Spokane voters criminalize homeless camps near places children gather

Nov. 7—Frustrated with the growing issue of visible homelessness and urban blight, Spokane voters have criminalized encampments within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds and licensed child care facilities.

The proposal was ahead in every precinct in the city and won 75.4% of ballots counted Tuesday.

"It made it all worth it," said Brian Hansen, the Spokane-area attorney who submitted the ballot initiative, when told of the results.

The law will apply to most of the city and nearly all of downtown, according to a map prepared by Eastern Washington University Professor Robert Sauders.

Hansen and other supporters argued the new law was needed to protect children from criminal behavior associated with encampments. He pointed to reports of open drug use and indecent exposure at Camp Hope, which occupied a city block in the East Central Neighborhood and was once the state's largest homeless encampment. It closed in June.

Opponents argued the law will run afoul of legal precedent and push homeless people away from services in the urban core and into the neighborhoods.

Reverend Walter Kendricks, a founding member of Spokane Community Against Racism, opposed the initiative.

"We can and should do better. Let's do better," he said in response to the results.

Still, Kendricks said he respects the will of voters.

"That's democracy at work," he said.

Candidates for local office were split evenly by the ballot measure, with liberal candidates opposing it and conservative candidates in favor.

Mayor Nadine Woodward, City Council president candidate Kim Plese and City Council candidates Katey Treloar and Earl Moore supported the proposition, as did incumbent Councilman Michael Cathcart, who won re-election.

Council candidates Paul Dillon, Kitty Klitzke and Lindsey Shaw, as well as Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson, who was elected City Council president, and mayoral candidate Lisa Brown have argued the law would just shuffle the homeless around, and police would not be able to respond to the vast majority of calls. They argued the city should instead focus on housing and services.

Overall, conservative candidates in city races weren't doing as well as the ballot measure they backed on election night. Candidates Wilkerson, Dillon and Klitzke won their races Tuesday night and Brown is ahead. Cathcart was the only conservative who won.

It was already illegal to camp on any public property in the city, but police could only issue citations for camping in most areas if there are shelter beds available thanks to a 5-year-old legal precedent.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2018 ruled that cities can generally ban camping on some but not all public property. A city can only fully ban camping if there are available shelter beds. Prohibiting camping on all public land without offering a place to go amounted to criminalizing people for the act of being homeless, which was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment, the court ruled.

Exactly how much public land can be restricted to encampments without violating the Martin v. Boise decision is a matter of ongoing legal debate and periodic court battles. Regardless of shelter space, Spokane police can already enforce a prohibition on camping within 50 feet of any railroad viaduct downtown or within three blocks of any congregate homeless shelter.

Proposition 1 likely will face future legal challenges. Some of those arguments were previewed in August during a lawsuit that sought to have the proposition removed from the ballot on the basis that the proposition would usurp the administrative powers of the city, which state law would not allow.

On Aug. 23, Spokane County Superior Court Judge Tony Hazel disagreed, denying a request to pull the proposition from the ballot from Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium Executive Director Ben Stuckart and Jewels Helping Hands, the service provider led by Julie Garcia that once managed the Camp Hope encampment.

Hazel acknowledged that the initiative could come into conflict with Martin v. Boise, the 2018 legal precedent that said cities couldn't enforce blanket bans on the homeless camping on public property without offering sufficient shelter beds. But he added that it would be "improper for the court" to rule on such matters prior to the election.

Spokane lacks sufficient beds to house every homeless person living in the city and shelters are often at or near capacity, though the city typically reports some available beds on any given night.

With the passage of Proposition 1, camping or storing personal property on public land near schools, parks, playgrounds and child care facilities will also become a crime that police can enforce regardless of shelter space, as is already the case with camping under viaducts or near shelters.

Camping or storing property near schools, parks, playgrounds and day care facilities would be a cite-and-release misdemeanor offense. Those arrested for this offense would not be booked into jail unless there was an outstanding warrant or probable cause that the person had committed another crime.

Citations would be a last resort, said Spokane police spokeswoman Julie Humphreys in an October interview.

"We will always look to education and service connection first," Humphreys said at the time. "Our goal is not to arrest homeless people."

The police are also unlikely to have the resources to respond to illegal encampments in the greatly expanded area under the proposition, Humphreys added.

Roberta Simonson's reporting is part of the Teen Journalism Institute, funded by Bank of America with support from the Innovia Foundation.