Des Moines City Council Must Reject Fines for Sleeping Outside

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Bans are useful, but they often give the appearance of taking determined action against certain behaviors at the expense of more difficult work to combat their causes.

The Register’s editorial commentary
| Des Moines Register

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  • Fines for camping in public places may be legal, but that doesn’t make them useful
  • A rushed timeline for approving rule changes is unnecessary
  • A larger approach requires more help from the suburbs

The city of Des Moines appears set to make an unwise change of course in the way it treats its homeless residents on Monday.

The public resources available to help people without permanent shelter are inadequate, in Des Moines or almost anywhere else in the country. But cities face another, separate problem: difficulty convincing some homeless people to use the services that are available.

Des Moines is proposing a series of new ordinances that would allow fines to be imposed in an effort to get more people to accept going to shelters. Some advocates said after the city made the proposal public that there is little reason to expect it to work, and plenty of reason to think it is morally wrong.

It would be better for the city to remove this policy change from the current fast track, which could get final approval at a meeting early Monday that was announced late Thursday. And it would be best for the city to eliminate the fines then and focus solely on improving service.

Fines for camping in public places may be legal, but that doesn’t make them useful

The proposed changes for Des Moines would:

  • Make it illegal to sleep on public property. Violators could be “immediately removed from the property,” offered transportation to a shelter, and fined $50 for a misdemeanor.
  • Shorten the notice period the city must give before clearing encampments. The city says it will hold valuables it finds for 30 days without charge.

The legislation was released 20 days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Oregon city could arrest and punish people for camping in public without violating the Constitution. The ruling intensified the debate over “criminalizing homelessness,” but lost in that discussion is whether criminal penalties are effective in better connecting homeless residents to services.

On the one hand, “in practice, this will only create more barriers to housing and further contribute to the current housing crisis,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa said in a letter to council members.

On the other hand, “The council has long been a leader in services and affordable housing,” said Councilman Chris Coleman in an interview Sunday, citing a number of affordable housing projects that have been approved and are in the works. “Now it’s time for us to make sure that the homeless in our community know that this great safety net was created by the generous people of Des Moines, and we’re begging them to use it. It was created for them.”

Service providers say that criminal sanctions are not supported by research. We recognize that bans have their uses, but too often they can give the appearance of decisive action against behavior at the expense of harder work to address the causes of that behavior.

Some hardliners might imagine a scenario in which taking $50 from a drug addict’s wallet is an involuntary step toward sobriety and stability. But it’s considerably easier to imagine people who, for whatever reason, aren’t in shelters continuing to reject those options and simply facing new problems.

In January, a labor-intensive count showed an 11 percent year-over-year increase in homelessness in Polk County. That’s what should inform changes to city code and programming. It’s important for policymakers to make it clear that they’re responding to more than just observations that homeless residents have become more visible from vehicle and sidewalk paths.

“This is imperative,” Coleman said. “Our community is at a tipping point because we don’t have a strategy right now for how we’re going to address the growing number of homeless people in our community. And we need to sound the alarm that a plan is imperative.”

A rushed timeline for approving rule changes is unnecessary

Every bit of these changes in city policy deserves to be aired and discussed in typical city fashion. The council met on July 15 (part of the meeting was postponed due to a tornado warning) and was scheduled to meet next on the evening of August 5.

Instead, the city announced after work Thursday that the council will hear from city staff and then vote on the proposal at an unspecified time after 7:30 a.m. Monday. City Manager Scott Sanders has requested that at least six of the seven council members also vote to waive the required second and third readings.

It’s all allowed under state and city regulations. But pushing through a controversial proposal with one business day’s notice at a vague and unconventional time of day when many people are at work is a bad idea. It’s also unnecessary; the Supreme Court ruling is not an emergency that warrants extraordinary measures. Over the weekend, the council, without explanation, reduced the proposed fine for violating the new camping ordinance from $120 to $50.

Coleman said Sunday that he and Mayor Connie Boesen requested that the fine be reduced from what was originally recommended by Sanders’ office. He also noted that a provision was added that allows community service to be performed in lieu of a fine.

At the very least, council members should refuse to remove additional readings of these ordinances, so more voters can have their say before Aug. 5. Coleman said he wants Monday’s vote to require that the changes not be implemented “until these new services can be developed and created.” We welcome that clarification. Consideration of stricter enforcement in the future is justified if the city provides adequate services in advance.

Better approach requires more help from Des Moines suburbs

The Polk County Homelessness Planning Organization said this winter that more than $20 million in additional annual spending would be needed to meet the need for more shelters and affordable housing. That alone shows that improving conditions for the homeless is a multi-piece puzzle.

The suburbs also need to step up. A regional effort is needed to make shelters and other services more attractive and to increase the stock of affordable housing in the metro.

Des Moines shouldn’t be the only one to be criticized for considering fines for public camping. A Register investigation found that existing ordinances in several cities, including Ankeny and Waukee, specify the possibility of fines for violating their camping rules. They go unnoticed because homeless residents are concentrated in the capital city.

As with many aspects of regional governance, suburban governments should not be allowed to profit from Des Moines’ unique attractions without contributing financially and in other ways to addressing the burdens the city faces.

Those are considerations for later. Des Moines is supposed to slow down on Monday, so it may be a while before we hear from all sides how the city can best help disadvantaged residents find suitable housing while treating everyone with dignity and respect.

Lucas Grundmeier, on behalf of the editorial board of the Register

This editorial is the opinion of the Des Moines Register Editorial Board: Carol Hunter, Editor in Chief; Lucas Grundmeier, Opinion Editor; and Richard Doak and Rox Laird, Editorial Board Members.

Want more opinions? Read other perspectives with our free newsletter or visit us at DesMoinesRegister.com/opinion. Respond to an opinion by submitting a letter to the editor at DesMoinesRegister.com/letters.

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