Earlier this year, when Central Coast Assemblymember Gail Pellerin proposed banning local governments from foisting their homeless residents onto other cities and counties, her bill was colored by a high-profile case in Santa Cruz from the summer prior, and modeled after the city government’s response.
Yet, the bill immediately lost momentum after running against a San Francisco program that puts homeless people on buses and out of the city. Now, Pellerin is working on revisions to bring back the bill in 2026.
Last June, two Hanford police officers in plainclothes transported a disabled homeless woman from the Central Valley town more than three hours away to Santa Cruz’s armory shelter without any coordination between the cities. (According to the unnamed woman, the police officers allegedly considered dropping her off in the Ross Dress for Less parking lot before finding out about the armory.) Local leaders sprang to call foul…