A Boulder County District Court judge on Friday, Dec. 6, dismissed a lawsuit challenging the City of Boulder’s camping ban, ruling the ordinance constitutional under state and federal law.
The order marks a pivotal moment in a broader debate over how the City of Boulder addresses homelessness and its impacts on parks and other public spaces.
The ordinance allows police to issue tickets to homeless people for sleeping in public spaces. Plaintiffs in the case, including several homeless people and the soon-to-dissolve nonprofit Feet Forward, argued the ban violates Colorado’s constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
District Court Judge Robert R. Gunning cited a June 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a similar ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon, ruling that such bans do not violate the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“The U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision offers the clearest rule by which to evaluate whether the Blanket Ban is cruel and unusual,” Gunning wrote in his decision. Boulder’s camping ban is referred to as the “Blanket Ban” in legal filings because it prohibits using any form of shelter other than clothing, including a blanket, while sleeping in public spaces.
The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU of Colorado in May 2022, alleged Boulder’s ban criminalizes people who have no choice but to sleep outdoors due to a lack of shelter beds. The plaintiffs also argued that the Colorado Constitution provides broader protections against cruel and unusual punishment than the U.S. Constitution, a claim Judge Gunning rejected.
“This Court discerns no Colorado appellate authority providing it with the discretion to interpret Art. II, § 20 more broadly than the Eighth Amendment,” Gunning wrote, siding with the city, which argued that the state and federal constitutional provisions are identical.
The plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling. They cited the recent rise in the number of people turned away from the city’s largest shelter in North Boulder, adding to the urgency of the dispute.
“The folks who are turned away — in desperate need of safe shelter — have literally no way to comply with Boulder’s camping ban,” Dan Williams, a lawyer with the local civil rights firm Hutchinson Black and Cook who is representing the plaintiffs in the case, wrote in a statement. “Yet Boulder continues to fight tooth-and-nail in court for its right to charge them with a crime for protecting themselves from the elements outdoors even when there is literally nowhere indoors for them to be.”
The City of Boulder did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
How many unhoused citizens travel to Boulder from elsewhere in the country seeking a liberal and benevolent community. Simply being an unhoused citizen does not necessitate the public to provide housing or permission to stake a claim to living on public spaces and lands. I suspect the ACLU is not looking to protect the rights of housed residents in the City of Boulder who pay to maintain these public spaces.
All Roads is going down from sheltering 180 to 160 in April and presently turning many away already. Also no more money for overflow hotel space. $6M/yr. to move encampments.
Yet the city gives a parking reduction of 57% on 777 Broadway where the homeless shelter was supposed to be 20 yrs. ago. It’s now going from 52Ksf. to 83Ksf., 5 stories and probably 900 people with rent-by-the-bedroom in apartment units of 2,3 and 5 bedrooms. A parking space =167 sf. and could house 3 people considering the occupancy limit is gone.
Let the developer take care of the homeless they have created singlehandedly. They can handle it. Easily.
Homeless people who can’t manage to equip themselves with the necessary camping gear to survive in an out-of-the-way spot, as I did for a decade on the outskirts of Boulder, should be moved on down the road for their own good. NOBODY is entitled to set up camp in the center of downtown and trash the public spaces or otherwise offend the law-abiding citizens of Boulder, CO.