‘More heavy handed.’ One Tri-Cities council to crack down on homeless camping in parks

Richland is poised to put the teeth back in rules that bar camping in parks and other public places, emboldened by a recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion that criminal penalties do not violate Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

It is the first local city to embrace the ruling. Kennewick’s city council plans to talk about the implications at its Aug. 27 workshop.

A Pasco official told the Herald that their police will continue to enforce the city’s daytime rules on downtown sidewalks. There’s no scheduled discussion of the new court ruling.

The Richland council will consider restoring language enabling police and city park rangers to enforce a 72-hour limit on camping across five square miles of public spaces. That includes parks, public facilities, rights of way, federal lands and the Kennewick Irrigation District’s Amon Wasteway .

The change is on the council’s consent agenda for a first reading Wednesday, Aug. 7, and won’t take effect until it is approved for a second reading at a future meeting. Consent items are considered routine and typically are not discussed in public session.

However, the city’s elected leaders discussed public camping at a workshop in July , when they considered how to adapt to the latest court opinion on homeless camping, Johnson v. Grants Pass, released June 28.

“Opportunity just opened up for us,” Joe Schiessl, deputy city manager, advised.

Opportunity for some is a hardship for others, one man told the Herald.

A man living with his dog in a car off Columbia Park Trail said the 72-hour limit will hurt people who are barely getting by.

The man, who did not give his name, said he ran a business and gave up his rental home when his landlord died and the property fell into disrepair amid a dispute among heirs.

“I refuse to pay someone else’s mortgage,” he said, adding, “We’re all one paycheck away from barbecuing with our dog.”

The Tri-Cities is reportedly the only urban area in Washington state without a so-called “low-barrier” shelter, a place for homeless people to seek refuge without having to qualify.

The Tri-Cities Union Gospel mission operates shelters for men and women. However, as a private, religious organization, it sets rules its guests must follow and is not classed as “low-barrier.”

Boise homeless ruling overturned

The U.S. Supreme Court recently overturned a Ninth Circuit Court ruling in Martin v. Boise that anti-camping ordinances violate the rights of homeless individuals if there was no other place for them to go.

In its 6-3 opinion based on a Grants Pass, Ore., case the court affirmed that local governments rather than federal judges hold the power to address homelessness.

Richland, which previously amended its camping ordinances to comply with the earlier Boise ruling, is getting ready to undo those changes.

In the Boise decision, the Ninth Circuit Court created the “Martin test,” holding that it was cruel and unusual to enforce anti-camping ordinances if no other shelter was available.

To pass the “Martin test,” Richland tried, but usually failed, to coordinate with Benton County Human Services to help the unhoused with finding shelter. Schiessl explained that The Housing Resource Center is understaffed and has limited hours, rendering it unreachable on nights and weekends, when most crises occur.

More often than not, people decline help, he said.

The Grants Pass ruling eliminated the “Martin test” and the need to actively connect people with services. Instead, Richland is considering offering fliers to people in need that detail what’s available.

Public camping in Richland

Richland has about five square miles of public land, including 330 acres of owned or leased land, 310 miles of right-of-way, 300 acres of federal land and the sprawling Amon Wasteway, a wide gully that extends from Meadow Springs to the Yakima River.

Schiessl said car camping is more common than tent camping, but the latter occurs in the Chamna Natural Preserve, Columbia Point South and the abandoned KOA campground east of the Reach Museum at the Richland Wye.

He shared a photo of an abandoned encampment packed with discarded belongings and concealed within a Russian olive thicket at Chamna, calling it an example of the types of camps discovered every week in Richland.

Schiessl said the city’s process is to contact individuals, post notices on the site, then clean it up.

It retains personal possessions after another city in Washington state had to pay a five-figure settlement to an individual who claimed it threw out a priceless heirloom.

“You never know what somebody’s priceless heirloom might be. It might be a bag of Doritos. That’s in jest, but you never know,” he said.

The city treats almost everything that isn’t truly trash as a personal possession. A candy bar wrapper is trash. The candy bar isn’t, Schiessl told the council. Few possessions are retrieved later, he added.

The Boise case opinion was not carte blanche to camp anywhere.

It allowed cities to create “no trespassing” zones in certain areas.

Richland designated more than a dozen areas as off limits to all camping — John Dam Plaza, Leslie Groves Park, Howard Amon Park, the Richland Library and Richland City Hall among them.

The revised code removes the off-limits list since it is no longer required.

Council wants action

Richland’s elected leaders supported the stronger approach to homeless encampments.

Most indicated they want to revive the pre-Boise camping rules. They recognize too that enforcing an ordinance won’t eliminate homelessness.

There were more than 50 unsheltered people living in Benton and Franklin counties in 2023, according to the most current Point in Time census .

The actual figure is thought to be higher and does not include people who are homeless but are living in an emergency shelter or transitional housing.

Pandemic related federal aid greatly boosted emergency housing funding, but that ended last year .

Mayor Pro Tem Sandra Kent said Richland should work with its neighbors on a solution, but said the city has a right to keep its public spaces safe and clean.

“We did not set up our parks system and our public facilities to be congregation areas for people experiencing homelessness,” she said.

Councilwoman Johanna Jones favored heavier enforcement of the camping ordinances and the existing laws against public drug use, littering, dumping and bathroom use.

“Unless we are a little more strict about how we implement this, we are going to become a Yakima or Spokane or Seattle,” she said. “We have to be a little more heavy handed on this issue.”

Councilman Kurt Maier distinguished between mere camping and conduct that’s already illegal. Camping is conflated with littering and dumping, but shouldn’t be, he said.

“I don’t want them to be treated as the same thing,” he said.

Councilman Ryan Lukson said he was reluctant to criminalize activities if the city isn’t able to enforce it. Washington has a public defender crisis that means few will face criminal penalties for camping.

“I don’t anticipate us ever prosecuting anyone for this,” he said. “I hate having things we’re never going to utilize or enforce.”

Richland not alone

The Grants Pass opinion is sparking a broad reaction across the western U.S.

The earlier Boise opinion was binding on the Ninth Circuit, a sprawling judicial district that covers California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The city of Grants Pass, Ore., enjoyed broad support as it pushed to implement its own camping rules with countless jurisdictions arguing that the Boise decision exacerbated homelessness and tied their hands.

The cities of Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles together with organizations representing law enforcement and 20,000 American cities and 3,100 counties filed amicus briefs in support of Grants Pass’s efforts to enforce camping laws.

The Washington State Association of Municipal Attorneys , representing all the state’s 281 cities, was one of them, as was the League of Oregon Cities and several Idaho organizations.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was among the first to embrace the opinion: He ordered state agencies to begin sweeping homeless encampments in late July.

Closer to home, the opinion is prompting the sorts of conversations happening in Richland.

It’s also sparking a legal backlash with potential to change the legal landscape in Washington state.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the cities of Spokane and Spokane Valley, saying their anti-camping ordinances violate the state constitution prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

The ACLU sued after the Washington attorney general refused to make the case. the ACLU did not respond to an inquiry about the case.

▪ The Richland City Council plans a special meeting at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 7, in the council chambers, 625 Swift Blvd. Council sessions are broadcast live on CityView Channel 192 and on the city’s YouTube Channel.

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