Court Opinion

ID: 9544041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:51:32.704468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:52.265245
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring.
I concur in the result and much of the reasoning of the majority. Specifically, I agree the procedural history of both *1111cases (Tobe and Zuckemick) dictates they be treated as purely facial challenges to the ordinance, and that the ordinance survives such a challenge. I write separately because in the process of rejecting plaintiffs’ attack on the ordinance as cruel or unusual punishment, the majority enters into the merits of an as applied attack, an issue not properly before us. I would leave the question to another day, when we are presented with a case that requires its resolution.
To succeed, a facial attack on the anticamping ordinance as cruel and unusual punishment (U.S. Const., 8th Amend.) or as cruel or unusual punishment (Cal. Const., art. I, § 17) would require showing punishment under the ordinance, in all its possible applications, is cruel, unusual or both. Plaintiffs have not seriously advanced that proposition, and it could be rejected in few words. Clearly, some acts of camping in public places— pitching a tent in the middle of a street, for example—may constitutionally be punished.
The majority unnecessarily goes far beyond that reasoning, however, to consider, and evidently reject on its merits, the claim a homeless person may not constitutionally be punished for publicly engaging in harmless activities necessary to life, such as sleeping. Apparently the majority would reject this claim for two reasons; first, because, in its view, conduct may always be constitutionally punished no matter how inseparable it is, causally or logically, from a person’s status or condition (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 1104-1105); and second, because it questions whether homelessness is a “status” at all within the meaning of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Robinson v. California (1962) 370 U.S. 660 [8 L.Ed.2d 758, 82 S.Ct. 1417] (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1105.)
Not surprisingly, since it has disavowed the intent to consider the merits of an as applied challenge, the majority treats these issues cursorily. In so doing, it fails to consider the legal arguments actually made, or the authorities cited, by petitioners and their allied amici curiae. This portion of the majority opinion is pure dictum and should be read as such.
MOSK, J.
I dissent.
By addressing only the facial challenges to the Santa Ana ordinance now before us and looking only to its neutral language, the majority sidestep the pressing and difficult issues raised in this case. In the process, they erect new procedural barriers that will make future as applied challenges to the ordinance costly and protracted, while shielding the ordinance from meaningful review. Unlike the majority, I decline to ignore the purpose and effect of the ordinance, whether it is assessed on its face or as applied.
*1112The City of Santa Ana (hereafter the City or Santa Ana) enacted the challenged ordinance as the latest offensive in its five-year campaign to banish the homeless. Under its broad provisions, a person who “camps” in any public area or “stores” any personal property in any public area is subject to citation and arrest for a criminal offense punishable by six months in jail. (Santa Ana Ord. No. NS-2160, adding art. VIII, § 10-400 et seq. to Santa Ana Mun. Code (hereafter the ordinance), §§ 10-402, 10-403.) It has been enforced against homeless persons whose sole “crime” was to cover themselves with a blanket and rest in a public area. Homeless persons with no alternative but to temporarily leave their personal belongings in public places are also subject to repeated citation and arrest for violation of the ordinance’s prohibition against “storing” property.
The City has conceded that the purpose of the ordinance is to address the “problem” of the homeless living in its parks and other public areas. The ordinance has, moreover, been enforced in a manner that specifically targets the homeless.
For those reasons, I conclude that the ordinance is unconstitutional both on its face and as applied to the homeless residents of Santa Ana. Although a city may reasonably control the use of its parks and other public areas, it cannot constitutionally enact and enforce an ordinance so sweeping that it literally prevents indigent homeless citizens from residing within its boundaries if they are unable to afford housing and unable to find a space in the limited shelters made available to them. The City cannot solve its “homeless problem” simply by exiling large numbers of its homeless citizens to neighboring localities.
Although not unconstitutionally vague, the ordinance fails under our decision in Parr v. Municipal Court (1971) 3 Cal.3d 861 [92 Cal.Rptr. 153, 479 P.2d 353] (hereafter Parr), because it violates the guaranty of equal protection under both the United States Constitution (14th Amend.) and the California Constitution (art. I, § 7, subd. (a)). It also impermissibly impairs the fundamental right of the homeless, under both the United States and California Constitutions, to travel freely within the state.1
I. Facial and As Applied Claims
The majority conclude that this action raises only facial claims. I disagree.
*1113a. Pleadings and Proceedings Below
The Tobe plaintiffs expressly pleaded both facial and as applied claims in their petition for writ of mandate. 2 They also submitted factual evidence to support both the as applied and facial claims, including expert declarations and declarations by individual plaintiffs and others.
In opposing the writ, the City expressly acknowledged and addressed the Tobe plaintiffs’ as applied claims. Thus, it conceded in its memorandum in opposition to the petition that “the present case involves a constitutional attack on a municipal ordinance, both as applied and as written, which, inter alia, prohibits camping on public property.” (Italics added.) The City also conceded that “petitioners contend that the ordinance, as applied to them, abridges their right to travel” and that “petitioners contend that the Ordinance, as applied to homeless persons, punishes the status and condition of homelessness.” (Italics added.)
At the hearing on their petition in the trial court, plaintiffs again expressly argued that the ordinance violated the Eighth Amendment and abridged the right to travel both on its face and as applied.3 The trial court repeatedly acknowledged that the claims included both facial and as applied challenges. Thus it stressed that the “thrust of this case” was the contention that the ordinance “is designed and enacted and implemented as an effort to address a perceived problem by the authorities of the City of Santa Ana that regards the people who have been classified genetically as, quote, ‘homeless,’ end quote.” (Italics added.) The court expressly observed that the claims based on the right to travel and on the Eighth Amendment involved the “application of the statute,” and it expressly considered how the ordinance “in *1114application . . . has a tendency to impact certain classes of people more than others.” (Italics added.)
The trial court properly addressed the vagueness and overbreadth claims solely as facial challenges; they were brought as such. By contrast, however, in rejecting the right to travel and Eighth Amendment claims the court did not indicate that it was limiting itself to a facial analysis or that it was precluded from considering the factual evidence submitted by plaintiffs. Indeed, as the City has repeatedly conceded, the court expressly considered and rejected plaintiffs’ as applied arguments, together with the portions of the evidence that plaintiffs brought to its attention in support of those arguments.4
The City did not submit evidence or attempt to dispute or rebut the evidence submitted by plaintiffs, much of it derived from the City’s own records. At oral argument before this court the City conceded that it was not precluded in the trial court from presenting evidence or disputing the declarations submitted by plaintiffs; it had the opportunity to present and rebut evidence but chose not to do so. As the record clearly shows, the City’s strategy was to argue that the ordinance, both facially and as applied, was a valid exercise of its police power. It therefore regarded the evidence submitted by plaintiffs as essentially irrelevant. I have no trouble concluding that the City’s strategy in this regard resulted in a waiver.
In its order directing issuance of a peremptory writ of mandate, the trial court ruled that “enforcement of Santa Ana Ordinance NS-2160 . . . does not violate the rights of homeless persons to freedom of movement. . . . The Court further finds that petitioners’ challenges to the constitutionality of the remaining portions of Santa Ana Ordinance NS-2160 are without merit. The Court finds that with the exception of the second clause of Santa Ana *1115Municipal Code § 10-401(a), Santa Ana Ordinance NS-2160 is constitutionally valid.” (Italics added.)
Nothing quoted in the order demonstrates that the trial court intended to, or did, address only the facial claims.5 On the contrary, the order appears on its face to reject both facial and as applied claims: the court expressly and specifically refers to “enforcement” of the ordinance and to its constitutionality vis-á-vis the “rights of homeless persons.”
The majority nonetheless conclude—despite the order, the transcript of the hearing, and the concessions of the parties—that no as applied challenge to the ordinance was “perfected.” But they point to no deficiency in the pleadings. Instead, they merely note that “plaintiffs never identified the particular applications of the law to be enjoined,” and the “only relief sought in the petition is a writ of mandate enjoining any enforcement of the ordinance by respondents.” (Maj. opn., ante, pp. 1086-1087.)6 The City made no objection on that ground, nor is there any indication in the record that the trial court declined to address the as applied claims on that basis. Certainly, had the trial court found merit in the as applied claims, it could readily have fashioned appropriate relief.7
*1116b. Justiciability and Standing
Plaintiffs include persons who have been cited under the ordinance and who, because they are homeless, are likely to be cited again. They thus have a direct personal stake in the outcome of this action.8
In addition, plaintiffs address their as applied claims broadly to the unlawful implementation of the ordinance against all homeless persons. Plaintiffs thus have sufficient interest as citizens of Santa Ana, under our “public right/public duty” doctrine, to bring claims on behalf of other homeless persons who have, as a group, been targeted by the ordinance. (See Green v. Obledo (1981) 29 Cal.3d 126, 144-145 [172 Cal.Rptr. 206, 624 P.2d 256]; Common Cause v. Board of Supervisors (1989) 49 Cal.3d 432, 439 [261 Cal.Rptr. 574, 111 P.2d 610].) The case “poses a question which is of broad public interest, is likely to recur, and should receive uniform resolution throughout the state.” (Ramirez v. Brown (1973) 9 Cal.3d 199, 203 [107 Cal.Rptr. 137, 507 P.2d 1345].)
