Santa Monica Hails High Court Ruling on Transient Campers

Santa Monica officials say a new state Supreme Court decision strongly supports the city’s authority to keep transients from camping out in city parks.

“The decision really spells it out, saying, ‘Of course, local governments have the right to regulate parks,’ ” said City Councilman Robert T. Holbrook.

“It’s terrific,” said Mayor Pro Tem Asha Greenberg, an attorney who has long argued that there was a legal way to keep transients from taking over city parks, without violating their rights.

The precedent-setting ruling upheld a Santa Ana law forbidding anyone to camp out overnight on city property. Though it concerned a Santa Ana ordinance, the decision applies statewide. In essence, it allows cities to move ahead in their efforts to crack down on the homeless.

“Santa Ana has no constitutional obligation to make accommodations on or in public property available to the transient homeless,” wrote Justice Marvin Baxter in the court’s majority opinion.

The high court decision overturned a ruling by the California State Court of Appeal that the Santa Ana law violated the rights of citizens to be on public property when they had nowhere else to go.

The case had been watched closely by other cities with homeless problems, especially Santa Monica, which has been sued over its own anti-camping ordinance.

“It was like a cloud hanging over our heads,” Greenberg said.

Indeed, during a council session last year, the Santa Ana case, as it had been interpreted by the Court of Appeal, figured strongly in how the Santa Monica law was drafted.

To ensure the city could not be accused in a lawsuit of trying to drum homeless people out of town, Santa Monica opened a 100-bed homeless shelter.

Crime has declined, in part because the criminal element within the homeless population has moved on, said Santa Monica Police Sgt. Gary Gallinot.

Both Greenberg and Councilwoman Ruth Ebner noted with pleasure that when they drive by newly opened Lincoln Park they see families in an area that not too long ago resembled a tent city.

Greenberg said she also feels encouraged that homeless people are being induced to get into the shelter program and off the streets.

“If we allow them to live in public places we’re never going to get to get them out of there and into homes and jobs,” she said.