Two law firms filed a joint, emergency lawsuit in Josephine County Circuit Court Jan. 30, requesting a temporary injunction against the city of Grants Pass over its time, place and manner restrictions on homeless residents.
Disability Rights Oregon, or DRO, and the Oregon Law Center, or OLC, filed a joint complaint on behalf of five individuals who live with disabilities in Grants Pass, ages 47 to 66.
The lawsuit asked the court to issue an immediate temporary restraining order to stop the city’s closing of J Street — one of two designated campsites — with the other smaller site at 7th Street limited to only overnight availability. Homeless Grants Pass residents face the threat of citations and 30-day exclusions from the camp under city ordinances if they cannot comply.
A Josephine County Circuit Court judge granted a 14-day temporary restraining order Feb. 3, barring the city from enforcing its ordinances.
The lawsuit comes seven months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it is constitutional for cities to punish homeless residents who have no other option for shelter in its June 28, 2024, Grants Pass v. Johnson decision, which originated in the city.
However, an Oregon state law, ORS 195.530 — commonly referred to as HB 3115 — requires local regulation of homelessness to be “objectively reasonable” and consider the totality of the circumstances, including “the impact of the law on persons experiencing homelessness.” The Supreme Court noted the state law in its decision.
The complaint said Grants Pass’ ordinances violate Oregon’s ORS 195.530 and ORS 659A.142, which says a place of public accommodation may not discriminate against a person with a disability, according to the complaint. The state law is intended to align with federal law under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The city’s actions are also unreasonable and in violation of nondiscrimination law as they unfairly target, impose a disparate impact on, and fail to accommodate people with disabilities,” the complaint said.
Tom Stenson, DRO deputy legal director, said Grants Pass left so few places where people could legally exist that it clearly violated the state law.
“This seemed like the epitome of something that was objectively unreasonable within the meaning of Oregon State law,” Stenson said. “It’s physically impossible to put everybody who is homeless in this tiny piece of land.”
“I’m not going to tell my clients to go sleep in the mud, in the freezing mud and get hypothermia this week so that the City Council can sit in a heated room and think about whether they want to change what they’ve done, particularly when they didn’t even listen to him the first time.”
— Tom Stenson, Disability Rights Oregon legal director
Under the previous City Council, Grants Pass opened the two sanctioned sites for homeless residents on Aug. 23, 2024, giving people 24 hours’ notice to leave the local parks. A new City Council, sworn in Jan. 6, scheduled a Jan. 7 meeting and voted 5-2 to close the largest site, called J Street, and require residents to leave the smaller 7th Street site between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. every day. The 7th Street site can only hold about 30 tents despite estimates of the roughly 120 tents at J Street.
Stenson said the limited space available on the open gravel and dirt lots is an impossible scenario, particularly for people who use wheelchairs, canes, or otherwise have mobility impairments. The requirement that all homeless residents move every day is not tenable, according to Stenson.
“They may be able to struggle to their tent once, but once they’re there, they’re sort of stranded there,” Stenson said.
Stenson said Mark Bartholomew, Grants Pass city attorney, asked DRO to hold the lawsuit for an additional week during a discussion on Jan. 29. However, DRO filed the complaint on Jan. 30 as planned, asking the court to issue an injunction to prohibit the city from enforcing its ordinances. The emergency lawsuit comes as temperatures are expected to drop well below freezing this week.
“I’m not going to tell my clients to go sleep in the mud, in the freezing mud and get hypothermia this week so that the City Council can sit in a heated room and think about whether they want to change what they’ve done, particularly when they didn’t even listen to him the first time,” Stenson said.
Background
Since Grants Pass opened the sites last August, the city has spent just over $156,000 on fencing, garbage service and security, including $29,000 on a 24-hour security camera observable by local police.
The city offered few resources, and critics, medical professionals and lawyers decried the sites for failing to meet basic humanitarian standards, particularly for homeless residents with disabilities.
Local doctor Bruce Murray, a volunteer doctor with the volunteer-run organization Mobile Integrative Navigation Team, or MINT, described “unconscionably bad circumstances” at the sites in September 2024. Multiple residents living at the sites were hospitalized due to medical emergencies during a week when temperatures reached over 103 degrees. Temperatures fell to 22 degrees on Jan. 29.
Murray told Street Roots despite the conditions, the closing of the sites is an impediment to MINT’s work in addressing the issues homeless residents face, including behavioral health services, harm reduction, drug diversion and housing.
“That’s the irony,” Murray said. “We were making good progress. Despite the wretched conditions, we were making progress. We had gotten many people into shelter, and we were proud of the work we were doing under horrendous circumstances — the heat and the cold, lack of water was always a problem and, a lack of just common dignity.”
The OLC filed the Grants Pass v. Johnson lawsuit in 2018. The OLC provides free legal help to people struggling to make ends meet on matters related to their homes, livelihoods, medical care and physical safety against domestic violence, according to its website. After the Supreme Court decision, Grants Pass created the sites in response to the ruling and, in the city’s telling, to align with ORS 195.530.
Sara Bristol, former Grants Pass mayor, told Street Roots on Jan. 12 that her interpretation of the state law was that if a city says homeless residents cannot be in one place, it must allow them to be in another.
“For me, that was really practical to provide a place where people could be, so that they would be in that spot, and not anywhere and everywhere,” Bristol said.
