Mayor Tom Bates’ proposal last month to expand services for Berkeley’s panhandlers and homeless population while also increasing police enforcement is not yet out of the drafting room, but opponents are already girding for battle.
While preliminary portions of Bates’ Public Commons for Everyone Initiative will not be available until early May and drafts for the most controversial portion--possible changes to ordinances governing the city’s sidewalks--may not emerge until much later, advocates for the city’s homeless have already begun lobbying the council and organizing group members.
"We’re mobilizing for a major struggle here," said Michael Diehl, a homeless-rights advocate.
Diehl and others compare Bates’ proposal to expand diversion services for those on Berkeley’s streets, increase street cleaning, create marketing campaigns and beef up
ordinances governing street behavior to one passed by voters more than a decade ago and later overturned after a lengthy battle.
In 1994, Berkeley voters passed Measure O, an advisory initiative sponsored by the City Council that called for expansion of services for the city’s homeless population and substance abusers, redesign of a public donations program, establishment of a guide program to educate homeless people of regulations and city services, and enactment of a pair of ordinances governing behavior on city streets.
As with the current debate, it was the enforcement aspects that sparked an impassioned outcry from advocates for the homeless. And like today, council members in favor of the proposal, business organizations and treatment groups lauded the proposal as a compassionate response to the city’s homeless population.
Dubbed the sit-lie ban and the aggressive panhandling ban, the two previous ordinances prohibited, with some exceptions, sitting or lying on any public sidewalk within six feet of a commercial building in the city and made it illegal to solicit money within the same zone as well as from people entering or leaving their cars, after dark or within 10 feet of an ATM.
But three months after Measure O passed, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California filed a lawsuit challenging the ordinances on behalf of the Berkeley Free Clinic, Berkeley Copwatch and other parties.
The case would make its way through the legal process until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in October 1996 that a similar sit-lie ban in Seattle was constitutional. That ruling could prove important in any future legal proceedings, both sides say.
Despite the ruling, in April 1997, after a change in the political makeup of the council, the case was withdrawn in return for a complete repeal of the sit-lie ban, removal of all but the ATM provision of the panhandling law and payment of $115,000 in legal fees.
Today, Measure O’s physical legacy is the wide-ranging expansion of services for homeless residents of the city.
In addition to creating or expanding four drop-in centers across the city, the measure created a detox center that uses acupuncture and funded both a city guide program and a short-lived public donations program, according to Jane Micallef, housing and homeless services manager with the city’s housing department.
Bates’ current proposal is largely composed of suggestions for further expansion of services, and his office emphasizes that the proposal is "not intended to be a crackdown. But, without offering specifics, it says a new approach is needed.
"What we’re doing now is not working as well as it needs to work," said Cisco DeVries, Bates’ chief of staff. "The mayor believes that enforcement has to be a part of it."
Citations for violations of city codes governing street behavior--such as lying on sidewalks and urinating in public--are not officially tracked by the Berkeley Police Department, but in general there are fewer than two a month, said Berkeley police Officer Ed Galvan.
"Usually we try to work out other measures for compliance with people," he said. "Some of those ordinances are there as a last resort."
The cities of Santa Cruz and Palo Alto have each passed ordinances with language similar to Measure O, and Portland is currently considering a similar draft. All three are mentioned as models for Berkeley in Bates’ proposals.
Another lawsuit is possible if such rules are passed, said Jim Chanin, an attorney who was involved in the 1995 case against Measure O and a member of ACLU Northern California.
"If they were to prohibit anyone from being on the sidewalk, from being grungy, we would definitely sue. If they said they were going to enforce the existing laws, then we would not sue," he said. "But I don’t know what they’re going to pass."
Michael Kay covers city government. Contact him at mkay@dailycal.org. |