Our courts have repeatedly applied the “public right/public duty” exception to the general rule that ordinarily a writ of mandate will issue only to *1117persons who are “beneficially interested.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 1086.) Thus in Green v. Obledo, supra, 29 Cal.3d 126, recipients of welfare benefits petitioned for writ of mandate challenging the compliance of a regulation with the Social Security Act. We held that “ ‘ “where the question is one of public right and the object of the mandamus is to procure the enforcement of a public duty, the relator need not show that he has any legal or special interest in the result, since it is sufficient that he is interested as a citizen in having the laws executed and the duty in question enforced . . . (Id. at p. 144; accord, Common Cause v. Board of Supervisors, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 439.)9
Furthermore, plaintiffs show a sufficient beneficial interest as citizens who seek to restrain the illegal expenditure or waste of city funds to implement an ordinance in an unconstitutional manner. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 526a; Blair v. Pitchess (1971) 5 Cal.3d 258, 267-269 [96 Cal.Rptr. 42, 486 P.2d 1242, 45 A.L.R.3d 1206] [an action to restrain county or city officials from continuing to enforce provisions of an unconstitutional law presents a true case or controversy, regardless of whether the plaintiff and the defendant each have a special, personal interest in the outcome of the action]; Van Atta v. Scott (1980) 27 Cal.3d 424, 450, fn. 28 [166 Cal.Rptr. 149, 613 P.2d 210] [an action that “meets the criteria of section 526a satisfies case or controversy requirements”]; Ames v. City of Hermosa Beach (1971) 16 Cal.App.3d 146,150 [93 CaLRptr. 786].) As we have emphasized, “it has never been the rule in this state that parties in [taxpayer suits] must have a personal interest in the litigation. . . . ‘[N]o showing of special damage to the particular taxpayer has been held necessary.’ ” (Blair v. Pitchess, supra, 5 Cal.3d at pp. 269-270.)
Because the City has used, and continues to use, taxpayer funds to cite and prosecute persons who store belongings or sleep in public places in violation of an ordinance challenged as unconstitutional, these citizen-plaintiffs have a sufficient interest to confer standing. Consequently, plaintiffs’ as applied claims challenging the implementation of the ordinance against homeless persons present “a true case or controversy.” (Blair v. Pitchess, supra, 5 Cal.3d at p. 269.)
The majority also conclude that an as applied claim challenging a criminal statute is justiciable only after “the circumstances of its application have *1118been established by conviction or otherwise.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1085.) But in analogous cases we have not required conviction as a prerequisite to standing. Thus in Murgia v. Municipal Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 286 [124 Cal.Rptr. 204, 540 P.2d 44], we concluded that the defendants, members of a particular union, could obtain discovery to determine whether various penal statutes were being discriminatorily enforced against them in violation of equal protection. The defendants had been charged with, but not yet convicted of, violations of the statutes. (Id. at p. 291, fn. 2.) Indeed, we implicitly acknowledged that the defense of discriminatory enforcement did not reach the question of guilt or innocence: “Because the particular defendant, unlike similarly situated individuals, suffers prosecution simply as the subject of invidious discrimination, such defendant is very much the direct victim of the discriminatory enforcement practice. Under these circumstances, discriminatory prosecution becomes a compelling ground for dismissal of the criminal charge* since prosecution would not have been pursued except for the discriminatory design of the prosecuting authorities.” (Id. at p. 298, fn. omitted.)10
The majority also plainly imply that an as applied challenge must necessarily be restricted to a case-by-case showing by each individual who is convicted under the ordinance that he or she was “truly homeless” and that the ordinance was improperly applied in each case. Such a requirement— which is tantamount to requiring an individual trial of a “necessity” defense for each person cited under the ordinance—is unwarranted. (See, e.g., Ramirez v. Brown, supra, 9 Cal.3d 199 [holding that challenged provisions were unconstitutional as applied to all ex-felons]; Van Atta v. Scott, supra, 27 Cal.3d at pp. 433, 452-453 [holding that San Francisco’s manner of applying statutes for pretrial release of criminal defendants violated due process].) It would needlessly subject large numbers of homeless persons to the criminal justice system for wholly innocuous conduct and overwhelm *1119our already strained judicial resources, while effectively insulating the ordinance from meaningful review.11
Significantly, federal courts recently addressing similar challenges to “anti-camping” measures have consistently done so by examining ordinances as applied to the homeless in general, not on a case-by-case basis, and have not required conviction to establish standing. (See Pottinger v. City of Miami, supra, 810 F.Supp. at p. 1554 [challenging manner in which city “applies these laws to homeless individuals”]; Joyce v. City and County of San Francisco, supra, 846 F.Supp. at p. 846 [challenging ordinance “only insofar as it specifically penalizes certain ‘life sustaining activities’ engaged in by the homeless”]; Johnson v. City of Dallas (N.D.Tex. 1994) 860 F.Supp. 344, 346 [addressing constitutionality of city ordinances “enacted, enforced, or both, allegedly to remove homeless persons from public view”].)
In sum, there is ample authority to conclude that these plaintiffs have standing and state justiciable claims, both facial and as applied. Most of the plaintiffs have been cited and fined for violations of the ordinance, and most are taxpayers. Moreover, because Santa Ana has effectively criminalized sleeping and storing personal property in any public places, plaintiffs and other homeless persons in Santa Ana—who have no legal alternative but to sleep and store personal property in public short of leaving the city altogether—will necessarily be subject to future citation and/or arrest. The as applied claims are therefore properly before us.
II. Equal Protection
In my view the ordinance violates equal protection under the rule of our decision in Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d 861, because it intentionally discriminates against homeless persons who have no alternative but to sleep and store their property in public areas of the City.12
*1120a. Scope of Analysis
As amici curiae for the City concede, “Neither we nor the Court can or should avoid that [sz'c] this case involves questions about the homeless, although the text of the Ordinance is neutral and does not single out the homeless in any manner." Although I believe we can construe the ordinance both facially and as applied, in either case we must look beyond the neutral face of the measure to its underlying purpose and its impact on particular groups.
There is ample precedent for doing so. In Shapiro v. Thompson (1969) 394 U.S. 618, 628 [22 L.Ed.2d 600, 611-612, 89 S.Ct. 1322], the Supreme Court examined the legislative history of the statutes there challenged and found “weighty evidence that exclusion from the jurisdiction of the poor who need or may need relief was the specific object of these provisions.”13
In Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d 861, we addressed a challenge to a facially neutral ordinance enacted by the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea that was similarly aimed at “an extraordinary influx of undesirable and unsanitary visitors to the City, sometimes known as ‘hippies.’ ” (Id. at p. 863.) We determined that despite the neutral terms of the ordinance, we were required to look beyond its literal language to determine its purpose. We stressed that “ ‘[a] state enactment cannot be construed for purposes of constitutional analysis without concern for its immediate objective [citations] and for its ultimate effect [citations].’ ” (Id. at p. 864.)
Among other precedents, we cited Justice Stephen J. Field’s perceptive opinion in Ho Ah Kow v. Nunan (D.Cal. 1879) 12 F. Cas. 252 (No. 6,546), which invalidated a facially neutral San Francisco ordinance requiring every male entering the county jail to have his hair cut to a uniform length of one inch. Under the ordinance a Chinese man convicted of a misdemeanor violation was subjected to loss of his traditional queue.
Justice Field based his ruling on a conclusion that the purpose and effect of the ordinance—although not expressed on the face of the provision—was
*1121to punish the then racially unpopular Chinese: “The class character of this legislation is none the less manifest because of the general terms in which it is expressed.” (Ho Ah Row v. Nunan, supra, 12 F. Cas. at p. 255.) He referred to statements of supervisors in debate on the passage of the ordinance for the purpose of ascertaining the “general object of the legislation proposed, and the mischiefs sought to be remedied.” (Ibid.) He added, “When we take our seats on the bench we are not struck with blindness, and forbidden to know as judges what we see as men; and where an ordinance, though general in its terms, only operates upon a special race, sect or class, it being universally understood that it is to be enforced only against that race, sect or class, we may justly conclude that it was the intention of the body adopting it that it should only have such operation, and treat it accordingly.” (Ibid.)
Guided by Justice Field, we declined in Parr to “blind ourselves to official pronouncements of hostile and discriminatory purpose solely because the ordinance employs facially neutral language.” (3 Cal.3d at p. 865.) We examined the purpose expressed by the Carmel City Council in enacting the measure and concluded that “[t]he irrefragable implication is that the Carmel City Council sought, through Municipal Code section 697.02, to rid the city of die blight it perceived to be created by the presence of the hippies.” (Ibid.)
In construing the Carmel ordinance we also examined its probable impact: “Those officials responsible for the enforcement of the law are put on notice that the public property in the city is in imminent danger because of the influx of a particular class against which the ordinance is unmistakably directed. The inevitable effect must be discriminatory enforcement consistent with the discriminatory purpose expressed by the council. . . .” (Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d at p. 868.) On these grounds we held that the ordinance violated equal protection by stigmatizing a particular group. In the present case as well, we are obligated to look behind the neutral facade of the ordinance.
b. Purpose and Effect of the Ordinance
As in Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d 861, although the ordinance is neutral on its face we need not go far afield to determine the purpose that the City sought to achieve. Over the past four years, Santa Ana has engaged in what the Court of Appeal aptly called a “crusade against the homeless.”
