Every Saturday, Trish Perry sets up a table with hot dogs, harm reduction kits and winter coats on Main Street in Newark. Her organization, Newark Homeless Outreach, hasn’t missed a weekend in the last six years.
This November morning, around 20 people line up to grab what they need from the table. Many of the community members in line don’t have a reliable place to live. There’s a shortage of affordable housing in Licking County and only a couple of local homeless shelter options.
“But this time of year [all the shelters] are full,” Perry said, adding peanut butter and jelly sandwiches onto the pile of food options.
So, some community members sleep outside. Under a new city ordinance, that’s illegal in the central Ohio city.
Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities can arrest or fine people experiencing homelessness for sleeping outside – even if there is no alternative shelter available. Since the federal ruling, small cities across Ohio, like Newark, have enacted measures that punish people for camping in public places.
A wave of legislative action
About a month ago, Newark city council members voted to ban sleeping outside on public property, arguing housing encampments can be a threat to public safety. Councilman Doug Marmie threw his support behind the ordinance during the October vote.
“This is a mechanism for our police to protect the citizens of Newark, Ohio,” Marmie said at the council meeting in October. “Currently someone can choose to camp between my sidewalk and my street in front of my house. And the police can do nothing.”
Now, people found guilty of camping in a park or sleeping on a public bench could be charged up to $150 in fines. If found guilty a subsequent time, they could face another $250 fine or spend up to 30 days in jail.
Similar measures have been passed in Mentor, New Philadelphia, Wilmington, Brunswick and Ashtabula, where Jane Digiacomo is a city councilor. She said encampments have disrupted downtown businesses and made some residents feel unsafe.
She doesn’t want all unsheltered homeless people in the northeast Ohio city to be charged, but she does want to see encampments cleared.
“As a city we’re making a statement: Don't come to Ashtabula if you're homeless,” Digiacomo said.
The bans’ backlash
But, those who experience housing insecurity say these measures lack compassion. One person who attended the November outreach event in Newark agreed to speak to the Ohio Newsroom on the condition of anonymity. She’s in and out of housing and has slept outside before.
Right now, she said, the homeless in Newark aren’t being seen as people.
“Nobody deserves to go to jail just because they have nowhere to go,” she said.
"Individuals who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness, they will end up in a jail cell as a repercussion for living unsheltered."Amy Riegel, director for the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio
The bans have also faced backlash from social service agencies, religious organizations and nonprofits, like Newark Homeless Outreach. Perry, the group’s director, said the new ordinance doesn’t protect the city’s residents and instead makes it harder for the most vulnerable to get back on their feet.
“If you get a misdemeanor, you can't get housing. So why would you want to give somebody a crime?” Perry said. “How about if you think all these people are stealing and robbing, why don't you arrest those people and leave the people that are just trying to get by?”
A shortage of options
Some advocates argue the bans are only addressing the symptoms of the problem, instead of tackling the lack of affordable housing.
Amy Riegel, director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, said many of the communities that are implementing bans may feel it is the only way they can address the growing unsheltered homelessness seen across the state. But, she said there are alternatives.
“We would really encourage communities to focus on how they get more units available for people to live in rather than thinking about how they find ways to house these individuals in jails or in prisons,” Riegel said.
Around 750 Ohioans in the state’s 80 non-metro counties were unsheltered on one night in January this year, according to Riegel.
City officials in Newark have promised to try to connect people to services before jail time is considered. Still, advocates like Perry and Riegel don’t want to see them fined or arrested in the first place.
