Right to Rest Act back on the table at legislature

Exemptions are added to the camping ban

Last year at the state Capitol, on an April Thursday just before midnight, after an emotional, 10-hour hearing, a proposal called the Colorado Right to Rest Act — sometimes referred to as a homeless bill of rights — died in committee for the third consecutive year.

That night, Rep. Jovan Melton of Aurora, the bill’s co-sponsor lamented that the bill, which sought to ban the criminalizing of homelessness in Colorado, could not win support even with a significant amendment that, in Melton’s words, had stripped the bill to its “bare bones.”

On Wednesday, the Right to Rest Act will return for a committee hearing for a fourth year in a row.

This year’s version offers the biggest concession Melton and his cosponsor, Rep. Joe Salazar of Thornton, who’s running for state attorney general, have made yet: Cities that ban homeless people from camping outdoors, like Boulder, Longmont and Denver, could be eligible for exemptions that would allow them to continue enforcing camping bans if they meet certain criteria.

Some believe it has a better shot than previous versions at advancing out of committee to the House floor. It is very unlikely, though, that it will become law.

And that’s welcome news to the Boulder City Council, whose legislative agenda includes a formal opposition to the Right to Rest Act.

To date, no municipality or law enforcement agency in Colorado has signed on to support the bill.

It takes direct aim at local policies that criminalize homeless activities, establishing, according to its summary, “basic rights for persons experiencing homelessness, including, but not limited to, the right to use and move freely in public spaces, to rest in public spaces.”

But the bill also threatens to undermine local control, opponents say, by seeking to legalize certain behaviors cities, including those in Boulder County, are trying to dissuade as they work to transition people out of homelessness and into more permanent solutions.

In the city of Boulder, in fact, the official position against the Right to Rest Act is titled “Fund and protect the municipal justice system’s ability to combat homelessness.”

Said Brian Bagley, the mayor of Longmont, “I don’t know what impact the bill would have besides dissuading people from seeking the permanent solutions to their own personal housing problems.”

The Right to Rest Act, proponents argue, is a nod to the humanity of homeless people, who should not be subjected to arrest simply for sleeping outside. The ACLU is among those proponents.

For Robin Ryan, a Boulder homeless woman, the case is simple.

“If you’re a corporate executive, you can break any law you want, whereas if you’re economically challenged, you may be vilified,” Ryan said. “just for trying to have an extra layer of material around you so you don’t die from hypothermia.”

Others argue that citing homeless people for sleeping outside or in their cars, or any of a number of activities, is counterproductive.

Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle hasn’t taken a stance on the Right to Rest Act, but he’s been very clear that he does not believe the current approach is working.

“When they criminalize behaviors like sleeping or smoking in a park, or those sorts of things that tend to target homeless people, they write a ticket. Those tickets are seldom paid and those people frequently don’t come to court and they end up with a warrant for their arrest for failure to appear in court,” he said.

When that happens, Pelle continued, they end up at the overcrowded county jail, where they can’t post bond. They stay in jail until they can appear in court, usually receive minor sentences, and get released back on to the street.

“And in the end,” Pelle said, “nothing’s changed in regard to their behavior, no public safety need has been served and they’ve used the space in a very expensive and a very crowded facility that in my opinion should be used to house people that are dangerous to our community.”