In a memorandum titled “Vagrants,” dated June 16, 1988, the City’s executive director of the recreation and community services agency informed the City Park Superintendent: “A task force has been formed in an *1122effort to deal with the vagrants. The City Council has developed a policy that the vagrants are no longer welcome in the City of Santa Ana. ... In essence, the mission of this program will be to move all vagrants and their paraphernalia out of Santa Ana by continually removing them from the places that they are frequenting in the City.”
The City’s vagrancy task force developed and implemented a plan that included discouraging food providers—such as the Orange County Rescue Mission and the Salvation Army—from feeding the homeless, turning on sprinklers in public parks, and confiscating and destroying the personal property of homeless residents. After a legal challenge to that plan the City agreed to a settlement in April 1990 that included posting maintenance hours, ceasing to conduct maintenance “sweeps” in public areas, and providing for storage and retrieval of confiscated property.
Only a few months later, however, in August 1990, the Santa Ana police mounted “Operation Civic Center,” described in an internal memorandum as follows: “Eddie West Field [an open-air football stadium adjacent to the Civic Center] was used as the command post because it supplied a secured area where we could house multiple arrestees. In addition, it also allowed access to restroom facilities and water for the persons arrested. Four Police Service Officers were assigned to the command post to process all arrestees. This included photographing, fingerprinting, documentation and running record and warrant checks. Two officers were also assigned to the command post for care and custody of the arrestees. Five 2-man observer teams were assigned throughout the plaza area looking for criminal activity. Each of the five 2-man teams was completely concealed and was able to observe the violations from a safe and secure location. Five 2-man arrest teams were called, into the plaza area by the observers and the arrest teams took the violators into custody. The violators were then transported to the command post at Eddie West Field where they were processed.”
There were 28 arrests for littering, 2 for drinking in public, 7 for urinating in public, 18 for jaywalking, 2 for destroying vegetation, 2 for riding bicycles on a sidewalk, 1 for glue sniffing, 1 for removing trash from a bin, and 2 for an obscure violation of the City’s fire code. Two persons who proved they had homes were released. The homeless arrestees were handcuffed, transported to an athletic field for booking, chained to benches for up to six hours, and identified with numbers written on their arms with markers. At the conclusion of the detention, the police loaded the homeless into vans, drove them to the edge of the Central Command Area of the Santa Ana Police Department, and dropped them off.
The homeless brought a further civil action against the City for injunctive relief, asserting they were victims of discriminatory law enforcement. The *1123trial court agreed, ruling that the homeless were a cognizable class who had been singled out for arrest for offenses that rarely, if ever, even drew citations in Santa Ana. The trial court concluded: “In short, this Court finds that the Santa Ana Police Department deliberately and intentionally implemented a program which targeted those persons living in the Civic Center, the homeless.”
In October 1990 the City apparently settled the action. It agreed that “it shall be [] the policy of [the City of Santa Ana] to refrain from discriminating against individuals on the basis of their homelessness” and it shall not “take individual or concerted action to drive homeless individuals from Santa Ana.” The stipulation was made an order of the court, but no judgment has been entered. The case is to be dismissed during this year.
The ordinance before us reflects the same purpose as Santa Ana’s previous official policies: to drive “vagrants” out of Santa Ana. There can be no doubt that it was enacted to resolve what the City refers to in its brief as “the homeless problem.” As that brief explains: “The City is directly impacted by the homeless problem because homeless persons attempt to live on property it owns or controls, thereby causing the myriad of public health and police related concerns which the City must combat in the face of constantly diminishing financial resources.” The City again expressly conceded at oral argument that the purpose of the ordinance was to address the problem of homeless persons “camping” in public areas, including the parking lot across from city hall.14
Even if the City had not so candidly admitted its purpose, however, the inevitable effect of the ordinance is to target the homeless. Because there are beds in local shelters for only about one in ten homeless persons in Santa Ana, an ordinance outlawing “camping” in all public areas effectively accomplishes the purpose of driving out the homeless, despite its neutral wording. Although the City and amici curiae observe that the ordinance *1124would also apply to the mayor and the Girl Scouts, it is unlikely that any significant number of Santa Ana residents or visitors other than the homeless would choose to sleep, protected only by a blanket, in a public parking lot or to store personal property in the open.15
We concluded in Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d at page 870, that “we cannot be oblivious to the transparent, indeed the avowed, purpose and the inevitable effect of the ordinance in question: to discriminate against an ill-defined social caste whose members are deemed pariahs by the city fathers. This court has been consistently vigilant to protect racial groups from the effects of official prejudice, and we can be no less concerned because the human beings currently in disfavor are identifiable by dress and attitudes rather than by color.” That vigilance is even more important now. Today’s pariahs are no longer the relatively carefree “hippies,” many of whom chose that lifestyle, but persons who are homeless largely by necessity and who face far greater restrictions under this ordinance than merely keeping off the grass.16
A century ago Anatole France exposed the cruel hypocrisy of such “neutral” laws against the indigent: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” (France, Le Lys Rouge (1894) ch. 7.) Even under a facial analysis we cannot blind ourselves to the evident intent of the Santa Ana ordinance. Recognizing that intent, I would hold that the ordinance *1125impermissibly discriminates against the homeless and thereby violates equal protection.17
III. Right to Travel
The ordinance also impermissibly penalizes the fundamental right of indigent homeless persons to travel to or remain in Santa Ana, by denying them the basic necessities of sleeping and storing personal belongings in any public areas.
a. Constitutional Freedom to Travel and Abide
Both the United States Supreme Court and the courts of California have expressly recognized a fundamental constitutional right to travel, “a basic human right protected by the United States and California Constitutions as a whole.” (In re White (1979) 97 Cal.App.3d 141, 148 [158 Cal.Rptr. 562]; see, e.g., Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, 394 U.S. at p. 629 [22 L.Ed.2d at p. 612].)18 A law implicates the right to travel when it either penalizes travel or is intended to impede travel. (Attorney General of N.Y. v. Soto-Lopez, supra, 476 U.S. at p. 903 [90 L.Ed.2d pp. 905-906] [“A state law implicates the right to travel when it actually deters such travel [citations], when impeding travel is its primary objective [citations], or when it ‘ “uses any classification which serves to penalize the exercise of that right.” ’ ”].)
The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected statutes designed to exclude the indigent. Thus in Edwards v. California (1941) 314 U.S. 160, 174 [86 L.Ed. 119, 125-126, 62 S.Ct. 164], the court struck down *1126a California statute that prohibited the transportation of indigent nonresidents into California. The court explained that a community may not “gain a momentary respite from the pressure of events by the simple expedient of shutting its gates to the outside world.” (Id. at p. 173 [86 L.Ed. at p. 125].) Similarly, in Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, 394 U.S. at page 629 [22 L.Ed.2d at p. 612], the court held that the right to travel was triggered by any attempt to “fence out” indigents. (See also Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, supra, 415 U.S. 250 [indigents’ right to travel and settle in Arizona was impermissibly penalized by durational residency requirements for nonemergency medical care for indigents at county expense].)
The right to travel includes the right to stay as well as the right to go. (See, e.g., Kent v. Dulles (1958) 357 U.S. 116, 126 [2 L.Ed.2d 1204, 1210, 78 S.Ct. 1113] [“Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values.”]; Dunn v. Blumstein (1972) 405 U.S. 330, 338 [31 L.Ed.2d 274, 281-282, 92 S.Ct. 995] [right to travel ensures “freedom to enter and abide”], italics added; Attorney General of N.Y. v. Soto-Lopez, supra, 476 U.S. at p. 903 [90 L.Ed.2d at pp. 905-906] [right encompasses burdens on freedom to enter and abide in states]; Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville (1972) 405 U.S. 156 [31 L.Ed.2d 110, 92 S.Ct. 839] [vagrancy ordinance offends freedom of movement].) Our courts, too, have recognized that the right to travel includes the “concomitant right not to travel.” (In re Marriage of McGinnis (1992) 7 Cal.App.4th 473, 480 [9 Cal.Rptr.2d 182], italics added; see also In re White, supra, 97 Cal.App.3d at pp. 148-149 [banishment violates constitutional right to freedom of travel]; In re Barbak S. (1993) 18 Cal.App.4th 1077, 1084-1086 [22 Cal.Rptr.2d 893] [same]; People v. Bauer (1989) 211 Cal.App.3d 937, 944 [260 Cal.Rptr. 62] [same].)
b. Intrastate Travel
This case involves m/rastate travel. In California we have expressly recognized that the constitutional right to freedom of movement necessarily embraces intrastate travel. “[T]he right to intrastate travel (which includes intramunicipal travel) is a basic human right protected by the United States and California Constitutions.” (In re White, supra, 97 Cal.App.3d at p. 148; see also In re Marriage of Fingert (1990) 221 Cal.App.3d 1575, 1581 [271 Cal.Rptr. 389] [court order requiring parent to relocate or lose custody violates right to intrastate travel]; People v. Bauer, supra, 211 Cal.App.3d at p. 944 [requiring defendant to obtain official approval of choice of residence as a condition of probation impinges on right to intrastate travel].)
The right to intrastate travel in this state is protected without regard to federal decisions on the issue, because the rights guaranteed by the California Constitution “ ‘are not dependent upon those guaranteed by the United *1127States Constitution.’ ” (In re White, supra, 97 Cal.App.3d at p. 148.) Nonetheless, I would approve the holding in White, concluding that the United States Constitution ensures the right to intrastate, as well as interstate, travel.
Although the United States Supreme Court has not expressly addressed the right to intrastate travel, it has strongly suggested that such a broad reading of the right to travel is appropriate. Thus in Kolender v. Lawson (1983) 461 U.S. 352, 358 [75 L.Ed.2d 903, 909-910, 103 S.Ct. 1855], the court emphasized that a law prohibiting wandering the streets at night without identification implicated “consideration of the constitutional right to freedom of movement.” (See also Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, supra, 405 U.S. at p. 164 [31 L.Ed.2d at pp. 116-117] [“ ‘wandering or strolling’ ” are “historically part of the amenities of life as we have known them”].)
