The next front in the war over homelessness is on the Arizona ballot

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In November, Arizona voters will decide on Proposition 312, a ballot measure that would allow property owners to claim a tax refund for costs they’ve incurred to address people illegally camping, using drugs, or defecating in public.

The measure was put forth by critics of the homelessness policies of many Arizona cities, and can be understood by looking at two legal standoffs over unhoused camping in public spaces. One was a massive encampment in Phoenix called “The Zone,” which, at its peak, was home to over 1,000 unhoused people. The other: a mostly dry riverbed in Tucson called Navajo Wash.

Over the past few years, dozens of unhoused people have taken up camp in a city-owned section of Navajo Wash, which was once dotted with palo verde and mesquite trees that provided some relief from the scorching desert sun. But some neighbors cut many of them down, without the city’s approval, leaving behind over 50 twisted stumps scattered across the patch of land. Those same neighbors later sued the city, demanding the camps be forcibly dismantled. The neighbors claimed they were “negatively impacted by the masses of garbage and human waste.”

Tucson does not have a policy of clearing every homeless encampment following complaints. Instead, camps that don’t pose public safety risks are allowed to stay. The city helps remove trash, offers services and monitors the encampment. Law enforcement is only called to encampments when there are reports of violent or criminal activity, which are then swept away.

In court, Tucson’s lawyers insisted the city’s handling of Navajo Wash was adequate. City workers had handed out basic supplies like backpacks, tarps, food and water. They cleaned up trash at the site and referred people to services steering them toward a shelter or permanent living situation. The court agreed, ruling that the city adequately abated the “nuisance” without forcibly clearing people away.

Tucson’s strategy of dealing with homelessness by getting people into permanent housing while offering voluntary services follows a widely-used model called Housing First. This model avoids requiring people to complete programs or meet other preconditions to get housing resources. Its advocates cite research showing this approach increases the likelihood of people remaining in stable housing, accessing medical care and receiving substance abuse treatment.

However, a growing conservative backlash is taking aim at this philosophy, both by removing encampments like the one at Navajo Wash and opposing the underlying policies they blame for allowing the camps to exist. Instead, they’re pushing cities to use the criminal justice system to bear down on homelessness, despite resistance from police and prosecutors who say the problem can’t be arrested away. They want cities to use criminal enforcement as a way to apply pressure to get unhoused people into treatment and off the streets.

Republican legislators put Proposition 312 on the ballot. The measure would allow property owners to claim a tax refund for costs they’ve incurred when cities maintain a “public nuisance” or show a pattern of not enforcing laws frequently invoked against unhoused people, like loitering or obstructing public thoroughfares. The legislation does not define what reasonable expenses could include, but proponents of the measure cite private security, surveillance systems and cleanups. No Democrats in the state legislature supported the measure, which cannot be vetoed if approved by voters.

By allowing penalties for governments who use Housing First strategies, Proposition 312 advances this ongoing, nationwide effort to dial up law enforcement as a response to homelessness. But critics worry the shift will strain resources and punish a population that needs support, ultimately proving counterproductive to getting people off the streets and into stable housing.

Legal precedent has long held that it is not a crime to be homeless—though many cities had laws like bans on sleeping in public which were difficult or impossible to follow when unhoused. Until recently, a federal appellate court ruling provided legal guardrails, saying that, “as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.”

But this summer, in its ruling on City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down those protections, clearing the way for policies and court battles pushing the country toward a more punitive handling of homeless encampments.

In the ruling’s wake, state and local leaders nationwide have proved eager to ramp up tactics. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, for example, issued an executive order, within a month of the ruling, authorizing sweeps on state-owned land. And in recent months, cities from Spokane, Washington, to Des Moines, Iowa, have added or expanded their own camping bans or resumed enforcement of existing ones. The Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based think tank, submitted legal briefs in Grants Pass arguing that Housing First fails because many individuals do not want housing, “at least, not at the cost of giving up their addictions or other poor lifestyle choices.” The organization suggested cities could arrest and incarcerate unhoused people to compel them to treat underlying issues.

“Allowing people to live on the streets or in tents in a park is not a compassionate response to the problem,” Goldwater argued. “A compassionate response would consist of providing people with the care they need — including taking them into custody against their will if they are incapable of managing themselves.”

Before it interceded in the Supreme Court case, the Goldwater Institute supported plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to clear The Zone, the large Phoenix encampment that sat between a cluster of county buildings and the state capital complex. Then it brought legislation to Republican Arizona State Senate President Warren Petersen, who helped it through the legislature, and onto the state’s November ballot as Proposition 312.

