MOSES LAKE — With a number of projects in the works that will eventually provide homeless residents with a place to go, the city of Moses Lake is putting restrictions on homeless people camping.

Under the ordinance update passed Tuesday by the city council, it will be illegal for anyone at any time to camp or use camping “paraphernalia,” i.e. tents, sleeping bags, etc., in any park, street or other public land. It will also be illegal to sleep in a car or leave other personal property in any park, street or public land.

This is the most recent move in a two-year struggle by city officials to manage homeless residents within city limits after previous regulations were overturned by a federal court.

The city’s restrictions against homeless people camping in public places, along with similar ordinances in communities throughout the western United States, had been ruled unconstitutional by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018. In the landmark “Boise decision,” the court determined that city laws banning homeless people from sleeping or camping in public places were “cruel and unusual” if that city did not also have space in a shelter that homeless people could stay in legally.

In communities across the west, which either didn’t have enough space to house all of the homeless, or which, like Moses Lake, had no shelter at all, the effect was that cities could not create a total ban on public camping. Instead, Moses Lake implemented a number of partial measures, restricting on the margins where and when homeless people could sleep while avoiding implementing the kind of total ban that would be at odds with the Boise decision.

Now, with a managed homeless camp expected to be opened next month, a hotel-turned-emergency shelter in the works and newly opened units for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis, city officials say that Moses Lake will meet the criteria of the Boise decision and can reinstate a total ban on public camping.

Though the new restrictions technically took effect immediately upon passage, police Chief Kevin Fuhr on Tuesday said his department won’t enforce the new ordinance until shelter units at the managed homeless camp become available, which he believed wouldn’t be until mid-November. It wouldn’t be fair to enforce the restrictions before there’s a place for the homeless to go, Fuhr said, and until those units are open, he added, any enforcement would still be in violation of the court decision.

Though there is no mention in the ordinance, the public camping restrictions may also again come into conflict with the Boise decision if the various shelter resources were filled up. If the available shelter space isn’t sufficient to provide an option for local homeless residents, the city may need to revisit the ordinance, City Manager Allison Williams wrote Tuesday.

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at [email protected].