There are parts of Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego that have become offensive and unhealthy due to their widespread use by the homeless. A walk down Market Street in San Francisco requires stepping around people sleeping on the sidewalk, any time of day. The same is true for a visit to the Civic Center in San Diego, and for the homeless encampments in downtown Los Angeles. Many homeless are trespassing on private land, or violating local ordinances for public land. If the police move them off, and they have nowhere to go, the situation recurs elsewhere. This is not good for the cities, nor the homeless themselves.

One of the benefits of the agreement just brokered by Judge Carter in Orange County, though temporary, is that the homeless from the Santa Ana River trial have been relocated to motel rooms. There, they are reachable by social service agencies trying to offer help. So, hand in hand with removal is relocation — not as in warehousing, but as in treating people with the dignity of having a place (even temporarily) where they have a right to be.

What legal barriers are there to the remove-and-relocate strategy? The homeless advocates who brought the case to stop the removals in Orange County relied on U.S. Supreme Court rulings that it is unconstitutional to punish a status. A crime must be defined as an act. Trespassing is an act, but, in the view of the plaintiff organizations, prosecuting individuals who have nowhere else to go crosses over into prosecution for being without a home, and that is a status. Other legal arguments offered by homeless advocates include that the encampments constitute exercise of the right of homeless people’s First Amendment rights to assemble.

If there is another place a homeless person can be, however, then trespassing is an act, not an unavoidable consequence of a status. As for the Constitutional right to assemble, it is followed by the phrase “and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Homeless encampments lack the advocacy element of a demonstration in front of a government building. Therefore, so long as an alternative location is provided, cities can remove homeless from our public streets, river walks, areas under bridges and freeway overpasses.

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Hold off on Ruth Bader Ginsburg replacement: Tom Campbell A statewide approach is needed or the cities that offer alternative housing will be swamped with homeless coming in from elsewhere. The 95 National Guard armories located throughout California have a role in this solution. During the last century, they were situated by design in population areas throughout the state; to deal with potential civil disturbances and natural disasters. These armories are open for overnight homeless shelters during the cold months. Fullerton Armory opened October 30 last year, the Santa Ana Armory opened Dec. 1.

Military use and disaster preparedness purposes come first for the armories. But if those missions of the National Guard are not compromised by night-time homeless shelters in the winter months, they would not be for the rest of the year either (possibly excepting during summer exercises of the National Guard). The armories are state property, so local city or county ordinances restricting homeless shelters cannot stop state officials from making them available.

When I was a state senator, I drafted a bill opening up California’s armories for night-time homeless shelters year-round, military and emergency needs permitting. I also drafted a companion law giving peace officers the right to remove homeless people and bring them to a shelter. Both bills passed the Legislature. Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed the first and signed the second. (As commander in chief of the National Guard, he had unilaterally ordered the armories open every winter night; but he balked at the Legislature encroaching on his authority over the armories in the summer). The result is that the homeless can be removed from the streets, but, in most of California, there’s nowhere for them to go.

Tom Campbell is a professor at Chapman University. He was a California state Senator, and California director of finance. He was also a member of Congress, where, with Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Maryland, he formed the Homeless Caucus to direct federal attention to homelessness.