‘Anywhere but Here’
Understanding the Influence of Anti-Homeless Coalitions on Street-Level Bureaucratic Discretion and Judicial Nullification
Deyanira Nevarez Martinez
Homelessness is a pressing issue in many communities across the United States, with California often at the epicenter of the crisis. Despite numerous policy initiatives aimed at its alleviation, for six straight years, the problem has increased nationwide. Areas where we had seen improvement, such as veteran and family homelessness, are again on the rise. Meanwhile, racial disparities in homelessness are at an all-time high, with communities of color experiencing the phenomenon at three to four times the percentage of their overall representation in the population. As of 2023, it’s estimated that on any given night, over 580,000 Americans are homeless. Local authorities, nonprofits, and policymakers struggle to find not just effective but lasting solutions to this worsening problem.
In 2018, the Martin v. Boise case established a significant precedent in the fight to support the unhoused. The ruling stated that local governments could not enforce anti-camping laws unless they offered adequate, which is to say, comprehensive shelter options for their homeless populations. This decision aimed to protect the constitutional rights of unhoused individuals and prevent them from being criminalized for seeking shelter in public space and for carrying out basic bodily functions. Despite this win, in my recent study of a beach community in Orange County, California, I uncovered a troubling trend: local politics can nullify such important legal precedents, leaving homeless communities vulnerable to criminalization once again.
To make this phenomenon more visible, I attend to the everyday interactions between street-level bureaucrats, that is, public-facing public servants responsible for implementing and delivering services, and homeless residents. My study examines why and how discretion – the legal authority of government officials to selectively enforce the law – is exercised with respect to homeless individuals. It is based on ten months of fieldwork, including interviews with 60 public and nonprofit sector workers and unhoused individuals, as well as document analysis of 25 city council meetings in 2019 and 32 meetings in 2020. In addition, Facebook groups used for organizing purposes by community groups were also analyzed.
Homelessness is complex and the solutions to address it are often influenced by the local political context. This is particularly evident in the Orange County beach community I studied, which, like other communities, has seen a marked increase in the unhoused population over the last decade. In this case, the community’s political orientation and the actions of an anti-homeless coalition made up of elected officials and “concerned citizens” have significantly shaped approaches both to homelessness policy and service delivery. For example, the concerned citizens in question engage in organized harassment efforts. These include online intimidation tactics targeting volunteers and housing advocates, which in turn have created a culture of fear, preventing free and open conversation, throughout the community, about solutions to homelessness. The effect has been chilling. For instance, support for the construction of a new local shelter and maintaining or expanding services has been measurably discouraged.
On the ground, my study shows that local politics plays a major role in how street-level bureaucrats choose to carry out their duties. This group includes government workers such as law enforcement, social workers, code enforcement officers, healthcare workers, and newer actors in the form of non-profit workers, contracted by local governments, who perform outreach. In the beach city where I conducted research, the pressure from vocal anti-homeless coalitions has a noticeable impact not just on public discourse about homelessness but on the very actions of these bureaucrats. They often find themselves caught between their duty to serve the community, on the one hand, and the force of local political dynamics, on the other. As my ethnography shows, this leads to overenforcement of minor infractions such as jaywalking, violating parking laws, possessing property in parks, being on train platforms without a ticket, smoking cigarettes on the beach, and littering. Overenforcement creates a cycle of punitive measures against unhoused individuals, in many cases exacerbating their already difficult and often painful life circumstances.
Above the street level, as it were, elected officials have doubled down on their focus on criminalizing homelessness, effectively nullifying the legal protections set in place by the Martin ruling. My study underscores the necessity of critically examining the discretion exercised by street-level bureaucrats, who make up the frontlines of government policy implementation. In the case of this particular beach community, we’ve witnessed a concerning trend in which the decisions and actions of these bureaucrats are influenced to a worrisome degree by local politics, especially anti-homeless coalitions made up of organized and vocal people who are unelected by their fellow residents. Something as easily overlooked as enforcing jaywalking or smoking cigarettes in public space, and the pressures driving those many small enactments of discretion, together disrupt the pursuit of fair and compassionate solutions.
Looking ahead, we need both a more basic and granular understanding of the impact of external political pressures on critical actors responsible for implementing our key social policies. While my study highlights the vulnerability of all street-level bureaucrats to pressure from external actors, and specifically, anti-homeless coalitions, it underscores the heightened vulnerability of newer street-level bureaucrats employed by non-profits. As readers will discover, such actors are more vulnerable because of the repercussions they and their organizations face, should they find themselves at odds with locally powerful coalitions that can threaten their funding and thus the vital supports they provide.
To adequately address the ongoing challenge of homelessness, we need to shed light on these often occluded dynamics. The California beach community in question serves as a case study highlighting the consequential interplay between local politics, formal and informal, and street-level bureaucratic discretion. Legal precedents should not be undermined by local interests, especially of residents and entities who are unelected, and the rights and dignity of all individuals, regardless of their housing status, should be upheld.
Deyanira Nevarez Martinez is an assistant professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Michigan State University. Her research interests include interrogating the role of the state in homelessness and housing precarity and informality, Latinx homelessness, and the criminalization of poverty.