Record-setting 115-degree heat.
It is deadly on the streets of Fresno in the intense heat. It’s also deadly because it is City policy to continue encampment sweeps, harass individuals, confiscate survival gear and force people to leave shady areas on a daily basis.
It is deadly because the City has been enforcing an ordinance authored by Council Members Miguel Arias and Garry Bredefeld for more than a year. The ordinance specifically bars unhoused residents from being near both shelters and cooling/warming centers (the City is operating only three cooling centers this summer).
The ordinance bans people from being near intake facilities, where unhoused people must go to seek services and housing. The ordinance bans unhoused residents from nearly all places in Fresno.
It prohibits sitting, standing, lying down, sleeping and having any possessions within 500 feet of schools, childcare facilities, parks, libraries, warming and cooling centers, shelters, even navigation centers (like the Poverello House), freeway ramps, tunnels, under bridges, pedestrian bridges, active railways, alleys, sidewalks and many other places.
In the triple-digit heat on the streets of Fresno, unhoused residents will die from heatstroke because areas of shade, such as freeway underpasses, will be unavailable because of the ordinance.
Safe Camps and Safe Lots Now
It is also deadly because of the City’s refusal to support safe camps and safe lots. Women, the elderly, the disabled and other vulnerable human beings are being forced to scatter around the city on a regular basis, leaving them on their own and subject to attack, accidents and exposure to the searing heat of the Fresno streets.
Heat is the top cause of weather-related fatalities nationwide. However, because investigations of suspected heat deaths can take months, and different methods are used by municipalities to count them, it is unknown exactly how many people died in the United States in the recent heat wave beginning July 1 and it is unknown how many in Fresno have died.
Incredibly, on June 2, as reported in YourCentralValleyNews.com, the Fresno Mission’s CEO said that the searing heat can have an unintended positive impact on those experiencing homelessness.
“So, we do appreciate that when the weather starts turning bad,” said Matthew Dildine, CEO of the Fresno Mission, “the heat causes people to say ‘I don’t want this life anymore. I don’t want to live when it’s 110 on the street,’ and so, we see increased demand for our life transformation services.”
Dildine has the audacity to say this, knowing full well there is no housing or shelter for the thousands living on the streets of Fresno. He implies in his statement that homelessness is a choice. This is far from the truth.
The most recent data, based on surveys and a comprehensive analysis by UC San Francisco, indicate that poverty, lack of affordable housing and discrimination are the main drivers of homelessness. In addition, more than half of Californians living on the streets are more than 50 years old.
Major Setback by the Court
In a sad development, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city of Grants Pass, Ore., in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson on June 28 and against the unhoused people of America.
The case challenged a 2018 ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that protected people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in much of the western United States from being punished for sleeping outdoors. The case was filed by Grants Pass, a small city in Oregon with only one shelter that was enforcing a local anti-camping law against people sleeping in public using a blanket or any other rudimentary protection against the elements—even if they had nowhere else to go.
The Supreme Court had to decide, “Is it unconstitutional to punish homeless people for doing in public things that are necessary to survive, such as sleeping, when there is no option to do these acts in private.” The court decided in favor of Grants Pass. The 6-3 decision, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, rejected the claim that criminalizing sleeping in public by those with nowhere to go violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
As many who disagree with the ruling point out, homelessness in the United States is a function of poverty, not criminality. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her written dissent to the court’s ruling that “sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime.” Sotomayor was joined in her dissent by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
HART-Less Code Enforcement
The Homeless Task Force was renamed the Homeless Assistance Response Team (HART) in January 2022. At that time, City officials committed to a more “compassionate” and “humanitarian” response to addressing street homelessness. The mayor also said, “Honestly, I am trying to minimize the involvement of our police officers in the area of homelessness and the area of mental health.”
Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Instead, HART members are heartless enforcers of the cruel policy put forth by Arias and Bredefeld.
HART continues to abuse the unhoused, constantly forcing them to move, throwing away their only possessions, and continuing the insane and inhumane policy of trying to make those unfortunate enough to be on the harsh streets of Fresno disappear.
The mayor and the City Council continue the failed and cruel past practices that have been used for many years to criminalize and punish the homeless. Any person with a conscience should loudly object to the continuation of such practices.
Even though the recent Supreme Court decision allows for further criminalization of the unhoused, the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures still applies. The City and HART violate the Fourth Amendment every day. One might ask, who are the real criminals?
As determined in Lavan v. City of Los Angeles (2012), the government cannot seize property unless it has an objectively reasonable belief that the property is 1) abandoned, 2) presents an immediate threat to public health or safety or 3) is evidence of a crime, or contraband.
In Lavan, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction preventing the City of Los Angeles from seizing and destroying unattended property of unhoused individuals. The City had seized and destroyed property it believed was abandoned, which would have rendered the seizure reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
The seizure and immediate destruction of unattended items based on size is also unconstitutional. Citing Lavan, the Ninth Circuit in Garcia v. City of Los Angeles (2021) enjoined the City from enforcing an ordinance allowing it to immediately seize and destroy “bulky” personal property (defined as property larger than can fit in a 60-gallon trash can) stored in public areas.
Locally, the HART continues its illegal and unconstitutional practices of destroying property.
What Fresno Can Do
The City could open the Convention Center or other public buildings for emergency shelters; purchase trailers as temporary shelters; hire more outreach teams; open shelters to allow people to stay there during daytime hours; and distribute tents, tarps, sleeping bags and clothes as if there is a disaster.
The current situation is a humanitarian disaster unfolding daily in plain sight. The City could clean up the trash, provide more shower/sanitation stations and provide portable toilets. The County could provide more social services such as drug treatment programs, mental health treatment and alcohol rehabilitation services. The residents of Fresno could stop calling HART to report unhoused people.
Instead, people could provide cold water to the unhoused people of Fresno during these extreme heat days and donate water and supplies to advocacy organizations. Volunteer with Project H20. Show some humanity. Show up at City Council meetings to speak up for unhoused people. They are people, just like you. Contact the mayor and your City Council member. Tell them to abolish the “no sleep, no stand, no sit ordinance.” Demand humane treatment from HART. Demand the end of property destruction. Ask the mayor and City Council to act like human beings with some humanity.
