Idaho Falls City Council looks for solutions to growing homelessness issues

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - For maybe the first time, Idaho Falls is facing problems with homelessness and growing populations of encampments facing larger cities.

While the encampment under the gazebo of the Friendship Gardens has moved on, individuals and police reportedly found feces in the park and urine on park fences in the past month. As Idaho Falls continues to grow, the city will likely continue to face homelessness issues.

"The simple idea of taking care of people who don't have homes and resources, it's yesteryear," Mayor Casper said. "The issues surrounding taking care of people or helping people are much more involved, complicated, and wrapped in legal court decisions."

At North Tourist Park in Idaho Falls, there are already curfew restrictions and signs posted around the park restricting camping. In a City Council work meeting on July 11, different city officials presented solutions to the growing homelessness problem. Among them, the city has considered making curfew ordinances in public parks.

"I like curfew ordinances, I personally think they're helpful. But whether you can enforce them all the time or not is a central question," Chief Bryce Johnson said. "I made the same argument about a speed limit. You probably have streets in the city that will go months and months and months down after that to do enforcement that you're moving at the speed limit. The reality is people will not be able to leave every park every night."

The main barrier to city legal action is the court case of Martin V. the city of Boise, which we covered in a previous story. Essentially, the case blocks city ordinances against encampments if there aren't enough beds in shelters to house everyone living on the streets.

Similarly, cities and states cannot create limits in public places that discriminate against individuals based on race, sexual orientation, or societal status. The city attorney broke down how that works in a July City Council work session.

"You can close those buildings after hours. You can close bathrooms. You can decide what your business schedule is for when different parts are available, or not available," Idaho Falls City Attorney Randall Fife said. "Those are things you can do. But you can't do it because you're trying to eliminate a certain group of people or a person with a certain status from using that."

So far the city council has not made any decisions on the issue, but they have promised to revisit the solutions in later meetings.