Eugene voted to update its camping ordinance on May 24, specifying where it is illegal to camp and increasing punishments for people caught illegally camping twice in a month.
The change comes as cities across Oregon change their camping ordinances to come into compliance with a state law requiring local camping laws be “objectively reasonable” about where unhoused people can camp.
Eugene passed a set of restrictions banning camping in most of the city, and Springfield plans to pass a similar ordinance this week.
House Bill 3115 codifies two rulings from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that found Boise and Grants Pass had unreasonable camping ordinances that violated the 8th Amendment’s protection from cruel and unusual punishment. It doesn’t prevent cities from banning camping in public spaces but forces cities to update camping laws that are unreasonable as to where people experiencing homelessness can sit, lay, sleep and keep warm and dry. The bill permits persons experiencing homelessness to file a lawsuit against the City of Eugene if they find local camping laws to be unreasonable.
Eugene City Attorney Kathryn Brotherton said the old ordinance was not compliant because it banned camping on all public property and said it has to be more specific about time, place and manner.
After months of sessions, Eugene City Council passed a new ordinance that changes camping restrictions at a May 24 work session.
The new ordinance would ban camping:
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Within 1000 feet of “educational facilities,” which includes daycares and libraries
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Within 100 feet of the top of water banks
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Within five feet of ditches and wetlands
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Within five feet of streets
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Blocking a building’s entrance, exit, stairs or ramp
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And would require camps to allow at least four feet of space on sidewalks and ten feet on shared use paths
Under the previous illegal camping ordinance, someone would only be considered a willful violator — someone who is caught illegally camping twice in 30 days — if they were camping in a vehicle. But under the new ordinance, any kind of camper faces the fine or 10 days in jail that comes with a willful violation. The ordinance also increased the fine for a willful violation from $250 to $500.
The ordinance doesn’t directly address parks, but retains current rules saying people aren’t allowed in parks after 11 p.m., although parks rules prevent people from having tents or bedding in parks.
In theory, the updated code will allow for more camping than the old policy which banned camping on all public property. But unhoused advocates predicted there would not be a significant change.
Heather Quaas-Annsa, director of philanthropy at Community Supported Shelters, said she hoped to see designation of where people can camp in addition to where they can’t. The way the ordinance is being changed makes it difficult for people to know where they are legally allowed to be, she said.
Quaas-Annsa said she objected to the increased penalty and that the ordinance could lead to more sweeps by empowering city officials to enforce the code in the designated illegal areas.
“Punitive measures really don’t make sense to a population that is inherently struggling financially,” Quaas-Annsa said.
City Councilors who voted in favor of the ordinance said the increased fine wasn’t about making unhoused people pay the fine, but to increase the incentive for them to go to community court.
“We’re not trying to create more of a crisis for them,” Mayor Lucy Vinis said. “We’re actually trying to compel them to actually seek the services — have that fine forgiven in exchange for doing alternative service.”
But Quaas-Annsa said not designating places where people could camp would push people to the outskirts of the city and have the opposite effect.
“If the only place you’re legally allowed to stay is not near any bus systems, is not near any support systems, the likelihood of you being successful in the community court program drastically decreases,” she said.
Quaas-Annsa said the same principle applies to the services Community Supported Shelters offers. “If [unhoused people are] doing dispersed camping, who knows where, it makes it infinitely harder for us to be able to get them into our program and help them,” she said.
Several people asked city councilors to provide a map, an idea the councilors pushed back against. “I don’t know how practical it is to develop a map that shows 10 square feet of space where someone can or cannot be,” Councilor Randy Groves said.
Unhoused advocate Wayne Martin said the city’s practice of buying unused land to designate as parks lets the city make it illegal to camp there. “So they are enforcing, sometimes very mean-spiritedly, sometimes very inhumanely, the parking violations, the camping violations, in the middle of the night,” he said. “That’s a denial of human rights.”
Unhoused advocate Lynn Porter said these restrictions would cover most of the city. He said he asked city councilors to establish places for self-managed camps until they have enough spots in formal shelters. Councilors pushed against this idea.
Groves said encampments don’t work when they aren’t managed and supervised.
“We get crime problems. We have filth. We have rat populations explode,” he said.
Porter said there is a need to compare problems with self-managed camps to the status quo.
“We’re talking about survival here. We’re talking about people living in hell. Every winter homeless people die on the street,” he said. “I think we need to get them off the street. And I think self-managed camps could work.”
