More leeway for enforcement of a ban on unauthorized camping within Loveland got a boost Tuesday night when the City Council gave first-reading approval to an update to an ordinance it originally passed nearly three years ago. However, the council also gave an initial nod to the $2.85 million purchase of a building on the city’s north side that could shelter homeless people.
The purchase of the 1,400-square-foot building on 1.64 acres at 599 W. 71st St. would be contingent on the city executing a letter of commitment from a qualified nonprofit agency to operate the facility before it could close on the deal. If the purchase is completed, the current Loveland Resource Center at 137 Lincoln Ave. would be sold, with the proceeds of that sale returned to the city’s general fund.
Michael Hogan, Loveland’s facilities operations manager, said the building, which formerly housed a metalworking operation, would be ideal to be converted into a homeless shelter because it contains multiple restrooms, has three shower stalls, and is completely compliant with the terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“It’s open and easy to turn it into whatever we need to turn it into,” he said. “It’s a great facility that solves a lot of problems we have in our current facility.”
The Loveland Resource Center has beds for 42 individuals, but the temporary permit that allows it to be used as an overnight shelter will expire March 15 and will not be renewed.
The first-reading vote to buy the building was 6-3, with council members Geoff Frahm, Kalina Middleton and Zeke Cortez dissenting. Frahm, a broker at The Group Inc. Real Estate, said he felt the city likely would be paying too much for the building, and Cortez and Middleton argued that the city had already tried and failed to solve its homelessness problem.
They made that same argument in their votes earlier in the meeting to give initial approval to an amendment that would bring the city’s May 2022 camping ban in line with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass v. Johnson decision.
The earlier ordinance had relied on guidance from Boise v. Martin, a landmark 2018 Ninth Circult Court of Appeals ruling that held that the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibits cities from prosecuting homeless individuals for sleeping in public if they lack access to adequate shelter, establishing that criminalizing unavoidable life-sustaining conduct is “cruel and unusual punishment.” This meant that cities couldn’t enforce anti-camping ordinances against people with nowhere else to go, but it led to further legal battles, culminating in the Supreme Court’s 2024 Grants Pass decision, which effectively overturned Martin’s core holding by ruling cities can fine and arrest homeless individuals for sleeping outside, even without shelter.
That ruling allows local governments more power to use fines, arrests and jail time to address homelessness, impacting policies nationwide and potentially increasing the criminalization of poverty. However, Loveland police chief Tim Doran assured council members that officers would still use discretion in enforcing the ban and in many cases would point homeless people to faith-based and other charitable organizations that might offer assistance.
Passage of the amended ordinance, on a 6-3 vote with council members Caitlin Wyrick, Sara Rothberg and Jen Swanty opposed. Council member Laura Light-Kovacs reluctantly voted in support of the measure, but said her vote was only so she could revisit the issue when it comes up for a second reading and vote at the City Council’s next meeting on Jan. 20.
The vote marked the second time the council had considered the measure. Before the results of the Nov. 4 municipal election shifted the ideological balance of the panel, it had voted 5-3 in August to reject a nearly identical proposal.
Before Tuesday’s vote, Light-Kovacs had made a motion that she called a compromise between “enacting Grants Pass and ensuring that members of our unhoused community don’t end up being criminalized simply for being homeless.” Her motion, which failed on a 5-4 vote, would have been conditional on the council’s approval of the purchase of the building on 71st Street and obtaining a written commitment from a qualified nonprofit agency to run it.
