"Housing not Handcuffs": Council Blasts Proposed Law as Criminalizing Homelessness

An ordinance that Brevard's Police Chief said would help control homeless encampments provoked outrage among a majority of City Council members.

BREVARD — Brevard Police Chief Tom Jordan pledged that his officers would show “compassion and empathy” when enforcing a proposed ban on camping on city land designed to control the homeless population.

Jordan told the City Council Monday that his officers’ first priority would be helping unsheltered people find warm beds for the night and other assistance to get them back on their feet.

They would only file a third-degree misdemeanor, which the draft ordinance allowed, if all other measures failed.

“We want people experiencing homelessness to have access to the resources they need,” Jordan told Council. “Only in the most extreme and final circumstances would enforcement action be part of our game plan . . . We do not want to criminalize homelessness.”

Except that’s exactly what the proposed ordinance would have done, said City Council members Aaron Baker, Geraldine Dinkins and Mayor Pro Tem Gary Daniel, all of whom vehemently opposed the action.

Contemplating criminal charges for being unsheltered was all the more heartless coming on the eve of the holiday season, said Dinkins, who compared the ordinance to the Biblical passage, “ ‘no room at the inn.’ ”

Enforcement is especially unjustified in a city with a severe shortage of affordable housing, Baker said, effectively making it illegal to be “poor enough that you can’t afford a house in Brevard.”

Madeline Offen, board president of The Haven of Transylvania County homeless shelter, provided a pithy summary of this sentiment in her comments to council.

“We need housing, not handcuffs,” said Offen, who is also co-director of homeless prevention for Pisgah Legal Services.

Baker said that, though Jordan pledged a caring approach to enforcing the law, there was nothing in writing that ensured that course of action.

“There is no policy and procedure here; there are no compassionate words here,” he said.

Daniel called the law “ill-conceived, unplanned and unformed.”

And after seconding Baker’s remarks, he brought up another objection: Anyone charged with being homeless (or technically, camping on city grounds) would be more likely to stay homeless, he said. Records of misdemeanors could jeopardize their ability to access public housing.

Baker, Dinkins and Daniel were joined by Council member Maurice Jones in voting down a motion from Council member Mac Morrow to schedule a vote on the proposed ordinance next month.

They instead sent the issue back to the Council’s Public Safety Committee, which Morrow chairs. City staff was also directed to work with The Haven and other relevant organizations to come up with a broader policy to address homelessness.

There was little indication in Jordan’s remarks that the city is experiencing a surge in homelessness. But as the city has built more parks in recent years, said City Attorney Mack McKeller, there is an “increase in the public space that the city owns.”

Some of this could be “conducive to camping, thereby removing the property from public use,” he said. And several speakers referred to a recent call for an ambulance to treat a person sleeping near the community garden at Tannery Skate Park.

Jordan said the ordinance was needed to add clarity for his officers when approaching such encampments, allowing them to say with certainty that tents and other shelters are not allowed on public land.

Dinkins brought up existing city or state laws that already allow officers to approach homeless people — rules against public intoxication, public urination and accessing parks after dusk.

All that is true, McKeller said, but this law was specifically directed at tents and other shelters that remain on the property.

Whatever measures the Public Safety Committee comes up with to control such encampments in the future, they almost certainly won’t include criminal charges.

Baker called the now-dead proposal “not good . . . not moral . . . (and) wrong.” He said even considering such a law could taint the city’s reputation in the public eye.

“I don’t want people to think this is how we operate,” he said. “I don’t want my name anywhere near this.”

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