Washougal officials may criminalize camping on City property to ‘improve livability’

The city of Washougal is proposing criminalizing camping on City property in an effort to “improve the livability” of its public spaces through a series of municipal code changes that could have profound ramifications for unhoused community members. The proposed code changes, contained in an ordinance that the Washougal City Council will consider during its meeting on Monday, Dec. 2, would amend the City’s municipal code to give its officers “enforcement tools” to address trespass and camping on public property as authorized by and consistent with Grants Pass v. Johnson, a July 2024 United States Supreme Court ruling that the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” clause does not prohibit the enforcement of laws regulating camping on public property. The Supreme Court’s decision overturned the U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit’s 2018 decision limiting enforcement actions around camping on public property and prevented camping bans in areas without open shelter space. “I just want to emphasize that this is merely a tool,” Washougal Police Chief Wendi Steinbronn said during the Washougal City Council’s Nov. 18 workshop. “Most of our officers know (the city’s unhoused) individuals on a first-name basis. (This proposal) doesn’t mean that we don’t take the totality of a person’s circumstances into account when trying to work with them on helping them solve their problem or (find) resources. “This tool, the sharper end of it, if you will, is going to be reserved for specific circumstances when people are just not following what we ask them to do, and they end up using public space for their own enjoyment, which interferes with the rest of the (community’s) ability to enjoy the public property — for example, urinating and defecating in the grass behind City Hall, leaving needles around, things like that.” In 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that city officials in Boise, Idaho, could not enforce an anti-camping ordinance during times when the unhoused population exceeded the available shelter beds on the basis that arresting people for sleeping outside violated the Eighth Amendment prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment.” In 2020, United States Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke ruled that Grants Pass, Oregon’s two anti-camping ordinances violated the Eighth Amendment prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment.” The Ninth Circuit Court upheld Clarke’s ruling. “We used to not allow it,” City Manager David Scott said during the Nov. 18 workshop. “Then the Ninth Circuit made its decision, so we all had to change our codes or our practices. The Supreme Court has changed that, and so communities are deciding whether to return back to what they were doing or not. Each community needs to kind of make that choice for themselves.” The City’s current municipal code restricts camping in public spaces to a specific time, place and manner. Unhoused individuals can sleep in certain public spaces between the hours of 9:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. However, the area around City Hall has become a “magnet” for service-resistant campers who must be moved along by police almost daily, according to Steinbronn. “We have people almost every day that are overstaying their welcome,” she said. “Despite the fact that we have the public loo that’s only a block away from City Hall that’s open 24/7, we have problems with people using the little grassy area behind City Hall as their public toilet.” The proposed ordinance would amend the municipal code to state that it shall be unlawful to: • Camp or occupy camp facilities for the purposes of habitation or use camp paraphernalia on City-owned or City-maintained property, including City Hall, public works buildings, parks, the police station, the fire station, utility facilities and the Washougal Community Library; any street or right-of-way; or any other publicly owned or maintained parking lot or publicly owned property or maintained area, improved or unimproved; • Store camp facilities (other than vehicles) or camp paraphernalia on City-owned or City-maintained property; • Sleep on sidewalks, streets, alleys, within doorways; in any pedestrian or vehicular entrance to public or private property abutting a public sidewalk. “The officers aren’t interested in going out and arresting a bunch of people,” Steinbronn said. “What we want to do is improve the livability of these spaces that people tend to congregate at. We would have to be able to demonstrate that they are camping and not just hanging out, using the library or sitting on a bench or whatever. They have to exhibit camping behavior.” The amended code gives police officers the ability to first issue campers a written warning, followed by a referral to services, then a civil infraction citation and $75 fine. “And then, finally, if all else fails and we can’t get this person to take advantage of the services that are available, they could be arrested for criminal trespassing after we give them an admonishment,” Steinbronn said. “And that admonishment must be given at the specific public space that they’re at, meaning, if they were at City Hall and they weren’t leaving, and we gave them the admonishment and they moved on to a different location, we would start all over with that process.” Councilwoman Michelle Wagner asked Steinbronn how long the campers would have to leave the area after receiving a warning. “Well, we would take into account their ability to move on,” Steinbronn replied. “Some of them will move right then and there. For some of them, we may have to come back in an hour if they have some stuff they need to gather. I don’t anticipate us letting people just ignore us.” Steinbronn said the proposed code amendment does not apply to people who sleep in their vehicles. “We would continue to use our parking code to enforce people that are overstaying their welcome, meaning more than 24 hours on a public street,” she said. “Obviously, we’re not going to trespass people from the curb, in their own vehicle, from the public street.” Steinbronn said the Washougal Police Department deals with about 10 unhoused citizens on a regular basis. “They suffer from substance-use disorder. They are service resistant,” she said during the Nov. 18 workshop. “Occasionally, we have to escalate our enforcement on those folks to get them to stop doing what they’re doing.” Steinbronn noted that, due to the fact that Washougal does not have a year-round homeless shelter, it must rely on other resources, most prominently the Council for the Homeless (CFTH), a Vancouver nonprofit that acts as a central hub to provide services to community members experiencing homelessness. “They can engage with that organization in order to try to get housing or shelters,” she said. “We have the ability to get folks a bus pass should they be able to obtain a location for shelter, and we also have the ability to emergency-voucher