LAKEWOOD, Pierce County — Bathsheba Parchomey smoked a cigarette while sitting in a chair on the sidewalk between Pacific Highway and a gas station. This is where the 53-year-old spends most of her days. She even sleeps in the blanket-covered chair, sheltered by an umbrella when it rains, because her knees can’t handle sleeping on the ground.
She said that last week, Lakewood police officers handed her a flyer — a 24-hour notice to comply with the city’s new camping ban, which prohibits sleeping on public streets or sidewalks. If she refused, she could be arrested.
Lakewood is one of several cities in Washington to enact stricter laws prohibiting homeless camping after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that said punishing people for sleeping outside was not cruel and unusual punishment.
Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent on housing and homelessness services each year, the number of people without a home has grown in Washington by 43 percent over the past five years. And that has left many, including some city leaders, frustrated.
Ordinances like Lakewood’s are a small part of a major shift in Western states toward cracking down on homeless people and encampments. Officials in these states and cities argue that punishment can ultimately benefit homeless people by coercing them to accept help.
But people living outside in Lakewood say the help that’s offered is simply not enough to change their situations. And Parchomey said the city’s new camping ban will have no effect on where she goes.
Cities seek tougher bans
There aren’t a lot of homeless people in Lakewood.
Last year, there were 17 people living outside in the city during an annual one night count. The year before, there were 13.
But still, the number of tents that residents see has increased in the past several years. In response, Lakewood passed an ordinance in 2023 that was a first step toward more enforcement — it made it illegal to store personal belongings on public property. However, the city wouldn’t enforce the ban on people who are homeless when there were no shelters available for them.
Many cities with homeless camping bans have similar enforcement conditions to protect them from lawsuits.
That’s because in 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over Washington and eight other states, ruled that it was cruel and unusual punishment to fine or arrest homeless people for sleeping outside if they had nowhere else to go. Effectively, the ruling required cities to offer people a shelter bed and have it refused before they could punish them for camping.
Many city and state officials, including Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, complained that the ruling hamstrung governments from being able to address the homelessness crisis. They asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take another look at the issue.
In June, the Supreme Court essentially overturned the 5-year-old precedent.
Lakewood took notice.
In a July 15 meeting, the City Council met to consider an updated camping ban. The city attorney briefed council members on the implications of the Supreme Court case.
“It means that we can impose criminal penalties even if we haven’t counted our bed space,” Heidi Wachter said.
Lakewood doesn’t have any available shelter beds, according to a city spokesperson.
The ordinance bans sleeping and camping in any public space and allows police to remove any campsite and personal property with 24 hours of notice regardless of whether shelter space is available. Council members approved the changes in a 3-2 vote.
Councilmember Mike Brandstetter, who voted against the ordinance, called it a “knee-jerk reaction” that did not consider more comprehensively how the city could help address homelessness.
Mayor Jason Whalen, who voted in favor, said the city’s staff has already tried offering services to people living outside in Lakewood, including transportation to shelters in nearby Tacoma.
“Yet we still have challenges with a few folks choosing to hang out here on public property because they can, not because they have to, in my opinion,” Whalen said.
Councilmember Ryan Pearson, who also voted for the ban, said it would ultimately benefit people living outside.
“That might encourage them to go make a different choice than they have been making in the past,” he said.
People living outside in Lakewood don’t buy it.
“They’re full of crap,” said Parchomey, who has lived in Lakewood for 11 years, the last two on the street. “They’re just trying to push people out.”
She said Lakewood police have offered to take her to shelters in Tacoma, but she says they’re not safe. Plus, she wants to stay where she is.
“Lakewood’s my home,” Parchomey said. “Everybody that comes around here are my family. True family.”
It’s the same for Mike James, 39, who grew up in Lakewood and has lived outside for the past five years.
“Like, this is all I know,” he said. “Where am I supposed to go? Why do I have to go somewhere else to get resources when the resources should be here?”
Both James and Parchomey want to move into housing in Lakewood. The new camping ban has no mechanism to help them do so. And it’s not going to persuade them to move out of town either.
“Right now, I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to get something to eat. You know, I’m so hungry, like I’ll deal with that later,” James said.
Lakewood police said criminal enforcement would be used as a last resort. Since the camping ban went into effect two weeks ago, the city reported it has not issued any citations or arrested anyone for violations. Police officers handing out the flyers is the extent of the enforcement so far.
Other places, like California, are moving faster.
What will Washington do?
Newsom made waves in July by signing an executive order directing California state agencies “to move urgently” to clear homeless encampments and calling on cities to follow suit.
He instructed staff to post a notice at least 48 hours before removing an encampment and to request services for people experiencing homelessness, but his order did not say anything about finding a place for everyone to go.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has said such an order isn’t needed with the state already working to move people living along state highways inside. But the candidates running to replace him disagree.
“I support the aims of the Newsom executive order, and will issue one if necessary,” state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat running for governor, said in a statement.
“Gov. Newsom and I, not surprisingly, don’t see eye to eye on a lot of political issues, but when it comes to this, we do,” said former U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, at a news conference in July. “This order is common sense, and I support it wholeheartedly.”
Lakewood is not the only city in Washington updating its homeless camping ban in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. In recent weeks, Aberdeen and Richland have also strengthened their bans.
Jazmyn Clark, program director at the ACLU of Washington, said the Supreme Court decision “has really emboldened jurisdictions to further criminalize the status of being homeless.”
In response, organizations like Clark’s have taken the issue to Washington state courts hoping for a different interpretation of “cruel” in the state constitution.
The ACLU of Washington recently filed a lawsuit against Spokane for its laws that prohibit camping and limit sitting and lying down, on the basis that the state constitution provides greater protections from cruel punishment.
The lawsuit argues that it’s cruel to punish people for living outside whether they’re offered shelter or not. If the ACLU of Washington wins, it could force cities like Lakewood to backtrack and it could provide protections that go beyond offering shelter before clearing an encampment.
As Wachter, Lakewood’s city attorney, briefed council members in July, she said she didn’t expect the recent Supreme Court decision to be the final word.
“I don’t think litigation is done in this area.”
