AURORA | A split city council Monday night approved what proponents say is policy adjustment reflecting how the city abates homeless camps but critics insist is a scheme to undermine Aurora’s homeless camping ban.
“The 72-hour notification requirement on the camping ban is an attempt to undermine and ultimately overturn the policy,” Councilmember Stephanie Hancock said. “Our constituents have made it very clear through emails and phone calls that they are not in favor of this change.”
The measure to extend 72-hours notice to homeless people before confiscating and clearing their camp was approved with a 6-4 vote, with conservatives voting no and council liberals voting yes.
Under the existing ordinance, city law allows workers and police to remove homeless encampments from public spaces like streets, parks and medians without advance notice.
City employees and city council proponents of the change in state policy say the authority to immediately clear a camp would remain intact under the proposed resolution, particularly in cases involving immediate safety risks.
The approved policy change, however, would direct city staff to provide most campers with a 72-hour warning before abatement, aligning city policy with what officials describe as the typical timeline needed to get a camp closed and cleaned up.
City Manager Jason Batchelor told council members during a recent council committee meeting that when encampments are reported, outreach teams first attempt to connect individuals with services, including space at the city’s Regional Navigation Campus. If campers decline assistance, arranging cleanup crews and contractors generally takes about three days, effectively creating a de-facto notice period.
Supporters of the proposal say formalizing that window would make the process more transparent and humane.
Councilmember Alison Coombs said the city has for more than a year overstated how quickly it can respond to complaints about encampments.
“What we’re really doing is we’re making a false promise to people that we’re going to do something faster than we actually can,” Coombs said during the March 9 committee meeting.
Proponents also argue the change could prevent homeless people from losing essential belongings during abrupt removals, particularly in severe weather.
But critics, including Councilmember Angela Lawson, questioned the need to change the policy, saying it appeared to arise only after the last city council election in November, when a slate of liberal lawmakers took control of the council.
“I think other council members can also concur with me that we haven’t had this issue, but now we’re going back to 72 hours,” Lawson said.
Lawson said that the November 2025 opening of the Aurora Homeless Navigation center created the opportunity to ensure campers could be removed from illegal sites immediately and offered immediate shelter.
She said she agreed, however, with Navigation center critics that publicized problems at the project is an issue that prevents some homeless people from wanting to go there.
“We should have never opened up that navigation campus until, and I’m at fault with this, until we really checked it out,” Lawson said.
Regardless, however, the city should ensure camp removals are immediate, as proscribed under current city law.
Coombs said the proposed change follows the evolution of the laws linked to homelessness through the courts.
Coombs said that when Aurora began pursuing its homeless camping ban, it couldn’t impose it if the city couldn’t provide some type of shelter for scofflaws.
District and federal courts “ruled it as cruel and unusual punishment,” Coombs said, summarizing years of lower court rulings on bans across the country.
Then in 2024, the Supreme Court overturned lower court decisions with the Grants Pass v Johnson ruling, prompting the city council at the time to throttle up the camping ban, eliminating the 72 hour notice policy and the need to provide shelter.
“Our council, at the time was certainly champing at the bit to do so,” Coombs said, adding that giving notice to campers is nothing more than treating people humanely and indifference to that is cruel.
“What it proves, when we are laying everything on the line about these 72 hours, is that to oppose the 72 hours shows that the cruelty was always the point.”
Councilmember Francoise Bergan said the change would encourage homeless campers to wait out their three-day notice and then just move to another camping site.
“We’re creating a game of whack-a-mole,” Bergan said.
City homeless officials in Aurora and across the metro area say that ushering campers with or without notice only shuffles them from location to location.
Bergan said the city should instead invest in more resources to carry out all removals immediately as originally envisioned, rather than adjust policy to match logistical delays.
The approved resolution does not alter rules requiring immediate removal of encampments in hazardous areas such as highway medians and underpasses, or camps that pose immediate health or safety issues.
That prompted critics of the change to say they would advise residents calling to complain about homeless campers to point out how they were imminent health and safety threats to ensure the camps are cleared immediately.
Here’s the issue: if this new way of addressing the homeless issue results in no overall change in the timelessness of abatement, then what’s the issue. Could it be sour grapes that the conservatives lost the election?
I’ve known and supported Lawson since her first term. She has changed. Hancock is my council person. Way too conservative and antagonistic for me. A pity.
In effect, this is reinstating permission for homeless camping on public property in Aurora; one of many “progressive” changes we can expect to see with our new City Council. This guarantees the right to camp for at least 3 days (plus days before discovery) at a location of your choice.
The article states, and the reasoning is: “If campers decline assistance, arranging cleanup crews and contractors generally takes about three days, effectively creating a de-facto notice period.” Let me ask: What rule states that illegal campers cannot be forced to move until a cleanup crew is ready to come in. If campers decline assistance, police can be called in and the illegal campers escorted out. Cleanup can occur at a later time. If the same campers return to that site before it is cleaned up, they can be arrested.
This is just another case of left-wing politicians deciding not to enforce laws they don’t like. The homeless are just another part of the ever-growing “dependency class” created over time by left-wing liberal policies.