Thumbnail photo: A man who identified himself as Ray told the Eureka City Council on Tuesday that he’s been homeless for 25 years. He asked the City Council to approach the issue with humanity. | Screenshot
Despite their city manager’s attempt to paint it as a means of getting people the help they need, three Eureka City Councilors decided that a proposed ordinance restricting camping and sitting or lying on the sidewalk is criminalizing homelessness.
City Manager Miles Slattery also presented letters from philanthropist Betty Chinn and Eureka Rescue Mission Executive Director Bryan Hall on Tuesday endorsing the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD program, which is specifically referred to in Bill No. 1040 C.S.
But Eureka City Councilor G. Mario Fernandez pointed out that though the LEAD program offers “case management and supportive services,” he’s not aware of any social workers who support it. The city already has regulations governing obstructing public walkways and aggressive conduct prompting Fernandez to question why Eureka needed additional camping laws.
“I challenge the necessity and behavior this ordinance deters, given that the behavior isn’t generally [done] out of wanton disregard or malfeasance, but rather it comes from economic conditions,” he said. “Homelessness isn’t a behavior, it’s an environmental and social condition that can’t be easily regulated with fines and jail.”
Fernandez and his colleagues Leslie Castellano and Renee Contreras-DeLoach voted in favor of a motion to quash Bill No. 1040 C.S., the unlawful camping, sitting and lying ordinance. Councilors Kati Moulton and Scott Bauer dissented.
The Council’s decision comes after more than four hours of public testimony from residents who largely opposed the ordinance.
Some said they worked with unhoused individuals while others experienced homelessness themselves. Two people also brought up the Eureka City Council’s land acknowledgment at the beginning of the meeting by pointing out that the Wiyot’s name for the area, Jaroujiji, translates to “a place to stop and rest.”
Had the ordinance been approved, Bill No. 1040 C.S. would have made it unlawful for any person to “sit, lie, sleep, camp, occupy camp facilities or use camping equipment” in any public place or property, including sidewalks, or on any private property without the owner’s consent. The ordinance would have also prohibited any one from washing their body or belongings in a fountain and urinating or defecating in public.
Violating the ordinance would have constituted a misdemeanor with a fine of up to $1,000 or up to a year in jail — double the jail penalty for violating misdemeanors that’s listed in Eureka Municipal Code, according to City Attorney Bob Black.
The ordinance also refers to the LEAD program, stating that an individual charged with violating Bill No. 1040 C.S. could avoid misdemeanor penalties if they agreed to take part in the jail diversion program. However, the LEAD program would have operated under a maximum capacity of 10 active clients with 10 more being waitlisted.
“When the waitlist is full, LEAD staff shall communicate with [Eureka Police Department Community Safety Engagement Team] sergeant or their designee to temporarily suspend referrals and enforcement of this ordinance, except in outstanding or exigent circumstances, with supervisor approval,” the ordinance states.
Bill No. 1040 C.S. had also included a requirement for the city manager or his designee to present an annual report to the Eureka City Council detailing the number of people who received misdemeanor citations for violating the ordinance as well as the number of active and waitlisted clients referred to LEAD.
LEAD has been in place for a long time, Slattery said. While law enforcement is in the program’s name, the city manager said it’s an alternative to law enforcement relying on the city’s mental health, crisis response and social work professionals.
“Staff is hoping to demonstrate that we have been doing the alternative model to criminalizing homelessness [for] close to 10 years,” Slattery said. “I would say that the City of Eureka is far ahead of the curve given the research presented to staff for review. We have been practicing compassion for a very long time and we’ve been practicing cutting edge social services, case management programming and mental health programming above and beyond [any] municipal jurisdiction. This is another tool to address homelessness.”
In his presentation, Slattery said Eureka has more than 350 on-call shelter beds available for community members. Tenants are starting to move into the Crowley Property, which has 38 beds on Hilfiker Lane. And the City of Eureka has development agreements in place for more than 300 very low and low-income units with 89 currently in construction.
Other measures to provide services for the unhoused include trying to provide portable toilet bags, which are hazardous — human waste disposal needs to go into the wastewater treatment plant, Slattery said. Port o’ potties were also unsuccessful due to damage, high cost to the city and, eventually vendors not wanting to participate.
The city’s attempt to have public restrooms in Old Town Eureka open 24 hours also proved unsuccessful, the city manager said.
“A lot of calls for service and problems with people taking over the facility and a lot of damage,” he said. “We had to jack hammer the facility a couple of times because of clogs.”
According to Slattery’s presentation, the total number of crisis and case-management encounters went from 786 to 1,155 from 2023 to 2024. The number of individual clients increased from 145 in 2023 to 234 in 2024, he said. The total number of crisis responses went from 193 in 2023 to 286 in 2024.
The homelessness rate in Eureka decreased from 65 percent in 2023 to 61 percent in 2024. The anosognosia rate — those who don’t have the mental capacity to realize what they’re doing is harming themselves or others, according to Slattery — stayed at 35 percent from 2023 to 2024.
The city manager also tried to outline the need for Bill No. 1040 C.S. by describing the case of two individuals to the City Council. The first concerned a woman who had no criminal history, was estranged from her Bay Area family and despite receiving help from CSET officers failed to follow through on plans to relocate.
CSET officers again encountered her behind a local business and despite promising to contact her family returned to her previous encampment in a public parking lot. Her vehicle was eventually towed.
