Private guards are bound by different rules. In recent decades, court rulings have put some limits on local governments’ and police’s ability to clear encampments and interact with homeless people. The industry grew nearly 20% in California from 2010 to 2022, the most recent state data shows, to more than 301,000 licensed guards - a force that outnumbered sworn law enforcement officers roughly 4 to 1. “And a lot less regulated.”Īround the world, economic researchers have found that private security reliance tends to rise along with income inequality and fear of crime. “Private security is a lot cheaper than cops,” said Paul Boden, executive director of activist group the Western Regional Advocacy Project. Several lawsuits, meanwhile, allege that security companies, shelter operators and government regulators have failed to properly train and oversee guards, who in some cases are paid just over minimum wage and struggling to stay housed themselves. The California agency that regulates guards - the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services - denied a CalMatters public records request for complaints and reports of violence involving guards and homeless people. No state agency publicly tracks how many guards work with homeless people, let alone what happens when things go wrong.

was stabbed to death by a fellow shelter resident, her family sued a guard for negligence in an ongoing lawsuit, alleging that he remained at an onsite office despite loud screams during a long attack. In Sausalito, people living at a publicly funded tent city said in court that contract workers dealt drugs and harassed women. Shelter residents in multiple Southern California cities have alleged in lawsuits that they were raped or sexually assaulted by shelter guards, including a Los Angeles case where a guard was sentenced to prison after a homeless woman complained of repeated abuse. More than a dozen recent legal proceedings and public contract disputes reviewed by CalMatters suggest that, rather than ensuring safety, guards can compound already dangerous and chaotic situations.

A cheat sheet for little alchemy