Representatives from the Goldwater Institute declined to comment, but supporters of Proposition 312 say the goal is to compensate property owners who have spent money due to their city’s inadequate response to homelessness and prevent the development of more large-scale encampments like The Zone.

“Prop 312 gives us hope that not only will the City of Phoenix not allow another ‘Zone’ to happen, but if so, there would be some compensation for small businesses like ours,” Debbie and Joe Faillace, former owners of a sandwich shop next to the encampment and plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the city, wrote in support of the measure.

Proposition 312 does not clearly define what kinds of remedies are adequate to keep cities off the hook. According to Sheriff Chris Nanos in Pima County (Tucson), law enforcement responds to practically all nuisance complaints — but not always to the liking of residents and neighboring businesses.

“The law does not say you must take them to the county jail every time. Once you call us, it is our choice. We look at it and consider, do we need to take them to jail for urinating on the side of a building, or do we need to give them a ticket, or do we just tell them to get out of here?” Nanos said. “I think they really want to force the hand of government to do what they want. But you cannot arrest away homelessness.”

The sheriffs who run the state’s largest jail systems, including Pima and Maricopa Counties, have overseen facilities marred by overcrowding, poor conditions and a streak of deaths. Jails are already straining to provide mental health and addiction resources for detainees, whose needs outpace the availability of services, Nanos said.

Josh Jacobsen, a business owner and co-chair of the Tucson Crime Free Coalition, a group backing Proposition 312, insisted that the goal isn’t frequent sweeps, which, Jacobsen says, are harmful to the unhoused and do nothing to curb homelessness. Instead, he thinks the city should make arrests, so the criminal justice system can forcefully guide people toward services.

“With the right amount of pressure, something can be done about it,” Jacobsen said. “The goal is that with the right touch, you can get people to take advantage of services.”

The county runs several diversion programs, including a specialty court for addressing homelessness, which allow minor charges to be dropped after meeting certain conditions, such as completing an addiction recovery program, though prosecutors warn those programs have limited space.

In most cases, there is little police can do to meaningfully address nuisance complaints tied to homelessness, said Joe Clure, a retired officer and executive director of the Arizona Police Association, a professional group representing police labor organizations in the state.

“You do have to manage your human police resources to be most advantageous to community safety. Whether or not that is aggressively going after homeless nuisance violations — that probably would be better left to somebody else than police,” Clure said. “When there is a potential loss of revenue, governments take that very seriously. It probably would move those types of violations up on the priority list. … We will have to be more enforcement-minded.”

“I think they know that mental illness does not cause homelessness,” said Will Knight, decriminalization director at the National Homelessness Law Center. He points instead to issues like stagnating wages, high housing costs and low housing vacancy rates. “But it's a real easy myth to sell because of what's the most visible parts of homelessness to most people in the community, who also themselves feel uncomfortable seeing it.”

For decades, The Zone has been home to unsheltered people, but in recent years, a growing number slept on streets and sidewalks, in tents and other shelters cobbled together from palettes and tarps. Critics of Phoenix’s handling of The Zone accused the city of not enforcing laws against camping, obstructing thoroughfares and using illegal drugs—the same kinds of offenses whose non-enforcement would allow rebates under Proposition 312.

Last fall, officials cleared The Zone from downtown after business and property owners, represented by the same law firm that led litigation to clear Navajo Wash, sued the city over lost business, employees and property value. Precisely how that encampment was dismantled was shaped by two major forces—one from inside the city’s bureaucracy and one from Washington, D.C.

In 2021, the Justice Department announced an investigation into the Phoenix Police Department, not just for use of force and discriminatory policing, but, for the first time for any department, also how police handled unhoused people’s belongings. The investigation, released earlier this year, found city officials seized and destroyed unhoused people’s property without adequate notice or recourse. Police, who previously played a major role in encampment sweeps and cleanings, also regularly stopped, detained and arrested unhoused people—even when there wasn’t evidence of any crime.

While the investigation was underway, Phoenix created a new Office of Homeless Solutions in 2022. It expanded shelter capacity and developed a protocol for storing unattended property. This new office oversaw The Zone’s clearing.

The office cleared the encampment block-by-block, giving advance notice and connecting people with shelter, Rachel Milne, the city’s Homeless Solutions Director told Phoenix City Council in September. The city worked in a “humane and compassionate manner, offering everyone an indoor alternative place,” Milne said.

