To Jeffrey Dickerson, Grants Pass, Oregon is a magnet.
“Every time I tried to leave,” he said with a laugh, “it pulled me back. I love it here.”
Dickerson grew up in Grants Pass and had jobs in construction until 2006, when he became disabled and unable to work, court records show. He told Streetlight in February that he became displaced last year when the house where he was renting a room changed ownership, forcing him out.
Since then, he’s struggled to find housing he can afford on a fixed income. Dickerson wound up staying at one of Grants Pass’ campsites for unsheltered people—a gravel lot next to the Grants Pass Police Department on Seventh Street and one of the only places where people experiencing homelessness could camp in town. The campsites have since become the subject of a Josephine County Circuit Court lawsuit and court orders preventing Grants Pass from fully enforcing its camping ban policies.
According to the lawsuit, Dickerson fell on the Seventh Street lot because of the gravel surface, which he found especially difficult to navigate using his cane.
“It was a challenge. I dreaded it—getting out of my tent and going to the bathroom,” Dickerson said. “Sometimes I couldn’t make it.”
He stayed at the Seventh Street lot four months, he said, and left in January, when the city stopped allowing daytime camping.
“I couldn’t do that,” he said of a now scrapped requirement that people camping in the lot leave every morning with their belongings. “I’m not physically able to do that.”
In their suit against the city, Dickerson, four other unsheltered residents and Disability Rights Oregon allege Grants Pass’ camping ban policies discriminate against people with disabilities and break a state law setting limits on local camping bans. Like Dickerson, two of the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit use a mobility aid, according to court documents.
On Friday, the court granted a preliminary injunction blocking Grants Pass from enforcing most of its camping ban policies until the case is resolved or the city makes key changes to its campsite program.
The restriction follows years of Grants Pass attempting to address homelessness by policing unsheltered people and shirking suggestions to spend taxpayer money on homeless services that help many communities get people off the streets and into housing. That journey took Grants Pass to the Supreme Court last year, where the city won a landmark case that led to a wave of camping bans across the country.
Grants Pass has lightened one of its policies that prompted the lawsuit and injunction, allowing camping for up to four days at its sanctioned campsites, but the city council has previously been unreceptive to making two changes that would allow the injunction to be lifted. Those two things are increasing campsite capacity and addressing accessibility issues at the camps that the city has known about since last year.
On Monday, Streetlight sent an email to Mayor Clint Scherf seeking an interview on how the city will approach making those changes and why the council is considering an ordinance on Wednesday that would allow the city to track nonprofits’ outreach to unsheltered people, including when and where they provide things like food and clothing.
Scherf said by email: “I have read some of your publication, and what I have read seems to be very biased and (borderline) propaganda. Sorry to say, it is really hard for me to feel comfortable giving you a full interview.”
He added that he, the council and the city “are working in the best interest to preserve the safety of the community we serve. Our community is very concerned about public safety and lawlessness directly associated with the homeless within their community. The mayor’s and council’s action to address this current situation will be directed by the goal of protecting the safety of the community we serve.”
Tom Stenson, deputy legal director for Disability Rights Oregon, said the order issuing the injunction lays out a roadmap for Grants Pass’ next steps.
“It still gives the city a lot of room to decide exactly where they want people to be or how they want them to be set up,” Stenson said.
A mayor and councilors elected in November on promises to limit public spending on homelessness now face conflicting pressures as separate as oil and water: How can they make the injunction go away while satisfying vocal conservative voters who hate the idea of taxpayer dollars going toward homeless services?
Campsite capacity and accessibility are key to the injunction being lifted
In its order granting the injunction, the court ruled that Grants Pass’ camping ban policies don’t meet state law requiring camping regulations to be “objectively reasonable” to people experiencing homelessness. The ruling cited two reasons: The city’s campsites are inaccessible to people with disabilities, and they don’t have capacity for enough tents to meet the need.
Under the injunction, Grants Pass can’t cite, fine or prosecute people for camping on most public property or remove people from campsites, but the court allowed a few exceptions. The city can still enforce its ban at Riverside Park, Reinhardt Volunteer Park and on sidewalks, streets and alleys.
[ Read more: Grants Pass closed one of its two campsites, effectively banning camping during the day ]
Grants Pass police can also cite people for trespassing on city property where camping isn’t allowed. That misdemeanor can carry penalties of up to 30 days in jail and a fine up to $1,250, court records show.
Since early February, a temporary restraining order similar to the injunction had blocked Grants Pass from fully enforcing its camping ban policies.
In response, the city increased its campsite capacity to 90 tents after councilors voted to reopen the Sixth and A site near city hall, but that fell short of their attorney’s recommendation to bring the total number of campsites up to at least three, court records show.
