Here’s what a council panel recommends for Tacoma after reviewing proposed public camping ban
A proposed ordinance imposing restrictions on public camping in Tacoma has essentially been tabled until more housing or sheltering services are available.
The proposed ordinance in November was sent to the Community Vitality and Safety Committee for review. On Tuesday, the committee’s report was presented, outlining both recommendations and the challenges with implementing any new regulation.
At Tuesday’s study session, Deputy Mayor Catherine Ushka read the report’s conclusion: the committee members unanimously recommended against any camping ordinance to be adopted “at this time.”
“We recommend a full or partial partial camping ban ordinance be re-evaluated when sufficient housing or sheltering services are developed,” Ushka said. “It’s important to note that we also agreed that punitive sanctions such as ticketing, fines or arrest to address unhoused persons are unlikely to be successful now or in the future.”
She added that “Additionally, we recognize that there are grave concerns related to illegal behavior in and around encampment sites that may or may not involve persons camping there, and the committee agreed that activity considered criminal should be addressed by law enforcement for both housed and unhoused persons throughout the city.”
The committee made note of a regional approach represented by Pierce County’s newly adopted Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness and sought more information about it.
“We further recommend that the City Council fully support the city’s Neighborhood and Community Service Department’s current work as well as that of Pierce County and the Pierce County Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness,” Ushka said.
The report offered a lengthy bullet-point list of recommendations.
Recommendations that Ushka noted in her presentation included expanding shelters of multiple types “including very low barrier of entry in each area of the city and multiple areas in the county with comprehensive services towards rehousing and stabilization.”
She noted work already done by Neighborhood Community Services in the past few years on the surrounding issues, along with the ongoing struggle in establishing new shelter space.
“There’s constant barriers in terms of locating sites in any neighborhood because no matter how supportive you are of them, what tends to happen is the moment that it’s someplace within a few blocks of someone’s home, they find opposition,” she said.
“We’ve had some great success with the temporary emergency sites that we have created in the city. And we have asked for some positive communication about that success so that we can share with people when we’re looking at these sites that it’s not the detriment that they may be afraid that it is,” she said.
The report recommended re-evaluating “large areas for possible sanctioned encampments. In this item the Dome area was specifically cited by the local representative due to the larger areas not near homes.”
The recommendations also included reviewing existing policy and procedure on encampment removals, and to seek additional notice, “so that community partners can be invited to provide additional support to encourage individuals to shelter housing options that are available,” Ushka said Tuesday.
Funding and staffing remain the top challenges for Tacoma regarding next steps, along with legal ramifications of taking action without enough shelters in place to send people.
A 2018 decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding a no-camping ordinance in Boise, Idaho, ruled it unconstitutional to enforce camping bans if people experiencing homelessness have no other place to go.
The committee recommended developing a “realistic budget for this work,” and to work with county, state and federal partners “to fund the relief necessary to house, treat and stabilize our communities.“
The report noted that the committee considered a partial ban applied directly “on a one for one basis, wherein when a shelter vacancy existed, an individual would be offered shelter, and only fined, ticketed, or arrested if they refused.”
It added, “However, the committee determined that any application of a vacancy- rate based ordinance would be biased or unequally applied.”
Ushka told Council Tuesday that “we know that the city doesn’t have the budget to do this all at once. We don’t even have the manpower to do it all at once or woman power. So putting those pieces together so we could look at a timeline and a funding strategy and even what to ask our federal partners for is part of what CVS would like to take on. …”
In response to the overview, council member John Hines noted that “One thing I want to continue to not lose sight of is that encampments set up next to somebody’s property are often not benign.”
He suggested that being able to make clear to the public what’s happening to encampments when problems escalate would help.
“I’d like to be able to clearly communicate to the public when and if an encampment becomes such a nuisance, or a health and safety issue, not only for the residents of that encampment but also the people around it, that is going to be mitigated or addressed and I don’t know if that is clearly articulated.”
As for what’s next, Maria Lee, media representative for the city, told The News Tribune in response to questions that no further announcements were forthcoming for now.
This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 12:38 PM.
