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Wichita council reviews enforcement, outreach and housing efforts for unlawful camping
Summary
Councilors pressed city staff on enforcement of the revised unlawful-camping ordinance and on expanding outreach and shelter options, including a direct-to-housing pilot and Project 3 at Second Light to build permanent supportive housing. Officials emphasized legal limits on criminalizing homelessness and the need to pair enforcement with housing capacity and trust-building.
Wichita City Council members spent the largest portion of the meeting debating how the city is enforcing its revised unlawful-camping ordinance and how outreach, shelter capacity and housing-first pilot projects fit into that enforcement.
The discussion began with a request from the mayor for a status report on the ordinance adopted earlier this year and what constitutes a public-safety hazard on sidewalks. Sharon from the law department said the city must distinguish between ‘‘being’’ in public and ‘‘camping’’ with intent to sleep and that homelessness itself cannot be criminalized: "Homelessness as a status cannot be criminalized." She said the ordinance creates a two-tiered system that allows immediate…
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