“Our whole thing is to get compliance,” Morris said. Police have the discretion to recommend an encroachment violation similar to a traffic infraction in terms of severity illegal lodging requires a misdemeanor citation. Morris said there’s another reason police tend to cite people for encroachment more often than illegal lodging. Morris said complaints also drive most enforcement during the day, which is why police may not descend on a sidewalk lined with tents but instead confront a single person in front of a nearby business. Still, he said police rarely enforce this law at night unless there’s a complaint. Most enforcement happens during the day and the city usually has beds to offer up at night if there’s an issue, he said. Morris said those issues rarely present roadblocks. Vincent de Paul Village, and relationships with other providers to ensure it can offer shelter. In other words, police can’t write these tickets if shelters are full. before they can cite or arrest someone for illegal lodging. A legal settlement requires that police must be able to offer an open bed to a person they encounter on the street between 9 p.m. There are more rules tied to illegal lodging enforcement downtown. That’s known as illegal lodging, which bans settling somewhere without permission. Police have another enforcement tool that comes with a higher bar. Wes Morris, who oversees the Central Division’s Quality of Life Team, said it can apply to a homeless person in a tent, vendors who set up tables or any person who’s left items on the sidewalk. Homeless people can be cited for encroachment, which means a person has set her belongings on a sidewalk, alley or other public property. Homelessness itself may not be a crime, but common elements of it can be. Their message was clear: Homeless people have the same constitutional rights as anyone else, and that means working with them to get off the street is the best way to get them off the streets. I talked to attorneys, police officers, experts and activists about what the law allows – and doesn’t allow – and how those laws work in practice on San Diego streets. Yet we hear about homeless San Diegans receiving tickets, getting caught up in encampment sweeps and being ordered to move along though they seemingly have nowhere else to go. “Our society, our Constitution doesn’t allow for people to be arbitrarily told what to do and where to go,” said Eric Tars, senior attorney for the D.C.-based National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. It’s a common refrain among advocates and even the Department of Justice, which said so in an Idaho case last year. Brews & News: Voice of San Diego Live Podcasts.Authorities Can’t Force the Homeless Off the Street.
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