They're coming for the helpers now

Interviewing local advocate Aaron Horner on the new law in Fremont, CA

Many of you saw the concerning news out of Fremont, CA last week. This extreme law to not only broadly criminalize homelessness but also those who aim to help is deeply distressing.

To help us understand the context of this and its implications, I reached out to my friend Pastor Aaron Horner, who is an amazing advocate and expert on homelessness in the East Bay. If you want to connect with Aaron, you can find him on Instagram, Facebook, or email him directly: aaron@amhs.info.

For the first time, I’m bringing you an interview! You can also listen to the audio, or read the transcript at the bottom. I definitely recommend the audio version, as the transcript is *imperfect*, and both Aaron and I talk like we’re talking, which doesn’t read as well it sounds.

I loved our conversation, finding it informative, sobering, and inspiring.Let me know if you enjoy this format. I’d love to bring Aaron and other friends and fellow experts on more often if it’s something that connects with you all.

Listen:

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TRANSCRIPT:

Kevin: All right. So this is the first time that I'm recording a video to put out to people. So people will have to be forgiving about any technical issues that come up along the way. But I felt that this was the right way to respond to some news that came out that I'm sure a lot of folks who read my substack probably saw, which was that the city of Fremont, California, issued a new sort of level of criminalization of homelessness. But what really caught a lot of folks off guard that we haven't necessarily seen before, to this extent is a criminalization of what they called aiding and abetting homelessness, specifically encampments.

So when I saw that, my first thought was, "they're coming for the helpers now!" Right? But then my second thought was, I got to get Aaron on the horn to talk about this. So Aaron, I'll let you introduce yourself, but before you do, I just want to say like, Aaron is my go to guy. He is an expert advocate, all things homelessness, outreach, Nonprofit management, like this is *the* guy out there in the East Bay where this is especially relevant because it's happening.

So I'm going to hype you up and then I'm going to let you introduce yourself.

Aaron: Well, hopefully it's not a let down, but I appreciate it. But yeah, so. Aaron Horner currently working with First Pres Hayward operating a few shelters in Castro Valley and Hayward, California have some experience in doing outreach in several places out here in the Tri Valley, also, done work in the non profit space, working with the unhoused population in the East Bay, California, and then working also with systems involved folks: folks involved in foster, probation systems, young parents. And so in a lot of those spaces, being able to connect, and to sum it up is: how do we find solutions? How do we move towards it together? Solutions can support each other. You know, I'm the owner of AMH Services LLC. It's the agency that we're building to be able to find some of these solutions and roll them out locally and nationwide to be able to come to some humanizing solutions that actually solve these issues for the long run.

Kevin: Yeah, and so for those who aren't familiar if you could kind of situate where Fremont is, I think most people just see city in California, but if you can kind of lay it out a little more specifically as it would relate to cities that, you know, folks might be more familiar with.

Aaron: Yeah, so if if you know the Bay Area, California, Northern California, roughly about 30 to 40 minutes East of San Francisco, about 15 to 20 minutes South of Oakland and roughly 10 to 15 minutes North of San Jose. So it's right really between San Jose and Oakland in the, in the East Bay in California, the 510 area code is what we call it.

So that's that's the space where it is physically.

Kevin: And I know a lot of folks have seen like the headline version of this, right? What I described at the top of criminalization of homelessness and criminalization of the helpers. But I'd love for you to just kind of dig into the more like the minutiae of it.

Because this is something that I saw you talking about before it became national news, because you were following the decision process. And when I was with you just a few months ago you were talking to me about Fremont and how it was different than some of the neighborhoods and the cities that are adjoining.

So if you could, I think it'd be really helpful to give out that context of how Fremont gets to this place and what sort of the immediate impact on the surrounding area is.

Aaron: Yeah. So Fremont is it's about two cities south of where I'm at. I typically operate in Hayward in the Castro Valley area.

And one of the things that was in the news a while ago was the community rejecting building a navigation center a few years back and most recently they reached about 800 unhoused individuals counted in the last point in time count in the city of Fremont. So that is a significant amount.

Whereas, you know, if you were to put it into perspective, you know, there are somewhere around six to 7,000 in the city of Oakland. San Francisco's got 12 to 15,000. Depending on how you're looking at those counts. So it is not as significantly populated with the unhoused population as those major cities, but for a suburb, it really does have a significant population.

