Unanimous City Council Hands Police New Powers to Crack Down on Public Encampments, Despite Lack of Affordable Housing

Leaders claim compassion while embracing conservative Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to punish unhoused even if no shelter is available; Martinez affordable housing drought continued in 2023

Leveraging a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority that has been embraced by California’s liberal governor but decried by advocates for the unhoused, the Martinez City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved an urgency ordinance giving the police expanded powers to crack down on public encampments.

Although Martinez does not appear to be currently grappling with any large-scale encampments, the City Council decided to take advantage of the new powers granted local governments by the June Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson to stop the unhoused from sleeping in public areas even if there is no shelter available to them.

In approving the ordinance, council members and staff claimed that Martinez is a compassionate community that has addressed, and will continue to, the issues facing the unhoused in a humane way — despite the fact the city has an abysmal record in creating low-income housing, the lack of which many experts and advocates for the unhoused have cited as a primary driver of the homelessness crisis.

In fact, a 2023 Contra Costa County Civil Grand Jury Report found that Martinez was the only city in the county that met zero percent of its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) targets in the very-low, low- and moderate-income categories from 2015-2020. All 88 housing permits issued in Martinez during this period were for “above moderate income” homes.

In February 2023, Martinez was among 11 Bay Area jurisdictions sued by a group of pro-housing nonprofits that said at the time they were targeting cities with “a long history of exclusionary housing practices, cities that adopted housing elements unlawfully, and localities that have made little progress in developing their draft housing elements.”

Although Martinez has since settled the suit by adopting a housing element, it continues to fight the California Housing Defense Fund in court over attorneys’ fees and court costs.

A recent comprehensive study by UC San Francisco on the unhoused in California found that “high housing costs and low income left participants vulnerable to homelessness.” Its top policy recommendation was to “increase access to housing affordable to extremely low income households.”

That has yet to happen in Martinez, where political priorities have focused over the past few years on issues such as reviving the waterfront and marina, spurring business activity, addressing the fallout from refinery incidents, and solving a staffing crisis at City Hall.

The state Department of Housing and Conservation Development’s Housing Element dashboard shows that in 2023, all 90 housing units completed in Martinez were categorized as “above moderate income.” All 88 units that received permits for construction were also categorized as "above moderate income.”

After Wednesday’s vote, the issue of lack of housing will no longer be a barrier to the city citing and potentially arresting residents who sleep in public spaces. Previously, the Martinez Municipal Code allowed the city to cite people for camping in public spaces between the hours of 11 p.m. and 8:30 a.m. only if (1) they had been informed of the whereabouts of homeless shelters within Contra Costa County, (2) shelter was available, and (3) they refused to stay in the shelter.

The urgency ordinance lifts those restrictions, which had been required under a previous ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that said arresting or removing people who have nowhere to go amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment.” In the Grants Pass case, the Supreme Court’s conservative justices (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett) overturned the lower court ruling, paving the way for cities such as Martinez to remove the unhoused without a guarantee of shelter elsewhere. The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayer, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.

Despite the clear conservative-liberal split among the justices, the ruling has divided liberal politicians in California, with Gov. Gavin Newsom welcoming the new flexibility for cities to clear nuisance encampments (and issuing an executive order urging them to do just that) and others such as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass slamming the decision as an excuse for cities to try to arrest themselves out of the homelessness crisis.

Although all five Martinez council members generally espouse progressive political positions, they, like Newsom, lined up solidly behind the conservative Supreme Court majority and the new powers it granted them to “protect health, safety and welfare.”

Among the provisions in the revised ordinance is a prohibition on sitting, sleeping or lying in public or private right-of-ways or the storing of property in these places, with certain exceptions such as emergencies and parades (presumably allowing the unhoused to occupy such spaces during the annual Fourth of July parade but not before or after).

The new ordinance also repeals a previous provision prohibiting people from sleeping in their cars.

“This is not a be-all, end-all solution to dealing with people being unhoused in the community and the issues that come along with that,” police Chief Andrew White told the council in explaining the ordinance, noting “supportive” programs such as the county’s Coordinated Outreach Referral, Engagement (CORE) program and a weekly community showers program.

