San Diego police were seen sweeping a homeless encampment in downtown Monday morning, a week before the official Unsafe Camping Ordinance begins. Here's what a city spokesperson told NBC 7.
The ordinance prohibits camping within a two-block radius of schools and homeless shelters, public parks, canyons and riverbeds — regardless of shelter bed capacity. It would also ban camping on sidewalks across the city if there is enough shelter capacity for police to move people from encampments to an alternative location.
The city also has plans to open an additional safe sleeping parking lot at the"O Lot" near the Naval Medical Center at Balboa. That parking lot, which is set to open in the fall, has the capacity to shelter 400 people. While the city has taken steps to increase shelter capacity, there are also temporary homeless shelters — like Golden Hall —.
"These folks, they're just not going to disappear, they're just going to move to another block in front of somebody else's home or business. Meanwhile, we’re spending a great deal of public safety resources dealing with this instead of actually dealing with other real crimes," McConnell said. Proponents of the ordinance say it's necessary for the safety of the people who live in the encampments who are at risk of contracting illnesses and being hit by vehicles, and for residents and business owners who live and work around the encampments and often have to walk past drug activity and obstacles in the roadways and sidewalks to get to their jobs or homes.
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