The city of Fullerton will begin enforcing stricter anti-camping rules, prohibiting homeless individuals from sitting, lying or sleeping in public spaces or storing their property on sidewalks and similar public spaces.

City staff said the new verbiage, approved in early March by a split 3-2 City Council vote,  “expanded and clarified” the city’s existing right to enforce its anti-camping ordinance.

Fullerton is the latest city in Orange County to toughen enforcement of anti-camping policies following the Supreme Court’s ruling over the summer that doing so does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

Irvine adopted a similar policy in November, while many OC cities praised the Supreme Court ruling after it was issued in late June. 

Fullerton city staff described the revised ordinance as part of “a balanced approach combining enforcement with robust services for individuals experiencing homelessness.”

Those services, staff said, include the provision of 40 emergency shelter beds and 110 recuperative care beds for Fullerton residents at the Fullerton Navigation Center, a motel voucher program for temporary shelter accommodations for vulnerable populations, contributions to regional homeless outreach and substance abuse treatment programs and participation in an agreement to fund 250 shelter beds for Fullerton residents in regional facilities in Placentia and Buena Park. 

According to the county’s 2024 point-in-time count, Fullerton, a city of about 140,000 residents, had 434 individuals counted who were experiencing homelessness. Of them, 208 were unsheltered and 226 were receiving temporary shelter. 

Councilmember Ahmad Zahra, who along with Councilmember Shana Charles voted against the anti-camping enforcement policy, said the new restrictions are useless and unkind. 

“I think this is way too much,” he said. “I will not be supporting this, both on principle and in practice. For practical purposes, this doesn’t serve anything. It doesn’t solve the problem.”

His rebuke led to brief melodrama at the dais when Mayor Fred Jung compared Zahra’s moral appeal to a “campaign speech” and then chastised him for not also in that speech standing up for California taxpayers who have footed the bill of what a 2024 statewide audit found to be billions of dollars of unaccounted for spending on homeless programs. 

Zahra said he has stood up against that unaccounted-for spending, and that he wasn’t making a campaign speech. “I’m not running for anything,” he said. “I think you’re the one running.” 

Jung recently announced his candidacy in the 2026 race for the Fourth District seat on the OC Board of Supervisors. He says on his campaign website that reducing homelessness is one of his top priorities. 

Jung and Zahra also butted heads in December when each voted for himself to become mayor, a position appointed by and among the councilmembers. After winning that vote, Jung refused to support Zahra’s bid for vice mayor. 

“You may think all of us are cruel here that support this item tonight,” Jung said to the council audience. “But we had a study that was done, and when you look at the numbers, our point-in-time count has not gone down and our shelter numbers availability in terms of beds has quadrupled in that time.”

“So it’s not as if Fullerton hasn’t done our part,” he continued. “It’s not as if this City Council, or iterations of it before us, haven’t done their part. We’re not getting that count down. So, at this point, enforcement has to be the next mechanism in order to make sure that those that require services get those services.”

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