"We do have a safety net in this society," Hagman said. "If you don't use it, that's your right, but you shouldn't impose your lifestyle on everybody else."

Neither the League of California Cities nor the California State Association of Counties has taken a position.

But Eva Spiegel, spokeswoman for the league, said the group generally "favors policies that allow local flexibility to address homelessness issues or other land-use issues because of the unique circumstances in each jurisdiction."

For years, Sacramento has wrestled with how best to respond to hundreds of homeless people who often sleep near the city's two rivers or within walking distance of food distribution or other social service programs.

Several months ago, Sacramento city officials agreed to pay $796,000 to 1,143 people whose property was seized and destroyed during raids on illegal campsites since 2005.

Last September, Sacramento County rangers launched night patrols in the American River Parkway in an intensified effort to root out and evict scores of homeless people camping illegally.

During Sacramento's offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, more than 100 arrests were made of protesters seeking to remain in Cesar Chavez Plaza after the park's 11 p.m. weekday or midnight weekend curfew.

Advocates say the homeless, some of them mentally ill, often are looked down upon, threatened, verbally abused and otherwise harassed because of their appearance or mannerisms. In one of the most extreme examples, a Los Angeles woman was doused with a flammable liquid and set ablaze last week while on a bus bench outside a 24-hour Walgreens store.

"These people are poor people, our poor people, and if we don't recognize that, then we're lost," said Kevin Carter, urban outreach coordinator for the Occupy Sacramento group.

But former Sacramento Sheriff John McGinness, now a Sacramento radio host, said government exists partly to maintain sanitation, discourage the spread of disease, and ensure public safety.

"That's the expectation, that's why people pay taxes – that's what they want from the police," McGinness said.

The bill could make it easier for a homeless person to subsist, but California might be better served by targeting root problems causing homelessness, he said.

"Do you want to see people living like that?" McGinness said. "I don't."