After a Lane County Circuit Court judge ruled against Eugene’s homeless, members of a dispirited Human Rights Commission work group looked for a positive anecdote.
Presenter: At the Homelessness and Poverty Work Group of the Eugene Human Rights Commission June 3, sharing one final announcement, Richard Self.
Richard Self: The Eugene Weekly focused on a discussion that we’ve had many times in this group: The city of Eugene for four years has been skirting a state law that requires unhoused people camping in public to receive a 72-hour notice and the city and police found a way to go around all the laws that were protective. Said one homeless person, age 56: ‘They found a way to criminalize homelessness.’
[00:00:33] And the law says, and we’ve discussed this many times, that 72-hour notice is required before removal of camps that are ‘established.’ So there was no definition. So city officials made up their own definition deciding any tent that had not been up for at least a day was not an established camp…