The Circuit Courts of Appeal have repeatedly concluded that the right encompasses intrastate travel. (See, e.g., Spencer v. Casavilla (2d Cir. 1990) 903 F.2d 171,174; Lutz v. City of York, PA. (3d Cir. 1990) 899 F.2d 255, 268 [“the right to move freely about one’s neighborhood or town ... is indeed ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty’ and ‘deeply rooted in the Nation’s history’ ”]; King v. New Rochelle Municipal Housing Authority (2d Cir. 1971) 442 F.2d 646, 648-649 [right to travel includes intrastate travel].) As the Second Circuit recognized in King, “It would be meáningless to describe the right to travel between states as a fundamental precept of personal liberty and not acknowledge a correlative constitutional right to travel within a state.” (442 F.2d at p. 648, fn. omitted, italics added.)
c. Impact of the Ordinance
The majority concludé that the ordinance does not inevitably conflict with the right to travel because it “has no impact, incidental or otherwise, on the right to travel except insofar as a person, homeless or not, might be discouraged from traveling to Santa Ana because camping on public property is banned.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1102, italics added.) But homeless persons are not simply “discouraged” from traveling to Santa Ana. They are effectively prevented from doing so, because the ordinance forbids them to sleep or store their personal belongings in any public area in the City. By criminalizing their unavoidable but innocuous conduct of sleeping and storing their personal effects, the ordinance has an immediate impact on the right of the homeless to enter or remain in Santa Ana.19
I therefore disagree with the majority’s assertion that the effect of the ordinance on the homeless is merely “incidental.” Criminalizing the harmless act of sleeping in a public place—when the vast majority of homeless *1128persons in Santa Ana have no legal alternative other than to “get out of town by sundown”—forbids a “necessity of life” and thereby effectively penalizes migration. (See Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, supra, 415 U.S. at pp. 258-259 [39 L.Ed.2d at pp. 314-316] [laws penalize travel when they deny a person a “necessity of life” such as nonemergency medical care for indigents at the county’s expense].) Arresting or citing the homeless for sleeping in public also burdens their freedom of movement, because they must either forgo sleep or leave the City altogether to avoid criminal penalty. Moreover, as discussed above, the primary purpose for enforcing the ordinance against the homeless was to drive them out of public areas.20
The indirect effects of the ordinance may prove even more invidious. As one amicus curiae, a former mayor, points out, ordinances like Santa Ana’s encourage an unhealthy and ultimately futile competition among cities to impose comparable restrictions in order to avoid becoming a refuge for homeless persons driven out by other cities. The case at bar provides a striking example of this domino effect: in response to the Santa Ana ordinance, surrounding communities quickly enacted similar measures to protect themselves from an influx of Santa Ana’s homeless.21 To carry this effect to its logical conclusion, if all communities followed suit the homeless could effectively be excluded from the entire State of California.
In striking down a California law that aimed to exclude the indigent of an earlier era, the Supreme Court observed: “in the words of Mr. Justice Cardozo: ‘The Constitution was framed under the dominion of a political philosophy less parochial in range. It was framed upon the theory that the *1129peoples of the several states must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division.’ [Citation.] [¶] ...[I]n not inconsiderable measure the relief of the needy has become the common responsibility and concern of the whole nation.” (Edwards v. State of California, supra, 314 U.S. at pp. 173-174 [86 L.Ed.2d 124].) The same principle requires us to invalidate the Santa Ana ordinance.
d. Strict Scrutiny
Because the ordinance impairs the right to travel of plaintiffs and other homeless persons, it is subject to strict scrutiny. (See Dunn v. Blumstein, supra, 405 U.S. at pp. 339-342 [31 L.Ed.2d at pp. 282-284]; Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, 394 U.S. at p. 634 [22 L.Ed.2d at p. 615]; Serrano v. Priest, supra, 18 Cal.3d at p. 761; Committee to Defend Reproductive Rights v. Myers (1981) 29 Cal.3d 252, 276, fn. 22 [172 Cal.Rptr. 866, 625 P.2d 779, 20 A.L.R.4th 1118].) The applicable test, therefore, is whether the ordinance is narrowly tailored to meet a compelling governmental interest. (See Plyler v. Doe (1982) 457 U.S. 202, 216-217 [72 L.Ed.2d 786, 798-799, 102 S.Ct. 2382].)
The ordinance does not survive under that standard. As stated above, its true underlying purpose—to drive the homeless out of Santa Ana—is not a legitimate governmental interest. But even the more benign, if euphemistic, purpose expressed on the face of the ordinance fails under strict scrutiny.
The ordinance provides: “The public streets and areas within the City [of Santa Ana] should be readily accessible and available to residents and the public at large. The use of these areas for camping purposes or storage of personal property interferes with the rights of others to use the areas for which they were intended [sic]. The purpose of this article is to maintain public streets and areas within the city [of Santa Ana] in a clean and accessible condition.” (Ord., § 10-400.)
The interests advanced by the City are, in essence, improving the aesthetic appearance of its public areas and maintaining facilities for general public use. These concerns are legitimate and, indeed, “substantial.” (See Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984) 468 U.S. 288, 296 [82 L.Ed.2d 221, 228-229, 104 S.Ct. 3065] [governmental interest in maintaining park was “substantial”].) But they are certainly not compelling.
Even if the City’s asserted purposes were deemed compelling, moreover, the ordinance would nonetheless fail because it is not narrowly tailored to accomplish its objectives. Santa Ana could certainly maintain public areas in *1130“a clean and accessible condition” through less restrictive means than citing and arresting homeless persons—under a provision that includes a penalty of six months in jail—for sleeping or storing their personal belongings in public.
As a federal court explained in holding a similar ordinance unconstitutional: “Provision of alternative shelter and services would be the ideal means of accomplishing the same goals. However, in the absence of available shelter space or funds for services, the parks and streets could be cleaned and maintained without arresting the homeless. For example, the City could ask homeless individuals to relocate temporarily to another public area while maintenance crews work on a particular site. It could also establish regular times for each park to be cleaned so that homeless individuals would know not to be in a certain park on a particular day. Instead of arresting homeless individuals for being in the park after hours, the City could allow them to stay in a designated area in exchange for maintaining that area. Similarly, promotion of tourism and business and the development of the downtown area could be accomplished without arresting the homeless for inoffensive conduct.” (Pottinger v. City of Miami, supra, 810 F.Supp. at p. 1582; see also Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, supra, 468 U.S. 288 [ban on sleeping in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, was a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction on expression]; Joyce v. City and County of San Francisco, supra, 846 F.Supp. 843 [prohibition against sleeping in certain public places at certain times].)
The majority urge that the City has no affirmative constitutional obligation to provide accommodations for the “transient homeless” on or in public property.22 That does not mean, however, that if the City declines to provide shelters for the homeless it may effectively banish them from all public areas. As long as the homeless have no other place where they may legally sleep and store their personal property in Santa Ana, the City cannot constitutionally prevent them from doing so in public places.
The majority cite with approval a recent district court decision denying preliminary injunctive relief against implementation of the Matrix Program, a San Francisco ordinance addressing the “homeless problem.” (Joyce v. City and County of San Francisco, supra, 846 F.Supp. 843.) Their reliance on Joyce is misplaced because the ordinances are crucially dissimilar.
*1131Unlike Santa Ana’s ordinance, the Matrix Program did not involve a total ban on sleeping or storing property in public areas. Indeed, San Francisco police officers were instructed that “ ‘[t]he mere lying or sleeping on or in a bedroll in and of itself does not constitute a violation’ . . . .” ([Joyce v. City and County of San Francisco, supra, 846 F.Supp. at p. 861.) Nor did San Francisco attempt to drive the homeless from the city; instead, it provided counseling and referral to local social service programs and attempted to provide temporary housing for the homeless. (Id. at pp. 847-848.)23 The history of Santa Ana’s efforts in dealing with the homeless, in sharp contrast, included an official policy of actively discouraging existing charitable services for the homeless, including the Salvation Army food program, and a task force directed to drive “vagrants” out of town. In enforcing the ordinance, Santa Ana police officers applied an official policy of citing individuals who were sleeping under blankets.24
The City is not required, of course, to open all its public spaces at all hours to the homeless or to tolerate dangerous or unhealthful conduct. For example, it may enforce existing ordinances against such “camping” behavior as the erection of semipermanent structures, outdoor cooking, and public defecation and urination. It may also enforce existing laws against public drunkenness, drug use, vandalism, assault, theft, and similar misconduct. It may not, however, penalize individuals who have committed only the offense of being without shelter. Sleeping outdoors under a blanket is neither dangerous nor unhealthful to anyone other than the homeless persons who do so as a matter of necessity. Similarly, if the City does not choose to provide storage places for the personal property of the homeless, it may not criminalize their discreet “storage” of personal belongings in public areas.
*1132As the Court of Appeal aptly concluded, “The camping ordinance is a butcher knife where a scalpel is required. . . . The city may preclude the erection of structures in public places and it might ban ‘camping’ in select locations with a properly drafted ordinance, but it may not preclude people who have no place to go from simply living in Santa Ana. And that is what this ordinance is all about.”
For all these reasons I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

