Newsom urges stricter camping bans. Merced’s approach already ‘aggressive’
Recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom made it clear he wants cities and counties to put an emphasis on cracking down on homeless encampments.
Both Merced Mayor Matthew Serratto and Merced County officials responded by saying both have been more aggressive in enforcing no public encampment ordinances in recent months.
Calling encampments “unhealthy and dangerous,” Newsom said local governments should go further and adopt a model ordinance rolled out by his office that calls upon them to ban “persistent” encampments and those that block sidewalks, and require local officials to make “every reasonable effort” to offer shelter and identify resources for homeless people before clearing encampments.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Grants Pass v. Johnson that cities could ban people from camping in public even if there are no shelter beds available.
The Merced City Council passed an ordinance in November that bans public camping and carries stricter fines for violators.
The “Camping and Storage of Personal Property” ordinance sets fines and jail time for storing personal belongings and camping on streets, sidewalks, parks, parking lots and within 1,000 feet of a school. City-sponsored events are an exception.
Merced County officials released a statement on social media on Monday, May 12.
“Merced County is working hard to tackle Governor Newsom’s challenge by cleaning up homeless encampments, while at the same time providing compassionate options for shelters, transitional/supportive housing, mental health services, substance abuse assistance, food/welfare services, and employment assistance.”
Merced County teamed up with The City of Merced and other agencies recently to tear down a large homeless encampment located off of Highway 99 near East Childs Avenue in the area of Southeast Merced.
“You can’t just say we’re going to ban homeless encampments and wave a magic wand and they go away,” Serratto said. “Every law you have to enforce and these laws can be tough to enforce because you break up an encampment, and people just move somewhere else, and you gotta break it up again.”
However, Serratto said the city and country have made significant strides in reducing the homeless population in the area.
The statistics for the homeless “Point-in-Time Count,” a survey that identifies individuals experiencing homelessness, for 2025 hasn’t been released yet, but Serratto says unofficially the City of Merced is down 12% from a population of 224 homeless people in 2021 to 200 people in 2025.
Merced County has dropped from a population of 455 homeless in 2021 to unofficially 346 in 2025, according to Serratto.
“We’re being we’re aggressive with housing,” Serratto said. “We have a top notch homeless management infrastructure. We’re aggressive with getting people off the street, with outreach. We’re good with enforcement. We’re not tolerant of people on the street, using drugs and doing whatever they want. You can’t tolerate that, so we’ve got a good system. It’s hard, it’s a huge challenge, but we’ve built up our shelter capacity, and then at the end of the day, getting people into permanent placements.”
Serratto said the Merced Police Department is at full staff which gives the department more resources to enforce the laws and be proactive at night to get people off the street.
“I think the governor is embracing a tough love approach, and I think that’s the right way,” Serratto said. “I think that’s the approach we’ve seen work in other communities. Houston is very well known having that approach, and it led to a reduction of close to 50% over a decade, which has kind of held as the gold standard in homeless reduction.”
