7 Aug 27th - Sept 2nd, 2026 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | The stark reality is this: There simply is not enough shelter capacity for the city’s homeless residents. There are about 900 beds in the neighborhood where he stays. When those spots are filled each night, a couple of hundred people are left to fend on the street. And that’s just in the Zone. Occasionally the police cite them for being in the streets. Thus begins a journey into the court system, with its rules, its fines, its dead- lines, its costs and its potential for disaster if anything goes wrong. A sweep without warnings Dago received this specific citation on July 30 during a larger operation by the city to clear a curved stretch of road at the inter- section of 11th Avenue and Jackson Street. This was near the Andre House of Hospitality, one of the area’s homeless services providers. At the time, the city said it did the sweep to remain in compliance with the 2023 court order. Typically a sweep involves a couple of officers who warn people to move before they start issuing citations. But that morning, without warning, they targeted the curve and set up barricades. Officers arrested seven people for felonies and made 18 “contacts” for camping and trespassing. Dago was among those 18. He was issued a citation and given a court date. “Usually,” he said, “they incarcerate you.” In the courthouse, a woman yelled out Dago’s last name, this time from near the judge’s bench. She wanted him to fill out the application for a public defender. He went to the front, grabbed a pen from a red Solo cup full of them, filled out the forms and sat back down. At 8:48 a.m. the judge, Alex Navidad, entered. He explained to the room how the morning’s proceedings would work. Then court began. The first case was a man with a DUI. He was followed by a woman with multiple civil and criminal traffic offenses. During a brief pause between the DUI and the traffic case, a middle-aged woman with braided pigtails walked in, clumsily carrying two bags down the aisle to a bench near the front. One bag had a sleeping pad poking out of the top. Dago stores his belongings in Elicia’s car when he has a court date. He’s down to just one backpack now. The judge made his way through the cases. Dago was fifth on the docket. He walked calmly to the lectern. Navidad asked him if he still resided at the Peoria address listed in his file. No, Dago responded. “Make sure you update that before you go,” the judge replied. Would Dago be interested in working out an agreement with the prosecutor’s office and wrapping everything up today, the judge asked. Dago looked back uncertainly at Elicia. She shrugged. He turned to the judge and agreed to speak with the prosecutor. Outside the courtroom Dago and Elicia wondered to each other what kind of deal might be on the table. They didn’t have high hopes. He only had one charge, so there wasn’t much room for negotiation. They walked up to the arraignment pros- ecutor’s office at the end of a narrow hall on the far end of the second floor. A man wearing a gray suit with graying hair and black glasses sat in a window at the entrance like a bank teller. Was he there to plead guilty, he asked Dago. No, Dago replied. “You’re not pleading guilty?” the man asked. “Nope,” Dago repeated. The prosecutor gave him his paperwork and sent him back to the judge. The judge called the woman with the pigtails up while Dago waited. He read her offense: lighting a fire in the park. “Smoking a cigarette in the park,” the woman replied, her bags stacked next to as she stood at the lectern. They always get people with that, Elicia whispered. Finally it was Dago’s turn again. Was he able to work something out with the prose- cutor, Navidad asked. No, Dago replied. The judge appointed him a public defender and gave him the paperwork to drop off at their office on the fourth floor. He’d need to get fingerprinted before his next court date. The judge reminded him to bring his ID for that. Outside the courthouse Elicia and Dago went through the paperwork, taking photos in case the physical copies got lost. He’d updated his address in the system with the public defender’s office. The old one was for a program in Peoria that he’d lived in for a while. This time he gave the address for the Central Arizona Shelter Services, widely known as CASS. He can get mail — including court notices — at CASS, by the intersection where he was issued the citation. He was due back in court in early September. He’ll have to get a new ID though so he can get fingerprinted before then. Elicia chided him for not having replaced it yet. It was lost — or stolen — with some of his other belongings in early July when he was issued the other citation. The officers didn’t take him to jail but they did detain him and take him from the neighbor- hood, he said. When he got back, some of his belongings, including his ID, were gone. Dago told one final story before he and Elicia walked back to her car. When he was filing his paperwork, the person behind the window at the public defender’s office asked if the two women waiting were with him. “I told them you were my bodyguards,” he said with a laugh. Not Pleading Guilty?’ from p 6 Phoenix police officers detain a homeless person on the sidewalk at 16th Avenue and Van Buren Street just outside of the Zone on Aug. 18, 2026. (Clarissa Sosin)
