Gov. Newsom calls on California cities to ban homeless encampments
Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging California cities to adopt an ordinance banning homeless encampments outright as the state continues to crack down on "unhealthy and dangerous" structures.
Why it matters: Though the move is unlikely to change much for Bay Area cities and counties — many which have already taken aggressive steps to counter encampments — it highlights the state's increasing oversight on an issue that remains in the national spotlight.
Driving the news: The model ordinance proposed by the governor's office includes key provisions, such as a prohibiting persistent camping in one location and encampments that block passage on sidewalks.
It also requires local officials to provide notice and "make every reasonable effort to identify and offer shelter" prior to clearing an encampment.
The intrigue: The ordinance emphasizes that nobody "should face criminal punishment for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go."
The proposal is drawn from the state's approach, which Newsom's office says has cleared over 16,000 encampments and over 311,000 cubic yards of waste and debris from sites along the state right of way since July 2021.
What they're saying:"There's nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets," Newsom said in a news release.
"Now, we're giving [cities] a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care."
Between the lines: Many encampments cleared by cities have relocated to property under the jurisdiction of Caltrans, the state's highway agency, Axios San Diego's Andrew Keatts notes.
Frustration with the state's inability to clear those camps led San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria to co-sponsor a bill, SB 569, with state Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) to push the state to clear encampments on their property.
Newsom's announcement does not appear to compel cities to adopt the ordinance, but he has in the past threatened to withhold funding from local governments that fail to adequately address encampments.
Reality check: While San Francisco does not have an ordinance banning encampments, the city ramped up sweeps after a Supreme Court ruling last year gave municipalities leeway to take stricter measures.
The city's approach already largely aligns with the provisions outlined in Newsom's model ordinance, including proper storage of possessions and the specific offer of shelter prior to clearing encampments.
Yes, but: The governor's suggestion requires at least 48 hours of notice compared to San Francisco's 2016 voter proposition, which mandates a 24 hour heads up.
What we're watching: Law enforcement has escalated arrests of people who refuse to leave after declining shelter offers, even as a shortage in beds persists.
San Francisco is also in the midst of a legal challenge from local civil rights advocates who accuse city workers of violating unhoused people's rights by seizing and destroying their property when conducting sweeps.
The big picture: In March, San Francisco recorded its lowest tent tally (222) since officials began publicly tracking them in April 2019, per a San Francisco Chronicle analysis.
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USA Today
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- USA Today
The LA immigration riots reminds that neither party cares about law and order
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New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Newsom and Bass' riot mishandling: Letters to the Editor — June 16, 2025
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San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Will Democrats finally stop defending protesters who turn to thuggery?
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(Tell that to the family businesses that have to replace their windows the next morning.) Yes, the vandals doing that damage constitute only a small fraction of the demonstrators, but they receive a disproportionate amount of air time — and that only helps Trump. Their actions need to be acknowledged more forcibly, called out as unlawful and very publicly prosecuted. Newsom understands this. 'If you incite violence — I want to be clear about this — if you incite violence or destroy our communities, you are going to be held to account. That kind of criminal behavior will not be tolerated. Full stop,' Newsom said in his nationally broadcast speech Tuesday, noting that 220 people had been arrested in Los Angeles and local law enforcement was reviewing video of the chaos 'to build additional cases and people will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.' His challenge is that parsing those differences between protesters is difficult and rarely done. I first wrote about those differences while covering dozens of Iraq War protests two decades ago. Many mass demonstrations in the Bay and L.A. often follow a similar arc: Thousands of people will peacefully and boisterously march in the streets for hours without incident. Chanting, waving signs, talking smack about the government (all protected under the First Amendment, as is waving a Mexican flag.) Then, in their wake, usually as the first wave of peaceful demonstrators is headed home, a 'breakaway' contingent of demonstrators unaffiliated with the main organizers will start breaking windows, tagging buildings with graffiti and engaging in other random acts of vandalism that have nothing to do with the theme of the demonstration other than being a different expression of rage. Often, they self-identify as anti-capitalist 'anarchists.' 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Unless protest organizers do something to self-police these demonstration hijackers, their powerful, existential message — Trump is becoming a fascistic autocrat before our eyes — will be diluted. Or worse, ignored. It's time to pull the dandelions sprouting among the flowers. And while I'm hesitant to jump on the blame-the-media bandwagon, we own some responsibility here, too. Television coverage of these mass demonstrations, which provides most of the protest images consumed on all platforms, is rarely nuanced enough to draw the distinctions between the main marchers and the unaffiliated vandals gravy-training on their earnest intentions. TV reports invariably focus on the broken windows in the wake of an otherwise peaceful march rather than the message that the marchers were making about Trump's budding fascism. If it bleeds — or is broken — it leads on TV news. If Newsom and protest organizers don't mute the vandals this summer, then Trump wins the fight for public opinion. Those 'anarchists' will become Trump's best weapon as their behavior is contributing to the false narrative that American cities are out of control. Yeah, the anarchists are angry. A lot of us are angry. But burning and breaking stuff is damaging the common cause we share. We are right — and constitutionally endowed — to take to the street on behalf of law-abiding immigrants. But you're not helping if you're busting up stuff, or not calling out those who do. See something? Say something. And that starts with Newsom, who has to remember that he's now talking to the rest of America. Not just California.
