A Peninsula city is taking Gov. Gavin Newsom's warning to heart.
Newsom has said if cities don't start getting serious about addressing homeless encampments, he's going to start pulling state funding. The mayor of East Palo Alto said Wednesday he has a plan to ensure crews can start cleaning up encampments in his city right away.
Mayor Antonio Lopez said homelessness is a regional problem and on Wednesday asked other cities in San Mateo County to implement their own ordinances to clear encampments while providing services.
Lopez said he plans to introduce an emergency ordinance on Sept. 3 that would launch city efforts to clean up encampments while also providing mental health and other services to those displaced.
"The idea of the ordinance is similar to the Hopeful Horizons ordinance of San Mateo County," he said. "It provides two warnings to those individuals, of course providing them shelter, providing them refuge, providing them resources."
Under his proposal, the unhoused would be forced to move after two warnings.
"We have to have a unified response, we have to have a unified stance," he said.
Redwood City Planning Commissioner Maggie Cornejo agrees. She said encampments are impacting safety in her city's downtown corridor.
"It's really getting worse," she said. "I see the violence in the encampments with each other. I want us all to be safe."
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
Robin Vaca performs homeless outreach in Redwood City. She questions where the unhoused would go if their encampments are swept out.
"The county has so much money," she said, "Well, where are they going to go? There's families that are on a waiting list to get into shelter."
