Irvine City Council members are beefing up the city’s anti-camping law to make it easier for city officials to clear out homeless camps in the wake of the city backing out of a homeless shelter at the 11th hour after public pushback.
The council voted 4-1 to strengthen the city’s anti-camping ordinance, which prohibits unauthorized camping on public and private property. Councilmember Kathleen Treseder voted no.
It was approved on a first reading on Tuesday night and must return to the council for a second vote before it can go into effect.
Irvine Police Commander Dave Klug explained during the meeting that a minimum 24-hour notice must be given before the city clears an encampment.
The city will also hold private property for 90 days so it can be reclaimed.
“Our goal isn’t to target our unsheltered, it is really to maintain the safety of our community while providing them with the resources they need or maybe they don’t understand that they need,” Mayor Farrah Khan said during the meeting.
City officials say homelessness-related calls for services have been increasing over the past few years.
In 2022, Klug said there were 2,691 homelessness-related calls to the police department, increasing to 2,835 in 2023. So far in 2024, there have been 2,034 homelessness-related calls, he said.
The city’s mobile crisis response team is also contacting more people. In 2022, Klug said the team contacted 367 different homeless people in the city. That number increased to 391 in 2023. So far in 2024, the team has contacted 357 different people.
Klug also said a homeless encampment recently ignited a fire under a freeway overpass earlier this year that caused damage to the road.
The city previously had an ordinance that prohibited sleeping in public, but the update makes it easier for the city to enforce the law and remove encampments.
It comes after the Supreme Court Justices’ ruling in the Grants Pass v. Johnson case earlier this year reversed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal ruling in Martin v. Boise, which mandated that cities must provide adequate shelter beds before they can push homeless people off the streets.
It’s a rule that many officials say has largely prevented city and county officials from clearing out homeless encampments in the past.
The ruling means California cities no longer need to have shelter beds available to cite or arrest people for illegally sleeping or camping in public.
During the meeting, Treseder said she couldn’t support the item after the city reversed its decision to purchase two properties that would have created the city’s first homeless shelter.
During a special meeting on Election Day, the council backed out of creating the homeless shelter by canceling the purchase of two properties — minutes before escrow would have closed.
In reversing that decision, the city lost a nonrefundable $1 million deposit.
[Read: Irvine Backs Out of Proposed Homeless Shelter at 11th Hour]
“We just decided not to have bridge housing in the city,” Treseder said. “I feel like this is putting the cart before the horse. I want to make sure that folks have housing they can go to if we remove them from these camps.”
She said she would probably “take a lot of heat” for voting against the changes, but she said it was the right thing to do.
“If we had the bridge housing, I wouldn’t be concerned,” Treseder said.
Since there aren’t homeless shelter housing options in the city, Klug said police and the mobile response team will continue referring homeless people to county resources and nonprofit partners.
Councilmember Larry Agran — who is slated to become the city’s next mayor based on current election results from the Orange County Registrar of Voters — asked for a delay in rolling out the updated ordinance since the city lacks housing options and a new council is on the horizon.
He baked in a 120-day delay for the ordinance to go into effect so the new city council can also consider the changes. Since the council changed from five to seven members — with election districts recently added — three newcomers are expected to join the council.
Councilmembers also said city officials will continue offering services to homeless residents during encampment clearouts.
“For the residents that don’t have a home, we want to look at that as humanely as we possibly can,” Councilmember Mike Carroll said. “I don’t think there’s a single person in Irvine that feels otherwise.”
Angelina Hicks is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.
