Isabella Vanderheiden / Today @ 11 a.m. / Agendizer

Eureka City Council to Look at Streamlining, Consolidating Local Rules About Camping in Public Spaces

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The City of Eureka is looking to consolidate two city ordinances that restrict homeless encampments and loitering in public spaces. At a special meeting on Tuesday, the Eureka City Council will go over potential changes to the ordinances and consider an update to the city’s Homeless Action Plan. 

“The two ordinances — the camping ordinance and the sitting or lying [on sidewalks] ordinance — have been around for a long time and they’re ridiculously convoluted and difficult for folks to understand and for the [police department] to enforce,” Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery told the Outpost in a recent phone interview. “We’re planning on combining the two and turning them into one ordinance that covers both areas.”

The Eureka City Council voted in 2021 to replace the city’s anti-camping ordinance with another, less restrictive ordinance in response to the Martin v. Boise decision, a 2018 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that barred cities from punishing people for sleeping on public property. (Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which gave cities more power to arrest, cite and fine people for sleeping in public spaces.) 

Eureka’s current ordinance allows for involuntary camping — camping when there are no shelter options available — in most parts of the city during nighttime hours when it is raining, snowing or below 40 degrees. However, the ordinance prohibits camping in Old Town/Downtown, Henderson Center, along the Waterfront and Northern Gateway districts, in city parks, the golf course and within 75 feet of public trails at any time, day or night. 

The “sit-lie” ordinance prohibits any individual or group from sitting or lying on a public sidewalk, curb or street between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. in the same commercial areas where public camping is prohibited. However, the ordinances clearly haven’t stopped people from hanging out and/or camping in public spaces. 

“When we give someone a citation [for camping], that person has earned it,” Slattery said. “This is how enforcement works for plenty of things. A drunk in public citation is a good example. We could go around and [cite] people for [being] drunk in public all the time … but we’re not enforcing that. Yes, it’s on the books but [our officers] use discretion and apply it as needed. … Our camping ordinance doesn’t allow for camping on the waterfront but you and I know that it hasn’t been enforced to any level that’s significant.”

Slattery emphasized that the proposed changes to the ordinances “won’t change how [the city] operate[s].”

“The main reason we’re doing this is to clear everything up because the ordinances are very hard to follow,” he continued. “This will give [the city] another tool to address the issues that we have that are not only for the individuals that are experiencing homelessness but also for the community and the businesses as well.”

Slattery didn’t want to get into the specifics of the proposed changes to the ordinances, noting that next week’s special meeting is a study session that will give the city council an opportunity to provide feedback to staff. 

“We’re not making any recommendations at this time,” he said. “We just want to have a discussion about it with the council.”

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The Eureka City Council will meet on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Eureka City Hall — 531 K Street. Remote viewing/participating instructions can be found here.

Eureka City Council

Jan. 14, 2025, 5:30 p.m.

A. REPORTS/ACTION ITEMS

1. Sitting or Lying on Sidewalks/Camping Ordinance Proposed Revisions and Homeless Action