people for one or two nights, depending on the circumstances, in the Rama Inn. But the Rama Inn is not a shelter. It is to be used on an emergency basis, and it’s subject to funds available to issue those vouchers. That funding comes from the Council for the Homeless.” Steinbronn added that the area also offers services through the Camas-Washougal Salvation Army, which provides meals, clothing, and laundry services; St. Anne’s Church, which provides vehicle camping in its parking lot; Recovery Navigator program, a service of the Recovery Cafe of Clark County, which provides peer-to-peer support for people suffering from addiction; and ReFuel Washougal, which provides free weekly meals. “I will tell you how proud I am of this Washougal community for everything that we do as a very small city,” City Manager David Scott said during the Nov. 18 workshop. “The partners in this community, and the services that we do provide, as far as I know, is the most that’s provided for a city like us. We really stepped up with the limited resources that we have. This is a balancing act of all of those considerations.” The proposed municipal code amendment states that an individual may be issued a trespass warning notice by a police officer barring the individual from public property for a period of 30 days up to one year, as determined by the officer based on a totality of the circumstances if within a one-year period the individual is warned two or more times, formally or informally, or issued two or more citations at the same public property for violating regulations related to public property; or for violating any state or local law(s) while on said public property. Council for the Homeless says camping bans have ‘detrimental impact’ on vulnerable community members Sesany Fennie-Jones, the chief executive officer for the Council for the Homeless, said policies that criminalize camping in public spaces — also known as “camping bans” — “hinder the ability for our unhoused neighbors to survive on a day-to-day basis, have a detrimental impact on the physical and mental health outcomes of individuals experiencing homelessness, and increase the likelihood that an individual will remain trapped in the cycle of homelessness.” “Knowing fines will be imposed on people who have little to no money, the ramifications of these types of ordinances is that already marginalize people, including victims of domestic violence, people with disabilities and mental health issues, LGBTQ+ community, and veterans, only serve to perpetuate systemic racism and chronic homelessness, rather than solving it,” Fennie-Jones said. “For people experiencing housing instability and homelessness, being thrust into the criminal system with fines means they must overcome yet another barrier to obtaining housing,” she continued. “It also actually increases the costs to taxpayers who must now fund the legal systems and restitution requirements imposed under these laws. Moreover, barriers related to criminalizing public camping leads to potential discrimination for housing vouchers, employment, social security benefits, and higher education — tools that are meant to address poverty and homelessness.” Such bans can also lead to expulsion from certain areas, “which for many individuals means they are banned from the communities they call home,” according to Fennie-Jones. “We believe that camping bans will exacerbate the trauma of homelessness and perpetuate harm,” she said. Clark County currently has 421 shelter beds available year-round and an additional 99 beds for short stays during severe cold and hot weather, according to Fennie-Jones. “Clark County lacks the amount of affordable housing units as well as shelter placements to meet the needs of our unhoused neighbors,” she said. “Depending on the shelter, there may be limits to the amount of belongings that an individual or family may bring into the shelter. There are limited shelter slots available for folks experiencing homelessness with furry family members.” The city of Vancouver and Clark County passed similar unlawful camping ordinances prior to the Grant Pass decision, according to Fennie-Jones. “However, these jurisdictions send people who have been cited to Clark County’s Community Court, a special court for people with homelessness-related offenses where they can engage with services to have their charges dismissed,” she said. “While this process provides access to services, it requires people of limited means to obtain transportation, know and track when their court date is, assumes the person cited has the mental capacity to understand the process, and requires people to leave their personal belongings and animals to attend the proceedings.” The cities of Camas and Ridgefield also have unlawful camping ordinances, but have not drafted or amended changes to laws that would impose citations or criminal punishments as enforcement methods. The city of La Center passed an unlawful camping ban in September 2024, but left enforcement as a civil matter instead of a criminal one. The city of Battle Ground also pursues civil remedies to enforce their restrictions on public camping. “Since 2018, Washougal has had a restriction on daytime camping. The proposed law, however, will now make camping in public spaces a criminal offense subject to fines,” Fennie-Jones said. “Washougal already refers people in need of shelter to Council for the Homeless for services, but now we must expend additional resources to help these individuals overcome the citations, which serves to create more burdens on people who already have so many to overcome.” On Aug. 1, 2024, the ACLU of Washington filed a lawsuit against the city of Spokane, which has laws that prohibit camping and limit sitting and lying down, on the basis that the Washington state constitution provides greater protections from cruel and unusual punishment. “The lawsuit targets three Spokane municipal codes that, in effect, criminalize homelessness,” Fennie-Jones said. “The first ordinance makes camping and sleeping on public property a misdemeanor. The second makes sitting or lying between 6 a.m. and midnight on public property that is encompassed by a designated zone a misdemeanor. The third authorizes the City to remove, destroy, or sometimes store the property of individuals who have been cited for unlawful camping.” The lawsuit argues that “it’s cruel to punish people for living outside whether they’re offered shelter or not,” she said. “If the ACLU of Washington wins, it could force cities that have criminalized the behaviors of homelessness, such as public camping, to backtrack, and it could provide protections that go beyond offering shelter before clearing an encampment,” she said. “We have not heard or been a part of any discussions with cities within Clark County that are hoping to align with the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision. We would be more than happy to have a conversation with Washougal regarding their proposal to criminalize camping.”

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