Salinas tries to move homeless, battles with county.

Six months ago, a protest-cum-social-experiment sprang up on the lawn in front of Salinas City Hall. The rationale for it went something like this: Since the city had passed an ordinance that prevented the homeless from camping out and living on the streets of Chinatown, a small group of homeless decided to camp out directly in the city’s face.

On most any given night, starting at 6pm and disbanding by 6am (per city regulation), about 40 people have camped out in about 22 tents on the City Hall lawn. They share food, and supplies, and try to look out for each other. And they try to send the message to city officials that they won’t be ignored.

Be careful what you wish for. As a result of what the city describes as myriad problems – sexual harassment of female employees as they leave the building; campers blocking the doors and preventing people from coming and going; public urination and defecation; public drinking and drug use – the city passed an even more onerous ordinance on Sept. 20 that prohibits camping on public and private property altogether. (See story, p. 14.) Between the City Hall encampment, a nearby public garage and the John Steinbeck Library, where dozens of homeless gather on the lawn, conditions have created “health and safety hazards” to employees and the public.

Chinatown was bad in a Dickensian way. Hundreds of people lived in tents, RVs and ramshackle cardboard and plywood structures. The odor of feces and urine wafted through the air and rats darted around the street. That it was allowed to go on as long as it did is an embarrassment to the city.

The “Flagpole Community,” as the City Hall encampment calls itself, is a different type of embarrassment in that the city has to look at it every day. Just as the homeless were driven from Chinatown, they are now being driven from public spaces. Salinas is the county seat, and that means the services are there – social services, probation services, mental health services and homeless services. You can’t legislate away people who don’t have a home, so what happens to them come Oct. 1 when the ordinance kicks in?

“These folks need help and we’re going to work with them and try and get them into more facilities,” says Salinas Mayor Joe Gunter.

A near-term option is a warming shelter, slated to open by Nov. 1, that will provide nightly meals, bathrooms and a safe place to sleep for individuals and families. This year’s shelter will be in the former allU.S. Credit Union building near the Amtrak Station; the county and the city will split the costs.

The city has also partnered with Dorothy’s Place to open a shower and bathroom facility in Chinatown. That location, Gunter says, makes it easier for homeless to move between the hygiene facility and other services in Chinatown and the shelter at night – it’s just a few blocks away, across the railroad tracks.

Clearly, there’s more to be done. “We need other agencies to step up and work with us,” Gunter says. “It can’t be us alone.”

If that sounds like a swipe at the county, it is. As this piece is being edited, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors have summoned Salinas officials Chris Callihan, the city attorney who wrote the anti-camping measure, and Gary Petersen, the city’s public works director, to its Tuesday meeting to present on the new law. In the days since the ordinance passed, county officials have complained mightily that the city failed to alert them that it was coming. Supervisor Jane Parker, meanwhile, called the situation “a little disconcerting.”

One bright spot in this darkness: Earlier this year, Salinas planning manager Anastacia White won a $600,000 state emergency solutions grant to fund homeless programs after the county had decided against applying for the money.

Her success means Salinas is now the only city in the state to administer such a grant, a portion of which funds homeless services in Salinas and Monterey and San Benito counties. All other such grants are run by counties.

Meanwhile, the ordinance goes into effect on Oct. 1. One member of the Flagpole Community tells me a number of campers plan on setting up their tents and waiting for what comes next.

Mary Duan writes The Local Spin column for the Monterey County Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com.