The City and Borough of Juneau Assembly sent a message to the town\u2019s unsheltered at a Monday meeting: Go to sleep in the wrong place and you might end up in jail.<\/p>\n
With a 5-4 vote at a regularly scheduled Assembly meeting Monday night, the Assembly allowed the Juneau Police Department to evict people sleeping on private property in a narrowly defined area of downtown. If they don\u2019t move, they can be fined. If they still don\u2019t move, they can be arrested for disorderly conduct.<\/p>\n
The new rule will take effect April 15, after Thane Campground opens for the summer. It\u2019s enforceable between midnight and 7 a.m. in a long, narrow band downtown below Fourth Street extending the entirety of South Franklin Street.<\/p>\n
The vote is an amendment to the city\u2019s existing policy against camping in urban areas.<\/p>\n
Assembly members Jerry Nankervis, Mary Becker, Debbie White, Beth Weldon and Mayor Ken Koelsch voted for the amendment. Jesse Kiehl, Loren Jones, Maria Gladziszewski and Norton Gregory voted against it.<\/p>\n
Before the amendment, JPD was required to contact the owner of a business before removing someone from its entryway. The new amendment assumes downtown businesses don\u2019t want homeless people sleeping in their entrances.<\/p>\n
After hours of contentious public testimony at a previous meeting, the final remarks of Assembly members were emotional.<\/p>\n
In one pointed statement, Gregory said the amendment, pitched by proponents as a tool to help the unsheltered reach services, is actually an \u201cimpediment to that solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t really talked about the long-term solution for our homeless population, many of whom have substance abuse and mental health problems. They clearly need somewhere to live, and those are the discussions I wish we were having tonight instead of discussing an ordinance pushing people out of the downtown area,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The amendment could endanger federal grants, Gregory further noted. Juneau\u2019s St. Vincent de Paul Society currently receives $130,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) while Juneau\u2019s Housing First project has received $600,000, Gregory said.<\/p>\n
Brian Wilson of the Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness manages these funds for Alaska communities outside Anchorage. In a Feb. 10 letter to the Assembly, Wilson wrote, \u201cIf the proposed ordinance is adopted, it will not only have a scoring impact on SVdP\u2019s renewal application but also on future Juneau applicants looking to secure funding for new projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ordinance will make grant applications less competitive because it is seen as \u201ccriminalizing homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHUD cites very clearly on their resource website that ordinances banning camping not only are considered criminalizing homelessness but also have repeatedly shown to be ineffective and costly for municipalities,\u201d Wilson wrote. \u201cIn addition, several municipalities nationwide are involved in costly constitutional lawsuits as a result of similar ordinances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nobody testifying for the amendment called it a solution to the city\u2019s homeless problem. Rather, it is one part of a \u201cholistic\u201d approach, said JPD Chief Bryce Johnson. Warming stations, year-round campgrounds and an increase in charitable housing were all discussed as important measures to pursue.<\/p>\n
None of those will be ready by April 15, city manager Rorie Watt said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis ordinance is one small piece of a larger puzzle; to be effective it must be accompanied by other measures,\u201d Watt wrote in recommending the amendment. \u201cAbsent other measures, this ordinance would likely only serve to move the problem camping to different areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
White trusts that the Assembly will take further action to help the homeless. She said she could feel the business community\u2019s eyes \u201cburning into the side\u201d of her head at the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, this is pushing the problem onto private property owners in our business community,\u201d White said. \u201cIn one case, a business owner had $10,000 worth of damage to their building. \u2026 The police chief and the city manager have made it clear that this is one piece of the puzzle and I have to have some faith in what these people tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this may in some ways sound like it\u2019s cruel, it isn\u2019t because it gives them a tool to get these people to services.\u201d<\/p>\n
The amendment could put CBJ in legal hot water. A \u201cvery similar\u201d ordinance in Los Angeles was struck down by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2014, City Attorney Amy Mead noted, but that ordinance didn\u2019t refer to private property.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one has a constitutional right to be on somebody else\u2019s private property, so that is a very big difference between this case and the Ninth Circuit Court case,\u201d Mead noted.<\/p>\n
She went on to say that whether or not the amendment would hold up in court depends in part on housing availability. The camping ordinance is only constitutional if enacted where problem campers have alternative places to go, otherwise, it could be deemed as discriminating against the poor.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the reasons the LA ordinance was struck down was that it was being applied to people who have no alternative,\u201d Mead said. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s pretty important that as you consider what you are going to do, it\u2019s important to tie it to other things, it\u2019s important to tie it to making other places available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecuting one of those cases, which banned sleeping in cars in L.A., cost the city more than a $1 million in legal fees, the L.A. Times reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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