It’s funny. And sad.
Back in late 2014, public defenders were trying to convince a Multnomah County judge that Portland’s ban on camping was unconstitutional. So it wasn’t much surprise when they dredged up a quote that often gets tossed around when ticketing the homeless is concerned. It’s by Anatole France, and it reads: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
The public defenders eventually lost their challenge, imbuing the city’s camping ban with fresh legitimacy.
And just 16 months later? The city’s using the same exact quote to help justify not enforcing that ban.
The France passage crops up in a motion the city filed last week, seeking to dismiss a lawsuit over its newly lenient stance on camping.
A collection of nine organizations—including the Portland Business Alliance, Central Eastside Industrial Council, Overlook Neighborhood Association, Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, and more—are asking a judge to stop Mayor Charlie Hales from carrying out his “safe-sleep policy,” which allows tent camping on some property, and sets the stage for organized homeless encampments in town. They say Hales doesn’t have the authority, and that he’s running afoul of state and city law.
Now, in a motion to dismiss the case—its first formal (and sort of flowery) response to those allegations—the city says the lawsuit should be tossed.
“Like Marie-Antoinette, who, being told that the peasants had no bread to eat, is famously, if apocryphally, reported to have responded, ‘Then let them eat cake,’ plaintiffs’ response to the homelessness crisis in Portland appears to be, ‘Then let them sleep . . . somewhere else,'” says the motion, signed by Deputy City Attorney Dan Landrum.
The city’s making two legal arguments for why the suit doesn’t have merits. First, it says enforcement of the camping ban, in the context of Portland’s housing crisis, is a “political question” and “not within the province of the judiciary.”
“The fact that there may be laws on the books does not mean those laws may be enforced in all instances and against all who violate them,” the motion says.
Then it goes on to put forward the same reasoning public defenders offered in their recent challenge of the camping ban—reasoning that lost as the City of Portland looked on: that such camping bans punish people merely for being homeless.
The city’s relying on a recent US Department of Justice filing from a case in Boise to broach that argument, but its making it just the same. It suggests selectively enforcing the camping ban under Hales’ new policy helps protect “the basic human rights of all Portland residents…”
The second argument is that none of the groups who’ve filed suit have any right to do so. The city says those groups lack standing because they haven’t proven—or even argued—that they’re being hurt by the mayor’s camping policy.
“Plaintiffs have not asserted any of their own rights that can be vindicated in this action,” the motion says.
The city tacks on one additional claim, which is that three plaintiffs don’t qualify to even file suit: the Cartlandia food cart pod, a summer program called Camp Creative, and the PBA-affiliated Downtown Clean & Safe.
Here’s the full motion [pdf]. The matter has been assigned to Multnomah County Judge Marilyn Litzenberger. A hearing hasn’t yet been set.
I still don’t get it. Most of the “homeless” campers I see appear to be meth-heads living this life by choice. I’ve walked through several camps: Under the Steel Bridge, on SE 13th and Burnside, many Springwater Corridor camps and the park at SE 136th and Holgate. ALL of them were filled with shady, apparently drug-addicted white males. Few women, no children, no families… just white guys who looked like tweakers.
So, we’re supposed to fund/support/coddle/tolerate/accept this? I just keep reading liberal after liberal news report portraying these people as families, people who lost their home, people who lost their job… and yet all I’m seeing are drug addicts.
I must be hallucinating or something.
There are two ways to find safety out here; mark your territory and build a defensive barrier via tents/ bushes/ stick walls, etc.. OR find safety in numbers. On that note, Hales calling it “safe sleep” policy is ironic as he single handedly obliterated the latter and [eventually] replaced it with the former.
But you cannot play the homeless card once you set up a tent; at that point it becomes property ownership. Property ownership is a cornerstone on which the law is built, the only thing which supersedes this law in the courts eyes is natural law. Thus you are either entitled to your natural right to a night free of looking over your shoulder by congregation or – for the sake of safety – you MUST cease being without property ownership and to hell with the law.
We are like jews hiding from the furer and his gestapo…. okay bad analogy, but sometimes it feels like that. He forced this position on people. Ultimately all he and likely even Ted care about is first and foremost,
1) getting those tramps off of city halls front door step (if your new to town you may not remember this) – even if it means sweeping them into your back yard.
2) doing the same for any and all business owners whether they minded the [formerly mostly friendly] homeless downtown.
3) throwing massive tax dollars at temporary band-aids to get him by while he exits left stage and throws the mess he made off to Ted.
Welcome to the new Portland- we’re SOOOO happy to be in your backyard. It was just our dream come true to end up here…..or was it?
ps Douglas: It is like James madison (or was it Jefferson?) said; everyone has two or three faces. Observing homeless in different situations reveals one obvious fact; people will change the face they show you based on the environment they are a part of. If and when the situation allows it community forms and people take themselves off that to some degree or anther and you see a different side of the story. But when Portland and Eugene decided to join the rest of the country and make a steady policy out of breaking everyone up and keeping them scurrying like rats this dynamic changes for the worst. And no, congregations involving tents are not congregations at all- you can break people up with cops or separate them with tents, it has the same effect.
If nothing else setting a different environment simply attracts a different crowd and you begin to realize that those tweakers are in fact a minority of homeless, but the decent ones are the last to stick around when the city makes it a deplorable situation. And you are right, the family and children card is well overplayed.