USA: Los Angeles criminalizes homelessness

• Los Angeles systematically criminalizes homeless people for violations stemming from their homelessness by arresting and citing them, and destroying their property through sanitation sweeps.
• Criminalizing the homeless will drive them out of public spaces but will do nothing to address their housing challenges.
• City governments should end housing criminalization and destructive sanitation practices and instead invest resources in preserving and making housing affordable for all, and providing services to those in need.

(LOS ANGELES, August 14, 2024) – The Los Angeles City government’s policy of criminalizing homeless people through arrests, ticketing, and property destruction is cruel, expensive, and ineffective, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the mandatory criminalization of homelessness is constitutional even when there is no available shelter. Since then, California Governor Gavin Newsom has urged local jurisdictions to destroy homeless encampments, threatening to increase the use of this tactic in Los Angeles, across the state, and across the country.

The 337-page report “‘You Must Move Out!’ Los Angeles’s Cruel and Ineffective Criminalization of Homelessness” Documenting the lived experiences of people on the streets, in their cars, in makeshift shelters, and in parks in Los Angeles as they struggle to survive while facing criminalization and a government that fails to prioritize preventing evictions or obtaining permanent housing. Law enforcement and sanitation “sweeps” force homeless people out of public view, often wasting resources on makeshift shelters and punishments that fail to meet basic needs. Tens of thousands of people are living on the streets of Los Angeles; the death rate among the homeless has risen dramatically.

“Just because the Supreme Court allows a vicious and counterproductive tactic doesn’t mean Los Angeles has to use it,” John LaughlinDeputy Director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch. “The effective way to end homelessness is not to arrest people and throw away their belongings, but to keep people in their homes and develop and preserve more permanent, affordable housing.”

From August 2021 to May 2024, Human Rights Watch researched homelessness in Los Angeles, including the history of housing policies and practices, interviewed approximately 150 experts (more than 100 of whom had personal experience of homelessness), and analyzed data from the Los Angeles Police Department, the Health Department, and other relevant government agencies.

Homeless residents described being fined and arrested for being poor, including for violating Los Angeles Municipal Code Sections 41.18 (prohibiting sitting or lying down in designated public places) and 56.11 (prohibiting the storage of personal belongings in public places). People said they were jailed and fined more than their monthly income.

Nearly all enforcement for low-level offenses like public drinking, littering and jaywalking targets homeless people, according to LAPD data. From 2016 to 2022, nearly 40% of all arrests and citations in the city — felonies, misdemeanors and infractions — targeted homeless people, who make up less than 1% of the city’s population.

Nearly every homeless person interviewed described sweeps by sanitation departments in which their belongings were removed and destroyed, with police almost always threatening to arrest anyone who objected. These belongings included items that provided comfort and protection from the elements, such as tents, chairs, bedding, and clothing; identification cards, medicines, court documents, cash, and other survival essentials; as well as family photos, letters, heirlooms, and even the remains of loved ones. Human Rights Watch witnessed the brutality of the sweeps and described their impact.

Human Rights Watch found that while shelters and temporary housing, including temporary hotel rooms, can provide relief from the discomfort of living on the streets, they are not a reliable path to permanent housing. Shelter conditions range from barely comfortable to uninhabitable. Shelters restrict people’s independence and often impose degrading rules, including curfews, searches, and bans on guests, that many have likened to being in jail. A large proportion of people leave temporary housing due to frustration or when their temporary stay is over, and then return to the streets.

City policymakers have used temporary housing scarcity to justify criminalization and sweeps, deflecting accusations of cruelty by claiming they are placing people in “housing.” Sweeps move people from high-profile encampments into hotels and shelters while forcing those living in less visible places to move to new locations on the street. Human Rights Watch said the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s involvement in sweeps violates their stated values ​​and best practices and undermines their ability to build the trust needed to help people.

Mayor Karen Bass has made it a point to address homelessness and has worked to provide more resources for the challenge. However, her signature program, Safe Inside — which clears encampments and moves residents into hotel rooms — is prohibitively expensive, has inconsistent and inadequate support services, and is hampered by a lack of permanent housing to which people can be relocated. Moreover, with only 1,500 rooms at its peak, Safe Inside cannot serve the more than 35,000 homeless people on Los Angeles’ streets, even temporarily.

Human Rights Watch found that historical and current racially discriminatory policies and practices, including restrictive covenants, redlining, single-family zoning, policing, and defunding schools and health care, have dramatically worsened homelessness among Black people in Los Angeles, who make up less than 8 percent of the city’s total population but more than a third of all unhoused people.

Human Rights Watch said homelessness is part of a systemic housing crisis. Los Angeles spends too much on housing as a percentage of income and has the highest housing overcrowding in the country. Studies show that the city lacks 500,000 affordable homes. These conditions mean that a large portion of the city’s population is at risk of losing their homes and living on the streets.

While the reasons for each person ending up on the streets vary, the overall shortage of affordable housing, in the context of a market economy dominated by expensive housing and the government’s failure to ensure access to permanent housing for all, has led to mass homelessness.

International human rights law upholds the right to housing for all, including housing that is habitable, secure in tenure, accessible, and other qualities that are distinct from shelter. Human Rights Watch found that the United States government at all levels has failed to devote sufficient resources to realizing this right. Experts interviewed were almost unanimous in their agreement that building, maintaining, and housing people in permanent housing is the solution. In the report, Human Rights Watch describes successful housing programs and positive experiences of people who have previously lived on the streets and have found housing.

“Criminalizing homelessness risks sending them into the shadows and out of sight, but it only makes the situation worse,” Laughlin said. “We know that keeping people housed or keeping them in their homes is the only way to end homelessness. We need to stop hurting people and focus on housing them.”