So one of the things that's been a bit of an issue in the Fremont community. That's been a bit of an issue is the fact that there is significant community challenge in in accepting our unhoused folks as our neighbors. Right. Fremont was actually just awarded the signifier of "a compassionate city." Just recently. There is a lot of compassion in the space. A lot of that understanding was coming up as you're watching this public comment, but there's a lot of engagement. There's significant engagement in this meeting. So on this past Tuesday, when they went to bring this forward for the vote, there was somewhere around 200 individuals that had submitted public comment for this one item.

There's a lot of people that had had thoughts and opinions. And so you got service providers, local service providers, you had the police chief, city management, the human services side of things spoke, and there are some innovators in that.

In that space actually, Lori Flores, who's on our team, is one of the folks who taught me actually how to open up a winter shelter. I did a tour with her back before I opened up this shelter many years ago, and they've done some significant things where they actually converted some hotel rooms into winter relief spaces. So they actually do have a shelter that is a former hotel space. So there's some things that they've done that have really pushed that forward. And even in this meeting, they listed somewhere above 24 service provider opportunities that they have available in their city. So there are a lot of services available and a lot of work being done.

And yet this ordinance was passed this past Tuesday with a vote of six to one to, I can look up the letter of it, but basically to make it to where anyone who is camping or storing items in public or private property would be assessed a fine of up to a thousand dollars and up to six months in jail.

And then the secondary part of that clause is that. Anyone who is aiding and abetting in those activities would also receive those same consequences. So up to a thousand dollars fine and up to six months in a local jail.

Kevin: And I saw again, because you were posting about it on the ground, but that at one point in deliberation, there was different language that was maybe more specific, but that by the time that it actually came out, It ended up being very generalized, which then opens up a lot-- more room for kind of concerning interpretation.

Can you speak to that a little bit?

Aaron: Yeah, in the meeting itself, Each of the council members weighed in and the mayor as well around their thoughts on this ordinance and they give a timeline . It had started in the city with looking at issues with folks parking RVs, large encampments and they recently several months past had put into effect an ordinance specifically targeting larger vehicles.

And so they looked at that and said, Hey, we're having improvement, meaning that there were less out there, due to the fact that they're now towing some of these vehicles out of their city. This was the next step in this phase. The discussion going on as the city council was talking was really around protecting the safety of all citizens in the community and protecting businesses.

And, this is more of the argument around we need encampments to disappear because it is affecting business. It's affecting the bottom line. It's affecting quite a few things in the area. And safety in general. And so there's a lot of different pieces that will come into play. But when you see the conversation going back and forth then there was a public comment that came up and then towards the end, there was a motion on the table actually to add specific language around the aiding and abetting piece.

That was for most of us, the biggest challenge. Because it is so ambiguous, the verbiage was anyone camping or storing items on public or private property, and anyone aiding and abetting in those items could suffer these consequences. So that left so much ambiguity in the actual letter of the ordinance that most of us are are pretty upset and nervous around the fact that we could potentially serve some jail time for the work that we're doing. If it is interpreted on the streets in a way that giving food to someone or giving what was called paraphernalia meaning a sleeping bag or a tent to people would would result in jail time, right?

So rightly you know, the chief of police who is a very well educated and trained individual who has a compassionate approach to the work he does, talked about his space-- his directions he would give to his officers and some of the common practices that they have would not allow for something like giving out food or giving out supplies to someone to result in aiding and abetting charge. Although that was somewhat comforting, it did not change the letter of the law, right? So the motion was on the table to say, Hey, can we add these pieces, right? So the there was some of the specifics around saying, Hey, giving somebody food, giving some of the items for warming or some for cooling, giving people liquid, giving them support for their survival would not count as a violation towards ordinance.

And ultimately that motion was withdrawn and it was accepted without any changes. So it is now in play. It is to be enacted within 30 days, where it is generic. It's open up to interpretation. I don't think anyone's concerned for that chief of police to come out and enforce a thing, but we're very concerned around an officer who hasn't been hired yet, enforcing this a year from now . The next city council or the next person with the next issue that they're upset about that would take this and use it to the nth degree that could actually put some of us that are service providers in incarceration for just being able to support people with their basic needs. And so it is ambiguous.

