The number of homeless people cited or arrested for obstructing sidewalks and other public places in San Diego likely will decrease under a tentative settlement agreement reached in a federal lawsuit filed against the city.

Police citations and arrests for violations of the city’s encroachment law skyrocketed in recent years, and attorney Scott Dreher argued in a 2017 lawsuit filed against the city of San Diego that the enforcement was unfairly targeting homeless people.

In a settlement that has been signed by both sides, the city has agreed to enact new officer training procedures for enforcing the law, which Dreher said will allow homeless people to have some items in pubic places as long as they are not obstructing the public’s right of way.

The settlement also calls for the city to open a new facility where people experiencing homelessness can store their possessions.


“It wasn’t easy,” Dreher said about settlement talks. “Everybody had to make their own reassurance on their end.”

Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s senior press secretary Ashley Bailey said the settlement reflects the city’s continuing efforts to assist homeless people while being accountable to other community members.

“The city’s efforts to provide homeless individuals with services and programs are balanced with our commitment to maintain clean and safe communities,” she wrote in an email. “This settlement memorializes San Diego’s common-sense approach to homelessness, and our officers have already implemented procedures to ensure that we are compassionate and fair when connecting with people on the streets.”

The settlement will become official once it is signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge William Gallo, which Dreher said he expects to happen any day.


Dreher said the judge presided over the case and has approved a draft of the settlement, but he has not reviewed the latest version that contains minor language revisions. Among those revisions was a reference to the storage facility opening in El Cerrito as soon as August, which Dreher said will be updated to say November.

The original class-action lawsuit argued the city had violated several homeless people’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, among other claims. The settlement states the city is not admitting to the allegations, and Dreher credited the city with working on what he called a win-win agreement.

At the heart of the settlement is a section that states both sides agree that the public rights-of-way should be clear and unencumbered for reasonable use by all people while also ensuring that homeless people should not be punished for a reasonable use of public spaces if they have nowhere else to place their property.

A police training bulletin drafted in July directs officers to consider the size and type of property causing an obstruction and whether there have been citizen complaints about it before enforcing the encroachment law.


It also states an officer may make an arrest on the fourth contact with a person who has committed an encroachment violation but has refused offers to use a storage space or shelter bed.

That approach follows the Police Department’s neighborhood policing division’s approach of progressive enforcement, meaning officers have several contacts with homeless people before issuing tickets or making arrests.

Media scrutiny of police records show the number of arrests and citations for encroachment violations has significantly increased over the past few years. Most recently, an NBC 7 report in June found 1,413 unauthorized encroachment violations were made in 2013, and 3,744 were made in 2018. Another 1,426 had been reported by June of this year.

Dreher said the practice dates back to June 2014, when an email that circulated in the Police Department informed officers that the encroachment law could be used to cite homeless people for placing backpacks, tents or other items in parks.


Dreher argued in the 2017 lawsuit that police were unfairly enforcing the law by citing homeless people but not others whose belongings might encroach into the public right of way. Dreher said the same interpretation of the law could have been applied to mothers placing a soccer ball down in a park while playing with their children or to people sitting outside the San Diego Convention Center waiting to get into Comic-Con.

“It basically said you’re enforcing the statue subjectively, not objectively, and that’s unconstitutional,” he said. “You can’t enforce it just against homeless people. And if you’re going to enforce it you have to enforce it fairly.”

San Diego Police Capt. Scott Wahl, who heads the neighborhood policing division that includes homeless outreach teams, said the new training already has been completed.

“We have provided training and continue to refine our approach balancing compassion and accountability,” he said.


“That is why we have a division focused on these issues,” he added about the department’s neighborhood policing division, which deals with quality of life crimes often associated with homelessness. “We are able to implement changes to policy and training more rapidly as well as provide a unified approach.”

Homeless advocate Michael McConnell said he has noticed a difference in enforcement during his daily observations of homeless people and police interactions downtown.

“In the last couple of months or so, it didn’t seem like they were going up and writing tickets as much,” he said.

McConnell and Dreher said they were hopeful the settlement would have a positive effect, but neither was overly optimistic.


McConnell said that while the settlement was a step in the right direction, citations and arrests still may continue, but just take longer.