Court blocks homeless camp ban

Judge rules city law might violate rights of those on streets

A federal court on Tuesday temporarily blocked Houston from enforcing its fledgling ban on public encampments, dealing a blow to city efforts to manage escalating tensions between homeless people and the neighborhoods their camps abut.

The city’s 3-month-old law — passed under intense pressure from residents and council members — bars the unauthorized use of temporary structures for “human habitation” and empowers police officers to arrest violators if they refuse medical treatment or social services.

Enforcing that prohibition may, U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt wrote, violate the homeless plaintiffs’ Eighth Amendment protections against cruel

and unusual punishment.

“The plaintiffs have demonstrated that they are subject to a credible threat of being arrested, booked, prosecuted and jailed for violating the City of Houston’s ban on sheltering in public,” Hoyt said. “The evidence is conclusive that they are involuntarily in public, harmlessly attempting to shelter themselves — an act they cannot realistically forgo, and that is integral to their statusasunshelteredhomeless individuals.”

The American Civil LibertiesUnionofTexas,which is representing homeless plaintiffs challenging Houston’s laws aimed at curbing camping and panhandling, welcomed the temporary restraining order.

“We’re delighted the courtrecognizedthathomelessness is not and should not be a crime,” Trisha Trigilio, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement. “Seeking shelter is not only a right; it’s also a fundamental human necessity. We call on the city tostopenforcingordinances that criminalize such a basic human need and seek more compassionate and effective methods for solving Houston’s homelessness problem.”

Turner disappointed

Mayor Sylvester Turner called Hoyt’s decision disappointing.

“The intent of the ordinance is to take our most vulnerable Houstonians from the streets and place them in permanent supportive housing,” he said in a statement. “It is our hope that the court will ultimately conclude that the city of Houston has the right to manage public space by regulating what can be erected there,especiallywhenitems impede on the space and pose risks.”

Though he ultimately embraced tougher restrictions on homeless camps and panhandling, Turner initially was wary of such sanctions, saying he did not want to criminalize homelessness and warning some council members that the more severe crackdown theywantedcouldrunafoul of the Constitution.

The city’s enforcement of its camping ban reflects that trepidation.

Police officers have issued just 20 citations since the law went into effect May 12, according to Turner spokesman Alan Bernstein. Two weeks ago, the city health department temporarily displaced dozens of homeless people living under the U.S. 59 overpass in Midtown to clean the camp, but allowed them to return.

‘This is not right’

The city ordinance “was not designed to punish homeless people. Rather, it was passed to stop the accumulation of property in these encampments,” Marc Eichenbaum, special assistant to the mayor for homeless initiatives, said in an affidavit filed last week.

Hoyt’s order, however, focuses on the law rather than the city’s approach to enforcing it.

“The fact that the governmental entity has not fully enforced the alleged unconstitutional conduct does not bar a suit for injunctive relief where the alleged unconstitutional conduct is imminent or is in process,” he wrote.

That conflict shows no signs of dissipating, even as area homelessness is at its lowest level in years.

District D Councilman Dwight Boykins said the court order is unfair to residents.

“Every time we take a step forward as a city to try to put in enforcement — to offer options for these individuals to go into treatment … something keeps blocking us,” Boykins said. “This is not right to the residents who live there.”