SEASIDE — The city will relocate the homeless encampment to a space behind the public works building in an effort to mitigate the effects campers have had on residents and businesses.
The homeless encampment, on Avenue S by the city’s recycling center, has been a source of contention since it was moved there in 2023 after concerns about flooding at the former Mill Ponds site.
Mill Ponds was designated as a centralized site for a homeless encampment in 2022 following federal court rulings that held that homeless people had the right to camp on public property if there were not adequate shelter beds available.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that standard, ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson that the enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The state Legislature will likely weigh the issue in next year’s session, but many cities are struggling to strike a balance.
People who live and work near the Avenue S homeless encampment have repeatedly voiced their exasperation at City Council meetings, describing sanitation issues, increased levels of crime and loss of revenue for their businesses.
At a City Council meeting Monday night, city councilors opted for the site in the southwest corner of the public works yard near Avenue V over the other potential location on Alder Mill Avenue.
“I will say, when it was first proposed to our staff of locating it behind public works, they had the same reaction as the other neighbors,” City Manager Spencer Kyle said. “We all understood, though, that we can’t ask anyone else to do something that we are also not willing to do.”
Concerned about impact
City Councilor Seth Morrisey said that while he was concerned about the impact that relocating to either site would have on nearby businesses, putting the camp in the public works facility would objectively be the best way to take the burden off of residents.
The newly approved site is farther away from residents and public view, though it is still adjacent to some businesses. It can be accessed off of Avenue V and will put campers closer to services like Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers.
City councilors stressed that stricter enforcement would be a necessary aspect of the relocation and that they would discuss revisiting rules and regulations in the next few weeks in an attempt to aid neighbors at the current and future sites.
“We have been paying attention more to where things are, rather than how, why or what things are,” City Councilor Tita Montero said. “It doesn’t matter where we move a camp if we don’t start going back, taking a couple of steps back and revisiting our policies, our procedures, our rules, our enforcement.
“I believe we have lost the trust of the neighbors who live in these areas where we have had camps or where we are looking to have a camp. And we need to go back to some very basics. We know there’s no ideal or fully acceptable location. We need to gain back their confidence and trust.”
Montero suggested daily or weekly move-outs, a sign-in roster, prohibiting vehicles and RVs and more clearly defining the behaviors required for somebody to have a spot in the camp and the behaviors that would get them removed.
“And let’s decide what enforcement looks like, because we need to have enforcement,” she said. “Even if the enforcement ends up creating records where people aren’t paying tickets, people aren’t showing up in court, but at least we have a record and we’d know which people are the people that should not be allowed back into a camp.”
Though city councilors have discussed having somebody from Clatsop Community Action help oversee the homeless encampment, they also considered hiring new police officers specifically dedicated to enforcing rules.
Timeline
The budget for the relocation is $311,850, with most of the money going toward fencing and electric gates. The plan also includes lighting and security cameras, which city councilors hope will help with surveillance and identifying and preventing prohibited behaviors.
The city will pay for the relocation out of reserve funds. City staff estimated that the preparation of the new site would take about six months.
Given that the Legislature may revisit homeless camping, some questioned whether the city should hold off on making any permanent decisions.
But after some discussion, city councilors concluded that it is unlikely the state would repeal a law that sets guidelines for homeless camping, and that it was best to focus on moving forward effectively.
“If you look at the chessboard of the city of Seaside, this is really our only play to best comply with Oregon law,” Morrisey said. “It’s unfortunate that it impacts anyone, but I don’t see what else we can do.”
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