As a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision has freed cities to move more aggressively to clear out encampments of homeless people, a draft policy seeks to clarify how Napa will decide when to close such settlements.
The draft, which the Napa City Council is scheduled to review Tuesday night, sets out priorities on which encampments to remove from city-owned lands. After discussion by the council and audience members, City Manager Steve Potter could put the policy into effect as early as Wednesday, according to Deputy City Manager Molly Rattigan.
Kennedy Park homeless encampment
Segments of the Kennedy Park homeless encampment in Napa were inundated by a series of storms that dumped heavy rain on the Bay Area in the fi...
The city's policy would focus on removing fire hazards and flammable materials, abating dangerous conditions, and keeping tents and huts away from "high-sensitivity areas" like schools, playgrounds, sports fields, housing, shelters, retail stores, and city infrastructure such as bridges.
The proposal, which Napa published Thursday, follows the Supreme Court's June 28 ruling that green-lighted cities to crack down on encampments, stating such removals do not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The decision overturned a 2018 appeals court decision that barred camp clearances unless a local government can offer shelter beds to all of its unhoused people.
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A month later, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order removing homeless settlements from state property and urging cities and counties to do likewise.
In the ensuing months, more than two dozen California cities have approved, strengthened or discussed ordinances banning people from sleeping outside, CalMatters reported on Thursday.
"We're going to have zero tolerance. We're going to have definitive enforcement," San Joaquin County Supervisor Tom Patti told CalMatters after the county board this week passed stringent curbs that include outlawing sleeping in a tent, car or sleeping bag for more than an hour at a time.
Under Napa's draft policy, the city would form a nine-person Encampment Management Committee, which would mark high-sensitivity areas and prioritize which encampment should be cleared. The team would include the homeless program director and members of the Napa police, fire, public works, utilities and parks departments, along with a city building official and homeless intervention coordinator.
City staff would "promptly" remove encampments on city sites marked as highly sensitive, the draft document states. Rattigan, the city's point person on homelessness issues, said Napa typically will try to give those staying at encampments 24 hours' notice of a clearance, but could require a quicker departure in times of a public safety emergency.
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"Ideally we'll give everybody advance notice, but there will be critical situations of safety -- like a flood or a big rain event (threatening people) close to the water line," she said in a Friday interview.
After closing an encampment, the city would store former residents' belongings -- including habitable tents, personal papers, bicycles, backpacks, glasses and wheelchairs -- for at least 90 days. Mattresses, chemicals, flammable materials, sharp objects and contaminated items would be discarded.
Hazardous materials or fire hazards could be removed from encampments without advance notice if the fire marshal or chief building official deems it necessary to correct an immediate public safety threat. Otherwise, city staff would post written notices at least 72 hours ahead of such a removal.
Dangerous materials that could be removed from homeless settlements include combustible fuels, propane tanks, generators, firewood, fencing material, wiring and pallets -- although unhoused people would be permitted one pallet to keep a tent off the ground.
Rattigan described the policy as a way for Napa to work within a limited amount of shelter beds, supportive housing and other resources, without the same level of aggression with which other cities have tried to roll back their encampments.
"We want to look at this with a human approach, because there are people who are at the center of this," she said.
Putting Napa's new clearance policy into effect would be an administrative decision by the city manager and will not require a council vote, although the policy could be delayed based on input from council members, staff or residents, according to Rattigan.
Advocates for unhoused people, as well as leaders like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, have criticized both the Supreme Court's encampment ruling and Newsom's executive order, predicting that increased enforcement will simply shift homeless people elsewhere instead of reducing homelessness.
"We must urge leaders -- nationally and locally -- to accept the idea that just moving people around isn't going to solve homelessness," Vivan Wan, CEO of Napa County's contracted homelessness services provider Abode, said in July.
The encampment policy discussion is scheduled for the City Council's evening session at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, which will follow an afternoon session at 3:30 p.m. The meeting will take place at City Hall, 955 School St.
Those unable to attend the council meeting may email comments about the encampment policy to the Napa city clerk at [email protected].
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You can reach Howard Yune at 530-763-2266 or [email protected].
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