Oregon city at heart of Supreme Court homelessness ruling votes to ban camping except in some areas
PORTLAND, Oregon — The small Oregon town at the heart of a recent historic ruling by the US Supreme Court which allows cities to enforce a ban on outdoor sleeping, has voted to ban camping but to designate certain areas where homeless people can go.
The Grants Pass City Council voted 7-0 Wednesday to ban camping on public lands like parks, creating four spots in the city where homeless people can pitch their tents.
The move marks the city’s first change in its anti-camping laws since a June Supreme Court decision cleared the way for nationwide bans on sleeping outdoors. Local officials in the mountain town have struggled for years to a homeless crisis which caused division among residents and sparked a fierce battle for park space.
Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol said the new laws are intended to drive people out of the parks but still provide them with places to sleep.
“I’m pleased that we’re taking this step forward,” Bristol told The Associated Press. “I look forward to us having more control over our parks.”
The Supreme Court ruled that bans on sleeping outside do not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The decision overturned a lower court ruling that had held that enforcing such bans when there was a shortage of shelters was unconstitutional and had prevented Grants Pass from enforcing local anti-camping ordinances.
The city’s new rules will take effect once the federal ban that previously prevented the city from enforcing its ordinances is officially lifted.
The new laws create four so-called “permitted sites” where homeless people can pitch their tents. Camping on public land elsewhere in the city could earn people a fine of up to $50.
Grants Pass has only one adult overnight shelter, the Gospel Rescue Mission. It has 138 beds, but policies such as attendance at daily Christian services, no alcohol, drugs or smoking, and no pets mean that many will not stay there.
One designated campsite will allow people to stay up to four days, while the other three will allow people to stay for one day. However, because state law requires officials to give 72 hours’ notice before removing people’s belongings, people will effectively be able to stay up to a week at the site, which allows for the longest stays, and about four days at the others, Bristol said.
Once their time at an individual site is up, people can move to another designated camping area. They can cycle through the “allowed sites” with no limit on how often they move between them, Bristol said.
The sites, which are on city property, are not intended to be permanent homeless shelters or campsites, Bristol said. The city plans to install restrooms, handwashing stations and trash receptacles at the sites, which will not be staffed.
“This plan is not the best in terms of providing great services, or solving homelessness, or really helping people get out of poverty or dealing with addiction or mental health issues or anything like that,” she said. “It’s really a temporary, stopgap measure. But I would say it’s the beginning, but not the end, of our actions.”
The city continues to look for other sites that can be used as camping grounds, Bristol said.
Bristol hopes that plans for two more homeless shelters, including one specifically for people on a waiting list for a residential drug treatment program, will provide other places for homeless people to go. In the long term, the city is also looking at ways to encourage the development of multifamily and affordable housing, she said.
The rise in homelessness in Grants Pass is an example of a national crisis gripping cities large and small.
Homelessness in the United States grew dramatically by 12% last year to the highest reported level, as rising rents and a decline in COVID-19 pandemic aid made housing unaffordable for more people.
More than An estimated 650,000 people are homelessthe most since the country began an annual point-in-time survey in 2007. A lack of access to mental health and addiction resources may be contributing to the crisis. Older adults, LGBTQ+ people and people of color are disproportionately affected by homelessness, advocates say.
Federal data shows that nearly half of unhoused people sleep outside.