TTOC and our Community Allies plan to demonstrate against TacomaSafe’s PR kickoff for their support of proposed Ordinance 28756, camping ban in the City of Tacoma. We oppose this ordinance because it criminalizes the unhoused for engaging in life-sustaining activities. Camping bans are costly and ineffective strategies violating the constitutional rights of the unhoused.

Tenants Organizing Committee (TTOC) advocates for housing first as the most effective means of alleviating homelessness. TTOC prioritizes tenants’ rights and homelessness prevention through advocacy and education. TTOC also prioritizes the needs and rights of our unhoused neighbors.  Food, shelter, clothing, and warmth are the basics each human being needs. We believe that housing is a human right and that treating all humans with dignity regardless of their housing status is our moral imperative.

Passage and enforcement of Ordinance 28756 will accomplish the following:

• Creates an expensive pipeline from homelessness to incarceration.
• Sends unhoused people to jail and imposes fines, which creates more barriers to securing housing.
• Compels the Tacoma Police Department to make arrests which further divides our community.
• Hides the plight of homelessness rather than focusing on solving it.
• Creates no additional opportunities for substance abuse and mental health treatment, as falsely promoted by TacomaSafe.
• Violates unhoused people’s constitutional rights to survive granted by the 8^th Amendment and upheld by the Martin v. Boise Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.
• Violates the City of Tacoma’s efforts towards providing equitable and inclusive governance.
• Contradicts the recommendations published in the 2021 paid study analyzing the TPD response to homelessness.

“Housing is a human right. There can be no fairness or justice in a society in which some live in homelessness, or in the shadow of that risk, while others cannot even imagine it.” ~ Jordan Flaherty