Of course homelessness is a complicated issue with no simple solutions.

Of course arresting people for the crime of not being able to afford a roof over their heads is patently inhumane.

But the epidemic of tens of thousands of people sleeping on California’s sidewalks and commandeering whole city blocks parked with rundown RVs affects not only the sadly desperate — it affects all of us, and the public health.

Surely there are, well, political reasons for a politician such as Gov. Gavin Newsom to announce, as he did Thursday, that the recent Supreme Court decision affirming the right of governments to forbid people from sleeping on public property allows him to order state officials to begin dismantling homeless encampments.

But just because it’s good politics doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing to do. There comes a point at which enough is too much, and we have reached that point.

Newsom on Thursday told state agencies and municipal leaders to “humanely remove encampments from public spaces” swiftly, making a priority of the tent cities that are the biggest threat to Californians’ health and safety.

We have disagreed with the governor’s approach to any number of issues over the years, very much including his bureaucratic approach to tackling homelessness. California’s state government and its counties and cities have spent billions of dollars on a wide variety of approaches to curing the vast human tragedy, with oftentimes little to show for it. But it is true that until the high court’s ruling in late June upholding Grants Pass, Oregon’s right to ban homeless people from sleeping in public parks, there was only so much that could be done.

Now, there is a new, common-sense tool in the toolbox — telling the intractably homeless that, no, the solution to your problems is not requisitioning our commonly owned sidewalks and parks for your use alone.

We applaud the governor for taking action.

The argument that lower courts had used against Grants Pass was that arresting people for such commandeering of public places was “cruel and unusual” punishment, and as such against the Constitution. The Supreme Court said this is not so: “The Court cannot say that the punishments Grants Pass imposes here qualify as cruel and unusual. The city imposes only limited fines for first-time offenders, an order temporarily barring an individual from camping in a public park for repeat offenders, and a maximum sentence of 30 days in jail for those who later violate an order ... Such punishments do not qualify as cruel because they are not designed to “superad[d]” “terror, pain, or disgrace.” ... Nor are they unusual, because similarly limited fines and jail terms have been and remain among “the usual mode[s]” for punishing criminal offenses throughout the country. ... Indeed, cities and States across the country have long employed similar punishments for similar offenses.”

Newsom’s order requires state agencies, including Caltrans, to begin removing encampments on properties where they have jurisdiction. He acknowledges that he doesn’t have the authority to order city and county leaders precisely how to proceed, but the reality is that Sacramento controls the purse strings on much of the public monies available for fighting homelessness, and can exert considerable pressure.

In a statement Thursday, the governor said that there is “no longer any barrier to local governments utilizing the substantial resources provided by the State, in tandem with federal and local resources, to address encampments with both urgency and humanity, or excuse for not doing so.” He added: “We must act with urgency to address dangerous encampments, which subject unsheltered individuals living in them to extreme weather, fires, predatory and criminal activity, and widespread substance use, harming their health, safety, and well-being.”

California is a compassionate place. As state and local officials begin to clear the freeway sidings and public sidewalks of encampments, they need to work with nonprofits, churches and social-service agencies to find shelter for the impoverished in the near term.

And then California government needs to laser-focus on the true long-term solution: Removing the government barriers to affordably building housing that have created this crisis in the first place.