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Disabled homeless residents sue Grants Pass over camping restrictions

Jeffrey Dickerson is one of five homeless and disabled plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Grants Pass.
Disability Rights Oregon
Jeffrey Dickerson is one of five homeless and disabled plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Grants Pass.

The non-profit group Disability Rights Oregon and five disabled homeless residents have sued the city of Grants Pass claiming new camping restrictions violate state laws.

The lawsuit filed on Thursday alleges Grants Pass ordinances on homeless encampments violate Oregon laws, including discrimination protections for people with a disability.

The city recently restricted homeless camping to just one outdoor site that is open from 5:00pm to 7:00am. Authorities can issue a $50 fine to anyone found violating city ordinances on camping.

Jeffrey Dickerson, a 57-year-old plaintiff in the case, said he has lived in Southern Oregon his entire life. He’s been homeless in Grants Pass for the last year after the apartment he rented was sold. Dickerson said he has neuropathy, a nerve condition, and severe spinal arthritis which makes it difficult to carry his belongings back and forth from the city encampment.

“It's hard for me just to even walk, let alone pack up and move,” said Dickerson. “Weather has been brutal, cold. There should be a place for us with disabilities.”

Tom Stenson, deputy legal director at Disability Rights Oregon, said the city’s restrictions also violate a state law requiring homeless camping rules to be “objectively reasonable.”

“There's just a sheer question of physics or geometry that you cannot pack hundreds of people into a single, quarter-acre site. That's objectively unreasonable,” said Stenson.

Stenson said the city’s current policies are calculated to “make life as miserable as possible for people who are homeless.” He said his group wants Grants Pass to go back to the drawing board for a solution that works better for the city and the homeless. His group's complaint seeks to stop the city from enforcing current ordinances on homeless encampments.

Last year a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the city to ban most public camping.

The mayor of Grants Pass said the city has not yet received a summons and that officials aren’t prepared to comment on the suit at this time.

“For those that look down on us, we're not all the same,” said Dickerson. “I don't want to be here.”

Justin Higginbottom is a regional reporter for Jefferson Public Radio. He's worked in print and radio journalism in Utah as well as abroad with stints in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. He spent a year reporting on the Myanmar civil war and has contributed to NPR, CNBC and Deutsche Welle (Germany’s public media organization).