The guide is an invaluable resource for advocates who represent unhoused people facing steep financial and legal burdens for sleeping on streets and other basic human behaviors.

Thanks to the work of students and staff members in UCLA School of Law’s Veterans Legal Clinic, legal services providers, pro bono attorneys, and other advocates now have a valuable guide that offers practical insights to representing unhoused individuals against criminal infraction charges, which is a key component of the clinic’s broad efforts.

The manual, Citation Defense for Unhoused Clients: An Introduction to California Traffic Court, which the clinic created in partnership with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, offers, according to its introduction, an overview of “representing unhoused clients in California state courts, specifically traffic courts, which handle most low-level criminal infraction charges. It is primarily intended for attorneys and student-attorneys unfamiliar with citation defense work, or who may be appearing in court for the first time.”

The publication comes a year after the Supreme Court decision in Johnson v. City of Grants Pass, which found that local laws aimed at criminalizing unhoused people, such as anti-camping and anti-sleeping ordinances, are not barred by the Eighth Amendment.

“This manual couldn’t come at a more important moment,” says Ashe Huang, a fellow at the ACLU of Southern California and co-author of the report. “Local governments are criminalizing our unhoused community members for meeting basic human needs that we all share, like the need for shelter and sleep. Criminal citations like the ones addressed in this manual can lead to a vicious cycle of punishment and fees that makes it even harder for people to exit houselessness. I’m proud to have worked with the Veterans Legal Clinic to create this resource, which will help attorneys and law students challenge these citations in court.”

Recent UCLA Law graduate Michael Dickerson ’25 worked on the manual while he was a student. He is credited as a co-author with Huang. The manual was informed by his experience in the clinic defending an unhoused veteran who faced several citations in traffic court.

“Working on the manual and with clients in the clinic helped ground my law school experience, providing opportunities to put theory into practice and to explore the traffic court system, an important but often ignored part of our legal system,” says Dickerson, who also co-founded Ktown for All, an all-volunteer mutual aid and advocacy organization that has worked with unhoused residents in Koreatown since 2018. He is starting a fellowship at the Social Justice Legal Foundation this fall. “I hope the manual can give other new and aspiring attorneys a useful toolkit for navigating traffic court in California.”

Overseen by Executive Director Jeanne Nishimoto and Faculty Director Sunita Patel, the Veterans Legal Clinic seeks to address the unmet legal needs of veterans, particularly those who are staying or accessing services at the VA in West Los Angeles. It also teaches law students practical skills and enhances their knowledge of, and appreciation for, issues that former military service members face. It is housed on the VA campus and serves clients who include veterans who are chronically homeless or are aging, disabled, and returning from incarceration.

“In the Veterans Legal Clinic, students learn the skills necessary to provide high quality legal representation to individual veteran clients and explore opportunities to engage in advocacy with broader community impact,” Nishimoto says. “Partnerships like this allow our students to build on their experiences with direct representation to create important community resources.”