LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Many cities across the U.S. are cracking down on homeless encampments. The Supreme Court cleared the way one year ago when it upheld a ban against homeless people camping in public. But the Oregon city at the center of that lawsuit still can't remove all the homeless camps there because of a new legal challenge. Jefferson Public Radio's Jane Vaughan reports.
JANE VAUGHAN, BYLINE: Grants Pass is a city of about 40,000 people in southwestern Oregon. Downtown, there are four homeless camps on city property within two blocks. The city has fenced them in, providing port-a-potties and dumpsters near clusters of tents and other belongings. Kate Huckert (ph) lives across the street with her boyfriend and children and says they call the police multiple times a day for things like fighting and drug use.
KATE HUCKERT: We're right there, so it's really...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah.
HUCKERT: It's really scary and disturbing what we're having to deal with.
VAUGHAN: Dozens of people live in tents just steps away from City Hall. This is not where Grants Pass thought it would be one year after its big win at the U.S. Supreme Court. That ruling struck down lower courts that barred cities from enforcing anti-camping laws unless there was enough capacity and shelters for homeless people. So, the city began clearing tents from parks again. Residents were hopeful their homelessness crisis would finally be solved. But then, in January, the city was sued again for breaking state laws, both disability protections and rules about how cities can regulate homelessness. Now, camping bans are, again, mostly blocked here by the judge hearing that lawsuit until it's resolved. And she ordered Grants Pass to create more camping spaces.
HUCKERT: This is threatening to break our whole neighborhood.
VAUGHAN: Kate Huckert says she spent $10,000 on security upgrades for her home.
HUCKERT: It was a massive uptick in crime. We had mail theft two days ago. It's so scary.
VAUGHAN: Her boyfriend, Mike Servant (ph), says Grants Pass likes to play the victim of state law, rather than acknowledging that the city council's own actions, in his view, led to the lawsuit in the first place. And he's frustrated with how living across from a tent city has changed his perspective on homelessness.
MIKE SERVANT: You know, I'm a bleeding-heart liberal from way back. This has made me harden my heart a lot. I'm much more callous about them, and I don't like that.
VAUGHAN: People living in the homeless camps are also frustrated with the city. Kimberly Marie (ph) says it isn't helping its homeless residents enough.
KIMBERLY MARIE: They're doing as little as possible, as long as they can get away with it.
VAUGHAN: She'd rather see leaders focus on building more affordable housing. Council members in this conservative city say it's laws passed by liberal state lawmakers that make it so hard for them to solve homelessness. They say that's not the city's job. They'd rather see local nonprofits take it on. But even though Grants Pass can't cite people for sleeping in public because of the state lawsuit, last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision allows cities across the country to do so, says Sara Rankin, a professor at Seattle University School of Law.
SARA RANKIN: Permission to punish unhoused people really is becoming the policy to punish - right? - and so cities are accepting that invitation.
VAUGHAN: As the Trump administration proposes cuts to public housing, food and health care programs, Eric Tars with the National Homelessness Law Center fears the country's homeless population will increase.
ERIC TARS: Criminalization of homelessness has never solved homelessness. It hasn't worked for the past 40 years since these laws have started to be building up, and it never will.
VAUGHAN: Rankin and Tars say punishing homeless people for living in public spaces is expensive and ineffective. They advocate for longer-term solutions like affordable housing instead. For now, Grants Pass is working on a grant for a nonprofit to create a new homeless shelter. The lawsuit charging them with failing to properly regulate people without housing remains in state court.
For NPR News, I'm Jane Vaughan in Grants Pass, Oregon. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.