A bill advancing through the Washington state Legislature would allow homeless individuals the ability to sue a local government over restrictions for camping on public land.
Washington House Bill 1380, backed by Democrats, was approved by the House Housing Committee with a 9-8 vote and was scheduled for a public hearing in the House Committee on Appropriations on Wednesday, Feb. 12.
The bill would restrict local government’s ability to regulate and ban public camping.
“Any city or town law that regulates the acts of sitting, lying, sleeping or keeping warm and dry outdoors on public property that is open to the public must be objectively reasonable as to time, place and manner,” the legislation states.
The proposed law “creates a private cause of action for injunctive or declaratory relief to challenge the objective reasonableness of such a law.”
Clark County Matters, a nonprofit advocating for change in Vancouver and the rest of the county, sent a letter to state lawmakers who represent Clark County urging them to oppose HB 1380.
Clark County Matters Executive Director Amy Harris sent a petition in September urging residents to write letters to elected officials in Clark County supporting the implementation and enforcement of a camping ban.
The proposed bill at the state level does quite the opposite.
“It’s a terrible piece of legislation. Never should have been brought to the floor,” Harris said. “A lot of bills get dropped, you know, early pre-filing, and they don’t see the light of day, and this definitely should have been one of those. A similar bill happened two years ago in Oregon and never got a hearing. I can’t believe that it got to committee. I cannot believe it was heard. I cannot believe it was passed 9-8 in the Housing Committee.”
The Washington Policy Center states that the bill is so vague that nearly any regulation a municipality could place on the use of public land would open the doors to a lawsuit. If a suit were to succeed, the bill requires that attorney fees be awarded in addition to damages, meaning taxpayers of the sued municipality could see higher property and sales taxes as the city or town would have to pay the cost of the lawsuit, the policy center adds.
“This emboldens homelessness. It encourages homelessness. It makes it easier to be homeless,” Harris said. “It is not compassionate. It is not kind. They are taking away the carrot and the stick needed to get people into treatment, to get them help, to mend family relationships, all of the things that have led to that tragedy.”
Harris said that if the bill were to be passed into law it would mean Clark County residents would see even more tent camping in community spaces.
“I can’t believe that they are OK looking at people that are living in squalor and saying, ‘We don’t expect anything more of you,’” she said. “There’s human dignity at stake here.”
Read more about the legislation at https://tinyurl.com/ybzbb5nb.