 Because I believe the ordinance is invalid on these grounds, I find it unnecessary to reach the issue whether the ordinance also punishes the homeless on the basis of their status in violation of the Eighth Amendment or article I, section 17, of the California Constitution. (But see Robinson v. California (1962) 370 U.S. 660, 665-667 [8 L.Ed.2d 758, 762-763, 82 S.Ct. 1417]; Powell v. Texas (1968) 392 U.S. 514, 551 [20 L.Ed.2d 1254, 1278, 88 S.Ct. 2145] (conc. opn. of White, J.); id. at pp. 567, 570 [20 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1286-1287, 1288] (dis. opn. of Portas, J.); Pottinger v. City of Miami (S.D.Fla. 1992) 810 F.Supp. 1551, 1561-1565 *1113[city’s practice of arresting homeless persons for such activities as sleeping, standing, and congregating in public places violated the Eighth Amendment].)

 Thus the petition alleged that the City had a “custom, practice, and policy of harassing, arresting, and otherwise interfering with petitioners and other homeless individuals for engaging in ordinary and essential activities of daily life in the public areas where petitioners are forced to live.” Plaintiffs specifically pleaded, inter alia, that respondents “abused their discretion in enacting and selectively enforcing Ordinance NS-2160 against homeless persons in violation of their right to equal protection in that the ordinance abridges the fundamental right of the homeless to travel and to freedom of movement.” (Italics added.) The petition expressly challenged particular applications of the ordinance, including the practice of arresting homeless persons for sleeping and possessing property in public areas. In their prayer for relief plaintiffs requested issuance of a peremptory writ of mandate compelling the City to refrain from enforcing the ordinance, i.e., the equivalent of an injunction against future application of the ordinance.

