By Cathleen Williams, Sacramento Homeward Street Journal
A state bill that would effectively prohibit punishment of homelessness, overriding California municipalities’ ordinances outlawing camping and other survival activities, was introduced in the state Senate on April 23. But most of the provisions protecting the rights of unhoused Californians did not survive its first committee hearing.
Sen. Sasha Renee Perez (D-Pasadena) introduced Senate Bill 634, the Homeless Rights Protection Act. This bill aims to prevent cities from arresting unhoused people for their survival activities while living outside, and also banned criminalization of support services by churches and other organizations to streetside communities. The bill was co-sponsored by powerful statewide social justice organizations, including the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Public Advocates, the Western Center on Law and Poverty, and Disability Rights California.
SB 634 represents a robust response to increased criminalization in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Grants Pass v. Johnson. But to get the bill out of the Local Governments Committee, Perez had to strike parts of the legislation, leaving only the ban on criminal penalties for providing relief services. As the bill advanced on a 4–2 vote to the Judiciary Committee, Perez and her Senate colleagues promised to continue the “difficult conversation” relating to homelessness.
Perez spoke passionately about family members who had been penalized and fined for being homeless. She openly wept at the inhumanity of making survival acts while homeless a crime.
Perez told her personal story, describing how she had lost a cousin to homelessness in a city which had introduced harsh criminalization policies against unhoused people. She said that was a life changing moment. “The people I loved were just forgotten about, and nobody was doing anything or paying attention,” she told the panel. Her cousin’s death while unhoused spurred her to run for office so that she could work “on the front lines.”
SB 634 is just the latest legislative attempt to protect unhoused residents from over-policing, fines, arrests, and jails in the decades-long struggle.
In 2012, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano introduced Assembly Bill 5, which advocates refer to as a “Homeless Bill of Rights,” but the bill didn’t win the approval of a key committee. This occurred again in 2015 to Carol Liu’s SB 608, which promised to enshrine “the right to rest.”
These proposed laws followed years of research and advocacy by allies of unhoused people. The San Francisco-based Western Regional Advocacy Project said that anti-homeless laws follow a historical pattern: They mirror the “shameful vagrancy laws of past eras that targeted people of color, migrants, and people with disabilities.”
The city of Grants Pass, Oregon, stands as a stark example of this legacy. In establishing itself as a “sundown town,” the city advertised itself as a “white man’s town” and prohibited the presence of nonwhite people after sunset for decades.
Advocates launched a renewed campaign for a Homeless Bill of Rights in 2018, advancing the struggle of unhoused people, coordinating their efforts, and building links across the state and nation.
The next step forward was the federal injunction against criminalization in the Martin v. Boise case as cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, decided by the Ninth Circuit in 2018. Significantly, it was the city of Grants Pass that enacted the punitive ordinance at issue in that case, outlawing even the use of blankets for sleeping outside. Last year, the Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit injunction against enforcement of the Grants Pass ordinance against homelessness.
The reversal of the injunction in the renamed Grants Pass v. Johnson case represents a setback in the struggle to protect unhoused people, advocates say. In declaring that such laws do not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment,” the Supreme Court opened the way for increased arrests and punishment of unhoused people.
Despite the vast expense and proven policy failures of criminalization, some California mayors have responded to the reversal of Grants Pass by doubling down on the criminal punishments for unhoused residents. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan recently urged that unhoused people be subject to misdemeanor prosecution if they are found to have refused shelter three times. Lancaster Mayor Rex Parris in northern Los Angeles County called for the Trump administration to “purge” the city of unhoused residents. Fremont briefly enacted an ordinance making it a criminal offense even to “aid and abet” homelessness by providing survival supplies and food.
Sacramento has also shown itself as a case study of the practical effect of the Grants Pass ruling. The Sacramento Bee reported city data showing that it issued 543 citations of unhoused residents August 2023 to December 2024. In the 17 months before that time span, when the injunction was still in effect, the city handed out 30 citations for similar offenses.
Perez highlighted the importance of working against criminalizing homelessness by emphasizing the root causes of homelessness and addressing it as a pressing humanitarian crisis.
Perez emphasized that an effective response to the crisis requires efforts focused on housing, basic services and financial support for unhoused individuals, as well as prevention grant programs. And she condemned as a “troubling trend” the use of punitive fines and jail time against unhoused people, describing the practical consequences of this failed policy, which burdens unhoused people with fines running in the thousands of dollars just for sleeping or sitting in a public space for lack of available shelter.
Perez’s practical familiarity with the trauma of police encampment sweeps was evident in her testimony. She detailed how criminalization contributes to unhoused Californians losing touch with case managers, family and friends, missing work, losing needed income, missing critical health care appointments and losing key property such as identification, birth certificates and other documents needed to access subsidized housing, essential services and public benefits. She added that financial penalties can increase debt, damage credit, and result in bench warrants that result in additional jail time.
“These punitive policies burden unhoused individuals with debt and penalties they cannot afford, pushing them further into poverty rather than helping them escape it,” she said.
Even though it was weakened in committee, SB 634 is part of a deep, gradual political transformation that is beginning at the grassroots level. Despite being introduced with little fanfare, the bill reveals an emerging consensus that is boosting the election of young and dedicated leaders like Perez. According to a poll by Politico and UC Berkeley, two-thirds of voters in California do not support, or are skeptical of, arresting unhoused residents.
The day before SB 634’s first hearing, advocates led nationwide demonstrations on the anniversary of the Grants Pass hearing in the Supreme Court calling for solidarity with unhoused residents and opposition to their criminalization. Given the momentum of homeless advocacy, given that the rents continue to rise and increasing numbers of people continue to be thrust into homelessness, the struggle to protect unhoused residents continues to strengthen and gain ground.
