Proposed Oregon ballot measure would make it easier for cities and counties to sweep homeless camps

By DIRK VANDERHART/Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon cities have railed for the better part of a year against a law that limits when they can sweep homeless camps. Now the state’s largest business group will ask voters to weigh in.

Oregon Business & Industry is behind a prospective ballot measure filed last week that seeks to give cities more authority to enforce anti-camping laws. It’s the latest salvo in an ongoing tug-of-war over how the state polices unsheltered homelessness.

“Local control over unsanctioned public camping is essential to promoting public health and safety,” Preston Mann, a chief petitioner behind the effort and OBI’s director of external affairs, said in a statement. “Yet, under existing, outdated law, our cities’ and counties’ hands are tied.”

The proposed ballot measure would repeal a 2021 law that blocks cities from enforcing camping policies that are not “objectively reasonable.” While state statute does not define what that term means, the law gives homeless Oregonians the ability to sue over city policies they believe don’t meet that standard.

The law was championed by Gov. Tina Kotek, who was speaker of the Oregon House at the time it passed. But it was crafted in a different legal landscape.

At the time, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over Oregon, had ruled in the case of Martin v. Boise that cities could not enforce camping laws if they had no other place for homeless people to go. Kotek in 2021 said her bill was an attempt to get that standard codified into state law.

But the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the lower court ruling last year, freeing up cities throughout the western U.S. to proactively clear homeless camps. While sweeps continue in Portland and other cities, local officials have argued the 2021 law limits their options.

Joining Mann as chief petitioners in the ballot measure push are Salem Mayor Julie Hoy and John DiLorenzo, a Portland attorney who filed a 2022 lawsuit that ultimately forced the city to remove tents obstructing sidewalks.

“The law was a response to the Boise case. The Boise case is no longer the law,” DiLorenzo said last week. “All we’re trying to do is comport Oregon law with the law of the land.”

“Oregonians want solutions and our sincere hope is that the Legislature will repeal this law during the 2026 session, and we will work closely with lawmakers to help make that a reality,” Mann said.

It’s not uncommon for ballot measure campaigns to force the Legislature’s hand. In 2024 alone, lawmakers enacted campaign finance limits and recriminalized drug possession because of pressure from prospective measures.

Still, Oregon lawmakers have shown little appetite recently for tweaking the state’s camping regulations.

The League of Oregon Cities pressed hard earlier this year for changes to the law, even circulating polling to argue voters would support the move. But bills to affect those changes went nowhere, as powerful Democrats said they saw no problem with the status quo.

“Cities can and are making sweeps right now of homeless camps,” House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, said in March. “They are allowed to set rules that are reasonable within their environment.”

Kotek, who spearheaded current state law, says she stands behind her 2021 bill. But the governor has also said she is open to reviewing changes lawmakers send her way.

“The intent behind House Bill 3115 was to affirm that if a city chooses to regulate ‘survival activities’ like sitting, lying, sleeping, or keeping warm and dry, those laws must be reasonable, and must take into account the resources available to the people experiencing homelessness and the impact of the regulations on those people,” Roxy Mayer, a spokeswoman for Kotek, said in an email. “The Governor maintains support for these requirements.”

Hoy, Salem’s mayor, did not immediately respond to questions about her involvement in the ballot measure campaign on Wednesday. She told the Statesman-Journal she is participating in the effort in her private capacity as a citizen and restaurant owner.

“Homelessness continues to be the issue the people of Salem care most about solving,” Hoy told the newspaper. “We need more tools to be able to deliver, and this would offer another tool.”

One mayor who is not on board with the effort: Portland’s Keith Wilson. Wilson has made ending unsheltered camping the cornerstone of his administration, but he told OPB on Wednesday that state law is not hampering that mission.

“We’re not going to have a situation where we just allow people to suffer and die in our streets,” Wilson said. “So I don’t need a law to tell me whether camping is illegal or not. Camping is morally and logistically wrong.”

• This story originally appeared Oct. 22, 2025 on Oregon Public Broadcasting.