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Is SLO’s vehicle sleeping ban unconstitutional?

June 20, 2014

Cartoon Homeless HomesBy KAREN VELIE

Amid a federal appellate court ruling Thursday that struck down a Los Angeles law that prohibits homeless from sleeping in their vehicles, San Luis Obispo homeless advocates are waiting to see how city officials will respond.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that Los Angeles’ ordinance prohibiting people from using their vehicles as living quarters “opens the door to discriminatory enforcement” against the poor. In addition the court said the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague.

In 2010, Los Angeles officials decided to aggressively enforce the city’s living in a vehicle ban in order to protect public health and safety. The city then started a task force to cite and arrest homeless people sleeping in their RVs and automobiles, according to the ruling.

In response, an attorney filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Los Angeles homeless people claiming the city’s ordinance “criminalizes otherwise innocent behavior.” The federal appellate court agreed.

“This broad and cryptic statute criminalizes innocent behavior, making it impossible for citizens to know how to keep their conduct within the pale,” Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for the court.

The court determined that the Los Angeles’ ordinance was a “convenient tool for harsh and discriminatory enforcement by local prosecuting officials.” In its conclusion, the court noted that Los Angeles has many options at its disposal to alleviate the plight and suffering of its homeless citizens other than enforcement actions.

In the Los Angeles case, four police officers were personally sued for their participation in the unconstitutional treatment of the homeless.

San Luis Obispo

In 2012, attorneys Saro Rizzo and Stew Jenkins filed a lawsuit accusing the city of San Luis Obispo and its chief of police of discrimination, harassment and the criminalization of homeless people. Following a decision by a superior court judge that the city’s treatment of the homeless was unconstitutional, the San Luis Obispo City Council agreed to dismiss all tickets given that year to homeless residents for sleeping in their vehicles.

City Attorney Christine Dietrick responded by recommending the council adopt an ordinance under the health, safety and welfare section of the city’s municipal code, which would specifically allow police to immediately restart its program of ticketing sleeping homeless.

In addition, the police department created a task force to focus on the homeless. The police department then implemented a top ten offender list, which targets those most cited for more police oversight.

Jenkins and Rizzo are analyzing the case to determine its impact on San Luis Obispo’s enforcement practices.


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The ruling is pretty sad, just wait till we have 100 hundreds of vehicles parking in neighborhoods, Laguna lake and etc, most of these people don’t want to work. They go out and hold signs asking for work when there his help wanted ads right near them. You ask them if they want a job and they’re sign says looking for work but really it’s just them asking for money, they turn the heads if you question them. I often go to them to see if they really want to work and they really don’t.


And for the sleeping in the vehicles, we’ll if you want them camping and dumping sewage in your neighborhood in the we hours in the morning, that’s often the case what they do. Besides boozing and camping near Food 4 Less and ARCO, they stishovite near where they can buy beer and then wake the next day hungover in front of these business for the next same agenda.


I suggest parking permits in all the commercial districts in town, that will keep them out


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lol, yes the sky is falling. There weren’t “100 hundreds” (does that mean 10,000?) of vehicles parking in neighborhoods before the ordinance, so why would this happen if it gets repealed?


If you don’t like panhandlers, then make that illegal. Outlawing sleeping in your car won’t stop panhandling, because they will just sleep elsewhere and drive into SLO for the easy pickings of tourists ready to give them a handout. Similarly, boozing and dumping sewage which you complain about are already illegal – apparently the existing laws are not enforced!


Just wait until someone falls asleep while driving and then sues the city claiming they would have pulled over and rested but didn’t want to get fined by the SLO gestapo. I’d much rather have a tired (or intoxicated!) driver sleeping it off in their car in front of my house then driving on the road where they might kill innocent people.


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I will say this – the City of San Luis Obispo obviously and routinely gets piss poor legal advice from our attorney. How many times can this “lawyer” give unsound legal advice, cost the City and us tax payers money before council pulls their head out of the proverbial ass, can you answer that question Ashbaugh and Marx. Or are you simply so blind and captivated by the sound of your own clapping that you can’t see the forest through the trees.


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Could not agree more. The Council keeps her around because she says YES to whatever the Council wants to do. She has no backbone. . She is afraid to tell the Council “NO you cant do that that its illegal” because then the Council will fire her like they did our lawyer in MB when he told our Council “NO you cant do that its illegal. Remember Irons wife works with your lawyer. Its disgusting what elected officials do.


