City Council to take up proposed urban camping ordinance Monday

Urban camping is the practice of sleeping outside in a temporary shelter.  Some people prefer this to staying in shelters, or they might need to find another place to sleep when shelters are full.  

Davis said city ordinances are already in place to prevent people from sleeping in parks, but they don't cover downtown sidewalks.

"I think a lot of it is around the confusion of what is acceptable and what's not," she said. "We have people who will sit on our sidewalks and obstruct the ADA ordinances, which we know is illegal but doesn't seem to be enforced sometimes." 

Despite the laws and statutes in place, she said they are "buried." She wants the ordinance to compile the information and create a tiered approach.

The District is proposing a system of two warnings and then a ticket or legal consequences on the third violation.

In 2023, the state implemented a ban on homeless people setting up long-term camps or sleeping on state-owned land. The first infraction results in a warning, and the second is a Class C misdemeanor.

Urban camping has been a subject of discussion across the nation, and many states and cities have enacted bans or ordinances to manage it. 

In 2024, the Supreme Court upheld a decision that allows states and cities to prohibit sleeping outside. 

Davis said The District has done extensive research into what has worked in other cities to help the City Council make a decision. 

The confusion stems from a lack of education, she said. The VAC Opportunity Campus, which opened in July, provides an area where affected people can congregate.

"It's the information that needs to be distributed down to the people that actually need the resources," Davis said. "A lot of the time that is the issue."

In the initial request that The District sent to the City Council on May 27, Davis wrote that the ordinance "is not about criminalizing homelessness." 

But Columbia residents still have divided opinions about these kind of ordinances after heated discourse followed a new median safety ordinance that took effect July 1. 

"This, I really feel, is something much bigger than just one letter from one organization," Third Ward council member Jacque Sample said. "This is going to require public input."