“To date staff has contacted her approximately 135 times, she has been convicted of several crimes related to the community. She is currently on felony probation related to those offenses,” Slattery said, adding that she had constructed complex and problematic encampments using pallets, scrap wood and chain link fencing. “CSET has coordinated the removal of thousands of pounds of debris removal from her camps, the first major cleanup required the combined efforts of code enforcement CSET numerous volunteers, heavy equipment and other city staff to remove large quantities of trash and materials.”
Cleanup involved dismantling a two-story structure that included a wood stove Doe erected in a cleanup, Slattery said. The city manager said she was unwilling to comply with attempts to transition her into housing.
“In cases like this where assistance is repeatedly declined, we need to safeguard the community and uphold public safety and protect environmental integrity,” he said.
A second example had to do with a man who had been camping near the St. Vincent dePaul dining facility since 2023 and who had been accused of fighting with other clients and violating protection orders. Allegations include attacking someone with a metal pipe that led to a broken arm, Slattery said.
“These are serious crimes that do not get prosecuted because victims are not willing to file charges. It’s one of many examples of a community member predating on others and EPD having no recourse,” the city manager said, implying that Bill No. 1040 C.S. would alleviate that concern. “John Doe has been associated with four assaults in the vicinity of the dining facility since his time living there. Based on previous and calculated statistics, approximately two assaults happen in this area every 150 days. In the 850 days that John Doe has been camping in this area, he has been associated with a vast majority of altercations that have occurred, approximately 66 percent.”
Following Slattery’s presentation, Contreras-DeLoach questioned EPD Chief Brian Stephens about how his officers would go about enforcing the law, particularly when the LEAD program is at capacity with 10 active participants and 10 on the waiting list.
Stephens said the exigent circumstances Bill No. 1040 C.S. referred to when the LEAD program is full could be anything that threatens public safety.
“We don’t make arrests all the time. We don’t deal with issues all the time. It’s complaint-based, a lot of times it requires an immediate-type of response from law enforcement,” he said, adding that CSET is the unit that most often responds to those complaints. “These types of circumstances could be the example that the city manager read with the person that’s creating more of a criminal activity without those that would be willing to come forward as a victim, but we needed to change the behavior and remove the person or remove their camp from that area to keep that victimization from continuing, and that would be one option we could use because that’s a public safety issue.”
Stephens tried to explain the difference between enforcing the letter of the law and acting on the spirit of the law, adding that officers “have the ability and discretion to enforce when it needs to be enforce.” But DeLoach said a concern she has with Bill No. 1040 is its vagueness.
“I get what you’re saying [about] the difference between the letter of the law and spirit of the law,” she said. “I know our officers at CSET and I know them well and I don’t have concerns about our CSET officers using this as a tool of harassment. It’s more that I think I’m trying to get clarity on this and I feel that it’s not clear.”
Stephens said if the LEAD program is full, there are other options including CARE Court — though that’s for clients with schizophrenia and severe psychosis, according to the city manager — as well as “other opportunities” within the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.
The city manager said LEAD is led by the city’s mental health, crisis response and social service workers, but public commenters noted that Bill No. 1040 C.S. would still be interpreted by police.
“This ordinance is coercive and Americans do not like coercion,” one gentleman said. “Traumatized people do not respond well to coercion and homeless people are, by their very nature, traumatized. They will not respond well to this ordinance. They will resist going to services.”
Another woman said that homelessness is a crisis everywhere, but Bill No. 1040 C.S. doesn’t resolve it. After listening to the police chief’s explanation about the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law she said she was concerned that “we’re just going to make it malleable into whatever we want it to be in the moment.”
“I’m left listening to the explanation of the revisions [to the ordinance] and just not understanding what the benefit of charging these people with a misdemeanor is,” she said. “They’re not going to be able to pay a $1,000 fine. It will cost the county money to house them in jail for up to a year. Why are we doing this?”
Despite overwhelming opposition from commenters who spent more than four hours urging the City Council to reject the ordinance, there were those who supported Bill No. 1040, including Alex Moore, who owns the Pearl Lounge and Restaurant Five Eleven in Old Town.
Moore said he sees examples of extreme mental illness and drug addiction on a daily basis. Most on the street need serious help, he said, and a lot don’t want it.
“The police department, we’ve talked to them dozens and dozens and dozens of times over the years and they don’t have the tools to do anything about it, and as a business owner it’s really frustrating,” Moore said. “People laugh about it. People have derogatory names about the City of Eureka because of it, and now we have the opportunity to give people that can help the situation the tools they need to do it.”
Another woman said an ordinance like Bill No. 1040 C.S. would have helped her husband access the services he needed to get back on his feet.
Still, before voting to reject the ordinance, Contreras-DeLoach said she believed Bill No. 1040 C.S. targets status instead of conduct. She referred to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the Martin v. Boise case in 2019, which states that it violates the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to punish those who lacked a place where they can lawfully sleep.
Contreras-DeLoach also quoted Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in last year’s Johnson v. Grants Pass ruling, stating that ordinances like Bill No. 1040 C.S. use the definition of campsite as a proxy for homelessness “because those lacking a fixed regular nighttime residence are those who unlawfully camp.”
Contreras-DeLoach said she felt Eureka’s proposed ordinance leaves the unhoused with an impossible choice, to either stay awake, stay moving or be arrested.
“The only way for them to comply is to leave Eureka,” she said. “Therefore I believe the ordinance would target status and not conduct. I will not pass an ordinance that places penalties on status rather than conduct.”
