Vegas, Henderson hope Supreme Court will rule on homeless camping bans

Marcus Copeland stood next to his tent underneath a downtown Las Vegas bridge, preparing to eat warm, chunky soup out of a tin can earlier this week.

“This is my address,” the 43 year old said.

“They keep on telling me, ‘you can’t camp; you can’t live in the corner,’ ” he said about police officers who regularly visit homeless encampments and order them cleared out. “But where are you supposed to live?”

Copeland, like many other unsheltered locals who sleep on Las Vegas streets, alleys or sidewalks face possible arrest under a camping ban the city implemented in 2020.

As long as there’s sufficient space in public shelters, police can jail them, according to the ban, which received significant pushback from housing advocates at the time it was approved. A second ordinance that enacted the same rules during times that sidewalks were being cleaned was also passed.

Seven citations were given in the ordinances’ first year, the Las Vegas Review-Journal found.

This summer, the city of Henderson adopted its own camping ban, which empowers police to refer people illegally camping to the nearest shelter and arrest them if they refuse to leave.

Copeland, who recycles aluminum and plastic to get by, said police officers first warn those camping out about the law, but give them inadequate time to move.

“They take everything you own, throw it away, even if they don’t arrest you,” said Copeland, who said he’s been banned from shelters because he’s argumentative.

The Metropolitan Police Department and city marshals enforce the law in Las Vegas.

The cities and the Supreme Court

Both Las Vegas and Henderson recently signed onto a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging a pair of lower court decisions from cases originating in Idaho and Oregon that could reshape camping laws nationally.

Clark County doesn’t have a camping ban and did not sign onto the brief.

“The city hopes the U.S. Supreme Court gives clarity and finality — either way — to how cities across the country can or cannot use their police powers to address this issue,” Las Vegas City Attorney Jeff Dorocak wrote in a statement.

Las Vegas Councilman Brian Knudsen, one of two lawmakers who voted against the camping ban, said petitioning the Supreme Court makes sense due to the “ambiguity in the law.”

But he said police shouldn’t singlehandedly be tasked with combating homelessness.

“Their job is to try to prevent crime,” he said.

Homelessness in the valley is on the rise, and expected to get worse with an explosion of housing evictions.

“I hope that as a community, and as Southern Nevada, we continue to work toward outcomes that are healthier and happier results for people,” Knudsen said.

Councilwoman Victoria Seaman said she was “very proud” of voting for the camping ban, adding that business leaders had pushed for it.

“We didn’t want people encroaching upon somebody else’s business, but (the ordinance) also gave us an opportunity to get those people services and help if they want it,” she said Tuesday at a forum for Las Vegas mayoral candidates.

Henderson took a more direct position for its reasons for signing onto the amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court, which hasn’t decided if it’s taking the case.

Henderson “believes that restoring the City’s full powers to address the homeless crisis does not hinder our growing efforts to provide housing and resources,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Overturning these cases allows for flexibility in addressing unhoused issues as they emerge.”

Henderson wants to continue using a city-wide collaborative approach to “balance the rights of unhoused individuals and the quality-of-life issues for all other citizens,” the statement continued.

‘Unworkable’

The amicus brief shows support for the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, in its case against Gloria Johnson et al. The Oregon city wants to repeal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decisions relating to that case and 2019’s Robert Martin v. the city of Boise.

Both cases imposed limits on how local governments can police homeless populations.

Citing a a constitutional violation, the Martin case established that the government can’t criminalize homeless camping when there is no option for sleeping indoors.

The Johnson case upheld that cities can not enforce camping bans on “involuntarily” homeless people when there is not available shelter beds for them.

Grants Pass argued that previous cases limit local police power, and that homelessness does not qualify as “involuntary” when talking about an entire population.

It also argued that requiring cities to build and provide shelters to a small segment of their populations at public expense is “unworkable” and takes money away from other, longer-term forms of support for homeless populations. Additionally, it said the decisions treat shelters as the clear solution to homelessness over other, more effective, methods.

“As a practical matter, these decisions compel local governments to choose between providing shelter or surrendering public lands to encampments that harm,” the Oregon city’s argument reads.

‘Where are the people supposed to go?’

Nicholas Barr, assistant professor at UNLV’s school of social work, said the amicus brief filed by International Municipal Lawyers Association creates a “false dichotomy” by saying cities must choose between building shelters or allowing encampments. He said that clearing campgrounds does not solve the problem.

“I understand that it doesn’t really work for cities and municipalities to just have encampments springing up all over the place. Like that’s not a good solution, no rational person would defend that,” Barr said. “But it’s also not an improvement to clear people out of those encampments with essentially zero other options for them to be housed. If people want to solve the problem, they’re going to have to do what we know is effective.”

Barr agreed that shelters are not the cure for homelessness, but said they are better than nothing. The best solution, he said, lies in a long-term strategic plan to continue building affordable housing to match the needs of the region.

“Shelters are a little bit better, but they’re also not effective,” Barr said. “But what we do know, very clearly, from decades of research, is that long-term sustainable housing is what solves the problem.”

‘Let’s go to jail’

Copeland, who sells recyclables and clothes he finds thrown away, said he suffers from mental health problems, and has lived on the street on and off since he was 16.

While he hasn’t been arrested for camping, he said his camp has been cleared out by police several times in the past few weeks.

He’s lost clothes, food, and items that are “hard to replace.”

Steve Collins, 65, has been homeless for a decade.

“They’ve been giving me havoc for eight years,” and arrested him twice for camping, he said.

“One time I refused to leave because it was 2 o’clock in the morning and I wanted to rest,” Collins said. “They told me, ‘you gotta go now or go to jail,’ and I said, ‘let’s go to jail.’ ”

He said looking homeless is like wearing a Scarlet letter.

Anyone else can “walk around Fremont, can sit anywhere…but we can’t,” Collins said.

Wendy Dave, 52, unhoused for three years, has camped in Las Vegas since 2022.

“Not good,” she said about her relationship with police.

But she complies when asked to move.

Denita Stewart, 50, said she’s had pleasant interactions with police, who drop by her camp every day, and said they don’t bother her as long as she keeps her area tidy.

“They have been very good to us,” she said, “and honorable to us.”

She fears living on the street, but doesn’t qualify for housing, she said.

Stewart, who has been unhoused on and off for seven years, said nonprofits and officials can help in other ways, including by donating tents and assigning spots to sleep.

“You really gotta see the pressures, you really got to see the inside, you really got to see what we go through,” she said. “Because if you don’t, people are not gonna be aware of what to do or how to help us.”

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com. Follow @rickytwrites on Twitter. Contact Mark Credico at mcredico@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Instagram @writermark2.