City of Bend defends new camping code as ACLU, Bend Equity Group, attorney urge repeal, cite ‘constitutional liability’
Letter to city officials was sent day before delay in Hunnell Road was announced; city says no connection
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – The city of Bend on Friday defended its new camping code regulating homeless residents’ use of public rights of way after the ACLU of Oregon, a Bend attorney and the Bend Equity Project sent a sharply critical letter, urging it pause enforcement of a code that “invites constitutional liability as cruel and unusual punishment.”
The letter, sent Tuesday, also urged the city to “rethink” the planned mid-March sweep of Hunnell and Clausen roads “and consider its constitutional and new statutory legal obligations (you can read the full letter below). The next day, City Manager Eric King announced an indefinite postponement of the final clearing of the road, but city officials on Friday denied the letter had led to that delay.
The city provided this response to the letter to NewsChannel 21:
"The City conducted an open, months-long process last summer and fall. The legal issues were discussed and considered at length. We're confident in the legality of the code the Council adopted."
City Communications Director Anne Aurand also told NewsChannel 21 in response to a question that "no, the letter did not have anything to do with the delay" in removing remaining camps on Hunnell Road.
"The City had been working with the County and the Coordinated Houseless Response Office before that letter came to the City. As cited in the City Manager’s Hunnell Road update March 1, 2023 | News | City of Bend (bendoregon.gov), we decided to delay because the circumstances around the road projects changed, and because the County Commissioners agreed to create a camp (safe parking) on the site we offered on South Highway 97."
The letter said the Bend Equity Project has for several years “provided meals, transportation, sanitation services and “life-saving essential products to our neighbors living outside on Hunnell Road,” the letter stated, accusing the city of “a complete disregard that sweeps have on the most vulnerable residents.”
The two groups and attorney Thaddeus Betz claimed that “under the new code, it remains unclear at best, and certain at worst, that there will now not be enough physical outdoor space in the city on which sleeping will be permitted for people experiencing homelessness.”
“The Anti-Camping Code” as they called it “is all but an outright ban effectuated by a complex system of mapping, moving requirements, and a maze of intersecting restrictions.” As a result, they claimed the new code violates a new state law that requires such laws be “objectively reasonable” and consider “the impact of the law on persons experiencing homelessness.”
“We urge Bend to halt the implementation of the Anti-Camping Code, repeal it, and take considerable time to understand and account for the impact any new regulation would have on people living outside with nowhere to go,” they state.
While the letter cites court rulings and speaks of “constitutional liability,” Bend Equity Group member Eric Garrity said they “aren’t threatening any litigation.”
