On a recent morning in Gilroy, Corporal Bobby Griffith and Officer Cameron Helms stood at the edge of a wooded area, texting a woman who lived in an encampment hidden among the trees. Soon after, Toni-Jo Napihaa lumbered out of the woods, enthusiastically greeting both officers with a hug.
Helms and Griffith were checking in on Napihaa and her fiancé, Paul Lumbard. The officers had previously told them to move as part of a cleanup on Fish and Wildlife land, and wanted to make sure that none of the couple’s belongings were left at the encampment. They talked for a bit, and the officers agreed to wait a few weeks to allow them time to move the rest of their possessions, then warned them that a local home owners association had voiced concerns about the encampment. After catching up a bit longer, Napihaa hugged them goodbye.
“They’re good, they’re always communicating with us, always,” said Napihaa. “If they had the resources they need, we wouldn’t have half the problems (that we do).”
Griffith and Helms are Gilroy Police Department’s Quality of Life officers — a team dedicated to tackling issues surrounding the homeless population in their city, from connecting those residents to services to coordinating encampment sweeps.
It’s a balancing act that’s drawn the praise of both local nonprofits and law enforcement — who attest the pair does this work with compassion — and the ire of some advocates who argue that the cleanups are disruptive and that Gilroy needs to do much more to help their homeless residents.
“They do something that’s impossible, which is (work) in between the people that want to clear out the homeless and also people who want to help the homeless. … They’re threading that needle very finely,” said Tim Davis, Director of the Compassion Center, which provides services to homeless individuals and collaborates with the officers. “But in the overall strategy for homelessness, it’s not enough. It’s not even really addressing the core causes of homelessness.”
Since the pilot program went into effect two years ago, the team has made 31 arrests and helped connect 149 homeless residents to services like shelters and mental health aid, sometimes in moments of dire need, according to Police Department estimates.
Now, following a recent unanimous vote by City Council members, the program has become permanent.
“I have had instances where officers have brought in people who were dripping wet out in the cold, sleeping on the street. And this is literally a life-saving service that the quality-of-life officers are doing, and partnering with all the different resources in South County is making a difference,” said Beatriz Ramos, Vice President of Emergency Housing at Home First, which runs the shelter in Gilroy.
The idea for the program came in 2018, when the Police Department saw an influx of calls related to homelessness and began paying police officers overtime to respond to the calls. Then in November 2021, the City Council approved a two-year pilot program for officers who would be dedicated to interacting with homeless residents, and in early 2022, Helms and Griffith were selected.
Over the pilot period, the officers built a network of partnerships with local nonprofits, who they relied on to connect homeless community members to essential services even as they enforced the law.
Since the officers are constantly interacting with the homeless community, they often serve as a point of contact for family members or service providers searching for someone on the streets. In several instances, the pair have found individuals to let them know they have been approved for housing or that their family or an advocate was reaching out to them.
“That’s the benefit of this (program): It’s not just surface-level contact anymore, we know who they are,” said Helms. “They’ll open up to us about their drug usage, their psychological problems. It’s good because that’s what helps us push them in the right direction.”
Those connections have also come in handy when other officers are dealing with a homeless individual who might be “combative,” said Helms. That’s when Helms and Griffith rely on their relationship to come in and de-escalate the situation.
Still, much of the work is driven by complaints and enforcement, such as in cases of trespassing, parking violations or encampments. In general, the quality of life officers try to give homeless community members time to comply of their own free will by informing them that they are in violation of a law without resorting to arrests or citations, which Griffith says can burden them with fees they cannot afford to pay.
Michel Amaral, supervising deputy district attorney for southern Santa Clara County, has seen body camera footage from the officers. “They are soft-spoken. They go in with a polite attitude. They are seeking to have folks who are breaking the rules follow the rules voluntarily,” said Amaral. “We’re not trying to prosecute these folks for breaking whatever rules are at stake. We’re trying to get them housed.”
However, several homeless advocates say even without arrests or citations, clearing encampments can be harmful to homeless individuals, sometimes resulting in lost possessions and often leaving them in limbo, unsure of where they can legally stay. Additionally, each cleanup creates an “unfunded mandate” on service providers, said Davis, burdening them with the additional work of relocating displaced residents.
While Griffith and Helms offer a night in a reserved bed at the local shelter to anyone who they ask to move, many who are permanently homeless refuse, often because of the shelter’s restrictions, which can include limitations on storage for possessions.
“At the end of the day, I guess it’s better to be told to move with compassion. But if we can’t answer the question, ‘Where are you moving to?’ that’s a question more of style than of substance,” said Jan Bernstein Chargin, co-founder of PitStop, a nonprofit that supports homeless individuals in Gilroy. “I’ve been impressed with our quality of life officers in terms of their commitment and their genuine compassion and understanding, but they have the wrong tools to solve this problem.”
To that effect, Bernstein Chargin, as well as Davis and several other advocates, argue that the city needs to invest in solutions that address the root causes of homelessness, such as low-income and transitional housing. Others recommend sanctioned places to camp and park so that homeless individuals don’t have to shuffle around while they find more permanent housing and say the city must hire a mental health professional and a housing professional to help with homeless issues.
Griffith acknowledges that “more shelter for people … would really help them,” and Helms notes how successful Mountain View’s tiny home program was, though he recognizes that the program is costly. Additionally, the Police Department has voiced plans to partner with the county to have a mental health professional join the team.
For his part, Griffith says policy on homelessness is best left to others and doesn’t pretend to be the solution himself. “I’m not going to solve the problem (of homelessness). It’s a societal issue. I don’t have that magic answer,” he said.
But he emphasizes that as long he and Helms are Quality of Life officers, they will continue to strive to help those they can. “There’s little problems that we try to solve. And that’s really what me and (Helms) are out here doing,” he said. “I’ve always been in it for the underdog.”
