Santa Cruz Stops Ticketing the Homeless for Sleeping Outdoors

by Josie Raymond · 2010-09-28 15:30:00 UTC
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Earlier this month the city of Santa Cruz set a fine example for myopic towns that still hand out "camping" tickets to homeless people sleeping outdoors. Santa Cruz's city council voted unanimously to waive such tickets given to homeless people on nights when the local shelters are full, as long as the offender is on a shelter's waitlist.

Previously, the city had only waived tickets when a certain winter shelter was full. This makes it sound like officials are admitting that it's routine for shelters to be packed to the gills year-round. Tell Santa Cruz officials to take steps to ensure that homeless Santa Cruz residents can get a shelter bed when they need one.

This solution, if you can call it that, isn't perfect. But it does put Santz Cruz a heck of a lot closer to decriminalizing homelessness that places like Boulder, Colorado that still issue tickets and hand out fines or community service sentences for folks who have nowhere to go.

The new rule puts an unfair burden on the homeless, though. How can they be expected to make the effort to get assistance everyday, by going to a shelter and being put on a waitlist to ensure they won't be ticketed, while the city gets away with failing everyday by not providing enough beds? Unfortunately this might not have been as much about ending unfair burdens on the homeless as it is a little market research. City manager Martin Bernal said a key motivation of the decision to waive tickets is to find out, "Are people actually making an effort?"

Regardless of the motivations, Santz Cruz is putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound that's gushing blood. It's a welcome Band-Aid, but a Band-Aid nonetheless. Camping tickets are just a symptom. So are the full shelters that often cause people to get them. The sickness is homelessness. That's what needs curing.

Photo credit: Franco Folini

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.

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