Encinitas will rework its Homeless Action Plan, and add a new goal of using law enforcement to combat illegal behavior by “service-resistant” homeless people, particularly in the city’s downtown area.
At the end of a special, four-hour meeting Wednesday, the City Council unanimously voted to make a lengthy list of modifications to the planning document, which currently contains three goals.
Those three goals are:
- Increase the capacity of the city and the community to end homelessness in the city through the development of a collaborative community-driven approach.
- Decrease the number of individuals experiencing homelessness through a demand-driven, person-based homeless response and ive housing services system.
- Increase the availability of temporary and permanent housing.
The new fourth goal calls for Encinitas to make more use of Sheriff’s deputies and enforce laws regarding illegal drug use and sales, public drunkenness, public urination and defecation, and illegal camping. It also calls for the city to lobby the state to change laws regarding homeless people.
Other document changes sought by the council include more emphasis on data collection, including tracking of individuals who repeatedly require assistance. Council also asked for a focus on helping Encinitas residents who become homeless, and “measure and discourage” the use of city services by non-residents.
“We need to focus on who’s here first,” Council Jim O’Hara said.
Councilmember Luke Shaffer, who along with O’Hara was elected to the council in November, said Encinitas has gotten “soft” recently when it comes to enforcing laws that are broken by the chronically homeless people who frequent the downtown. He said it was time to put “teeth” into the Homeless Action Plan. People tell him lately that they go to Carlsbad to walk or shop, instead of Encinitas, because of concerns about the behavior of mentally ill or drug-abusing homeless people in the downtown, he said.
“Quite honestly, it’s despicable that it’s gotten this far,” Shaffer said as he mentioned complaints he’s heard from downtown business owners and city residents.
Mayor Bruce Ehlers, a former council member who was elected mayor in November, said he wanted it to be clear that Encinitas will be focusing its enforcement efforts on people who refuse social services and are activity violating the laws regarding drug use, camping and public urination. Those people are often referred to as the “chronically” homeless, as opposed to people who have recently fallen into homelessness and want help. Ehlers said he’s a “big guy” and yet too has felt threatened at times by the behavior of mentally ill or intoxicated homeless people in downtown.
The city first approved its Homeless Action Plan, or HAP document, in 2021 with the goal of improving and expanding its social service programs. In the years since, Encinitas has opened a Safe Parking Lot program at the city’s Community & Senior Center for people temporarily living in their vehicles, and partnered with the city of Vista to open a homeless shelter known as the Buena Creek Navigation Center. Encinitas also has hired several people to help with homeless outreach programs, but has recently lost those employees to Carlsbad.
Before Wednesday’s vote, council heard from some 20 people with varying views about the city’s homelessness situation. Real estate agents and employees of a downtown clothing business urged the council to stop making the city inviting to homeless people and increase police enforcement.
Maila Bolen, owner of Bliss 101, said her employees have experienced everything from a couple sleeping in a cardboard box pile behind her building to people ed out in the front doorway. Yesterday, a homeless man who appeared to be on drugs cornered her employees behind the sales desk and wouldn’t let them leave, she said.
Social service organization leaders and their ers stressed to the council that the troublemakers are only a small part of the city’s homeless population, noting that the Sheriff’s Office estimates there are about 15 of these problem people.
John Van Cleef, CEO of the downtown’s Community Resource Center, urged the council to show comion toward people who are homeless, saying some are women fleeing domestic abuse or senior citizens on fixed incomes facing financial troubles. He said the city’s new programs have been making a difference.
“We’re seeing signs of progress,” Van Cleef said, noting that the latest countywide count provided evidence of this.
The latest Point-in-Time Count, conducted one night in January by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness, found that the area that includes Encinitas had 91 “unsheltered” individuals, down from the 2024 figure of 123 people.
The two newly elected council said they didn’t trust that figure, and the council ultimately agreed to pursue doing its own count of homeless people. The council also backed a proposal by Shaffer to direct city employees to start a list for city residents who want to offer their extra rooms or accessory dwelling units to homeless people.
