On Tuesday, Josephine County judge Brandon S. Thueson extended a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit against the city over its treatment of homeless people.
Under the order, homeless people in Grants Pass can’t be cited, arrested, fined or detained for camping for 10 days, through February 27. The original, two-week order expired recently.
In their request that the restraining order be extended, plaintiffs wrote, "The City of Grants Pass has requested time to reassess its current policies. In light of that, the City and Plaintiffs agree that the best course of action would be to extend the temporary restraining order to allow that process to proceed."
However, the judge modified the order at the request of both parties, writing that camping is prohibited in Riverside Park and Reinhardt Volunteer Park. In addition, the city can still enforce its code that says sleeping on sidewalks, streets, alleys or in doorways is prohibited.
This development is part of a lawsuit filed at the end of January by an Oregon disability rights group and five homeless plaintiffs against the city, claiming Grants Pass’s treatment of homeless people violates state law.
The complaints in the lawsuit date back to the fall, when the city had two homeless campsites and required people to move their belongings from one site to another every week.
The City Council also recently shut down one of the city's homeless campsites and restricted the hours of the other. Grants Pass currently has one legal homeless campsite, and it’s open from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m.
On Wednesday night, the City Council will consider designating additional locations for camping, in an effort to address the lawsuit's critiques.
Last June, Grants Pass won another case over its treatment of homeless people after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its favor. However, the question in that lawsuit involved the Eighth Amendment. This lawsuit argues instead that the city is violating Oregon's state law HB 3115, which says cities’ public camping regulations have to be “objectively reasonable.” However, that term isn’t clearly defined.
