15 Comments

I can't possibly see a repeal happening, at least not in the next few years. Governor Kotek was the chief sponsor of HB3115, and though the Democrats lost their supermajority in the legislature, there's no way a repeal would get through. It would need to be written as a bill in a referendum to be voted on in a ballot measure. This would take months of work. I imagine Kotek, the Democrats in the legislature, and most politicians in the NW part of the state would fight it, and a campaign to keep the law in place would be well funded as well (as this article shows, there's apparently plenty of money). Even if the measure rescinding it were voted on, and passed, a lawsuit would immediately be filed, and sent to state courts, most of which have shown what could be called "left-leaning" when there's any doubt. So the bill could possibly be doa even if passed. The only way Martin v. Boise will be altered is by counter lawsuits and law enforcement. Laws coming against other laws. For example, the ADA lawsuit being filed. Anti-litter laws that exist, etc. While many homeless people are just down on their luck, a great many more are addicts, and with that comes a lot of petty crime, specifically theft and shoplifting, so a hard push to stop that would be another step.

Expand full comment
May 26, 2023Liked by Pamela Fitzsimmons, Joshua Marquis

HB3115 was Tina Kotek's baby. And she wants to be the Governor for the whole state? She should ask the legislature to rescind it, and her statewide destruction of single family neighborhoods should be next.

Expand full comment

I think we need 2 repeal measures on our ballot.

HB 3115 and Measure 110.

Expand full comment
May 25, 2023·edited May 25, 2023

Great article. One clarification though. So a city only needs to have open shelter spots before enforcement of a no camping law can occur right? You seem to imply that a city has to have open beds for ALL the homeless in their area before they can enforce their no camping laws. Some towns enforce their camping bans every day until such time shelters are full. That means we in Portland could enforce a no camping ban the majority of the time as we usually have shelter spots open.

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/260-shelter-beds-portland-homeless-arent-used/283-f028c410-3bf0-4425-bc3b-94eaeeaa10ee

Expand full comment

There can’t be anyone who truly thinks that this US Supreme Court, if it agreed to hear a case, would come to a conclusion that the government has a duty to provide a place to live for anyone, anytime, or that people have a constitutional right to expect government to provide such things. So isn’t the more important thing to do is find or create a situation and case to get heard at SCOTUS? We need a rational locality in Oregon or another state to push this.

Expand full comment
May 25, 2023·edited May 25, 2023Liked by Pamela Fitzsimmons

From your lips to God's ears. I knew at the time that HB3115 would saddle municipalities with greater restrictions than those found in the Boise decision.

Willamette Week is reporting that the city of Portland has reached a tentative settlement with the parties who sued the city to enforce the ADA:

"[The terms] include: the city prioritizing the clearing of sidewalk-blocking camps and setting up a hotline to report such campsites (the city already operates an online portal for that purpose); the city allocating at least $3 million annually to remove tents; the city publishing annual reports to track its compliance with the settlement; and each plaintiff receiving $5,000 and reimbursement for attorney fees."

https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/05/24/city-reaches-tentative-settlement-in-americans-with-disabilities-act-lawsuit-over-sidewalks/?mc_cid=a6e6cfaf64&mc_eid=6e4c39d97a

If I were a party to the case, I wouldn't be enthused about the proposed settlement. Disabled people whose paths are obstructed by homeless people don't need prioritized camp clearances. They need obstacle-free sidewalks right then and there. At the moment the problem isn't Boise but local governments' long-term bungling of the homeless crisis, most notably the failure to provide stable shelter for the unhoused.

The $3 million proposed for funding the removal of tents doesn't seem like nearly enough, particularly in relation to the tens of millions of dollars local governments have failed to spend to get the homeless of the streets.

It's likely the usual radical homeless activists will turn out in force when City Council deliberates on May 31 whether or not to approve the settlement. They will, as usual, tell lies, half-truths and deploy thought-ending rhetoric (e.g. "criminalizing poverty"). The Oregonian may do a hit job on the settlement the way it did when the camping ban was first proposed last October, reporting selectively in a way that benefits the activists and presenting supporters of the settlement in a bad light.

Or not - perhaps they've gotten the word that between Rene, Mingus and Ted the tide is turning against those who want to see unregulated encampments persist forever.

Expand full comment