been present and able to intervene, the woman could have lost everything, been arrested or seriously hurt.
We are organizers of Fresno’s unhoused community who have experienced the trauma of encampment sweeps. We also serve as advocates and witnesses, documenting what happens at these sweeps and raising public awareness about the city’s inhumane and even violent displacements.
Having watchful eyes like ours during a sweep keeps unhoused people — our “street family” — safer.
When we’re there, the city is pressed to provide alternative shelter, consistent with the law. Its workers feel compelled to give people more time to pack treasured family mementos as well as indispensable items like bedding, cooking supplies, medicine, walkers, and wheelchairs. And officers may be restrained from using force to remove people.
But local officials don’t want witnesses, including those directly impacted by the sweeps, to see what they’re doing or hold them accountable. In February, the city adopted a new law that subjects advocates, organizers, and even reporters trying to document encampment sweeps to potential criminal penalties.
It creates a buffer zone around abatement activity, like an encampment sweep, that takes place on public property. Anyone who enters the off-limits area “without express authorization” from the city can now be charged with a misdemeanor or fined up to $250. The law went into effect on March 31.
This outrageously broad law is not just cruel and short-sighted; it’s also unconstitutional. It infringes upon the First Amendment right of the public and media to observe, document, and protest government workers performing their duties in public places, as well as other rights protected under federal and state law.
That’s why we support a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Northern California Foundation and the California Homeless Union. We’re calling on a federal court to block Fresno from enforcing the law, which gives the city cover to hide abuses that routinely occur during sweeps.
Fresno has a severe housing crisis, limited shelter beds, and a growing unhoused population. Yet instead of addressing the root causes, city officials have long pursued policies dehumanizing and criminalizing unhoused people.
In 2006, a group of homeless people sued the city over some of these policies. They presented compelling testimony and photographs from advocates and reporters that contradicted Fresno’s sanitized version of what city workers were doing during encampment sweeps.
A federal judge found that Fresno’s practice of destroying homeless peoples’ possessions violated the Constitution. The court awarded the unhoused residents $2.3 million and the city agreed to provide notice and not immediately destroy property. Were it not for eyewitness testimony, the outcome likely would have been different.
Despite these promises, city workers still destroy property, often with little or no notice. And with this recent targeting of advocates, reporters, and other witnesses to sweeps, the city is doubling down on its past illegal behavior.
As members of the Fresno Homeless Union, we organize the collective strength of people in encampments for security, safety, and defense of our rights. We facilitate mutual aid, including food, rides, and direct representation. And we defend those who are being forcibly uprooted during the sweeps.
Fresno’s unconstitutional abatement law threatens our ability to do this important, life-saving work.
With each passing day, thousands of people find themselves one paycheck or emergency away from homelessness. By conducting traumatic sweeps against the unhoused — out of public view and unaccountable to the community — without providing somewhere safe to go, the city jeopardizes the rights of all and does nothing to solve the crisis of affordable housing.
We call on city officials to immediately repeal this unjust law. Please support us; contact Fresno city officials now and insist that the law be repealed.
source: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article260460057.html
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