To comply with a court ruling, Seaside looks at where and whether to allow sleeping outside.

As of Oct. 22, 2009, Robert William Martin’s best hope was a broken bicycle. He’d been homeless for 11 years, and since receiving a citation for illegally camping in March of that year, he’d been in a state of uncertainty about lodging; his family had been asked to leave a shelter because his wife had too many belongings. “He hopes to get his bicycle fixed so that he can go to the foothills outside the city limits to sleep without police interference or the threat of citation,” according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in 2009 against the city of Boise, Idaho.

Martin was one of six homeless plaintiffs in that case, which spent a decade in the court system. An appellate decision in April now stands to change some cities’ policies. The plaintiffs’ argument was that with nowhere to go – with shelters full or requiring conditions they could not meet – they had no choice but to violate Boise’s prohibition on sleeping in public places, and subsequent enforcement amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. wrote, “The [ruling] will soon prevent local governments from enforcing a host of other public health and safety laws, such as those prohibiting public defecation and urination. Perhaps most unfortunately, the panel’s opinion shackles the hands of public officials trying to redress the serious societal concern of homelessness.”

It’s a problem well documented locally: Citing health and safety issues, Salinas officials conducted semi-regular sweeps of an encampment in Chinatown. In Laguna Grande Park, which straddles Seaside and Monterey and where camping is illegal, Seaside police patrol the forestwhere homeless people live and order them to vacate.

The Martin ruling now has Seaside revisiting existing ordinances. “The challenge we and every other city faces now is this new case law that says it is unconstitutional to cite somebody for sleeping on public property unless you can provide a bed in a shelter for them,” City Manager Craig Malin says.

Seaside’s Homeless Committee and Parks and Recreation Commission, as well as Friends of Seaside Parks Association, have been asked to weigh in with recommendations on how to comply. A proposal to the Homeless Committee suggests carving out a square in Laguna Grande Park at Fremont Boulevard and Canyon Del Rey where the camping ban could go unenforced.

In a separate policy update, council is expected to vote July 18 on an ordinance banning storage of private belongings on city land.

The city of Boise intends to appeal the Martin ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court by an Aug. 29 deadline, according to Mike Journee, communications director for the office of the mayor. He adds that in 2014, Boise City Council amended its camping ordinance to suspend ticketing when shelters were completely full, and adds that one new housing project for the chronically homeless was recently completed, and another for veterans is in the works. 

"We think we're doing a good job of [addressing homelessness] and we need this tool," Journee says. "We need this camping ordinance to encourage people to continue to [use new services and shelters]. Otherwise we would have no other tools to prevent encampments, which become dangerous and unhealthy."

Meanwhile, preparations for shelters in both Salinas and Seaside are underway. The joint city-county shelter in Salinas was awarded $6 million in Homeless Emergency Aid Program funds, and nonprofits Community Human Services and Gathering for Women secured $1.3 million to refurbish a county building in Seaside, where a $1-a-year lease is being worked out.

“We’ve got a big construction project ahead of us now,” says Kate Daniels Kurz, interim executive director of Gathering for Women. While they secured the funding they need for construction, they now plan to establish a fund through the Community Foundation for Monterey County to raise ongoing operating funds.

Pam Marino contributed to this report.