SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) The number of unhoused people in the County of Santa Clara has increased by 36 percent in the last five years, rising from 7,394 in 2017 to 10,028 in 2022, according to the Homeless Point-in-Time Count and Survey. In 2022, 77 percent of the unhoused population in the county were unsheltered, meaning they are living in vehicles, in abandoned buildings, on public lands, or on the street.
(b) Thousands of the unsheltered people in the County of Santa Clara live along creeks and streams, in the riparian corridors, where
294 miles of creekside lands are owned by the Santa Clara Valley Water District, an independent special district responsible for regional water supply, flood risk reduction, and environmental stewardship of waterways in the county.
(c) Encampments of unsheltered people along waterways are both a human and an environmental tragedy, causing deaths and negative health outcomes for unsheltered individuals, increased community risks from fires, and flooding due to blocked drainages and the excavation of banks and levees, as well as the degradation of water quality from litter and human waste.
(d) Nutrient loading of streams from human waste facilitates algal blooms that degrade natural and constructed habitats for aquatic species, including federally threatened fish species such as
steelhead trout.
(e) The safe operation of water supply and flood risk reduction infrastructure in the County of Santa Clara requires vehicle access along pathways favored by encampments and requires the rapid release of water from upstream reservoirs, not only during storms, but often weeks before storms arrive, which may unintentionally flood encampments, endangering unsheltered people.
(f) Construction of flood risk reduction and water supply infrastructure, as well as environmental restoration and enhancement, requires closing certain areas to the public to protect life, safety, and the environment.
(g) As an independent special district, the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s actions to address the human and
operational challenges posed by encampments and to reduce environmental impacts are limited by the agency’s authorities granted by the Santa Clara Valley Water District Act, as well as by the California Constitution’s restrictions on the use of taxes and fees collected for water supply and flood protection for other purposes.
(h) The Santa Clara Valley Water District Board has long sought to increase resources that could be available to assist unsheltered people living along waterways and on other district properties to provide solutions, housing, or improved outcomes for the unsheltered individuals.
(i) In 2020, voters the in County of Santa Clara approved Measure S, a special tax that provides $500,000 annually to the water district for cost-share agreements with local agencies
for services related to cleanups of encampment litter and debris on waterways, in keeping with the district’s limited mission. Those funds are limited and eroded by inflation, and the growing needs far exceed both the purpose and amount of funding provided by the special tax.
(j) In the case of Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584, 616 (9th Cir. 2019), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that “as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.” The United States Supreme Court declined to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision, leaving it in effect in the western states covered by the Ninth Circuit, including California. Martin v. City of Boise has been
interpreted to mean a de facto requirement to offer shelter before unsheltered people may be relocated from public lands, and failure to do so may result in the issuance of a temporary restraining order.
(k) Considering the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s uncommon flood risk reduction responsibilities that are separate from county government, accounting for its location in one of the largest urban areas in the state, noting the large numbers of unsheltered people living on the public lands in riparian corridors, and citing evolving case law requiring the offer of shelter to relocate unsheltered people living on public land, there is a compelling need to expand the purposes of the Santa Clara Valley Water District to better assist unsheltered people, to fulfill the district’s existing mission of comprehensive water supply, flood risk
reduction, and environmental stewardship of streams, by providing solutions, housing, and improved outcomes for unsheltered people living on public lands and along waterways within the County of Santa Clara.