The Cost of Homeless Encampment Sweeps on City Budgets

In recent months, cities across California have ramped up enforcement and begun organizing encampment sweeps as per Governor Newsom’s suggested encampment-related policies. According to this new policy, “law enforcement can now cite or arrest people for sleeping on public property…. This new legislation is a major change from prior legal precedent which said it was unconstitutional to punish someone for sleeping outside if they had nowhere else to go” (Kendall, 2024).  

In this edition, we summarize Rudy Perez’s article entitled “Homeless Encampment Sweeps May be Draining Your City’s Budget” to understand the cost of encampment sweeps versus evidence-based solutions. Our solution - permanent housing for the chronically unhoused - is one solution in the mosaic of evidence-based solutions for people experiencing chronic homelessness. Although encampment sweeps do reduce the visibility of homelessness, they do not address the systemic reasons why people become homeless. Additionally, encampment sweeps may exacerbate negative outcomes for unhoused people by further displacing these individuals from their communities. 

At Seeds of Hope Silicon Valley, we are building a community for people experiencing chronic homelessness. Evidence shows that solutions like ours are more cost effective than encampment sweeps because permanent housing can help to reduce the ‘revolving door of homelessness and incarceration’ (Perez, 2023) that sweeps do not address. Our solution enables people who are chronically homeless to live out their days in safe and dignified housing and offers them the opportunity to live, work, and be supported in and through a real community.

Articles:

• Kendall, 2024 ('We gotta be somewhere': Homeless Californians react to Newsom's crackdown)

• Perez, 2023 (Homeless Encampment Sweeps May Be Draining Your City's Budget.)