Editorial: Judges aren’t to blame for homelessness in California. Newsom should know better

In the midst of enormous battles in San Francisco and beyond over homeless encampments, Gov. Gavin Newsom has expressed plenty of outrage — not just over homelessness but at the federal judges who won’t let cities clear the camps.

Just in the last couple of weeks, the city of San Francisco appealed an injunction by U.S. Magistrate Donna Ryu that prevents the city from citing or arresting homeless people or confiscating their belongings. Ryu sided with the plaintiffs, the Coalition on Homelessness, who argued that the city had violated homeless people’s 8^th Amendment rights prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment and their 4^th Amendment rights against unlawful seizure. She also denied the city’s request that she stay her injunction during the appeal.

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Chastising her on X (formerly Twitter), Newsom said Tuesday that “federal courts block local efforts to clear street encampments — even when housing and services are offered. Courts must also be held accountable. Enough is enough.”

Homelessness is a fraught, long-standing and nearly intractable problem, but blaming the judge for standing in the way of fixing it is not just absurd, it’s dangerous. And it’s not the first time Newsom has engaged in this irresponsible behavior.

In 2021, when Caltrans tried to clear an encampment near I-80 in Berkeley and Emeryville, a different federal judge blocked it.

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Newsom told the San Francisco Chronicle that at the time he thought about putting up a big sign with the judge’s phone number “saying, ‘Call the judge. We want to clean this up, too.’” (A federal appeals court later let officials clear the encampment. And Newsom did not dox the judge.)

There will be much to argue in the San Francisco case about homeless people and their civil rights, what constitutes a legitimate offer of shelter and housing and how to deal with the reality — “undisputed,” Ryu wrote — that there is too little shelter for the 7,700 homeless people counted last year. But arguing that federal judges are stopping cities from trying to resolve homelessness is ridiculous.

The landmark 9th Circuit decision in Martin vs. Boise established that cities cannot criminalize homeless people for living on the street when there is no place else for them to go. As Newsom well knows, the way to change this situation is to create more housing — interim and permanent — and provide supportive services for people who need them.

As far as we can tell, these judges’ orders haven’t stopped the governor or any city from doing that.