City of Springfield Seeks Public Feedback on Camping Code Update

As the number of people experiencing homelessness has increased, federal courts have issued decisions that restrict local governments’ ability to regulate or prohibit sleeping on public property when people experiencing homelessness do not have a shelter bed available to them. Additionally, in 2021, the Oregon Legislature passed Oregon House Bill 3115, which reinforced the federal court rulings and added requirements that any laws regulating lying, sleeping, or sitting on public property must be reasonable to all stakeholders including people experiencing homelessness.

The City’s code must be updated to comply with these federal court rulings (Martin v. City of Boise and Blake v. City of Grants Pass) and Oregon House Bill 3115. The City must revise its camping code to include reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions about camping on public land within City limits. “Time” restrictions are when a person may camp, “place” establishes where people may and may not camp, and “manner” describes how people may camp such as not allowing open fires.

Your feedback is needed to help inform updates to the camping code. Please consider participating in this survey. It should take less than 10 minutes to complete, and responses will be anonymous.