since the US Supreme Court's historic ruling last year giving municipalities the authority to fine or jail people sleeping in public several cities and towns in New Jersey have considered writing laws that allow them to do just that the Summit City Council is one of those towns and has seen long contentious hearings over its proposed homeless ordinance the council voted last night and Ted Goldberg has more on what the final version of the law looks like jeff Wild was not a fan of the original summit ordinance meant to address homeless people sleeping in public spaces the original ordinance was terrible if Jeff Wild uh was in a public park and I fell asleep on a bench that would have violated the original ordinance which prohibited sleeping on public land summit's Common Council passed a revised ordinance earlier this week that threatens fines and possible jail time to anyone who sleeps in public spaces when there's no available indoor housing or if they turn down help to find housing wild is an attorney serving on the New Jersey Coalition to End Homelessness and he helped rewrite the ordinance arguing the first one was unconstitutional that's not legal in our view because there is a right to survive and if there is no available emergency shelter or other housing and that is the sad reality in many many places in New Jersey then it would be unconstitutional to punish someone just for surviving the only way they can summit's common council has argued the ordinance is needed to keep the city safe councilman Jamal Buer says his daughter was recently threatened by a man experiencing homelessness so this ordinance now reflects our commitment to compassion coordinated responses by clearly laying out expectations in law specifically it reinforces service first responses by codifying the practice of prioritizing connections to housing and support services before enforcement actions a council meeting in April ran seven hours mostly in reaction to the previous version of the ordinance the amended version passed earlier this week unanimously after members of the public gave their input and offered suggestions for further changes i urge you to please include express protections for women and victims of domestic violence and human trafficking it is a glaring omission that should be addressed council has arrived at a final ordinance that balances the interests of vulnerable individuals in need of housing with the public's interest in having access to safe and welcoming public space and summit we want our children to walk down the street we don't want people at their bus stop sleeping going around town sleeping we don't want to we don't want our children to see our sleeping bags the underlying assumption in the ordinance that people will move from homelessness into housing when threatened with punishment discriminates in our opinion against people with disabilities by assuming a level of rational thought that may not be possible for a person with cognitive impairment mental illness the amended ordinance includes language that if a person could be a danger to themselves or others they would be subject to hospitalization or psychiatric treatment following state law some have argued that enforcement of this ordinance might be difficult the provision for available indoor housing assumes a correct record of Union County available shelter beds on off hours it assumes that law enforcement can find the placements it assumes that those placements will work out for the people i believe that we are going to have to collaborate much more closely with the summit PD in order for their officers to know who it is who's out there who we're working with to be able to determine what their status is whether they have any access to housing uh and further whether any such temporary shelter bed is available to them in that moment you know at like 2 a.m that seems unrealistic not likely consumably what they can do at a minimum is to say "I do you need any help are you unhoused are you willing to get housing do you want housing?"

Even though he helped write the ordinance Wild doesn't think it's necessary and gave credit to Summit's homelessness task force for reducing the number of people there who experience homelessness people who violate the ordinance face a $100 fine to start with penalties increasing to 90 days in prison for repeat offenders in Summit i'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News