‘Trapped here in hell’: Boiseans, officials say camping-ban bill won’t help homelessness

Celia Harrison’s morning routine might sound familiar to other 69-year-olds: She makes coffee, takes her nutritional supplements and empties the trash before getting organized for her day. Some days, she does leg lifts and aerobic exercises.

But her morning routine takes place in a blue minivan, where she’s lived for about six years. It also often occurs in the afternoon. She stays up late overnight, she told the Idaho Statesman, because she wants to stay vigilant for frequent harassment or attacks — passers-by kicking her car, jumping on top of it or dumping water through the windows.

Living in her car is not safe, she readily admits. But she disagrees with Idaho lawmakers who have passed a bill to ban public camping in cities with a population exceeding 100,000, including sleeping in cars. These legislators highlight the dangers of camping, she said, but fail to realize how dangerous homeless shelters can be. She said she has immune system problems and felt unsafe during her years living at various Boise shelters.

“If you’ve got somebody 2 feet away from you who’s gotten some kind of virus, you’re going to get it,” she said. Those fears, she said, were compounded by behavioral issues from other residents, many of whom were not getting the treatment they need for mental illnesses or drug addiction.

Proponents of Senate Bill 1141 have said in committee hearings that people are simply choosing to live in their cars. Harrison argued that people who camp in public are just picking a less-bad option when presented with a lack of affordable housing and the conditions at homeless shelters in the Boise area.

“What’s actually happening is people are taking the best option for their situation,” she said. “Nobody should be exposed to the stuff I went through at the shelters.”

Lawmakers say ‘it is not kind’ to allow homeless encampments

Boise already has a camping ban on the books, which allows police to ticket people who camp outside if there is shelter space available.

But that “available” space is narrowly defined in Boise code: It must be able to avoid separating children from their parents and must accommodate residents’ mental and physical health needs, among other considerations, the Idaho Statesman previously reported.

Supporters of the new bill, which passed the House on Tuesday and soon will head to Gov. Brad Little’s desk, have argued that the city’s enforcement of its ban has been lax, forcing residents and business owners near encampments to confront people experiencing mental illness, using drugs or making customers feel unsafe.

And “it is not kind” to allow the community’s most vulnerable to camp outside, where robbery, assault, injuries and illnesses “are common,” Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, said on the House floor Tuesday.

Boise officials, who have largely opposed the bill, sponsored by Sen. Codi Galloway, R-Boise, argued that it will create confusion about the extent to which the city should enforce its existing camping ban. In hearings, officials said this would lead to heavier policing of a problem better served through expanding affordable housing and offering mental health services.

“We risk becoming the hammer for social issues that require a broader, more thoughtful approach,” Boise Police Chief Chris Dennison said.

Boise resident: ‘I don’t even know’ what to do if camping ban passes

Harrison moved to Boise to live with family after a career as a registered nurse in Alaska. When relationships soured and that housing situation became untenable, she moved among various Boise shelters and an apartment. But time and again, she said she found unsafe, unstable conditions — and in researching other parts of the country, she felt there was nowhere she could make ends meet.

If Little signs the bill to ban camping, Harrison said, “I don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

Though Boise does not allow camping, the city has given priority to increasing access to housing, updating its zoning code to increase housing density, and building permanent supportive housing facilities for chronically homeless residents. (Galloway has also sponsored a bill this session to streamline the building permitting process to increase housing access and affordability.)

An annual “point-in-time” count found nearly 800 homeless people in Boise, a 14% increase in homelessness from 2023 and a 22% increase from 2020, according to the release. Supporters of the bill to ban camping argued that because the number of homeless people in Boise has continued to rise, the city’s approach to solving the problem was failing.

Casey Mattoon, the manager of Our Path Home, the organization that conducts the annual count, disagreed with that interpretation of the data.

“The issue is, we are so far behind in terms of the total investments that the community is making, so we’re not able to meet that demand today, nor were we able to meet the demand several years ago,” Mattoon told the Statesman by phone. “That’s coupled with, we have more people that are entering homelessness for the first time ever now than we have ever before.

“That isn’t about what we’re doing that’s working. That’s about the lack of housing, and the lack of affordable housing that’s putting families across the Treasure Valley into crisis.”

Opponents say camping ban is just ‘pushing the problem around’

By pushing people off the street in Idaho’s largest cities — including Boise — without offering additional shelter space or more affordable housing, the bill “isn’t addressing homelessness,” Rep. Todd Achilles, D-Boise, said on the House floor Tuesday.

“It’s pushing the problem around,” he said.

People barred from camping in Boise, Meridian or Nampa might just go to Garden City, Eagle or Star, which have fewer shelters and resources for the homeless, but wouldn’t be subject to the ban because of their population size, he said.

Leonard Peoples, an employee and former resident of Boise’s Interfaith Sanctuary who previously lived in his car, pushed back on a bill he viewed as punitive.

“You don’t want people camping all down by the Capitol on the busy streets,” Peoples said. “But give them something in place of that. I’m saying, don’t shut the door on them and they have nothing else.”

Peoples recalled living in his car for two years. He had frequent interactions with Boise police, who would ask him to “move on” from wherever he’d park. When that happened, he’d stay with his nephew and his grandmother for a few days — and then move on again.

“I wouldn’t stay with her too long, because I didn’t want to be cared for in that manner,” he said. “She’s 84 years old. She doesn’t need — she’s already taking care of my nephew. She didn’t need that in addition to what she was already doing.”

As rising prices for housing and nearly everything else in the growing Treasure Valley have pushed more residents to the brink, people really need “a helping hand to step up,” not punishment or criminalization, added Skip Murray, who was homeless before he moved into Boise’s Interfaith Sanctuary about a year ago.

Harrison, too, expressed a sense that the odds were stacked against her, and getting worse all the time. Shelters would get more dangerous, she said, with federal cuts to addiction services and infectious disease management. Her finances could get more precarious with upheaval to the country’s Social Security system. The bill to ban camping could uproot her yet again — even as lawmakers propose other legislation to block new shelters in the area.

“I actually feel like I’m trapped here in hell,” she said.

Idaho bill would ban ‘unauthorized’ camping. Boise warns that could be a problem

Cities can now enforce bans on people sleeping outside. What will that mean for Boise?