Refusing shelter will soon be illegal for those living in encampments in unincorporated areas of San Mateo County.
Under a new controversial local law passed this week by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, homeless people who decline two offers of shelter beds, and have been issued two written warnings by law enforcement, will face misdemeanor charges.
The law is set to take effect by the end of February.
The ordinance, introduced by Supervisors Warren Slocum and David Pine, was approved unanimously on the first reading last week. During the final vote this week, however, there was dissent.
District 2 Supervisor Noelia Corzo voted no on the ordinance, citing concerns that charging unhoused people with a misdemeanor would make getting housing or employment more difficult.
“All efforts will be made to ensure that that negative impact doesn’t realize,” Corzo said. “But I just want to elevate this. I may bring something to county staff outside of this ordinance to address this.”
In last week’s board meeting, several residents and advocates spoke out against the ordinance, citing concerns that criminalizing homelessness would have a detrimental – and possibly traumatic – effect on these individuals.
San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe, whose office would handle homelessness cases referred to him by police, said his goal would be “not to incarcerate.”
Instead, the first option would be to offer a “misdemeanor diversion program.”
The diversion program would compel the unhoused person to take the shelter option.
“Usually what this means is, you go into a shelter that’s being offered to you. Only if they fail to comply with the diversion program, that’s when we’d have to consider using that option [filing misdemeanor charges],” Wagstaffe said.
When asked about public concerns over criminalizing homelessness, San Mateo County Attorney John Nibbelin said that the human services department would be the first in line to go to encampments, rather than the police.
“There is a lot of outreach first, and a lot of work will be done by homeless outreach teams first,” Nibbelin said. “You’d have a lot of contact before we reach a point where we’d have to invoke the ordinance.”
Only about 100 of the county’s 1,800 homeless residents – or a little over 5% — live in unincorporated areas of San Mateo County.
Slocum said in a previous statement that he hopes this measure will be a model for other cities within the county.
