Federal judge blocks Vallejo from destroying woman’s tent shelter

VALLEJO - A federal judge upheld a Vallejo woman’s petition to stay in her tent shelter last week, blocking the city’s efforts to destroy her camp while she searches for permanent housing.

Evelyn Alfred, known to friends as Brown Sugar, has for months been fighting the city’s efforts to remove her from a vacant lot alongside Mare Island Way near Tennessee Street. Alfred, 64, said she has the right to inhabit a small structure constructed out of tarps and salvaged materials, which she kept tidy by removing trash and cutting overgrown weeds and creating a clean yard, while seeking Solano County’s aid in finding a home. 

U.S. District Court Judge Dena Coggins blocked the city in a ruling Friday from evicting her from her camp. Coggins last year granted Alfred a temporary restraining order against the city, which was later extended. 

Alfred had argued the eviction would place her in imminent danger, violating constitutional protections under the 14th Amendment. She also argued that her severe depression, the cold winter weather and her vulnerability to violence as a elderly woman without shelter places her in significant danger if she were evicted. 

In her ruling Friday granting Alfred a preliminary injunction, Coggins said Alfred established that “there are serious questions as to her 14th Amendment state-created danger claim” given that the city did not try to connect her with housing and support services. 

Coggins agreed that removing Alfred from her camp when she requires a cane to walk, uses a back brace and a medical boot and cannot raise her hands over her head or bend over “is likely to expose her to more dangerous conditions than she currently faces by depriving her of protection from the elements, hygiene facilities, and access to life essentials.”

Alfred’s attorney Anthony Prince told Vallejo Sun in an interview Sunday that the judge’s ruling was critical in supporting a legal question on whether the 14th Amendment protects the rights of homeless people threatened with encampment sweeps. The 14th Amendment protects citizens from discrimination and arbitrary treatment.

Prince, who has been representing unhoused people affiliated with the National Union of the Homeless for decades, said Vallejo officials have been using last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson as “a green light” to sweep encampments. The court found that Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment do not bar cities and counties from enforcing prohibitions against camping even when no local shelter space is available, which Prince said leaves open a legal question around applying the 14th Amendment.  

“We feel that this case, even though it was [about] one individual, is emblematic both of the problem in Vallejo and indicative of where the city needs to go at this point,” Prince said. “And that is to cease these sweeps when they, by their own admission, have no place for people to go. We hope this is a signal to the city that they need to come to the table and talk to our Homeless Union members about solutions. We don’t think it’s the job of the city to punish homeless people, we think it’s the job of the city to create solutions.”

The Vallejo City Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment about the ruling.

Alfred’s case partly relies on being known for her contributions to the neighborhood, with many writing letters to the city requesting that she be allowed to stay, and her ongoing search for a home. She signed up for services with Caminar, a nonprofit that manages aspects of the county’s coordinated entry system for homeless services, but has told Vallejo Sun she never heard back after leaving a voicemail. She said she also visited several apartment buildings that could fit her budget, but was told there were no vacant homes.

In court declarations, city officials pushed back on Alfred’s maintaining a temporary shelter. Scott Sanders, a senior building inspector for Vallejo, filed a statement Jan. 24 listing 14 violations of the 2022 California Building Code, including Alfred’s lack of plumbing, smoke alarms and automatic fire sprinklers. 

The city denied Alfred’s requests to apply for permits for use on public property, rent public property, access the bathroom at Vallejo City Hall, move her belongings to a new location near a water fountain and bathroom or a street-accessible area.

Coggins raised several issues with the city’s case, saying the city’s declarations omitted critical information such as how Sanders examined Alfred’s shelter and whether any code violations can be remedied. Coggins wrote that Sanders also didn’t explain the city’s interest in removing Alfred’s shelter immediately, when Alfred has lived there for more than 18 months, or any “weighty public safety, health and welfare concerns” requiring Alfred’s removal. 

Coggins also said Vallejo’s inaction in Alfred’s case “flies in the face of Vallejo Administrative Rule 7.10’s stated goal to ‘promote a balanced approach to addressing potential negative impacts of encampments, while respecting the need for shelter, safety, and community.’” Vallejo Administrative Rule 7.10 requires that a notice of pending removal of an encampment include information on shelter, storage and other services.

“Based on the facts before the court, it does not appear Defendant City has adhered to its administrative rule,” the judge said. 

Vallejo Homeless Union advocate Eli Smith said Alfred’s claim is the third federal lawsuit filed with support from Vallejo’s Homeless Union, which also collaborated on another lawsuit involving an encampment on Mare Island. In that case, a restraining order was ultimately denied because the complaint had not properly alleged violations for which the court could grant relief.  

Smith said of Alfred, “She is not trying to stay there forever. The city has not been engaging in the way that they’ve been told they should by the judge. And the work she had to go through to [file] a case, without a house and other benefits, was high.”

Advocates said in a statement last week that Alfred’s case points to a larger problem with how the city handles unhoused people’s needs, by focusing on evictions rather than permanent solutions for people.

“They take their tents, their sleeping bags, their forms of identification. And they leave these people on the sidewalk,” the homeless union said in the statement. “Our most vulnerable residents do not deserve to die or become injured because they cannot afford housing.”

The union asked supporters to email the City Council making several demands - including that officials develop specific policies for elderly, disabled and involuntarily unhoused people, and take accountability for “the lack of homelessness prevention policies, the complete absence of outreach, and the waste of tax dollars spent uselessly moving people from one location to another.”