Walking through downtown Grants Pass, there are four homeless camps on city property within two blocks. The city has fenced them in, providing port-a-potties and dumpsters. Dozens of people live in tents, just steps away from City Hall.
Kate Huckert lives across the street with her boyfriend and children and said they call the police multiple times a day for things like fighting and drug use.
"We're right there," she said. "So it's really scary and disturbing, what we're having to deal with."
This is not where Grants Pass thought it would be, one year after its big win at the U.S. Supreme Court.
That ruling struck down lower courts that barred cities from enforcing anti-camping laws unless there was enough capacity in shelters for homeless people.
So, the city began clearing tents from parks again. Residents were hopeful their homelessness crisis would finally be solved.
But in January, the city was sued again — this time for violating state laws, including disability protections and House Bill 3115, which requires cities' public camping rules to be “objectively reasonable,” though the law doesn’t define what that means.
Now, the judge hearing the lawsuit has mostly blocked camping bans in Grants Pass until the lawsuit is resolved. The judge also ordered Grants Pass to create more camping spaces.
One year later: 'as little as possible'
The campsites downtown have drawn pushback from residents, especially those who live nearby.
Huckert said she’s spent $10,000 on security upgrades for her home.
"This is threatening to break our whole neighborhood," she said. "It was a massive uptick in crime. We had mail theft two days ago. [...] It's so scary."
Her boyfriend, Mike Servant, said Grants Pass likes to play the victim of state law, rather than acknowledging that the city council’s own actions, in his view, led to the lawsuit in the first place.
The city council has at times ignored the advice of its attorney and police chief regarding the homeless camps.
Servant is also frustrated with how living across from a tent city has changed his perspective on homelessness.
"I'm a bleeding heart liberal, from way back," he said. "This has made me harden my heart a lot. [...] I'm much more callous about them, and I don't like that."
People living in the homeless camps are also frustrated with the city.
Kimberley Marie said Grants Pass isn’t helping its homeless residents enough.
"They're doing as little as possible, as long as they can get away with it," she said.
She’d rather see leaders focus on building more affordable housing.
Andrew Lima also lives in the camps and said there needs to be more help for people with medical issues, pregnant women, older people and veterans.
"I've got a lot of severe health issues, and I shouldn't be out here," he said. "I think it's great that they have campgrounds now, but they need more medical services. We don't even have a water tank here. We're struggling to hydrate every day. We're struggling to eat every day."
City councilors in this conservative city say laws passed by liberal state lawmakers make it hard for them to solve homelessness. They say that’s not the city’s job, and they’d rather see local nonprofits take it on.
Police Chief Warren Hensman declined to comment for this story, but at a City Council meeting in May discussing the camps, he said his department has seen an uptick in violent assaults recently as they're also dealing with limited staffing.
"Bottom line: it's not good," Hensman said. "It’s difficult to juggle everything that’s happening around here, to maintain everybody's rights and to treat everybody with dignity and respect but also be fair and firm in enforcement. [...] It’s not pretty out there, and it’s very difficult on our team."
Mayor Clint Scherf did not respond to requests for comment.
Scherf was one of a slate of Republican candidates elected to city leadership in November after running on a platform of public safety. The city shut down its largest campsite in January and got sued shortly thereafter.
Dr. Scott Nelson, board chair of the homeless services nonprofit MINT, thinks there hasn’t been much progress in Grants Pass since the Supreme Court decision last year.
"The reality is, I don't think much has changed in a year, other than we have more people understanding that this isn't a problem that's just going to go away, and we have to work together," he said.
He blames the lack of progress on political infighting and said the city didn’t plan well for what to do with homeless residents after it won the lawsuit last year.
"We really needed to have a better plan, and we didn't," he said. "We were caught flat-footed."
'Policy to punish' across the country
But even though Grants Pass mostly can’t cite people for sleeping in public because of the state lawsuit, last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allows cities across the country to do so.
Sara Rankin, a professor at Seattle University School of Law, said she's seen this happen in hundreds of communities.
"Permission to punish unhoused people really is becoming the policy to punish," she said. "So cities are accepting that invitation."
There are still groups pushing back against these crackdowns, using a variety of legal arguments.
But as the Trump administration proposes cuts to public housing, food and health care programs, Eric Tars with the National Homelessness Law Center fears the country’s homeless population will increase.
"Criminalization of homelessness has never solved homelessness," he said. "It hasn't worked for the past 40 years, since these laws have started to be building up, and it never will."
Rankin and Tars said punishing homeless people for living in public spaces is expensive and ineffective. They advocate for longer-term solutions, like affordable housing, instead.
For now, Grants Pass is working on a grant for a nonprofit to create a new homeless shelter.
The lawsuit charging them with failing to properly regulate people without housing remains in state court.
