Responding to overwhelming criticism in the fall of 2024 that their new anti-encampment law would criminalize the homeless, Fresno leaders called a news conference to introduce a “creative solution” that they said would create a streamlined system to prevent the criminalization of the local homeless population.
They called it the “Treatment First Program.”
City leaders pledged to Fresno’s unhoused population, virtually the only demographic targeted by the anti-camping ordinance, a way out of their criminal camping arrests if they committed themselves to drug or alcohol treatment provided by a trio of local faith-based service providers…