The City of Jackson could ban homeless encampments on city property and allow the forced removal of campsites at the City Council’s meeting today.
“I don’t want people to say that we’re preventing people from their constitutional rights to assemble or express themselves without us having a solution,” Ward 3 City Councilman Kenneth Stokes said during the council’s last meeting at City Hall on Dec. 10.
The council briefly discussed the ordinance but tabled the vote for a later date.
Ward 7 City Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay, who proposed the ordinance, did not attend the Dec. 10 meeting.
@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 99px;}}@media ( min-width: 320px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 99px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 90px;}}
The City of Jackson has come under fire in recent years from civil rights and legal advocates for previous ordinances related to homelessness and panhandling.
The Jackson City Council unanimously voted to repeal the City’s former panhandling ordinance in October 2020 after the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and the National Homelessness Law Center argued against panhandling bans in the state, arguing that the activity was covered under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“There’s got to be a place to put people,” City of Jackson Attorney Drew Martin advised the Council on Dec. 10.
In addition to figuring out where to house those who camp on the street, Jackson must also be cautious about criminalizing homelessness, he said.
The City would likely enlist the help of the Jackson Police Department and possibly Capitol Police to enforce the ordinance, Martin said.
“We don’t want this to become a mass incarceration situation either,” he warned. “We want to get people off the streets and find humane shelters for them.”
Martin told the Council that the City modeled the proposed ordinance after similar anti-camping ordinances related to sleeping on public property in Grants Pass, Ore.
Those ordinances spurred a legal fight from homeless residents who filed a lawsuit arguing that the city’s enforcement of the ordinances through fines and jail time violated the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment against excessive bail, fines and cruel and unusual punishments.
Read original article by clicking here.