The legality of Grants Pass’ homelessness policies is once again under fire. A judge halted enforcement of the city’s latest rules on March 28 while a lawsuit to toss them permanently moves forward.
Josephine County Circuit Court Judge Sarah McGlaughlin issued a preliminary injunction that bars Grants Pass from enforcing two ordinances regulating homelessness in local parks until it increases the capacity of its designated sites to sufficiently accommodate homeless residents. The city must also ensure all existing sites provide access for people with disabilities.
Judge McGlaughlin ruled that with the exception of two parks — Riverside Park and Reinhardt Volunteer Park — the city cannot cite, arrest, detain, issue fines, or otherwise prosecute any person for camping on public property, nor can the city sweep residents from public spaces. The ruling cited an Oregon state law regulating how cities can approach homelessness, and essentially extends a temporary restraining order that has been in place since Feb. 3.
“There can be no doubt that the legislature specifically required cities to consider the needs of the homeless population when crafting laws that regulate sitting, lying, sleeping or keeping warm and airy outdoors on public property,” McGlaughlin wrote in a ruling issued March 28.
The ruling comes as the city wrestles with its approach to homelessness after multiple courts stopped the city from arresting and fining homeless residents when they have no other place to live. U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke and a panel of judges for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against that policy before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the decision on June 28, 2024.
However, Oregon law still prohibits cities from penalizing homeless residents when the number of shelter beds are insufficient. And while the City Council grapples with its lack of affordable housing and low-barrier shelter, some are looking to a Trump-aligned consultant who has blamed the increase in homelessness on the shift to a “housing first” approach to addressing it. Council members discovered the advocate at the 2025 Patriot Conference held in Grants Pass in March, where he offered a slew of anti-homeless and anti-immigrant tropes.
Advocates with Disability Rights Oregon, or DRO, say they repeatedly tried to help the city align its practices with state law. But those efforts failed. On Jan. 30, the organization, along with Oregon Law Center, sued the city on behalf of five homeless residents who live with disabilities in Grants Pass. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued the city’s ordinances violate two Oregon state laws, including one commonly referred to as House Bill 3115 — which requires local regulation of homelessness to be “objectively reasonable.”
The DRO complaint added that the city’s ordinances violate another state law that prohibits public accommodations from discriminating against people with disabilities. That law is intended to align with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA.
Shortly after Judge McGlaughlin issued the March 28 ruling, Tom Stenson, DRO deputy legal director, told Street Roots the ruling gives some relief to homeless residents living in Grants Pass.
“We’re not going to see people arrested or cited or kicked out of their campsites just for camping in public,” Stenson said. “That’s exciting in and of itself.”
Stenson said he is encouraged by McGlaughlin’s decision, since part of the criteria for a preliminary injunction is that the party requesting it is likely to prevail.
“That’s definitely a good feeling when you have a case like this,” Stenson said. “The trial court is agreeing that you’re likely to prevail,” Stenson said.
Grants Pass Mayor Clint Scherf did not immediately respond to Street Roots’ request for comment.
While the Supreme Court overruled the 9th Circuit decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, Oregon state law still requires cities regulating homelessness to consider the totality of the circumstances, including “the impact of the law on persons experiencing homelessness.”
The Oregon Legislature passed the state law in 2021 to enshrine a 9th Circuit decision in another earlier case — Martin v. Boise. The law went into effect in 2023, and some cities have argued it hamstrings them from solving their homelessness crisis.
The city faced legal vulnerabilities in part due to the City Council’s vote to close a larger designated resting site at J Street the day the new city councilors took office on Jan. 7, despite warnings from the city attorney that it may risk a lawsuit. Closing the site left homeless residents with just one option for a place to stay temporarily, and the site was frequently over capacity.
“It’s hard to resist the conclusion that a lot of this was just a political performance,” Stenson said.
Even before the ruling, the lawsuit appeared to motivate the city to modestly upgrade conditions at its two designated sites, particularly for homeless residents with disabilities.
Grants Pass recently installed compacted granite on a site across the street from City Hall and unanimously voted March 17 to do the same to a site one block away on 7th Street, adjacent to the police station. Homeless residents can stay at the sites 24 hours per day, but are required to move every 96 hours. In the city’s telling, the granite is meant to satisfy some of the requirements under the ADA.
Some city councilors proposed creating a separate site for homeless residents with disabilities, citing the need to align with the state’s objectively reasonable standard.
