What Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order to clear homeless encampments means for the people who live in them

Los Angeles (CNN) — After California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a directive ordering state officials to take down homeless encampments, John Janosko returned to a dead-end street in Oakland where he once lived for years in one of the state’s largest camps.

Longtime residents of the makeshift shelters at the sprawling Wood Street encampment have largely moved on since state and local officials razed it more than a year ago. Some ended up in tiny cabins provided by the city. A handful, like Janosko, have recently secured permanent housing with the help of nonprofits.

But many of the 200 or so regulars remain unhoused, according to Janosko. They sleep in cars, RVs and handmade dwellings erected behind a Target store up the road and other parts of West Oakland.

“The sad thing is most people on the street I came across don’t even understand,” the governor’s directive, said Janosko, 55, a chef and caterer before losing his apartment and ending up on the street for a decade. “It’s just somebody saying they’re going to make their lives even harder. It’s a hammer on the head day in and day out.”

The mallet dropped again on Thursday when the Democratic governor of the state with the nation’s largest homeless population ordered officials to begin dismantling thousands of encampments. The move came after the US Supreme Court ruled last month in favor of an Oregon city that ticketed homeless people for sleeping outside. The ruling rejected arguments that such “anti-camping” ordinances violated the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment.

“There are simply no more excuses. It’s time for everyone to do their part,” said Newsom, directing state agencies to “adopt humane and dignified policies” and “move urgently to address dangerous encampments while supporting and assisting the individuals living in them.”

Homeless advocates and some elected officials immediately voiced outrage, saying the crackdown – without providing adequate shelter and other services – would simply move people to other areas in a state where the cost of living is high and the number of shelter beds limited.

“Governor Newsom, where do you expect people to go? This is a shameful moment in California history,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the parent organization of the Housing is a Human Right initiative, accusing the governor of “criminalizing poverty” and “doubling down on failed policies.”

California has the largest homeless population in the nation, with more than 180,000 of the estimated 653,000 people experiencing homelessness nationwide residing in the Golden State, according to a 2023 report to Congress from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

An estimated 653,100 people were experiencing homelessness nationwide – a jump of around 12% since 2022, according to the report.

“A lot of my friends out there just sort of just shake their heads, like, ‘OK, well, how do I get through my next hour? How am I going to eat, you know? How am I going to get high or whatever it might be?’” Janosko said.

“It’s like, OK, I’m going to lose all my sh*t again. Nobody gives a f**k about us. You get so used to the sweeps. People are so beat down. What can they do?”

‘Where are they going to go?’

A point-in-time count taken in January 2023 found California had 71,131 shelter beds for an estimated 181,399 people experiencing homelessness – a deficit of more than 110,000 beds, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

At a time when many large American cities are closely watching California as they too struggle with burgeoning homelessness, the Golden State is locked in a desperate grapple with mushrooming encampments despite pouring billions of dollars into housing programs.

California has spent more than $30 billion on housing-related programs in recent years as the annual growth of its homeless population outpaces that of any other state in the nation.

“It’s kind of putting the cart before the horse and you can’t really resolve the underlying issue, which is homelessness, by doing encampment resolutions,” said Sarah Hunter, director of the Rand Center on Housing and Homelessness. “It’s kind of backward just to try to move people … Where are they going to go? We should be building enough resources to place these people before we try to move them around.”

Hunter is a co-author of a new Rand Corp. study which found encampment clearing efforts in Los Angeles had no long-term effect on the number of people on the streets.

The researchers looked at camp cleanups in Venice, Hollywood and Skid Row in Los Angeles and “observed temporary declines in the unsheltered population that lasted two to three months on average” before returning to previous levels, according to the study.

In Venice, for instance, encampment removals meant “the share of unhoused people living literally unsheltered (e.g., without a tent) increased from 20 percent to 46 percent,” the study said.

“It’s just going to be kind of where there’s enforcement, people won’t be there and where there’s less enforcement or no enforcement, that’s where people will be because we haven’t yet solved the underlying crises, which is having enough health and social support along with actual housing for these people to go,” Hunter told CNN.

Involuntary displacements from encampments, Hunter said, “can substantially increase morbidity and mortality” among the homeless and “increased costs to society through hospitalizations.”

“This is probably not the most cost-effective approach that we could be using,” she said of the crackdowns.

