Legislation on homelessness should start with cities

Oregon's House Bill 3115, passed in 2021, says bars communities from imposing unreasonable restricts against public camping. (Getty Images)

The widespread take on the June 28 U.S. Supreme Court decision sustaining Grants Pass restrictions on public camping was widely interpreted as kicking the issue, as it did with abortion in the Dobbs decision, to the states.

In many states, few of which have state laws on the subject, that may be the effect. Oregon, which does have a state law on the subject, may be different. Here, the effect of the decision, which simply said the Grants Pass rules were not “cruel or unusual,” was to place the subject back before individual communities.

Oregon’s state law, House Bill 3115 , was passed in 2021 following an earlier court decision about the Grants Pass rules. Its lead sponsor was then-speaker and now-Gov. Tina Kotek, and it sets some limits on city and county action on homeless camping, saying that communities cannot pass any unreasonable restrictions.

Following the Supreme Court decision, the next steps are likely to be – and should be – taken by local governments. As they act, they may run into the walls of state law and regulation.

That should make it clearer what action the Oregon Legislature ought to take.

HB 3115’s core provision says: “Any city or county law that regulates the acts of sitting, lying, sleeping or keeping warm and dry outdoors on public property that is open to the public must be objectively reasonable as to time, place and manner with regards to persons experiencing homelessness.”

Some of those terms are defined in the bill, but that’s about it. Local ordinances have to be “objectively reasonable,” but it doesn’t define “reasonable,” only saying that the availability of local shelters should be borne in mind in any restrictions. The anti-camping rules in Grants Pass that sparked the decision barred people from sleeping publicly with “bedding,” set fines of $295 and much more if not paid. Orders to stay away from parks could follow. As a last step, jail time was possible. The Supreme Court decision allows all that.

Would that necessarily violate the Oregon state law? We may have to wait for an Oregon court to say.

That may be the way it goes around the state, because many local communities have been moving ahead on the subject, and may move faster now.

Not all communities in Oregon have a problem with homelessness; most smaller towns do not. But larger cities, especially where more extensive social and other services are located, tend to have larger numbers, and the pressures to regulate, if not resolve, homelessness have been growing there.

Salem, Bend, Medford, Corvallis and McMinnville are among the cities that have passed rules relating to camping areas where homeless people have congregated. With the new Grants Pass ruling in hand, pressure locally likely will increase to do more.

Portland has a new revised camping ordinance , effective July 1, which Mayor Ted Wheeler said would be enforced at first on camps around the city that “present the greatest health and safety risks.” The plan is to develop a series of assessments and then refer them to city agencies, including the police.

Portland’s approach seems likely to shift and change in the months ahead, not least because the planned assessments may uncover information and ideas that change views of what should be done. Some of the same may happen in other cities, too, as they try policies to meet area concerns about homeless health and safety issues, and advocates for the homeless push back.

Although Kotek said she wants to keep the current law on the subject in place, a number of Oregon legislators are likely to weigh in as well. Two Democrats, Sen. Mark Meek of Gladstone and Rep. Paul Evans of Monmouth, have said they would like to see more specificity in the state law so that cities have clearer guidance about what they can do.

That’s true. But the way to get there probably is to allow the cities to experiment – and they should start on that promptly – and see where the problems, legal, practical or moral, turn out to be. As they discover more, legislators probably will be able to better figure out what they should do next.

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