NEWS
B Y K E N N Y J A C O BY
CRIMINALIZING
HOMELESSNESS
Data show the unhoused are
disproportionately ticketed in Eugene
P H O TO B Y K E N N Y J A C O BY
M
ore than one of every four people ticketed or
arrested by Eugene police for minor crimes last
year were homeless or lacked a permanent ad-
dress, according to Eugene Weekly’s analysis
of city court records.
The court records also reveal that more than one-third
of the minor cases involved people who lacked a perma-
nent place to live at some time in the past three years.
Eugene officials have long struggled with the city’s
homeless population, public safety downtown and a short-
age of social services. Police are often on the frontline of
dealing with the homeless, many of whom face addiction
and mental health issues. The city and police say they work
to balance helping people while enforcing the law.
But social service advocates have also complained for
years that Eugene police have “criminalized” homelessness.
The Human Services Commission in 2016 counted
1,451 homeless people in Lane County. The city of Eugene
estimates the real number is higher — nearly 3,000 people
in the community have no home to return to at night.
At most, the homeless in Eugene make up about 2 per-
cent of the people living here, but they were defendants in
more than 35 percent of the court cases in 2016, according
to EW’s analysis.
City officials and the Eugene Police Department ac-
knowledge they have not studied how often the city’s
homeless face charges, court judgments and even jail time.
14
June 1, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
“What would be the purpose of that?” EPD Chief Pete
Kerns says. “I don’t need to know the numbers. We know
that enforcement alone isn’t going to improve safety be-
cause the conditions that lead to homelessness aren’t going
to be addressed through enforcement alone.”
“I don’t know the numbers,” Vinis says. “I don’t have
any basis on which to judge it. I’m sorry; I don’t know
how many [tickets] they give. I haven’t asked for it. I guess
I could get it if I asked for it, but I just haven’t. It hasn’t
come to me automatically.”
“They don’t ask the question because they don’t want to
know the answer,” says Jennifer Frenzer, vice chair of the
Eugene Human Right Commission, a longtime critic of po-
lice enforcement against the homeless. “If they had to look
at the numbers they would see they would have to change
their ways. And they do not want to change their ways.”
City Councilor Emily Semple says she has heard of no
overt policy from the police to target the homeless, but that
heavy enforcement of policies like the camping ban dis-
proportionately affects the homeless population.
“I think the hope is you can make people feel so uncom-
fortable that they’ll go someplace else,” Semple says. “The
problem is that there’s no place else to go.”
Without a doubt, police face a difficult job in dealing
with the homeless and other people who frequent down-
town. Police and city officials say officers work with many
people who lack housing to help them find shelter, medical
attention or other needs. Officers say that citing or arrest-
ing people is often the last resort.
How often they do so is revealed in court records. Most
citations and charges for misdemeanors brought by Eugene
police go to the city’s municipal court.
Our analysis looked at more than 1,800 people who
were cited or charged by Eugene police for non-traffic vio-
lations in 2016, and the court records show that at least 25
percent lacked a permanent address at some point last year.
These records included those that list “general deliv-
ery” for the defendant’s address. In those cases, court mail-
ings go to the local post office.
In other cases, court records list “transient” or an ad-
dress for a social services agency, such as White Bird Clin-
ic, Catholic Community Services and St. Vincent De Paul
Service Station. EW didn’t count records as non-permanent
addresses when the address line was blank, or where the
defendant was listed as in jail or prison. (See sidebar for a
detailed explanation of our analysis.)
The data show that 71 percent of the charges against
the homeless or those without a permanent addresses come
from a short list — criminal trespassing and drinking ille-
gally in public lead the list, followed by violations of park
rules, third-degree theft, prohibited camping and disorder-
ly conduct.
The profile of charges looks different for people who
aren’t homeless: Those same charges make up only half
the cases brought against people who have a permanent
address on file.
Social service advocates say the homeless, by virtue of
trying to stay alive, are most vulnerable to charges such as
trespassing, violating park rules and camping.
“The cost of continually criminalizing surviving with-
out shelter is just the wrong way to prioritize the use of city
AT M O S T, T H E H O M E L E S S I N E U G E N E M A K E U P
A B O U T 2 P E R C E N T OF THE PEOPLE LIVING HERE,
BUT THEY WERE DEFENDANTS IN
M O R E T H A N 3 5 P E R C E N T OF THE COURT CASES IN 2016.
Yet police and city officials continue to make policy de-
cisions about dealing with the homeless and safety issues
downtown without knowing how often the police bring
charges against people who lack a permanent address.
Mayor Lucy Vinis says she has asked for and received
information from Kerns about the number of citations for
illegal camping outside the parks, but did not have in-
formation for or ask about the ratio of citations issued to
homeless people relative to all citations issued.
staff and resources,” says Heather Sielicki, who serves on
the city’s Homelessness Work Group. “Using law enforce-
ment to address a social problem is not the right idea, and
it’s not working.”
“There’s intent here, and it’s ridiculous,” says Kathy
Walker, who is unaffiliated with the city but has dedicated
her life to helping the homeless. “[The police] are trying to
chase them out of town. I’ve been homeless before, but it
wasn’t a war like it is now.”