New community citizen groups are forming across Washington to hold their local government accountable as politicians fail to adequately address the homelessness crisis. This is especially true where elected leaders adhere to the progressives’ “Housing First” policies which nearly always increases the homeless numbers.

(Housing First policies advocate the building of a large housing bureaucracy and government run housing programs over providing much cheaper and far more effective addiction and mental health treatment to homeless individuals.)

One of the most active groups is Clark County Matters which has primarily focused on imposing stronger encampment laws in their Southwest Washington community.

Sitting across the Columbia River from Portland, many nearby Washington state cities (including Vancouver, Battle Ground, Camas, and Ridgefield in Clark County) felt the negative “spill-over” effect of the disastrous drug and homeless policies which have turned Oregon’s largest city into a waste heap of failed, extreme policies. Like Seattle, Portland’s homeless population has alarmingly grown over 60% in less than a decade because of extremist city leaders’ strict adherence to the failed Housing First policies.

As conditions in Portland worsened, Clark County leaders saw how it was negatively impacting their community (its small homeless population more than doubled), and they decided to fight back before their parks and open spaces were filled with encampments. They hired veteran political professional Amy Harris (former aide to Congressman Dan Newhouse) as its Executive Director and last summer launched the non-profit group Clark County Matters.

At the state level, Clark County Matters joined the coalition of local groups which killed the bill (HB 1380) to make homelessness a right. The group informed legislators that if passed, this extreme legislation would have made it very expensive (due to legal cost), or impossible, to remove any encampment.

While the group is active in statewide coalitions, it is at the local level the group sees its greatest potential.

To combat the increase in homelessness in its community, the new group immediately sought solutions from across the country. They found that cities with strict anti-camping regulations and treatment options had fewer problems associated with homelessness. So, Clark County Matters drafted up a comprehensive list of anti-camping ordinances needed to keep their communities safe.   

Clark County Measures recently sent a letter to the City of Vancouver’s mayor and city council outlining seven encampment related ordinances which would, “incentivize the homeless to seek and accept assistance and will better protect residential and business neighborhoods.”

The seven common sense laws Clark County Matters are promoting are:

1. Requiring residents of safe stay communities to comply with local, state and federal laws and comply with lawful orders of law enforcement. 
2. Prohibiting camping within 1,000 feet of any existing street, sidewalk, or right-of-way in such a way that restricts access. 
3. Prohibit camping within 1,000 feet of a school church, senior care facility or community center. 
4. Restricting camping in privately owned parking lots and areas to those restricted from daytime camping except where express permission has been granted by the private owner.
5. Prohibit camping within 200 feet of the nearest edge of certain natural resources and repealing provisions applying to specific areas. 
6. Expanding the periods of time that daytime camping and outside habitation are restricted. 
7. Restricting camping in vehicles.

These measures have strong local public support. A recent survey released from Clark County Matters revealed that 64% of residents believe the problem of homeless encampments has become worse and 58% want the mayor and city council to impose stricter laws.

Executive Director Harris said, “Vancouver doesn’t have to end up like Portland. But without stronger action from elected city leaders to ban homeless camps in our city, our safety and quality of life are at risk.”

If the politicians fail to respond with more rigorous anti-camping laws, then Clark County Matters has the option of going directly to the voters to pass an initiative. The same survey found that nearly 2/3 of the voters (64%) strongly support limiting, even banning, all encampments. 

Clark County Matters, and other new groups like it around the state, are a sign of the public frustration over the failure of politicians to solve the decade-long homelessness crisis. More citizens are organizing to take back the power to pass much-needed commonsense laws that allow workers to go to their job without the fear of being stabbed by discarded used needles and children are free to play in the neighborhood park. The polls show that if politicians want to keep their positions, they should seriously consider the reasonable solutions most of these citizen groups propose.