San Diego strikes deal with Caltrans to clear freeway homeless camps
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A homeless encampment next to I-5 near downtown. Photo: Ariana Drehsler/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The city of San Diego announced a deal with the state allowing SDPD officers to clear encampments along freeways near downtown.
Why it matters: It's another step in Mayor Todd Gloria's and Gov. Gavin Newsom's embrace of law enforcement as a tool to combat homelessness.
State of play: The one-year pilot calls for Caltrans to reimburse up to $400,000 for the costs of cleaning up encampments near state freeways and offering shelter to people living in them, Gloria announced Tuesday.
- The city will follow a model policy Newsom released that would allow officers to ticket or arrest people experiencing homelessness who repeatedly refuse shelter beds.
- It applies only to a five-mile stretch of freeways around Little Italy, East Village, Sherman Heights and Barrio Logan.
Catch up quick: That model policy, which Newsom challenged cities to adopt earlier this year, is largely aligned with the "unsafe camping ordinance" Gloria pushed the City Council to adopt two years ago.
- The city's three-strike approach lets SDPD officers escalate from a warning to a citation to an arrest — with shelter offered at each encounter — to homeless residents in encampments before they can clear the area.
- As of last month, officers have issued tickets or made arrests about 300 times since the ordinance went into effect, but the city attorney's office has declined to prosecute 96% of those cases, the Union-Tribune reported.
By the numbers: Downtown homelessness has fallen significantly in those two years, from 2,104 in May of 2023 to 756 last month, the lowest total since April 2021, per the Downtown San Diego Partnership's monthly count.
- Countywide homelessness in that time has fallen much less, from 10,264 in 2023 to 9,905 this year.
The intrigue: That large drop in downtown homelessness, though, has led to an increase in encampments on state property along freeways, beyond SDPD jurisdiction.
- Frustration over those encampments led Gloria to challenge the state in his State of the City speech this year, arguing state agencies should let the city clean up the areas, and get reimbursed for it, much like the deal announced Tuesday.
- Encinitas-based state Sen. Catherine Blakespear also introduced a bill this year aimed at forcing the state to clear encampments on its property.
The bottom line: City and state officials are increasingly aligned in the view that law enforcement can play a major role in addressing the homelessness crisis.