The Tacoma City Council will consider an amendment to the city’s public-camping ban that will expand the areas in which people living unhoused are prohibited from camping.
In October 2022, the Tacoma City Council passed an ordinance that prohibits camping and the storage of personal belongings in a 10-block radius around temporary shelters and all public property within 200 feet of Tacoma’s rivers, waterways, creeks, streams and shorelines. Under the ordinance, violators face fines of up to $250 and up to 30 days in jail.
On Oct. 1, City Council member John Hines proposed an amendment to the ordinance which expands additional buffers prohibiting encampments within 10 blocks of permanent shelters, temporary shelters and transitional housing as well as a five-block buffer zones from public schools, parks and libraries…