Homeless crisis: FreMont’s city that wants to “support” or “encourage” unique campsites illegal – ABC7 Bay Area

Fremont, California – As the communities up and down in California are prohibited by the camps for homeless, a city Bay Area is trying to step forward.

The Eastern city of Fremont is ready to vote on a new ordinance that would illegally make the camp on any street or sidewalk, in any park or any other public property. But in obvious California, it would first make anyone “reasons, allow, assist, obey or conceal an illegal camp, guilty of a crime – and probably is a fine of $ 1,000 and six months in prison.

This unusual ban – the latter in a series of community repression after a Supreme Court decision last summer – anxious activists who worry that it can be used against assistants to help providing services to people living in camps. While Fremont Mayor Raj Salvan told Calmatters that the police would not target workers who distribute food and clothing, the ordinance does not specify what he qualifies as “assisting, concealing or concealing”.

Experts say the city may impose the same ordinance against ordinary citizens in contact with what the ordinance defines as an illegal camp for homeless.

The wide language has left Vivian Wang, CEO of Abode Services, “Very Fear,” she said. As the main provider of homeless services services in the city, the dwelling place regularly sends workers into operations to camps to help people register for housing and shelter, to convey information about food closets and other services, to give coats during cold spells and more.

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“The job is difficult enough,” Wang said. “I can’t imagine doing hard work, which is both physically and emotionally draining, and then you also have to worry about your own legal responsibility. It’s incredibly disappointing.”

The proposed Ordinance of Fremont, which adopted the initial vote of the Municipal Council 4-2 and was appointed for the final vote on February 11, is part of the state’s recent tendency towards more censor measures to combat failure. Last June, the US Supreme Court in grant Pass against Johnson ruled that cities could ban all public property camping, even if they had no shelter beds. Since then, more than two dozen in California and the counties have passed new measures prohibiting camps or restrict where people can camp, return earlier inapplicable regulations, or update existing camping regulations to make them more criminal.

In December, during the first meeting of the newly elected FreMont City Council, more than a dozen people spoke against the proposed camping ban during a long period of public comment Home. Only three people spoke in favor of the ordinance, calling on the council members to take into account the safety of the residents and to respect the rights of taxpayers who expect to be able to use the public spaces for which they pay.

Council member Raymond Liu expressed such an opinion before voting for the benefit of the ordinance.

“I have had many people to approach me and tell me that they do not feel safe using our parks or our libraries because of the amount of bearings nearby,” he said.

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In some parts of California, the application goes beyond people living within a camp. In September, local journalist Jeka Prado was arrested in Oakland while documenting the removal of the city at a homeless camp. A year earlier, Oakland made a crime for someone who failed to leave a certain “safe work area” that could include the area around the bearing.

Civil countries for civil rights – and even the federals – pulled back when they felt that the cities had gone too far.

The Los Angeles Ordinance prohibiting the storage of private property in a public area, which is often used to quote people who are not human, also violates “deliberately to resist, slow down or interfere.” Last fall, the US Civil Freedom Union in Southern California sent a letter to the Los Angeles Police Department, accusing its employees of an unlawfully threatening reporter of La Taco Lexis-Livier Ray with an arrest under this ordinance while documenting the elimination of the camp.

The path of the religious organization Michai filed a case in 2023 after the city of Santa Anna forbade to serve food to people who are not in people. The Federal Department of Justice weighs on behalf of Michai’s path, saying that the spread of food can be a protected religious exercise under the federal civil rights laws. The case then arranged and the city agreed to allow Michai’s way to continue serving food.

Will the clause of assisting help in the Fremont Ordinance stand in court?

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“It will really depend on how it is applied,” said David Loy, the legal director of the first amendment coalition. The first change in the right to freedom of expression does not guarantee the right to camp in a public place, nor guarantees a person the right to “help and to set fire” to an illegal camp. But all this comes down to how police decide what qualifies as support and maintenance, Loy said.

Mayor Salvana told Calmatters that the city would use the clause to support and subjected people to people who help to build illegal camp structures.

“Some people come something like vigrators,” he said. “They want to start building these structures for the disgruntled, which are dangerous. Then this provision will come in.”

Police will not arrest anyone under the new ordinance just to give a tent to an uninvited person, Salvan said.

But what if this activist helps this person put the tent?

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“This is a good question,” Salvan said. “I think we may need to seek explanations from the city lawyer.”

Calmatters raised this question before the City Prosecutor’s Office. The service responded through speaker Justin Burton that a person who helps someone adjusts a tent can be executed.

For Wan and other activists, Salvan’s words are hardly soothing. They fear that no matter what the mayor says, the language in the ordinance is so wide that it will give the police the opportunity to go down to activists and help workers at their discretion.

The legal definition of support and maintenance is distant and can be applied to anyone who knows deliberately facilitating the crime. This means that the Fremont police will depend on whether an individual propagandist worker in a camp should be quoted or arrested, said Andrea Hanson, a lawyer who serves as CEO and the Non -Profit Board of Berkli, where are we going?

Hanson and other Calmatters interviewed experts have never encountered a clause for support and maintenance in the California Ordinance, regulating or prohibiting the homeless bearings.

“I think many lawyers who help and protect Unhoused watch this,” Hanson said. “No one has seen this.”

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Salvan said he was open to make the proposed clause to assist and incite more specific.

“I’m ready to consider tweezers in our language to make sure we will deal with the worries,” he said.

Among the biggest concerns of WAN is that the police will use the proposed ordinance to try to press their workers in the territory to discover where the camps are. The last thing her team wants to do is help the police displace, cite or arrest their customers, Wang said. But if their customers think this is an opportunity, they can stop trusting them and accept their help, she said.

“Absolutely not,” Salvan said as he asked him if this could happen. “We had great relationships with all our non -profit organizations. We are not trying to get into all this.”

If the ordinance passes, Wang hopes to conclude an agreement with the city that releases its staff from the support and maintenance clause.

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If they couldn’t, she would consider giving up information work. Wan is also worried that the ordinance would make it difficult to recruit new workers in the terrain – something dwelling and other non -profit organizations throughout the country it is already struggling with, thanks to the low pay and the exhausting and often disappointing work.

Eva Garrow, a Southern ACLu Policy Analyst of Southern California, is worried about the support and incitement clause will make it even more difficult to get help.

“I think if it goes through, it will put a cold on any kind of humanitarian aid or will help the locals otherwise to provide people who are not light and restless,” said Garrow, who was alarmed when he heard about the proposed ordinance of the proposed ordinance FreMont resident.

Sister Elaine Sanchez of the sisters based on Fremont of the Holy Family is adamant that the proposed ordinance will not stop her from helping her homeless neighbors.

“I think if I will be arrested for something,” she said, “It will be for what I think helps people in need.”

Geneva Bosquez, director of communication and legislative issues for Fremont, writes Calmatters to challenge the characteristic that the proposed ordinance is first of its kind, citing common municipal codes for Fremont and at least 10 other cities in California. The support and maintenance clause was included in this proposed Ordinance “For clarity”, according to Bosques.

Legal experts Calmatters have consulted this story, showing that this is extremely unusual. No other city, as far as Calmatters’ knowledge is, has not tried to use a common municipal fashion code that this ordinance would have been.