Santa Cruz stays course on homelessness approach, but Supreme Court decision casts shadow

As homeless advocates and members of Santa Cruz’s unhoused community await the city’s response to the recent  Supreme Court ruling that allows local governments to criminalize sleeping on public land, some city officials don’t foresee major changes to its approach. 

The decision in the Grants Pass v. Johnson case overturns the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2018 Martin v. Boise ruling, which found it “cruel and unusual” to lawfully punish individuals living outside when there’s no “access to adequate shelter.” 

Across California the reaction to the ruling has been mixed. Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed praised the decision. In a statement from her office on Friday, Breed said the decision will help her city “manage our public spaces more effectively and efficiently.” 

In the city of Santa Cruz, however, where homelessness has remained among its most urgent issues, Mayor Fred Keeley said the ruling will not alter the city’s strategy, at least in the short term. Keeley wouldn’t say whether he supports the decision, only that he “accepts it.” 

“There is a tool that the Supreme Court has handed us, but our approach seems to be working,” Keeley said, referring to 2023’s 30% drop in the city’s street homelessness that largely held steady in 2024. “As time moves on, if that’s a tool we think we need to use, then as long as I’m mayor, there will be a conversation about. But from my perspective, we’re doing pretty well.”

In an email from the City Manager Matt Huffaker’s office, Communications Manager, Erika Smart wrote the city is “closely reviewing” the Supreme Court decision.

“While this decision certainly alters the legal landscape the City remains committed to reducing homelessness by continuing to implement the strategies that have shown results,” the statement read. It listed building more affordable housing, offering shelter, and increasing outreach and service programs before adding, “and closing down large camps that pose health and safety risks.” 

‘People’s minds aren’t going to be so quickly rechanged’

Over the last couple years of operating under the strictures of Martin v. Boise the city has cleared two major encampments at the Benchlands and Pogonip, implemented a long-debated overnight parking ban on city streets for oversized vehicles, expanded its shelter space by opening up the armory and the sanctioned encampment at 1220 River Street, and stood up a safe parking program for people living in their cars. 

The city, as with all jurisdictions throughout the country, has been able to ticket people for camping, but only when there is shelter space available that the individual refuses. The city has found other ways to create a more hostile environment for people living in the public right of way, such as the oversized vehicle ordinance. 

Evan Morrison, executive director of homeless services provider People First of Santa Cruz County, (formerly the Free Guide), said although it’s now the law of the past, Martin v. Boise realigned how communities thought about homelessness. He doesn’t foresee the latest Supreme Ruling having much of an immediate impact. 

“It forced our community to accept the reality that, up until that 2018 ruling, we had just been shuffling people around and we weren’t making any progress,” Morrison told Lookout. “It helped change people’s minds, and people’s minds aren’t going to be so quickly rechanged.” 

However, Housing Matters Chief Executive Officer, Phil Kramer, believes the ruling is a step in the wrong direction. 

“It adds more barriers to connecting people with resources and pathways to housing,” he says. “It really overburdens that unhoused person in the community to be fined, ticketed or arrested.” 

Last year Housing Matters helped 427 individuals move into permanent housing, an increase of 110 people from 2022. Despite that, Kramer knows there are still thousands who have been left behind. 

“We’re failing in many ways,” he admits. “We do not have enough sheltered, safe sleeping locations for folks.” 

Keeley said any shift in the city’s approach to policing homelessness would have to come through the city council. The city is in its final year of a three-year homelessness response action plan. The mayor expects the implications of the Grants Pass ruling to be part of the discussion as the city puts together a renewed homeless strategy for the future. Yet, Keeley said the current judicial landscape in California has deprioritized small crimes and misdemeanors. 

Vice Mayor Renee Golder said she has largely bristled against the direction chosen by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, but that she “absolutely agreed” with the Grants Pass ruling. She imagines the ruling will have a ripple effect in how the city handles homelessness in the future; however, she emphasized that the city council already set its course for the next year through its recent budget adoption. 

“I wouldn’t think the changes are going to happen overnight, but I think if we’re looking long term, there might be some sorts of changes, but what would that look like? It’s really too early to tell,” Golder said. “What I do hope is that this decision enables us to hold some people who are refusing shelter accountable in some way.”

Homeless response 

Within hours of the court’s ruling, Food Not Bombs founder and homelessness advocate Keith McHenry called for an “emergency public meeting” on July 1 outside of the Santa Cruz City Hall for people to learn about the decision and brainstorm what they can do about it. The meeting ended with the decision to hold a vigil outside of Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley’s home on Monday, July 8, at 4 p.m. 

“Almost every homeless person I’ve talked to about this asks, ‘where am I supposed to go?’” McHenry said of last Friday’s 6-3 ruling that found cities across the country have the authority to criminalize, ticket and arrest anyone camping in public spaces. “Some of them have even described the ruling as banning them from being in America.” 

McHenry pointed to the 2024 Preliminary Point-In-Time (PIT) Count which found the number of homeless in Santa Cruz County rose 2.6 percent since last year to approximately 1,850 individuals sleeping somewhere outside every night. The final PIT Count report is expected by the end of this month. 

“We need to put a human face on people living outside,” he said.

Throughout the 90-minute gathering 19 people came and went at various points. Several in attendance identified they were unhoused, sleeping throughout various parts of the city. 

“They’re taking away our freedom of choice,” said one individual who identified himself as Woof.

He told Lookout he’s been houseless for over two years, despite being employed the entire time. He said he refused to live in the city-sanctioned camps like the Benchlands encampment where 240 people lived before it was cleared at the end of 2022.

“I have a discipline to be productive, punctual and responsible,” he said. “And it’s disruptive to have to deal with drug culture and toxicity.” 

Charles McRae has been living in Santa Cruz for 15 years but for the past two of those he’s been unhoused. He said people usually find places to sleep off Pacific Avenue because they are well lit and safer than other areas around the city. 

He believes the Supreme Court ruling isn’t about public safety but economic in nature. “Homelessness is the biggest issue in the country,” he says. “So they’re going to make money off the homeless.”

Peg Popkin, who attended McHenry’s rally, said she believes the unhoused crisis is everyone’s responsibility. 

“As a country we’ve gotten to a point where it’s ‘us’ versus ‘them’ instead of coming from a place of ‘we,’” she explains. “There’s no freedom without respect and there’s no peace without working on the larger picture.” 

A homeowner and local real estate agent for the past 40 years, Popkin attended the meeting because she is concerned about housing. She says it’s been her life mission to “get people properly housed, no matter who they are.” 

Yet she also understands the complexity of the issue from both sides. 

“I think [The Supreme Court] is looking for a society that works,” states Popkin. “You can’t have a good tax base without having a source of income. For small businesses to try and function in the middle of social dysfunction doesn’t respect them. As a result, they don’t respect the needs of the homeless.”

None of the people interviewed by Lookout had heard of any individuals being ticketed, fined or arrested since last week’s ruling. But for activists like McHenry, it’s a slippery slope. 

He cites a new Kentucky law that decriminalizes the use of deadly force against individuals engaged in “unlawful camping” if they are committing a felony or trying to dispossess property owners.

“My concern is that this is only a first step.”