The City Says a Lawsuit Over Charlie Hales' Camping Policy Needs to Be Tossed

Francois Vigneault

It's funny. And sad.

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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.