White went on to tell the council that he believes the new ordinance strikes “a balance in terms of compassion but also ensuring we have regulations and rules that people know they need to follow,” adding that it responds to the concerns raised in recent years by residents and businesses about the unhoused situation.

In her public comment, however, former Councilwoman Noralea Gipner, a longtime advocate for and supporter of the unhoused, said agencies like CORE lack the resources to adequately address the magnitude of the problem.

“I was very successful getting people into housing, programs, off of drugs,” she said. “You think CORE is going to solve your problem? Well, they don’t have the services to offer. They don’t have the housing; they don’t have the shelters. We’re filled up.

“So unless we solve that problem, all we’re doing is kicking people again from side to side, up and down, and throwing away stuff I have to replace.”

(I also spoke during public comment, opposing the new ordinance. I do not report my own comments at public meetings in these newsletter posts, but for anyone interested, they can be viewed at around the 1-hour, 47-minute mark of the meeting video).

Mayor Brianne Zorn asked White to report back in 90 days any actions that have been taken under the expanded powers of the new ordinance.

Among the harshest critics of the Grants Pass decision has been the American Civil Liberties Union, which said the ruling “continues in the shameful tradition of choosing to remove unhoused people from public view rather than provide our community members with what they actually need: affordable housing.”

While council members joined White in emphasizing the services they have worked to provide the unhoused and the compassion they believe they have brought to the issue, there was little acknowledgment of the city’s continued failure to make progress on bringing affordable housing to town. To the degree that the lack of housing was discussed, council members framed it as one element of a multi-faceted problem that includes substance abuse, mental illness and resistance among some of the unhoused to accessing public services — issues Gipner also raised during her public comment, noting that homeless residents often don’t want housing.

But the UCSF study indicated that the factors are often interrelated, with a lack of affordable housing at the core. For most of the participants in the study, “the cost of housing had simply become unsustainable,” researchers noted, adding that “most believed that either rental subsidies or one-time financial help would have prevented their homelessness.”

And while the notion persists that mental illness or substance abuse is often the root cause of homelessness, participants in the study “noted how the stresses of homelessness exacerbated their mental health symptoms.”

“Even if the cause of homelessness was multifactorial, participants believed financial support could have prevented it,” the study found.

Despite the scope of the problem, affordable housing has not emerged as a major topic of interest or discussion during Martinez election campaigns or at council meetings not focused on the state-mandated housing element. There has been limited public advocacy for housing growth to address the crisis, with the exception of the pastor and some congregants at Grace Episcopal Church (I also have spoken regularly at council meetings on the topic).

In contrast, the prominent local political action committee Thousand Friends of Martinez has been a vocal advocate for open space initiatives and wary of development. Last year, it routinely questioned or criticized in its newsletter provisions of Martinez’s draft housing element designed to facilitate housing growth, as well as efforts at the state level to curtail local control over the issue — efforts that resulted from years of inaction by local jurisdictions such as Martinez in producing sufficient housing in the face of anti-development sentiment.

As an example, in a section of one newsletter last year titled “Our Take on the Housing Element,” Thousand Friends warned that the document “will have a significant effect on the physical nature of our town” and that it would “cost the City potentially significant money to fund numerous programs the City Council can authorize.” It also cited specific pages of the housing element where residents could find maps showing where new housing could be located. “Check for your neighborhood; around your schools, church, etc.; Downtown,” Thousand Friends instructed its members.

In the same newsletter, the group singled out for criticism the type of housing that experts say cities such as Martinez need most to address the homelessness crisis, saying: “Low- and moderate-income housing can actually cost the City money. This is especially problematic when the land being proposed could be used for high revenue sources such as biotech or modern, high-tech manufacturing.” There were no examples given of any biotech or high-tech manufacturers that have expressed interest in locating in Martinez.

There also was no mention of the human and financial costs of the housing affordability crisis for the city, including providing services to those who lack shelter and abating encampments; the loss of tax revenues from residents who have left the city because of high housing costs; the loss of school funding from falling enrollment; and growing employee compensation costs needed to recruit and hire staff that can afford to live here.

