FALL RIVER — The City Council voted 6-1 Tuesday night to ban “unauthorized camping on public property,” essentially outlawing homeless encampments with the potential to fine people for living outdoors.
The measure calls for no fines if a person is homeless, if there are no shelter beds available, and if the person is willing to “immediately go to a shelter if/when space becomes available.”
However, if all three criteria aren’t met, fines could be levied.
Numerous advocates for the homeless spoke at the meeting, including local clergy, Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux , and people who had themselves lived on the streets. Several people, including Mayor Paul Coogan in an interview Wednesday, said the ordinance would not accomplish its goals.
Christopher Conlan, who said he pulled himself out of homelessness after living on the streets on and off for years, said the only thing the ordinance will do is put fear into already vulnerable people.
“These individuals are sick and suffering," said Conlan, speaking during citizens input. “They’ve fallen on hard times. They could have drug addiction or mental health issues. I would not have the same contempt for somebody who had cancer or heart disease.
At one point, Conlan grew emotional and spoke through tears.
"Everybody is somebody’s somebody," he said.
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What does Fall River's anti-encampment law do?
The ordinance comes months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that local government ordinances with civil or criminal penalties for camping on public land do not violate the Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment for homeless people.
Fall River's ordinance describes camping on public property without access to water, sewer and sanitation services as interfering with “the intended use of the public space”; the language says the rule is necessary to preserve public welfare and the right of all people to use common public spaces.
The council’s 6-1 vote saw only Laura-Jean Sampson oppose the measure; Council President Joseph Camara and Councilor Shawn Cadime were not present.
It outlaws camping or sleeping on any city-, state- or federally-owned property, including in alleys, under bridges, in parks and on sidewalks, unless authorized by the Park Board, the mayor or state or federal officials. It also allows for the destruction of any homeless person’s property at an illegal campsite.
The measure notes that an appropriate shelter is considered unavailable “if all beds are full.” It adds that homeless people cannot consider a shelter “unavailable” if they refuse to go to it.
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The city funds homeless services at several agencies, with beds at Steppingstone’s First Step Inn and the winter overflow shelter at the Timao Center.
Coogan said the First Step Inn has 50 beds; when the overflow shelter opens, it will contain house another 30 beds. He said the city is in the process of acquiring a rooming house that would mean another 20.
Does Fall River's new law criminalize homelessness?
Councilor Michelle Dionne, among others, noted that the measure does not directly criminalize homelessness since it calls for civil punishment in the form of fines.
Councilor Brad Kilby said fines are necessary to give the rule some teeth.
“There’s nothing criminal within this ordinance. Nobody’s going to jail, nobody’s getting a fine, nobody’s going to have something held against them on their record," Dionne said.
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Heroux, speaking during citizen input time as the sheriff of Bristol County, begged to differ, saying the ordinance “means more inmates in my jail.”
Heroux said he dealt with homelessness issues as the former mayor of Attleboro. He asserted that if the city doesn’t collect fines from those being punished, then the rule is meaningless — but if it attempts to use the court system to collect fines and people still can’t pay them, then people can be held in contempt of court, which means jail time.
“Jails and prisons deal with the after-effect of crime, not the causes of crime," Heroux said in a written statement. “Needlessly incarcerating people is costly to taxpayers and can have a criminogenic effect on people incarcerated. The key word is 'needlessly.’”
At the meeting, Heroux said his goal is to turn New Bedford’s Ash Street Jail into a shelter for people experiencing homelessness post-incarceration where they could receive wraparound services, including health care.
Mayor Coogan: Negative reinforcement won't work against homeless
Kilby said the measure is intended to help the homeless by getting them into shelters, and noted that the ordinance can be revisited and revised once it’s on the books.
"We’re trying to help people,” he said.
In the last five years, the Coogan administration has spent over $3.1 million in grants funding agencies that serve the homeless, and nearly $2 million in grants funding the FAST Team, or the Fall River Addiction Support and Treatment Team — a group of people including police, recovery coaches and mental health clinicians who connect with homeless people in crisis.
Coogan has also participated in homeless outreach and visited encampments. He opposes the ordinance.
The measure now goes before him for his signature. While Coogan can veto it, he said, "I also can count. It was six to one.”
“I don’t know if there is any way to fine people, arrest people, or do anything like that that’s going to end homelessness,” Coogan said.
He said he understood the merit of trying to collect fines from people who are illegally camping recreationally and able to pay — but not the homeless. He added that Fall River police would be asked to clear camps, and he doesn’t like the idea of sending officers to do that.
Coogan said, in his experience, homeless people living outdoors cannot be brought into shelters through negative reinforcement like fines.
“You coax them,” Coogan said.
He said he’s visited homeless camps in single-digit temperatures and tried to persuade people to enter shelters, and they’ve still refused. Having beds is the easiest part of the issue; harder is convincing homeless people to use them.
“I’ve been out there, and we have a bed for them, and they won’t come in,” Coogan said.
Under the new ordinance, such behavior would result in a fine.
Sometimes the coaxing can take a while, and requires people to be convinced to enter detox and step-down programs and longer-term sober living situations. “If we can pull them along for seven for eight months, maybe we can get them to the other side – and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
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'People are going to die'
The Timao Center winter overflow shelter is open during winter months. With temperatures already dropping, Coogan said he’s in the process of trying to open it early.
The Rev. Jamie Spriggs, pastor of First Baptist Church in Fall River, noted that cold weather is around the corner when she addressed the City Council on Tuesday.
“It won’t be effective. It won’t accomplish the thing that you’re trying to accomplish, which is to make there not be these encampments," Spriggs said. "Do you know what works? The creation of affordable housing.
" People are going to die, and it will be on your shoulders."
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: 'People are going to die': Fall River passes anti-homeless law; advocates say it will fail
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