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QUOTING WINEGUYJC: “How many times can this “lawyer” give unsound legal advice…”


As long as the legal advice is what the Mayor/City Council want to hear, the city attorney can give unsound legal advice whenever the Mayor/City Council need it.


Indeed, the City Attorney’s job depends on keeping the Mayor and City Council happy, and advice that the Mayor/City Council are setting themselves up for litigation doesn’t exactly make them happy.


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Like a good hooker, some lawyers will simply prostitute themselves. The only difference, with the hooker you leave with a smile


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I have been homeless. It was the most emotionally ravaging and gut wrenching situation one could imagine. I had decided to go back to school and was renting a place in SLO, and also had two sons in college in LA (one in law school at UCLA$). Money at that certain point in time was TIGHT (and that is putting it mildly). Sure, I knew the apartment was probably sub-standard, but what happened next blew me away…


The city showed up and they declared the property “unsafe to occupy”. Overnight, I was living in my car (and trying to support my sons in their endeavors while doing an undergraduate degree myself). I did not want them upset, and so….here I was, a middle aged woman who had done nothing wrong (I don’t even smoke, drink and do not use drugs). Suddenly, no one wanted to look me in the eye. I was an outcast. Sleep was fragmented and life was scary. When the cops told me to move on, I sometimes found a Denny’s parking lot and just sat there and cried my heart out. I was homeless, and no one in the world seemed to care.


I am now doing my master’s degree, have a place again, my son graduated from law school in May, and yet, I have not forgotten. Forgotten that we are all humans who deserve to feel that others care. Suddenly, when you need others the most-you become like a plague to society—something they don’t want to look at. A valuable spiritual experience. Everyone should try it–I will bet you will see things from a new angle.


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John Steinbeck, in “The Grapes of Wrath”,

“If you’re in trouble, or hurt or need – Go to the poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones “.


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I’m surprised that Marx and the crew at CAPSLO have not suggested the following:


First forget about building that ludicrous new CAPSLO Super Center money pit. Instead, just pave over all of their new lot on Prado to allow free parking for the homeless.


This new parking lot (PARKSLO) will feature a nice row of porta-crappers (serviced monthly), some dumpsters (which will no doubt be used as “efficiency units” by some), hygiene stations (similar to fish scaling stations at many lakes/piers), free high speed Internet access and individual music/heater hook-ups like they used to have at drive-ins. In fact, PARKSLO will have its own screen to match neighboring Sunset Drive-In.


If a homeless person does not have a vehicle, PARKSLO will provide one for them (sans drive train) for simply signing over their welfare checks each month. PARKSLO will run a contest urging citizens to turn their “clunkers into condos” for the less fortunate.


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Court Ruling Brings Into Question San Luis Obispo Homeless Sleeping Ban – The KEYT interview with SLO Attorney Stewart Jenkins:


http://m.keyt.com/news/court-ruling-brings-into-question-san-luis-obispo-homeless-sleeping-ban/26597138


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Compassion and Patriotism : Will SLO join the bandwagon?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoyS0oCeju8&sns=em


An estimated 55,000 female US veterans are now homeless and asking why the country they served is no longer looking after them.


The City of San Luis Obispo / Homeless Foundation / CAPSLO can help ease homelessness nationwide by allowing people to reside overnight in their vehicles, in designated areas, while they struggle to rebuild their lives.


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Because it is not the job of a country to look after people.


You serve, you’re paid, you get benefits scaled with your service. The rest is up to the individual. Rather than ask why “the country” is not helping, ask why YOU are not. Who’s sister, mother, daughter, cousin, etc. are these homeless US veteran women? (and men, for that matter)?


It is far too easy to say, “I pay taxes, someone should do something” — where, of course, that “someone” is not you or me. Here’s going even one step further: why do we have so many homeless? How about instead of building new shelters and coming up with new “programs” we actually try to correct the CAUSE and not they SYMPTOMS?


Where are the open-panel, national discussion on that? Should not the country provide only the OPPORTUNITY for one to help themselves, lest people become lackadaisical and not wish to help themselves any longer? Understand, there will always be people who slip through the cracks, but we seem overly focused on preventing any slipping whatsoever, and in doing so, completely lose focus on the more important causes.


We need a stronger economy. Period. I don’t even remember the late 70’s being this bad (apart from the lines at the gas stations, which was more of a manufactured stunt than anything else). We need to create more opportunities for more entrepreneurs and stop with the corporate welfare that Obama seems so keen on. Even Bush wasn’t this bad (but at least he was criticized for it).