 Thus counsel for plaintiffs argued: “If the court were to conclude that the Ordinance on its face does not abridge the right to travel then I would submit to the court by way of our declarations and exhibits. . . that in fact as applied this ordinance abridges the right to travel of petitioners and homeless residents of the City of Santa Ana.” (Italics added.)

 Again, during oral argument before this court the City was pressed on the question whether plaintiffs raised as applied claims; it candidly admitted that plaintiffs challenged the ordinance both facially and as applied and that the Court of Appeal properly addressed the as applied claims. In supplemental briefing, the City once more conceded that plaintiffs raised both facial and as applied claims in the writ petition, that both parties addressed facial and as applied claims in their memoranda, and that they “argued both aspects of the right to travel/equal protection issue” at the hearing in the trial court. (Italics added.) As the City also conceded: “It is clear from a review of the reporter’s transcript of the April 8, 1993 hearing that Judge Smith upheld the constitutionality of the ordinance, both as written and as applied. In rejecting appellants’ .‘as applied’ attack, Judge Smith rejected appellants’ supporting evidence.” (Italics added.) These frank concessions by the City, which it documented with specific citations to the record, squarely refute the majority’s conclusions that the allegations of the petition did not clearly state an as applied challenge and that the trial court did not rule on the petition as one encompassing an as applied challenge. (See maj. opn., ante, p. 1087.)

 The majority purport to rely only on the “actual judgment of the court” and not on the concessions of parties and the reporter’s transcript of the hearing on the writ. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1087.) The judgment, however, does not refer to the grounds of the ruling. It provides in its entirety: “It Is Hereby Ordered, Adjudged and Decreed that: [¶] 1. Judgment is entered for petitioners granting the Peremptory Writ of Mandate. [¶] 2. The Court reserves jurisdiction over the issues of attorney’s fees and costs. Any motion for attorney’s fees and costs shall be filed in this Department.”

 Although the majority observe that “the petition alleges in conclusory language that a pattern of unconstitutionally impermissible enforcement of the ordinance existed” (maj. opn., ante, p. 1086), there can be no doubt that under California’s liberal pleading rules the petition was adequately pleaded: it gave notice of the claims and clearly alleged a pattern of constitutionally impermissible enforcement. The undisputed declarations in support of the petition show with specificity that the ordinance was repeatedly enforced against persons who were homeless. The prayer seeks relief as follows: “That a peremptory writ of mandate issue pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure Section 1085 compelling respondents to refrain from enforcement of Santa Ana Municipal Code Section NS02160 . . . [S]uch other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.” The majority fail to identify any requirement of the Code of Civil Procedure or local rules that plaintiffs further delineate the relief sought on their as applied claims. Indeed, it is a rule of long standing that when an answer is filed a court may grant any relief consistent with the issues raised. (See, e.g., Wright v. Rogers (1959) 172 Cal.App.2d 349, 367-368 [342 P.2d 447].)

