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A coalition of business interests and Oregon cities are moving toward the November 2026 ballot with an initiative that would allow cities to broadly criminalize homeless camping.
On Dec. 19, the chief petitioners for Initiative Petition 2026-054—Salem Mayor Julie Hoy; Portland attorney John DiLorenzo; and Preston Mann, external affairs director for Oregon Business & Industry—received a ballot title from the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office. That title tells voters that a “yes” vote “repeals ORS 195.530, which requires city and county laws regulating sitting or lying on public property to be objectively reasonable for homeless individuals.”
The genesis of the ballot initiative is a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the summer of 2024 that struck down a long-standing federal circuit court decision, Martin v. Boise, that limited how strictly cities and states could restrict sleeping on the streets, especially when those cities didn’t provide sufficient shelter beds. Many local jurisdictions would now like the freedom to move people along without having to prove they have an “objectively reasonable” place for those people to go.
But they can’t—because in 2021, a bill written by then-House Speaker Tina Kotek enshrined the Martin v. Boise rules into Oregon law. Even though the Supreme Court overturned the federal protection for camping, the state rule remains in place, tying cities’ hands in the same way. (WW examined the tangle of rulings in 2024.)
City officials, including some in Portland, clamored for lawmakers to repeal the state law and allow them to criminalize homeless camping regardless of shelter bed capacity. Legislators didn’t. So Hoy, DiLorenzo and Mann say they’ll take it to the voters.
Well, perhaps. The petitioners have also seen the political leverage gained by Republicans who asked voters to send a repeal of a gas tax increase to the November ballot. Those petitioners gathered so many signatures that Democrats are now discussing repealing the tax hike themselves during the legislative session to avoid a losing issue in an election year.
In a statement to WW, Mann hinted that the initiative’s backers hope for a similar result.
“We renew our call for the Legislature to restore local control and safety through legislative action next year,” Mann said. “It’s clear from our conversations with petition signers that addressing unsanctioned public camping demands urgent attention from lawmakers. If the Legislature fails to act, we will have an opportunity to put the question before voters next November. We will file ballot title comments in the coming days as we continue to advance our efforts.”
The office of Kotek, now the governor, did not respond to a request for comment.
The public has until Jan. 6 to weigh in on the ballot title. Soon after that deadline, backers can begin gathering signatures. They’ll need 117,173 signatures by July to qualify for the November ballot.
