Emboldened by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Mundelein trustees on Monday approved an ordinance that targets homeless people by outlawing public camping.
Violators will face fines ranging from $75 for a first offense to $750, as well as potential jail time.
This summer, the Supreme Court found municipalities do not violate the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibition by enforcing laws that ban homeless people from camping in public places.
Mundelein officials believe their new ordinance complies with the court’s decision.
“This is really giving us another tool in the toolbox,” Mayor Steve Lentz said during Monday’s meeting at village hall.
The ordinance applies to all public property in town. Officials will work with Mundelein Park & Recreation District officials to ensure its properties are included, Police Chief Jason Seeley said in a memo.
More than 9,000 people in Illinois were homeless in January 2022, according to a federal study quoted in Mundelein’s ordinance. That included hundreds of people who had no shelter at all.
The ordinance addresses being homeless in public a few ways.
It specifically prohibits sleeping or camping on “a public sidewalk, street, alley, lane, other public right-of-way, park, bench, or any other publicly owned property, nor on or under any bridge or viaduct” at any time.
It also prohibits sleeping or camping in pedestrian or vehicle entryways to public property or in such entryways on private property that abuts public land.
Sleeping or camping overnight in parked vehicles in the village also is prohibited.
Village staffers intending to remove a camp site will have to post a notice at least 24 hours ahead of time unless immediate removal is necessary for health or safety reasons or other reasons.
If village employees dismantle a camp site, they must inform a social service agency of the location so that organization can determine if it should offer services to the people affected.
The proposal passed 5-1, with Trustee Erich Schwenk the lone dissenter. Fines don’t do anything to solve the problem of homelessness, he said.
“It doesn’t sit well with me to fine people that are at the absolute worst points of their life, or close to that,” Schwenk said before the vote. “It only seeks to harm people that are already being harmed.”
Schwenk said Lake County or Illinois officials or a task force of communities should examine the greater issue of homelessness in search of possible solutions.
Trustee Jenny Ross said she thinks the ordinance will give the village power to push people who are homeless toward social services and other assistance.