 For example, the court could have required that the City enforce the provisions of the ordinance prohibiting sleeping or storing personal property only against those persons who are not homeless. An ordinance that prevented only those with homes from “camping” in public areas might be constitutional; it would, of course, be of limited practical utility.

 The majority question whether plaintiffs are “truly”—or even sufficiently—homeless, concluding that the declarations they submitted did not establish that the conduct for which they were cited was “involuntary.” I am satisfied that the undisputed sworn statements of plaintiffs and others cited under the ordinance that they lack the present means to house themselves are sufficient to establish standing and to demonstrate a pattern of enforcement of the ordinance against homeless persons. We need not inquire into the “voluntariness” of all the acts or decisions that might have led to their current plight. As many of the briefs and expert submissions point out, the question whether the homeless, particularly the large proportion of homeless who are mentally ill or addicted to drugs or alcohol, are “voluntarily” living in the streets is complex. Even when services or welfare benefits are available, it may be beyond the resources of many homeless persons to avail themselves of such assistance.
In any event, in light of the shortage of services and beds for the homeless, including the mentally ill and unaccompanied children, the question of “voluntariness” is almost academic. The undisputed fact is that Santa Ana has only 332 beds for a population of approximately 3,000 homeless. The vast majority of homeless in Santa Ana do not have the alternative of sleeping in a bed, off the streets. (See also Vemez et al., Review of California’s Program for the Homeless Mentally Disabled (1988) pp. 1, 13, 15 [RAND study prepared for California Department of Mental Health, reporting, inter alia, that about 30 percent of Orange County homeless suffer from severe mental disorders]; Stats. 1988, ch. 1517, § 1, p. 5382 [legislative finding that the extreme shortage of mental health services in California has led to redirection of long-term psychiatric patients “into a state of homelessness”]; Stats. 1985, ch. 1286, § 1.5, p. 4415 [legislative finding that “large numbers of mentally disordered adults are homeless”]; State of Cal., Department of Youth Authority, Policy Review and Update: Statewide Needs Assessment of Youth Shelters and Youth Centers (1993) pp. 1, II.2-3 [indicating that Orange County has only 31 beds for unaccompanied children, although there are an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 unaccompanied children in the county]; United States Conference of Mayors, A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America’s Cities: 1993—A 26 City Survey (Dec. 1993) p. 29 [children, including unaccompanied children or “runaways,” account for an estimated 30 percent of the homeless population].)

 (See also Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d 359 [plaintiff had standing to challenge an anti-“hippie” ordinance although she was herself manifestly not a “hippie” but a resident and merchant in the city]; Timmons v. McMahon (1991) 235 Cal.App.3d 512, 518 [286 Cal.Rptr. 620] [applying public interest exception in case involving eligibility rights for welfare benefits]; Driving Sch. Assn, of Cal. v. San Mateo Union High Sch. Dist. (1992) 11 Cal.App.4th 1513 [14 Cal.Rptr.2d 908] [applying public interest exception in case seeking to prevent school district from charging high school students tuition for a drivers’ training class].)

 Similarly, under the Eighth Amendment it is not essential to have a formal adjudication of guilt to challenge a provision that makes status a criminal offense. In Joyce v. City and County of San Francisco (N.D.Cal. 1994) 846 F.Supp. 843, 853, the district court expressly rejected the defendants’ contention that a claim under the Eighth Amendment could be made only by a party convicted of a criminal offense. As Joyce emphasized, that proposition was refuted by the United States Supreme Court in Ingraham v. Wright (1977) 430 U.S. 651, 666-668 [51 L.Ed.2d 711, 726-728, 97 S.Ct. 1401], which expressly provided that in addition to proscribing certain types of punishments to those convicted of crimes, the amendment “imposes substantive limits on what can be made criminal.” Like Joyce, this case alleges discrimination on the basis of the status of homelessness—i.e., it challenges the ordinance under the substantive provisions of the Eighth Amendment. Moreover, “fines . . . traditionally have been associated with the criminal process” and subjected to the limitations imposed by the Eighth Amendment. (Ingraham v. Wright, supra, 430 U.S. at p. 664 [51 L.Ed.2d at pp. 725-726].)

 We have recognized that mandamus review is appropriate where, as here, important issues would be effectively removed from judicial review if standing is not conferred. (See Driving Sch. Assn, of Cal. v. San Mateo Union High Sch. Dist., supra, 11 Cal.App.4th at p. 1519 [“High school students who take this brief 24-hour class are unlikely to have the financial resources or the economic interest necessary to maintain the protracted litigation necessary to test the School District’s authority to charge tuition for the class.”].) In this case, similarly, the targets of the ordinance are unlikely to have the financial resources to test the City’s authority on a case-by-case basis. Because the City may cite, arrest, and detain homeless residents repeatedly without “actually convicting” them in a full-blown judicial proceeding, even under the majority’s construction it would be justiciable as an issue “evading review.”

 The majority incorrectly assert that plaintiffs did not pursue an equal protection theory. The writ petition expressly pleaded equal protection claims, including violations of the right *1120to travel. Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d 861, a case devoted to equal protection analysis, was extensively briefed by the parties and amici curiae. Moreover, as discussed below, the right to travel is properly analyzed under an equal protection test.

 (See also Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Corp. (1977) 429 U.S. 252, 265-266 [50 L.Ed.2d 450, 464-465, 97 S.Ct. 555] [recognizing the relevance of discriminatory purpose in assessing the validity of a rezoning decision]; Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d 861; Serrano v. Priest (1976) 18 Cal.3d 728, 740-741, 747 [135 Cal.Rptr. 345, 557 P.2d 929] [invalidating California’s facially neutral school financing scheme in its entirety on the basis of evidence showing it had a discriminatory effect]; see generally, California Mfrs. Assn. v. Public Utilities Com. (1979) 24 Cal.3d 836, 844 [157 Cal.Rptr. 676, 598 P.2d 836] [“both the legislative history of the statute and the wider historical circumstances of its enactment are legitimate and valuable aids in divining the statutory purpose”].)

 The majority expressly venture no opinion on whether and in what circumstances a necessity defense might be available. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1104, fn. 19.) They nonetheless note that a deputy district attorney “expressed his opinion at oral argument” that a necessity defense “might” be available to “truly homeless” persons. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1088 fn. 8.) Because of that “opinion” the majority refuse to conclude that the City intends to enforce the ordinance against persons who have no alternative to “camping” or storing “camp paraphernalia” on public property. Nothing in the ordinance provides an exception for homeless persons, however, and the district attorney’s “opinion” does not purport to bind the City or even to express the City’s intent in implementing the ordinance. Moreover, even if a necessity defense were available, it would not prevent the City from repeatedly citing and arresting homeless persons and subjecting them to an endless round of costly and complex judicial proceedings. Thus the effect of the ordinance would continue to be to drive the homeless from Santa Ana, as it is clearly intended to do.