I do believe that what was expressed in that space was intent that, oh, we're not trying to say you shouldn't help people. However, it is up to interpretation because it is so vague, and that really is a challenge with the way that that law was enacted.

Kevin: Well, I think it's worth pointing out too how much of this is possible because of the Supreme Court decision this last summer, right?

The Supreme Court overruled what was an existing law in California as well as pretty much up the whole West Coast, that limited cities and municipalities from criminalizing homelessness if they hadn't provided enough Shelter or housing. Now again, that was also a very vaguely worded law that didn't stop the criminalization of homelessness in these spaces, but it at least gave us sort of checks and balances. Mayors and city council were sort of afraid that if they didn't do X, Y, and Z in terms of providing services, that then they could get sued for criminalizing. And so there was a lot of like jumping through hoops that had to happen, but that jumping through hoops was usually at least providing a bare minimum of shelter beds, housing options, right?

So that they could then in turn justify criminalization. Now for me and for you, Aaron we're never going to justify criminalization, right? But at least there was a like a cap on it, but when the Supreme Court decided what they did this summer, it removed that cap .

There is now no slap on the wrist, no thing that municipalities have to fear from making laws like this. And so if you want to just talk briefly, because you and I talked when I was there, about how there was just sort of that immediate change in dynamic, right? When that Supreme Court decision went into effect.

Aaron: Yeah, there's so many things around it. And each municipality is now able to interpret that based upon what they're currently facing, their current circumstances, right? So I think that's one of the bigger challenges is what's the layer of verification needed? What's the layer of approval needed to put something into place?

And so now with that Supreme Court decision, each municipality is able to make their own decision. And you'll see where folks are beginning to make Broad sweeps. Some cities are going out and and just wiping people out of their community. So they're going into encampments and saying, Hey, you got to go now, we'll arrest you. If you're in this space, we will put you in jail. We will move you on. Some of those are doing that. There's others where they're saying, Hey, we're making a commitment that we won't be doing those things. And then something happens, you know, one of the cities that I work with, one of the local officials came and talked to staff. And then immediately there was a sweep within days. And that sweep did not necessarily meet all of the previous ordinances where you had to have it posted for 72 hours, let people know about those things. There were services offered. However, one of the spaces in Camden had roughly 30 people, three people were supported and able to get into additional shelter and the rest were made to to move on.

On the day of the sweep, there was three people arrested, you know, so There are people that are trying to help people there, and there's these ideas that are coming up that you and I have talked about a lot around service resistance, that if somebody is not taking an opportunity that's in front of them right now it's meant to think that this person doesn't want to move on they want to cause a problem, and, you know, we don't need to get too deep into that right now but it allows for that interpretation.

Where an individual that is trying to offer services or person who was trying to enforce their own safety or whatever it is in the community is beginning to dehumanize folks who are not housed in their area.

There were some definitions in this ordinance that I thought were very interesting. One is when they talked about Camp-- means to place, pitch, or occupy camp facilities to live temporarily in a camp facility or outdoors, or to use camp paraphernalia. Camp facilities include, but are not limited to, tents, huts, vehicles, vehicle camping outfits, or temporary shelter. And then camp paraphernalia includes, but is not limited to, bedrolls. Tarpaulins, cots, beds, sleeping bags, hammocks, or cooking facilities, and similar equipment. So for most of us that would be aiding and abetting in something like this, to give somebody a sleeping bag would actually be a violation of this ordinance, right? Because of these definitions. But I'll say even the mayor in Fremont was saying that camping in a tent would not be a problem.

You know, it wouldn't be a problem if you're camping in a tent, but we're talking about building structures. And in that meeting, an example came up from the vice mayor, she brought up an idea of like if someone was parking in front of your house right is considered public property you've given them as a private property owner you've given them permission to stay there, the ordinance says if that person is there more than 72 hours, then the person would be assessed the fine, and then they would go to jail and the property owner for aiding and abetting that person for parking in front of their space for more than 72 hours.

Right, so these are pieces where that definition becomes extremely dangerous. Compassion was used a lot in this meeting, and I do believe that people are coming from a place of compassion, and even one of the logic pieces that came up, and we're talking about the Supreme Court decision, but you allow this local logic to come into it, and people are saying, hey, encampments are unhealthy for people.

