Portland Homeless Group Sues City Over Camping Rules

A group of homeless people in Portland, Oregon brought a class action lawsuit Friday challenging city camping restrictions set to be enforced soon.

The rules — which were approved by the Portland City Council in June but are yet to be enforced — could see homeless people fined or jailed simply for trying to sleep or get out of the cold, the suit claims in seeking a temporary restraining order, according to the Oregonian.

The ordinance prohibits camping in any public place between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., requiring homeless people to take down and set up any improvised shelters daily. It also bans camping in public parks or near schools at any time.

“We all want to end homelessness,” said Ed Johnson, litigation director of the Oregon Law Center, which is representing the group. “But this is not the way to do it.”

Portland’s lack of affordable housing and shelter beds, coupled with safety concerns over sleeping outside at night, make compliance impossible, the suit argues.

Additionally, the city is yet to release a map clearly defining where people can and cannot camp, according to the suit.

“While it is being called, by the city, a daytime camping ban, the reality is that it is also a nighttime camping ban,” it contends. “The ordinance effectively bans universal, unavoidable human survival conduct … 24 hours a day on most or all public land in the city.”

A spokesperson for Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declined to comment to the Oregonian on the suit, but said the city still intends to begin enforcement of the ordinance later in the fall.

The city will roll out an education campaign and provide two weeks’ notice before enforcement actually begins, the spokesperson said.

There are more than 6,000 homeless people in Multnomah County, which includes Portland, but just about 2,000 shelter beds, according to federal and county data.

Over the summer, Portland opened the first of six sanctioned camps for homeless people, but it quickly grew beyond its agreed-upon bounds.