Homeless

(The Center Square) – A recent experience with a homeless man has prompted an Orlando suburb to consider a new ordinance banning people from camping on public property, including parks and highway rights of way.

“We had a variety of complaints about a specific individual who had set up an encampment on our sidewalks,” Atlamonte Springs City Manager Frank Martz told The Center Square. “It included a grill, a heavy workout bag, a bunch of pets in cages.”

The man refused to move.

“We didn’t have a tool to address that,” the city manager said. “Now we do.”

(The Center Square) – A group of 20 attorneys general want the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule a lower court's restrictions on local governments enforcing homeless camping bans.

In their petition regarding Johnson v. City of Grants Pass, the attorneys general wrote that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong to prohibit state and local governments from enforcing laws that bar public spaces from being used as homeless encampments.