The State - News from June 24, 1985

The state Supreme Court has refused to block prosecutions of homeless people in Santa Barbara under a city law that forbids camping on a public street or park. Only Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird voted to grant a hearing on a suit filed on behalf of 58 transients facing prosecution, the court said. Four votes are needed for a hearing by the seven-member court. The suit by the Legal Defense Center contends that the city ordinance, passed in 1979, is “a type of vagrancy law” that punishes people for being poor and homeless.