Suit seeking to prevent Spokane from enforcing anti-homeless camping law could have sweeping effect on state

The ACLU of Washington is suing the city of Spokane over its anti-homelessness laws in a move that could potentially have sweeping consequences for Washington cities, which only recently regained the ability to widely criminalize sleeping outside.

For years, cities in nine Western states have been barred from ticketing or arresting the homeless for sleeping outside under the 2018 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled enforcement constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Unless there was available shelter space, the court ruled that the U.S. Constitution did not allow cities to, as the judges put it, criminalize the act of being homeless.

Those protections ended abruptly in late June after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down earlier precedent. Suddenly given a wider berth to enforce anti-homeless camping laws, the city of Spokane has prepared in the last month to begin enforcing Proposition 1, which prohibits the homeless from sleeping in most of the city and almost all of downtown and which voters overwhelmingly approved last November.

Before it can do so, the ACLU, representing homeless services organization Jewels Helping Hands and two homeless residents, hopes to reinstate the recently ended protections under the state Constitution. Lawyers point to sections of the state Constitution barring cruel punishment and depriving a person of their property without due process of law, arguing that police unconstitutionally discard and destroy the property of homeless people without adequate notice or judicial hearings.

The suit takes issue with three city laws. One allows the city to remove unauthorized encampments or individual camps, while the others prohibit sitting and lying on a sidewalk or unauthorized camping on public property, the last of which was greatly expanded last year by Proposition 1.

If the suit is successful, it could have sweeping consequences for the entire state. Julie Garcia, founder of Jewels Helping Hands, hopes winning the suit will prevent any Washington city, county or other jurisdiction from citing or arresting someone for sleeping on public property.

“The lawsuit really is simple: You cannot criminalize somebody for not having an alternative place to go,” she said. “You cannot be criminalized for having nowhere to sleep.”

Garcia noted that the previous existing protections did not prevent someone from being arrested for open drug use or other crimes, and only affected those sleeping on public property who otherwise were not breaking the law.

The lawsuit names the city as an institution and every City Council member individually.

Spokane City Councilman Michael Cathcart, who alongside Councilman Jonathan Bingle recently unsuccessfully lobbied for a resolution voicing support for Proposition 1’s enforcement, argued that plaintiffs were, in effect, suing voters.

“We’ve seen this before in the Legislature, where the voters said ‘Hey, this is what we want,’ the Legislature says we know better than you,” Cathcart said. “That’s what this feels like.”

He added that unless or until a court tells the city that it cannot enforce its anti-camping laws, Spokane should continue to ramp up enforcement. Police department spokeswoman Julie Humphreys told The Spokesman-Review on Friday that the department began the training and system updates necessary to begin enforcement shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision.

City spokeswoman Erin Hut said the mayoral administration has not yet been served with the lawsuit and could not yet provide comment on the litigation. However, she said the city’s legal council had advised that the city can continue its enforcement of anti-homeless camping laws, including the ramp up to enforcement of Proposition 1.

Representatives with the ACLU of Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.