Committee to consider camping ban for New Phila parks
NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) (Aug. 15, 2024) – The city’s law director is encouraging council to capitalize on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Marvin Fete has proposed an outdoor sleeping ban for the city’s parks now that the High Court says criminalizing certain aspects of homelessness is Constitutional.
“We already have the loitering ordinance we had passed. That doesn’t specifically address what’s happening in our parks, though. What the city of Grant’s Pass did was they prohibited camping and they defined it very broadly including not sleeping in doorways, alleyways, public sidewalks, things of that nature, and then they applied it to the whole city.”
In the 6-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld an anti-camping ordinance enacted by an Oregon city that included increasing fines and other penalties for repeat offenses. Two individuals experiencing homelessness sued over the ban that Fete says was enacted to get people off the streets and into shelters.
“You can be cited and fined. It’s a minimum fine. It’s a minor misdemeanor, and if you are a repeat offender you could be barred from the park, in this instance, and if you violated that order then you could be subject to a trespass order… Clearly, that’s not a cruel and unusual punishment. We’re not putting people in prison because of their circumstances.”
Council President Don Kemp assigned the matter to the Parks and Cemetery Committee, which hasn’t yet scheduled its next meeting.