The Des Moines City Council has passed a set of ordinances aimed at preventing people who are homeless from staying on public property.
The ordinances make sleeping or camping in many public places, including in vehicles, punishable by a $15 fine. They also lower the number of days before the city can clear an encampment from 10 days to three.
City officials have said the measures are meant to urge unhoused residents to use services such as shelters. Some businesses were in support of the changes, including representatives from Flynn Wright and Ruan Transportation, who cited safety as a concern for their employees working in downtown offices.
Opponents of the plan, including the ACLU of Iowa and the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP, have said threatening people who are homeless with fines and removing their possessions from public areas is “inhumane” and could make the problems worse.
Although the ordinances were passed this week, they have not taken full effect. Mayor Connie Boesen said the ordinances will not take effect until the city meets a list of directives, but the city has not established a timeline for when those will be met.
How does it work?
The camping ordinance prohibits sleeping on public sidewalks, streets and doorways. It also bans sleeping in pedestrian and vehicular entrances and prohibits camping under bridges and on benches, sidewalks, streets and parks.
The city must post a 24-hour notice before removing a campsite and must store the items from it for no less than 30 days. Within the 24 hours, the city must inform a local agency of the campsite.
In the code, a campsite is any place where bedding, a sleeping bag, other bedding material, or a stove or fire is placed for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live. It also includes tents, lean-tos, shacks or vehicles.
The other ordinance changes city code related to the removal of encroachments, or “any structures, tents, or other shelter materials left on property that is owned/leased and maintained by the City of Des Moines,” according to the city website.
Previously, the city issued a 10-day notice before Neighborhood Services removed it. With the change to three days, the window to file a written appeal to the city clerk is subsequently lowered from 10 days to three days. An individual can also file an appeal with the city clerk up to 30 days after a removal.
Compared to the old form of the ordinance regarding encroachments, the new changes also add a storage component, stating that the items removed by the city will be stored for at least 30 days.
What happens if someone is found sleeping in a banned area?
At a work session last week, the council said outreach workers with the homeless service provider Primary Health Care (PHC) would be the first point of contact for individuals found camping or sleeping on public property.
PHC is not listed in the ordinance language. However, the camping ban states the city “shall inform a local agency” of the location of the campsite when the 24 hour notice before removal is posted.
PHC workers will have vehicles as part of their outreach efforts to help transport people to shelters or to storage locations if someone’s property was removed by the city. And, according to the ordinance language, a police officer shall offer a one-time transport “as time allows” to the shelter location or provide directions to the shelter location to a person who is camping and sleeping on public property.
“The PHC worker is doing more than trying to get them to go to the shelter,” Assistant City Manager Malcolm Hankins told IPR News. “They're engaging with folks to develop relationships or to continue relationships that they already have with folks that they've engaged with this time. Sometimes these things are not as simple as [going] to the shelter or not.”
How is the ordinance enforced if a person doesn’t move?
Under the prohibited camping ordinance, someone who refuses to accept shelter space and does not stop camping would be in “non-compliance,” and would be violating the ordinances. If someone removed their campsite or left the campsite, they would not be penalized, according to Hankins.
The prohibited camping ordinance explicitly excludes minors from being penalized and also specifically excludes imprisonment as a penalty.
However, who would report a violation to police after PHC workers visit—and when—is not clear. In an email, Major McTaggart, from the Des Moines Police Department, said “Council and City staff are currently working through scenarios like this and are determining a process.”
McTaggart also said arrests are possible for violating the camping ban.
“Refusal to stop camping would result in the issuance of a citation,” said McTaggart in an email. “In most cases, if the person refuses to move, they would be arrested at that time, however, there are scenarios in which they would not be arrested, and City staff is still working through those and determining a process.”
According to McTaggart, if a citation is issued and the person pays the fine and vacates the campsite, they would not need to go to court. However, McTaggart said there will still be a record of the citation issued and the fine paid.
If someone does not pay the fine, the citation issued would have a court date to appear before a district court judge. If convicted, the individual would be charged with a simple misdemeanor and fined $15.
“This is considered a simple misdemeanor, but that is no different than a speeding ticket on their record,” City Manager Scott Sanders said at the council meeting this week.
For campsites, the city can remove items within 24 hours after the notice was posted. The city specifies that items will be stored for no less than 30 days but other items can be discarded. Weapons, drug paraphernalia, “items appearing to be stolen” and “evidence of a crime” can be retained by the city.
Tents and structures, deemed “encroachments” by the city, can be removed after three days of the city posting a notice. If the owner does not file an appeal with the city clerk before removal, their items will be moved to city storage for at least 30 days.
What happens if a person can’t pay the fine?
If shelter space is “unavailable or impracticable” or the person cannot afford the fine, a judge can decide the individual has an affirmative defense, meaning the person would not be held legally liable.
Hankins said the priority is for PHC workers to engage with homeless individuals. However, the ordinance language does not stipulate a PHC worker must be the first point of contact.
“Whenever the affirmative defense would apply, that would just simply say the enforcement elements of the ordinance, or the fine piece of the ordinance, would not apply,” said Hankins. “There's still going to be an effort to engage individuals with services and opportunities to receive what they need to move forward outside of where they might be stationed – in other words, to help them to get off of the street.”