She added that her understanding of the situation largely came from Aaron Cubic, Grants Pass city manager, and Bartholomew. She said the new City Council made little attempt to learn the background of why the city provided the sites in the first place.
“We do still have to recognize that homeless people exist, and they’re going to be somewhere,” Bristol said. “We have to deal with House Bill 3115 and the realities of Oregon law.”
The city received multiple warnings that its ordinances could lead to a lawsuit. DRO sent a letter to the city Sept. 13, 2024 outlining the city’s legal vulnerabilities. DRO sent a follow-up letter Oct. 3, 2024. Again, the city attorney did not meaningfully respond. Bartholomew acknowledged both letters but did not discuss the substance of the issues raised, according to Stenson.
Stenson said those were missed opportunities for the city to align with the law.
“When the city doesn’t respond to us and doesn’t engage with us, they lose the opportunity to find that good, positive programming that is really moving people up and out of homelessness,” Stenson said.
In the Jan. 7 City Council meeting, Bartholomew raised concerns to the new City Council about the legal implications of its decision to close the sites.
“I would not be comfortable with any changes made tonight, and that’s just from a risk management perspective,” Bartholomew said. “That’s my job. I haven’t been able to vet any changes and to see if they would meet any time, place and manner standard.”
Bartholomew did not respond to Street Roots’ request for comment at the time of publishing.
Elias Poore, Southern Oregon Unitarian Universalist Partnership intern minister, visited the sites during the Jan. 24 sweeps. They said most people lost their tents and other possessions in the sweeps, many of whom were people with disabilities. Poore has worked with homeless communities for over a decade, including with people in Grants Pass.
“There were just a handful of people that were able to get them before the police came through (the J Street site),” Poore said. “And they were given even less notice than that at 7th Street — they had about an hour to pack up that morning.”
Poore said roughly 250 people now have no safe place to go without the threat of fines or arrest.
“They can’t sleep anywhere legally,” Poore said. “They can’t, and, of course, they’re at risk of being targeted for harassment just for being visibly poor.”
ORS 195.505 requires “any item that can reasonably be identified as belonging to an individual and that has apparent value or utility” to be stored for 30 days.
“The unclaimed personal property shall be stored in an orderly fashion, keeping items that belong to an individual together to the extent that ownership can reasonably be determined,” according to the state law. “The property shall be stored for a minimum of 30 days during which it shall be reasonably available to any individual claiming ownership.”
Despite the state law, Poore said police did not appear to sort belongings for homeless residents during the sweep.
“The cops came through,” Poore said. “Half of the stuff went into the dumpster. The stuff that didn’t fit into the dumpster went into the back of two city trucks. There was no sorting anything. They were picking stuff up and just chucking it in there.”
Warren Hensman, Grants Pass police chief, confirmed to Street Roots no one was arrested during the sweeps, but did not explicitly say where their belongings were being held.
“No arrests were made and people can call the non-emergency number at (541) 450-6260 or visit the PD if they have questions regarding property,” Hensman said.
Pulling the rug
The new City Council wasted no time closing the sites. Before members were even sworn into office Jan. 6, a slate of five new city councilors, including newly elected Oregon Rep. Dwayne Yunker, attempted to hold a meeting Jan. 3 — a potential violation of public meetings law. Among the meeting topics, the group intended to schedule a special session to dismantle the designated sites, according to an email obtained by Street Roots.
City councilors canceled the Jan. 3 meeting but scheduled a special meeting for Jan. 7, immediately after taking office. After beginning the meeting with an invocation — a moment of prayer — and recitation of the pledge of allegiance, the City Council voted 5-2 to rescind two grants the previous City Council approved in December, totaling up to $660,000 to upgrade MINT’s navigation center and bolster its shelter capacity.
It also voted to close J Street and require homeless residents to leave 7th Street between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. under threat of citation or arrest for criminal trespass. (Yunker resigned from the City Council after the meeting the same day.)
The Jan. 24 sweeps left an estimated 250 people with just one place to exist within the city limits at night legally.
Yunker voted against opening the sites initially, particularly against allowing people to stay for extended periods of time, which he said caused the issue in the first place.
“It went from a resting site to a long-term camping site,” Yunker said. “We spent millions of dollars on homelessness, and it still grows.”
Homeless residents in Grants Pass have no place to go other than the high-barrier Gospel Rescue Mission and the local organization MINT’s small shelter. MINT has a 90-day emergency permit to shelter just 49 people during inclement weather—when temperatures are below 32 degrees or 34 degrees with precipitation.
Poore said many in Grants Pass feel defeated as a small group of service providers and volunteers attempt to keep homeless residents in health and shelter.
“That’s the sense that I get just from everyone,” Poole said. “It just feels like, you know, there’s just a sense of defeat.”
Murray agreed but clarified the community would not give up.
“We do know that a large portion of the community feels terrible about what has happened and how it reflects on the city,” Murray said. “We may be down temporarily, but we’re not defeated by any means.”
DRO is designated by federal law to protect the rights of people with disabilities around the state of Oregon, including the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, people with mental illnesses, and people with other disabilities.
Stenson said the City Council had other options but chose to violate the law against the city attorney’s recommendations.
“If you dare people to sue you, somebody’s probably going to sue you eventually,” Stenson said.
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This article appears in January 29, 2025.