The Casper City Council is considering strengthening camping and squatting laws due to an increase in the number of homeless people in the city. The number is estimated to be just over 200. The city says the increase is leading to them roaming the streets, loitering in the downtown area, and leaving at least 500 pounds of human waste.
“We've always had a certain amount [of homeless] in town, but it is getting worse and to the point now where people are starting to feel unsafe, we're starting to have property damage,” said Casper mayor Bruce Knell. “Our police are needing some tools to be able to put some teeth behind it.”
The objective is to make Casper less inviting for the homeless, at least until further assistance to them can be obtained, mainly in the form of mental health and substance abuse treatment services. Knell said those struggling from these issues comprise many of the homeless in Casper.
“The more drugs are becoming more prevalent in our society, we've graduated from, and this is just my opinion, I don't have any factual data, but we have graduated from marijuana to the LSD and cocaine of old to now methamphetamine and fentanyl, and more addictive, more powerful type of drugs,” he said. “I think people's inability to afford that type of care, especially that particular clientele and not having those services available [is a cause].”
Casper’s Wyoming Rescue Mission, the state’s largest homeless shelter, draws homeless from around the state due to the services they provide as well as Casper’s central location. They’ve seen an increase in the number of homeless utilizing their services in recent years. They also receive homeless people that are transported from surrounding counties that don’t have adequate services for the homeless.
Knell added that the local Salvation Army also provides several beds and services for the homeless. While he spoke highly of what they do for those in need, he said the current homeless issues are centered more on those who may not want to take advantage of those options.
“They [shelters] have rules that the homeless have to abide by. They’ve got to be in their programming, they've got to be substance free. They've got to be willing to be educated and take their classes and get job training and get jobs to become productive members of our society,” he said. “The shelter is doing a really good deed for the city. The problem we're having are the folks that do not want to comply with ordinary living, if you will.”
In addition to the homeless congregating in parts of the city, another example is illegal squatting at the former Econo Lodge motel in north Casper adjacent to the North Platte River. The hotel closed in late 2022 after water pipes froze and burst, flooding one floor. While the windows are boarded up on the first floor, some homeless and transient people have managed to gain access and have trashed rooms and caused significant damage. Drug paraphernalia was also found and arrests have been made for unauthorized entry into the building, Knell said.
“They've moved in on a couple of other structures, homes that had been, either owners out of state or had been abandoned. No power water in them either and they just moved right in like they own the place and if it hadn't been for neighbors, notifying law enforcement, we wouldn't have even known about those,” Knell said.
Casper has had camping and squatting ordinances on their books for some time. They already prohibit living on or in private property without the owner’s permission. But they can prove difficult to enforce. Abandoned buildings can make it easier for homeless people to hide from public view while absentee owners can be difficult to contact. Additionally, a property owner may have granted permission for a homeless person to stay at their property, though the city may not have a way to verify it, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.
“Part of the reason that we are looking at changing the ordinance now is to give them [law enforcement] the proper tools to be able to deal with the criminal end of this. They've been somewhat handcuffed by our ordinance,” Knell said. “ [It] will help our police be able to put the teeth into dealing with them and incarcerating them. Ideally, if we could mentally institute every person that needs that mental health help and get substance abuse help for those that have such abuse problems, we could exacerbate this problem and criminalize the criminals, get them put in jail where they belong. We could probably literally eradicate homelessness.”
The council’s proposals for the revising the ordinance include requiring suspected squatters to obtain written permission from the property owner and setting a time limit on how long camping is allowed on private property, even if those doing so had permission to do so. The latter was taken from a Fort Collins, Colorado ordinance that prohibits camping on private property for more than a week at a time or two weeks in a year. If approved, the ordinance would be targeted to those that pose a threat to public safety or have become nuisances, not those camping recreationally. The council also asked city staff to draft an ordinance that would prohibit camping within a certain distance of the North Platte River, citing health concerns over dumping human waste into waterways. The council decided to drop a proposal from camping in cars parked on public property for now, according to the Casper Star-Tribune.
The proposed alterations to the existing ordinances or the implementation of new ones will now go through council’s procedures meaning it must pass three readings. That could take six to eight weeks. Knell added that the Casper business community has largely come out in support of the proposals, though others don’t believe it’s necessary.
“The homeless coalition task force that was put together to get the laws and through our legal departments also to get these laws written appropriately so that we're protecting people's civil rights yet also protecting the rights of the folks that live in our community,” he said. “We want to be a welcoming city for all citizens and all tourists and all folks who come here and in order for us to be that and do that, we've got to clean up our act. We don't want to turn into what these bigger cities we've seen across the country are having to deal with.”
