Larry Halstead is pushing back.
The unsheltered 68-year-old activist and journalist stood his ground as police cleared a homeless encampment along Little Chico Creek on Feb. 16. Halstead laid claim to a small tent there, and he invited a sergeant to write him a ticket for disobeying orders to pack up and leave.
The officer accepted, citing Halstead with violating Section 9.50.030 B, of the Chico Municipal Code – camping in a regulated area – a misdemeanor. Halstead’s listed address on the ticket: “homeless.”
“It’s unconscionable what they’re doing,” Halstead said. “It is evil. It flies in the face of not only Christianity but Islam, Judaism. Where is the religion that teaches you to be hard-ass on homeless?”
Attorneys are questioning the legality of the sweeps, which began in January under the newly elected City Council. And at least one firm is threatening legal action against the city. So far, however, the talk has contained some bluster. No lawsuits have been filed.
Outside of the justice system, unhoused people like Halstead, advocates and faith leaders, are raising another question. Regardless of whether the sweeps are legal or not, are they the right thing to do?
Benjamin Colahan is a pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Chico, and he has experience running a shelter for homeless people through the church. That’s been put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic.
He says clearing tent encampments from parks serves neither the unhoused nor housed populations. There are insufficient places for homeless people to go, he says, and displacing people means removing the limited protection they have against the elements and pushing them farther into residential neighborhoods and onto private business property.
“I think of a parable that Jesus tells us in Luke, Chapter 14,” Colahan said. “In which he says, ‘Which of you intending to build a tower does not first sit down and estimate the cost to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, this fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ And, so, I would encourage the City Council before they push people out of parks and into neighborhoods, to develop places where people who have no wealth can go to live with dignity and transform their lives.”
Councilman Sean Morgan told NSPR that city government has the obligation to treat citizens with dignity and respect while creating policy that applies equally to all.
He added that some segments of the population have a dogmatic belief that government is the answer to the problem of homelessness. Government, he says, is a small piece of any solution to a complex problem.
Beau Grosscup is professor emeritus of political science at California State University, Chico. He says the city is operating under a set of ethical standards that is widely accepted in capitalist society, which values individualism and private property.
“Individuals in our society are free to be unequal, and that, basically, they’re supposed to take care of themselves, and it’s up to each individual to do that,” Grosscup said. “And, so, that’s the basic ethical framework that they’re operating from, which, by definition, is something that we’re all taught in our institutions of political socialization.”
Grosscup says he finds the city’s sweeps of homeless encampments “crass” and “unsustainable.”
Over the last several decades, he says, society has promoted the expansion of the private sector at the expense of the public sector, leading to shrinking commitments to public education, public housing and public health.
“In that way, what’s happened is that there really is no place – no institutional basis – for homeless people to go to,” Grosscup said. “The last bastion, one could say, is a commitment to public parks. And so, that’s where they have to go, because they are public.”
Halstead, the activist who was cited for camping along a waterway, is due in court in April. His says his case breaks the narrative that police are receiving full compliance in their sweeps of homeless encampments.