A recent Supreme Court ruling brought Bozeman’s urban camping ordinance into question prompting the Bozeman City Commission to meet for nearly six hours of public discussion — which ended with protesters being escorted from the meeting.
In an attempt to balance the city’s responsibilities under prior court rulings and address the growing number of urban campers, the Bozeman City Commission adopted Ordinance 2147 in 2023.
However, a recent Supreme Court ruling overruled these decisions, putting power back in the hands of local government.
In light of the ruling, the Bozeman City Commission decided to reexamine the effectiveness of the ordinance. City staff determined the ordinance left many problems unaddressed.
According to a city survey, which received 2,000 responses — the most response to any city survey before — many residents agree.
"The question was asked in the survey of what was going well, what is going well under the ordinance, and 68% of respondents say…not much, nothing," said Bozeman City Civil Attorney Anna Saverud.
And when respondents were asked if camping should be allowed on the public right away, Saverud says, "86% approximately indicated no, 8% said yes, 4% unsure, and 24% of folks added comment to that."
Persistent problems reported by staff were, "Safety and overall sense of safety, conflicts between neighbors and neighborhoods, the term experiencing homeless and figuring out who is on the street, and consequences that were insufficient to encourage compliance," says Saverud.
According to staff reports, 7% of all calls for service in the last year went to urban camping areas, as well as 10% of all felony and misdemeanor cases opened by Bozeman police.
They shared that the areas had known meth and fentanyl dealings, as well as reports of human labor trafficking and that oil and human waste were polluting storm drains.
"We are also incredibly mindful and want to highlight that individuals living in the right of way are often victims of these offenses. Sometimes it’s unhoused on unhoused violence, sometimes housed and not, but people living out there are often the victims and often the ones also reporting their safety concerns to the city and their sense of safety," Saverud adds.
In response to this, staff recommended increasing urban camping restrictions while also adding safe and legal options for housing.
As the commission continued to hear from the public and discuss solutions — a protest by Tenants United was sparked.
Mayor Cunningham stated this was the first time he’d seen individuals escorted from a public meeting for bad conduct.
