PHOTO BY TRASK BEDORTHA
THE CITY
NEVER SLEEPS
Eugene’s camping ban comes
from the wrong side of the bed
By Shannon Finnell
C
onrad Barney started a hunger strike Dec. 11 to
protest the treatment of the homeless. He says
he’s been roused by the police while sleeping, and
it’s different from waking up housed. “You’re in
this state where you’re tired. It’s Oregon, and it’s
wet and cold. When you find a place, if you’re
uprooted from that place, you have to start from the
drawing board to find another place,” he says. “When
you’re running on no sleep and still having to be moving
around, active, carrying lots of weight — because you have
to have your house on your back — it takes its toll.”
Homeless rights advocates created SLEEPS (Safe
Legally Entitled Emergency Places to Sleep) in opposition
to Eugene’s anti-camping code, which criminalizes taking
shelter in a tent or sleeping bag or using a heater or fire on
public property. SLEEPS and other activists say it’s
inhumane to criminalize sleeping.
“I don’t think it’s controversial in the general public,”
SLEEPS’ Jean Stacey says of repealing the camping ban.
“I think it’s very hard. EPD [Eugene Police Department]
can’t move on its own. It has to be instructed by the
council.” That’s why SLEEPS has repeatedly set up “pop-
up protest camps” (houseless and housed people sleeping
in temporary tents) at City Council meetings and held the
‘The point for me is
mainly awareness.’
CONRAD BARNEY
names of 28 homeless people who have died in the last
year at the 2013 state of the city address. Stacey says that
the police often prioritize serious crimes over addressing
homeless people sleeping, but when it’s slow, they say they
have to address laws being broken.
SLEEPS often conveys its message via erecting the
pop-up camps in prominent places to protest the anti-
camping code. “We’ve been evicted out of some of the best
places in town,” Stacey says. “We’ve been 86’ed out of the
federal building, the court building, the city building and
several other city properties.” The city finally recognized
SLEEPS’ right to use tents as part of their free speech at
their current site at the vacant Trude Kaufman Senior
Center — as long as they’re not using the tents to sleep at
night.
Stacey says one thing the public needs to know is how
arbitrary the anti-camping law is. “Why do we think it is
OK for a person to lie naked on this lawn and go to sleep,
but we don’t think it’s OK for them to crawl in a sleeping
bag and sleep?” she asks. “And that’s really what the law
says: You can sleep here, as long as you only have your
clothes, but if you use a sleeping bag or a tent, now you’re
a criminal with a criminal record for Trespass 2.
Wonderfully logical.”
Before its winter 2012 recess, City Council approved a
pilot program that would use Conestoga huts — inexpensive
wagon-like housing about 6 feet by 10 feet — to house
some homeless people beginning around April or June.
SLEEPS and others say that’s a positive development, but
doesn’t solve the sleeping problem for those who are on
the streets now.
On top of keeping the camping ban in the news,
SLEEPS is hopeful that recent court rulings will help make
sleeping easier for the homeless. Lavan v. City of Los
Angeles created the ruling that homeless people’s
belongings can’t be simply trashed when they leave for a
short time to seek services, for example; items must be
inventoried and stored.
Stacey says that right now it costs less to clean up
dispersed homeless camps with work crew and supervisor
than it would to maintain a camp with sanitary conditions.
“This is going to turn the financial picture around again,”
Stacey says, “and we think it will make it more cost-
effective now, not just good policy but more cost-effective
policy, to actually get toilets.” She says this is especially
true if the police agencies have to clean and dry items like
bedding.
Some reports have identified SLEEPS as part of
Occupy, but Stacey, who was also active in Occupy
Eugene (OE), says the two groups are completely separate,
and it’s important to public perception that they stay that
way. “Every time we’re identified with Occupy, we lose 40
points” on an imaginary scale, she says. OE suffered in
public opinion because it couldn’t identify one clear,
cohesive message, and Stacey wants SLEEPS to learn
from that institutional error.
“Everyone is here for a single mission to which they are
passionately committed,” Stacey says, “and that doesn’t
mean we don’t have all sorts of conflict and internal
dialogue and resolution and re-conflict; we do, but we’re
small, we’re extremely focused.”
Meanwhile, Conrad Barney has dropped from about
210 pounds to 170. His attitude about his hunger strike is
positive and he says that hunger and exhaustion come in
waves, but his face is more strained one month in than after
15 days. “The point for me is mainly awareness. It seems
like the job’s getting done, which is good,” Barney says.
“I’m anxious to have some results and end my hunger
strike.” ■
PHOTO BY TODD COOPER
eugeneweekly.com • January 17, 2013
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