 (See Waldron, Homelessness & the Issue of Freedom (1991) 39 UCLA L.Rev. 295, 313 [Anticamping ordinances “have and are known and even intended to have a specific effect on the homeless which is different from the effect they have on the rest of us. . . . [E] very one is perfectly well aware of the point of passing these ordinances, and any attempt to defend them on the basis of their generality is quite disingenuous.”].)

 The majority attempt to distinguish Parr on its facts, arguing that the Carmel ordinance “banned a customary use of the city park.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1094.) But their discussion of Parr is merely dictum, because they decline to acknowledge or address the equal protection claims on the merits. It is also unpersuasive. The Carmel ordinance made it unlawful to “[c]limb any tree; or walk, stand or sit upon monuments, vases, fountains, railings, fences, planted areas, or upon any other property not designed or customarily used for such purposes, or to sit on any sidewalks or steps, or to lie or sit on any lawns.” (Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d at p. 862, italics added.) Thus, Parr did not turn on the issue of the “customary” use of the public areas in Carmel, but, as here, on whether a city could prohibit innocuous behavior for the constitutionally impermissible purpose of driving a disfavored group from its bounds. The majority also argue unpersuasively that we must ignore the obvious purpose of the Santa Ana ordinance because, two years previously, Santa Ana had agreed to discontinue attempts to force the homeless to leave. Their approach permits the City to continue to discriminate against the homeless so long as it does not expressly articulate an impermissible purpose. We have explicitly rejected the notion that the mere appearance of neutrality can be used to shield discriminatory legislation. (Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d at p. 870; see also Mulkey v. Reitman (1966) 64 Cal.2d 529 [50 Cal.Rptr. 881, 413 P.2d 825], affd. sub nom. Reitman v. Mulkey (1967) 387 U.S. 369 [18 L.Ed.2d 830, 87 S.Ct. 1627].)

 We need not hold, therefore, that homeless persons are members of a “suspect class” in order to invalidate the ordinance on equal protection grounds. As in Parr, supra, 3 Cal.3d 861, the purpose of the ordinance—to banish a disfavored group—is plainly not a legitimate state interest. (See also U. S. Dept, of Agriculture v. Moreno (1973) 413 U.S. 528, 534 [37 L.Ed.2d 782,787-789, 93 S.Ct. 2821] [invalidating a federal statute that discriminated against “hippies” and “hippie” communes: “if the constitutional conception of ‘equal protection of the laws’ means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest.”]; Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc. (1985) 473 U.S. 432, 448 [87 L.Ed.2d 313, 325-326,105 S.Ct. 3249] [holding city’s denial of building permit invalid because the decision discriminated against the “mentally retarded’’].)

 Although the Supreme Court has never reached a consensus concerning the specific constitutional source of the right to travel, it has often either relied upon or recognized the equal protection clause as a potential source of the right. (See, e.g., Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, 394 U.S. at pp. 630, 634 [22 L.Ed.2d at pp. 612-613, 614-615]; Zobel v. Williams (1982) 457 U.S. 55,66-67 [72 L.Ed.2d 672, 681-682,102 S.Ct. 2309] (conc. opn. of Brennan, J.); Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County (1974) 415 U.S. 250, 253-270 [39 L.Ed.2d 306, 312-322, 94 S.Ct. 1076]).) “ ‘[T]he right to travel receives its most forceful expression in the context of equal protection analysis.’ ” (Attorney General ofN.Y. v. Soto-Lopez (1986) 476 U.S. 898, 902, fn. 2 [90 L.Ed.2d 899, 905, 106 S.Ct. 2317], (plur. opn. of Brennan, J.).)

 Even a provision that penalized travel “indirectly” would not be immune from strict constitutional scrutiny. As the Supreme Court stressed in Dunn v. Blumstein, supra, 405 U.S. at page 341 [31 L.Ed.2d at pp. 283-284]: “ ‘ “Constitutional rights would be of little value *1128if they could be . . . indirectly denied.” ’ ” In Dunn, the court invalidated a one-year residential requirement for voting in Tennessee, although there was no evidence that it in fact deterred—or was intended to deter—travel.

 The majority’s reliance on cases involving only incidental and nondiscriminatory zoning and taxing provisions is therefore misplaced. (See maj. opn., ante, p. 1101; R.H. Macy & Co. v. Contra Costa County (1990) 226 Cal.App.3d 352, 367-369 [276 Cal.Rptr. 530] [unequal taxation under Proposition 13 had an “inconsequential” effect on interstate mobility and did not result in invidious discrimination, either directly or indirectly]; Associated Home Builders etc., Inc. v. City of Livermore (1976) 18 Cal.3d 582, 602-603 [135 Cal.Rptr. 41, 557 P.2d 473] [zoning ordinance barring residential construction only incidentally burdened right to travel]; but see id. at p. 623 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.) [“total exclusion of people from a community is both immoral and illegal”].)

 Fullerton, Long Beach, and Orange, for example, have passed anticamping ordinances. The City Attorney of Fullerton explained: “We’re trying to protect ourselves so that when Santa Ana throws out their 1,300, they don’t all come over here.” (Schaffer, Tent Cities: Laws Aim to Break Camp, Orange County Register (June 7, 1992) pp. 1, 8.) Another amicus curiae, a former mayor of Laguna Beach, similarly observed in a letter to this court: “To the extent that Santa Ana officials ‘succeed’ [in excluding the homeless], the homeless poor migrate to other nearby cities in search of streets and other public places where they can sleep. Laguna Beach, already ‘home’ to many poor and homeless individuals, may have to take on yet more of a social support burden.”

 In referring genetically to the “transient homeless,” the majority overlook the fact that plaintiffs include long-term residents of Santa Ana who have lost their residences and jobs. In any event, as discussed above, the right to travel applies both to homeless residents of the City who wish to remain and to “transient” homeless persons who wish to enter and abide in the City.

 Thus under the Matrix Program social workers were dispersed throughout the city in order to contact homeless persons and a “Night Shelter Referral Program. . . [was] designed to offer the option of shelter accommodations to those homeless individuals in violation of code sections pertaining to lodging, camping in public parks and sleeping in public parks during prohibited hours.” (Joyce v. City and County of San Francisco, supra, 846 F.Supp. at p. 848.) San Francisco also estimated that in 1993-1994 it would spend $46.4 million for services to the homeless, of which over $8 million was specifically earmarked to provide housing. (Ibid.)

 The majority also approve People v. Scott (1993) 20 Cal.App.4th Supp. 5, 13 [26 Cal.Rptr.2d 179], in which the Appellate Department of the Los Angeles Superior Court upheld a West Hollywood anticamping ordinance against a claim that it violated the right to travel of homeless residents. Scott offered no case authority to support its conclusory analysis. In any event it is factually distinguishable: there was no claim that the ordinance prohibited sleeping in any public area in West Hollywood and “no evidence [was] presented in this case to support the inference that West Hollywood has used this ordinance to interfere with a person’s right to travel or even that it is being enforced in such a way as to drive homeless people out of its community.” (Ibid.) Nonetheless, I would disapprove Scott to the extent that it could be construed to suggest that an ordinance like Santa Ana’s, which is intended to “drive homeless people out of its community,” does not impair the right to travel.