Authorized camping would ease Modesto’s homeless crisis, three leaders say | Opinion

We’re pleased by the effort of our city manager, Joe Lopez, and his staff to increase our stock of low-income and affordable housing. They’ve done an excellent job during a time when progress on housing is extremely difficult. We’re also pleased to soon be opening a day center that will give homeless people somewhere to go during the day.

However, we’re concerned that we have yet to achieve a pragmatic plan for reducing the number of homeless people camping in our city parks, on our sidewalks, in other public areas and in places of business and residential areas.

We’ve listened to constituents who have mentally ill family members stranded on the streets with nowhere to go and who fear for their safety. We’ve heard testimony from constituents who have loved ones with substance abuse addictions and are homeless. We see daily the increase of physically disabled and elderly people who are homeless.

We’ve heard constant complaints about public safety and hygiene from constituents who want to visit our city parks and other public places but find them occupied by homeless people with nowhere else to go. We’ve also heard a rising chorus of voices from local businesses who find their entryways, parking lots and alleys filled with homeless encampments and littered with garbage and human waste.

We believe it is our duty to listen to their complaints and provide order and safety for constituents. Like many other cities in California, Modesto has a humanitarian and public health crisis where we have more homeless people than emergency shelters and services. We understand that we currently don’t have enough shelters to make an immediate reduction in homeless numbers; however, we believe that we can do a much better job managing this.

According to city staff, Modesto has a total shelter bed capacity of 789 of which 101 are currently available, for a population of approximately 1,800 homeless people. These numbers show that those homeless people we see every day camping in our city parks, sidewalks and along our waterways and businesses have nowhere to go even when they seek out emergency shelters and services.

We believe it is our duty as council members to provide the public safety and order our constituents want and deserve. We also believe the quickest and most cost effective means we have to do this is by implementing policy that permits authorized homeless camping sites. This would work in coordination with the new day center to provide homeless people safe and manageable staging areas where they can receive services and redirect to more permanent shelters and housing options as they become available.

We came onto the Modesto City Council knowing it is our duty to serve our constituents by setting policy and accepting the burden of leadership to provide order in the city we love. We understand our responsibility is to serve the public and provide the policies necessary for city staff so that we can all serve the needs of our constituents as timely and efficiently as possible.

This story was originally published May 17, 2023 at 11:50 AM.