Did the City of St. Louis violate some 50 unhoused individuals’ 8th Amendment rights when officials ordered the tent encampments in downtown parks to vacate by Friday, May 1?
On Friday, May 1, St. Louis city counselors and ArchCity Defenders attorneys argued this question in federal court. ArchCity Defenders asked U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk to grant a temporary restraining order (TRO), preventing the city from removing the tents downtown along Market Street near Tucker Boulevard. During the Friday hearing, ArchCity said that the city’s order to vacate criminalizes its client Ranata Frank’s status of being homeless, therefore violating her 8th Amendment right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment.
On Saturday, May 2, Pitlyk sided with the city and denied the request for a TRO. However, a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, May 12 at 10 a.m., regarding the federal lawsuit that ArchCity Defenders filed against the City of St. Louis, on behalf of Ranata Frank and other unhoused individuals at the tent encampments.
In her ruling, Pitlyk stated that the city is not criminalizing the state of being homeless or sleeping in public.
“At most, the city is criminalizing sleeping in public in a particular location,” she wrote. “During times of public health crises, local governments have broad latitude to institute protective measures so long as those measures have a ‘real or substantial relation’ to the public health crisis.”
The tents showed up downtown in the beginning of April, after some homeless shelters closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. City counselors argued that the tent encampments downtown posed a “high risk for the spread of COVID-19” because it wasn’t “contained” like the encampments in other parts of the city. This is the only tent encampment the city is attempting to vacate, though there are at least two others. Advocates for the unhoused say the other encampments pose the same risk as the one downtown, but it’s not in view from City Hall. Dr. Fredrick Echols, director of the city’s health department, told the judge that he has visited the downtown encampment about five times, but he has never personally seen the other encampments, though outreach workers have.
The notice and order to vacate that was zip-tied to tents downtown on April 29 said “nothing about criminal liability or penalties,” Pitlyk wrote in her ruling.
However, during the hearing, Pitlyk asked Echols what the city plans to do if these individuals decide to sleep in the park, even without tents. Echols said the police would come and tell them to leave. Pitlyk pressed him again, asking what happens if they don’t move. Echols told the judge that they currently don’t have a plan for that scenario.
ArchCity Defenders argued that the order will end up being punitive, whether the city outlined that in the order or not.
Waiting list
City Counselor Mike Garvin told the judge that the city has cabs ready to take the unhoused individuals to “hotel rooms,” if the TRO is not granted. However, Steve Conway, the mayor’s chief of staff, told the St. Louis American on Friday that they had completed the process of getting these individuals signed up for shelter or hotel rooms. Conway said about 10 people refused to leave because the city could not guarantee hotel rooms, and there were two couples in that group who didn’t want to become separated. Some people will only agree to go into hotel rooms for various “valid” reasons, advocates said, including past trauma and fear that they will have less control of who they sleep next to and contract the virus.
Alex Cohen, a member of Tent Mission STL, a grassroots group that has been aiding the encampments, said the registration process Conway mentioned did not go smoothly.
“People were having emotional breakdowns,” Cohen said. “It was massive anxiety. It was horrible. The police showed up first.”
Every day, Cohen and other volunteers fill out the city’s Google form to request shelter on behalf of individuals at the encampments — along with in other parts of the city.
Some have been waiting for a while to hear back from the request form, Cohen said. They’ve been told there is a 100-person wait list for shelter.
During the hearing, Echols did not deny that there was a waiting list, but said that the city was prioritizing the individuals at the downtown encampment. Cohen was disheartened by this because it shows the city is prioritizing “by location and not by need or risk.”
“What is happening to everyone else who is high risk, people who actually want to go in?” Cohen said. “That is one of the big unanswered questions. There are at least 75 elsewhere who are unhoused. All those people outside of these camps, what is the update? The city has decided to prioritize 14th and Market not because of health risk but because it’s too close to City Hall.”
Dr. Punch
Dr. Laurie Punch, a BJC HealthCare trauma surgeon who is currently working at Christian Hospital with COVID-19 patients, submitted a dissenting declaration to the court about the city’s decision to vacate the encampments.
She pointed to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) interim guidance on preventing COVID-19: “Unless individual housing units are available, do not clear encampments during community spread of COVID-19. Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers.”
Punch wrote that in her professional opinion, the City of St. Louis is endangering unhoused individuals and the community at large if it does not follow CDC’s guidance. Echols testified the city is following CDC’s guidelines because there were roughly 95 beds available Friday morning for the roughly 50 people remaining at the encampment. ArchCity Defenders pushed back, asking how this could be true if there was a waiting list citywide?
“The rushed actions of the city to pressure those in the encampment to move from their home is deeply traumatizing and has not engaged with the residents in a constructive way,” Punch wrote. “The residents have not had adequate notice of the time to evacuate and have not been given assurance of a safe and supportive alternative.”
Punch recently provided medical outreach at the Market Street encampments.
“I have personally observed the unhoused residents of the encampment being approached by city officials in a way which was not trauma-informed including threatening those who agreed to go into shelter with loss of their bed if they did not remove their belongings from the encampment,” Punch wrote. “I have seen a hand washing station placed at the encampment and then removed within one day to great disappointment of the residents. I have advocated for individuals to gain access to shelter beds, at times with success but at times without access to a bed. Residents have shared with me they have been waiting for beds but have not had access.”
Punch was emphatic was an expert witness with direct experience of the situation on the ground: “Clearing encampments of unhoused individuals without guarantees of sufficient individual housing is against the consensus of medical and public health officials.”
