Modesto councilmember says Newsom order to clear homeless camps won’t work
Earlier this week, Gov. Gavin Newsom called on cities to crack down on homeless encampments, but one Modesto City Council member said the governor’s approach “will not work.”
On Monday, Newsom unveiled a model ordinance for cities to use as a framework to clear homeless encampments from city streets “without delay.” The model ordinance builds on Newsom’s executive order last year, which called for the same thing.
In a press release, Newsom stated that cities have the money and the legal authority to be aggressive on the issue — referencing the U.S. Supreme Court decision Grants Pass v. Johnson and over $3 billion of California’s Proposition 1 funding, which was also made available to communities this week.
In March, Modesto received a $5.7 million grant from the state to clear an encampment on Yosemite Boulevard, which it hopes to do by 2027.
“Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care,” read the statement from Newsom. “The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Councilmember Nick Bavaro rebuked Newsom’s approach, saying that it wouldn’t fix the issue for a number of reasons and that for the governor to speak in the manner he did was “not the correct way to go.”
Bavaro said Modesto is doing everything it can to combat homelessness but that many unhoused are either too mentally ill for housing or they refuse it. Bavaro’s suggestion is to offer safe camping sites and reopen mental health facilities like the ones California had in the 1960s. The administrative burden should fall on the state, Bavaro said, not on municipalities.
“In the last five years, the state of California has spent $24 billion on homelessness and we can see what the results are,” said Bavaro.
The city of Modesto has received a chunk of that money — at least $21 million in the past five years — mainly to create outreach teams and build shelters and housing. Stanislaus County received a slice as well to address gaps in the mental health system. So is what Bavaro suggesting different from what’s going on right now?
What’s going on?
Bavaro suggested that many people who live in encampments have too severe of a mental illness, or are so far into their drug addiction that they lack the capacity to seek and maintain shelter or housing. To an extent, he’s correct.
Of the over 3,500 people the Modesto Police Department’s Community Health and Assistance Team offered emergency shelter to in 2024, only about 35% accepted.
However, when CHAT offered permanent and interim housing options to those they encountered, nearly 100% accepted. But those offerings are few and far between. According to MPD data, CHAT offered these options to just 35 people. It should be noted that CHAT is not the only way unhoused people can be connected to these resources. Several nonprofits and city programs also do this.
Bavaro said he had two major reasons he thinks Newsom’s call to aggressively clear encampments won’t do anything.
His first is that because most people lack the capacity or refuse shelter and housing, Newsom should identify state land that could be used for safe camping.
“The state needs to let all 58 counties know [of] available state land that can be used for safe camping. Then the county can put together a plan,” said Bavaro.
“We want to be able to have housing and transition [but] these are not people that are going from camp to home,” he said. “I call this street to camp. These are the people on the streets that, for whatever reason, do not seek shelter.”
This approach has been experimented with in other parts of the state, including in Sacramento, where the city leased land for camping to a self-governing group of unhoused people. Modesto once had an outdoor shelter under the Ninth Street Bridge, but it closed in 2019. Four years later, a safe-camping site for the unhoused was proposed to Modesto’s City Council but was shot down in a 4-3 vote. Bavaro voted in favor of the site.
Bavaro said the administrative burden shouldn’t be put on municipalities in regards to safe camping sites, but instead should be run by the state.
Bavaro’s second point is that Newsom’s administration isn’t doing enough to address mental health. The council member said many of the unhoused residents in encampments are “broken people” who lack the capacity to seek shelter or are afraid to do so out of concern for their own safety.
“If the governor is really serious about dealing with these issues, he may want to take a look at opening state mental facilities that we saw in the ’60s to be able to get the mentally ill off our streets. … Homeless people are on our streets that have mental illness, are there because they … have nowhere to go and they have no treatment,” Bavaro said.
He is referring to the common practice of institutionalizing people against their will — common in California before Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act in 1967, ending the practice.
Many mental health hospitals closed in the next few decades. However, California still operates six state hospitals.
Newsom’s press release also announced the rollout of Proposition 1, which was passed by California voters last year.
It created a $6.38 billion general obligation bond to fund behavioral health treatment, residential facilities and supportive housing for veterans and individuals at risk of or experiencing homelessness with behavioral health challenges, according to the California Budget & Policy Center.
An outpatient behavioral health center broke ground last year in Modesto, which utilized over $5 million in state money to build a safe space to address gaps in mental health and substance use disorder treatment.
This money came from the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program. But according to the Department of Health Care Services, Prop. 1 could pave the way for more facilities like it.
“This groundbreaking is a game-changer that will enable our community partner to provide vital behavioral health services to children and youth. This marks a new chapter of hope and healing in the Central Valley,” reads a statement from DHCS Director Michelle Baass.
While Bavaro doesn’t agree with Newsom’s approach, he said the governor opened the discussion of what to do after encampments are cleared. “I think at this point, the governor has opened the floodgate for discussion, and I compliment him on that,” said Bavaro.
Asked if the city would reconsider opening a safe camping site to the unhoused, Bavaro reiterated that the state should identify which properties are safe for that to happen, pay for it and have it administered by the county.
This story was originally published May 15, 2025 at 12:14 PM.
