On Homelessness: Public Health, Not Tough on Crime
The status quo is awful and is not compassionate for anyone. Egregious income inequality and heartbreaking poverty contribute to a growing homelessness crisis throughout our region. It's hard to reconcile living in one of the wealthiest regions in the world with watching encampments grow and conditions worsen. People are right to be furious with those who have allowed this to continue, but we must be clear-eyed and honest about the role the City of Berkeley should take and what results we can expect.
West Berkeley has carried a disproportionate share of this crisis. Time and again, Districts 1 and 2 have borne the brunt of it; and while every part of the city needs to do what it can, West Berkeley cannot use this as a reason to stop helping.
Berkeley cannot solve poverty or homelessness, and a tough-on-crime approach only serves to hide the problem. Even if we successfully removed all encampments and cleared every sidewalk, the people living on the streets would only be pushed to another sidewalk, another city, or into a carceral system that perpetuates poverty and is exorbitantly expensive for taxpayers. We need to accept that poverty is a problem whether it's in Berkeley, Richmond, or Santa Rita Jail.
We need to invest resources to combat the root causes of homelessness. As a city, we should focus on building more housing, improving access to physical and mental health care, providing quality education, and ensuring food and rental assistance. Housing First programs in particular are proven to keep people housed.¹ We also need to advocate for our state and federal governments to step up and create large-scale change, because anything Berkeley does alone will be a drop in the bucket.
We need to treat homelessness as a public health emergency. This means cleaning up and preventing hazardous large-scale encampments that endanger both their residents and the surrounding community, and working every day to get people off the streets and into housing. We need to open an emergency Alternative Sites shelter as soon as realistically possible and connect people with county resources. We also need to avoid punitive measures, such as citations and arrests, that do nothing to get people off the street, cost a fortune to enforce, increase liability risk, and only serve to move homelessness, not solve it.
We need to be honest about our limitations as a city and not mislead people with false solutions. We cannot solve poverty in Berkeley, and we also cannot and should not just push it out of the city. Living with and bearing witness to income inequality is a reality of the world we've created. I will work every day to bring our community together and search for creative, compassionate, and effective solutions.
We need to be both realistic and ambitious in our relentless pursuit of solutions to homelessness. I hope this summary helps people understand the current state of things and where I stand. More ideas about solutions are always welcome! Reach out to dariaforberkeley@proton.me with suggestions.
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We have heard the suggestion for a policy to first connect people with social services, but if people refuse, cite, arrest, or forcibly remove them from city sidewalks.
While this policy may sound common sense, it is not an honest or effective approach.
Berkeley policy already states that the city can enforce state and local laws, which can include citation or arrest, if encampments create a hazard or nuisance for the public; this policy is enforceable regardless of the city's ability to offer housing.² In 2024, the council specifically named the Harrison Corridor as a priority for this enforcement,² and it has been enforced at city parks, such as Ohlone Park.³
We have very little shelter to offer. Our congregate shelters have about 320 beds, while our homeless population was counted at 880 this year.⁴ Other options, such as motel rooms, are generally reserved for specific populations and are also at capacity. While motel rooms can offer high-quality, immediate shelter, in our current budget climate this is not a sustainable option. The city has already spent roughly $5 million leasing rooms for Harrison Street encampment residents.⁵ Given that budget crisis, the supply of empty shelter beds is likely to get worse.
Citations against people who cannot pay generally become delinquent fines and can eventually become arrest warrants.⁶ This is how criminalization can trap people in cycles of poverty, and it's why Alameda County runs a program that dismisses tickets and fines for formerly homeless people.⁷
When the only ‘crime’ being committed is homelessness, police enforcement uses up resources and offers a false sense of resolution. Very few people arrested for municipal camping violations are charged with actual crimes. The District Attorney gets to decide how they prioritize enforcement, and in San Francisco, nearly 4 out of 5 people arrested for camping on the street were not charged.⁸ This means even if police increased enforcement, it would drive up costs without ever solving the problem.
A growing body of research shows that repeatedly and forcibly moving people from sidewalk to sidewalk poses serious public health risks and can lead to increased fatalities.⁹
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Homelessness is a regional problem and encampment policies vary city by city, often causing unintended consequences on neighboring communities. What we also know is that stricter enforcement hasn't produced better results:
Even under Oakland's new, tougher encampment policy (April 2026), the city does not cite or arrest people solely for camping. People who decline shelter can keep camping, and citations or arrests are avoided unless there's an imminent public-safety risk and shelter has been offered and declined.¹⁰
Albany bans camping on city-owned property, but its own code says it won't enforce the ban against homeless people when no shelter is available.¹¹
Fremont passed a citywide ban on camping, and its homeless population went up more than Berkeley's did.¹²
San Jose has a policy to issue citations to those who refuse shelter, but only when the city actually has a bed to offer.¹³ Berkeley's policy allows citations in some cases even when no shelter is available.²
San Francisco regularly arrests people for camping, but nearly 80% are released without being charged with a crime.⁸ Those who are charged and incarcerated cost taxpayers even more.
