The Impact
House Bill 1380 would create a new way to challenge local laws that limit access to public spaces for people without shelter.
Homelessness is an issue affecting tens of thousands of people in Washington living out of vehicles, tents, or sleeping bags in parks, on sidewalks, or roadsides. It also affects the communities around them.
Several years ago the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals ruled in Martin v. City of Boise that laws which criminalize homelessness in areas without adequate shelter space violate the 8th Amendment rights of those penalized.
In 2024, the US Supreme Court ruled in the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson that local governments are within their rights to enforce access restrictions on public property as long as they do so equally. That decision reversed the earlier case and gave a green light to cities, counties, and towns to resume or begin enforcing local prohibitions on camping on public property and related laws.
House Bill 1380, which is currently being debated in Olympia, would require any local laws that restrict sitting, lying, sleeping, or staying warm and dry outdoors on public property must be “objectively reasonable” in terms of when, where, and how they apply. The bill would also create a cause of action, based on that standard, to challenge those laws in court.
Proponents of the bill testified before the House Housing Committee that encampment sweeps can be a devastating setback for people who are working to get back into stable housing.
One concern raised by HB 1380 opponents during testimony was whether the “objectively reasonable” standard is too vague, and would leave towns and counties wide open to lawsuits.
After two rounds of heated testimony from supporters and opponents, the bill advanced out of the House Housing Committee in January.
During an interview at TVW on The Impact, Rep. Mia Gregerson (D-SeaTac) weighed in on why she sponsored the legislation.
“I think there always are competing interests. And I think that kind of gets back to the reason why we’re having such a hard time solving this problem,” said Gregerson. ”I want to talk about the solutions, about the interconnectedness of all these pieces of legislation that will end up being in a net positive for the people that are we are failing right now, and those are the people who are being forced to survive in public. Some cities are trying to solve the problem and some cities are not. It’s very clear. So what we want to do is we want to get everyone on the same page to try to have some sort of goalposts.”
Rep. Cyndy Jacobsen (R-Puyallup) offered a different perspective on the bill.
I don’t think it’s kind for us to normalize looking away at someone who is camping on public property. I think we do need to get them into treatment, and we do need to provide them options. But we have to have this tool in our toolbox because there are some people who, even when we’re providing beds, are refusing the beds, and we need to have cities be able to have reasonable regulations,” said Jacobsen. “People are tired of worrying about their kids walking to school and stepping on a needle or being exposed to something that they shouldn’t be exposed to. We’ve got to have some sort of give and take on this issue. “