I think we all agree with that. People living in the space without running water, without access to food, without access to bathrooms and doors is unhealthy. Right. You know, it doesn't have all of the things that people need for, for healthy survival, but that doesn't mean that criminalizing that is actually a compassionate, right.

And I think that's where the logic went down to say, this is unhealthy. It's not fully living into a wellness model that we would all enjoy. So then we should get rid of them. But the question never came about what happens next, right? The vice mayor asked specifically around. Okay, so you arrest somebody what happens?

We put him in the holding cell. Then we take them to the county jail and they serve six months and then they're released. And then what? And the answer is, that's not up to us. We did what we were supposed to do, right? These are things that end up to where you typically have these Criminalization issues disproportionately affect people of color.

Number one is definitely going to disproportionately affect people that are low, low income poor individuals, right? So these are all things that happen that create discrimination because of the fact that this policy is going to be applied to a specific group of people that are in a specific situation when they're forced to camp.

And the idea to me that is able to come out of this because of the fact that that Supreme Court made that decision. It allows local folks to come up with their own justifications and say, this person has decided to do this when I don't agree with that. I don't believe that that's the truth. I think people are doing the best they can with what they've got.

And if somebody is in those situations, we need to do like what you said and add more chairs back rather than taking away a chair and blaming somebody for having a broken ankle.

Kevin: Yeah. And I was thinking because all of the laws that we use to criminalize homelessness are laws that are broad, but then selectively enforced.

Right? So thinking about something like loitering, right? Like that is a law that is on the books in most cities. But it's really only used to target unhoused people.

Aaron: Possession of a stolen shopping cart.

Kevin: Yes, exactly. Right. The people waiting outside the theater for the movie premiere, they're not getting ticketed for loitering.

I've seen folks in recently in St. Paul, we were driving to the science center out there and we saw a couple of tents and I was like, Oh St. Paul usually cracks down on these encampments pretty hard. I can't believe those tents are still up. We found out later that it was a few college kids camping out for a concert.

And of course they didn't, they didn't get swept. But these new laws in Fremont that are so sweeping to include a hammock. No officer in Fremont is going to go ticket a white college kid for putting up a hammock. In the park and reading, right, even though that that technically would violate this ordinance.

So I think that's important to understand around the criminalization of homelessness that often it is these broad laws so that they can be selectively enforced.

Kevin: So, when was there and you were driving me around all the different Cities in that area, it felt very quickly like, Oh, now we're in this city. Now we're in this city. We just cross this street. And as you and I both know, homelessness doesn't observe those borders, right? And, when they do, it's because of things like this, right. So if you could sort of speak to where you think this is going to affect the cities that surround Fremont and what the sort of precedent that this sets for if you're a city near Fremont, how you might feel like you have to respond.

Aaron: Yeah, I'm really concerned about that. And I think most of us are. Most service providers, most folks who are experiencing homelessness are concerned about a regional response to this. You know, this is not a solution. And that's not an opinion. It really is factual. This will not actually solve homelessness for anyone.

It will criminalize and for those that right now are not committing anything that would be considered a crime. You know, for example, people do not have drug paraphernalia on them. A vast majority do not. Most people believe that's a situation. There's drug use but it is not as rampant as people believe.

So if a person does not have drug paraphernalia and they are not having behavioral challenges, they're not disturbing the peace, but now they are possessing a sleeping bag. They would actually now enter into the criminal justice system, right? So this is an onramp into a very dangerous system that in the United States. Once you're in that system, it's extremely difficult to get out.

And so that's a huge concern for me around criminalization of individuals and specifically it will target people of color. For example, here, roughly 40 percent of our unhoused community is black. And in the city of California, our population, the black community makes up only around 11 percent of the population.

So it is a disproportionate amount of individuals that are black that are unhoused that would now be entering into the criminal justice system. And in our minds, we would just say, oh yeah, they're a criminal, but that crime could have been possessing a hammock or sleeping on a hammock or carrying a bedroll.

Right? Having a bedroll could Make you a " criminal." So one of the concerns with that is actually how that impacts other cities. We do have incorporated and unincorporated areas here. We are concerned that this criminalization will cause people to move to other cities and into other cities, but then have an influx of people.