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While many people think a citywide camping ban would have prevented or resolved our current court case, that isn’t true.
The Harrison Street lawsuit (Berkeley Homeless Union v. City of Berkeley) is based on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).⁵ A city ordinance can't override federal law.
Under Berkeley's current encampment policy, the city has cleared encampments that posed a public safety hazard, such as those in Ohlone Park.³ The Harrison lawsuit didn't strike down that policy. It added federal disability requirements to how the city carries it out, which is a big part of why clearing Harrison took so long. Most of the encampment was finally cleared in September.
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First, we need to prioritize public health and safety. When an encampment becomes an imminent danger, hazard, or nuisance, the city should intervene.
Second, we should invest in what works. City staff have said that Alternative Sites and motel-based shelters have been more successful than traditional shelters at moving people out of encampments and into permanent housing.¹⁴ While we need to be honest that there are some real roadblocks to implementation, I will work tirelessly to open a facility that gets people off the streets and out of the jail cycle.
The Alternative Sites model is based on the Grayson St. Shelter (2021 to 2022), a 50-bed indoor shelter with 40 spots for RVs to park. It was managed by Dorothy Day House and had running water, toilets, showers, storage, pets allowed, no curfew, case management, and up to $1,500 in vehicle repair help. It served about 150 people and connected about 30 to permanent housing.¹⁵
Two other programs that worked, the Mobile Crisis Team and Specialized Care Unit, provided non-police responses to mental health emergencies, but were cut in our recent budget crisis. If elected, I promise no more cuts to behavioral health programs.
Third, we need to get creative with regional partners and mutual aid.
If elected, my office would launch a Homelessness Task Force. Modeled after the Sanctuary City Task Force,¹⁶ a Homelessness Task Force would have no budget or staff, but could bring together business, faith, and regional partners to coordinate creative solutions to fill service gaps.
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¹ J-PAL, Evidence review on reducing homelessness (Housing First)
² City of Berkeley, Encampment Policy Resolution No. 71,513-N.S., Sept. 10, 2024
³ Berkeleyside, Ohlone Park encampment sweep, July 9, 2025
⁴ City of Berkeley, Homeless Response Team memo, Sept. 16, 2025 (320 shelter beds); Berkeleyside, Berkeley 2026 point-in-time count, May 28, 2026 (880 unhoused residents)
⁵ Prado v. City of Berkeley, N.D. Cal. No. 23-cv-04537, class certification order, July 14, 2026; Berkeley Homeless Union v. City of Berkeley, N.D. Cal. No. 25-cv-01414, summary judgment order, April 3, 2026; Berkeleyside, April 8, 2026
⁶ Fines and Fees Justice Center, California policies and unhoused people; CalMatters, Homelessness enforcement data, June 2025
⁷ Alameda County District Attorney, FY 2025–26 budget (Homeless and Caring Court); Alameda County Public Defender, Collaborative Courts
⁸ CalMatters, citing San Francisco Chronicle reporting, April 2025
⁹ Barocas et al., Population-Level Health Effects of Involuntary Displacement of People Experiencing Unsheltered Homelessness Who Inject Drugs in US Cities, JAMA, 2023; American Public Health Association, Policy statement on encampment displacement, 2024
¹⁰ City of Oakland, Resolution No. 91102 C.M.S., Encampment Abatement Policy, adopted April 14, 2026
¹¹ Albany Municipal Code, §8-4.4 "Camping", last amended June 7, 2021
¹² Los Angeles Times, Fremont camping ban, March 6, 2025; Patch, Fremont 2026 point-in-time count; Berkeleyside, Berkeley 2026 point-in-time count, May 28, 2026
¹³ CBS News, San Jose Responsibility to Shelter ordinance, June 11, 2025
¹⁴ City of Berkeley, Council referral response, Item 15, Oct. 14, 2025
¹⁵ City of Berkeley, Council referral response, Item 29, May 20, 2025; Berkeleyside, Grayson Street shelter opening, July 2, 2021
¹⁶ City of Berkeley, Council item creating the Sanctuary City Task Force, Jan. 21, 2025