Encinitas Mayor On Bringing Enforcement to City’s Homelessness Policies 

It’s been almost a year since Encinitas’ new mayor and three new City Councilmembers were sworn into their elected positions, overhauling the dynamics on the Council and shifting the city’s stance on several significant policies. 

One of those policies is homelessness. 

Over the last several months, the Council has tightened public camping rules, contracted with a new homeless outreach organization (the San Diego Rescue Mission) and added an enforcement element to its Homeless Action Plan. 

In June, the City Council agreed to add an enforcement goal to its Homeless Action Plan focused on increasing enforcement of laws, making enhancements to city ordinances and facilitating actions by the Sheriff’s Office.   

That means people who violate city ordinances and laws will receive citations, fines or will be arrested. 

Encinitas had 91 unsheltered homeless people this year, according to the most recent Point-in-time count, the region’s annual homeless census. That’s down from 124 unsheltered people counted in 2024. 

I asked Encinitas Mayor Bruce Ehlers about the Council’s shift in strategy when it comes to addressing homelessness.  

Editor’s note: This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Q: I have noticed a sort of new direction when it comes to the Council addressing homelessness. Is that something you agree with? And what’s different now compared to previous councils? 

BE: I don’t think it’s a new direction; I think we added to the direction. And I think the Homeless Action Plan meeting was a key example of where we did that. Historically in the Homeless Action Plan, there were three goals, and they were all service oriented with no enforcement of rules. And so, what I proposed, and the Council accepted, was adding a fourth goal about enforcement, but we did not reduce or change or delete the other three service-oriented goals. 

Q: Can you tell me more about this enforcement component? 

BE: You’ll hear me say quite often you have to have both a carrot and a stick when addressing homelessness. You can’t just offer services if here’s no motivation for them to take up services. And so, you have to make sure the people who are refusing services – if they are offered a bed and safe place to sleep and food and healthcare and mental health services and they refuse it – they have an obligation then to follow our laws. 

I would call it an additional direction that had not been fully exercised in the past. 

Q. Why do you think enforcement is important? 

BE: The passage of Proposition 36, which passed by a vote in California to reverse a good portion of Proposition 47 that had taken away a lot of criminalization of behaviors such as petty theft…drug possession and things like that…makes it so that if you are a repeat offender…you can be sentenced to mandatory drug treatment or jail time.  

That’s a key component because many of the homeless in San Diego County have a substance abuse disorder and/or a mental health issue, and a lot of people in that group will turn down services. These are people we often see breaking laws – defecating in public, laying out on public sidewalks incapacitated, we have one individual who takes off all of his clothes – you know, so that’s why we need some mandatory enforcement. 

If they are flaunting the laws…and they just don’t care and they’re perfectly content with that lifestyle, that’s the group I’m probably most focused on when it comes to enforcement because I think we’re taking care of the people that are willing to get services. 

Q: And for those willing to accept services, is that where the new homeless outreach workers will come in? 

BE: Yes. Of course, we have homeless families, we have homeless people living in cars, we have students that are homeless, we have children that are homeless, and typically they’re all willing to take the services, which is why we’ve hired the two caseworkers and the housing navigation person through San Diego Rescue Mission.  

It’s about finding that balance between the services that were there before and now the enforcement aspect. 

Q: There’s criticism out there from people who say too much enforcement could just end up displacing people; instead of getting to the root of the actual problem, enforcement may end up just being punitive. How would you respond to that? 

BE: It comes down to if they are not going to abide by our laws, then they’re either going to go to jail or they’re going to displace themselves and move elsewhere. But the idea is that they would take the services and get healthy. 

One alternative that has been tried in other cities is Housing First. Housing First says you gather all the drug users up, put ’em in a free apartment and let ’em continue doing drugs. If you read the book, ‘San Fransicko’ by Michael Shellenberger, he quotes a study that showed the mortality rate on the street equals the mortality rate in Housing First. So, all you’re doing is having them die out of sight; you’re not really helping them. The only way you’re going to get them out of permanent homelessness and drug addiction is to find a way to get them into treatment. And that’s for that group, right? The drug addicted group. 

Q. Housing First is the accepted model by the state and a lot of studies on Housing First say providing safe and comfortable shelter is the first step to helping homeless people recover from other issues like drug addiction and mental illness. You’re saying you disagree with that? 

BE: I don’t think the studies support that for the drug abusing group. 

And again, the mortality rate – they’re dying in that safe, comfortable living at the same rate that they’re dying on the streets. And I’ve spoken with experts and leaders of homeless serving nonprofits who would agree. 

Q: Any final thoughts you’d like to add? 

BE: Homelessness per se is not a crime. It’s not a crime. People can be homeless and walk around on the street. What we have to stop is illegal behavior, be it being drunk and disorderly in public, threatening people, defecating in public, urinating in public, petty theft, illegal camping and RVs on public lands. Those are all breaking laws, and those need to be enforced. It’s either a health violation or just a flat-out crime. So that’s why the enforcement that was missing was so crucial.  
 
People want to feel safe to go downtown and not be accosted by anybody, whether they’re homeless or drunk or whatever. They want to be able to let their kids ride their bikes around town safely. So again, I am going to focus on the breaking of ordinances and laws; we can’t have that. And so that’s what we’re bringing to the table that wasn’t considered before.  

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