“In many circumstances, we are really reevaluating what public safety means,” Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said at a September city council meeting. Many calls for service that had gone to police now go to the Office of Homeless Solutions, a shift she said was called for by both progressive activists and police. “Sometimes the best person to offer help to a person isn’t an armed officer, but a social worker or mental health expert,” Gallego said.

Even as the city tested this new approach, Maria Walter, an unhoused person who lived in The Zone, felt disrupted as she wondered where to go next as city officials cleared the area.

“It doesn’t feel good. I don’t feel any safety,” said Walter, who was one of the hundreds who had to leave as the city finished its months-long dismantling of The Zone.

In its final weeks, soon-to-be former residents tried to gather their belongings while city workers swept up what they left behind. On some already cleared blocks, people returned to sleep on the sidewalk, covered by cheap blankets, like the kind used to pad furniture when moving.

As the city cleared the last block, people wheeled their belongings out in carts. Those headed to a shelter tried to fit their belongings into already overstuffed vehicles. “It’s time to drastically downsize,” a city worker advised.

Phoenix then opened a sanctioned campground for some 300 people a few blocks away from The Zone, offering meals and services on-site. This year, the city opened a new shelter that allows people to stay with pets and partners and more storage for their belongings. Phoenix plans to add over 500 shelter beds by the end of 2025.

But even with efforts to open new shelters, Arizona still faces a shortage of shelter beds and affordable housing, said Jamie Podratz, public policy advocate at the Arizona Housing Coalition. The coalition, which includes organizations and municipalities providing homeless services, opposes Proposition 312 because the refunds would take away money necessary to provide services that reduce homelessness. Emphasizing clearing encampments or enforcing nuisance laws would only displace unhoused people, and make it harder for them to access help, the coalition argues.

“What's important is what we do from here—and that's try to increase the supports available and increase the community response rather than pull away much needed resources to address it,” said Podratz.

Despite its win in the case, the legal battle over Navajo Wash pressured Tucson officials to use a firmer hand when dealing with encampments, especially since the decision has been sent to the Arizona Court of Appeals for review following the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass ruling, said Paul Gattone. A civil rights attorney who has worked on several lawsuits to block the city from displacing unhoused people, Gattone described how Tucson officials have closely monitored Navajo Wash to prevent drug use and ramped up enforcement across the city.

​​"It wasn't much of a victory for the homeless because the city is still doing sweeps,” he said.

In late September, Tucson officials cleared an encampment at Santa Rita Park, a little over a mile southeast of downtown. The park has baseball diamonds, a skatepark and a growing population of unhoused people.

Leticia Valdez organized her belongings on a cart as police and the cleanup crew assembled. She had planned to stay up all night to prepare, but was too tired. She didn’t have a plan beyond moving her belongings across the street. “It’s just a hassle,” Valdez said. ”Some people don’t have nowhere to go.”

The fight in Arizona is being replicated, in some form, across the country.

In October, Florida enacted a law conceived by the Cicero Institute, a leading critic of Housing First, banning unhoused people from camping in public and allowing residents, businesses and state prosecutors to sue cities for not quickly clearing out encampments. Like Goldwater, Cicero petitioned the Supreme Court to eliminate protections of unhoused people in the Grants Pass case.

Cicero has propagated aspects of its model legislation in states across the U.S. In Tennessee, sleeping on public property is a felony. Kentucky passed a law allowing property owners to use, in some cases, lethal force, against people shoplifting, trespassing or illegally camping. Meanwhile, presidential candidate Donald Trump has promoted camping bans except for sanctioned campgrounds.

A proposition on California's November ballot similarly uses the criminal justice system as a main tool for managing homelessness. The ballot measure ramps up criminal penalties for certain drug and theft offenses, but allows people charged with those crimes to avoid prison by completing an addiction or mental health treatment program. Breaking with Housing First advocates who hold that individuals with stable housing are more successful at treating behavioral health issues, proponents of the measure claim involuntary treatment works "because people who receive treatment have a much greater chance of staying housed," according to the campaign's website.

Gattone, the Tucson civil rights attorney, argues that displacing a person violating the law simply for living outside doesn’t fix the problem, it just moves that problem someplace else. Arizona has thousands fewer shelter beds than unhoused people, meaning there is no feasible way for cities to enforce the law without simply sweeping people from one location to another.

“The answer to homelessness is housing,” Gattone said. “People have to live somewhere. They are not going to disappear.”

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