And then there's this all back and forth and people have to respond. And now you have cities that are currently in a space where they're compassionate and they're working through this and they're trying to actually come up with. and camera resolution, long term actual solutions for, for homelessness that would then be forced or they would feel forced to, to make a move that would be comparable to this or even lower, right?

Lower down the spectrum to say, Oh, we're going to make something even more criminal over here. So then it pushes people back to another place. You know If we're seeking power in a situation, then we try to take an upper hand. And that power piece is not really what we need to address. The issues are we don't have enough housing, our housing is too expensive.

The below market rate housing that we're building now is not affordable for you and me. We're not able to even get into affordable housing. And we've got education, but we're not able to afford these spaces. So, how do we solve this? You've said it time and time again, and, not just you, but studies are proving that really homelessness is a housing problem. That's a new book that has come out. But really the answer is moving people into housing, not criminalizing their poverty.

Kevin: Yeah. You used a phrase when I was there that just has really stuck with me, that one city doing these laws creates a race to the bottom, right? If Fremont does this, then Newark next door feels like, oh, we have to make a law that's even more draconian to drive everyone back to Fremont, right?

Or to push them somewhere else.

Just moves the problem around. And then fast forward a couple of years and you have a whole region with just. terrible laws and no pathways out of homelessness, just repeating these cycles of violence.

Aaron: There's a study that just came out, "the cost to do nothing"-- to do nothing and just leave people on the street, it's roughly 62 or 64, 000 a year of what the drain is on public services, per person per year. And if we were to intentionally get services together and do all of the things needed to get somebody in a house, it's only around 40, 000 a year. And in the state of California specifically, it's over 170, 000 a year to imprison someone.

So financially, it just makes more sense for us to take a more strategic, less expensive, more humane approach to say, can we just get enough chairs for people in the game of musical chairs? Can we do something about our housing here? Can we do something about the vacant properties? Can we do something about the cost of What it is to be in a house out here and make more space for people.

And really just take this compassionate circle and expand it. I'll just put this out here too. I think one of the issues is, and you and I have talked about this is, we also have to include everyone in the community into that circle of compassion. We can't just say, we can't just center one group and have everybody else out.

We do need to listen to the challenges around housed neighbors, and we need to consider the safety of folks that want to walk in a neighborhood that want to take their children to school. It's complex and we've got to have solutions that humanize and we sit down and get kind of in the messy middle and figure out solutions.

And really that relies on giving people keys to houses. The chief of police said in that meeting, he said specifically ," we don't get calls to these housing units that are permanent supportive housing for people that used to be homeless. We don't get police calls there,"

and I was like, drop the mic. That's it. Hey, that should have been the end of the meeting and we should have voted right there. However, there was a lot more to it. But what it ended up doing is, is everyone really expressing their unmet needs. And it's just so vast to meet the needs of so many people, while people are in deep poverty and that's this this idea of Shalom or that our peace or that our freedom is actually linked to each other.

And if we can really get our minds around that and to say, if any of us are oppressed, then all of us are oppressed. And I think this shows up specifically with the unhoused population. If we have people who are living in poverty that are destitute and are not able to thrive and survive, that impacts people that live in the houses in that community.

The answer is, For us to free people from their oppression rather than for us to incarcerate people, spend all of our money to put somebody into a jail cell that literally has so many psychological and negative effects on them and their generations. Incarceration impacts impacts your family for decades.

Generations around wealth. Psychologically. The answer is let's get people into houses. Let's open up our doors. Let's let one more person inside. Let's feed one more person. Let's get another bedroll to somebody. Let's not send people to jail for trying to help you.

I'm personally feeling a lot of feelings around. I'm trying to be neutral in my responses and at the same time concerned for me and some of my friends. You know, a lot of my friends are in those communities. And are doing this work and will continue to do this work and are willing to go to jail to help people.

And if we all have that conviction and we're able to find it in our hearts to humanize it, I think we would have a different result.

Kevin: So just real briefly this will have to be an ongoing conversation, right? But what does resistance to this look like? , how do we push back?

Aaron: Yeah, I know that there's Word of some legal action to be taken. I'm not a lawyer. I wouldn't know exactly those things, but I will say support local and national law organizations that are fighting these things.

