Santa Cruz wants to ban other communities from sending homeless people to the city

City of Santa Cruz officials say in June two plainclothes police officers from Hanford, a city in the Central Valley, drove a disabled homeless person more than three hours to the city’s Armory shelter. It was done without coordination between the jurisdictions, they claim, or the consent of the individual. 

On Thursday, city officials gathered inside the Santa Cruz Police Department and announced a proposed new law that would criminalize employees or agents of other governments who send people experiencing homelessness to Santa Cruz without prior coordination between the jurisdictions. The law would also mandate that the city prioritize its shelter resources for people who lived in Santa Cruz when they became homeless over those who travel to the city seeking shelter.

Vice Mayor Renee Golder said Santa Cruz’s commitment to addressing its own homelessness issues should not be “exploited” by other governments who “fail to take responsibility for their own residents.” 

“This … is not just about enforcement; it’s about ensuring we maintain the capacity to care for the residents of this community, the way they deserve to be treated, and without being overwhelmed by individuals from other jurisdictions,” Golder said Thursday. 

The details of the June incident, as outlined in a city report, are largely sourced from the unnamed person transported from Hanford, but include information offered by shelter staff who witnessed the drop-off and Santa Cruz Police Chief Bernie Escalante, who reportedly had a brief conversation with a Hanford police sergeant immediately after the incident. 

According to the City of Santa Cruz’s account, the person experiencing homelessness, identified only as a woman in a wheelchair, had asked Hanford police officers to take her to “one of three out-of-state locations,” which included Las Vegas. However, the officers suggested Santa Cruz, which they described as “laid back and tolerant of people experiencing homelessness.” The woman said the officers “basically forced me to go to Santa Cruz.” 

The officers allegedly changed out of their police uniforms before driving the woman to Santa Cruz. According to her account, the officers were “looking for an open field or a Walmart parking lot where they could drop me off.” They allegedly attempted to drop her off at the Ross Dress For Less parking lot, but then settled on the Armory shelter after calling the Homeless Garden Project and Housing Matters. 

City officials said Armory staff members witnessed the drop-off. 

“City staff called the Hanford PD and asked the corporal on duty to send officers back to get Person Doe,” the report said. “The corporal on duty replied, ‘They won’t be coming back.’ The city staff member expressed … he was disheartened … and told the corporal ‘That’s not how we do things here.’ The corporal hung up the phone shortly thereafter.” 

Escalante reached the sergeant on duty with the Hanford Police, who reaffirmed to Escalante that officers wouldn’t be returning to retrieve the woman from Santa Cruz. Escalante said he also sent a message to Hanford Police Chief Stephanie Huddleston.  

“I expressed to the chief of police my disappointment and extreme displeasure in what took place,” Escalante said Thursday. He called Hanford’s approach “disrespectful, inhumane, unprofessional.” 

Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley said although many of the details from the account come from the individual, the City of Hanford “did not dispute the facts.” 

“We don’t think we’re doing any Olympic conclusion-jumping here,” Keeley said. “We think that the facts are not disputed, and if [Hanford] wants to dispute them, they’ve had multiple opportunities [to do so].” 

In a statement provided to media Thursday afternoon, Hanford’s community relations manager, Brian Johnson, said the city “strongly disagrees” with Santa Cruz’s assessment that Hanford is moving its homelessness problem elsewhere. Johnson said the woman had “repeatedly refused local homeless resources and outreach services during her time in Hanford.” 

“She then returned to the Hanford Police Department on June 27 and told officers she had done some research at a local library and found a shelter in the City of Santa Cruz. She then requested officers’ assistance in relocating to the facility in Santa Cruz,” Johnson’s statement read. “At no point in time did Hanford Police Department officers suggest, encourage or coerce the individual to go to the City of Santa Cruz. Any claims of this nature are flat-out false.”

Santa Cruz City Attorney Tony Condotti said if the ordinance passes during Tuesday’s city council meeting, it would create a new municipal code; a violation would amount to a misdemeanor crime, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or one year in jail. 

“It remains to be seen how that enforcement would take place but it would essentially make it a criminal act to do what the Hanford police did in this instance,” Condotti said. He said charges would be laid against the individuals who commit the act within the city of Santa Cruz. “We haven’t had an experience of prosecuting a case like this, so that’s what the learning process will be … but it’s not something we’re not prepared to do.” 

Locals only

Evan Morrison, executive director of People First, a homeless service provider that as of Aug. 1 operates the city’s Armory homeless shelter (previously run by the Salvation Army), said the resolution to prioritize those who become homeless in Santa Cruz over those who travel to Santa Cruz looking for services “caught me off guard.” 

Morrison said the Armory shelter doesn’t have a policy about prioritizing Santa Cruzans over others; however, he said the policy would likely be implemented within the city’s homelessness outreach team. The only way to gain entry into the Armory is through referral by the city’s outreach team.

“I’d like to know how they plan to confirm where people are from, it sounds like a logistical undertaking that I can’t imagine anyone has the bandwidth for,” Morrison said. “There are a lot of valid reasons that someone who isn’t from here comes here after becoming homeless. I wouldn’t want to turn someone away.” 

On Thursday, Keeley acknowledged that the Hanford example is reminiscent of rumors city residents have heard for decades: that other cities are bringing their homeless to Santa Cruz. 

“We know anecdotally that other situations may have occurred over the last couple of years,” Keeley said. “We are aware of a situation in San Francisco where the city may have sent some folks here using a similar kind of strategy. But the facts we have are about Hanford. Even if it is only one instance, which I believe it is not, it should never happen again.” 

Keeley told Lookout that the resolution to prioritize Santa Cruzans within the city is as much a message to the rest of California as it is to the other jurisdictions within Santa Cruz County, which have not set up the same kind of resources for people experiencing homelessness that the city of Santa Cruz has. 

“If we’re prioritizing folks who become homeless in the city of Santa Cruz, there is a scenario in which people in other parts of the county suddenly have much fewer services,” Morrison said. “I wonder if this is a message to the county as well to build more shelter?” 

Morrison said the Hanford example was “particularly egregious,” but over the years, he said he’s often heard similar stories from people experiencing homelessness, that they’ve been driven to a park or parking lot in Santa Cruz from municipalities “multiple hours away.” He said the belief that Santa Cruz is lax about homelessness is widespread and “pernicious.”

District 3 County Supervisor Justin Cummings said Thursday that he would be bringing the Hanford example to the board of supervisors at its Tuesday meeting, and plans to eventually float a similar proposal to criminalize the nonconsensual transport of homeless people to the county.

The city council is slated to vote on the proposed ordinance on Tuesday. 

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