The city “rejected that advice while acknowledging that in doing so, it would likely be prolonging litigation,” Circuit Court Judge Sarah E. McGlaughlin wrote in her order. “Without sufficient explanation or any notable decrease in the estimated population of 600 homeless persons in Grants Pass, a reduction from 150 to 90 is not objectively reasonable considering the number of other properties available and the city’s previous ability to sustain them.”
After its Supreme Court win last year, city councilors faced mounting public pressure to expel unsheltered residents from Grants Pass parks—and an upcoming election. In August, the council restricted camping to two city properties, forcing unsheltered people out of the parks.
November’s election brought Scherf and four new councilors to the city government. At their first meeting in January, they scaled back the campsite program and canceled a grant that would have created the city’s first low-barrier shelter.
Later that month, Grants Pass stopped allowing unsheltered residents to camp during the day by shutting down its J Street campsite and restricting the Seventh Street campground to overnight hours.
According to court records, closing the J Street campsite left Grants Pass with space for 30 tents for unsheltered people.
During the February meeting when councilors voted to reopen the Sixth and A lot to camping, the council departed from an earlier plan to add two additional campsites—124 Northwest Midland Ave. and 601 Southeast I St.
Councilor Indra Nicholas, who was elected in November, initially pledged to vote against all the locations, citing the costs and her constituents’ opposition to spending taxpayer funds on the campsite program.
“I don’t feel comfortable picking and choosing who to put the homeless sites by,” she said. “I don’t think that’s my responsibility. … When you pick sites, you’re saying, ‘Welcome to Grants Pass,’ to anyone who wants to come, and as we’ve seen, it just grows and gets worse, and I want it to get better.”
Councilor Rob Pell, who joined the council in 2021, suggested the Sixth Street lot, saying the judge didn’t mandate a specific number of sites and countering the idea that selecting campsites wasn’t part of their duties as councilors.
“Anyone who would vote no on doing something tonight is essentially voting yes on keeping them in the parks and not getting out of the restraining order,” Pell said.
“I maybe could go with A Street as long as it was walled off, not visible to people driving down Sixth Street,” Nicholas said later, “because that is a main corridor where tourists and such go through. We need to worry about economic growth.”
Councilors Victoria Marshall and Erich Schloegl, who were both elected in November, questioned adding just one campsite, given the city’s legal advice to have at least three.
“So if we make it two,” Schloegl said, “then essentially what we’re doing is we’re kind of prolonging this to later on eventually agree to do three. Is (that) what it comes down to?”
“I can’t give you a straight answer, but that is an absolute possibility,” Scherf said.
[ Earlier: Grants Pass, Oregon plans to build city-funded campsites without knowing how much they’ll cost ]
Marshall was the only councilor who voted against adding Sixth and A, expressing concern that not following the city’s legal advice could result in an injunction.
“It is very important for counselors to consider that everything will be out of our control if our temporary restraining order is moved into an injunction,” she said, adding, “That would be everything people are seeing right now for two to three years.”
During a workshop to identify more potential campsites nine days earlier, City Manager Aaron Cubic, who didn’t respond to an email seeking an interview, mentioned that the Sixth and A lot didn’t address accessibility issues and “might not” increase capacity because of an upcoming roofing project that will fill half the lot with supplies.
Six out of seven councilors said they supported removing the Sixth Street property from the list of possible campsites.
Grants Pass doesn’t have a policy for giving reasonable accommodations to unsheltered people with disabilities who stay at the city’s campsites
Several unsheltered residents with disabilities have told Streetlight since last year that they were only able to move from one camp to another with assistance from service providers. Some received citations under the camping ban because they couldn’t move on their own.
In the first six months after the city started its campsites, Grants Pass police have cited dozens of people for unlawful camping, court records show. Among those cited was Darren Starnes, who told Streetlight last year that he is disabled and received two citations because he didn’t move from the J Street lot to the other campground.
In a letter outlining her ruling, McGlaughlin wrote that requiring people to move after four days, plus a three-day notice, meets time requirements under the state camping ban law. But is that enough time for someone with a disability to leave the site?
“It may vary a lot from one disability to another,” Stenson said, adding that Grants Pass doesn’t have a policy for providing reasonable accommodations for its camping bans.
[ Read more: Camping bans get a green light from the Supreme Court ]
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, accommodations modify systems or processes to ensure people with disabilities have equal opportunity and access to things like government services and employment.
“In light of the decision,” Stenson said, “they’re still entitled to request reasonable accommodations from the city.”
When Dickerson, the plaintiff in the lawsuit against Grants Pass, spoke to Streetlight in February, a winter storm was pelting the city with snow, ice and freezing temperatures. In the week and a half after leaving the Seventh Street lot, Dickerson said he’d stayed in a motel “and whatever I can do in between” to avoid staying outside.
“There’s people that want to be out there, and that’s their choice,” he said, “but people are out there by no choice. We need a little bit more help.”
Contact Streetlight editor Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 or bryant@streetlightnews.org. Follow her reporting on Bluesky or by joining our newsletter.
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