Is private security endangering those in CA homeless shelters?

From CalMatters investigative reporter Lauren Hepler:

Widespread allegations of sexual assault. Legal battles over wrongful deaths. Complaints of repeated strip searches.

Welcome to California’s homeless private security boom.

A new CalMatters investigation finds that governments, nonprofits and businesses are increasingly hiring private guards to patrol homeless shelters and areas around street encampments. It’s a new front in the state’s homeless crisis — one ripe for violence and civil rights issues, but thin on accountability and state oversight.

The California agency in charge of regulating guards, the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, denied a request from CalMatters to see complaints and reports of violence involving guards and homeless people. 

But a CalMatters review of more than a dozen lawsuits and public contract disputes revealed that, rather than ensuring safety, guards can compound dire situations:

• In Southern California, homeless people have sued over a range of alleged sexual abuses, from rape to strip searches;
• In the Bay Area, residents of a government-run tent city said in court that contract workers dealt drugs and harassed women;
• In Fresno and Los Angeles, families sued for wrongful death after homeless loved ones were shot by a guard or stabbed by a fellow shelter resident despite an on-duty guard. 

The boom in homeless security contracts comes after the state’s homeless population spiked nearly 40% in the past five years, to more than 181,000 people. Meanwhile, the total number of licensed guards in the state has climbed 20% since 2010; guards now outnumber sworn law enforcement officers roughly 4 to 1.

• Paul Boden, executive director of activist group the Western Regional Advocacy Project: “Private security is a lot cheaper than cops. And a lot less regulated.”

Meanwhile, the stakes keep getting higher. Lawmakers are debating new encampment bans and measures to compel people into shelters, even as homeless people warn that those shelters can be more dangerous than the street.  

• Wendy Powitzky, who sued over alleged sexual harassment at an Orange County shelter: “I’m still in limbo. I sleep in my car at night. I will never go to a shelter again.”

Read more in the CalMatters investigation.

New audit: CalMatters homelessness reporter Marisa Kendall has the details on the state auditor saying that the state doesn’t have the data it needs to track how well its homelessness response is working. 

The California Interagency Council on Homelessness has not tracked the state’s funding for homelessness programs since its 2023 assessment, which covered 2018 to 2021. The audit also found that the council hasn’t developed a consistent method for gathering data on the costs and outcomes of these programs — leaving the state without pertinent information to make “data‑driven policy decisions and identify gaps in services.”

Calling the audit a “wake-up call,” state Sen. Roger Niello, a Roseville Republican and vice chairperson of the budget committee, said homelessness solutions should shift towards prioritizing “self-sufficiency and cost effectiveness.”

One bit of positive news: The auditor found that two of the five state-funded programs “are likely cost-effective:” Homekey and the CalWORKs Housing Support Program — which may be on the chopping block due to the state budget shortfall. The three other programs did not produce enough data for the auditor to determine whether they were effective.

Learn more about the audit in Marisa’s story.

California hasn’t executed anyone since 2006, and Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on the death penalty soon after taking office in 2019.

But voters have rejected efforts to end capital punishment, most recently in 2016. So opponents are trying to restrict when it can be used. 

The latest attempt came Tuesday: The Legal Defense Fund and a coalition of other civil rights groups filed a petition before the California Supreme Court arguing that the state’s death penalty is racially biased. 

All four people sentenced to death in the state last year were Black or Latino, the coalition says, and California was second only to Florida for the most death sentences imposed in 2023.

A statewide study that analyzed a sample of 1,900 homicide convictions in California also found:

• Black people were at least five times more likely to be sentenced to death than non-Black defendants;
• Latino people were at least three times more likely to be sentenced to death;
• Black and Latino defendants with at least one white victim were at least three times more likely to face a death sentence compared to white defendants with at least one white victim.

In another study of more than 55,000 California homicides, researchers found that those with Black or Latino victims were 66% less likely to result in a death sentence compared to homicides with white victims.

These findings and others, “tell a reliable and intolerable story of the role of race in California’s capital sentencing scheme,” according to the petition. 

The filing also quotes Attorney General Rob Bonta, who said that the death penalty has “long had a disparate impact on defendants of color, especially when the victim is white;” as well as Newsom, who argued that a majority of studies show that “the race of the defendant and the race of the victim impact whether the death penalty will be imposed.”

As of Monday, California has 640 inmates on death row. 

In other courtroom news: Tuesday, a federal appeals court upheld California’s decades-old right to set clean air standards stricter than the federal government’s. In a statement, Newsom said the court “sided with common sense and public health against the fossil fuel industry and Republican-led states.”

Monday, a federal district court dismissed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a “transgender refuge” law passed in 2022 that protects those receiving or providing transgender health care in California from prosecution.   

From CalMatters politics reporter Yue Stella Yu: 

Claiming that retail thefts are having a “chilling effect” on Californians, state Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas on Tuesday promoted a bipartisan seven-bill package, proposing enhanced penalties for repeat offenders and more authority for law enforcement.

Most of the bills — backed by both the California Retailers Association and the California Chamber of Commerce — would target “organized retail theft.” They would step up punishments for high-dollar thefts; allow law enforcement to arrest those accused of shoplifting without witnessing the incident; authorize restraining orders against repeated theft offenders and more.

The package is a direct response to growing public concerns about retail theft, Attorney General Bonta said at a press conference: “It’s important that leaders listen, that they hear the calls of Californians when they say they are worried, they are scared, they are anxious, they are angry, they want change, they want action.”

Data on retail theft is mixed. Shoplifting and commercial retail thefts are up from previous years but remain down compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. The National Retail Federation retracted a claim last year that organized retail theft accounted for almost half of businesses’ inventory losses, citing flawed data. 

Democratic leaders acknowledged retail theft data is nuanced and hard to track, but argued the bills would still help curb thefts.  

• Bonta: “Making sure that law enforcement and prosecutors and community leaders and legislators have all the most important tools is critical.”

Retail theft has been the buzzword in the state Capitol and has divided Democrats, with some progressives pushing for rival approaches to instead step up social services. 

Some criminal justice advocacy groups have opposed several bills in Rivas’ package, arguing that California’s law is already harsher than several other states and that tougher penalties would not effectively improve public safety. 

Housing bills gutted: A handful of bills aimed at speeding up housing construction along California’s coast were, in the words of their author, “significantly neutered” during a committee hearing on Tuesday, explains CalMatters housing reporter Ben Christopher.  

• Senate Bill 1077 would have exempted accessory dwelling units from the California Coastal Commission’s review. It left the Senate’s natural resources committee merely requiring the commission to give local governments guidance on backyard cottage approvals in the Coastal Zone.
• SB 1092 would have forced the commission to more quickly process appeals of apartment buildings. Now the commission just has to study the issue.

The bills by San Diego Democratic Sen. Catherine Blakespear are part of a package designed to wrest control of housing approvals from the Coastal Commission. Blakespear accepted the amendments to win the backing of committee chairperson and Irvine Democrat Sen. Dave Min — but reluctantly.

• Blakespear: “I am absolutely forced to take these amendments and I am doing it willingly, but I did not want to.”

America’s 250th: That bill I wrote about Monday to create a commission to organize California’s part of America’s semiquincentennial in 2026? It passed its first hurdle Tuesday, advancing through the Senate governmental organization committee.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued the first nationwide limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water. What will be the fallout in California? Find out from CalMatters water reporter Rachel Becker and data and interactives editor John Osborn D’Agostino.