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News
Street Roots
BY AMANDA WALDROUPE
S T A F F W R IT E R
he question of how people
experiencing homelessness occupy
public spaces has become a seasonal
argument these days. As with years past,
the question is again thrust into the public
spotlight with Portland Mayor Ted
Wheeler’s call for an expansion of a
“pedestrian use zone” in downtown
Portland, which restricts people from sitting
or lying on a sidewalk.
The announcement has been met with a
feisty backlash, including an early December
protest outside Columbia Sportswear’s
downtown store over the pedestrian use
zone. Columbia Sportswear’s C E O , Tim
Boyle, had written an op-ed in The
Oregonian threatening to move the
headquarters of Sorel, one of Columbia
Sportswear’s brands, if steps to reduce
crime were not taken. Soon thereafter, the
signs appeared.
For years, homeless advocates and civil
T
panhandling essen tially crim inalize
hom eless people and violate a hom eless
person’s civil liberties, including free speech
protections and protections against cruel
and unusual punishment.
“All these laws criminalizing
homelessness, we would be delighted to get
rid of all of them ,” said Kim berly.
McCullough, policy director for the
American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon.
The A C L U of Oregon has identified laws
that disproportionately affect homeless
people as one of its main priorities for
litigation in the coming year. That decision
to focus on laws that affect homeless
people, such as bans on camping and
panhandling, could have a dramatic impact
on homeless legal rights, given the
organization’s ability to strategically choose
its legal cases and rally the proper resources
to litigate them.
A spokesperson for Wheeler did not
respond to a request for comment for this
article. But in a Dec. 10 op-ed in The
Oregonian, Wheeler argued that public
safety and livability issues can be addressed
without criminalizing homeless people.
He called the pedestrian use zone a
“common sense” strategy, one that is “more
limited and nuanced” than a “sit-lie”
ordinance that bans sitting and lying on a
sidewalk.
“But it gives authorities the flexibility
they need to address specific public safety
or public health threats in congested areas,
by keeping our sidewalks accessible and
walkable,” Wheeler wrote.
Mat dos Santos, the A CLU of Oregon’s
legal director, said it’s too early to say
whether the civil rights organization will
P H O T O BY J O A N N E Z U H L
Portland's pedestrian use zones are intended to “ensure unimpeded movement for pedestrians”
by prohibiting “immobile activities such as sitting or lying. ”
challenge the pedestrian use zone in court.
But “I don’t think anybody would be shocked
to know that we are looking into it,” he said.
“This is something we find deeply
troubling,” he said. “This is de facto
discrimination based on economic status.”
The A CLU of Oregon undergoes strategic
planning each year and identifies priorities
for litigation based on what staff “see as
emerging issues.” One reason the civil
liberties organization decided to focus on
homeless legal issues is the continued
failure of the Right to Rest Act to become
state law.
The Right to Rest Act would make it legal
for homeless people to camp in public
spaces, as well as park their car to sleep at
night, thus overriding many local laws that
prohibit camping.
The legislation would also make homeless
people a protected class of people, making
illegal any form of discrimination based on a
person’s housing status. And the legislation
would have instructed the state’s Bureau of
Labor and Industries and private attorneys
to enforce the protections.
The bill has been introduced during
multiple Oregon legislative sessions, but it
has always died in committee, most recently
earlier this year, “in a state that is
completely controlled by Democrats,” dos
Santos said.
“When policy options run out, it’s time to
try litigation,” he said.
Tristia Bauman, senior attorney for the
National Law Center on Homelessness and
Poverty, a national nonprofit that advocates
for the legal rights of homeless people, said
it’s exciting any time an A C L U chapter
decides to litigate laws affecting homeless
people.
“This is squarely a civil liberties issue,
one that the A C L U is expert at litigating,”
Bauman said. “It’s their core mission.”
The A CLU , at both the national and state
levels, is well known for its strategy of
choosing lawsuits that can set legal
precedent and change national, state or local
laws.
Legal Aid Services’ offices - which often
help people of low income, racial and ethnic
minorities, and undocumented immigrants -
are barred from litigating class-action
lawsuits, legal cases in which a plaintiff
represents an entire group of people,
because of restrictions related to the federal
funding those offices receive.
Those restrictions do not apply to state
A CLU chapters, Bauman said.
homeless person’s entire life is
displayed in public: where they camp,
what possessions they have, what they wear,
A
whether they have a per, anu su uu.
complete lack of privacy exposes actions
people take every day, such as sleeping.
Sleeping, resting, sitting and panhandling
to make money are what civil rights lawyers
and homeless advocates would call “acts of
survival” — actions a homeless person must
take to literally survive.
Yet in the case of camping ordinances,
the very act of sleeping is criminalized.
“A person has to do certain things in
order to survive,” McCullough said -
sleeping at night, sitting down to rest or eat,
urinating and defecating. “And (this is)
saying that act of survival is criminal.”
McCullough and others argue that there
is an inherent double standard in how these
laws are enforced.
They reference volunteers of the
Salvation Army who stand on sidewalk
corners and in front of stores during the
holiday season, ringing bells and asking for
donations. And political canvassers, who
stand on the corner of sidewalks introducing
themselves and asking the names of
, or asking if a passerby wants to
the whales, the forest or women’s
reproductive rights.
And people often camp outside of R .E .I.’s
store on Northwest Johnson Street before a
sale or outside a movie theater before the
first screening of a Star Wars movie.
Yet in each of these instances there are
exceptions that influence the response. The
Salvation Army volunteer asking for money
is requesting a donation, not panhandling.
Political canvassers are not obstructing the
sidewalk, and people camping outside of a
movie theater are not necessarily cited for
violating a camping ordinance.
“There’s a variety of ways that people are
treated differently,” McCullough said. “If a
homeless person does something that a
housed person does, they could be treated
differently. There is a discrimination
aspect.”
The A C L U of Oregon’s decision to tackle
laws that impact homeless people come at a
time when homelessness has dramatically
increased in Oregon because of an extreme
shortage of affordable housing.
Laws that directly affect homeless people
are also on the rise.
Earlier this year, the A C L U of Oregon
released the report “Decriminalizing
Homelessness: Why Right to Rest
Legislation is the High Road for Oregon.”
The report analyzes 224 local laws in 69
cities throughout Oregon (see “By the
Numbers ), including camping bans, sitting
and loitering laws and laws regulating
panhandling, that “create clear barriers to
performing life sustaining activities and
legalize the unfair and harmful treatment of
unhoused communities,” according to the
report.
See ACLU, page 5