On Thursday, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit in Spokane, Washington, alleging that three of the city’s ordinances on camping and use of public space violate the State’s Constitution and “in effect, criminalize homelessness.”
In a press release on Thursday, the civil rights group identified the three ordinances at the center of its legal complaint filed in Spokane Superior Court. These ordinances make camping within a certain zone and laying on public property between 6 a.m. and midnight misdemeanors, with minimal exceptions.
Misdemeanors in the state are punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or jail for up to 90 days.
The group claims that these laws “functionally criminalize homelessness and impose cruel punishments in violation” of Washington State’s Constitution.
The ACLU says the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are current and formerly unhoused Spokane residents and Jewels Helping Hands, a local non-profit supporting unhoused people to meet their needs.
PRESS RELEASE – ACLU of Washington sues City of Spokane over laws targeting unhoused residents, alleging cruel punishment under state constitution. https://t.co/ehUEl9wKmz
— ACLU of Washington (@ACLU_WA) August 1, 2024
Julie Garcia, the executive director of Jewels Helping Hands, told Newsweek in an email Thursday, “If you’re going to tell people where they can not be, you have to then tell them where they can be. Otherwise, we will systematically take away people who happen to experience homelessness’s right to exist. Everyone sleeps, it’s a basic human function. We cannot and should not make lack of home a crime.”
Newsweek reached out to the City’s prosecutor’s office, the clerk’s office, and the city council president for comment via email on Thursday.
The legal director for the ACLU of Washington, La Rond Baker said in the press release, “We cannot arrest our way out of homelessness and poverty.”
“Fines and incarceration only further entrench homelessness and separate people from essential support systems. If our state’s constitutional prohibition on cruel punishment means anything,—it means that our poorest neighbors, those who lack a home, those who live and sleep outdoors—cannot be punished for being unhoused,” La Rond Baker said.
At least 114 cases of unlawful camping and sitting and lying violations have been prosecuted in the city this year, the complaint says, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Last year, there were 2,021 unhoused people living in Spokane, according to the city’s website, down 369 people from the previous year but up 270 people from 2022.
“Spokane County has seen a downward trend in overall homelessness over the last ten years,” the website states. This appears to counter nationwide trends, as homelessness is on the rise.
In 2023, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that approximately 653,100 people in the U.S. were experiencing homelessness, the highest number recorded since reporting began in 2007.
The ACLU’s filing appears to be the first since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this June that cities can enforce outdoor sleeping bans.
In a 6-3 decision in City of Grants Pass, Oregon, v. Gloria Johnson, the Court found that penalizing unhoused people for sleeping on the streets does not violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments as well as “excessive fines.”
