On Thursday, the City of Phoenix was hit with a lawsuit by business owners and residents in downtown Phoenix between 7th and 15th Avenues and between Van Buren and Grant Streets who say they have been harmed by the homelessness crisis.
Attorneys for plaintiffs filed the Special Action on behalf of Freddy Brown, Joel and Jo-Ann Coplin, Joseph and Deborah Faillace, Karl Freund, Gallery 119, Michael Godbehere, Jordan Evan Greenman, Rozella Hector, Daniel and Dianne Langmade, Ian Likwarz, Matthew and Michael Lysiak, Old Station Sub Shop, PBF Manufacturing Co., Inc., Phoenix Kitchens SPE, LLC, and Don Stockman seeking injunctive relief.
Attorneys Ilan Wurman, Stephen Tully, and Michael Bailey allege that the City of Phoenix has “created a policy of concentrating its homeless population in Plaintiffs’ neighborhood.”
“A substantial portion of the homeless population transported to and/or maintained in the Zone on city-owned and -operated easements comprises individuals experiencing mental illness and drug addiction. Not only is the City of Phoenix failing to provide these individuals with housing and needed services, it refuses to enforce in and around the Zone quality-of-life ordinances prohibiting loitering, disturbing the peace, drunken and disorderly conduct, drug use, domestic violence, and obstructing streets, sidewalks, or other public grounds.”
“In short, instead of seeking to solve the homelessness crisis, the City has effectively invited this population to construct semi-permanent tent dwellings on the public sidewalks and rights of way in Plaintiffs’ neighborhood, and to make the Zone their home. The City has not only permitted this illegal conduct and maintained it on public lands within its control, but it has also encouraged it through a policy of directing other homeless persons from around the city to the Zone.”
“The City’s policies are not rationally designed to address any of the social ills facing the residents of the Zone and are exacerbating rather than alleviating their problems. The City is entitled to adopt irrational policies; but if its policies create a nuisance and cause damage to the residents, workers, and property owners in the Zone, as they have, then the City is liable for those damages and the court may enjoin the nuisance.”
“We aren’t seeking damages, and we aren’t challenging a Ninth Circuit ruling holding it unlawful to criminalize homelessness when there aren’t sufficient shelter beds,” Wurman told the Arizona Daily Independent. “This case isn’t about that. It’s about the city of Phoenix using that ruling as an excuse to completely wash its hands of this crisis, leaving the homeless individuals and the surrounding neighborhood in an unimaginably horrific situation.”
Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio shared the lawsuit on Twitter:
BREAKING NEWS:
Neighbors file major homeless lawsuit vs. City of Phoenix.
Phoenix has long pushed homeless into Neighborhoods. People are fed up and taking matters into their own hands.
(1/2) pic.twitter.com/55FXJtQ5oW— Sal DiCiccio (@Sal_DiCiccio) August 11, 2022
“Mayor Gallego and the Phoenix Council majority make all the right noises about homelessness, but they refuse to actually do anything about it. We need to get our homeless population off the street and into treatment, but that kind of effective, tough-love is a bridge too far for these liberals who just want to pat residents on the head and go on enabling chronic street homelessness with all the terrible results we’re seeing here and across the country. They are negligent in their duty and these neighbors should be applauded for doing everything they can to take this all-talk, no-walk Council to task,” Said Sam Stone, DiCiccio’s former Chief Of Staff and current candidate for the Phoenix City Council.
“If Phoenix is allowed to push this problem into their neighborhood, your neighborhood will be next,” DiCiccio added.
Final Complaint – Filing