In November, Arizona voters will decide on Proposition 312, a ballot measure that would allow property owners to claim a tax refund for costs they’ve incurred to address people illegally camping, using drugs, or defecating in public.
The measure was put forth by critics of the homelessness policies of many Arizona cities, and can be understood by looking at two legal standoffs over unhoused camping in public spaces. One was a massive encampment in Phoenix called “The Zone,” which, at its peak, was home to over 1,000 unhoused people. The other: a mostly dry riverbed in Tucson called Navajo Wash.
Over the past few years, dozens of unhoused people have taken up camp in a city-owned section of Navajo Wash, which was once dotted with palo verde and mesquite trees that provided some relief from the scorching desert sun. But some neighbors cut many of them down, without the city’s approval, leaving behind over 50 twisted stumps scattered across the patch of land. Those same neighbors later sued the city, demanding the camps be forcibly dismantled. The neighbors claimed they were “negatively impacted by the masses of garbage and human waste.”…