Thousand Friends’ criticism during the crafting of the Martinez Housing Element appeared to have little impact on the final document, however, as the city was largely constrained by state mandates and litigation by pro-affordable housing nonprofits, and the City Council largely signed off on the plan developed by city planners and approved by the Planning Commission.

Thousand Friends was a major supporter of Zorn’s successful mayoral campaign in 2022 and is now working hard to elect Dylan Radke in November to fill the seat currently occupied Mark Ross, who cannot run again because of redistricting. The only mention of housing among Radke’s top priorities on his campaign website is to provide “residential development while ensuring that it fits with the community.” Thousand Friends in the past has expressed concerns “about plans that increase density in our downtown and lead to stark changes in the character of our community.”

For his part, Ross said during Wednesday’s discussion that he “totally” agreed with Chief White that “we are a compassionate town, and this (ordinance) is a mindful approach.” Ross, a Realtor whose 28-year tenure on the council has coincided with the housing affordability and homelessness crises, acknowledged that the problem is “housing, to some degree.”

Data from last year’s civil grand jury report showed that from 1999 to 2020, Martinez permitted a grand total of 48 housing units categorized for very low-income residents, out of a total RHNA target of 633 such units during that period. Martinez is expected to create 350 units of very low-income housing during the 2023-2031 housing element cycle; it created none in the first year.

Councilman Satinder Malhi, who has often been the council’s most vocal advocate for progress on affordable housing and is running unopposed to retain his seat in November, insisted during Wednesday’s discussion that the issue is a top priority at City Hall, and emphasized the need for the city to “move more expeditiously to provide more housing opportunities for all members of our community.”

That priority, however, wasn’t reflected in the only recent public statement that the city has made on housing, in which it celebrated a “record-breaking year for property values,” boasting that the city saw the biggest percentage increase of any city in Contra Costa County this year.

The Aug. 12 announcement, which remains featured prominently on the city’s website, made no mention of the affordable housing crisis or any efforts at City Hall to address it. But it did go on to highlight “a remarkable three-year run, with property values increasing a combined 17.6% from 2021 to 2024.” It portrayed the increase as “welcome news for a community with ambitious plans for the future.”

Not everyone is welcoming the continuing surge in home values, however. Martinez Unified School District officials have increasingly cited high housing costs for the district’s steep drop in enrollment in recent years, which has resulted in significant budget shortfalls and struggles to hire and retain quality educators. The school board recently adopted a resolution directing the superintendent to explore using surplus district properties for workforce housing, saying the current situation is hampering its ability to hire the educators that it needs to provide programs “to benefit the students living within the district’s boundaries.”

Also, a recent letter to school district Superintendent Helen Rossi from Contra Costa County Office of Education Superintendent Lynn Mackey regarding MUSD’s budget expressed concern over rising operational costs and depletion of budget reserves, and recommended that the district develop a “long-term financial plan to boost enrollment and ADA (average daily attendance).” Although enrollment has recently shown signs of stabilizing, a major boost will be difficult to achieve as long as families continue to struggle to find affordable housing in Martinez.

Thousand Friends is hosting an election forum on Oct. 1 in which Rossi is expected to discuss the school district’s school construction bond, Measure O, on the November ballot. The forum is also expected to include Radke, county supervisor candidate Mike Barbanica and school board candidate Logan Campbell, all of whom the group has endorsed.

The City Council did take up a discussion about housing later in Wednesday’s meeting, though it had nothing to do with finding shelter for the unhoused who now risk being cited or arrested even if they have no place to go. During a presentation by PBF’s Martinez Refining Co. updating the council on its operations and safety improvements, refinery officials noted that it will be receiving an influx of out-of-town contractors to work on a unit “turnaround” project next year and asked for the city’s assistance in connecting them with housing opportunities.

Council members expressed support for such a collaboration.

“I’d really like to see a new hotel so that we can welcome more visitors and guests to our beautiful town, and have sufficient facilities to be able to house everyone that is visiting here on a short-term basis,” Malhi said.

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