Emma (60:15)
Yeah. So this is like, it's kind of a complicated situation, but the city has what's what they call their encampment management policy. And it was initially passed in I believe 2020, but it's gone through like several evolutions over the past ten years or so. And it is related to different Supreme Court cases and the settlement that I mentioned earlier. So this policy, it provides certain very limited protections for people who are homeless in the city limits. The city is required by this policy to offer shelter. I believe it's a week for any person who's like subject to one of their encampment closures. And also we mentioned the bag and tag policy. So if somebody, you know, they are evicted and they move somewhere outside with a tent, they bring all of their possessions with them. Them, they are provided with a, I believe, three foot by three foot, like storage space. And this facility that is super inaccessible and kind of like, like, I don't even Know if it's actually real, to be honest, because it's just like, nobody ever. I've never heard of anybody actually, like, getting their stuff stored and getting it back. But technically that is a possibility. However, the city will only hold on to it for so long before they throw it away. And then the last protection or provision is the city was, until recently, supposed to provide people with shelter. So a few different Supreme Court cases are behind that provision specifically. And I think a lot of cities kind of had a similar policy framework that they were following until the Grants passed ruling. And I guess, like, maybe we don't need to get into that too much, but basically the. The whole idea of that policy was, like, if somebody is outside, living outside, and the city sweeps them, they have to provide them with some kind of alternative accommodation. Because according to, like, the ninth District Court, it was considered, like, cruel and unusual punishment to penalize somebody for being homeless without, you know, offering them some kind of temporary, like, accommodations. And so that was more or less the city's nominal framework for several years, basically. And the degree to which they actually followed these policies, you know, they really didn't, except for in certain situations where there are, like, for instance, legal advocates who will file injunctions to stop the city from doing a sweep on the basis of, like, failure to provide an alternative accommodation. And typically those arise when there is a very large encampment clearing operation that is scheduled and a contentious issue. You know, a lot of the time, for instance, will be people staying on city or, like, California state land, and the city will, like, force them to not move because of some development project that they're planning to do. And so in those situations, when the media has kind of narrowed their. Their focus and begun, like, discussing some of this stuff in the local press, then, like, something like that became possible. But after the Grants Pass ruling this past year, the city was no longer, like, obligated under federal law to follow those policies. And in September of last year, the late Mayor Shang Tao, she issued an executive order that more or less, like, just totally, like, rendered that policy framework irrelevant. So she put forth a new framework that allows the city to sweep encampments under a tiered system of what are called emergency suites. So if, for instance, the encampment is blocking a roadway or a sidewalk, then it is a hazard to the public. Or if it's somebody has a tent that is up against a building of some sort, it's a fire hazard. And so in this tiered system, there's, like, different levels of safety hazards that they're doing now. And basically what that looks like is like a fire marshal and the city administrator will convene after somebody calls in a complaint about somebody that's staying outside by their business. And with the fire hazard one, I believe that they can just sweep without any prior notice. Whereas the other two, there is some like, level of notice that they're technically required to provide. But yeah, so the shelter provisions and the notice and storage like it. They're technically still supposed to follow that by their own city resolution. But there is this provision that like, if for instance, they issue somebody like a.
