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鈥檚 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.
鈥淚t's hard for me just to even walk, let alone pack up and move,鈥� said Dickerson. 鈥淲eather has been brutal, cold. There should be a place for us with disabilities.鈥�
Tom Stenson, deputy legal director at Disability Rights Oregon, said the city鈥檚 restrictions also violate a state law requiring homeless camping rules to be 鈥渙bjectively reasonable.鈥�
鈥淭here'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,鈥� said Stenson.
Stenson said the city鈥檚 current policies are calculated to 鈥渕ake life as miserable as possible for people who are homeless.鈥� 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鈥檛 prepared to comment on the suit at this time.
鈥淔or those that look down on us, we're not all the same,鈥� said Dickerson. 鈥淚 don't want to be here.鈥�
