Rep. Joe Salazar.
D-Commerce City
The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday came down on the side of Colorado’s homeless people and state Rep. Joe Salazar of Thornton in a 17-page statement about an urban camping ban in Boise, Idaho.
The Obama administration filed a “statement of interest” in a federal court case about the constitutional rights of homeless people to find a place to sleep, which also counters the urban camping bans Denver and other Colorado cities have imposed in recent years.
Salazar and fellow Democratic Rep. Jovan Melton of Aurora tried and in the last session, and Salazar has vowed to keeping pushing the issue in the next session.
The activist group Colorado Homeless Out Loud released a statement Thursday from Democratic Sen. John Kefalas of Fort Collins, the Senate sponsor of Salazar’s bill.
“I am glad to see the federal Department of Justice weigh in on this vital human and constitutional rights issue, and I believe it will be helpful to our efforts to end the practice of arresting and citing people for resting or sharing food, which are not malicious, violent, or criminal behaviors but are actually acts of survival,” he said.
The letter carries no direct bearing on the case of but “it does tell the courts and most importantly, local governments, that the Justice Department of the U.S. government holds a legal opinion that to criminalize homelessness is cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of constitutional rights,” Colorado Homeless Out Loud said in its statement.
The 2009 lawsuit was filed on behalf of Janet Bell and five other homeless people against the city and its police department after they were arrested for camping on public property.
“This recent move greatly underscores how important it is to pass he Right to Rest Act in California, Oregon, and Colorado,” the group stated. “Legislation in all three states has been introduced to roll back the policy strategy used by most cities to cite and arrest for sleeping or resting in public. It will free up resources to invest instead in housing and other real solutions towards ending homelessness. The case in Boise may prove to be the start of the tide turning back against the abuses homeless people have suffered.”
The city of Denver, which passed an urban camping ban in 2012, opposed Salazar’s bill.
Regina Huerter, executive director of Denver’s Crime Prevention and Control Commission, told a House committee in April that homeless people get a ticket only after they’ve refused services, including direction to temporary housing, as well as mental health and substance abuse treatment, from officers trained in dealing with homelessness.
“We do not believe this bill helps the homeless,” she said of .
The Justice Department’s full .
