Sacramento's chief prosecutor Thien Ho has upped the ante in his court fight with social justice activists over whether the city of Sacramento should be forced to take action to enforce public safety policies and reclaim the city's public spaces from homeless encampments.
On Dec. 5, Ho amended his three-month lawsuit, now asserting the city's inability to address the societal ills allegedly caused by the city's burgeoning homeless population also threatens the health and safety of Sacramento's water supply and waterways.
"There are more unhoused people in Sacramento than San Francisco," Ho said. "Our community is at a breaking point. We have an unhoused population living in conditions typical of Third World countries and the rest of the community stuck between compassion and chaos."
Brendan Begley
| https://weintraub.com
In the new filing, Ho asserts the city's refusal to remove homeless encampments along rivers and streams in Sacramento has allowed immense amounts of otherwise illegal pollution to flow into the waterways, harming the ecosystem the state put laws into place to protect.
"When left on the banks of the waterways the debris, refuse, and waste (from homeless encampments,) can and does pass into the waters of the State," Ho wrote in his amended complaint. "The City of Sacramento has allowed these unhoused zones to exist for years without removing the occupants, providing any form of sanitation for the camps, or providing cleanup of the City property inundated by the wastes created by the zones.
"By allowing these zones to exist on City property without any effort at minimizing or eliminating the camps or the waste generated by them, the City is allowing and permitting garbage, refuse, and waste, and substances deleterious to aquatic life to be deposited into and allowing it to be placed where it may pass into waters of the State."
Ho first filed suit in September, alleging the city's refusal to attempt to address the homeless encampments amounted to a public nuisance. He is seeking a court order forcing the city to abate the nuisances caused by the camps.
The lawsuit notes that Sacramento's homeless population has surged by 250% in the past seven years, and by 67 percent just since 2019.
In addition to that civil action filed earlier this fall, Sacramento County District Attorney Ho has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court that urges the high court to grant review of the decision by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals inJohnson v. City of Grants Pass. That case, from Oregon, concerns the clearing of homeless camps and whether such action conflicts with Eighth Amendment protections on cruel and unusual punishment.
The brief is just one of many filed urging the U.S. Supreme Court to undo the Ninth Circuit's rulings. California Gov. Gavin Newsom also joined his name to the list of critics of the Grants Pass decision.
“The tools that Sacramento’s public officials may use to manage the ongoing problems associated with homeless populations and homeless encampments are affected by the issue at the heart of this case—whether and to what extent California or Sacramento may prohibit public camping or sleeping on or in public property,” Ho wrote in his SCOTUS brief.
The number of amicus curiae – friend of the court – briefs that have been filed in Johnson v. City of Grants Pass may increase chances the SCOTUS will grant the petition for writ of certiorari and review the case, said Brendan J. Begley, a certified appellate law specialist with Weintraub Tobin, in an email interview with the Northern California Record.
“One important takeaway for me about the district attorney filing that amicus brief is that he is taking steps in various places to protect the ability of local governments and law enforcement to approach the problem more aggressively in some specific and sometimes controversial ways,” Begley said. “The big question is whether the courts will indulge or inhibit the methods he wants local government to utilize.”
The D.A’s brief points to separation of powers and considerations of federalism in its arguments.
“While there may be a range of opinions about whether our district attorney is on the right track or prioritizing things correctly in terms of trying to ease local homelessness problems, the fact that he is asserting his position in different courts (as both a party and amicus curiae) at least shows that he is not ignoring the problem or waiting for someone else to fix it,” Begley said.
The city and county of Sacramento also faces a class action lawsuit over its alleged failure to keep sidewalks clear in accordance with state and federal disability laws.
The District Attorney of San Diego County, where homelessness has increased by 14 percent, has also filed an amicus brief in Johnson v. City of Grants Pass: “The questions raised by this case are of paramount importance to local governments within the Ninth Circuit,” that brief states. In addition to California, the Ninth Circuit includes Alaska, Arizona, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, and Washington.
As for D.A. Ho’s lawsuit against Sacramento, last month city officials filed a motion to dismiss.
Homeless advocates have also sought to intervene in the case to block Ho from moving forward with his case.
A hearing on the city's demurrer, or motion to dismiss, is scheduled for Jan 5.
The court is scheduled to hear arguments on the activists' motions to intervene in February.