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r0y: Sometimes you write with a fair amount of clarity and really make a point; this isn’t one of them.


“We need a stronger economy. Period.” … “We need to create more opportunities for more entrepreneurs and stop the corporate welfare that Obama seems so keen on. Even Bush wasn’t this bad …. ”


While one can rightfully criticize both Democrats and Republicans for inaction on jobs and kissing the butt of big business, the reality is that enacting any legislation to address job creation or ending corporate welfare has to start in the House of Representatives. During six of Bush’s eight years in office, he had a very compliant House to enact whatever his administration pushed for. Obama had a Democratic House for two years, yes, but the Senate was held hostage for all but about 71 days during that time, and that is when the ACA was passed. He should have done more on job creation, more on corporate welfare reform, but he was still in his “play nice with the minority party (the Republicans)” mode.


You want to see more done on a stronger economy? Contact the Republicans in the House and get them to focus on doing something other than trying to repeal the ACA for the fiftieth time.


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“Because it is not the job of a country to look after people.”


Oh yeah ?

Preamble to the U.S. Constitution:

“We the people of the United States, in Order to for a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense,

PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE,

and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America “.


After the Allies defeated the Germans and the Japanese in WWII, the U.S. insisted on provisos in those reformed nations constitutions that stipulate responsibilities of those governments TO ‘look after their people’ as you so blithely put it, including health care.


Cause and symptom are ONE, when the apathetic and willfully uninformed provide the Opportunity for the strong and cruel to exploit the weak and needy.


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Ironically, you quote the preamble as evidence the government needs to provide, yet if you re-read it carefully, it states: we the people (not the government). It’s ok, that point is often missed by many.


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Of course, the counter-point would be the argument that the government is the people / the people are the government. I’d then go into “Corporations are people, too” and we’d go down that path.


I get what you’re saying, and it does make us feel good to know that “someone” is doing “something” for “those people” – but it really is just rhetoric at this point.


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“Ironically, you quote the preamble as evidence the government needs to provide, yet if you re-read it carefully, it states: we the people (not the government).”

“Of course, the counter-point would be the argument that the government is the people / the people are the government.”


I think Lincoln explained that better than anyone.


The patently absurd notion ( despite what the current SCOTUS has pretzel-twisted with illogic ) that says corporations are equal to people is preposterous on its face.

“People” do not need a Charter in order to exist as a quasi-legal invention.


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corporate welfare that Obama seems so keen on

desperation brings out the progressive rhetoric eh.


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That’s not progressive rhetoric. That is old-fashioned, pre-progressive takeover, liberal rhetoric. And they’re correct on it. Ironically, it was just as much a democrat problem as it was a republican. Companies will pay whoever is in power the most, and whoever is runner-up, the second most (thus, covering their bases).


The corporate welfare, as decried by the left, is usually only used to undermine “the other political party” – nothing more. The right, rarely mentions it at all. Both are fools on this point. The way the progressive tax code has so devolved into what it is, is where the real corporate welfare comes from, plain and simple; but that is a topic for another time.


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So they arrest or cite people attempting to remain quietly off the radar, while allowing FREE PASS to thugs who ride vicious modified or removed exhaust motorcycles, frightening people from their sleep, waking babies, and contributing to noise pollution and premature death (this per the US CDC in Atlanta).


Thug bikes come quiet from the factory (all match the same noise standard as a Toyota Camry), it is illegal under federal (40 CFR 205) and state (27150 VC, 415(b) PC) law to modify them ONE BIT louder, and to harass therewith, but most agencies do NOTHING.


No one has publicly rescinded the previous chief of SLOPD 2011 memo to council that officially states noisy cycle enforcement is too complex for her and her SLOPD officers.


But they have resources to screw with the much less noisy homeless.


Typical lazy and deficient priorities. Pick up the phone, people. Tell City Hall and BOS what you think. They adore a complacent public.


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You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Homeless Zone!

WELCOME TO SLO


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Good one


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i hope all the advocates give out the addresses so homeless people living in cars can park in front of their houses. !! what about sanitation?


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How about just the addresses of Ms. Dietrick, Ms. Marx, and Ms. Lichtig, oh wait a minute Ms. Lichtig doesn’t live in San Luis Obispo, the city she manages.


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I think the addresses of the City and County policy makers should be the ones whose addresses are given out. Let them get a good look at what their own financial of support of the likes of Biz Steinberg, Dee Torres, and their County Supervisor supporters has produced for the city and county.


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