Oswego wanted to be ‘ahead of the curve’ on public homelessness. So the city criminalized it.

The Oswego Common Council this month banned residents from sleeping in public spaces and effectively criminalized homelessness, advocates say. 

Oswego’s new law, approved Aug. 14, banned setting up encampments, sleeping in vehicles, or creating makeshift, temporary lodging in public parks, playgrounds, and streets.

The law also closed city parks and playgrounds at sunset and prohibited residents from attempting to sleep in public spaces. 

Police officers can fine residents $100 or jail them for 15 days for violating the law.

Advocates believe the law is one of the first of its kind in New York state and could embolden other localities to follow suit.

Mayor Robert Corradino pitched the law as “ahead of the curve.” But Central New York housing advocates and statewide civil liberties watchdogs have panned the bill. They say this is the city’s way to criminalize homelessness in Oswego. A recent Supreme Court decision that enhanced municipal powers to outlaw and clear out encampments in public spaces enabled the council to pass this type of legislation, advocates said. 

“Cities want to respond to homelessness as it’s increasing across our nation, and this really doesn’t address any of the root causes,” said Megan Stuart, the director of the Housing and Homeless Coalition of Central New York. 

Rising rents and a lack of viable housing are some of the root causes of displacement and homelessness in Oswego and across the region, Stuart said. Homelessness has increased about 30% in Oswego County in the past year. Volunteers met 174 unhoused individuals in the county this year during HHC’s annual Point in Time count, a federally mandated count of people without a home that takes place every January. 

“This bill really just creates a bigger burden for folks who already have nowhere else to sleep at night, so it’s frustrating for us,” Stuart said.

Corradino, a longtime Republican city councilor who was elected mayor last November, said the city does not have issues with homeless encampments but that he presented the bill to councilors earlier this summer as a proactive measure. 

“Nothing good happens after 2 a.m. in a city park,” he said. 

Enforcement of the bill will start when the local law is approved by the office of the New York Secretary of State. Corradino said he does not have a timeline on when that may occur.

A spokesperson from the office of the secretary of state did not respond to a request from Central Current by the time of publication.

How does the bill work?

The local law, which passed via a 5-1 vote, effectively closes city parks at sunset. They then re-open at sunrise. Residents are allowed to walk through paved walkways if they are traveling through the city. 

The bill also outlaws camping without a permit at the 23 city parks and playgrounds, and the city’s streets and public rights of way. Camping is defined in the bill as establishing a camp for the purpose of sleeping, but also encompasses sleeping in cars, and on tents, carts, bags, cushions, blankets, and pillows or objects used as pillows. 

Additionally, it punishes individuals using municipal outlets to obtain electrical power without permission from the city.

The bill started as a measure to deter acts of vandalism in public parks, an issue he heard about last fall on the campaign trail from constituents living near parks, Corradino. From there, Corradino and the city’s legislative team added the provision targeting encampments and sleeping in parks based on the recent Grants Pass v Johnson Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, effectively giving municipalities greater ability to enact and enforce criminal penalties for acts like public camping or sleeping. 

Corradino said the city’s legislative team waited on the decision from the court to come down.

“It would put a little more bite into this law and make it even more effective at addressing other problems brought to us,” he said. “We said ‘let’s throw this wording into the legislation to be proactive in case [encampments] appear to be an issue.’ It seemed to be a good time to throw it all in together.”

Enforcement of the law is up to the discretion of Oswego Police Department officers, who will approach residents to assess whether they are in violation of the local ordinance.

“They’re going to use good judgment,” Corradino said. “There’s gotta be consequences for people’s actions, and $100 certainly gets a person’s attention and makes them follow the law.”

What effects could the bill have?

Local officials and legal and housing advocates believe the legislation could “open the floodgates” to other laws like it across New York.

Fifth Ward councilor John Gosek, an independent, voted against the bill when it was brought on the floor in mid August, noting that he believed the bill infringed on residents’ civil rights and punished them for something they can’t always control. Gosek is a high school government teacher in the village of Pulaski in Oswego County.

“I feel strongly about protecting people with civil liberties and rights, and I know the economy is bad,” Gosek said. “I felt like it was just too draconian and too over-the-top. There are truly people out there who have nowhere to stay.”

For Stuart, the bill strains the community’s most vulnerable people who already have nowhere to go.

“Folks have to be somewhere and public spaces are where they are going to end up,” she said. 

Legal advocates say the city is allowed to enforce the bill because it is allowed to set times for opening and closure of public parks, but that the Grants Pass decision limits potential legal challenges on the penalties set for people who violate the law.

“The real question is the motivation here,” said Beth Haroules, the director of disability justice litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “What it looks like Oswego is trying to do is eliminate a safe space. They can do it. Should they do it, morally? Is it good government? No, but they can do it legally. It just is unfortunate.”

Stuart and Gosek noted the bill doesn’t get the city any closer toward fixing the issues that drive people toward homelessness.

One such reason is rising rents. A study from Zumper, a website that lists rental properties and manages interactions between prospective tenants and property managers, indicates that the median rent for one bedroom units has gone up about 30% in Oswego over the past year. 

“Wages have not kept up and inflation is affecting families,” Stuart said. “It’s just more expensive to live, frankly, and people can’t afford housing anymore. There is not enough affordable housing or subsidies to support everyone who needs them.”

Tenants looking for a home are also dealing with a limited inventory. Jason Griffiths — the housing manager at Victory Transformation, a nonprofit sheltering and helping rehouse men without a home and men dealing with substance use disorder — said he has to call on average around eight property owners in the city daily to look for housing for men at the shelter. 

Beyond a lack of availability, residents in properties with bad housing conditions often refrain from calling the city’s department of code enforcement for fear of losing their home, Griffiths said.

“I get calls all the time because they’re scared to go to code enforcement, because they’ll come back and condemn the house,” Griffiths said. “So now these tenants just have to deal with things like sewage in their house.”

While Oswego has made strides to address homelessness, there just isn’t enough capacity for the city to keep up, Stuart said. Victory Transformation is the only shelter open in Oswego during the summer. It is at capacity all the time and only has 18 beds available.

In a memo drafted to the council in mid July — when the legislation was introduced — Corradino wrote about the city’s support for people facing homelessness. He included that Oswego: 

• Created 30 units of permanent and supportive housing for people without a home or at risk of losing their home
• Made available hundreds of affordable housing units, embedding a social worker at OPD to direct residents to social services agencies
• Permitted the expansion of shelter services.

But the summer months typically present more issues for service providers. That is when the city’s Code Blue shelter, a service that allows homeless individuals to spend the night on a warm bed, is inactive. Code Blue can only be opened when the temperature reaches 32 degrees, based on state guidelines.

“There are no other options,” Stuart said.

Some service providers in the region see the bill as polarizing. 

Mary Curcio, the director at Victory Transformation, abstained from commenting to Central Current on the local law. 

“I can sit on both sides of the fence,” she said. “I feel like I’m serving the community better if I work with the city government.”

Haroules and Stuart said Oswego may very well be the first municipality to pass a local ordinance, but that it likely won’t be the last. The American Civil Liberties Union has seen localities in California move to pass similar legislation after the Grants Pass decision, Haroules said. It is only a matter of time until that wave hits New York, she said. 

“It’s probably the tip of the iceberg,” Haroules said. “We are seeing localities trying to eliminate safe spaces for people, as opposed to addressing the underlying issues.”