A tent encampment in downtown Biddeford on June 11. Sydney Richelieu/The Courier
Officials in Maine cities are looking at how a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding an Oregon community’s right to ban homeless residents from sleeping outdoors could impact local policies on homelessness.
Advocates for homeless people in Maine decried Friday’s ruling and encouraged the state’s leaders to focus on the root causes of homelessness rather than adopt policies that criminalize or punish people for a lack of housing.
“Today’s ruling opens the door for cities to punish people simply for trying to survive while poor,” ACLU of Maine Executive Director Molly Curren Rowles said in a statement. “But just because the court says they can, does not mean Maine towns and cities should. Our state and local leaders still have a choice.
“They can either continue attempting – and failing – to punish people out of poverty, or they can address the root causes of homelessness by increasing access to health care, education and jobs.”
The 6-3 decision the court handed down Friday overturned an appeals court decision that said it was cruel and unusual to enforce bans on sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking. It effectively clears the way for cities to enforce such bans.
SOME CITIES WON’T CHANGE
Officials in several Maine cities, some of which already prohibit camping or sleeping outside, said they don’t expect immediate changes to existing policy in the wake of the ruling.
In Biddeford, the city is preparing for the July 8 opening of a temporary shelter at the Seeds of Hope Neighborhood Center, which for years has been running an overnight warming center in the winter.
Biddeford Mayor Marty Grohman said the city wants to work with homeless residents by encouraging them to move indoors to avoid arrests or citations for camping.
“This is a small community,” Grohman said. “We know most of the people seeking indoor space and we want to offer that to them. I think (an arrest) would be a last resort. It’s something we’re hoping to avoid.”
He said he will reach out to city councilors for their stances on the Supreme Court ruling.
“I don’t anticipate us changing our approach, but I certainly will be checking in with the council,” he said.
In Augusta, where camping by homeless people is generally prohibited by rules requiring campsites to have sewage disposal plans, City Manager Jared Mills said it doesn’t look like the Supreme Court decision will necessitate any changes in the city.
“If the council wanted to change something they could, but based on the Supreme Court decision I don’t see any reason to change our policies right now,” he said.
In Lewiston, Director of Communications Angelynne Amores said the city has existing regulations that address loitering, camping and sleeping on city-owned property and other parcels and that a few years ago, a prohibition against camping or sleeping in those areas was added but has not been actively enforced.
“At this time, the city of Lewiston does not anticipate any immediate changes in response to today’s ruling,” Amores said.
PORTLAND REVIEWING DECISION
In Portland, unauthorized camping is prohibited but the rules are not enforced whenever city shelters are full. Mayor Mark Dion said Friday that he has asked the city manager to have the city attorney review the decision and provide guidance for the City Council.
“I wouldn’t want to look at any changes until the council and I are provided with a complete outline of what the ruling means,” Dion said. “The top line is municipalities can create and enforce such ordinances (prohibiting camping) but beyond that, we’ll have to wait for a more extended analysis.”
Dion said one question he has is how shelter capacity factors into a municipality’s ability to enforce penalties for sleeping or camping outside.
“I suspect that if the court says municipalities have the authority to devise and enforce no-camping ordinances, then they must have the latitude to determine what conditions trigger enforcement,” he said. “That’s my suspicion, but I will wait for corporation council to weigh in.”
Like other communities in Maine and around the country, Portland is constantly grappling with homelessness, though the proliferation of encampments in Maine’s largest city seems to have decreased since last year. The city cleared several major encampments last summer and at one point identified more than 220 tents that people were living in.
But shelter capacity has since increased, with the planning board recently approving a 50-bed expansion in capacity at the Homeless Services Center, something Dion said has made a difference in the number of people sleeping outdoors.
“We’ve really turned the corner because we’ve been able to create and maintain capacity at the Homeless Services Center,” Dion said. “So the challenge moving forward for homelessness is post-shelter discharge. How and where do we place these individuals into more permanent housing?”
ADVOCATES DECRY RULING
Advocates for the homeless criticized Friday’s ruling and called on Maine communities to avoid moving toward stricter policies.
“Allowing cities to punish people for the basic human act of sleeping in a public space when they have no other place to go is a stark example of decades’ long efforts to criminally punish people for being poor,” said Curren Rowles of the Maine ACLU.
“Despite this ruling, unhoused people still have rights under state and federal law, including due process, freedom from discrimination, and protection from unreasonable search and seizure. We cannot arrest our way out of homelessness, and we will continue fighting policies that treat unhoused people as criminals.”
Preble Street, the Portland nonprofit that works with homeless residents, was disappointed with the outcome of the case.
“The criminalization of behaviors that housed people perform mostly in the comfort of their homes – such as sleeping, drinking and sitting outside – reinforces the marginalized status of people experiencing homelessness, disconnects them from services they need, and further traumatizes individuals by involving them in our punitive criminal justice system,” it said in a statement.
“Rather than criminalizing being unhoused, we need to step away from narratives rooted in hate, stigma and misunderstanding, and focus on compassionately connecting people to shelter, services and housing,” it said.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
