Spokane Homeless Encampment Restriction Unlawful, Court Says (1)

A Spokane, Wash., initiative that would expand the city’s criminalization of public property encampments for homeless people is unlawful, the Washington Supreme Court said.

The local initiative power extends only to matters that are legislative in nature and not already under the exclusive authority of a local or state legislative body, the court said. But the Spokane initiative, known as the “Hansen Initiative,” improperly “falls on the administrative, rather than the legislative, side of the line,” Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud said in a Thursday opinion.

Spokane passed an ordinance that barred arrests for camping on public property if no public ...