Salem Encampment Ban Passes With Fines Option For Homeless Stricken

SALEM, MA — A city ordinance banning camping on public property designed to give police a tool to break up homeless encampments at the South Harbor Walkway and other areas of the city passed the City Council on Thursday with one final amendment that removed the potential to assess fines to unhoused people.

The 10-1 vote, with City Councilor Kyle Davis opposing the ordinance, followed weeks of impassioned public comment from both those who said the ban would serve to criminalize the homeless instead of help them and from residents and business owners who said the encampments were a public health and public safety threat.

City Councilors publicly anguished over the desire to do something to affect the issue at the same time they hope to assist those who lack adequate housing options.

"We need to do something and we all know that," City Councilor Megan Stott said. "And we all feel the enormous responsibility that comes with that. I don't mean just the Council. Yes, it is here on our desks tonight. But we, the city of Salem, the community impact unit, the advocacy groups, everybody understands the enormous responsibility and what that means.

"I feel confident that we all agree on one thing in that this ordinance is not going to solve the problem. This ordinance is not going to fix the homelessness epidemic or crisis in our country. ... This is a Band-Aid."

(Also on Patch: 'A Tent Is Not A Roof': Salem Proposes To Remove Homeless Encampments)

City Councilor Patricia Morsillo also called on state and federal officials to do more to help cities like Salem create more affordable housing and deliver mental health and substance abuse services to those in danger of becoming unhoused.

"One truth is inarguable," Morsillo said. "Every day that passes the health and safety of the unhoused residents along the South River declines. Every human being should be in safe housing, especially here in New England, and certainly in that area that is seeing regular flooding."

City Councilor Caroline Watson-Felt offered the final amendment that strikes the ability to assess fines to those in violation of the ordinance while preserving that possibility for those who may be using tents in some other form of protest or actually attempting to go camping on city property.

The ordinance, as had been written, referenced an overriding state law in which a fine of up to $300 could have been assessed to those in violation of the ordinance. While that fine amount and any enforcement on collection would have been discretionary, Watson-Felt said it was important to remove that possibility from the City Council's action.

"The concept of charging any dollar amount to an unhoused individual in my mind is added process, added cost to the city, nonsensical and, frankly, immoral," Watson-Felt said.

The amendment striking the fine possibility passed the Council 9-2.

Under the ordinance, which still requires a second passage, the encampments will be prohibited in
city parks and public property when shelter is available. The city would be responsible for transporting the residents of the encampments to an available shelter of their choice and providing storage for the person's belongings.

In proposing the ordinance last month, Mayor Dominick Pangallo said preparations were being made to make more shelter space available in the city in the coming weeks and months.

He said that studies have shown that those living outdoors and in encampments had higher rates of chronic disease, substance abuse and mental illness, and that "none of those studies in that 2023 review showed that unsheltered individuals had better health than sheltered individuals.

"Every day of unsheltered homelessness is a step backward," Pangallo said.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)