Framed as a public health measure, Mayor Peter Marchetti’s proposal would outlaw overnight camping on any public property or any private property “not designated and equipped for such camping.” The move renews a longstanding debate in Berkshire County’s largest and most urban community about how to address the most visible reflection of the ongoing housing crisis and struggle to provide for the vulnerable.
“I first came to speak about this topic in September of last year. Multiple meetings with the mayor followed, and every meeting, I asked the same question- If the shelter is full and you won't allow people to sleep outside, what is your safe alternative? And I have yet to receive an answer," said Shannon Stephens. “Not only are encampment sweeps costly, dangerous and ineffective, they are perpetuating poverty by continuing a cycle of stigma, mistreatment, and intimidation, not to mention making people move along to unfamiliar settings makes them more vulnerable to violence.”
Stephens said the law perversely mirrors that cyclical experience, and that its scope goes beyond the unhoused to anyone hoping to aid them.
“In this ordinance, it is mentioned that tents, huts, vehicles, vehicle outfits or temporary shelters on streets, sidewalks and alleys or on improved or unimproved lands or parks are unacceptable, and yet you are giving no other option," she told the council. "You are essentially forcing people to break the law, and people shouldn't have to disappear on command. Then you take it a step further and you say any person causing, permitting, aiding, abetting or concealing a violation of this chapter shall be subject to criminal and noncriminal penalties.”
Another opponent of the camping ban noted that Pittsfielders living rough are still Pittsfielders.
“Many of our unhoused neighbors have income. In fact, over half of them are working or receiving some sort of income and pay state and federal income tax. Every one of them pays local sales tax every single day when they buy food, clothing, survival gear, and some, a hotel room so they can have a shower. These are taxpayers, they are residents, they are people, and this ordinance speaks about them like their nuisances or some problem to be cleared away," said Abbe Charbonneau. “This is not safety, it's cruelty written into law. And who are we talking about, really? These aren't strangers. They're veterans, seniors, people with disabilities, people fleeing domestic violence, people who've worked jobs, paid taxes, and still could not pay their rent, people who, despite everything, are trying to survive with dignity. One is my little brother, who is neither a criminal nor an addict, but a college educated man struggling with mental illness who's volunteered at nursing homes, play groups, and he's trying to survive in a city with extremely limited access to care and resources. Is he garbage to you?”
While none of more than 30 speakers during the open mic portion of the meeting came close to endorsing the measure, resident Kathy Moody outlined her experience with the situation the first-term mayor is attempting to address.
“I served on the Springside Park Advisory Committee for a few years," she said. "I dedicated hundreds of hours to preserving, cleaning, contributing to the master plan, working to figure out how to restore the skating pond, and now this beautifully restored pond is contaminated with human feces. The woods are infested with rats and destroyed with campfires and garbage.”
Moody is running for the Ward 7 city council seat that Rhonda Serre intends to vacate at the end of her term this year.
While Moody admitted the ordinance wasn’t ready to pass and that it could contribute to criminalizing poverty, she made it clear that she feels something has to change.
“I grew up in and now live next to a Onota Lake’s Burbank Park," she continued. "I know the woods like the back of my hand. I've cleaned up so many cigarette butts and so much garbage over the years, and now the woods are unsafe to walk in with encampments littered with needles and human feces. “
The camping ban from Marchetti follows the swift rejection of the mayor’s attempt to ban panhandling earlier this year, which also prompted overwhelming public outcry before the council voted it down in April.
“When the mayor tried to push through a clearly unconstitutional time, place, and manner ordinance in order to banish people who have to panhandle to live, that was met with resounding opposition," said Pittsfielder Dana Rasso. "Now it appears as though he went in search of a more facially palatable but ironically much crueler solution. Instead of abolishing homelessness by prioritizing Housing First solutions, tenant protections like rent stabilization, mental healthcare, and other support and safeguards, this administration is attempting to banish those who cannot afford housing, and banishment is violence.”
Even former city councilor and mayoral candidate Karen Kalinowsky – a conservative known for her unsuccessful effort to remove downtown bike lanes during her short tenure on the body – came to speak out against the measure.
“When the city can make a decision whether to let something go or not, you are putting up for discrimination- I'm going to let this person, but I'm not going to let that person,” she said.
The council voted to send the law through a number of city bodies including the Homelessness Advisory Committee before its ultimate referral to the ordinance and rules committee meeting on June 30th. Stephens says she and other activists are ready to continue the fight against it.
“I am sick of you guys bullying my friends and treating them as if they are less than and I will not be scared into submission to save face," she said. "I will continue to speak up about this. You are taking away what little these people have, and I often wonder how you sleep at night knowing this- But hey, at least you have a bed.”
In a statement, Mayor Marchetti tells WAMC that he looks forward to continued conversation about his ordinance, is invested in working with the community on policies around the unhoused, and maintained that the spirit of the law is about maintaining public health and safety. He noted that his predecessor, Mayor Linda Tyer, directed over $9 million of the city’s federal COVID-19 relief funding to housing projects that are currently being built in Pittsfield including new affordable and supportive housing units and a resource center.