Originally the ordinance required community service in order for the charge to be decided as an affirmative defense. The version that passed excludes the community service requirement.
According to Hankins, even if space is “unavailable and impracticable in the shelter,” the city would still post a notice that a campsite needs to be moved within 24 hours.
What else is happening with the ordinances?
The city established seven directives they planned to implement before passing the ordinances. Mayor Connie Boesen said the ordinances will not go into effect until the city meets them:
- Work with shelter operators to reduce barriers - As of Sept. 13, Hankins said the city has not established a schedule for meetings with shelter providers.
- Establish an agreement to shelter animals of individuals while they seek emergency shelter - According to Hankins, the ARL has voluntarily agreed to this partnership with no financial compensation currently.
- Identify secured personal storage options for people experiencing homelessness - Removed encroachments will be stored at the Municipal Services Center II at 1700 Maury Center. Individuals will have one-time access to their belongings stored there for at least 30 days. According to Sanders, the city also plans to place long-term storage units next to shelters.
- Establish a process to make transportation available from campsites to emergency shelter for individuals interested in entering emergency shelters - Primary Health Care workers will provide transportation to emergency shelters. The ordinance language also states that “a police officer shall offer a one-time transport as time allows to the shelter location or provide directions to the shelter location.”
- Add public restrooms in city parking garages - The city installed two temporary restrooms in two parking garages downtown that will later be replaced with permanent restrooms based on usage.
- Have four outreach workers to engage with people experiencing homelessness in Des Moines and provide services to those individuals - The city is giving Primary Health Care $300,000 to hire three more full-time outreach staff members, in part funded by Operation Downtown and an anonymous donor. Primary Health Care currently employs one outreach staff member.
- Hire a hearing officer to expedite hearings in a shorter time frame - The hearing officer will hear appeals regarding the removal of personal property but will not hear charges against prohibited camping, according to Hankins.
A need for housing
According to the city manager’s office, the city has added 770 affordable units in the past five years and has approved federal grant funding in the past two fiscal years for four more affordable housing projects. Forty of those units are reserved for formerly homeless tenants.
Shelby Ridley, the director of programs for PHC, told the city council that many of the city’s affordable housing developments are inaccessible to homeless clients who fall below the required income limits.
“When we talk about affordable units that you're incentivizing I would really encourage you to look at units under 50%, under 30% [of area median income],” said Ridley. “ I know that’s hard – the funding stack on that is incredibly challenging, but even if we had a few units in every building that we have accessible for us, we can find people who meet criteria.”
A report from Homeward, an organization that coordinates homeless services in Polk County, and the nonprofit Housing Innovations found that an additional investment of $19.65 million is needed annually for rehousing, rental assistance, emergency housing and other services in order for homeless individuals and families to become permanently housed in Polk County.
Why would someone not want to go to a shelter?
Crowding and sanitation concerns, safety and perceptions of some shelter staff as not caring or unhelpful were some of the top deterrents keeping people away from shelters in Des Moines, according to a study carried out by Drake University and community partners on unsheltered persons in Des Moines.
Curfews, limited access to personal devices and inconsistent enforcement of rules also made shelters unappealing for respondents.
“For a lot of folks, being around that many other people doesn't work well for them,” Ridley told IPR News. “If somebody is sober, being around people who are potentially using might not work for them. If they have a lot of mental health [issues], being around 100 other people might not work.”
Angie Arthur, executive director of Homeward, said being separated from a partner in a shelter or potentially encountering past abusers can deter people from going to a shelter. Limits on how long people can stay at shelters can time people out and make it difficult for them to stay in one place consistently.
Bethel Mission men’s shelter provides 60 days free per calendar year and then charges $5 a day after that, said a spokesperson for Hope Ministries. Central Iowa Shelter and Services, the largest emergency shelter in Des Moines, currently has a 90 day limit on first time stays before clients need to wait another 90 days before a second stay of 60 days, with a possibility of extension.
Do shelters have space for more people?
In Des Moines, there are 210 beds available for men, 50 beds for women and nine beds for youth (ages 18-24) across Central Iowa Shelter & Services (CISS), Hope Ministries Bethel Mission and Iowa Homeless Youth Center (IHYC), not including overflow, which includes the floor, cots or chairs.
CISS currently has 150 emergency shelter beds, but shelters 190 people every night through overflow, Amber Tompkins, vice president of operations told IPR.
Tompkins said CISS is not making any additional arrangements to prepare for more people from the bans other than the plans they put in place for summer and winter weather amnesty.
“We really try to stay ready for people at any time and we have those schedules ready and available,” Tompkins said. “We are just staying the course – we will continue to serve people and meet people where they’re at."
There are also 18 family rooms for emergency shelter at Families Forward and Catholic Charities Family Shelter. Bethel Mission and CISS both take walk-ins, but IHYC and the family shelters both require going through an intake process and entering a waitlist through PHC first.
At a September work session, Ridley told the city council the PHC waitlist for housing, which includes rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing, currently has 750 people. She said based on current program capacity in Polk County, only 15% of the people on the waiting list will be referred to a program since “funding doesn’t grow from year to year typically.”
Ridley said that despite concerns over the impacts of the ordinances, clients will remain their top priority.
“It's been a challenge as a homeless service provider, because we want to break down barriers,” said Ridley. “But we also live within the reality of, you know, we still show up to serve people every day.”