The small Oregon city at the heart of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on outdoor sleeping bans has voted to prohibit camping but establish certain areas where homeless people can go.

The small Oregon city at the heart of a recent landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows cities to enforce outdoor sleeping bans has voted to prohibit camping but establish certain areas where homeless people can go.

The Grants Pass City Council voted 7-0 Wednesday to ban camping on public property such as parks and create four sites across the city where homeless people can set up their tents.

The move marks the city’s first change to its anti-camping laws since the high court’s June decision paved the way for outdoor sleeping bans across the country. Local officials in the mountain town have struggled for years to address a homelessness crisis that has divided residents and sparked a fierce fight over park space.

  • @Waveform
    6•3 months ago

    Grants Pass has just one overnight shelter for adults, the Gospel Rescue Mission. It has 138 beds, but rules including attendance at daily Christian services, no alcohol, drugs or smoking and no pets mean many won’t stay there.

    Crammed in with potentially dangerous people, having to attend services for a religion you don’t believe in, risking loss of your belingings and with rules disallowing self-medication, all to sleep in a place that makes you send away a beloved family member. None of that sounds humane.

    One designated camping site will allow people to stay up to four days, while the other three allow people to stay for one day.

    Imagine not having a home and being hungry a lot and tired from a lack of sleep. And now picture having to move around constantly. This is cruel but typical treatment thanks to cities like Grants Pass.

    More than 650,000 people are estimated to be homeless]

    Some over at r/homeless believe this number might be much higher. Evidently many people live in cars, but to keep a car you must have a home address, so many people fake it. This makes them look housed on paper. (Disclaimer: I’m not homeless and I don’t drive, so I don’t know the full truth of that.)