Now you have our attention on homelessness. That’s the message elected officials in six Phoenix metropolitan-area cities are sending their fed-up constituents less than a month after Arizonans overwhelmingly adopted Proposition 312, a first-in-the-nation law that holds government accountable for the rampant crisis.
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Last week, the Mesa City Council voted unanimously to ban urban camping on public property, while the city of Tempe said it would more strictly enforce its existing urban camping ban. Mesa and Tempe joined Goodyear and Surprise, who both enacted similar bans in November, as well as Phoenix and Scottsdale, who did so over the summer. These policies generally prohibit individuals from camping in public places, on public property, and within 500 feet of a school, childcare facility, shelter, or park.
In explaining its strict enforcement of the camping ban, Tempe pointed to Prop 312, a first-in-the-nation law designed by the Goldwater Institute to compensate property and business owners for damage created by the homelessness crisis. When government fails to provide public safety services—resulting in lawless dens of destruction plagued by vandalism, public urination and drug use—Prop 312 ensures law-abiding Arizonans can get their tax dollars back.
After years ignoring the pleas of residents and business owners forced to pay the price for a homeless crisis they did not create, elected officials have no choice but to change their tune.
Over the summer, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the so-called “judge-made right to vagrancy,” ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson that it isn’t unconstitutional for cities to enforce laws against public camping. As Goldwater President and CEO Victor Riches wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Cities across the country now have no excuse not to clean up their streets. But when they refuse to do so, residents can force action on crimes related to homelessness.”
That’s what happened in Phoenix, where property and business owners sued the city, with Goldwater’s help, for maintaining a public nuisance in an open-air homeless encampment called The Zone. After a state court judge ordered the city to clear The Zone last year, many of those same property and business owners advocated for Prop 312 to stop any future mayor and city council from recreating The Zone or anything like it.
Law-abiding residents of cities across the nation have lost faith in government to provide the public-safety services their tax dollars are supposed to fund. Consider how the city of Phoenix spent over $180 million to address the homeless crisis (only a fraction of which is publicly accounted for), only for the number of homeless people in Phoenix to rise 92% between 2018 and 2023.
It’s a crisis of confidence. But Prop 312 has already proven highly effective at incentivizing municipalities to crack down on lawlessness.
They don’t have any other choice.
Author: Austin VanDerHeyden is the Director of Municipal Affairs at the Goldwater Institute.