I would say do that. I would also say begin to get into conversations where we can humanize the situation, bring people out, introduce people. In our community, one of the things we're doing is actually getting folks together to Really look at the complaints, really look at the concerns that were brought up around business, around safety, around families not feeling safe in their area, and then also look at the conditions that people are unhoused are facing and bring those together and have a complex conversation, a really difficult conversation around what does it look for us to humanize our folks who are unhoused? And what does it look like for us to humanize our folks who are just trying to walk their kids to school and, and put all of that together and say, can we solve for this? It's an algebraic equation but it never changes when we put one person over another. We need to have a level approach where we need to consider the safety of the local community, we can't disregard that.

And, you know, one of the things that I hear all the time is we can't have this and that justifies the means. We need to have means and ends that are coming together to say, Hey, we're going to be able to humanize and support our folks who are unhoused. And we've got to do that in a way that increases safety for everybody in the community.

Right. So how do we do those things? To Resist to me is we help people period. We speak up at local community meetings. We tell stories and we bring people into the room that are facing these situations. We can't just have people with wealth expressing their inconvenience in a situation or their safety concerns or their business impacts.

We also need to have people that are unhoused being able to speak about the challenges that they're facing. And we got to level the playing field because if this is all happening in one location and there's no transportation to that meeting, then what you'll end up having is people with wealth having more of a voice in the room when they're all citizens of the community.

One thing I hear a lot of times is people saying, Oh, we've got to consider the residents and the unhoused. Everyone that lives in the city is a resident. Everyone that lives in the city is a resident. There's not residents because a person has an address and a key, and then they're not a resident because they don't.

They have a key to a vehicle, not a key to a house. Everyone that is in a city that sleeps at night is considered a resident of that city, and we need to move these definitions forward. So resistance is treating each other humanely. Right on the ethereal level that begins to change our hearts.

And then also, how do we find like actual safe ways to make sure people have all of their basic needs met? And and that answer is not putting people into forced encampments. It's Working to get housing, getting shelter space so that people can be off the street. And you know, they're showing that people are able to utilize services twice as much if they're in the shelter space And they get housed much faster because their documents are together.

They're able to carry their items and be safe They can move towards housing that way. So we really just got to say we just got to welcome people in. Whatever that looks like in your community. If you're part of a faith community, part of some sort of community group, your family, how do you bring people in to be able to address those individual issues in your area. How are you active in your community? Speaking up in public meetings? How are we advocating for dollars from our, our city, state, county foundations to be able to address these housing issues, whatever that looks like in your space, each city, each state, each municipality has different challenges to permitting and getting housing.

But really the answer is permanent supportive housing, the right amount of support, the right amount of doors, the right amount of people inside houses.

Kevin: I'm also not a lawyer, but I would be very interested to see if there were a church in Fremont willing to violate this law and , to fight in court for their First Amendment right as a church to do what Is there a religious mandate, which is to take care of the poor? There, is a precedent for that in other places.

. I was going to say, and I bet you know who they are too. Cause to me that's one of the ways that a law like this gets ripped off the books is because it violates constitutional right. That's what we hoped would have happened in the Supreme court case where we argued that that criminalizing homelessness violates a protection against cruel and unusual punishment, right? That the Supreme Court didn't agree is frankly incorrect, right? But that's what they did. But I feel like especially with a more conservative Supreme Court that the religious freedom route might be maybe a little bit more of a connection point, but I guess we'll wait and see.

Aaron: Yeah. And, and I think if there's a lot of us that do it, they're going to have to think about what they're going to do. , there's so many alienating practices going on with the current climate in our country and in our local spaces where we're really trying to enforce and criminalize people who really are just trying to make some things happen and are contributing to our community.

So, yeah, I think if we can organize, we can get together, we can have a strategic game plan. I think you make it hard enough for people that it raises awareness. And unfortunately some of us are gonna probably get arrested in the cause. Maybe go through some legal fights.

Kevin: well I'll leave us off there. How can, how can people find you and keep up with what you're doing?

Aaron: Yeah. On my socials I, you know, real quick, it's @aaronhorner811. But also I'll give you my email.

It's aaron@amhs.info and Instagram is @aaronhorner811 and Aaron Horner on Facebook. Look forward to connecting with all y'all.

Kevin: Thanks for your time, Aaron.

Aaron: Thank you.