A blue California city voted last week to impose a strict ban on camping on public property, including penalties such as fines or jail time for those “causing, permitting, aiding, abetting, or concealing” homeless encampments.
While activists argue the ordinance “criminalizes” homelessness, one advocate — who himself once struggled with drug addiction and a period of homelessness — tells Fox News Digital that the Fremont City Council’s actions reflect a growing “frustration” with the escalating crisis affecting cities across the state.
“This entire ordinance was born out of frustration regarding their inability to mitigate the homeless issue, and because politicians are afraid or lack political will, in many cases, to make the hard choices that need to be made,” Tom Wolf, founder of the San Francisco Bay-area nonprofit Pacific Alliance for Prevention and Recovery, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
Wolf, who himself was homeless for six months while addicted to fentanyl and heroin in 2018, said that Fremont’s ordinance is “not criminalizing homelessness,” but rather it is “criminalizing the behaviors that are exhibited by people who happen to be experiencing homelessness and are also struggling with drug addiction.”
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Homeless and fentanyl split image (Getty Images)
“It’s not as controversial as people and the media are blowing it up to be controversial, because it’s a departure from the approach that we’ve been taking for the last eight to 10 years in California, which is, ‘Oh, everyone just needs a home,’ Wolf said, referring to the state’s “Housing First” model adopted several years ago, which prioritizes providing shelter and temporary housing units to homeless without requiring sobriety or wraparound drug addiction services to people.
The Fremont City Council voted 6-1 last week in a lengthy session in favor of banning camping on any public property “including any street, sidewalk, park, open space, waterway, or banks of a waterway or any private property not designated and equipped for such camping” as well as “any land designated as a high fire risk area.”
Fremont is roughly 40 miles south of San Francisco.
The new ordinance states that anyone “causing, permitting, aiding, abetting or concealing” encampments shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and subjected to either a $1000 fine or up to six months in jail. Violators may also be subjected to a temporary seizure of personal property.
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A homeless encampment in Balboa Park, San Diego, CA, Wednesday, January 8, 2025. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
“Fremont is not a conservative city,” conservative think tank California Policy Center expert Edward Ring told Fox News Digital. “It’s part of one of the most liberal regions in the country. So, the fact that they’re doing this, it’s not a reflection of some sort of harsh conservative mentality.”
“It’s a bipartisan conclusion, a non-partisan conclusion, that the city council has come to, and they’ve apparently decided that just a ban isn’t going to be sufficient, because there are so many groups associated with the homeless nowadays that call themselves advocates for the homeless,” Ring added.
“But what they’re basically doing by aggressively protecting the right of people to camp in public spaces, for example, is perpetuating homelessness,” he said.
These groups include nonprofits and homeless outreach workers who offer services to homeless people. These services include optional substance abuse treatment, housing, temporary shelter, tents, and even “safe” supplies for drug use, in line with the state-sanctioned “Harm Reduction” model, which focuses on preventing overdoses and infections rather than stopping drug use altogether.
Wolf said he takes issue with much of the Harm Reduction’s strategy because “people are going to still continue to use because they’re out there on the street addicted to drugs.”
As of the 2024 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, which provides a snapshot of homelessness on a single night completed annually, Fremont reported 612 homeless individuals, marking a 21% decrease from the previous count in 2022.
California’s homeless population was estimated at approximately 187,000 after last year’s PIT count, making it the highest in the nation for unsheltered homeless people. The 2025 count is currently underway across the state’s cities.
Oakland Homeless encampment (Getty Images)
“The purpose of this chapter is to maintain streets, parks and other public and private areas within the city in a clean, sanitary and accessible condition and to adequately protect the health, safety and public welfare of the community, while recognizing that, subject to reasonable conditions, camping and camp facilities associated with special events can be beneficial to the cultural and educational climate in the city,” the ordinance reads.
It continued, “The use of streets and public areas within the city for camping purposes or for storage of personal property interferes with the rights of the public to use these areas for which they were intended. Such activity can constitute a public health and safety hazard that adversely impacts residential neighborhoods and commercial areas. Camping without the consent of the owner and proper sanitary measures adversely affects private property rights, public health, safety, and welfare of the city. Nothing in this chapter is intended to interfere with otherwise lawful and ordinary uses of public or private property.”
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Beyond California, cities like Washougal, Washington, have also adopted anti-camping restrictions, though Fremont’s is unique due to its penalties.
The anti-camping law comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that local governments have the authority to ban camping on public property, allowing cities to clear homeless encampments. The decision came after the Court declined to review a lower court ruling that upheld Boise, Idaho’s ban on camping, effectively setting a precedent for other municipalities to follow.
Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.