Santa Cruz city leaders need to be honest about encampment sweeps

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If our community is to have any hope of translating our deeply held values into positive outcomes for people experiencing homelessness, our local government leaders have to be more honest about what is happening within our homelessness response systems. Santa Cruz city leaders are quick to tout successes, but if we truly intend to treat people with dignity, respect and compassion, it’s vital to acknowledge where we are failing, too. 

Encampment sweeps on Coral Street in June have been spun as an acceptable and productive response. A closer look tells us otherwise.

In his Aug. 29 Lookout op-ed, Santa Cruz City Manager Matt Huffaker shows an alarming lack of transparency about recent police sweeps on Coral Street. While he reflects on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order to clear homeless encampments throughout the state, Huffaker reassures his readers, “While these decisions alter the practical and legal landscape, our [City of Santa Cruz’s] dedication to treating people with dignity and respect and compassionately addressing homelessness is unwavering.” 

But, throughout this spring and summer, Santa Cruz police have been ticketing campers on Coral Street and then sweeping their shelter and personal belongings into the trash, time and time again.

How does Huffaker reconcile the city’s dedication to compassion with the inhumane criminalization witnessed routinely on Coral Street? 

City workers and police have been sweeping encampments there for months, displacing folks living unhoused who do not have access to the shelters referenced in Huffaker’s article. We know there aren’t enough shelter options for those in need – we have fewer than 400 shelter beds in the county and close to 2,000 in need. 

In the photo below, taken during a massive sweep on Coral Street on June 3, we see a woman waving her arms as she implores the officer writing her a ticket, “Where am I supposed to go? There’s nowhere else for me to go.”

In the aftermath of sweeps, without elsewhere to go, unhoused people lose contact with their case managers and health care providers. They also lose survival gear like tents and sleeping bags that city staff sweep into the garbage. Studies, such as this 2023 study from the Journal of the American Medical Association, show overwhelmingly that addressing homelessness with forcible displacement results in higher instances of serious illness and death. 

When Huffaker celebrates in his op-ed the removal of “149 tons of refuse related to homelessness” since January 2024, I wonder what percentage of that tonnage includes the tents, sleeping bags, blankets and pillows, life-saving medications and other personal possessions routinely treated like garbage during sweeps. 

There is still no storage in our community for people living on the streets, not even short-term storage for folks trying to prepare for a scheduled sweep.

Let’s acknowledge the ways we can do better when we address encampments in the city and throughout our community. 

This year, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness published 19 research-based best practices for communities addressing encampments. The purpose of these best practices is to support a humane and effective crisis response for human beings living in encampments. It would only make sense for local leaders to acknowledge these best practices before claiming values like dignity, respect and compassion. Current research, as reflected in these best practices, shows that tickets and police sweeps are neither humane nor effective.

Let’s be frank. If we want to do better, we should not look away.

Marsa Greenspan has worked in nonprofit homeless services for eight years in Santa Cruz County.