Show some leadership, Modesto City Council. Give safe camping a try | Opinion

The time has come to embrace safe camping as another way to address homelessness in Modesto.

Designating one or more locations where people could safely rest, eat, shower and receive services like substance abuse or mental health treatment would ease suffering. It would remove some of the illegal camping that drivers see on street corners and in alleys.

Safe camping would decrease ugly behavior in public parks, where families would encounter fewer needles and refuse piles. Weary business owners would contend with fewer unhoused people seeking shelter in store fronts and on sidewalks, if a safe alternative is just around the corner.

To be clear, safe camping would not erase the epidemic of homelessness. But it would make a difference.

Seeing its potential, three of our seven Modesto City Council members wrote a column published in this Modesto Bee opinions section three months ago. It was a rare move for Councilmen Nick Bavaro, Chris Ricci and Eric Alvarez to take such a step, boldly and publicly endorsing a controversial idea that the other four have not yet warmed to.

Bavaro, Ricci and Alvarez on Aug. 23 went a step further, sitting down with The Bee’s Editorial Board for a recorded, hour-long discussion of safe camping. See it at modbee.com/opinion/.

Managing homelessness in Modesto

“We’re not going to solve (homelessness), but we can manage it,” Bavaro said in the interview. He and the others applauded the city’s many efforts to produce homeless shelters, a day center and a more expansive stock of affordable housing, all of which deserve praise.

But when government goes to such lengths and the problem only seems to grow, you know more must be done.

Alvarez noted that California is home to 15% of the United States’ population, but 25% of its unhoused people. We clearly are paying an outsized price for the state’s high cost of living.

Why aren’t the people we see sacked out on sidewalks and in parks tucked away in shelters?

Many don’t feel safe in congregate living, surrounded by dozens of bunk beds with hundreds of people who might intimidate, hurt or steal from them, said Bavaro, who learned this from talking with them. Some enjoy sleeping with a dog, which must remain apart in a kennel at shelters that allow pets, he said.

An alternative will arrive soon in a version of Dignity Moves, a small-unit model permitting people to secure pets and possessions, sponsored by the city with social services from Stanislaus County. But it is not expected to satisfy the demand for something more secure than congregate shelters.

That’s why Modesto should give safe camping a go.

This doesn’t have to be MOES 2.0

Modesto Mayor Sue Zwahlen and City Manager Joe Lopez graciously explained their opposition in a separate interview. Pulling troubled people close together where diseases and drugs are easily shared is a recipe for disaster, the mayor said, and could be fatal on asphalt where temperatures have reached 137 degrees. Surrounding homes and businesses would not appreciate the proximity, Lopez said.

Some of the reticence is understandable fallout from previous city-sanctioned tent cities, first in Beard Brook Park and then at MOES, or the Modesto Outdoor Emergency Shelter on public right-of-way under the Ninth Street Bridge. No one wants to revisit their history of arson and assault.

Vowing to never repeat camping experiments is one reaction. Deciding to incorporate lessons learned would be another, healthier approach.

Through another lens, when MOES was in operation, “People were not housed on people’s porches, they were not in our parks and our businesses. So there were successes,” Ricci said.

They should be replicated in a new services-rich safe camping model that doesn’t force people, obviously, to hang out on 137-degree asphalt.

Safe Park coming soon

Modesto soon may have more data to draw on in a set-up called Safe Park, where people who are unhoused but who have vehicles can park overnight. That will start shortly in a gravel lot near the Salvation Army-run shelter at 320 Ninth St. Also, Modesto might learn from Sacramento, whose council recently directed its city manager to draft a plan for safe camping there.

Unhoused people who refuse to take advantage of shelters, safe parking and safe camping should be held accountable, Bavaro said.

At the last Modesto City Council meeting, homeless advocate Lynelle Solomon shared a sobering account of unhoused people assaulted while sleeping in public. “If we had a safe place they could go, where they could sleep and not get beaten, that would be awesome,” Ricci said.

Waiting for someone else to step up isn’t working.

No silver bullet can cure homelessness. Safe camping is but another tool that city leaders should wield to ease suffering for the unhoused and to improve quality of life for all.

This story was originally published August 27, 2023 at 6:30 AM.