Judge Blocks Homeless Camping Restrictions in Oregon City That Won Supreme Court Challenge

The temporary restraining order against Grants Pass came days after disability rights activists sued over local camping regulations.
Judge Blocks Homeless Camping Restrictions in Oregon City That Won Supreme Court Challenge
Plaintiff Jeffrey Dickerson outside a city-owned campsite in Grants Pass, Ore., on Jan. 29. Courtesy of Oregon Law Center
Matthew Vadum
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An Oregon judge has temporarily blocked a city from enforcing its public camping policies after the city prevailed in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed municipalities to enforce homeless camping bans.

The new judicial action comes after the Supreme Court upheld a local ordinance banning public camping, which activists claimed criminalized being homeless. In a 6–3 ruling in June 2024, the high court rejected the novel argument that the local law in Grants Pass, Oregon, violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. With a population of 39,000, Grants Pass is in southwest Oregon near the California border.