Salinas homeless intend to sue city for anti-camping ordinance.

A group of homeless people intends to fight a Salinas citywide anti-camping ordinance with a federal civil right lawsuit and a temporary restraining order.

Attorney Anthony Prince is representing the homeless group for free.

“This suit is part of an effort together a community disregarded by City Council,” he says.

The anti-camping ordinance, approved by Salinas City Council on Oct. 18 in its quest for a cleaner city, allows the city to clear people’s personal property and “bulky items,” like sleeping bags and tents, from city-owned property when given 24-hour notice.

Prince calls the ordinance “unconstitutional” and adds city officials “do not have the right to break up the homes the homeless are creating for themselves.”

The claims in the lawsuit range from homeless losing their medication and identification during the cleanups to not being given any notice or information as to how to recover their personal property from the city.

“Here we have an ordinance that I did not support from the beginning for the lack of options—humane options,” says Salinas Councilman Jose Castañeda, who is represented by Prince in a pending criminal cases and other matters against the City of Salinas.

But Salinas City Attorney Chris Callihan says that since the ordinance was enacted on Nov. 12, there has been no time to conduct cleanups and that “nothing has been taken from the homeless.”

He says the city is scheduled to finalize a contract on Dec. 1 with a private company that will provide encampment clean-up services for the city.

Before then, nothing will be done, he says.

Callihan, who says has not read the complaint, declined to comment on the allegations against the city. He did, however, say the court will likely grant the temporary restraining order against the city.

When Salinas Police Chief Kelly McMillin was asked if police have accompanied public works officials to conduct cleanups of encampments in city-owned property, he says they have not.

“When we act, it is in the interest of public safety and hygiene,” McMillin says. “I do not, and will not, criminalize homelessness.”

McMillin painted a dire picture—of buckets of human feces, rats, mattresses infested with bedbugs surrounded by rotten food—to backup a past decision in which police officers assisted the city in a clean-up.

“But none of these clean-ups are surprises,” McMillin says.

As Salinas deals with a growing homeless issue in Salinas, which saw a 70 percent increase in its homeless populations this year, according to a biennial homeless census, Prince, Castañeda and homeless people voiced their dismay about having virtually no transitional housing available to them.

“Give us the nails, give us the hammers and we will build our own housing,” Castañeda says.

The homeless people named as plaintiffs in the complaint include Rita Acosta, who lived in various “tent cities” in Salinas since 2012.

She says the city shut down programs created by the programs and “pushed us to the streets.”

Also included on the suit: Van Gresham, who founded and ran a newspaper by the homeless.

He speaks about his issues with the city and how it deals with homelessness. “Not everybody gets help from the shelters,” he says.