Order Barring Homeless Encampment Sweeps Is Lifted By The 9th Circuit

(PatriotWise.com) — A federal appeals court last Monday overturned a lower court’s injunction that prevented the city of San Francisco from clearing some homeless encampments and confiscating personal property belonging to the people living there.

In its decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals cited the recent Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for cities to enforce statutes banning the homeless from sleeping in outdoor public places.

A US Magistrate Judge in December 2022 granted a temporary injunction preventing the city from clearing encampments set up by homeless people and confiscating their belongings after the city was sued by the Coalition on Homelessness and a group of homeless people in San Francisco.

In its decision reversing the injunction, the appellate court kept in place the portion of the order requiring San Francisco to adhere to a “bag-and-tag” policy to ensure that the homeless cleared from encampments could still reclaim their personal property.

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, who appealed the lower court’s injunction, said the appellate court decision would allow the city “more flexibility” to provide services to the homeless while also maintaining “healthy and safe” streets.

Homeless advocates blasted the decision, arguing that the city’s policy criminalized homelessness and punished people “for being too poor” to afford housing.

Nisha Kashyap from the San Francisco Bay Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which represented the coalition in court, called on the city to increase the number of temporary shelters and provide more affordable housing to address the homeless crisis in San Francisco.

In its initial lawsuit against San Francisco, the Coalition on Homelessness accused the city of violating the civil rights of the homeless and endangering their lives by clearing the encampments. It also claimed that the city was destroying the personal property it seized in violation of the requirement to store confiscated property for 90 days.

The appellate court is expected to issue a mandate and return the case to the District Court sometime in the next few weeks. The temporary injunction will remain in place until that happens.