Coachella Valley’s government officials and homeless advocates are still sorting out the ramifications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson.
The 6-3 decision focused national attention on homelessness and gave law enforcement permission to remove encampments even if there is no available shelter space. Within a month of the June 28 decision, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies to remove encampments on public property—and told cities and counties to do the same, or risk losing state funding.
Palm Springs enacted a sweeping new homeless-encampment ban in July; the city of Indio followed with similar restrictions soon thereafter.
Greg Rodriguez is the deputy director of government affairs and community engagement for Riverside County’s Housing and Workforce Solutions Department. The collaborative agency coordinates planning and funding for public safety and homelessness and helps steer the Coachella Valley Association of Governments (CVAG). Rodriguez said CVAG is addressing the Grants Pass ruling; the Sept. 18 CVAG joint meeting of the Homelessness Committee and the Public Safety Committee included a staff recommendation to create a “model ordinance” for the entire Coachella Valley to address homeless encampments.
Indio Councilman Waymond Fermon, a member of both of the aforementioned CVAG committees, said this discussion is crucial.
“We all have to be on the same page here in the valley,” Fermon said. “With our efforts to mitigate chronic homelessness and transiency, if other parts of the community are lax, (unhoused people) will pick up and just move.”
Still, Fermon said Indio is determined to approach the situation with compassion. He thinks the recently passed city ordinance gives Indio another tool to do that.
“It allows us to take the encampments down when there are just chronic homeless individuals who are reluctant to receive care or resources,” Fermon said. “I think we have a humane obligation to get these folks to resources. Our goal is not to be punitive. We just want to ensure we’re doing everything in our power and exhausting our resources to get these folks help.”
In Palm Springs, even with the no-camping ordinance, city officials are taking pains not to stigmatize homeless people, according to Rodriguez.
“I give huge props to the police department and the chief,” he said. “They’ve been doing really great work over the last few years, in partnership with the county. If there are not shelter beds available, they won’t cite people just for sleeping. There’s a little bit more compassion in that aspect, and the Navigation Center, I’d say, it’s a tool that will help us clear out encampments.”
Touted as “a game changer” by Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein to KESQ News Channel 3 earlier this year, the 3.64-acre facility is nearing completion.
The Palm Springs Navigation Center’s early-entry facility opened in March with around 60 beds for temporary shelter. Clients must sign in at the Access Center near City Hall every afternoon for a bed. They are shuttled to and from the navigation site, where they receive dinner and, in the morning, a light breakfast and access to a shower. Qualifying for a transitional space is the next step, after which they can access services, including job referrals, counseling and, if needed, substance-abuse care.
Touted as “a game changer” by Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein to KESQ News Channel 3 earlier this year, the 3.64-acre facility is nearing completion. Located in north Palm Springs on McCarthy Road, the center will have full wraparound services for qualifying homeless individuals, including the overnight shelter and 80 units of transitional housing.
The $40 million price tag, paid for with state, local, county and federal funds, suggests the center isn’t likely to be duplicated around the valley—but if successful, it could become a model for future homeless initiatives throughout the country.
In 2023, the point-in-time count for Palm Springs found 239 unsheltered persons, an increase of 8 percent from 2022; the only city in the county with more homeless individuals was Riverside, with 605. Riverside County’s District 4, which encompasses the Coachella Valley, had 755 unsheltered persons. Numbers were up across Riverside County, with 3,725 homeless individuals counted.
Rodriguez explained that a large network of nonprofit and government agencies is engaged in serving the homeless population. Palm Springs contracts with Martha’s Village and Kitchen to run the Navigation Center; Continuum of Care coordinates Riverside County service providers; Indio partners with the county, as well as the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission and Martha’s Village.
When Grants Pass became the law of the land, the county had already been managing homelessness resources and trying to keep encampments to a minimum, according to Rodriguez. He said there was no immediate need to do anything different in Coachella Valley in response to the ruling.
“We’ve (been going) after grants from the state,” Rodriguez said. “The first one was for the Santa Ana River bottom in the Riverside area. We have another one under way in the San Jacinto River bottom. We worked a little bit with Palm Springs on their applications, and we’ll be working with Desert Hot Springs on theirs.”
The CVAG Homeless and Public Safety committees are primarily composed of leaders from the city of Blythe, the local Indigenous tribes and the nine valley cities. They operate as a funnel for the work of the various committees and direct staff on recommendations approved by the committees.
“Part of the (protocol) we have for the county speaks specifically to increasing the number of shelter beds, and increasing the number of transitional and permanent housing (units), because they are all part of the tools needed to address encampments,” said Rodriguez. “We already did a presentation to Continuum of Care at the county level. The one at CVAG will be the first one (with) more city leaders and public safety officials. But, just to emphasize, even with the ruling, we still are maintaining our encampment protocols at the county level.”
This collaboration is key to meeting the needs of the homeless, Fermon said.
“We have nonprofits and faith-based community organizations that we’re working with, because our goal is to get folks to services. We’re still approaching things from a holistic (perspective), and what I mean by that is with compassion. However, we see that, with respect to the chronic homeless individuals we have in our community, most of them are due to substance abuse issues, mental health issues and alcohol.”
Having full-service agencies in the loop is critical, Rodriguez said. Some chronically homeless individuals are resistant to help; it can take multiple interactions to get to trust the system.
“I know some jurisdictions talk about a 24-hour notice or 72-hour notice (to remove encampments), but it’s just not really a sufficient amount of time to get people connected to the services,” Rodriguez said. “I will say one thing that has changed in the valley is that Palm Springs, even with that ordinance, specifically (said) that they don’t want to criminalize (people). The Navigation Center, I’d say it’s a tool that will help us clear out encampments, because we’ll have emergency shelter beds there, and then the transitional units and full wraparound services.”
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