Aaron Cubic, Grants Pass city manager, said the city is considering adding ADA-compliant access within its two designated sites but did not recommend creating a separate site despite city councilors’ proposals.
“We’re not recommending that the city establish ADA campsites and resting sites,” Cubic said. “We need to provide opportunity for ADA usage.”
‘Housing Fourth?’
In Grants Pass’ most recent elections, a group of city councilors and the mayor ran as a slate — with homelessness front and center in the campaign. The full slate won, making a voting majority seeking to criminalize homelessness despite the state law, and often repeating President Donald Trump’s rhetoric. But in a recent City Council meeting, the same officials acknowledged they were unsure of what to do about homelessness.
They floated the idea of hiring Robert Marbut, President Donald Trump’s former director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, or USICH, to consult the city. City Councilor Indra Nicholas proposed hiring Marbut to help develop a homelessness plan after multiple city councilors saw him speak at a 2025 Patriot Conference in Grants Pass on March 15. A coalition of city councilors agreed he could be a resource, as did Mayor Scherf.
Scherf immediately directed Cubic to contact Marbut to see what services he could offer.
Trump appointed Marbut as the director of USICH in December 2019, where he remained until February 2021, just after President Joe Biden took office. He faced significant pushback from homelessness rights advocates like the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
A report developed by USICH in 2020 called “Expanding the Toolbox” — which has now been deleted from the USICH website — outlined Marbut’s approach, which includes the claim that the U.S. shift to housing-first policies in 2013 has not worked.
In an email to Street Roots, Marbut said he hopes “everyone will get interested in the importance of treatment and recovery paired with housing.”
“It is clear now after 15 years of housing first that it’s nothing more than vouchers with no supportive services — hence the tripling of homelessness in many parts of the country,” he said. “And the doubling in most places.”
More than 745 Josephine County residents currently use Housing Choice, the most common type of housing voucher — otherwise known as Section 8 — and nearly 37,200 Oregon residents, according to the most recent Housing and Urban Development data. Whether those residents need or want treatment and recovery is undeterminable.
Marbut has advocated instead for what he called a “housing fourth” approach, meaning people need to get their personal lives in order before they should obtain housing.
“Housing first should be considered as one tool in the toolbox, but not the only tool in the toolbox,” the USICH report said.
At the 2025 Patriot Conference, Marbut offered a slew of anti-homeless and anti-immigrant tropes, speaking comfortably to the crowd, which included some Grants Pass city councilors. His speech centered on the rise in fentanyl, which he directly correlated with homelessness and immigration.
“I’m so critical of the Biden administration,” Marbut told conference attendees. “They were just asleep at the wheel. This whole thing has blown up during their time. Part of that was that they were slow to respond to all crises — that was just in their DNA. They were very slow and never got around to it. But the other thing is, you can’t talk about fentanyl without talking about the border.”
If the city ultimately hires Marbut, it would not be the first time he has consulted for an Oregon city. In a presentation to community members in Lebanon, OR on Oct. 27, 2016, Marbut outlined his “Successful and Proven Real World Solutions to Reduce Homelessness,” saying mutual aid efforts enable homelessness and claiming the root cause of homelessness for 90% of homeless residents are their struggles with mental health, substance use disorders or both.
“I did not say lack of food, nor did I say loss of housing,” the presentation slides said. “These are symptoms of the process of becoming homeless, but are not the root causes.”
The current lawsuit is the second legal claim arguing an Oregon city violated the state’s “objectively reasonable” standard. The city of Portland was forced to alter its ordinance banning public sleeping in 2024 after the Oregon Law Center sued the city, saying it was impossible for homeless residents to understand where they could legally sleep.
Multnomah County Circuit Court judge Rima Ghandour dismissed the case after the city passed an amended ordinance May 8, 2024. The new rules repealed some aspects of the policy that sparked the lawsuit, reduced criminal and civil penalties for sleeping outside, and narrowed the focus to those who decline an “offer of reasonable shelter” — Portland’s current approach to regulating homelessness.
Stenson said there are a number of routes Grants Pass could take now that it must operate under the injunction.
“The question is really, at this point, how Grants Pass reacts, whether they change their policy, whether they live with the preliminary injunction and litigate the case out, whether they try and ask the appellate courts to take a look at the preliminary injunction,” Stenson said. “All those are possibilities. Certainly, I’d hope that they reassess their policies.”
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the frequency with which homeless residents are required to move. Street Roots regrets this error.
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This article appears in April 2, 2025.