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About 100 homeless advocates rallied outside the county courthouse on Martin Luther King Jr. Way Thursday, calling for the City Council to halt enforcement of a state law that makes it a misdemeanor to sleep outside. 

The rally, organized by the nonprofit Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency, was held to call attention to a resolution before the City Council Tuesday to direct police to stop issuing tickets and arresting people under State Penal Code 647j, also known as the “lodging law.”  

The lodging law gives police jurisdiction to cite and arrest homeless people for sleeping on public property such as parks and on private property such as abandoned buildings. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said the resolution does not specify a set time for the moratorium but he said it should remain in effect until Berkeley can provide a bed for everyone who needs one. 

“We have keep in mind that the Emergency Shelter closes on April 15 and that will put more homeless on the street with no place to sleep,” Worthington said. “What are we going to do, arrest all those people?” 

Police Chief Dash Butler said the City Council will have to give serious thought to the results of a lodging-law moratorium and how the community will react to it.  

“I am very sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, they too often just have no place to go,” he said. “But I am also sympathetic to the plight of business owners and home owners who have people sleeping on their door steps.” 

The Emergency Winter Temporary Shelter is a joint operation between Berkeley and Oakland. For the last two years it has converted a former bowling alley on the Alameda Army Base into a 100-bed homeless shelter during the coldest months of winter. The shelter, run by Operation Dignity, provided 50 beds for each city’s homeless. 

Interim Director of Housing Stephen Barton said the city currently maintains about 200 beds for the homeless on a regular basis. He said for the city to be able to offer a bed for anyone who asks for one would require a lot of money and coordinated regional effort. 

“If Berkeley offers housing for anyone who asks for it, we’ll draw homeless form neighboring cities and the problem will never be solved.” 

The rally also called attention to the court case of Ken Mosheh, a homeless filmmaker and writer, who has been cited numerous times under the law by UC Berkeley police.  

According to a press release issued by Worthington’s office, UC police arrested Mosheh on a warrant related to code 647j citations on Oct. 27. He spent two days in the Berkeley Jail, and three more at Santa Rita before being released. He is currently challenging the constitutionality of the lodging law in Alameda County Superior Court claiming that the law violates the fundamental right to sleep. 

Mosheh said he has never been arrested or charged with a crime other than the lodging-law citations. 

Worthington said Mosheh’s case could set a precedent for the entire state.  

“Ken Mosheh is an award-winning filmmaker who happens to currently be homeless,” Worthington said. “He should not be made a criminal because he has no place to sleep and hopefully his case will call attention to the criminalization of the homeless throughout the state.” 

Mosheh’s video documentary on homelessness recently won the Associated Students of the University of California Art Studio “Ethnographic Award of Excellence.” 

The resolution calls for a moratorium on enforcement of state code 647j, which states it’s a misdemeanor for anybody “who lodges in any building, structure, vehicle, or place, whether public or private, without the permission of the owner or person entitled to the possession or in control of it.” 

It also calls for a request for funds for detoxification facilities, rainy-day vouchers for hotels during bad weather and storage lockers where the homeless could keep their possessions. 

BOSS Community Organizer Darren Noy said he has tried to obtain the exact number of citations and arrests under the lodging law but so far the Berkeley Police Department and the UC Police Department have not provided him with those figures. 

Long-time Berkeley resident Darryl Smith, 47, attended the rally to show support for the moratorium. Smith held two green citations in each hand as evidence of police policy. Each citation charged a fine of $280, which Smith said would turn into arrest warrant because he would never be able to pay them. 

“I received both of these in March, one on the 10th and the other on the 15th,” he said. “It was raining both of those nights and I had to find some kind of shelter.” 

Smith said one citation was issued for sleeping near the Willard swimming pool and the other for sleeping in an underground garage near the UC Berkeley campus.