Researchers at Boston and Cornell universities, in a policy brief last year, said “punitive policing strategies” such as encampment removals “do not reduce or end homelessness.”

“Such strategies often worsen homelessness. For example, fines and fees make it harder to access employment and social services; in some cases criminal charges impact peoples’ eligibility for existing social services and housing programs,” the researchers said.

“Property confiscation during encampment clearance may come at the expense of documents that are essential for obtaining housing, employment, insurance, like birth certificates and identification,” they added, noting a link between criminal arrests and cycles of homelessness.

Newsom’s order directs, but does not mandate, agencies and departments to adopt “policies and plans consistent” with the existing encampment policy of the state Department of Transportation (Caltrans).

Caltrans will provide “advance notice of clearance and works with local service providers to support those experiencing homelessness at the encampment, and stores personal property collected at the site” for at least 60 days, Newsom’s office said.

Janosko, in Oakland, is doubtful.

“You go out there to any homeless encampment or any homeless person in America, especially in California, you ask them, ‘Were you able to go retrieve any of your stuff?’ No. They take everything and throw it in a dumpster,” he said.

Newsom’s order encourages local governments to use some state funds for housing and intervention programs to remove encampments, prioritizing those that pose the greatest danger to people living in and around them.

Janosko, referring to the crackdown, said: “It’s a cleanup tactic where the voters live and where the voters shop … I know people out there, their voices aren’t being heard. I was lucky enough to have a strong support system. I’m in a better position now to amplify the voices of the unheard.”

‘We’re still people like you’

Late last month, the results of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s point-in-time count – conducted in January – showed the homeless population in Los Angeles had dropped for the first time in six years. It showed overall homelessness and in particular unsheltered homelessness was down in both Los Angeles County and the city. According to the count, homelessness was down 2.2% in the Los Angeles and 0.27% in the county.

Still, there were 45,253 homeless people counted in the city and 75,312 people unhoused in the county, the authority reported.

“For the first time in years, unsheltered homelessness has decreased in Los Angeles because of a comprehensive approach that leads with housing and services, not criminalization,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Thursday. “Strategies that just move people along from one neighborhood to the next or give citations instead of housing do not work.”

An audit by Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia found the number of interim housing beds in the city last year was about 16,000 for an unhoused population nearly three times that size.

On Friday, a sweltering 90-degree day in Los Angeles, a soft spoken 52-year-old homeless man who only gave his first name – Jonathan – sought shade under a billowing sheet tethered to an old bed frame.

“If the Governor says go, I will. But I don’t know how it’s going to work,” said Jonathan, whose decades living on the street included a stay at a transitional housing shelter he found too controlling.

Several miles away, in Griffith Park, a woman named Sha was lying under the shade of a tree with another homeless friend. She said she has been on the street five years. She grew frustrated speaking about the temporary shelter where she’s staying with her cat as she struggles to find permanent housing.

Her message to Newsom: “What are you planning on doing with people? We’re people. We’re still people like you… But without a stable foundation.”

‘A beautiful little place’

In Oakland, more than 370 miles north, Janosko said he had been living in a small cabin for two people since the city in 2023 dismantled the sprawling Wood Street camp that stood beneath Interstate 880. In March, he said, he signed a lease for his own apartment, a small one-bedroom in East Oakland.

“It’s a beautiful little place,” said Janosko, who has battled drug addiction for years. “I love it.”

But, Janosko said, he is haunted by guilt over finally having his own place coupled with the trauma of eviction.

“I just wish that everybody else could be able to have that security in their lives,” he said. “And I’m so used to living in a space where I have access to all my friends. The daily struggle on the ground is a little bit different than a daily struggle living in an apartment, you know, on the second floor.”

Janosko fears a wave of encampment raids will only worsen homelessness in the state.

“Every time that you like regain a tent and maybe some blankets and a couple of outfits and just get enough stuff around you to start to really feel – I’m not going to say normal – like you have a safety zone, it’s gone,” he said.

“Even though it’s a tent and a few things, as soon as you get to that point, in that moment, it’s wiped out again… Nobody’s asking the question. The voters, the people. Where are the people going? If they’re not in my neighborhood now, then whose neighborhood are they going to if you don’t have enough shelter beds in your city?”

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CNN’s Rachel Ramirez, Natasha Chen and Cheri Mossurg contributed to this story.